The penetration of sociological methods into history, and historical methods into sociology, has been going on for a long time. But it has become particularly intense in recent decades. This can be confirmed, in particular, by the XIII International Congress of Historical Sciences, which was held in Moscow in August 1970. It is no coincidence that the first major topic with experiments discussed at the forum was related to methodology, with special attention being paid to two issues: "The historian and social Sciences" and "The figure as an element of the historian's information" 1 .

In recent years, some bourgeois scholars have been eager to advocate a rapprochement between history and sociology, and the de facto elimination of the boundary between these disciplines. This kind of statement provokes a vigorous protest from another part of historians and sociologists in the West. Disagreements in this area are closely related to disputes between anti-determinists and determinists. Without being able to present the arguments of the parties here, we will only emphasize that both of these trends oppose historical materialism and try to refute its main propositions in one way or another. At the same time, the proponents of anti-determinism, completely denying the existence of laws in history, proceed from the belief that every fact, every event of the past is absolutely random in origin and completely unique in its historical essence. As for the determinists among modern bourgeois historians, they recognize certain laws of social development, but interpret them in a positivist way.

What were the final conclusions reached by the speakers at the congress when discussing the relationship between sociology and history? T. Shider, for example, stated that "history should not give up the role of an independent science", that it "has no reason to resign and continue to exist only as an auxiliary science for sociology". At the same time, he stressed that "historical science and social sciences do not oppose, but complement each other."2 A similar position was taken by T. Papadopoulos, who-

1 The following reports were devoted to these issues: "The difference between the historical method and the method of social sciences" (T. Schieder, Germany); "The method of social sciences in historical research" (T. Papadopoulos, Cyprus); "History, social sciences and the application of mathematics" (J. Hexter, USA); "History and social Sciences in historical Research" (T. Papadopoulos, Cyprus). humanities" (A. Dubuque, Canada); "Quantitative and machine methods of processing historical information" (a group of Soviet scientists led by I. D. Kovalchenko); " Use of mass historical information. The experience of studying Swedish folk movements " (K. G. Andre, S. Lundqvist, Sweden).

2 T. Shider. The difference between the historical method and the method of social sciences, Moscow, 1970, pp. 1, 22.

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roi suggested that sociology and history should be considered as independent disciplines. Defining the limits of the application of social science methods in history, he emphasized that these methods "create the basis for explaining phenomena by history to the extent that it (explanation) covers the deterministic content of history." T. Papadopoulos highly appreciates the quantitative method, seeing in it "what connects history with the social sciences." "The statistical method," says his report, "makes it possible to transform mathematical connections into important archaeological and historical connections." 3
As for quantitative and machine-based methods of processing historical information, they received quite detailed coverage in the collective report of Soviet scientists. It provides examples of the use of quantitative methods (partly using electronic computers) in socio-economic history, demography, archeology, toponymy, epigraphy, etc. The report noted that the results of the work of Soviet and foreign historians " show the expediency and effectiveness of applying quantitative and machine methods of processing and analyzing specific historical data in historical research." At the same time, the speakers warn against fetishizing the quantitative side of historical processes, stating that "it is possible to correctly define the tasks of quantitative analysis and correctly interpret its results only on the basis of a preliminary qualitative analysis of the studied processes." The general conclusion of the authors of the report is that "quantitative analysis is not an end, but only a means of cognition, one of its methods" 4 .

A wide range of issues related to the definition of the relationship between history and sociology was repeatedly addressed in special works and before the congress. A number of articles on these topics were published in periodicals, especially Voprosy Filosofii and Voprosy Istorii.

I. D. Kovalchenko's work on the application of mathematical and statistical methods in history, which appeared in 1969, is of considerable interest. He writes that the appeal to these methods of historians "is entirely dictated by the needs of historical science itself, and is not a tribute to fashion, as is sometimes mistakenly believed." Justifying this position, the author continues: "Concerns... excessive formalization and simplification of the historical process, while the methods of higher mathematics are widely used in historical research, are groundless. The degree of this formalization is determined not by the complexity of these methods in themselves, but by the transformation of quantitative analysis into an end in itself..."Therefore, a historian," writes I. D. Kovalchenko, "should not only proceed from the fact that quantitative analysis is only a means, and not the goal of research, but also be able to identify for analysis precisely those quantitative indicators that most reflect the qualitative specifics of the phenomenon." 5
There are also some other works on this problem6 . The question of the relationship between quantitative and qualitative analysis

3 T. Papadopoulos. The method of social sciences in historical research, Moscow, 1970, pp. 17, 20, 24.

4 D. V. Deopik, G. M. Dobrov, Yu. Y. Kakhk, I. D. Kovalchenko (supervisor), Kh. E. Palli, V. A. Ustinov. Quantitative and machine methods for processing historical information, Moscow, 1969, p. 13.

