History and Society

The article is based on an abbreviated and revised text of the paper prepared jointly by A. I. Danilov, V. V. Ivanov, M. P. Kim, Y. S. Kukushkin, A. M. Sakharov and N. V. Sivachov and read at the 14th International Congress of Historical Sciences in San Francisco (August 1975). The article traces the interrelations between history and society, examines the question concerning the social nature of historical science, subjects to criticism the idealistic interpretations of this problem and expounds the propositions of Marxism-Leninism on this particular theme. The authors focus their attention on graphically demonstrating the role played by Soviet historical science in the building of socialism and communism. The article also examines the present-day methods of historical cognition and shows their role in social development. The authors convincingly prove the insolvency of contemporary bourgeois methodological conceptions,

Y. I. SHESTAK. The Bankruptcy of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party's Breakaway Maximalist Group

The article briefly surveys the history of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party's breakaway Maximalist organization belonging to those political parties and groups which represented petty-bourgeois "Leftist" trends in Russia. Drawing on new documentary materials, the author shows the Maximalists' practical activity, the process of their evolution and the character of their relations with the Bolshevik Party. The attention in the article is focussed on substantiating the objective inevitability of the bankruptcy of the petty-bourgeois Maximalist organization, which corroborated the truth of the Marxist-Leninist proposition, that any attempt to come out against the Communists under the flag of petty-bourgeois revolutionism is bound to transform the party making such an attempt into an obstacle to the revolutionary process, into a pliant tool of the reactionary forces, leading it to divorcement from the masses, to the political and organizational collapse.

E. A. SHULEPOVA. The Establishment and Functioning of the U.S.S.R. State Committee on Art

The article analyzes the practical activity in the prewar period of the U.S.S.R. State Committee on Art-the first Soviet state agency set up by the U.S.S.R. Council of People's Commissars for administering art affairs. The functioning of this body is viewed in close connection with the tasks of developing all forms of socialist art and heightening their role in the communist education of the working people. The author draws the conclusion that the principle of state guidance of art is conducive to the fullest possible satisfaction of the rising cultural requirements of all members of socialist society. A close analysis of the Committee's functions, the basic forms and trends of its activity convincingly refutes the allegations of bourgeois propaganda that Soviet art is a victim of bureaucratic administration.

A. G. KUZMIN. At the Sources of the Novgorod Chronicles

The article examines the question of the earliest chronological recording of events in Novgorod and its reflection in different chronicles. The author corroborates the conclusions of A". A. Shakhmatov and B. A. Rybakov that the earliest recording of historical events in Novgorod dates back to the mid-11th century. The article proves that the earliest chronological recording of events in Novgorod is reflected in 15th- century chronicles more fully than in "A Tale of Temporal Years." This observation is important for appraising materials in relatively later chronicles, for which there are no analogies in "A Tale of Temporal Years." The author expresses the opinion that the chronological recording of historical events in Russia was never reduced to the sole tradition but was conducted parallel in different places.

G. A. ALEXEYEV. Karl Marx's Revolutionary-Democratic Publicistic Works

The publicistic works of Marx analyzed by the author laid the groundwork for the revolutionary democratism of a higher type than that produced by the Enlightenment and the classical bourgeois revolutions. The deepening crisis and polarization of the opposing trends among the followers of Hegelian philosophy accelerated this process. Marx extend-

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ed the boundaries of politics, making the social relations of men and the condition of the masses its "focal point." The place of Hegel's ideal - progressive movement, which does not bear a form of change, was taken by the revolution as a problem, as a theoretical subject, as the central point of seeking a correct world outlook. Marx upheld his convictions in constant clashes with reaction, in irreconcilable struggle against conservatism and liberalism, against pseudo-revolutionism. Every one of his publicistic works produced in 1842 represents a step forward from theoretical criticism and "empirical" study of objective reality in the light of revolutionary- democratic convictions to materialism and scientific communism.

K. V. KOMAROV. President Rivadavia's Agrarian Reforms

The article highlights the activity of President B. Rivadavia of Argentina in 1826 - 1827, showing his efforts to introduce state ownership of land and make it the basis of the country's further development. As a measure of bourgeois progress, Rivadavia's agrarian reforms became possible in conditions when capitalist relations in Argentina were still in the process of formation and when a considerable proportion of the land was owned by the state. The defeat suffered by President Rivadavia was the last milestone in the struggle carried on by the bourgeois-radical wing of the May 1910 revolution for a democratic agrarian policy. During the de Rosas dictatorship (1835 - 1852) the latifundists solved the agrarian question in their own interest.

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