Despite the more than twenty years of relatively open and far-ranging discussions on aesthetic matters, Soviet aestheticians have yet to settle on a definition of their discipline which would meet with universal approval. One Soviet article recently listed no less than six alternative characterizations of the discipline held during the period 1959–1963.¹ And whereas periodic accounts by Soviet aestheticians of their own work used to lament the lack of a single, commonly accepted characterization of Marxist-Leninist aesthetics, many contemporary statements propose "open", changeable definitions in order to reflect the dynamic state of the arts in the Soviet Union and the socialist countries better by that means.