Pressing on Russia is a problem which deserves analysis offered in the article. Any person who starts a long-term process fraught with prospect of regress (as, for instance, Russian perestroika and its diverse follow-ups) relies on the law of ideological systems rotation and the classical theory of cycles. Anti-Soviet sentiments in Russia have already passed the stage of consumerist liberalism and entered stage 2, i.e. «centrist patriotism» stage. Stage 3, harsh and tough nationalism stage is on agenda. Then perhaps Orthodox fundamentalism and, further on, fascism will follow. To create a barrier to skating down to harsh nationalism new leading social groups, other social system and other management models are needed. However nowadays Russians have neither moral nor material motivation. The major scale strategic modernization is lacking too. The author discusses new trends in pressure on Russia that shift the country towards harsh nationalism. In the first place, these trends include revision of Washington policy towards Moscow. USA demonstrates concern about excessive concentration of power in hands of Putin, about issues of democracy and suggests to punish Russia for its treaty with Tehran (the treaty was made on February 26, 2006), not to allow Russia to «big eight» summit, recommends «not to impede freedom and democracy in neighboring countries». Threats of US nuclear war on Russia are already rung about because US nuclear superiority is allegedly obvious. In order to live Russia needs the mobilization model of development and strategic offensive intellectual openness.

The article raises the problem of freezing inflammable trends in the North Caucasus through administrative reforms. These reforms, as the author thinks, should be centered around the formation of a functional mechanism to secure gradual replacement of the aging ethnocratical elites by a new generation of broadly educated political leaders with wider commitments.

he article deals with the judicial reform of 1864. Its contemporaries and later researchers called it the most consistent among all «great reforms». That consistency which brought about the complete liquidation of the old, in all respects abominable system and emergence of the new system which was, no doubt, by far more attractive one is demonstrated by the author on rich and diversified material. In a no less convincing manner the author demonstrates the paradox created in Russia by the autocracy which carried out the liberal reforms. The new courts as well as other institutions established in the course of reforms could not find a room within framework of the autocratic and bureaucratic system and permanently compromised and, moreover, destroyed the old judicial system. In result the power had inevitably either to change itself in spirit of the reforms it initiated making itself more liberal or to distort the new court and impose its will on the new court, zemstva (local self-government bodies) etc. The czarist government opted for precisely the second way.

I.M.Maiski was the Soviet plenipotentiary (an the ambassador since 1941) in London. The diary Maiski kept from 1933 to 1943, is a serious source for researchers of Soviet-British relations of that period and of international situation of 1930s. Thus the Diary sheds light on the issue of the WWII ripening and beginning. The personality of the diarist who so emotionally and vividly depicted the political landscape of London of that time is also of interest. The author is a superb stylist and that makes reading of his diary a fascinating and easy entertainment. Some biographical data on I.M. Maiski (Lyakhovetski) are given in the article. Entries put in the Diary and related to the Soviet-Czechoslovakian relations in 1938−1940 are examined. Appraisals of the Munich conspiracy (September 29−30, 1938) among Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy that initiated process of Czechoslovakia’s dismemberment are analyzed too. Evidence contained in Maiski’s Diary certainly require a low-keyed approach and are to be compared with other documents. Nevertheless this evidence is valuable for investigation of development of relations between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union in the pre-WWII years and provides extra pabulum for reflections on positions of both states.

An American diplomat and historian George Kennan in his celebrated «Long Telegram» (1946), which made such a strong impact in American official circles warned against assuming the Soviet foreign policy as entirely based on nationalistic cynicism or imperial ambitions. The USSR, he wrote «is neither schematic nor adventuristic». Thus the mere logic (though not the only one) prompts us that Stalin saw in the Secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 23, 1939 not only the means of achieving some intermediate aims in his drive for restoration of a full-scale Russian power and a step toward the direction which was governed by the idea of world revolution, but in the first place as the most necessary attempt in creation of a security belt on the whole perimeter of the Soviet western boundaries. Winston Churchill described these steps made in the war crisis atmosphere of 1939−1940 as motivated by rational Soviet feelings of deep insecurity in view of the Nazi move through eastwards and introduced the term «the Eastern bulwark» for designation of the territorial changes, occurred with the pushing westward of the Soviet boundaries in the second part of 1940 during the dramatic events which have followed the capitulation of France in June 1940. The documents from the U.S. diplomatic archives cited in the article underscore the validity of this conclusion.

Doctrianiarism can kill Weltanschauung, even the most developed and wholistic one. V.S.Voitinski's letters published in the issue are, inter alia, about that. They are about those objective and subjective circumstances that inexorably led to wreck opinions held by the Overseas Delegation of RSDWP leaders. A.N.Potresov justly characterized these opinions as «creation of revolutionary fiction». However let’s not forget that those leaders were not just politicians but also people of their own time, of that phantasmagoric world which had been created by WWI, Russian revolution of 1917, fratricidal civil war and emigration. These people experienced terror of the Bolshevist dictatorship, emergence and success of fascism, bitterness of Munich surrender and beginning of WWII. Their assessments were wrong. They overestimated their own potential and forces, they believed in triumph of socialism even in circumstances that were inappropriate for such expectations. Let us respect them with all their weaknesses and shortcomings.