In view of the extraordinary popularity of many poets in Russia today, the sense of failure expressed by one of them seems surprising:

Boris Slutsky's malaise is not unjustified.

An examination of the second Turkish alliance as it developed in the late months of 1914 between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey forces the rejection of two interpretations generally accepted by students of the First World War: that the Turkish government was in leading strings to the Central Powers from the time the war began and that Austria-Hungary pursued a diplomatic policy which merely reflected its subordination to German will. Materials available in the German and Austrian Foreign Ministry archives show that these two interpretations are largely incorrect. Turkey forced the Central Powers to accept an agreement which strengthened its own international position. Austria-Hungary maintained a policy which furthered its own interests. Secondary accounts dealing with the relationships between Turkey and the Central Powers consider the German-Turkish Alliance of August 2, 1914, but they either do not treat at all the second alliance, signed January 11, 1915, or mention it in only the most cursory manner. Yet the two alliances have a close relationship, and the attitudes and policies of the powers concerned cannot be fully understood unless the second alliance is examined.

Throughout its existence–barring a brief spell of uncharacteristic loquacity in its earliest years, quickly suppressed–the Soviet secret police has followed the policy of making public as little information as possible about its current activities. Terse communiques reporting the apprehension of malefactors, brief and studiously noninformative press releases concerning the punishment of enemies of the Soviet state and people–these have been the forms preferred by the secret police for its communications to the outside world.