Josef KOWALSKI. The Great October Socialist Revolution and Poland

The article analyzes the powerful influence exerted by the Great October Socialist Revolution on Poland in 1917 - 1919. The author's attention is focussed on the following major problems of that period: 1. The significance of the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy and Russian imperialism and of the victory of the October Revolution for the Polish people's struggle, for the reestablshment of an independent Polish state in the autumn of 1918; 2. The influence of the October Revolution and the revolutionary repercussions it caused in Central Europe of the Polish working people's liberation struggle and on the activity of the revolutionary and progressive forces in Poland; 3. The Marxist-Leninist teaching of the socialist revolution and its ideological impact on the Polish Communist movement; problems of the revolutionary strategy and tactics arising before the Communist movement from the concrete conditions obtaining in Poland at that period. The article stresses the vast influence exerted by the October Revolution on the destinies of the Polish people, on the cause of winning their state independence, on the liberation struggle of the working people of Poland, on stimulating the processes of ideological and political development of their Communist vanguard.

M. I. TRUSH. Lenin and the Genoa Conference

Drawing on extensive factual data, including hitherto unpublished materials contained in the new edition of Complete Works, the author brings out V. I. Lenin's foreign political activity in instructing and guiding the Soviet delegation to the 1922 Conference in Genoa. The author singles out a number of cardinal theoretical questions - peaceful coexistence, the attitude to pacifism, etc. -which at that period were in the focus of Lenin's attention. The materials cited in the article will show the reader the paramount importance attached by the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) headed by Lenin to formulating the basic tasks of the Soviet delegation at the Genoa Conference: the establishment of commercial relations with the capitalist countries; obtaining foreign credits on advantageous terms in exchange for certain concessions; securing the juridical recognition of the Soviet gevernment. The article highlights the activity of the preparatory commission and its close cooperation with the central government institutions headed by the State Planning Committee. In conclusion the author describes the work of the Party Central Committee headed by Lenin in directing the Soviet delegation's efforts at the Genoa Conference.

O. F. SOLOVYOV. The Preparation and Launching of the Intervention Against Soviet Russia

The author traces the preparation and launching of the imperialist intervention against Soviet Russia by the ruling element of the Allied powers in the period from October 1917 to July 1918. The article shows the consecutive stages of the intervention and reveals their specific features. Side by side with highlighting the active role played by the Western powers and Japan in this act of aggression against Soviet Russia, the author exposes the foreign interventionists' close cooperation with the forces of internal

counter-revolution. At the same time the article briefly surveys the consistent efforts of Soviet diplomacy to secure a peaceful respite after the conclusion of the Brest- Litovsk treaty. The abundant factual evidence cited in the article irrefutably proves that the British, American, French and Japanese governments launched their intervention in October 1917. In the initial period it was camouflaged in character and was manifested primarily in rendering financial assistance to the Whiteguard forces. In March-April 1918 the foreign imperialists passed to an open intervention, capturing important bridgeheads in Murmansk and Vladivostok. In the summer of that year they undertook a large-scale military invasion, operating in close contact with Russia's internal counterrevolutionary forces.

P. G. RYNDZIUNSKY. The Causes Responsible for the Declining Number of Serf Peasants on the Eve of the 1861 Reform

The article traces the causes responsible for the decline in the number of serf peasants in Russia in the 1830's - 1860's and for the marked reduction in the percentage of serf peasantry in the country's population a question that has long been discussed in historical literature. The prevailing opinion is that the chief cause of this phenomenon was the intensified feudal oppression which found its most glaring manifestation in the expropriation of the peasants land by the landlords and in the heavier feudal taxes and duties imposed on the serfs. This view is not shared by the author. Drawing on his close study of the results of the ninth population census taken in 1850 - 1851 as well as on a number of documents and materials pertaining to the census, the author comes to the conclusion that the absolute and relative decline in the number of serf peasants was chiefly due (o the growing number of serfs gaining their freedom as a result of the deepening crisis of the feudal system - the preasants irresistible urge for liberation and the landlords' growing realization that the continued exercise of their right to keep their serf peasants in bondage was becoming economically inexpedient. In conclusion the author points out that the heavy feudal exploitation was responsible for the slow rate of increase of the Russian population generally in the 18th - 19th centuries.

V. P. ALEXEYEV. Human Races in Contemporary Science

Though racial distinctions between individual groups of mankind were noticed in ancient times, they became the subject of scientific research only in the middle of the 19th century. This research showed that race-formation is an adaptive process. Proceeding from this premise, the author single out the seats of initial and secondary race-formation. According to his classification, there are two seats of initial race- formation-Western and Eastern. Within the bounds of the Western seat there are three secondary seats-European, African and Australian; within the bounds of the Eastern seat there are two secondary seats-East-Asian and American. The article emphasizes that the race represents a dynamic category, whose development and specific features are determined primarily by sociohistorical laws. In conformity with different racial peculiarities and specific features, it is possible to single out different types of race- formation-the modus of typological variability, the modus of local variability, etc. This circumstance in conjunction with geographical contiguity of anthropological, ethnohistoric and linguistic entities enables the researcher to make effective use of antropological data as an historical source.

A. G. AGAYEV. Nation: Its Essence and Self-Consciousness

The article analyzes the essence and types of the ethic community in their historical develpoment and substantiates the methods of their distinction. The author brings out the unity of the general ethnic features possessed by a tribal community, nationality and nation. Maintaining that the various ethnic communities of the socialist epoch cannot be unified within any one national type, the author proposes his own classification of these types. The author believes that the various nationalities, national units and ethnographic

groups will continue to exist and freely develop for a long time-side by side with the nation itself. A. G. Agayev determines a nation by the highest historical type of ethnic community, which is awakened to an independent national life, sovereignty and self- consciousness by capitalism, on the one hand, and by socialism on the other (on diametrically opposite principles).

H P. LASHUK. The Character of Class-Formation in Early Nomad Societies

The article is devoted to an analysis of the character, dynamics and main historical stages of the rise and development of class relations in the superseding and coexisting early Asian nomad societies over a long historical period - from the early metal age to the 13th century inclusive. The author criticizes both the theory purporting to prove the "traditional" existence of the tribal system among the Asian nomads up to the time when it was destroyed by capitalism, and the latter-day conception of a specific "nomad mode of production" allegedly existing somewhere between the primitive communal and capitalist formations. Drawing on concrete historical material, the author views the process of class-formation among the ancient nomads in context with their historic evolution from the primitive communal system to feudal relations (approximately in the 11th - 13th centuries) through the stage of early class prefeudal (tributary) relations (from A. D. 1 to the 10th - 11th centuries).

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