5 I. D. Kovalchenko. On the application of mathematical and statistical methods in historical research. "Source studies. Teoreticheskie i metodologicheskie problemy [Theoretical and methodological Problems]. Moscow, 1969, p. 118.

6 V. A. Ustinov. Primenenie vychislitel'nykh mashin v istoricheskoy nauke [Application of computing machines in historical science]. Statistical interpretation of fact and the role of statistical methods in building empirical knowledge. "Problems of logic of scientific knowledge", Moscow, 1964; Moshkov Yu. A., Cybernetics and methods of historical research. "History of the USSR", 1965, N 6.

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social processes were considered by O. O. Yakhot. He rightly pointed out that by accepting only quantitative analysis and rejecting qualitative analysis of the development of society, neo-positivism condemns research to superficiality or leads to a distortion of the essence of the phenomena under consideration. "A worldview, dialectical-materialistic approach," says his article, " is an indispensable condition for revealing the essence of social processes... Quantitative methods can be used to understand the essence of social phenomena only if these methods are based on a comprehensive qualitative analysis, which is the most essential aspect of sociological research. Only the unity of quantitative and qualitative analysis can lead to success. " 7 By giving such definitions, O. O. Yakhot has in mind specific social studies that address the problems of modern society. There is no doubt that these definitions are also quite valid for social relations that have already passed into the past, and that they should also be taken into account in historical and sociological studies.

The interest of Soviet historians in the use of socio-statistical methods was shown in a recent presentation by a group of researchers on the pages of the journal "History of the USSR" 8 . They conclude that " the future of historical science largely depends on the development of specific socio-historical research and the use of modern technology." It seems, however, that in coming to this absolutely correct conclusion, the authors show an unjustified tendency to limit the use of sociological methods only to the history of the last few decades, and try to convince the reader that "the object of social research is... the period of modernity", as if the problem of possible socio-historical research does not go beyond the history of Soviet society 9 . It hardly makes sense to challenge this erroneous trend, especially since most of the examples given in the article relate to the works of Soviet scientists related to the topics of the XVIII and XIX centuries, and the authors of the article do not in any way question their legitimacy .10
The collective monograph on the social composition of Russian manufacturing workers in the first half of the 18th century, published in 1934, can serve as a confirmation of the almost complete analogy between historical and sociological studies based on archival sources and specific sociological works based on new, newly obtained materials .11 This monograph is perhaps the earliest of the major historical and sociological studies carried out by Soviet scientists. It is based on a socio-statistical analysis of the so-called "fairy tales" of working people in Moscow and its environs, as well as Kazan and Yaroslavl, that is, on a source very similar to the current questionnaires of specific sociologists, although intended for completely different purposes. From the "fairy tales" were taken mainly information about the origin of those,

7 Yakhot Island. On the unity of quantitative and qualitative analysis of social processes. "Kommunist", 1970, N 13, pp. 55, 60.

8 V. E. Poletaev, Yu. A. Polyakov, V. A. Ustinov. History, specific social research, cybernetics. "History of the USSR", 1968, N 4.

9 Ibid., pp. 5, 7.

10 It should be noted that the authors of the article in the" History of the USSR " fervently and quite reasonably advocate the unification of the terminology used. The extent to which the terminology has not yet been established can be judged at least by the fact that even the three authors of this article, apparently, could not agree on their views. As a result, they specifically point out that the term "concrete sociological research" is incorrect (p.3), and at the same time use it as quite legitimate (p. 13).

11 "Social composition of workers of the first half of the XVIII century", L. 1934 ("Proceedings" of the Historical and Archaeological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, vol. XI. Serf manufactory in Russia, part IV).

