This textbook on Political Economy, prepared by the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the ., was first published in the . in 1954. Regarding political economy as the science of the laws of development of the relations of production in human society, it deals not only with the capitalist economic system but also with pre- capitalist economic relations and, in considerable detail, with the economics of socialism. In their Foreword the authors stress that their aim is not dogmatic but scientific, and that they would welcome discussion and critical comments by all readers