O. I. KUROCHKINA. The 24th Congress of the CPSU and the Efforts to Promote the Unity of the International Communist Movement

The article highlights the role played by the 24th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in strengthening and rallying the international Communist ranks, in consolidating all the peace-loving and progressive forces of our time. The author stresses that the profound analysis made in the. Congress documents and materials of the complex and fast-developing contemporary events, of the role played by the Communist parties in the strengthening the anti-imperialist front, represents an outstanding contribution to the creative elaboration of Marxism-Leninism and the practical application of its cardinal principles in present-day conditions. Considerable attention is devoted by the author to characterizing the principles of proletarian internationalism as one of the basic conditions for the achievement of closer unity and solidarity of the Communist movement. The article also examines the views and opinions expressed by the fraternal parties in assessing the historic significance of the 24th CPSU Congress, the embodiment of its ideas in the post-Congress activity of the various contingents of the world Communist movement.

M. N. CHERNOMORSKY. Soviet Industry in the Early Years of Industrialization (1926 - 1927)

Drawing on a wealth of factual material furnished by the Central Statistical Board of the U.S.S.R. for 1925/1926 and 1926/1927, the author examines the principal directions in the development of Soviet publicly-owned industry in comparison with 1924/1925. Those years were marked by the priority growth of heavy industry, particularly the power engineering, fuel, metallurgical and building materials industries, i. e., the creation of the necessary preconditions for the continued development of machine-building and other branches of industry. Proceeding from his detailed analysis of a number of statistical tables, the author shows the social structure of industry and substantiates, his conclusion that in 1927 the proportion of the private sector in Soviet industry as a whole sharply declined and the share of the enterprises based on the private ownership of the means of production became sc insignificant as to be left out of account altogether when examining the Soviet economy of that period. The abolition of private ownership of the means of production in Soviet industry, the author writes in conclusion, created the necessary prerequisites for the reconstruction of the entire national economy along socialist lines.

A. F. KILUNOV. The Application of Concrete Sociological Research in Historical Science

The author examines the correlation of sociology and history and the possibilities of applying concrete sociological analysis in historical science. The article shows that the interaction between sociology and history is based on the close connection between the past, present and future. The application of concrete sociological methods extends the source research basis and the range of problems, enriches methodology with new techniques, promotes closer ties between history and contemporaneity, increases the social significance of historical research works. The author also discusses the possibility of applying individual sociological methods (observation, interviews, surveys by questionnaire, opinion polls, etc.).

E. A. DUDZINSKAYA. Bourgeois Tendencies in the Theory and Practice of the Slavophiles

The article analyzes the Slavophiles? views on the prospects of Russia?s capitalist development on the eve of the abolition of serfdom. Slavophilism represented a variety of bourgeois-landlord liberalism with all its intrinsic features: its urge for transformations in the economic sphere, demand for reforms in the country?s social and political life coupled with the continued existence of the autocratic system, sharp hostility to. everything revolu-

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tionary. In conformity with these views the Slavophiles proposed to solve the tasks confronting Russia in the interests of the big landowners and the nascent bourgeois class. Substantiating the need for a number of reforms and taking practical steps towards their implementation, the Slavophiles objectively tried to direct the country's development along capitalist lines, striving to transform Russia's political system from the monarchy of the feudal type to the bourgeois monarchy by peaceful means.

A. A. AKHTAMZYAN. From the History of Soviet-German Relations on the Eve of Rapallo (May 1921 - March 1922)

The materials of the former German Ministry of Economy enable the author to shed a new light on the reasons that prompted the ruling circles of Germany to make a shift towards establishing normal political and economic relations with Soviet Russia at the close of 1921 and in the opening months of 1922. A number of hitherto unpublished documents illustrate the history of the visit paid by so-called German experts to Soviet Russia. Until quite recently the history of the "Muller mission" was either inadequately reflected in Soviet and foreign historiography or presented in a distorted light. The article highlights the attitude of the German business community to the question of normalizing economic cooperation with Soviet Russia.

E. V. KOVALEV. Certain Aspects of the Postwar Agrarian Transformations Effected in Latin America

The aggravation of social contradictions in the agriculture of the Latin American countries in the postwar period led to the intensification of the peasant struggle for land. The insistent demand for far-reaching agrarian transformations, the author writes, assumed unprecedented power and truly universal proportions. This resulted in the enactment of agrarian reform laws in most of the Latin American countries during the past fifteen years. The sharp political struggle developing around this problem in present-day conditions is centred not so much on the question of agrarian reform in general as on each particular point and each concrete problem: the character and conditions of the alienation of landed property, the conditions and forms of turning over the land to the peasants, selective or universal redistribution of the land, the progress made in eliminating the survivals of feudalism, the political and organizational forms and methods of implementing agrarian reform. Radical solution of the agrarian question in the conditions obtaining in Latin America today, the author writes in conclusion, is closely linked with revolutionary agrarian transformations presupposing far-reaching changes in the character of state power.

A. D. LYUBLINSKAYA. The Structure of Class Representation in Medieval France

Drawing on most up-to-date historical investigations, the author traces the system of class social-estate representation in France in the 12th-18th centuries. The article brings out the role and significance of the States-General, the provincial and local assemblies, as well as their relation to each other. The provincial and local assemblies play the chief role in subsidizing the government. They were convened regularly, had their own apparatus and performed many administrative and fiscal functions. That explains the protracted existence of some of these institutions. The States-General, on the contrary, were convened rarely and irregularly (primarily for political reasons), had no apparatus of their own and did not perform any administrative functions. They represented a rather superstructure over the efficiently-operating provincial social- estate institutions.

The intricate system of class representation in medieval France, in the author's opinion, provides more grounds for comparing it with the German, Polish, Swedish and other systems rather than with the one obtaning in Britain.

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