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who they were filled in for, and it turned out that they were the children of peasants, soldiers, townspeople, factory workers, merchants, clergy and lower churchmen, dragoons of various settlements, palace servants, coachmen. The authors ' team analyzed data on 6992 work people of different industries in 1737-1740 in 138 tables and were able to draw important conclusions regarding the composition and sources of replenishment of the studied social group. The validity of these conclusions is indisputable. In any case, individual examples from "fairy tales", even well-chosen and objectively considered, of course, could not give anything like this.

The given example also shows very significant differences in the application of methods of sociological statistics in cases where we are talking about history, and not about modern phenomena. These differences are due to the fact that we cannot create the primary base of historical and sociological research by ourselves according to pre - developed recipes, but must be content with the available material. However, the claims of opponents of the use of socio-statistical methods in history regarding the quality of sources cannot be considered justified: after all, it is still impossible to recreate sources found in archives, and their quality is sometimes no lower than with a specially conceived, but insufficiently prepared or not very carefully performed modern survey. In most cases, the incompleteness of the available information is also not an argument. Calculations and conclusions based on them can often be made by a researcher even if he does not have the entire set of digital data, but only a certain part of it (of course, if this part is large enough and in its origin is not something artificial, created specifically to distort the actual picture). A. G. Aganbegyan and V. N. Shubkin quite reasonably prove the possibility and fruitfulness of applying quantitative methods in sociological research: "Mathematical theory of sampling... it allows you to determine the optimal sample size based on some preliminary data (which is easy to obtain) and the desired degree of reliability of the research results. Modern statistical science has also developed in detail methods for selecting objects of sample research that allow us to fully and differentially represent the general population based on sample data " 12 .

The validity of the selection method is confirmed not only by the theoretical calculations of mathematicians, economists, and philosophers who study the scope of the law of large numbers 13, but also by the entire practice of modern concrete sociological research. Bulgarian researcher Zh. Oshavkov, who specifically studied this issue, spoke about the test experiment he carried out. Having general data on the religiosity of the population in Bulgaria, he conducted a control survey in a number of districts, the overall selection of which carefully took into account the diversity of conditions available in the country. As a result, it turned out that after examining less than one hundredth of the population, he received almost the same results as were achieved with a full survey (deviation of less than one percent).14
Many foreign scientists are now showing great interest in the application of socio-statistical methods in historical science.

12 A. G. Aganbegyan, V. N. Shubkin. Sociological research and quantitative methods. "Quantitative methods and Sociology". Moscow, 1966, p. 27.

13 O. O. Yakhot. The Law of Large Numbers and social statistics. Voprosy filosofii, 1965, No. 12; N. K. Druzhinin. Some philosophical questions of statistics. Voprosy Filosofii, 1966, No. 1.

14 Zh. Oshavkov. On the selective method in sociological research. Voprosy Filosofii, 1967, No. 5.

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including in socialist countries. In the People's Republic of Bulgaria, these methods are used to study the country's recent history. Czechoslovak historians use them quite widely when analyzing the structure of society in the Middle Ages. To summarize the results of work in this area and to study the methodology of historical and statistical research in Czechoslovakia, a scientific discussion was held 15 . Polish special publications in recent years have also repeatedly addressed the issue of the interaction of history and sociology16 . "Kwartalnik historyczny" published, for example, written by Ye. Skowronkom review of sociological research on the history of Polish social thought 17 . Another Polish researcher, E. Topolsky, author of a monograph on the methodology of history, also writes about the tasks and prospects of the socio-statistical method in history. It is characteristic that its most important conclusions are fully consonant with the statements of Soviet scientists cited above .18
A two-volume study by M. Bouvier-Ajahn and J. Muri on social classes in France, and especially an article by A. Soboul published in the journal "New and Modern History" in 1967, gives an idea of the experience gained in this area by French progressive historians .19 Following J. Lefebvre, A. Sobul states that it is not enough for a materialist historian to describe, but rather to calculate. The main area where quantitative analysis can be successfully applied, according to A. Sobul, is the social structure of society, that is, the ratio between estates, classes and other social groups. Statistical analysis of social, religious, or political motivations and fluctuations in public opinion seems to him infinitely more difficult. However, he considers such calculations possible even when it comes to the statistics of class clashes as such, that is, the number of individual disturbances, outrages, demonstrations, etc .20. A. Sobul considers absolutely necessary the statistical processing of available biographical information, in particular about the participants of the liberation movement. An example of such a work, in his opinion, is the Biographical Dictionary of the French Working-Class Movement, whose statistical analysis "allows the multiplicity of biographies to emphasize the social type" 21 .

