L. S. GAPONENKO, A. N. SAKHAROV, G. L. SOBOLEV. The Great October Revolution and Its Present-Day Bourgeois Critics

The authors make an attempt to examine the principal works produced by bourgeois historians and publicists in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, emphasizing that the contemporary level of ideological struggle between the capitalist and socialist systems has made a definite imprint on the "jubilee" materials published in bourgeois journals. Bourgeois historians are partly renouncing their former primitive frontal attacks on the history of the October Revolution and are seeking new methods of ideologically opposing communism in the sphere of history. To achieve this purpose they elaborate "liberal" versions of the history of the October Revolution; the same end is served by diverse modern bourgeois conceptions, notably the latter-day theories of "convergence" and of a "single industrial society." The article discloses the genetic connection of these new bourgeois conceptions of the history of the proletarian revolution in Russia with the former anti-Soviet and anti-Communist views shared by bourgeois and petty- bourgeois researchers in the history of the October Revolution.

P. K. KOSTIKOV. The Militant Vanguard of the Polish People (the 20th anniversary of the PUWP and the 50th anniversary of the Communist Party of Poland)

In December 1968 the Polish people celebrated two significant landmarks in their history the 20th anniversary of the foundation of the Polish United Workers' Party and the 50th anniversary of the Communist Party of Poland. The Communist Party in Poland was born at the time of the powerful revolutionary upsurge that swept Europe following the socialist revolution in Russia; its establishment was a direct result of the rapid development of the national working-class movement, an historically important turning point in the process of its growing ideological and organizational maturity. Twenty years ago, in December 1948, the merger of the two working-class parties resulting in the formation of the Polish United Workers' Party put an end to the former division in the labour movement of Poland and signified the birth of a uniform and closely-welded proletarian party founded on Marxism-Leninism. Under the leadership of this party the Polish people achieved signal successes in the building of socialist society. The extensive factual material cited in the article convincingly confirms that the past twenty-five years in the life of the Polish people can be equalled in their significance to a whole historical epoch.

V. G. BRYUSOVA. The Biography of Andrei Rublyov: Some Controversial Points

Contained in a few written sources that have come down to us, the meagre information on the life and creative work of the great Russian artist Andrei Rublyov is often contradictory. The author makes a detailed analysis of a number of written and literary ancient Russian works containing information on Andrei Rublyov: the biographies of Sergius Radonezhsky and his pupil Nikon, the "Spiritual Charter" of Joseph Volotsky, the statutes enacted by the Moscow Council in 1551 and church calendars. A detailed textual analysis of the biographies of Sergius and Nikon based on already known and newly discovered sources has enabled Soviet researchers to refute the veracity of the version that the Andronikov Monastery in which Andrei Rublyov lived and worked was founded by Metropolitan Alexis in the 1350 s. Actually, the monastery was founded by Metropolitan Cyprian approximately in 1392. At about the same time in the last decade of the 14th century a stone church was built and adorned with frescoes. It has now been definitely established that, far from being the last work of Andrei Rublyov, it was merely one of his early works. The available factual material does not confirm the widespread belief that in the initial period Andrei Rublyov was a monk at the Troitse-Sergiev

Monastery. There are more authentic sources testifying that the whole conscious life of the artist was spent in the Andronikov Monastery. According to the oldest existing sources, Andrei Rublyov died shortly before Nikon, who passed away on November 17, 1427. The reference (in one of the manuscripts kept at the Yaroslavl Museum) to the place where the mortal remains of Andrei Rublyov were laid to rest, which, according to eyewitness accounts dating back to the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, was near the Andronikov Monastery's cathedral, merits attention as the first definite reference to the place where the artist was buried.

