Academician M. V. NECHKJNA. V. I. Lenin's Research in the History of the Russian Revolutionary Movement

Noting the considerable amount of work carried out by Soviet historians in the field of studying V. I. Lenin's research in the history of the Russian revolutionary movement, the author at the same time points out that this work should be enriched thematically and that more attention should be devoted to disclosing its new aspects. The article singles out the following four aspects: 1. Soviet historians are still faced with the task of analyzing the Leninist concept in the history of science: the article shows Lenin's priority in the field of periodization of the Russian revolutionary movement, in advancing the class principle as the basis for determining the social content of each period, in analyzing the revolutionary's ties with the masses; 2. Another important aspect is the application of the Leninist periodization principles to the revolutionary movement of the Russian and other peoples of tsarist Russia; in particular, the concept of "aristocratic revolutionaries" embraces not only the Decembrist movement but also a number of other revolutionary trends among the peoples of our country and in world history; 3. A close study of the historical sources used by Lenin for his research in the revolutionary movement holds out great prospects; their analysis shows that all the conclusions drawn by Lenin were based on authentic documents. Another question that deserves close examination concerns the oral revolutionary tradition used by Lenin; 4. Lastly, it is exceptionally important to make a careful analysis and organically integrate in scientific research the theme reflecting the main periods in Russia's revolutionary struggle and the revolutionary situations in Russia's history disclosed by Lenin's analysis; the two aspects of this question were conceived by Lenin in their inseparable connection, whereas in Soviet historical literature they are often divorced from one another and treated separately.

V. V. ZAGLADIN and A. S. CHERNYAEV. World War II and Present-Day Realities

The authors of this article make an attempt to approach the second world war as a social phenomenon of all-embracing significance for contemporary society. In contradistinction to the great revolutions which gave rise to new socio-economic laws, the second world war, like that of 1914 - 1918, either accelerated or retarded the processes that arose independently of it. However, in both cases it exerted a tremendous influence on social progress. The authors convincingly show this, substantiating their appraisal of the second world war as an event of truly momentous significance in mankind's history.

The article generalizes the causes that precipitated World War II, analyzing its distinctive features in conditions of the new epoch ushered in by the October Revolution and examining the fundamentally different alignment of the belligerent forces compared with the first world war, which made it impossible for imperialism to change the character of the contemporary epoch by armed force and created the conditions for the subsequent cardinal changes on the world arena and in individual countries. The authors' characteristic of the postwar changes in the content, international significance and position of the principal revolutionary forces - the world socialist system, the working-class movement in the capitalist countries and the national-liberation movement - is likewise given in a generalized form. A close analysis of the object lessons of World War II is based on a careful appraisal of the objective possibilities latent in the revolutionary forces of our time.

S. L. SENYAVSKY and M. I. KHLUSOV. Soviet Industrial Labour Force in 1946 - 1955

The article analyzes ways and means of solving the problem of industrial cadres. The principal sources of supplying industry with manpower in the postwar years were mass demobilization, the collective-farm peasantry, the rapidly increasing urban population as a result of the country's industrial development, and the repatriation of Soviet citizens driven away to nazi Germany and other countries during the war. The chief forms of replenishing industry with new cadres in the postwar period were: free hire of manpower by industrial enterprises themselves, organized recruitment of manpower by appropriate state agencies and the State Labour Reserves system. To turn millions of new workers into high-skilled labour the state organized an extensive and permanently functioning network of professional-training schools and courses. The article cites the following data: between 1946 and 1955 nearly 18 million workers were newly trained in most diverse professions directly at industrial enterprises. Upwards of five million high-skilled young workers were trained in the Labour Reserve schools. The training of the engineering and technical personnel in higher educational establishments and intermediate vocational colleges substantially increased and improved in those years. Extensive and fruitful work was done during that period to raise the professional skill of workers, engineers and technicians. As a result of intensive organizational work carried out by the Communist Party and the Soviet government the problem of industrial labour force was successfully solved. Already in 1950 the numerical strength of industrial manpower was 5.4 million above the prewar figure; in 1955 the prewar level was exceeded by 12.5 million. The authors make a point of stressing that side by side with the quantitative growth there has been a marked improvement in the social composition and quality of Industrial labour force, accompanied by a higher degree of creative activity among the workers.