These considerations indicate the legitimacy and prospects of using sociological methods in historical science in general. These methods are also applicable to the study of the history of the national liberation struggle and the revolutionary movement. About the fact that foreign scientists use sociological statistics in this field

15 See "Historicky casopis", 1967, N 3, str. 483-486.

16 See in particular: S. Bobinska. Historyk, fakt, metoda. Warszawa. 1954; "Historyka". Т. 1. Warszawa. 1967; t. II. Warszawa. "1969; A. Kiosкowska. Socjologia i historia. "Kwartalnik historyczny" (KH), 1964, N 3, str. C61 - 674; ejusd. Z historii i socjologii kultury. Warszawa, 1969; K. Zagursky. Polish literature on sociology 1960-1964 "Questions of Philosophy", 1966,. N "1, pp. 178-182;" Sociological thought in the Polish People's Republic". Collection of articles, Moscow, 1968.

17 J. Skowronek Historia i socjologia. Uwagi nad badaniem mysli spolecznej przelomu XVIII i XIX w. KH, 1967, N 4.

18 J. Topolski. Metodoiogia historii. Warszawa. 1968.

19 A. Sobul. Some questions of statistical study of social history. "New and Recent History", 1967, N 2.

20 An example of this kind of research in Soviet literature is B. G. Litvak's book " The Experience of Statistical Study of the Peasant Movement in Russia in the 19th Century "(Moscow, 1967).

21 A. Sobul. Op. ed., p. 30. A. Sobul means " Dictionnaire bio-graphique du mouvement ouvrier francaise. Public sous la direktion de Maitron". Premiere partie, 1789 - 1864. T. 1. P. 1964; t. II, p. 1965.

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areas already mentioned above. In addition, you can refer to the experience of Polish researchers. Thus, T. Lepkovsky, based on sources discovered in Kiev, carried out a statistical analysis of the social composition of the rebels of 1831 in Ukraine .22 A year before Lepkowski's article, the work of J. Berghausen, who studied the composition of Polish conspiratorial organizations in 1835-1846, was published sociologically .23 Another Polish historian, S. Krul, in 1965, while preparing a dissertation on the X Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel, which played the role of the main political prison of the Kingdom of Poland, carried out statistical calculations of the participants of the liberation movement imprisoned there for 1833-1856 .24
Examples of the application of sociological methods to the study of social relations were created by V. I. Lenin more than half a century ago. Summary information on the content and methodology of V. I. Lenin's extremely valuable sociological works is available in two recently published books .25 Without analyzing in detail all the richness of Lenin's experience in this area, we will mention here only two of his works that are directly related to the topic.

In January 1917, Lenin wrote a preface and made some sketches for the pamphlet Statistics and Sociology. It remains unfinished, but it still provides a lot of material for reflection .26 In the pamphlet, Lenin intended to collect his earlier and newly prepared essays "on the significance and role of national movements, on the correlation of the national and the international." "Most often and most of all," V. I. Lenin wrote in the completed text of the preface to the pamphlet,"the lack of reasoning on this issue is the lack of a historical point of view and concreteness." And then, specifically emphasizing the importance of sociological methods, he added: "It is very common to carry all sorts of contraband under the flag of general phrases. We think, therefore, that a little statistics will be quite unnecessary. " 27
V. I. Lenin managed to collect and process statistical data only partially. The completed part of the work, published under the title "Chapter I. Some statistics", includes a summary of materials on the national identity of the population of the then states of the world, on the basis of which a number of very interesting and important conclusions can be drawn. The final part of the section "Historical situation of national movements" contains methodological statements that are firmly established in historical science and are often quoted in our special literature. V. I. Lenin wrote, in particular: "Facts are a stubborn thing, says the English proverb... But how do you collect the facts? how to establish their connection and interdependence? In the field of social phenomena, there is no technique more widespread or more untenable than snatching out individual facts, playing with examples. Pick up when-

22 T. Lepkowski. Spoleczne i narodowe aspekty powstania 1831 roku na Ukrainie. KH, 1957, N 6.

23 J. Berghauzen. Z badaii nad skfadem spolecznym i ideoiogia organizacji spiskowych w Kvolestwie Poiskim w latach 1835 - 1846. "Z epoki Mickiewicza. Zeszyt specialny "Przeglgdu historysznego" w rocznice smierci Adama Mickiewicza 1855- 1955". Wroclaw. 1956.

