Among the enlightened despots of eighteenth-century Europe, Catherine II, Empress of Russia, occupies an outstanding place. In the voluminous literature devoted to her reign, some authors glorify her foreign policy, her wars and her conquests. Others praise her domestic rule and her administrative reorganization of Russia. There are many who laud her enlightenment, her relationship with the outstanding men of letters, and her contribution to and patronage of education. There are also those who condemn her treatment and extension of serfdom and who call her a “plagiarist and a hypocrite.” Finally, there are those who stress her questionable morals. And while there are numerous presentations of Catherine's economic policies, except for brief references, very few of the works on Catherine treat her economic ideas. These may be glimpsed in various of her writings but above all in her Nakaz or Instruction to the Legislative Commission of 1767-68.

According to Soviet writers, it was Lenin's “famous” letter to Stalin in May, 1922, which was responsible for the creation of the Soviet procuracy. This impression has grown through repeated statements so that the observer is led to believe that the form and content of the procuracy were set forth in this epistle and implemented with the passage of the first statute on the Soviet procuracy of May 28, 1922. The ineluctable conclusion reached is that the procuracy sprang fullblown from the head of Lenin. This article will seek to show to what extent this may be said to be true. It is the contention of this writer that although Lenin's letter was an exceedingly important factor in determining whether the procuracy would be resuscitated in 1922, its importance lay in the support which Lenin, the Party and government leader, gave to a faltering project and not in the weight of his arguments which merely repeated, for the most part, statements on the need for and desirability of the procuracy which had previously been made by others, notably N. V. Krylenko.

Statistical Agencies Before the Revolution: Soviet government statistics inherited from Tsarist times almost a century of experience of organized statistical observation. The first government statistical agency in Russia was established in 1811—the Statistical Department of the Ministry of Police. Its objectives were to analyze reports of provincial governors on the social and political situation in their localities and to check on the mobility of population. In the government reorganization of 1827 this department was abolished, but by that time new statistical agencies, departments, and bureaus appeared within other ministries. In 1834, the Statistical Department of the Interior Ministry was established, and in the same year the Provincial Statistical Committees were set up.

One does not have to accept the Marxist claim to a unity of theory and practice to see that, as far as modern Communism is concerned, there is a striking degree of correlation. This does not mean that Communist politics invariably follow Communist theory in all its aspects. Nor does it mean that many Communist theories have not obtained primarily as rationalizations of situations occurring outside, or even contrary to, any theoretical framework. It does mean, however, that generally speaking ideology provides a binding orientation for the direction of society, a view of both tactical and strategic goals and a guide to the thinking of at least the leadership.

Originally scheduled for the end of 1957, but postponed several times, the Third Congress of the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR—Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza) finally held its meetings on March 10-19, 1959, in Warsaw's palace of culture. A total of 1,431 delegates represented a rank-and-file membership of slightly over one million. Five years had passed since the previous gathering of this kind, and much had taken place during the interval. The so-called thaw of 1955-56 reached its culmination point in October, 1956, with the return to power of Wladyslaw Gomulka.

Faced with an imminent breakdown of PZPR authority throughout the country, Gomulka was forced to relax Communist pressure in three vital areas: freedom of speech; collectivization of agriculture, which had almost completely collapsed; and religion, in which the Catholic church hierarchy was again allowed to control its own appointments and resume the teaching of catechism in public schools.

The year 1905 is an important landmark in the history of Czech nationalism and socialism. The generally held view of the events in 1905 as the social democratic struggle for universal suffrage is perhaps narrow and misleading. On closer examination the year 1905 appears a turning point in the nationalist struggle. Nationalism scored its greatest and last but one success: it broadened its mass basis with the organized working class.

The growth of nationalism within the socialist movement is on the whole acknowledged even by contemporary Czech historians; however, the changes that 1905 represented and brought about were either misunderstood or misinterpreted.

Vladimir Mayakovsky, who journeyed extensively during his lifetime and inserted many themes, sights, and sounds from abroad into his poetry, was a decidedly unsentimental traveller. Although at times he may have shed tears, they were not evoked by the same type of spectacle which would have activated the lachrymal glands of the illustrious Laurence Sterne, a man less acutely conscious of social injustice than Mayakovsky. Even before the Soviet poet commenced his actual travels he had been fascinated by foreign countries and had set forth the fancies which he wove about them in his poetry, notably in 150,000,000. The poems and prose sketches written as a direct result of his journeys abroad comprise perhaps one-tenth of his total literary output: the two twelve-volume editions of his work published in 1935-37 and in 1939-49 each reserved one volume for za granitsa.

The physical book of this century has been described as “a degenerate weakling, bent on self destruction.” In this world of “Lweaklings” Soviet publications are especially prone to self destruction, and it is a matter of serious concern to those librarians and scholars who work with the decaying books, periodicals and newspapers which record the facts, figures and ideas of Russian and Soviet civilization.

In 1957 William J. Barrow, a Richmond, Virginia, expert on paper, began a study of the deterioration of American book papers with funds granted by the Council on Library Resources, Inc., of Washington, D. C. He found that “most library books printed in the first half of the twentieth century will be in an unusable condition in the next century.” The materials upon which this verdict was based were 500 non-fiction books printed and published in the United States between 1900 and 1949.