Abstract

Although expressions of "new thinking," encouraged by glasnost' and perestroika, are increasingly evident in recent Soviet philosophical literature, such innovations are not universally welcomed. The clash of new ideas with established dogmas has created lively points of dispute among Soviet philosophers, who are now engaging in open philosophical debate of a kind not seen on the Soviet intellectual scene since the 1920s. The present issue of Soviet Studies in Philosophy is devoted to some of these points of dispute, with emphasis on the positions taken not by the innovators but by the persistent defenders of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy.