N. L. SAFRAZYAN. The Role Played by V. I. Lenin in Reorganizing the System of Instruction in Social Sciences at Higher Educational Establishments (1920 - 1925)

The article examines the main lines along which developed the process of reorganization of the teaching of social sciences in the Soviet higher school on the theoretical and methodological basis of Marxism. V. I. Lenin, the founder and leader of the Soviet state, initiated and directed the process of reorganizing the higher-school system of instruction in the social sciences. Lenin's closest friends and disciples, representatives of the Party intelligentsia carried out immense organizational, methodical-scientific and pedagogical work. They drew up new curricula and teaching programmes, created the first Marxist textbooks and reference guides, and trained new cadres of lecturers and instructors.

Reorganization of the system of instruction in the social sciences on the theoretical basis of Marxism is one of the major aspects of the socialist revolution in the sphere of idelogy, which proceeded in irreconcilable struggle against multifarious bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideological trends. The process of formation of socialist ideology embraced both the negation of the bourgeois world outlook and the continuity of the foremost achievements of preceding culture. The Communist Party succeeded in persuading many represen-tataives of the humanitarian intelligentsia the Marxist world outlook, far from fettering their activity, actually offered wide scope for their creative development. The winning over of a sizable proportion" of the old intelligentsia to the side of Soviet power made it possible not only to preserve for the people the scientific and pedagogical cadres of higher educational establishments but to enrich the young Marxist forces with their professional experience.

A, N. SAKHAROV. The Historical Development of the Russian Peasantry as a Dialectical Process

Drawing on the historiographical material of recent years, the author discusses the need of altering the view on the historical path of the Russian peasantry during the period of feudalism as a path marked exclusively by the violence and coercion to which the Russian peasant was subjected by the feudal lords and the feudal state. Pointing out that this view has become traditional in Soviet historiography and analyzing a series of more recent works by Soviet historians, the author graphically shows that the Russian peasantry is represented in them not merely as the object of exploitation but as an independent historical force making a tangible contribution to the development of the socio-economic history of the country.

A. N. KIRPICHNIKOV. The Armament of Rus in the 9th - 13th Centuries

The article is devoted to the archeological, historical and tactical-technical results of research into Russia's 9th - 13th-century armament.

The establishment of the Russian state in the 9th - 10th centuries was accompanied by a technical revolution resulting in the complete re-equipment of the army of Kiev Rus. During this period the entire military arsenal of Russia was created anew; subsequently it underwent gradual changes. The military equipment of the Russian army attained unpresedented power in the period between the second half of the 12th and the first half of the 13th centuries.

The Russian military arsenal was created in an extremely; tense situation caused by the need to wage a grim struggle simultaneously on "two fronts": against the fast- moving nomads and against the relatively slow European enemies. This gave rise to the need of combining such different combatant branches of the army as cavalry infantry. The instruments of war at the disposal of the Russian army in the early medieval period were extremely varied, combining as they did both Eastern and Western elements. In the 9th - 10th

centuries the armaments and methods of warfare existing in Russia and other European states had many features in common. In the epoch marked by the founding of Kiev Rus, Russian gunsmiths and warriors mastered the art of manufacturing and employing the finest specimens of foreign weapons. In the subsequent periol external factors lost much of their former significance. In the llth-13th centuries the local military craft itself became a powerful source of technically influencing sedentary and nomad neighbours.

A close study of Russian armaments in the early medieval period is, in many respects, of general European significance measurable by Russia's contribution to the development of armaments in the era of feudalism.

P. F. LAPTIN. The Role of a Hypothesis in Historical Research

The need to evolve a Marxist theory of historical hypothesis is dictated by contemporary development of science. The specific nature of historical science (notably, its vividly expressed partisanship, the influence exerted by the individual on the historical process, the complex intertwining of the general-historic and the individual, the exceptional variability of historical facts and phenomena) still further enhances the importance attached to the hypothetical path of historical cognition. The same circumstance determines the peculiarities of constructing an historical hypothesis. Its rationality is determined by the fact that this hypothesis conforms to already known historical laws and regularities and directly depends on the class stand taken by the researcher. The correspondence of an historical hypothesis to dialectical and historical materialism is the main criterion of its truth. An historical hypothesis is verified by the practice of subsequent historical research. The article also examines certain specific features attending the transformation of an historical hypothesis into a scientific truth.

V. V. BORIDOV. Franco-Soviet Relations on the Eve of World War II in the Light of the New Quai d'Orsay Documents

Drawing on the new many-volume edition of French diplomatic documents relating to the period 1932 - 1939, the author examines some important problems of cooperation between the U.S.S.R. and France on the eve of the second world war. The author analyzes the history of the Franco-Soviet negotiations on the conclusion of a non- aggression pact in 1932 and a treaty on mutual assistance in 1935, at the same time examining the military-aspect of Franco-Soviet relations,

A conspicuous place is devoted in the article to certain aspect of international relations in Europe before the war, which have a direct bearing on the Franco-Soviet cooperation (Franco-German and Franco-Italian relations, reoccupation by Germany of the demilitarized zone on the Rhine, the four-power pact of 1933, etc.).

Drawing on abundant documentary material, the author shows the objective need for diplomatic cooperation between France and the Soviet Union in the interests of durable peace in Europe and the world.

V. I. AVDIYEV. V. I. Lenin and the Emergence of the Earliest Class State

The Marxist teaching on the formation of a class society and the exploiting state, set forth in the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, is of fundamental significance, for it demonstrates the categorical and at the same time the dialectical opposition between the clan system and the earliest class society in the period of the rise and development of a primitive class state founded on the most savage and merciless exploitation of the working masses by the slave owning gentry, "Military democracy" based on -the equality of all members of the clan and tribal organization could exist only in the epoch when the primitive-communal formation entered the period of its disintegration. In the period of formation of the earliest sliveowning society and the earliest slaveowning state "the councils of the elders and the tribal chieftains" were converted into organs of the nascent apparatus of class oppression and coercion. Such was the gradual process of the emergence of the earliest glaveowning state so aptly described by Lenin in his lecture "On the State", which exerted a powerful influence on the development of Marxist historiography. The abundant documentary material accumulated by now serves to confirm that the ideas of the classics of Marxism-Leninism on the fundamental distinction between the clan system and the earliest sjaveowning state receive ever new corroboration and provide a reliable methodological basis for the study of ancient socio-economic formations.

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