The object of this paper is to
determine the structure and properties of right subdirectly irreducible rings which are
either local or self-injective. The rings in the latter class form a special case of the
so-called right PF rings. By employing the notion of Feller’s X-rings, it is
proved that right PF X-rings are finite direct sums of full matrix rings
over self-injective right subdirectly irreducible rings. Thus, whether or not
right PF X-rings are left PF depends on the answer to the same question
for the more elementary case of self-injective right subdirectly irreducible
rings.