Sometime between 1533 and 1536, a certain Ivan laganov, writing from prison, addressed a petition to the child ruler Ivan IV in which he suggested that his release would be in the interests of state security. laganov apparently had enjoyed a successful career as a political informer under Ivan’s father, and after the death of Vasilii III had continued to serve his new sovereign in the same manner. On his last mission, he explained, he had reported to Ivan’s boyars as ordered, informing them of the “dangerous talk” he had overheard: “At that time, Sire, I could not plug my ears with pitch; what I heard, Sire, I reported, in the way in which I served and reported to thy father.” As a result, laganov now found himself in fetters, tortured “in the manner of evil traitors and brigands,” and deprived of food and drink.

The labor unrest that spilled out onto the streets of St. Petersburg in January 1905 and shook the autocracy was hardly a new phenomenon in Russia. Historiography— both Western and Soviet—has shown persuasively that labor discontent was widespread in Russia’s industrial centers for at least the preceding two decades. An explosive combination of miserable working and living conditions and repressive regimentation was further aggravated by only partially redeemed hopes of government-sponsored reforms in the 1880s and 1890s. Moreover, reform legislation was vitiated from the start by the government’s desire to keep the workers under strict control. This aim not only took precedence over the wish to see their grievances redressed, but amounted to a philosophy running through the whole corpus of Russian labor law and virtually institutionalized in the Department of Factory Inspection, created by a decree of July 1, 1882. Designed originally to seek out infractions of the labor laws, it soon became a policing agency for the factory owners.

On his return to Russia in July 1843 after a period of convalescence in Western Europe, Iazykov was confronted by a literary situation which bore little resemblance to the one he had left in July 1838, five years earlier. Many important nineteenth-century poets had already died by the time of Iazykov’s departure: Ryleev (1826), Venevitinov (1827), Griboedov (1829), Delvig (1831), Gnedich (1833), Pushkin, Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, the fabulist Dmitriev (all in 1837), and Polezhaev (early 1838). Nevertheless, poetry continued to be the dominant form of literary expression, at least until April 1840, when Lermontov first published the full text of Geroi nashego vremeni. By late 1843, however, the tide had turned decisively in favor of prose. Many more poets had died—Davydov and Alexander Odoevsky (1839), Kozlov and Stankevich (1840), Lermontov himself (1841), and Koltsov (1842). Baratynsky and Krylov were to die in 1844.

In discussing the Ausgleich of 1867 historians generally focus on the complex political and economic arrangements and pay little attention to the military controversy over the problem of restructuring the Habsburg army. Yet this problem almost prevented conclusion of the political agreement and greatly endangered its implementation. Count Julius Andrassy, one of the leading Hungarian negotiators, called it the “sword of Damocles suspended over our heads,” and the common war minister, Franz Baron Kuhn, believed that “the future existence of the monarchy” depended on “a successful solution of the army question”.

During most of the Soviet industrialization period, consumer goods enterprises and the distribution network could rest assured that almost any consumer product—any size, color, style, and quality—would be sold if offered to the public. This was the nature of the market during that period; the sellers held the upper hand, and they tried to fulfill their plans without being concerned much about the demands of buyers. But in the postwar period, especially after the death of Stalin, the production of consumer goods and personal incomes increased simultaneously, and gradually more and more consumer demands were answered. A concern for consumer welfare was emerging. With the advent of buyers’ market conditions, no longer were all consumer goods that arrived on the market automatically sold; inventories accumulated and the problems of the trade network multiplied.

The history and development of social services for families and children in the Soviet Union prior to 1967 have been studied quite extensively.1 Soviet writings published since that time, more critical and probing than most earlier materials, as well as a field trip in October 1971 by this writer, make it possible to update our knowledge and to suggest what the future Soviet policy will be in this increasingly important area.