Major Soviet Research Articles

Soviet Influence in Southeast Asia: Opportunities and Obstacles

OVER THE COURSE OF the last two decades the Soviet Union has undertaken large-scale political, diplomatic, economic, military and cultural programs in various areas of the Third World. Southeast Asia has been one of the major recipients of these substantial Soviet efforts. Nevertheless, it would seem that in Southeast Asia-as well as in other regions to differing degrees-the USSR has rather little to show for its investment. Moscow clearly has achieved its most fundamental goal-establishing a presence in regions where it had none before. An expanded presence and role, however, does not necessarily mean expanded influence (defined here as the ability to get desired action from another state) .' While the American role has been reduced in Southeast Asia, this has not entirely been the result of Soviet policies, nor has it redounded exclusively to the benefit of the USSR. The partial vacuum created by the diminishing presence of the U.S. has been filled in several cases by the growing role of China and/or Japan, as well as by a more fully independent position of the regional states themselves; and the containment in Southeast Asia of Chinese and, secondarily, Japanese influence is a major Soviet goal. Other goals such as facilities for the rapidly expanding Soviet navy and the establishment of markets for Soviet products have also been only partially achieved. The purpose of this article is to examine the factors responsible for this

Major Soviet Writers: Essays in Criticism

Major Soviet Writers: Essays in Criticism

Major Soviet Writers: Essays in Criticism

Major Soviet Writers: Essays in Criticism

Major Soviet Writers: Essays in Criticism

Major Soviet Writers: Essays in Criticism

China and the United States: A New Phase

Americans of different interests and different ideological persuasions have consistently idealized elements of China. Creating their own mythical Chinas, they have uniformly been disappointed by events. Now that Nixon has made a new opening toward improving relations with Peking, it is important for the American public to have a realistic understanding of why Peking and Washington at this point in time find it advantageous for their separate national interests to seek a degree of mutual accommodation. Analysis of the Shanghai communique reveals the skillful manner in which Chou En-lai was able to put aside the Taiwan issue as he leads a post-Cultural Revolutionary China in search of greater international security, particularly from a major Soviet military threat. The prime cause of change has been the emergence of a new and complex balance in Asia involving quite incommensurate powers. The key relationship is likely to be the Sino-Soviet confrontation because it is uncertain how the Soviet Union will react to the growth of Chinese power, especially nuclear. Ultimately American policy will depend upon the attitudes and sentiments of the American people about China; and hopefully the American public has been exposed to enough romanticizing about foreign political systems that they will be able to pierce through new attempts at myth-making and help to place U.S.-China relations on a solidly realistic basis.

The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism in Russia: A Major Soviet Historical Controversy

The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism in Russia: A Major Soviet Historical Controversy

The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism in Russia: A Major Soviet Historical Controversy

The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism in Russia: A Major Soviet Historical Controversy

Professional Biographies of Soviet Scholars

In initiating publication of articles under the heading "Professional Biographies of Soviet Scholars," the editors in this issue familiarize readers with the scholarly and civic activity of the major Soviet historians Academician Sergei Danilovich Skazkin and Academician Vladimir Mikhailovich Khvostov.

M. N. Pokrovskii — Outstanding Organizer of Research in the USSR

In 1968 the Soviet public marked the centenary of the birth of a major Soviet historian, participant in the 1905-1907 Revolution and in the battles for Soviet power in October 1917, a prominent figure in government and public life, Academician M. N. Pokrovskii. A talented pupil of V. O. Kliuchevskii and P. G. Vinogradov, Pokrovskii began his career as a representative of bourgeois historiography. As he came closer to the Bolsheviks, he went over to the side of the revolution, he stood in the ranks of the ideologists of the working class, and joined Lenin's party. Pokrovskii's career is complex and contradictory; he became a convinced and active figure in the Communist Party after having overcome vacillations, errors, and confusion. Lenin exercised an enormous influence on the shaping of his world view.

Class Against Class: The French Communist Party and the Comintern

Since the 1930's the French Communist party has faithfully endorsed the policy decisions of the Soviet Union, oftentimes despite disagreement with major Soviet pronouncements. In the 1920's, however, the French Communist leadership was divided over the appropriateness of Soviet instructions on matters that appeared to many French Communists clearly within the exclusive domain of the French party. The intrusion of the Comintern, the Soviet-dominated international Communist organization, into the pre-campaign discussion of the tactics for the 1928 elections to the French national assembly forced French Communists to re-examine their goals, their position in French politics, and their relationship with the Soviet Union. The decisions of the French party leaders, made amid what was perhaps the last animated and freewheeling public party debate, determined the party's relationship with the USSR for a full forty years.

Annotated Index

Uchitel'skaia gazeta [The Teachers' Gazette] is a newspaper published jointly by the Ministry of Education of the USSR and the Central Committee of the Professional Trade Union of Workers in Education, the Higher Schools, and Institutions of Science and Learning. It is published in Moscow and printed in twelve major Soviet cities. Issues appear on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at a cost of three kopecks per copy.

Hypnopedia in the Soviet Union: a critical review of recent major experiments.

Abstract Major Soviet hypnopedia (sleep-learning) experiments were conducted by Balkhashov (1965); Khil'chenko, Moldavskaya, Kol'chenko, andShevko (1965); Kulikov (1964); Svyadoshch (1962); Zavalova, Zukhar', and Petrov (1964); Zukhar', Kaplan, Maksimov, and Puskina (1965). The results of these experiments show that learning during sleep is possible when a “suggested set” to perceive and remember the learning material during sleep is involved. Selection of Ss according to hypnotizability or primary suggestibility seems to be an important prerequisite. The influence of hypnopedia on the mental health of Ss is evaluated.

