A. I. GRISHCHENKO, A. I. STEPANOV. Helsinki: the Struggle for Peace, Security and Cooperation in Europe

The authors analyse the consistent Soviet peace struggle and that of the socialist countries supported by the broad public for the strict adherence by all states- participants in the Helsinki conference of the Helsinki Final Act and for strengthening peace and security in Europe. Much space is given to the implementation of the Peace Programme for the 1980s adopted by the 26th CPSU Congress.

Inspite of the fact that the past decade saw the destruction, due to imperialist efforts, of many positive things reached during the detente of the 1970s much has been saved and consolidated to serve the nations. The facts cited in the article show that detente of the 1970s was caused by deep-going changes occurring world-wide. The article underlines that the world public today expresses its deep understanding of the necessity to carry on the positive process started in Helsinki ten years ago. The Soviet Union favours the revival and further strengthening of detente, the establishment of a reliable and worldwide system of international security, for peace and the world without weapon. Active, concerted actions of all nations and states are deeded to prevent nuclear catastrophe and block the way to a new war.

M. M. KUCHERENKO. Training of Skilled Workers in the USSR (the 1920s- first half of the 1930s)

The article surveys the efforts of the Communist Party and the Soviet State between 1921 and 1936 to train skilled workforce for the national economy. This process went hand in hand with industrialisation, socialist transformation of agriculture and the cultural revolution. The author concentrates on little-studied aspects of the theme: attraction to industrial enterprises Of young workers and their vocational training; its forms and methods; training of the necessary number of workers for the leading industrial branches; the state policy and the international character of training skilled workforce; some patterns of the socialist method of training. The author also scans the system of youth training and the perfection of the professional and qualificational structure of the Soviet working class. The stable increase of trained workforce and its improved branch and qualificational structure became a law of socialist construction. The author concludes that by mid-1920s an inner reserve of highly skilled specialists capable of achieving a new level in training and education of the younger generation had been formed.

G. V. GLAZYRINA, T. N. JACKSON, E. A. MELNIKOVA. Early Scandinavian Written Sources on the History of the European Part of the USSR

The article deals with the main groups of early Scandinavian written sources providing information on the history of the Old Rus and the neighbouring peoples and bays much attention to their genres and the ways they describe historic events. This problem is closely connected with their authenticity. The authors conclude the article with a brief survey of information on the European part of the USSR found in the early Scandinavian written sources.

L. S. POSKONINA. Socialist Construction In Cuba as Described by Bourgeois Historiography

The author takes as her subject concepts of bourgeois historiography dealing with the principal problems of the history of socialism in Cuba, socialist construction and the Soviet-Cuban relations. She exposes the untenability of bourgeois ideas that the general regularities of socialist construction elaborated by Marxism-Leninism cannot be applied to Cuba. Cuban realities refute the theories of bourgeois authors who falsify the nature of the Cuban political system, strive to prove socialism's incompatibility with democracy and distort the internationalist essence of Soviet- Cuban relations and the aims of Cuban peaceful foreign policy.

V. I. RAZIN, E. Yu. EKONOMOVA. On the "Historical Epoch" Category

The article is devoted to a most important and topical question of the methodology of history, that of the "historical epoch" category. The authors discuss its content and relate it to the basic concept of the Marxist-Leninist interpretation of history-the socio-economic formation. These two categories, write the authors, are closely interrelated and complement each other, they are consecutive stages in the ascending from the abstract to the concrete, while their special functions in social cognition are conditioned by their epistemological nature. In their studies the authors relied on the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism and the latest philosophical and historical writings.

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