The interview with a well-known sociologist Yuri A. Levada is devoted to the history of sociology development in Russia in the end of the 1950-s – the beginning of the 1960-s, atmosphere in social sciences of this period, and the conflict between liberal sociologists and the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Levada’s case), which signified the end of «thaw» in sociological environment. The author of the interview was an organizer and a leader of a famous sociological seminar, held up to the middle of the 1980-s. He provides a detailed analysis of a «seminar» form of academic communication in the conditions of party control of social sciences.