V. V. IVANOV. Lenin on the Correlation of History and Contemporaneity

The correlation of history and contemporaneity is one of the most important problems in the methodology of social cognition. When analyzing the specific content of the problem, it is necessary, in the author's opinion, to single out the following of its closely interconnected aspects: 1) the question concerning the correlation of the past, present and future in the process of social development and the peculiarities attending the cognition of each of these links of the process; 2) the principles of utilizing historical experience and the lessons of history in everyday social practice; 3) historiography and politics; 4) the objective character of historical truth; 5) the peculiar nature of the sources used in investigating history and contemporaneity. The article graphically shows the theoretical and historiographical significance of V. I. Lenin's works (up to 1917) for a scientific interpretation of these problems. The article stresses that in contradistinction to contemporary bourgeois historical science, from the viewpoint of Marxist-Leninist methodology the cognition of contemporaneity, despite the specific character of the object under investigation (notably its non-completeness), by its very nature can and must form an objective idea, based on historical facts, of the character and laws governing the process of social development.

M. P. IROSHNIKOV. V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin), Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars

Drawirrgon muKivarious archive sources and publications, the author highlights V. I. Lenin's activity in the sphere of administering state affairs. Lenin was the first leader of the proletariat to perform the historic mission of successfully exercising practical leadership of the process of laying the groundwork of the Soviet social and political system in the incredibly difficult conditions attending the process of socialist construction in one country surrounded on all sides by hostile capitalist states. The article examines only a few of the vast and extremely diversified range of cardinal socio-economic problems to the theoretical elaboration and practical solution of which the political activity of the founder of the Soviet state was chiefly directed; but the problems singled out by the author are of paramount importance, for they have a direct bearing on the establishment and consolidation of Soviet socialist statehood; they enable the author to characterize the principal forms and methods of work employed by the Leninist Council of People's Commissars- Russia's first Soviet government of a fundamentally new type as regards its social nature and functions, the principles and style of leadership characteristic of V. I. Lenin as a statesman of the new, proletarian type.

A. O. GHUBARYAN. Tracing the Sources of Lenin's Foreign Policy

The author highlights the role played by Lenin in formulating the underlying principles of Soviet foreign policy and brings out the significance of Lenin's works devoted to this problem, primarily the Decree on Peace, Theses on the question of peace and a series of articles.

The author carefully examines the development of. Lenin's views on the foreign policy of a socialist state. Drawing on concrete factual material, the article shows the stand taken by Lenin on such important problems as the correlation of national and international tasks of Soviet power, the revolutionary events in Russia and their close connec-

tion with the development of the world revolutionary process, the problems of peaceful coexistence. The article graphically illustrates the titanic work carried out by Lenin in 1917 - 1918 in theoretically developing and substantiating the major aspects and principles of Soviet foreign policy.

G. V. SHARAPOV. Lenin's Plan for the Socialist Transformation of Agriculture

The author examines the elaboration by Lenin of the basic problems involved in the peasants' transition to large-scale socialist farming. The author graphically shows the efforts made by Lenin long before the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution to evolve a Marxist theory of the agrarian question, thereby laying the groundwork for his famous Cooperative Plan which was conclusively formulated in the last years of his life. The sum and substance of Lenin's Cooperative Plan consisted in securing, in conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the enlistment of the peasantry in the process of socialist construction through cooperation-first in the sphere of marketing and then in the sphere of production - by switching over from small and scattered individual farm-holds to large-scale production associations in the shape of collective farms. The article emphasizes that the reorganization of agriculture along socialist lines is an historical necessity and a cardinal economic requirement dictated by the need to develop, the productive forces of society.

V. I. KUZMIN. Lenin's Ideas of NEP and Their Practical Realization in the U.S.S.R.

Analyzing some of the insufficiently investigated or controversial problems pertaining to the history of NEP in the U.S.S.R., the author exposes the attempts of bourgeois authors to counterpose Lenin's ideas of NEP to Marxist theory and to the Party's previous policy, as well as to the practical work of building socialism in the period of economic reconstruction.

Comparing NEP with the policy outlined by Lenin in the spring of 1918 and touching on the question of state capitalism, the author reveals the continuity existing in the Party's policy, the creative solution by Lenin of the question of utilizing commodKy-money relations in the specific condition of socialist construction. The article convincingly shows that NEP as a policy aimed at ensuring the triumph of socialism represents only one aspect of the Party's economic policy in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. The author reviews the different stages of the New Economic Policy, highlighting the regroupment of forces and showing how with the successful progress of socialist construction NEP was being gradually ousted by the economic policy of victorious socialism. In conclusion the author examines the last stage of NEP.

N. I. KUZNETSOV. Lenin and the Establishment of the Central Committee of the RSDLP

Drawing on archive and published documents as well as on the minutes of the Second and Third Party Congresses, and on legal and underground periodical publications appearing in the period of the rise and on the eve of the first Russian revolution, the author makes an attempt to illustrate V. I. Lenin's efforts to organize and direct the activities of the first permanently functioning Central Committee of the RSDLP elected at the Second Party Congress.

