Received 11.12.2020. The article is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Academician N. N. Inozemtsev. The article provides an overview of the unpublished collective monograph “Foundations of the Theory of International Relations” – the fundamental work of a group of the IMEMO researchers, devised in the 1970s in the USSR. The process of creating a monograph is considered in the context of domestic and foreign policy conjuncture of that historical period, as well as the history of IMEMO. Among factors that slowed down the publication of this work were ideological transformations in the USSR, the divergence of political elite groups’ interests. The main provisions of the monograph, based on a systematic approach and works by representatives of Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, are given. Particular attention is paid to comparison with the American and Western European international relations theory concepts of that period. Self-sufficiency of the monograph as a full-fledged theoretical concept within the framework of the Marxist-Leninist theory of international relations is substantiated. The authors of the article prove the relevance of the monograph both as a historical source and as a milestone for modern scientific Marxist thought. Owing to the collapse of the world socialist system, the Marxist paradigm received an opportunity to reach its own realism, separated from ideology and based on the central idea of Marxism – the position of development as an objective quality of the socio-historical process. The publication of the collective monograph “Fundamentals of the Theory of International Relations” is planned for the end of 2021.