Starting with the winter semester 1989/90 an innovation has been introduced into Soviet Universities, the concrete effects of which are still hard to evaluate, although its symbolic value is of the highest sig nificance. The classic, basic concepts of the Marxist-Leninist ideology have been eliminated from university curricula in the obligatory social science subjects. To appreciate the impact of this change it needs to be recalled that till now students in the natural sciences were obliged to take ninety hours of these required subjects, those in the social and humanistic disciplines one hundred forty hours, and pass examinations. A further element to be considered in the overall assessment of this