The most outstanding statesman during the reign of Nicholas II of Russia was Peter Arkad'evič Stolypin, prime minister from 1906 to 1911. It is generally recognized that Stolypin, like his revolutionary opponents including Lenin, took serious account of the course of the Revolution of 1905, and especially of the fact that the peasantry had stood aside from the struggle in the cities, coming to the aid of neither the revolutionaries nor the Government, and conducting their own rural struggle more or less independently. It was, therefore, the objective of both Government and revolutionaries during the period from 1906 to 1917 to win the political support of the peasants, whom both had assumed to be on their side.

Stolypin described his agrarian policy, which he regarded as fundamental to all of his objectives, as “a wager, not on the wretched and drunken, but on the sound and strong.”

The nature of tsarist policies toward the Moslem population of the Russian empire has long remained a particularly neglected aspect of Russian history. While Russian expansion in Asia has attracted the interest of many scholars, the subsequent development of the Eastern provinces and the Russian Government's attitude toward the conquered national groups have been little examined by both Russian and Western historians. In the present study an investigation is made of pre-Revolutionary Russia's cultural policies in Central Asia and of the Kulturkampf which arose in the early twentieth century between imperial authorities, conservative groups of the Moslem population, and progressive young native elements.

Russian conquest of Central Asia was achieved in a relatively short period of time with but a small number of troops. In 1864, encirclement of the Kazakh frontier was completed when in Čikment the Siberian, or eastern, military line joined its western counterpart, the Orenburg line, preparing the way for Russia's further push toward the south.

One of the fundamental demands of the nationality policy of the Soviet Government in its early years was the participation of native populations in the political structure of their respective administrative areas. This principle was particularly emphasized in areas such as Kazakhstan, where Russians had manned the governmental structure before the revolution of 1917. The present paper attempts through statistical evidence to describe the extent to which this was achieved in the first decade of existence of the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, then a part of the R.S.F.S.R. The agencies of government so examined are the soviet system, the administrative apparatus, and the Party.

In the eighties and early nineties of the last century Vladimir Solovëv, the Russian philosopher and religious thinker, was engaged in an extensive journalistic polemic against nationalism in general and Slavophilism in particular. One of his main targets was the philosophy of history of Nicholas Danilevskij, the Panslavist theoretician. In the light of the doctrines of world Christian unity enunciated by Solovëv, his strong reaction to Danilevskij's denial of the possibility of an ultimate world historical synthesis and to his espousal of a kind of cyclical interpretation of history is entirely understandable.

Solovëv addressed himself especially to Danilevskij's division of history into mutually independent civilizations or “cultural-historical types.” In particular, he criticized Danilevskij's claim that Slavdom constituted a cultural-historical type separate from “Europe.”

The Problem of land tenure has long been of topmost significance throughout the rural areas of Eastern and South Central Europe. From serfdom to very recent times the land ownership pattern was characterized by large estates intermingled with small peasant holdings. Land reforms were begun but thirty-five years ago under the stress of economic and political considerations. In most areas they had resulted in the concentration of the agricultural population on small low income farms.

Since the end of the last war the process of Sovietization has brought a reversal of the trend with the introduction of the collective farm. Yet, even with the vigorous support of the Russian masters this policy has been hard to carry through.

Sharp conflict between Church and State has characterized the post-war years in Poland. Unlike the Orthodox Church in the USSR, the Roman Catholic Church in Poland has received no favors from the State, such as those acknowledged by Sergius, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. There has been no recognition by the State that the Church can be tolerated in Poland as it has come to be tolerated in the USSR. The attitude of the State toward the Polish Church has been quite different. It has been one of violent hostility.

The reason for this attitude of hostility can be found primarily in the fact that the Marxist State and the Roman Catholic Church represent two opposing ideologies and that neither of them is likely to give way when matters of principle are involved.

Literary mystification is not a new phenomenon. The very use of a pseudonym is, to a certain degree, equivalent to perpetrating a literary hoax. But if an invented biography is added to an imaginary name, a mythical person is created with a life of his own and with a style associated with it. Often, but not necessarily, this style and consequently the whole character of the newly created mythical author acquires a more or less pronounced touch of parody. The preromantic and romantic periods saw a particularly large number of such mystifications.

What do Soviet citizens think of the literary fare offered to them? The answer to this question may be guessed in part from accounts in the Soviet press. It is sometimes indicated that modern Soviet dramas have been largely unattended, while spectators have besieged theaters offering revivals of old favorites. Such indications from the official press are, however, no more than clues to the truth. Other hints are the annual lists of titles selected for publication together with the number of copies printed of each title. The real test, to be found in the freely expressed opinions of Soviet citizens, could not be made by outsiders. Now, at last, some suggestion of what such a test would indicate has been brought forward. It is to be found in the 329 interviews and 2718 questionnaires of Harvard University's Russian Research Center.