S. L. TITARENKO. How Lenin's "Iskra" Fought Russian and International Opportunism

The article is devoted to the 70th anniversary of the all-Russian Social-Democratic newspaper "Iskra" which played a conspicuous part in founding the new-type proletarian party in Russia. The author discloses the vast significance of the struggle waged by the "Iskra" under Lenin's leadership against Bernsteinianism and its Russian variety in the shape of "Economism" which presented a grave danger for the destinies of revolutionary Social-Democracy and for the working-class movement generally. The article shows the decisive role played by Lenin in defending the theoretical foundations of Marxism, Marxist policies and tactics against the revisionist distortions and brings out the social and political causes responsible for the rise of opportunism in West-European and Russian Social-Democracy at the close of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. The author stresses the significance of the trenchant criticism levelled by Lenin against bourgeois liberalism and petty-bourgeois revolutionism, with which "economic" opportunism had many features in common. The article also criticizes a number of works by contemporary bourgeois authors, which falsify the history of Lenin's newspaper "Iskra" and seek to belittle its role in the struggle carried on by Russian Marxists for the establishment of a genuinely revolutionary proletarian party.

R. A. ULYANOVSKY. Lenin's Conception of the Non-Capitalist Path of Development and the Contemporary Period

The author examines the concept of non-capitalist path of development and characterizes the "Left" and Right-wing critics of this conception. While the former deny the possibility of an initial general democratic stage of the movement to socialism under the leadership of the anti- imperialist national-democratic forces and declare that this movement is exclusively bourgeois in character, the latter identify the progressive reforms being effected in Afro-Asian countries with socialism, with the adoption of Marxism-Leninism. The author stresses that these two approaches to non-capitalist development are rejected by the international Gommunist movement which proceeds in this question from Lenin's theoretical propositions concerning the peculiar forms of revolutionary development towards socialism in the Eastern countries.

Thanks to the decisive role played by the socialist world system, the contemporary epoch has created extremely favourable conditions for the revolutionary process in all parts of the world. The generous and disinterested assistance rendered by the socialist system opens up truly unlimited opportunities before the countries comprising the Third World. The transitional stage of non-capitalist development is a period required by the working people, primarily the working class of Afro-Asian countries, to prepare for the moment when the tasks of the socialist stage of revolution are placed on the order of the day.

Y. G. TEMKIN. Lenin's Efforts to Unite the Revolutionary Forces of the Proletariat in the Years of World War I

The article highlights the outstanding role of V. I. Lenin in the struggle for proletarian internationalism in the most difficult years for the world-wide working-class movement. After August 4, 1914, when most of the leaders of the Second International betrayed their socialist cause and became servitors of the imperialist bourgeoisie which plunged mankind into a global military catastrophe, V. I.Lenin raised his voice in defence of Marxist principles trampled by the opportunists. The article shows how Lenin and the Bolsheviks consistently exposed social- chauvinism and Centrism, how step by step they rallied the Socialists who remained loyal to internationalism in the struggle for a revolutionary withdrawal from the war. The author closely examines the Bolsheviks' tactics and exposes the fabrications of the critics of Leninism intended to present these tactics in the wrong light. At the same time the author shows what new sources are used by Soviet historical science for a deeper study of this subject.

A. M. SAKHAROV. V. I. Lenin's Work on Russian History Sources

The article shows how V. I. Lenin, undeviatingly guiding himself by the Marxist teaching fundamentally reassessed the factual material furnished by special historical literature, thus laying the groundwork for the new, historico-materialist conception ol the history of feudal Russia in the light of the teaching on the socio-economic formations. Lenin was the first to substantiate, on the basis of extensive material provided by historical sources, the thesis that feudalism constituted a definite socio-economic formation in Russian history. Resolutely rejecting the idealist conceptions of bourgeois historiography, V. I. Lenin already in the 1890's gave a splendid example of the Marxist approach to this historiography and of a thorough study of concrete historical material. Lenin's works in the sphere of Russian history were inseparably linked with the elaboration of a programme of revolutionary struggle by Russian Social- Democracy on the basis of applying Marxian theory in the concrete conditions obtaining in Russia.

V. V. MAVRODIN. Feudal Russia in V. I. Lenin's Works

For V. I. Lenin the question of feudalism in Russia was not only of scientific value but also of great political significance. The fact that the Russian peasantry, which suffered from the persisting survivals of feudalism, became the chief ally of the proletariat in the revolutionary struggle following the abolition of serfdom in Russia, was determined by the country's historical development. That is why V. I. Lenin attached much importance to studying the peasantry in Russia from the period of the "Russkaya Pravda" to the very eve of the 1861 reform. Lenin characterized serfdom as a social system, feudal ownership, diverse forms of exploitation of the peasants, non-economic compulsion and enslavement, analyzed periodization of the history of feudal Russia, defined the class essence and evolution of the autocracy in the 17th - 18th centuries, thoroughly examined large-scale industrial production and its social nature, stressed the emergence of bourgeois elements

in feudal Russia. Particular significance was attached by Lenin to the class struggle of the peasantry. He noted the basic aims, forms and diverse peculiarities of this struggle. The revolutionary movement in Russia originated in the epoch of serfdom (Radishchev, the Decembrists). It was precisely the class struggle, Lenin emphasized, that stimulated the country's progressive development and decided the fate of the reforms in the era of feudalism.

B. SHIRENDYB. Lenin and Mongolia

The birth of People's Mongolia, the author stresses in his article, is intimately associated with the Great October Socialist Revolution, with the name of Lenin. Soviet Russia helped the Mongolian people to win political independence and freedom and embark on the democratic path of development. The all-round assistance rendered by the Soviet Union was the decisive factor in strengthening the state independence of the Mongolian People's Republic, in carrying out far- reaching socio-economic and cultural transformations, in ensuring the country's transition from feudalism to socialism.

Mongolia's historical experience convincingly shows that any backward country, relying on the assistance of a developed socialist state, can make a rapid advance in its economic and social development and on this basis effect the transition from feudalism to the building of socialism without having to pass through the capitalist stage of development.

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