The division of the Slavic nations into catholic and orthodox is the main reason usually given for their mutual distrust and sometimes bitter hatred. Though this is, unfortunately, the general case, there are, nevertheless, exceptions. The Croats, a Catholic nation, have had a great admiration for, and a deep attachment to, the Orthodox Russians since the sixteenth century. What is most surprising is that this unmotivated, decidedly emotional relationship with “mother” (matuška) Russia was furthered by some of the most prominent members of the Catholic clergy: for example, Juraj Križanić, Antun Kanižlić Andrija Kačić Miošić, Franjo Rački, and Josip J. Strossmayer.

I do not intend in this paper to discuss this fascinating trend within the ranks of the Croatian spiritual elite which, while remaining unshaken in its ancestral faith, nevertheless looked toward “the third Rome” and sincerely hoped that one day, under the auspices of the Tsar, all Slavic nations would enjoy freedom and even religious unity.

Few major decisions of Soviet history can be ranked in importance with the decision of the Fifteenth Party Congress of December, 1927, to collectivize agriculture. Not only did it have tremendous consequences for the Soviet peasantry (and ultimately the peasantry of other Communist states), forcing them to leave individual for collective farming in a struggle that cost millions of lives, but it also created a form of agricultural organization which has become an unchallengeable element of Communist organizational orthodoxy. Only Yugoslavia amongst Communist states has dared to reject this orthodoxy, though there is abundant evidence that most of the peasants of Communist countries would reject it if they could.

In view of the immense importance of the decision to collectivize, it is indeed surprising that so little critical examination of its background has been undertaken by non-Soviet scholars, and that the Stalinist rationalization of the decision, doubtful though its validity is, is widely employed in Western scholarly studies.

In the period between the 20th and 21st Party Congresses, thirteen plenary sessions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were held, although only twelve can be documented from official sources. These meetings of the CC elected at the February, 1956, meeting, more numerous than for any comparable time interval in party history, not only provided the background for the first extraordinary (vneocherednoj) Congress in more than four decades; they also furnished the forums and tribunals at which all the important issues subsequently referred to the Congress for formal post facto approval had been initially presented and, for for the most part, resolved. Nevertheless, as M. Suslov pointed out, the January 27-February 5 meeting was “not a regular Party Congress, which explains why no Central Committee report was heard.” Yet despite A. Mikoyan's reminder that the delegates had "assembled … to discuss the single question on the agenda—the control figures" of the seven-year plan, Khrushchev's 67,000-word, seven-hour long address and the eighty-five shorter contributions dealt with developments of the intervening three years and prospects for the future.

Czechoslovakia has become a socialist republic. On July 11, 1960, the recently elected (June 12) Czechoslovak National Assembly approved a new socialist constitution replacing the previously existing, though already unobserved, “people's democratic” constitution of May, 1948.1 The new official name of the state is the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (CSSR), and its coat of arms incorporates the Soviet-styled Red Star as “the symbol of the victory of socialism.” The Czechoslovak Communists proudly boast that Czechoslovakia is the first country in the world after the Soviet Union to achieve socialist production relations and to root its achievements in a socialist constitution. As they see it, the document is both a summary of gains already achieved—socialism, and a program for the transition from socialism to communism. The socialist production relations are further developing, and the country is “passing over to the building of an advanced socialist society and is mustering its forces for the transition to communism.”

Boarding schools of various types have long existed within the framework of the Soviet Russian educational system; homes for orphans, delinquents, handicapped or artistically gifted children, and the military and naval academies, to cite just a few examples, are an integral and accepted part of life in the USSR. Nevertheless, when Nikita S. Khrushchev, speaking at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, called for the immediate establishment of a wide system of boarding schools for Soviet children, foreign observers realized at once that this was an entirely new and far more important type of school—one that represented a reversal of many of the educational theories, methods, and even purposes of the preceding two decades. The actual nature and goals of the new boarding schools, however, were not understood immediately.

Shamil's activities in this period [1834-45] were directed not only against Tsarism, but against the local feudal lords, and were of a democratic, progressive character.

The mountain peoples' movement, led by Shamil, was not a national-liberation and democratic movement, but was a reactionary and nationalistic movement, which came into the service of British capitalism and the Turkish Sultan.

These quotations from two successive editions of one of the most popular Soviet history textbooks point up an issue that has engaged Soviet historians for the last decade. Numerous quotations might be added to show still further reversals of opinion reached by Soviet historians since the party called for a radical revision of the role of Shamil and his movement in 1950. Recent conferences have expressed dissatisfaction with the findings and have called for more thorough research to establish a “scientific Marxist” version of the subject.

The outstanding role of the intellectual in modern Russian history is beyond dispute. Among non-Communist historians there is a well-established consensus concerning the nature of the Russian intelligentsia and the distinctive part it played in bringing on the revolution. The nineteenth-century Russian intellectual was detached from practical affairs, committed to some abstract doctrine, and morally alienated by autocracy and class privilege. This reaction resulted from the cultural precociousness of Russia's westernized upper class, as contrasted with the frustrating backwardness of the government and the economy. Educated and sensitive Russians had nowhere to turn except to theory.

The cultural cleavage between this theorizing elite and the toiling masses has left traces even today—for example, in the official classification of the Soviet population into workers, peasants, and “toiling intelligentsia,” and in the remarkable prestige enjoyed by academic pursuits in Russia.

In 1956 the Soviet Union commemorated the seventy-fifth anniversary of the death of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. His re-entry on the Soviet literary scene was marked by the publication of his Collected Works in an imposing ten-volume edition of 300,000 copies. Concurrently, biographical and critical studies began appearing once again, most of them, to be sure, of only secondary significance, but their sheer number is impressive compared to the drought years 1935-56. Little has appeared, however, which bears comparison with the wealth of critical literature and memoir materials that characterized the immediate postrevolutionary period to 1935, particularly that connected with the names of A. S. Dolinin and L. P. Grossman. These two scholars are still active today, and both participated in the preparation of the ten-volume edition.