What is today commonly referred to by Soviet aestheticians as the esteticeskoe discussion took place during the decade 1956–1966. As stated in the Introduction and in Chapter I (1.2) the estetičeskoe discussion was the classic Soviet controversy about the philosophical foundations of aesthetics. Not only did this discussion thematize long-neglected but important questions (e.g. the nature of the beautiful), but it drew into the open some of the essential difficulties in conceptualizing aesthetic phenomena in Marxist-Leninist terms and categories.