Comrades:

I recommend reading two books: a Philosophical Dictionary (third edition) and a Textbook of Political Economy (third edition). Both should be completed within two years. Here I will focus on the third edition of the Philosophical Dictionary. The first two editions contained quite a number of errors; the third edition is much improved. That said, in my view it still has its shortcomings and mistakes. This is not a problem—when you read it, you can analyze and judge for yourselves. Like the Textbook of Political Economy, it is fundamentally a good book. In order to criticize empiricism on a theoretical level, we must study philosophy. In the past, we criticized dogmatism on the theoretical plane, but we did not criticize empiricism. Today, the main danger lies in revisionism. To stimulate your interest in studying philosophy, I am including here a section from the Dictionary entitled “Empiricism or Marxism-Leninism,” with the hope that it will encourage you to read the entire work. As for the history of philosophy, that can come later. Right now, we must engage in a three-pronged struggle to defeat the anti-Party, anti-Marxist trend of thought: ideologically, politically, and economically. The ideological front is, in essence, the theoretical front. I suggest beginning with philosophy and economics, and then extending our analysis to other fields by analogy.