S. I. KUZNETSOVA. The African Working Class in Soviet Historiography

Analyzing the works of Soviet scientists published between 1963 and 1967, the author focusses attention on a number of urgent tasks facing researchers in the history of the African working class, notably the sources of its formation, numerical strength, social composition, economic conditions, the attained level of socio-economic and political maturity, as well as the place of the working class in the social structure of contemporary Africa. The analysis of these questions enables the researcher to pose the topical problem of the place held by the working class in Africa's social structure. The article accentuates such distinctive features of the African working class (in the area south of the Sahara) as the bigger proportion of the modern proletariat among all the other contingents of wage labourers and, conversely, the smaller percentage of proletarian elements among the peasantry and the lower urban strata compared with other countries of the Afro-Asian world. The author dwells on the merits and demerits of a number of published monographs, reference books and articles, singling out "The Working Class of Afro-Asian Countries" (Moscow, 1967) as major work which, on the basis of a close analysis of concrete factual material furnished by many countries, created a model of the "principal type" and "regional varieties" of the Afro-Asian proletariat.

V. T. FOMIN. The Internal Political Situation in Nazi Germany on the Eve of Her Perfidious Attack on the U.S.S.R.

Drawing on extensive documentary material, the author shows that in plotting their criminal attack on the U.S.S.R the nazis mobilized the economic, manpower and military resources of Germany and other European countries. In Germany itself they reorganized military and diplomatic departments, enhanced the role of the nazi party, the police and other organs of fascist terroristic dictatorship, created new concentration camps, physically destroyed the opponents of the fascist regime. The article exposes the fabrications of fascist propaganda about the alleged absence in Germany of class contradictions on the eve of the nazi aggression against the U.S.S.R. The author convincingly shows that neither the reign of bloody terror nor social demagogy could help the nazis to remove the acute class contradictions in the country and attain "national unity." As to the camp of the German imperialist bourgeoisie, in 1941 it was solidly united and wholeheartedly supported the Hitlerites' anti-Soviet policy of aggrandizement. The author makes a point of stressing that in Germany at that time there was a section of the population headed by Communists which, despite the bloody fascist terror and social demagogy, remained true to their anti-fascist, democratic views and continued to fight against fascism, in defence of the U.S.S.R. and other nations that became the victims of fascist aggression.

E. V. GUTNOVA. The Main Stages of Soviet Research in Medieval History

The author singles out the following three principal stages in the development of Soviet historiography of medieval history: the first stage (from mid-1930's) is marked by the rise and development of Soviet Marxist-Leninist research in medieval history, which proceeded in a tense ideological struggle with the bourgeois methodology of history and bourgeois historiography; the second stage (from mid-1930's to the end of World War II) is characterized as a period of creating the theoretical, scientific and organizational foundation of Marxist-Leninist historiography of the Middle Ages; the third stage (from mid-1940's to the present time) is a period of further extending and deepening the thematic! content of medieval research and of the heightened interest shown by researchers in general

sociological and methodological questions. In examining each of these stages the author gives a general survey of the principal scientific trends, problems and most important researches in medieval history, and characterizes the major discussions which took place in this sphere of historical science. In conclusion of the article the author draws attention to the most important problems of Soviet research into medieval history which are still awaiting solution.

S. I. BRUK, N. N. CHEBOKSAROV, J. V. CHESNOV. Problems of the Ethnic Development of Asian Countries

Inhabited by more than half of the world's population, Asia is ethnically the most complex part of the globe. This is explained by the historical peculiarities that attended the formation of Asian nations and by the highly uneven rate of their social and economic development. At the present time Asia (excluding the Asian part of the U.S.S.R.), is inhabited by several hundred peoples and nationalities which have attained different levels of social and economic development and belong to multifarious ethnic groups. In the postwar period the processes of consolidation, assimilation and formation of new nations and nationalities have been proceeding at a much faster pace. The rich variety of ethnic forms existing in Asian countries do not fit into the generally accepted tribe-nationality-nation scheme. Considerable attention is devoted by the authors to the marginal units which are broader than the purely ethnic ones-the ethno-economic, ethno-cultural, ethno-religious and other units that are actually existing in most countries of the vast Asian continent. In conclusion the authors give a classification of countries according to the peculiarities of the ethnic processes occurring in them.

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