V. A. TSYBULSKY. The Taxation Policy in the Countryside in the Early Years of NEP

The article examines one of the important aspects of the new economic policy - the Soviet state's tax relations with the peasantry. The author shows how the new forms and principles of the agricultural tax were elaborated and put into effect, what influence they had on diverse social groups of the peasantry and what role they played in economically stimulating the development of the productive forces in agriculture. The article gives a concrete historical analysis of the difficulties encountered by the Soviet government in introducing its first tax in kind and illustrates the methods of improving and perfecting the entire taxation system.

The evolution of the tax in kind into a uniform agricultural tax is examined by the author in close connection with the growing marketing possibilities of the peasant farms whose market relations and money turnover were steadily expanding, as a result of which the tax in kind no longer accorded with the interests of the producers and with the requirements of the country's economic development. On the other hand, the author points out, the replacement of the tax in kind by a uniform agricultural tax in a mixed (in money and in kind) and then in a purely monetary form facilitated the revival of economic ties between town and country, between industry and agriculture, reduced the emission of the rapidly-depreciating paper money and stabilized the Soviet ruble.

The article graphically shows that the tax reforms were prepared gradually with the active participation of the central and local food-supplying and financial bodies and with the assistance of Party and public organizations in town and country.

A. I. GUKOVSKY. Certain Aspects of the Terminology Used in Auxiliary Historical Subjects

Much attention in contemporary Soviet historical literature is devoted to the problems of source research and auxiliary historical subjects. The author of the article believes that the broad discussions around these issues do not concern the substance of the matter but merely certain terms which can be easily agreed upon without much argument. Analyzing the terminological differences existing in literature, the author puts forward well-substantiated proposals for eliminating them. Here are some of these proposals:

The term "source research" should not be used for internal criticism of the sources, since it is inevitably dealt with by every real researcher working on any concrete historical problem;

The term "source research" should be applied to any subject that is mainly methodological in character and cannot therefore be placed in the category of auxiliary historical subjects, which deals with source classification and elaborates general theoretical questions connected with source criticism;

The term "concrete source research" should be applied to subjects that are mainly educational and informative in character and whose purpose is to bring out the content and scientific significance of the source complexes devoted to individual periods or themes of concrete history;

Apart from the term "auxiliary historical subjects" historians should apply the term "auxiliary subjects" in reference to certain linguistic, geological and other subjects;

It is necessary to avoid any unjustified changes in the established terminology, as, for instance, the use of "neography" instead of "paleography" (in reference to modern documents), or "selective method" instead of the "illustrative method" of document publication, when the principles of selecting documents for publication factually remain unchanged.

I. S. GALKIN and A. D. KOLPAKOV. Modern Historiography of European and American Countries

The authors of the article make an attempt at scientifically generalizing the complex process of development of European and American historical thought in the period of modern history up to 1917 as an essential part of the general process of evolution of social science. In inseparable connection with the general course of socio-political development the authors re- create the picture of the rise and development of bourgeois historiography in the fierce struggle against the outdated but still strong and militant feudal-aristocratic ideology. In the first half of the 19th century bourgeois historical thought in the French historical school of the Restoration period attained the highest degree of development, penetrating the secret of class interrelations and disclosing the class struggle. However, already at that period the new processes in social life, stimulated by the formation and growth of the proletariat, made themselves felt. In 1848 there appeared the "Manifesto of the Communist Party," which signified the beginning of a profound revolution in social thought, in historical science.

