What sort of man was Paul Pestel, the unfortunate and influential Decembrist? What was the character of his mind, and what were the principles of the reforms for which he gave his life in 1826? The answers to these questions were long concealed. On the one hand, the Tsarist Government suppressed Pestel's writings and locked up the records of his mock trial until 1905; and on the other, admiration amounting to hero worship confused the minds of many students for whom any Decembrist was deemed to be a saintly martyr to the cause of freedom.

Alexander Herzen was most responsible for the hero worship. Herzen, at fourteen, was deeply moved by the execution of Pestel and four other Decembrists, and the event gave purpose to his whole life. Thirty years later, he wrote: “Before that altar [the gallows] defiled by bloody rites, I swore to avenge the murdered men, and dedicated myself to the struggle with that throne…. I have not avenged them … but for thirty years I have stood under that flag and have never once deserted it.”

National deviation or, in Soviet parlance, “bourgeois nationalism” has figured prominently in the party literature since the establishment of the Stalinist regime. It is a conveniently generic heresy and has been applied to national groups which had hardly any bourgeoisie worthy of the name prior to the Revolution. It is a label which is applied to real or imagined, to actual or potential non-Russian opponents of the regime within the country in an effort to discredit them by associating them with real or imagined external enemies. In the pre-war period, as well as to a certain extent since the war, “bourgeois nationalists” were linked with the revolutionary national non-Russian governments of the 1917–1920 period which unsuccessfully resisted the Bolshevik onslaught. Those who were charged with national deviation in the 1930's were accused of having aided foreign intelligence services in an attempt to facilitate the return of the old order and of wanting to turn the Soviet Union into a colony of the capitalist states.

The year 1931 was marked in Soviet economic legislation by a somersault and fundamental change of line. On March fourth of that year the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Union decreed the abolition of government agencies called “Arbitration Commissions” (Boards). This was done in order to foster the “strengthening of the unification of the judicial system” as well as “to develop economic discipline and to raise the responsibility of the economic units for their work.” Cases which had come under the jurisdiction of these boards were now placed under that of the civil courts

But on May third of the same year the Government reversed its policy in this respect, and decreed the re-creation of Government Arbitration in order to resolve all disputes arising between public, industrial, and commercial enterprises “with the aim of strengthening the discipline of contracts and plans as well as the settling of accounts among these enterprises.” This decree provides that the Arbitration Boards shall have jurisdiction over all disputes arising from contracts and deals among state-owned enterprises.

Local self-government holds an important, if not the most important, place both in the constitutional system of the new Yugoslavia and in the process of her formation and development. One of the starting points for the constitutional revision which has taken place by stages in Yugoslavia since 1950 is the reorganization of local self-government. This reorganization has been carried out under the General Law on People's Committees of April 1, 1952, and other republic laws enacted subsequently

In order to understand the organization and the activity of the system of local self-government, we must describe in general outline the course it has followed in its development. The organs of local self-government are called the “people's committees.” They were organized under the name of "National Liberation Committees" at the very outset of the struggle for national liberation, that is, in the early days of the uprising against the invader in August, 1941.

The mass migration of millions of minority peoples from their homelands during and after World War II was a surgeon's solution to a problem of long standing for many East European countries and especially for Hungary. As a result of this drastic attempt to eliminate completely the historic conflicts between national minority groups and the dominant people of the state in which they lived, the efforts of earlier regimes to reduce national friction may seem to have lost importance for the current politician. Such friction is admittedly no longer part of a live and sometimes sensitive problem, the more so since the states of Eastern Europe as they existed between the wars have ceased to exist, and since the domestic factors which gave rise to Hungarian policies of the time have changed radically. Yet, there may come a time again when the solutions of the present are subjected to review. An analysis of the policies and experience of the past may then be helpful in reaching conclusions. It is in this spirit that this study is presented by one who shared in the execution of some phases of the policy.

During the nineteenth century a series of revolts took place in Albania. These revolts, although some of them were on a relatively large scale, were local in character and aimed neither at national autonomy nor independence. Their primary target was the taxes and the draft which the Ottoman Government, in accordance with its program of reforms—the so-called Tanzimat—was trying to impose upon the Albanian people. It was not until the Congress of Berlin that the movement began to take a different course.

When Russia defeated the Turks at the end of 1877, she imposed upon them the Treaty of San Stefano (March 3, 1878), which accorded to the Balkan Slavic nations large pieces of Albanian land. Serbia was allotted a strip of Albanian-inhabited territory in Old Serbia. Bulgaria and Montenegro were especially favored. The first country was to expand westward even into Albania, including the major part of the province of Korea (Koritza).

The United States and bulgaria stood in opposing camps during World War I. Although at war with each other's allies, they nevertheless maintained normal diplomatic relations throughout the hostilities. The explanation of this anomaly lies in the fact that both countries were guided by expediency rather than principle in formulating their mutual policies. While the Bulgarian leaders hoped by maintaining relations with the United States and appealing to Wilsonian principles to insure Bulgaria against the consequences of a possible defeat, the American policy-makers viewed Bulgaria as the weakest link in the chain of Germany's allies whose removal from the Central Alliance might expedite victory.

When, on February 3, 1917, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, President Woodrow Wilson was already formulating his famous political strategy of trying to drive a wedge between the German people and the German Government by expressing continued friendship for the former and deep hostility to the latter.