In the post-war years, the faculty of philosophy was "on the forefront" of the ideological front – the "biggest event" was the speech of the secretary of the Central Committee Andrei Zhdanov (1947), followed by the strengthening of the party's role in philosophical education. Conferences were held to study the work of Stalin, in 1948 the tenth anniversary of the "brilliant Stalinist work" – "A Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)" was widely celebrated. Zinoviev studied mostly "excellently", mastering Marxist texts was not a big deal; he studied Kant, Marx and Hegel before the war. Teachers were the subject of his ridicule and satirical caricatures popular among students, his aphorisms were part of philosophical folklore; he was inclined to self-irony. According to the memoirs of Vadim Mezhuyev, Zinoviev won the competition for the best definition of matter: "matter is an objective reality given to us in sensations by God". Zinoviev ironically recalled how the "tongue-tied marazmatik Bugaev" from the first classes inspired students with superiority over all the previous philosophy; another object of ridicule, Beletsky, pointed out through a window to "objective truth" – the Kremlin. The exception was the historian of philosophy, Valentin Asmus, with him Zinoviev had a warm relationship all his life.