V. G. TRUKHANOVSKY. The Truth About the Year 1939: New Factual Data

Drawing oil a collection of documents and materials published by the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the title "The Soviet Union in the Struggle for Peace on the Eve of the Second World War (September 1938-August 1339)," the author of the article under review sheds light on the diplomatic pre-history of Hie war and exposes the policy of encouraging fascist aggression which was pursued by the ruling element of Britain and France in the hope of turning Hitler Eastward, against the Soviet Union. The article traces the main directions followed by bourgeois historiography in falsnying the history of international relations in the period directly preceding the war. The author also makes an objective assessment of the scientific, political and ideological value and topicality of the documents and materials brought together in the collection, riveting attention on those of them which appear for the first time.

E. I. BUGAYEV. An Important Turning Point

The article examines the major decisions of the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) held in March 1921, when the young Soviet Republic, having emerged victorious from the war against the combined forces of foreign armed intervention and internal counter-revolution, was able to concentrate its efforts on peaceful socialist construction.

The article graphically shows that the Congress' attention was focussed on two problems of major international significance: first, the interrelations between the working class exercising revolutionary dictatorship and the non-proletarian sections of working people (primarily the peasantry), ways and means of drawing these sections into the process of socialist construction, the basic methods employed by the state in exercising leadership of this construction; second, the Party's unity. The author makes a point of stressing that the problem of enhancing the unity of the Party, of ensuring its continuous ideological and organizational cohesion is an indispensable for the successful activity of the working class directed towards the revolutionary transformation of society.

I. A. FEDOSOV. The Social Essence and Evolution of Russian Absolutism

The article analyzes the prerequisites of Russian absolutism, its genesis and the principal stages in its evolution. The author's attention is focussed on the alignment of the class forces at every stage in the history of absolutism. Taking Russian absolutism as an example, the article poses the general theoretical problem concerning the essence of the "equilibrium" of forces between the nobility and the bourgeoisie as a requisite for the emergence of absolutism, the nature and limits of its relative independence. The article also traces the principal stages and chronological boundaries of Russian absolutism.

A. S. ANIKIN. North American Imperialism's Expansion in Chile During the Cold War Period

The author traces the history of Chile's relations with the United States of America from 1946 to 1957. The article examines the development of American imperialism's expansion in Chile, the pro-imperialist policies of the Chilean bourgeoisie and the Videla and Ibanez governments, the economic and political consequences of the country's subjection to American dictation, as well as the rise of the national- liberation movement in the country which culminated in 1956 in the establishment of the Popular Action Front - a political bloc of the Left forces whose programme provides for deep-going socio-economic and democratic transformations.

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N. I. GOLUBTSOVA. The Conception of Culture in Ancient Times

The article traces the first attempts of ancient thinkers to grasp the meaning of culture and to define its role in the life of society. Particular attention is devoted by the author to democratic tendencies in ancient culture which are deeply rooted in the conception of material labour as the basic source of all values accumulated by human society over the centuries.

A. N. KRASILNIKOV. Britain's Attitude Towards European Security in the Postwar Years

In the period of the second world war and after its termination Britain, acting in conjunction with the other members of the anti-Hitler coalition, committed herself to a policy of joint action in deciding, the problems of Europe on the basis of democratic principles in the interests of achieving durable and just peace. But the ruling circles of Britain went back on these commitments and adopted a cold war policy based on "positions of strength"- and precluding the establishment of a system of collective security in Europe. Since the 1955 Four-Power top-level conference in Geneva, the author writes, British diplomacy underwent a definite evolution in this respect. Whereas prior to the mid-1950's the. British" ruling element put its stakes on the forcible integration of the German Democratic Republic into the West-German state, in the subsequent period it was compelled to recognize the frontiers existing between the two German states. The article also analyzes the stand on the European collective security issue taken by the Conservative Heath-Home government since its advent to power in June 1970.

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