The first ten articles of the Constitution of the USSR establish the social ownership of the means of production as the political and economic basis of the Soviet state. Article Eleven sets forth the second distinguishing feature of the Soviet economy: “The economic life of the USSR is determined by the state national economic plan.“

The extent and efficiency of Soviet planning is a subject of absorbing interest to students of the Soviet economy. Interest is heightened by the effusive writings of Soviet economists, which depict the plan as an all-embracing, tightly knit system of relationships and controls which leaves little or no room for errors or misallocation of resources. The plan reaches down to the most minute elements of the economy.

Near the end of 1925, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was rocked at its foundations by one of the most intense and profound ideological controversies in its history. The ruling “Troika“ of Zinov'ev, Kamenev and Stalin was torn asunder over a series of crucial problems which largely turned on the question of “socialism in one country,” formulated by Stalin in the latter part of 1924. To its opponents, the theory smacked of “national narrowness” and a fatal revision of Marxist orthodoxy.

It was G. E. Zinov'ev, gifted agitator, long-time friend of Lenin, and member of the powerful Politburo of the Party, who assumed the initiative in attacking Stalin's theory and splitting the Party wide open. Having organized the “New Opposition” in October, 1925, he officially opened the attack at the Fourteenth Party Congress in December.

A central fact of modern living is the knowledge that in the sphere of social relations and institutions “natural law” does not control and “natural rights” do not exist. Man's culture is what he makes it, and rights are the product of social action. Planned change on a culture-wide scale lies ready to our hand. If the course of institutional change is uneven and, in the main, slow, this is not due to the fact that present institutional forms are either functionally adequate or founded on “higher” laws, or that human beings are “naturally” averse to change.

Actually, human behavior is vastly malleable; but at the same time man also exhibits huge patience in wearing inherited institutional hair shirts.

The Russo-Japanese War, which had begun in February, 1904, as a result of friction between these two countries in Manchuria and northern Korea, was one long military disaster for the Russian army. The Japanese army moved from victory to victory, proving its superiority in the battles of Liao-Yang and Sha-ho in August and October, 1904, the fall of Port Arthur in January, 1905, and the battle of Mukden in February and March. On May 27, the Japanese navy proved itself by virtually destroying the Russian fleet in the battle of Tsushima.

In spite of what seemed to be great good fortune, however, all was not well with the Japanese.

Most present-day American readers of Leo Tolstoy, though profoundly impressed by his works of fiction, are likely to ignore his religious and social treatises. They forget that Tolstoy's social ideas contributed to the stream of serious thought in the United States and impressed deeply such moulders of public opinion as Edward Everett Hale, Ernest Crosby, Brand Whitlock, and Clarence Darrow. The most eminent American admirer of Tolstoy was the novelist and essayist, William Dean Howells. Several writers have mentioned the intellectual bond between these two men. However, the profound impact and the lastingly detailed influence of Tolstoy's ideas on the thought of Howells have been seriously underestimated.

In April, 1944, a mutiny broke out in the land, sea and air forces of the Greek government-in-exile in the Middle East. This mutiny, although speedily suppressed, had far-reaching political repercussions. It forced the resignation of the Tsouderos cabinet and paved the way for the Lebanon Conference, out of which emerged a national unity government including representatives of the principal political parties and resistance groups. It was this government, headed by Premier George Papandreou, that returned to Athens in October, 1944, on the heels of the retreating German's.

Little was known about the mutiny at the time of its occurrence. Censorship restrictions forbade mention of the mutiny for a week after the outbreak, when for the first time a Tass dispatch revealed its existence.