It is very meaningful that the filthy abuse which Lenin put into his writings against the idealist metaphysicians like Berkeley is no longer able to detain Soviet psychologists and philosophers in the utter blindness which he left them as part of his spiritual legacy. More and more they begin to question the nature of consciousness as well as its relationship to the external world, more and more they investigate borderland experiences like telepathy and hypnotism. On the question of consciousness' relationship to the brain they are now arguing quite widely, but, for obvious reasons, they remain unable to come to definitive conclusions on which all could agree. They are not satisfied with the completely materialistic answer and yet dare not venture into the purely mentalistic one. Meanwhile they go on debating, and so long as this continues, it is spiritually much healthier than their state of thirty years ago. Problems are being stated and solutions are being discussed. If the Leninist inheritance overshadows it all, that cannot be helped in a totalitarian Communist country. At the present stage of history the truth must be left out in such a land, but it cannot be left out forever. Out of all their mental and verbal activity, the Russians will have to draw a little nearer to it intellectually. What is happening on a deeper plane is outside their knowledge.
-- Notebooks Category 11: The Negatives > Chapter 3 : Their Presence in The World > # 120