24 St. Kro I. X Pawilon Cytadeli Warszawskiej-gtowne wigzienie polityczne Krolestwa Polskiego w latach 1833 - 1856. Autoreferat z rozprawy doktorskiej. Warszawa. 1965; Now this dissertation is published by: S. Krol. Cytadela Warszawska. X Pawilon-carskie wigzienie polityczne (5833 - 1856). Warszawa. 1969.

25 V. E. Ovsienko, E. G. Vitolina. Voprosy statisticheskoi nauki v trudakh V. I. Lenina [Issues of Statistical Science in the Works of V. I. Lenin]. Moscow, 1967; I. I. Suslov. Political statistics in the Works of V. I. Lenin, Moscow, 1968.

26 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. vol. 30, pp. 349-356. For a plan of the pamphlet and preparatory materials, see Lenin's Collection XXX, pp. 280-300.

27 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 30, p. 349.

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measures in general are not worth any effort, but it does not matter either, or it is purely negative, because the whole point is in the historical concrete situation of individual cases. Facts, if we take them as a whole, in their connection, are not only "stubborn", but also absolutely evidential things. Facts, if they are taken outside the whole, outside the connection, if they are fragmentary and arbitrary, are just a toy or something even worse. " 28 In quoting these words of Lenin, it seems necessary to emphasize, first, that they are taken from a work on national movements, and secondly, that they are expressed for nothing other than to confirm the legitimacy and necessity of a statistical approach to social phenomena, in particular to the history of the liberation struggle in Russia.

A concrete example of this approach is Lenin's article "The Role of Estates and Classes in the Liberation Movement", written in 1913 and published for the first time in the newspapers Severnaya Pravda and Nash Put. Let's take a closer look at this work. First of all, let us recall that Lenin's article is based on official information about "state crimes" processed by J. Berman, that is, on a source of exactly the same character as the alphabets of the participants of the movement who passed through the investigative commissions, which are the basis of the works of J. Berghausen, T. Lepkovsky, and S. Krul mentioned above. It should also be noted that V. I. Lenin analyzed the entire history of the liberation movement, although the available information turned out to be incomplete in the chronological sense and covered only its individual periods: the intervals from 1827 to 1846, from 1884 to 1890, from 1901 to 1903, and from 1905 to 1908. The lack of primary data naturally affected statistical calculations. In the first table, which groups information by class affiliation (nobles, burghers and peasants, clergy, merchants), in four cases out of sixteen there is a question mark, that is, the necessary information is missing. The second table, which groups information about the type of occupation, does not have data for 1827-1846 at all, and it gives a rather rough breakdown by category: agriculture, industry and trade, liberal professions and students, indefinite classes and no classes. Finally, we emphasize that, despite all this, the article not only reproduces the figures obtained during the calculations, but also draws very important conclusions from them.

Analyzing the figures, V. I. Lenin wrote that the first table "clearly shows how quickly the liberation movement was democratized in the XIX century and how sharply its class composition changed", and that the second table contains "extremely instructive figures". But he did not intend to confine himself to these very significant, but too general conclusions. On the contrary, relying on the figures at his disposal (compared, of course, with all the other materials known to him), V. I. Lenin gave a periodization of the history of the liberation movement and characterized each of the three stages he identified. He wrote about the first stage: "The era of serfdom (1827-1846) - the complete predominance of the nobility... But the best people among the nobles helped to wake up the people." The second stage is defined as follows: "The era of raznochinets or bourgeois-liberal (1884-1890) - the nobles already make up a smaller part of the participants in the liberation movement. But if we add to them the clergy and merchants, we get 49%, i.e. almost half. The movement is still half a movement of the privileged classes: the nobility and the upper bourgeoisie. Hence the impotence of the movement, despite the heroism of individuals." The third stage is described as: "The third (1901 - 1903) and fourth (1905 - 1908) epochs -

28 Ibid., pp. 349-350.

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epochs of peasant and proletarian democracy. The role of the nobility is quite small. The bourgeoisie and peasants give 8/10 before the revolution and 9/10 during the revolution. The masses have woken up. Hence the two totals: 1) the possibility of achieving something serious, and 2 )the liberals 'hatred of the movement (the emergence of counter-revolutionary liberalism)." 29
We will not draw conclusions from the second table here, since even without this it is obvious that V. I. Lenin highly valued the materials of social statistics and considered them a reliable basis for detailed assessments of the social movement, and the assessments were both scientific and political in nature. It should be emphasized that this article is not the only one in this sense. A month earlier , V. I. Lenin's methodologically very important article "The latest Data on Parties in Germany"30 was published, in which, based on the data published by the German Statistical Office on how the votes of urban and rural voters were distributed among political parties, he gave a brilliant analysis of the class structure of German society and came to a number of important conclusions. conclusions that have both scientific and political significance.

