Dogmatism, in political economy, a formal istic interpretation of scientific maxims and conclusions as a set of invariable truths, concepts, formulas and definitions. Dogmatism is alien to dialectics, for it is rooted gnoseologically in the metaphysical mentality, anti-historicism, and in the divorce of theory from social practice. Dogmatism draws on ossified categories and general propositions without regard for the time, location or specific historical context, and employs rigid schematism in its reasoning. The dogmatic approach to theory distorts its content and makes impossible its creative development through the study and generalisation of new economic facts and phenomena. In science, dogmatism as a way of thinking preys on the immaturity of 94 theoretical solutions and methodological imperfections. In capitalist society, dogmatism finds a favourable social response in the class-limited world outlook and theoretical thinking of the ideologists of various bourgeois strata, which, in political economy, is most pronounced in its apologetic constructions. When dealing with economic categories and laws, all bourgeois theories dogmatically assume that man is by his unchanging nature a private owner and that private property is the natural and eternal basis of production and of economic and social progress. This is the main dogma of bourgeois political economy, which “discovers” in the laws of capitalism the universal, suprahistorical laws of economic development, the " eternal truths”, which inevitably turn into theoretical dogmas. The most varied and even mutually opposing theories are merged into one by bourgeois political economy because, in all of them, "the capitalist regime is looked upon as the absolutely final form of social production, instead of as a passing historical phase of its evolution" (Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 24). The same stand was taken by classical bourgeois political economy, which viewed economic categories and laws as eternal and invariable. The vulgarisation of bourgeois political economy in the works of David Ricardo^s epigones was, in essence, the accelerating rejection of scientific components and its transformation into a collection of lifeless, pedestrian postulates. A genuinely revolutionary turning point in the economic science was the creation of Marxist political economy. Not only did it enrich the science; it radically changed the very way of theoretical thinking by using the method of materialist dialectics. This made possible a comprehensive analysis of the economic structure of society in its real historical development. For the first time, economic laws and categories were presented as scientific abstractions representing real economic relations in their evolution and remaining true as long as these relations exist, rather than as eternal static logical truths derived from invariable human nature. This approach destroyed the very foundations of dogmatism in economic theory. "Our theory,” Engels wrote, "is not a dogma but the exposition of a process of evolution, and that process involves successive phases" (Marx, Engels, Selected Correspondence, p. 376). Any manifestations of dogmatism in political economy destroy its vital essence, making it one-sided, distorted and dead, and undermine its method, dialectics, which is the science of comprehensive and conflict-torn historical development. Defending and developing creative Marxism, Lenin resolutely opposed its "mere memorising and repetition of ‘formulas’, that at best are capable only of marking out general tasks, which are necessarily modifiable by the concrete economic and political conditions of each particular period of the historical process" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.24, p. 43). In socialist society, where no antagonistic classes exist and MarxismLeninism is the dominat world outlook, dogmatism is socially and ideologically uprooted, but it does not cease to exist automatically once the social conditions have changed. Immaturity of parts of a theory, weakness of its links with practice, an unhistorical approach to economic phenomena, and insufficient development of the dialectical method as applied in a given field of research give rise to manifestations of dogmatism in theory. Dogmatism in economics, or any other science, can therefore only be overcome through a constant struggle against any manifestation of it by strengthening the ties between theory and practice. The CPSU consistently fights all such manifestations, which distort Marxist-Leninist theory. At the same time, it resolutely exposes opportunistic attempts to revise the vital essence of Marxism-Leninism and its revolutionary principles under the guise of a struggle against dogmatism. The Party has waged a Leninist uncompromising struggle against dogmatic distortions of the Marxist theory, “leftist” doctrinairism and revisionism in any guise.