G. N. GOLIKOV. A Chronicle of V. I. Lenin's Biography

The article contains a review of the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th volumes of "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. A Biographic Chronicle" - a comprehensive publication compiled by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the CC CPSU. The reader will find in them a detailed, day-by-day account of V. I. Lenin's multiform activity in the sphere of state organization, foreign policy, military and theoretical problems from October 1917, when the Bolshevik Party became a ruling party, to June 1920. Drawing on a wealth of factual material, the publication reveals a number of features inherent in Lenin as a man of the new, Communist formation. Some 13,000 facts, of which almost 3,000 are published (fully or partially) for the first time, are collected and scientifically analyzed in the volumes of the biographic chronicle reviewed in the article.

V. F. TOLUBKO. The Soviet Union - The Decisive Force in the Defeat of Fascism

The article shows the utter failure of the sinister plans nurtured by nazi Germany to destroy the Soviet Union. The author highlights the Soviet people's efforts to bring about a fundamental change in the course of the war, the powerful influence made on the progress of war by the victories gained by the Armed Forces of the U.S.S.R. over the Wehrmacht, the growing scope of the Resistance Movement in the nazi-enslaved European countries and the gradual consolidation of all the anti-fascist forces. Citing concrete facts, the author discloses the decisive role played by the Soviet Union in the defeat of fascism and notes the important contribution to the common struggle made by the Western allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. The article analyzes the guiding and directing activity of the CPSU during the war years, tells about the internationalist mission performed by the Soviet Army in liberating the enslaved peoples of Europe. The author underscores the decisive influence exerted by the Soviet people's victory on the entire course of world development since the war.

F. I. STEBLI, S. M. TRUSEVICH. The Western Ukrainian Lands and Their Ties with Russia in the Period from the End of the 18th to the Beginning of the 20th Centuries

The article highlights the inadequately investigated questions concerning the ties maintained by the Western Ukrainian lands, which had fallen under the sway of the Austrian (Austro-Hungarian) empire, with Russia in the era of the rise and development of capitalism. The stronger gravitation of these lands towards the Ukraine forming a constituent part of Russia was attributable in the main to the process of formation of the Ukrainian bourgeois nation. The authors characterize the economic links, the friendly co-operation of the population in the period of wars fought from the end of the 18th to the first half of the 19th centuries, the impact of the Decembrist movement, the contacts between leaders of the socio-political movement and culture in the 1820's-1840's, the collaboration of the revolutionary democracy in the latter half of the 19th century, the influence exerted by the revolutionary movement in Russia on the rise of the liberation struggle in the Western Ukrainian lands at the beginning of the 20th century.

A. I. NEDOREZOV. Transformation of the Social-Class Structure in the European Socialist Countries

A complex process of the radical transformation of the social-class structure of the population was taking place in the socialist countries of Europe during the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, which was closely connected with the creation of the material and technical basis of a new society and its political development in the emergent People's Democracies. The chief result of this process was the removal of the exploiting classes, the radically changed position of the working class, the peasantry and the intelligentsia in social production and in the political system, the gradual shaping of the fundamentally new pattern of social relations between the working class, the peasantry and the intelligentsia. There emerged the social-class structure of a new type, which should be regarded as the most significant achievement of real socialism and, at the same time, as the chief factor and powerful accelerator of its further progress.

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K. V. KHVOSTOVA. Some Aspects of the Theoretical Approach to Socio- Economic History of the Medieval Period

The author makes an attempt to elucidate the possibilities and cognitive significance of the partial formalization of theoretical conceptions characterizing the socio- economic objective laws of the medieval period. The most general manifestations of objective laws are the object of such formalization. Their expression in the form of equations imparts an additional cognitive significance to corresponding statements. The author suggests a method for defining a coefficient permitting to gauge the degree of stratification among the peasantry in the Middle Ages. The article also examines the latent manifestations of rent relations. Drawing on the factual data provided by a number of sources dating back to the 13th-14th centuries, the author makes use of differential equations to "split" the Byzantine tax-rent and to single out its component parts which are not recorded in the sources. Such is the way of defining, for instance, the share of the rent reflecting the role played by non-economic factors in exploiting the peasants.

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