It follows from the above that statistical analysis of the social composition of movement participants can and should occupy a prominent place in historical and revolutionary studies. This is not to say that nothing is being done in this area. Statistical calculations for the second part of the first volume of the biobibliographical dictionary edited by A. A. Shilov and M. G. Karnaukhova were made once by Sh. M. Levin31 . The results of his calculations for other volumes of the same dictionary were published in 1965 by V. S. Antonov32 . As a result of studying the social appearance of the participants of the revolutionary movement in the Russian army from 1856 to 1865, the author of these lines managed to publish about 2 thousand biobibliographic references, and then statistical calculations made on their basis .33 A group of employees of the Institute of Slavic Studies (I. I. Kosciuszko, I. S. Miller, L. A. Obushenkova, V. A. Dyakov) published calculations concerning the participants of the 1863 uprising in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine .34 D. A. Garkavenko studied the social composition of the sailors of the Russian Fleet of the imperialist era in close connection with the development of revolutionary sentiments among them. 35
The above list shows that interest in statistical studies of the social appearance of participants in the liberation movement is steadily increasing. It appears, however, that growth is too slow. What is the reason for this? It seems that this should be explained not so much by objective difficulties (although they also exist), but rather by the psychological barrier that once arose in the minds of many researchers and still remains insurmountable. Opponents of the socio - statistical method usually justify their position by various arguments about incompleteness and errors in the available sources, which lead to unavoidable inaccuracies in the analysis of data.

29 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 23, pp. 397, 398.

30 Ibid., pp. 339-342.

31 Sh. M. Levin. Social movement in Russia in the 60-70s of the XIX century, Moscow, 1958, p. 88.

32 V. S. Antonov. On the question of the social composition and number of revolutionaries of the 70s. "Social movement in Post-reform Russia", Moscow, 1965.

33 V. A. Dyakov. Figures of the Russian and Polish liberation movements in the Tsarist army of 1856-1865. (Biobibliographical dictionary), Moscow, 1967. The number and composition of participants in the liberation movement in the Russian army in 1856-1865. (experience of historical and sociological research). "History of the USSR", 1970, N 1.

34 See " Yearbook on the Agricultural History of Eastern Europe. 1963". Vilnius, 1964, pp. 11-28.

35 D. A. Garkavenko. The social composition of the Russian Navy in the era of imperialism. "History of the USSR", 1968, N 5.

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ongoing calculations. But these arguments are the fruit of a misunderstanding. Social statistics has never claimed and does not claim to be absolutely accurate, and such accuracy is not required of it. Even statistics based on the results of the latest population censuses or specially conducted in our time specifically sociological surveys are very far from absolute accuracy. Despite this, such statistics are the basis not only for scientific conclusions, but also for important practical decisions.