In the latter half of the 19th century, the authors point out, bourgeois historical science as a whole was still sufficiently stable, although its progressive development slowed down and became markedly contradictory. The positivist methodology which reached a flourishing state in those years was quite often used for slightly camouflaged or even direct attacks on Marxism, on democracy generally. With the advent of the imperialist epoch, the authors stress, the ideological confusion of bourgeois historical thought became increasingly obvious. The weapon of bourgeois scientists is spearheaded ever more frequently against the theoretical foundations of historical science. The ideas of the law-governed historical process, of social progress, of scientific possibilities of historical knowledge are increasingly jeopardized, for they can only confirm the inevitable decline of bourgeois civilization.

The article graphically illustrates the steady development and strengthening of Marxist trends in Europe and America as a counterweight to bourgeois historiography. Of paramount significance for the victorious onward march of Marxist theoretical thought were the historical, philosophic and economic works of V. I. Lenin, who brilliantly continued and creatively developed in the new conditions the principles of a scientific approach to the historical process, formulated by the founders of Marxism.

M. I. BRAGINSKY. Britain's East-African Colonies in World War II

The article shows that the economy of the British colonies during World War II was subordinated to the task of the maximum utilization of manpower, food and raw material resources for wartime requirements. The colonial authorities encouraged the production of sisal, pyrethrum and rubber and took steps to increase the output of diamonds and tungsten. The military units and labour teams recruited from the native population of East

Africa played a conspicuous part in the British army's successful operations in North Africa, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Burma. The author graphically illustrates the progressive deterioration of the Africans' working conditions in the war years. Compulsory labour and army mobilization seriously aggravated the position of African agriculture. The drastic curtailment of the area sown to food crops in 1942 - 1943 caused widespread famine.

During the war years the colonial authorities instituted a ban on the activity of African political organizations, including the Central Kikuyu Association - the most influential among them. Yet these restrictions proved powerless to check the growth of the working-class and national-liberation movement in East Africa. The British authorities tried to bring the mounting labour movement under their control, but their efforts in this direction often proved unsuccessful. The war period was marked by numerous strikes in the countries of East Africa. These manifestations were the harbinger of a powerful upsurge of the national-liberation movement in the postwar period, which led to the winning of political independence by a number of East-African states in the sixties.

CESTMIR AMORT. The Nazi Documents at the Bottom of Czechoslovakia's Black Lake

The article characterizes the nazi documents thrown by the Hitlerites into the Cerne jezero (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic) in 1945. Many of these documents have recently been discovered and are now being studied by Czechoslovak scientists. All the documents extracted from the bottom of the lake belong to the Central Imperial Security Department which headed the Gestapo, the criminal police, the security service and various other nazi police agencies. The documents found at the bottom of the Black Lake refer in the main to the nazi intelligence service and fascist Germany's espionage activities in other countries. The author dwells in detail on confidential reports depicting the political situation in diverse countries where Germany's agents operated. These reports testify, in particular, to fascist Germany's interests in Southeastern Europe, to her cherished desire to gain control of the Balkan countries' natural wealth, to Hitler Germany's intrigues against her Japanese and Italian allies, to diverse terrorist and sabotage acts and attempts at assassination organized by the fascists in many European, Asian and American countries. The author devotes much attention to important dispatches on the political situation in Germany and in the nazi- occupied countries. The Gestapo reports from the occupied countries testified to the broad scope of the national-liberation movement directed by the Communist parties and to the growing strength of the international Communist movement. The documents cited in the article confirm the existence of close ties between the fascists and the business and financial tycoons, as well as the latter's complicity in the crimes perpetrated by the nazis. The significance of the analyzed documents lies primarily in the fact that they reveal the connection between many important facts and events, the hidden circumstances of which could not hitherto be disclosed because factual evidence was considered to be lost.

Publisher:

Permanent link for scientific papers (for citations):

Found source (search robot):

Comments: