In Russia the exit of an autocrat, whether voluntary or involuntary,is traditionally a signal for a popular sentiment that “it is time for a change” in other ways, too—a change for the better, of course. And sometimes such hopes have been at least partially realized, as when a hundred years ago the accession to the throne of Alexander II (1855-81), in the midst of the disastrous Crimean War, eventually brought about such important liberal reforms, despite all their shortcomings, as the eagerly awaited emancipation of the peasantry from the hateful serfdom, the judicial and other reforms. More often, however, such popular aspirations have proved to be what the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II (1894-1917), called “senseless dreams” when at the beginning of his reign he scoffed at modest suggestions for establishing a representative government. Yet, despite many disappointments, the tradition that a basic change accompanies a new regime has persisted.

For a number of years the dynamics of money wages in the Soviet Union have caused controversy among Western students of the economic and social development of the Soviet Union. The divergences among the authors who have dealt with this problem are very considerable, and thus far it has been impossible to reconcile them. The differences in the estimates of the level of money wages in the Soviet Union in recent years are caused primarily by disagreement on two questions. These are: first, the question of the average level of earnings of workers and employees in the first half of 1946, after the transition of the entire national economy to the eight-hour work day (instead of the ten- and eleven-hour work days of the wartime period); and second, the question of whether the average level of earnings of workers and employees continued to rise after 1948, when the Soviet Government adopted the policy of systematic price reductions.

Upon the outbreak of World War I in August, 1914, the Russian Imperial Government rightly suspected that for reasons both of geography and of political climate, the Grand Duchy of Finland posed a great danger on its northern flank. This was hardly surprising. Since 1899, that Government had done all it could to destroy die effective autonomy which Finland had enjoyed within the Russian Empire during the nineteenth century.

“Russification” of Finland took place in two stages. General Nikolai A. Bobrikov, Governor-General from 1898 to 1904, reduced the Finnish Diet to a consultative assembly, suppressed newspapers, and introduced the Russian language into the Finnish Senate and civil service. In 1901, he dissolved the Finnish army, which had existed since 1877, and sought unsuccessfully to conscript Finns into the Russian army. To be sure, after Bobrikov's assassination and the Russian revolution of 1905, Tsar Nicholas II agreed to exempt Finns from Russian army service, and, in 1906, permitted the modernization of the Diet and the introduction of universal suffrage.

The transition in economic doctrine from the Age of Mercantilism to that of the physiocrats has had strong appeal for economic historians. The views of such writers as Melon, Boisguillebert, Locke, Pufendorf, and others on the wealth and power of the state have been carefully studied in terms of principles identified with mercantilism, kameralism, and “physiocracy.” That the transition in the economic outlook of Europe between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was “revolutionary” in nature and not limited to Western Europe alone has been widely recognized, but the remarkable parallelism that existed in the outlook of economic theorists of Eastern and Western Europe has not been so well understood. An example of this has been the ambiguity that persists in evaluating the economic views of the Russian reformer, Ivan Pososhkov.

If Old Russian literature had a typical hero, he was a superman. Whatever the field of his activity, he was able to surmount all obstacles with ease. Either he was described as predestined to success, or as so strong that his success was inevitable. This was as true of religious ascetics and martyrs, whose death was only a sign of their final triumph, as it was of princes or military leaders.

Examples of literary heroes who were not so victorious are rare, almost nonexistent until the seventeenth century. One thinks, however, of the hero of the Igor Tale (Slovo o polku Igoreve), or of the heroes of the chronicle tales which depict Russian resistance to the Tartar invaders. But, though defeated, these historical figures are still characterized as heroes in the grand style, unusual men whose tragic fate is in strange contrast to their superior strength.

The 1952 centenary of Nikolai Gogol's death was an occasion widely observed throughout the Soviet Union. Statues of the writer were erected in various cities, new productions of his plays were staged, and even a number of films made their appearance. More important, perhaps, was the publication of a great many biographical and critical studies of Gogol, together with over seven million copies of the author's own works. When this figure is compared with the roughly eighteen million copies published during the entire period since the 1917 Revolution, it provides a good quantitative indication of the importance now attached to Gogol by Soviet critics.