The Marxism-Leninism Project constituted an important milestone in the internationalization of the Institute for East European Studies and a significant research contribution. The project was carried out in close cooperation with U.S. researchers on Eastern Europe ("Russian Studies") and examined the ideational basis of Eastern European political and economic orders - Marxism-Leninism - and its distance from original Marxist thought. Herbert Marcuse, one of the most important protagonists of the project, put it this way: "In my view, there is still no adequate comprehensive critique of Marxism as an intellectual and political force, in its various ramifications and applications" (1957).