G. A. TRUKAN. The Role Played by the Working Class in Establishing Organs of State Power in the U.S.S.R.

The article highlights the role played by the working class in building the Soviet state in 1917 - 1918, examines the activity carried on by diverse labour organizations in training the masses in the art of administering state affairs, describes the workers' participation in establishing the highest organs of Soviet power and industrial management bodies, in organizing the defence of the country's socialist gains, and graphically illustrates the efforts to ensure the victory of the new state system in the shape of the Republic of Soviets. The experience of establishing and consolidating the Soviet state, the author writes in conclusion, amply demonstrates that the revolutionary enthusiasm and creative activity of the masses led by the working class and its vanguard-the Communist Party-is the main source of the strength and stability of the Soviet system. The activity of the working class in forming the world's first state of workers and peasants was an important factor in rallying the country's toiling millions round the working class. This made it possible to establish a state machine based on the dictatorship of the proletariat and capable of effecting truly epoch-making social transformations.

V. T. YERMAKOV. Soviet Culture as a Subject of Historical Research

Soviet historians have now come to the conclusion that the narrow "branch" approach to illustrating the history of Soviet culture, that is, reducing this history to the sum total of isolated, unconnected essays on the development of public education, the higher school, science, literature, the arts, etc., essentially lacking the necessary inner unity, is a method that has long outlived itself. The urgent task facing Soviet historians today is to present Soviet culture as a separate subject of historical research. The most effective way of achieving this object, the author believes, is to formulate the basic problems facing historians in elaborating the history of Soviet culture-problems that could be determined by the content of the very process of the emergence, consolidation and development of Soviet culture as the culture of the new, socialist type. The author makes an attempt at roughly outlining the basic problems of research to be tackled by historians specializing in the history of Soviet culture.

S. B. OKUN. The 1801 Palace Coup in Pre-revolutionary Literature

The assassination of Tsar Paul I was anything but an ordinary palace coup. On the one hand, it characterized the attitude of the ruling elite to Paul I while, on the "other, it was the result of intrigues in the domain of foreign 'policy. For a long time any mention of the coup engineered on March 11, 1801, was studiously avoided in pre-revolutionary Russian literature. In the subsequent period it was presented in a grossly distorted light and given a patently subjective interpretation. This article by the late Soviet historian S. B. Okun closely examines how this question was treated in pre-revolutionary Russian historiography.

A. L. NIKITIN. The 1792 Edition of the "Russkaya Pravda"

A patently erroneous view of the methods of work and the principles of publishing documents by such outstanding Russian historians of the close of the 18th century as I. N. Boltin and A. I. Musin-Pushkin has long persisted in Russian historiography. The article traces the causes that gave rise to such a viewpoint and makes an analysis of the "Russkaya Pravda" published by I. N. Boltin in 1792. A close analysis of this edition enables the author to draw the following conclusions: 1) the 1792 edition of the "Russkaya Pravda" characterizes I. N. Boltin as an exceedingly conscientious and attentive archeographer; 2) this edition represents an authentic reproduction of the hitherto unknown manuscript copy of the 14th-century "Russkaya Pravda" forming part of the "Karamzinski" group of copies but distinguished by some specific features introduced by the editors; 3) to produce his edition I. N. Boltin drew extensively on another five manuscript copies of the Obolensky-Karamzinski and Muzeiski types, which likewise remained unknown to us, though it is interesting to note that one of them served as a direct protograph of the second Muzeiski copy in its final variant.

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S. SERGEYEV. Certain Peculiarities Attending the Development of Zionism in the U.S.A.

The article is devoted to an analysis of the basic peculiarities attending the development of American Zionism as the ideology and practice of the big Jewish bourgeoisie in the U.S.A. The author's attention is focussed on the close interconnection existing between the main tasks and objectives of Zionism and the interests of America's ruling class as a whole, which he regards as one of the principal factors determining the specific features of the development of Zionism in the U.S.A. The article highlights the multi-various forms and methods of Zionism's activity on the U.S. political scene and gives a careful appraisal of the possibilities enjoyed by the Zionist movement to exert its influence on America's home and foreign policies. The author also examines the question concerning the role of America's Zionist movement in the over-all system of international Zionism.

O. BORISOV, M. ILYIN. The Maoist "Cultural Revolution"

The article is based on concrete facts demonstrating the sum and substance of the events associated with the so-called cultural revolution in China and the main causes that gave rise to this "revolution," as well as the character of the evolution underwent by Maoism during the past few years. The authors graphically illustrate the utter groundlessness and futility of the attempts made by Mao Tse-tung and his group in conjunction with bourgeois and revisionist theoreticians and scientists to rehabilitate Maoism and to justify the policy pursued by Mao Tse-tung and his followers, clearly showing that the "cultural revolution" was the result of an acute economic, political and ideological crisis of Maoism. The article traces the main springs of the socio- political development of the People's Republic of China over the past decade, which precipitated the sharp crisis and determined the spasmodic, leap-like character of this development. The authors analyze the materials of the Ninth and Tenth Congresses of the Chinese Communist Party, characterize the complex internal clan struggle going on within the Maoist top leadership, tracing the evolution of the Mao group from "pseudo-Leftist" slogans to downright betrayal of the interests of world socialism, to seeking an alliance with the most reactionary and aggressive imperialist circles on the basis of rabid anti-socialism and anti-Sovietism. Having objectively aligned itself with the ultra-reactionary anti-communist forces, with the Right and "Left" revisionism, the article says, Maoism has virtually become one of the most dangerous ideological and political enemies of the international communist movement, of scientific socialism.

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