Reviews of books

EUROPE The Third Statistical Account of Scotland. The County of Dumfries. Edited by G. Houston. 9 × 5¾. Pp. 461. 21 tables. 10 figures. 23 plates. Folding map inside back cover. Glasgow: Collins, 1962. 42s. Reclamation! By T. B. L. Thomson et al. 8½ × 5¾. Pp. 84. 8 photographs. 2 maps. 7 tables. Winchburgh: The Scottish Peat and Land Development Association, 1962. 2s. 6d. Uig: A Hebridean Parish. Parts I & II. By H. A. Moisley and members of The Geographical Field Group. 9¾ × 8. Pp. ii + 56.26 figures. 19 tables. Produced jointly by Department of Geography, The University of Glasgow, and The Geographical Field Group, Nottingham, 1962. New Ways Through the Glens. By A. R. B. Haldane. 8¾ × 5¾. Pp. xvi + 248. Frontispiece. 15 plates. Folding map. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd., 1962. 30s. Plant Communities of the Scottish Highlands’, a study of Scottish mountain, moorland and forest vegetation. By Donald N. McVean and Derek A. Ratcliffe. Monographs of the Nature Conservancy, No. 1. 7¼ × 10¾. Pp. xii + 445. 26 plates. 36 maps. 36 figs. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1962. 77s. 6d. Tayside Geology. By F. Walker. 8 × 5. Pp.82. 2 full‐colour plates. 25 plates. 11 figures. 3 tables. Folding map inside back cover. Dundee: Dundee Museum and Art Gallery, 1961. 5s. Highland Landscape: A Survey. By W. H. Murray. 8¾ × 5¾. Pp. 80. Folding map. 21 sketch maps. Edinburgh: The National Trust for Scotland, 1962. 15s. Welsh Rural Communities. By D. Jenkins, E. Jones, T. Jones Hughes and T. M. Owen. Edited by E. Davies and A. D. Rees. 8¾ × 5¾. Pp. xi + 254. 23 figures. 8 plates. Cardiff: The University of Wales Press, 1960. 15s. British Towns: A Statistical Study of their Social and Economic Differences. By C. A. Moser and W. Scott. 10 × 6¼. Pp. xii + 169. 3 maps. 4 figures. 33 tables. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1961. 30s. The Geography of Communications in Great Britain. By J. H. Appleton. 5½ × 8½. Pp. xix + 251. 43 figures. 42 plates. London: Published for the University of Hull by Oxford University Press, 1962. 30s. AUSTRALASIA Australasia. By H. Rees. The New Certificate Geography Series. 9 × 5½. Pp. xv + 264. 55 figures. 38 tables. London: Macdonald & Evans Ltd., 1962. 20s. To the Mountains of the Stars. By L. D. Brongersma and G. F. Venema. 9× 6. Pp. xv + 318. 48 photographs. 23 figures. 2 end‐paper maps. London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1962. 42s. ASIA Crossroads: Land and Life in Southwest Asia. By G. B. Cressey. 10 5 7. Pp. xiv + 593. Numerous photographs, maps, diagrams. Chicago: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1960. $12.00. The Middle East. By W. B. Fisher. 8½ × 5½. Pp. xiii + 557. 2 folding maps. 103 maps and diagrams. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. 4th edition revised. 1961. 50s. CLIMATOLOGY The Challenge of the Atmosphere. By O. G. Sutton. 8½ × 5½. Pp. xiii + 228. 48 figures. London: Hutchinson, 1962. 21s. CEOMORPHOLOGY Morphology of the Earth. By Lester King. Pp. xii + 699. 250 text‐figures (three as pocketed maps). 14 plates. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1962. 84s. ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY The Geography of Economic Activity. By R. S. Thoman. 9¾ × 8¼. Pp. 602. Numerous photographs, maps, graphs and tables. London: McGraw‐Hill Publishing Co. Ltd., 1962. 69s. 6d. ATLASES Elementary Atlas. Edited by H. Fullard. 11 × 8¾. Pp. xii (black and white maps and text) + 40 (colour maps) + 12 (index). Tables, graphs etc. inside back cover. London: George Philip & Son Ltd., 100th edition, 1962. 5s. 6d. Haygagan Sovetagan Sotsialistagan Resbubligayi Atlas. (Atlas of the Armenian Geographical Society). 13¼ × 13¾. Pp. viii + 111. Moscow‐Yerevan: The Chief Directorate of Geodesy and Cartography, Ministry of Internal Affairs, 1961. 3r. 50k. ANOTHER MAJOR SOVIET ATLAS GENERAL I.G.Y. The Year of the New Moons. By J. T. Wilson. 8¾ × 5½. Pp. 352. 46 line‐drawings. 19 tables. 55 plates. London: Michael Joseph, 1961. 30s.

Kabalevsky's Piano Pieces for the Young

In a field where much of the pedagogical work is traditionally uninspired, a major Soviet composer has consistently, since his own youth, been making a tremendous contribution. The writer discusses in detail various piano pieces which Dmitri Kabalevsky composed, mainly for his young students, at various stages of their technical development. Sovetskaya Musika, 1960, No. 12.

English, French, German, and Russian as Supplementary Languages in Geographical Serials

English, French, German, and Russian as Supplementary Languages in Geographical Serials

Soviet blast furnace practice

Continuing the Journal of Metals’ survey of operating practice in major Soviet steel mills, we present a survey made by a leading American authority on blast furnace practice during his recent visit to the USSR as a member of a group sponsored by the American Iron & Steel Institute.