It seems that those who argue in a different way do not fully take into account the existence of a dialectical relationship between a particular historical event, which has its own unique, unique appearance, and a whole series, a set of these events, in which certain historical patterns inevitably manifest themselves. "We must remember the rule," Lenin pointed out , " that in social science (as in science in general) we are dealing with mass phenomena, and not with isolated cases."36 . Illustrating the correctness of this position with the conclusions of modern science and explaining the apparent contradiction between a single case and a mass phenomenon, one of the Soviet researchers writes: "Specificity... The essence of statistical regularity lies in the fact that the necessary and essential features expressed in it do not apply to each individual phenomenon separately, but to the entire mass population, the statistical team... A statistical aggregate is a group of individual events whose natural action is not manifested in each of them individually ,but in the mass as a whole. " 37 When looking for statistical regularities in mass phenomena, however, it is necessary to remember that statistics itself, as such, cannot fully reveal the reasons for the connection behind the regularities indicated to it, and that this can only be done by the relevant branch of science, which is fully armed with its accumulated stock of knowledge and ideas. 38
This is the methodological side of the issue. If we consider the available studies on the social statistics of the liberation movement from the point of view of their source base, they can be quite clearly divided into two groups. The first group of studies is based on summary sources created during the events and most often served for the needs of punitive authorities. Thus, in statistical calculations about the composition of participants in the uprising of 1863-1864 in the Kingdom of Poland, Lithuania and Belarus, L. A. Obushenkova and the author of these lines used the alphabets of the Field Audience of the Vilna Military District and the Sedlec Military department 39 . For the research of the second group, the source base is not the documentary materials themselves, but special reference books created on the basis of all available sources such as biobibliographic: dictionaries of participants in the movement. Sh.M. Levin and V. S. Antonov relied in their calculations on the corresponding volumes of the biobibliographic dictionary of figures of the liberation movement in Russia. The author of these lines, trying to apply statistical methods to analyze the liberation movement in the Russian army of 1856-1865, also relied on a specially prepared biobibliographical dictionary.

The advantages of the second type of research from the point of view of their source base are obvious and hardly need to be confirmed. But its disadvantages are worth recalling. The most important of them is the incredible complexity of the work on compiling those bios-

36 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 26, p. 250.

37 O. O. Yakhot. The Law of Large Numbers and Social Statistics, p. 81.

38 N. K. Druzhinii. Op. ed., pp. 24, 26.

39 TsGIA of the Lithuanian SSR, f. 1248, op. 1, d. 613; f. 494, on. 1, d. 787; TsGIA, f. 484, op. 3, l. 260.

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graphic reference books (printed or handwritten), which can become the basis for statistical calculations; the number of such reference books is small, their scope in each individual case is quite limited, and there is no reason to expect radical changes in the near future. Along with this circumstance, which significantly narrows the scope and prospects of research work, it is also significant that biographical reference books in many cases combine terminology and worldview of different eras and different segments of the population (for example, data from contemporary events of judicial and investigative authorities and information from the memoirs of participants in these events written much later). Of course, the compilers of the directory usually take all measures to unify the terminology and bring to the same denominator different estimates of the social status of the persons included in the directory. However, they are obviously not able to completely eliminate the consequences of the diversity of primary sources, and this somehow affects the results of statistical calculations.

So, each type of source for sociological research of the liberation movement has its own pros and cons. Their use has been legitimate in the past, is appropriate in the present, and should be developed over the coming decades (while sources of both types should complement and correct each other). There are great opportunities here in both the first and second cases. Suffice it to say, for example, that the following consolidated documentary sources have not yet been statistically processed: lists of insurgents in 1863 sent by the Warsaw, Vilna and other investigative commissions ; 40 a number of consolidated materials of the Third Division, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of War for the years 1830-1870, lists of prisoners in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Shlisselburg. As for biographical reference books, their materials have so far been little used for sociological analysis. For example, there are no statistical calculations for all volumes of the dictionary edited by A. A. Shilov and M. G. Karnaukhova, although it is quite obvious that such calculations could give a lot. Neither the Byalyni - Kholodetsky and Z. Kolyumny reference books published 50-100 years ago, nor the recently published reference book prepared by M. Tyrovich were used for statistical analysis 41 .

Naming these and other sources for possible socio-statistical analysis, it should be noted that the data of each of them would form its own statistical aggregate, separate from the others. Therefore, it is impossible to simply summarize these data and output some average figures, even in cases where we are talking about the same events, when the sources take into account almost the same circle of people. But this does not mean that statistical processing of various sources on the same topic is useless. On the contrary, their results, when compared with each other and with sources of a different nature, could be very useful for reconstructing the true essence of the historical process, including all that is connected with the history of the national liberation struggle and the revolutionary movement.

40 See, in particular, TSGVIA, f. 801, op. 92/37, 1 ed., 1 art., 1863, d. 94, hh. 1-38.

41 J. Bialynia-Cholodiecki. Ksigga pamiqtkowa. Lwdw. 1904; Z. Kolurana. Pamiatki dla rodzin polskich. Krakow. 1868. M. Tyrowicz. Towarzystwo Demokratyczne Polskie. Przywodcy i kadry czlonkowskie. Przewodnik biobibliograficzny. Warszawa. 1964.

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