N. V. FADDEYEV. The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance-A Collective Body for Promoting Cooperation Among the Socialist Countries

The article briefly recapitulates the history of the establishment in 1949 of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) as the logical result of the emergence of the new type of inter-state economic relations engendered by the socialist system. The author singles out the principal stages in the history and functioning of the CMEA, stressing that this division is purely tentative in character and that the basic content of these.stages is determined by the characteristic processes prevailing in economic, scientific and technological cooperation. The first stage was a period marked by the rise and development of multilateral cooperation and by the promotion of foreign trade (from the establishment of the CMEA to 1958). During this stage the CMEA contributed to the practical realization of measures in the sphere of reciprocally coordinating economic development plans and promoting specialization and cooperation in production. In 1958 - 1962 the CMEA's development was characterized by the further extension and deepening of production cooperation in the principal branches of industry and agriculture. In the course of the sixties-the third stage in the Council's activity-the member-countries of the CMEA continued to strengthen and deepen their cooperation in the sphere of coordination of national economic development programmes. The current stage is marked by the progressive development of socialist economic integration as the natural sequel to the tangible achievements registered in economic, scientific and technological cooperation, as the practical realization of its fundamental aims. At the same time, this stage has its own specific features intrinsic to the qualitatively new phase reached in the economic rapprochement of the CMEA member-countries.

D. M. KUKIN. Economic Leadership Exercised by the Party and the Soviet Government in the Years of the Great Patriotic War

The author highlights the activity of the Communist Party and the Soviet government in exercising leadership of the country's socialist economy on the eve and during the Great Patriotic War, graphically showing that its paramount objective was to strengthen the Soviet Union's defence capability and ensure victory over the fascist aggressors. The rearmament of the Red Army, the reorganization of industry, agriculture and transport along military lines, all-out mobilization of the Party and the people for inflicting a crushing defeat on the enemy-such are the principal measures, the analysis of which enables the author to bring out the role of the Communist Party as the guiding and directing force of the Soviet Union's war economy, to show the decisive superiority of the Soviet socialist economy over Hitler Germany's capitalist economy.

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V. M. GLUNIN, A. M. GRIGORYEV, K. V. KUKUSHKIN and M. F. YURIEV. The International Communist Movement and the Communist Party of China

Drawing on documentary materials and the latest works produced by Marxist historians, the authors examine the important role played by the interaction of the international Communist movement and the Communist Party of China in formulating the strategy and tactics of the Chinese revolution in its different stages. The article subjects to a critical analysis the various bourgeois and Maoist conceptions of the history of the CPC, convincingly showing the identical approach manifested by bourgeois and Maoist historiography in their assessment of the major developments in the history of the CPC, particularly in their efforts to counterpose the history of the CPC to the international Communist movement. The close contact maintained by the CPC with the international Communist movement and its struggle up to the end of the 1950's within the ranks of the world revolutionary movement enabled the Communist Party of China to neutralize the nationalist forces. The crisis developments in the Chinese People's Republic and in the Communist Party of China are attributable to the Chinese leadership's departure at the close of the 1950's and in the early ;l.960's" from the coordinated line of the international Communist movement with regard to domestic and foreign policy problems.

A. A. NOVIKOVA. State Safekeeping of the Personal Archives of Prominent Soviet Leaders

The article characterizes the present state of the safekeeping of personal archives, analyzes the value of the manuscripts, diaries, correspondence and other private documents as historical sources. A considerable proportion of them hate not been lodged for state safekeeping as yet and are therefore practically inaccessible for research for the time being. Examining the development of Soviet legislation on the protection of personal archive funds, the author expresses her considerations concerning the need of further elaborating the theoretical principles of the safekeeping of private documents and materials by the state, and the possibility of forecasting in the collecting activity of the archives. The author believes that the problem of the safekeeping of personal archives can be effectively solved by the joint effort of historians, source researchers and archivists, and that the U.S.S.R. Ministries and departments concerned should take a more active part in the investigation work of the Soviet archives and other state repositories.

A. P. PRONSTEIN and A. A. PUSHKARENKO. The Peasant War of 1773 - 1775 in Russia: Results and Prospects of Research

In connection with the recent publication of the last (third) volume of the fundamental joint work "The Peasant War of 1773 - 1775 in Russia" devoted to the uprising led by Emelyan Pugachov, the article sums up the most important results of and reviews the prospects of research in the major developments in the history of the class struggle in Russia during the period of feudalism. The attention of Soviet researchers should be concentrated on the further investigation of such cardinal problems as the motive forces of the movement, the fellow-travellers of the peasant war of 1773 - 1775, the role played by objective and subjective factors in Russia's major popular movements of the 17th and 18th centuries. Particular importance is attached by the author to the comparative analysis of the peasant wars as a peculiar form of the class struggle in the era of feudalism.

N. V. SIVACHOV. The Problem of Strikes in the American Labour Movement in 1941 - 1945

The article graphically shows that in 1941 - 1945 all contingents of the American labour movement appreciated the need of boosting war production to the maximum. In December 1941 they proclaimed their determination to refrain from the strike struggle for the duration of the. war. But the patently anti-labour character of the U. S. Administration's economic policy (its persistent attempts to "stabilize" the wages, to deny the workers any

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pay increases), the soaring prices, the monopolies' drive to take advantage of the war situation for deriving maximum profits impelled the working class to resort to the strike weapon. A series of spontaneous strikes broke out in the country, which, however, as is clearly shown in the article, did not cause any damage to the country's war effort but merely served the American proletariat as a means of self-defence against the onslaught of the monopolies. The author examines the principal directions of the struggle that developed in the labour movement of the United States around the problem of strikes in the war years of 1941 - 1945.

I. S. GALKIN. Certain Aspects of the History of British Diplomacy in 1908 - 1911

The article traces the history of Britain's Middle East policy on the eve of the first world war. Many historical documents make it abundantly clear that, while trying to persuade the world that their Middle East policy had no ulterior motives and was prompted solely by a desire to promote durable peace, the British ruling element were actually waging a bitter struggle for a redivision of the world, not infrequently to the detriment and against the fundamental interests of their allies among the Entente powers. Exploiting tsarist Russia as a powerful Entente ally, British diplomacy jealously watched and was ever ready to nip in the bud any manifestation of independence in the policy of the tsarist autocracy, being particularly opposed to Russia's natural striving to get a free outlet to the Mediterranean through the straits. Britain also made repeated attempts to knock together under her aegis a Middle Eastern bloc made up of Turkey and the Balkan states with the object of paralyzing any independent actions on the part of the Slav countries. When the scheme fell through, British diplomacy took an irreconcilable stand against any attempts on the part of the Balkan states to establish closer relations without the participation of Turkey. Only the acute aggravation of Anglo-German contradictions prompted Britain to modify to a certain extent her tactics in the Balkans. It is thus obvious that the duplicity and provocative nature of Britain's foreign policy on the eve of the first world war can be fully appreciated only with due consideration for Anglo-German contradictions which played the decisive part in precipitating the first world war.

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