In the third year Zinoviev became interested in the logic of Capital, Marx was devoted to his diploma. After graduating in 1951 with honors from the university, he entered graduate school. In Capital, Zinoviev was interested in the logical structure, rather than the economic or political description of capitalism, the dissertation considered the logical techniques used by Marx. In Soviet dogma, the subject of Zinoviev's research, like that of Ilyenkov's similar research, was called "dialectical logic". Vladislav Lektorsky connects the turn of Zinoviev and Ilyenkov to the study of theoretical thinking and methodology with the conviction that strict knowledge can influence bureaucratic "real socialism" and reform the Soviet system. According to Pavel Fokin, appeal to logic was an act of self-preservation in the conditions of Soviet reality, unwillingness to engage in ideological propaganda within the framework of historical materialism – logic was outside of party or class interests.