Ideas and Ideals

“Scientific communism” was introduced into educational programs of all soviet higher education institutions in 1963/64. It is important to study the history of this discipline for it effectively displays transformation of social sciences into a coherent system of disciplines during “The Thaw”. This discipline emerged in the period of destalinization as a result of mass request for renovation and rationalization of social knowledge. During the period of its institutionalization, “scientific communism” was perceived by many specialists as a new, truthful Soviet sociology. In the 2nd part of the article the author shows how the discipline was influenced by the changes in the World socialist movement, in which the Communist Party of China challenged ideological leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This article shows that the discipline emerged as the result of changes in the official ideology, institutional changes in the Soviet higher education and in the global ideological rivalry.