P. A. ZHILIN, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Results and Experience of Writing History of the Second World War.

The article deals with the experience gained when writing a multivolume history of the Second World War. The author shows the nature of the edition, its ideological orientation, emphasises the necessity of periodisation of the war, of determining its genesis social essence, of bringing out the interconnection between politics, economy and strategy in the coalition war, of elaborating scientific criteria for assessing the contribution made by each country into the rout of fascism, and the decisive role of the Soviet Union in scoring victory. Much space in the article is given to the war's results and lessons, and their connection with the present.

T. P. KORZHIKHINA. Anti-Alcoholic Movement of the 1920s-Early 1930s.

The author takes as her subject the anti-alcoholic movement of the 1920s-early 1930s, anti-alcoholic legislation of that period and the activity of the mass voluntary organisation the Anti-alcoholic Society which existed from 1928 to 1932. The author emphasises the relevance of this experience today.

N. G. GETMANOVA, M. S. KUZMIN. Soviet-Swiss Cultural and Scientific Ties Between 1917 and 1937.

The article traces the development of scientific and cultural ties between the USSR and Switzerland in 1917 - 1937.

It looks at the activities of progressive organisations of Swiss intellectuals which promoted the establishment of friendly relations with the Soviet Union. Special attention is paid to such organisations as The Union of Friends of the USSR and The New Russia. They disseminated truthful information about the USSR, its economic and cultural development among the Swiss public thus strengthening friendly relations between the peoples of the two countries.

D. A. ALSHITS. The Initial Stage of the History of Autocracy.

Relying on the sources which have come into circulation in recent decades and shedding new light on the already known facts the author opposes an opinion current in historical writings that oprichnina was abolished in 1572. This opinion was engendered by the fact that Ivan the Terrible continued the policy of oprichnina forbidding to call it by this term. The establishment of the oprichnina's regions did not spell, according to the author, the division of the state into two parts but the creation of the machine of autocracy which dominated the zemshchina. This reform decided, to a certain degree, the subsequent development of Russia's political system.

B. V. POSPELOV. Rise of the Neoconservative Tendencies in the Historico- Political Studies by Bourgeois Authors in Japan.

In the conditions when Japan witnesses intensified militarist tendencies and broadening of the Japanese-American military alliance the conservative camp in the country aims at eliminating the post-war democratic reforms and supports the reactionary forces striving to revise them. This course of the ruling circles has found its reflection in the historical and political writings by the conservative bourgeois scholars. The author offers an analysis of their conceptions and exposes their insolvency.

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