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This article is reprint of a paper published originally in Russian in a 1971 Russian journal Voprosy Filosofi; translated to English by Michael Cernea. This paper remarks on the Seventh World Congress of Sociology held September 1970 in Varna, Bulgaria. The Congress was a mosaic of almost thirty-five hundred people involved in more than one thousand papers presented during the fifty workshops and research sessions over more than six full days of meetings, not to mention innumerable discussions in the corridors. The congress revealed in the most convincing way the qualitative change in the distribution of forces in the world science of sociology during the last years, namely, a sharp increase in the weight of Marxist sociology and the sociology of socialist countries. Scholars from the socialist countries took over in Varna not merely in the quantity of their representatives but through their skill in participating in the work of the congress. Suffice it to say that they represented 40 percent of all the papers. Besides the Marxist sociologists, there are three basic groups of delegates that might be categorized by their attitudes toward Marxism, their level of professional training and their number; the professional sociologists; social philosopher sociologists; and beginners.

This paper reports that at the VIIth World Congress of Sociology, held in Varna, Bulgaria from September 14-19, 1970, a new executive was elected for the Sociology of Religion Research Committee. Professor Norman Birnbaum, Amherst College, Department of Anthropology-Sociology, Amherst, Massachusetts, was elected to succeed the late Professor Le Bras. The section decided to recruit membership as now required under the new Statutes of the International Sociological Association and to plan a conference for September 1972. It was also decided to invite representatives from each country on the committee.

The article presents the views of the author on the Seventh World Congress of Sociology to be held in Varna, Bulgaria, on September 14-19, 1970. The congress will provide sociologists from different countries an excellent opportunity to exchange their professional experiences and discuss family traits, structures, changes and trends in various societies.