GREAT TASKS

The editorial article is devoted to the Twenty-Third CPSU Congress. It emphasizes the historic significance of the Congress and briefly reviews its decisions. Considerable attention in the article is devoted to the tasks confronting the social sciences, notably historical science, in the light of the Congress decisions.

V. Z. DROBIZHEV. Perfecting the System of Industrial Management During the First Five-Year-Plan Period

The article analyzes the Soviet system of industrial management during the first five-year-plan period. The author graphically shows how the process of socialist industrialization was attended by the gradual improvement of the Soviet economic apparatus, the growing independence of individual enterprises and provision of more economic incentives with the aim of attaining a higher level of efficiency in the operation of Soviet factories and mills. Much attention in the article is devoted to the history of the Supreme Economic Council, to illustrating its forms and methods of economic management. The progressive development of the reconstruction processes in industry, the article points out, was accompanied by the strengthening of the industrial centres of the Supreme Economic Council which was gradually being transformed from the planning and regulating body into an organ exercising direct operational leadership of technical progress. By 1932 the Supreme Economic Council represented, in effect, an amalgamation uniting a number of industrial centres. The enhancement of the industrial principle in the system of industrial management substantially altered the functions of the territorial economic bodies. In the early thirties many of them were liquidated. The article shows how the production conferences and other mass workers' organizations took over a number of functions in the sphere of industrial management and played a conspicuous part in effectively implementing the plans of socialist construction.

I. D. OCHAK. The South Slav Soviets in Russia in 1918 - 1921

In the years of World War I more than 200,000 South Slav soldiers were kept in Russia as prisoners of war. Following the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution these prisoners of war acquired the possibility of establishing their own revolutionary organizations. The article highlights the question of setting up the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies among the South Slav prisoners of war "along the Russian pattern." Many of the South Slav prisoners of war were organized in the Austro-Hungarian Soviet. But following the disintegration of Austro- Hungary, a special South Slav Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies was founded in the opening months of 1919. This Soviet took over all the functions of the former Serbian Military Mission in Russia. Its activities embraced political and cultural education and enlightenment as well as the evacuation of the prisoners of war to their native countries. In the course of 1919 - 1921 such Soviets were formed in different parts of Russia and the Ukraine, where there were large groups of South Slav POWs.

The appearance of the South Slav Soviets clearly showed that the ideas of Soviet power were penetrating deep into the minds of the South Slav workers and peasants, that they practically embodied the revolutionary alliance of the workers and peasants of Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. At the same time, the establishment of these Soviets in Russia testified to the international solidarity of the Russian workers and peasants with the working people of South Slav countries.

E. D. CHERMENSKY. The Russian Bourgeoisie in the Autumn of 1905

The article analyzes the position of the liberal bourgeoisie after October 17, 1905, and its shift from loyal opposition to the active support of the tsarist autocracy. The general strike of October 1905 led to an unstable balance of forces of the revolution and the tsarist autocracy. The liberal bourgeoisie tried to act as intermediary between the contending parties. It was under its influence that the tsar granted his "constitution" on October 17. This manoeuvre helped to ward off the immediate collapse of the autocratic system and enabled the tsarist government to gain time and regroup its forces. But the hopes of the ruling circles and the liberal bourgeoisie for a speedy and stable pacification did not materialize. The progressive-minded workers headed by the Bolshevik Party entertained no illusions with regard to the Manifesto of October 17. At the same time, the Blackguard pogroms instigated by the court clique opened the eyes of the broad masses and showed the true worth of the tsar's "freedoms." After October 17 the, revolutionary movement flared up with a new force and attained an unprecedented scope. The author stresses that the instability of the political situation in, the country prevented the tsarist government from openly striking a bargain with the liberal bourgeoisie. Witte's negotiations with the "social" leaders concerning their entry into the first "constitutional" cabinet ended in failure. Nevertheless, they managed to reach a nonformal agreement: the Ministry of the Interior headed by Witte and Durnovo suppressed the revolution by armed force, while the bourgeois parties formed after October 17 tried to steer the revolutionary movement into peaceful parliamentary channels.

I. D. TROTSENKO. The West-German Peasantry in the Fight Against Monopoly Domination

Drawing on extensive factual material from West-German publications and the press, the author shows the content and peculiarities of the peasant movement against monopoly domination in the German Federal Republic. The article reveals the basic causes which give rise to the peasants' anti-monopoly manifestations, gives an appraisal of the class essence of this movement and exposes the double-dealing policy followed by the leadership of the Peasant Union and other representatives of the ruling classes. The article tells of the German Communist Party's agrarian programme which indicates the only path of saving the peasantry from continued impoverishment and ruination.

K. Y. VINOGRADOV and Y. A. PISAREV. The Main Trends in Austro- Hungary's Foreign Policy

The period between 1900 and 1918 was marked by the irreversible process of disintegration of the multi-national state of Austro-Hungary. In conditions of the further aggravation of imperialist contradictions and Germany's Southwestward drive this led to the appearance in the foreground of world politics of many complicated problems connected with the foreign p'olicy and the very fate of the Hapsburg state and the neighbouring Balkan countries. The outbreak of war between the imperialist powers in 1914, contrary to the expectations of its initiators, increased the centrifugal tendencies in Austro-Hungary. Its international position was becoming increasingly complicated with each passing month. Its dependence on Germany was likewise growing. The war aggravated and deepened the political crisis within the monarchy, and in October-November 1918 the country was swept by a revolution which liquidated the reactionary empire.

S. T. KALTAKHCHIAN. Concerning the Concept of Nation

Despite its limited character typical of any definitions generally, one or another definition of the concept "nation" can prove very useful if it is based on a theoretical generalization resulting from the study of different nations in their concretely manifested forms. The classics of Marxism- L'eninism regarded a nation as a complex unity of ethnic and socio-economic formations, considering the community of capitalist economic relations, territory and language to be the main characteristics of a nation. On the basis of this community there arises man's awareness of belonging to a definite ethnic group, and certain general elements of culture, traditions, character, etc., are formed. At the same time, it is important to bear in mind the dual nature of the national character and culture in the nations of capitalist society.

The article gives a characteristic of the nations of bourgeois society as well as of socialist nations. A socialist nation is defined by the author as a community of people formed as a result of the victory of socialism and having a common language, territory, state system, culture, common economic interests and spiritual make-up combined with an international world outlook, with progressing features of the international community in the economic, cultural,, social and political life.

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