Events taking place with Russia for past 20 years are unprecedented. After disintegration of the USSR people and leaders of the country cherished a hope to fit into the new order while the general trend of its development was determined mainly by Western strategists. This policy generated predominantly from refusal to carry out a mission of its own, to sacrifice the mission for the benefit of foreign interests. Having forgotten out own historical mission we began to claim rights equal to rights of those who had been present in the external world order project from the start. No one waited for Russia. The successor to the USSR is plunging into regress. In spite of the fact that in Putin epoch disintegration of the state and its institutions which threatened the sovereignty was temporary halted the danger of further slipping to the abyss of historical non-existence is still very high. Sure, the question is about invigoration of the mobilization resource. The very mobilization is to be carried under circumstances of the super-power project. Does contemporary Russia have strength for achievement of this task? The author speaks not of a formal mobilization but cultural and historical mobilization, ‘mobilization model of existence'). So far political establishment of the country does not comprehend the task. New ideas are to be laid at the foundation of any project. There must be the new word the country can say to the world. For us the discussion must not be of functional significance. It is of paramount importance and it must have a value in itself. This discussion must not carry us off politics but must bring us in politics.

In the second part of the article the author touches on the main points in the postwar United States' strategic thinking and behavior stimulated by their privileged position of atomic superiority. Hiroshima led to believe that the american organized West and the constant threat of using the nuclear weapon could deter the rising of the Soviet influence, address new long-term challenges from the Third World and maintain the global dominance of the western civilization. As might be seen from documentary material the major conflict between «hegemonic liberalism» and communism of different versions was the product not only of great colliding forces of history but also of the personalities and human inconstancy of those making the decisions, politicians, military men, nuclear scientists, ideologists and strategists. In this section of the article the author concentrates in particular on the Soviet-American technological competition moving through the new cycle beginning with the end of the american atomic monopoly and the appearance of a dangerous intention in U.S. foreign policy and military establishment to support different plans of preemptive nuclear war. As the author see in a big transfer in U.S.-Soviet relationship from the early nuclear decades to the present period, when leaders of both states can seriously discuss nuclear proliferation and abolition, was in large part due to the combination of «good diplomacy» provided by the approximate nuclear parity, the psychological turn after Sputnik launch and the fundamental change in the world structure.

The 1948−1949 Berlin crisis was the first in the long line of post-war crises related to the former capital city of the German Reich that illustrated the unresolved status of the German issue and an unsatisfactory state of security in Europe. The immediate cause of the crisis was a unilateral currency reform in the three western occupation zones of Germany, which also covered West Berlin. The deeper cause, however, was the policy of the western capitals aimed at the partition of Germany and the inclusion of its western part in anti-Soviet political designs. Relevant decisions were made at a separate conference of Western powers in London (23 February — 6 March 1948), to which the Soviet Union had not been invited. The Soviet Union had few options to influence Western policies without taking recourse to force. One of them was West Berlin whose existence depended on the transportation lines linking it with the Western occupation zones of Germany. After the 20 March walk out of the Soviet representative from the Allied Control Council of Germany to protest the London decisions, the Soviet occupying authorities introduced «control and restriction» measures on the West Berlin transportation lines, which seriously hampered their use. After the entry into force of the unilateral currency reform in the western zones and in West Berlin on 20 June, the land and river transportation lines were totally closed. The air corridors, however, remained open, although it was relatively easy to make them impossible to use. This article explains why that was not done, and how the crisis was settled in May 1949 by a Soviet-US agreement.

The author investigates a difficult way to preparation and signature of the UUSR-Czeckoslovakia treaty of 1943. In 1940 the Polish émigré government brought forward an idea of Poland and Czeckoslovakia unification in a confederacy (federation). The idea was approved and supported by the British. The Foreign Office perceived confederation arrangement of territories adjacent to the USSR as a certain step to strengthening of the British influence in East European region and to continuation of the cordon sanitaire policy towards the USSR. Leaders of Czeckoslovakian political emigration enthusiastically took up the initiative stipulating at the sane time that the USSR must agree with creation of the confederation. Moscow adopted a wait-and-see suspicious position. The article is written on the basis of recently opened Russian and Czeck archives.

Un 1960s Western Europe and USA were convulsed with youth riots. A fanciful mix of rock-n-roll, pacifism, anarchism, Maoism and exotic mystics slopped over streets. So called Paris spring became the peak of the movement. Flat 40 years passed since that time. Jubilee publications are written in romantic and nostalgic tones. Que faire? Picturesque and naïve «flower children» could not survive in stone ju7nggles. Their idealism proved to be incompatible with harsh expedient laws of economics and politics. Some iconoclasts died, others «sold themselves to the bourgeoisie» and sit in European parliament. From the author’s point of view, many pillars of the contemporary global world order are realized slogans of the Paris spring. One would think what can the Russian Federation Ministry of education officials have in common with Paris students who marched out under slogans «Professors are out of date!» and «Two times two doesn’t equal four any more!» Meanwhile the orientation to «emancipation» of young people from «superfluous knowledge» lies at the basis of the contemporary so called ‘reform of education'. We confront a paradox: progressive (even too progressive) movement has turned into obscurantist reaction, while long-haired fighters for «total emancipation' didn’t not lose at all and didn’t sell themselves. The social order which asserts itself nowadays in place of capitalism owes a lot to rioters of 1968. If one takes a look form this point of view one will see that finally they conquered hated bourgeois. However by God it would be better if they hadn’t done that…

Place of non-governmental organizations in the process of civil society formation in early 20th century Russia, various interpretations of «public' notion, interrelations of public structures and the state are content of a new monograph of A. S. Tumanova which is analyzed in the article. Study of these issues enables us to give an answer to a more wide question whether there was a potential for further modernization of the Russian society or not and whether modernization was interrupted by the WW1 and revolution or not. Material consolidated in the book reveals inconsistency of the pre-revolutionary situation. A. S. Tumanova analyzes factors that influenced the gradual withdrawal of bureaucracy from the total control of the public. However the author thinks that the proper measure of control was not found.