Contenu du sommaire

François Bafoil, Adolf Hennecke or the foundations of German Democratic Republic. In the process of sovietization of the political, social and economic life of the zone under Soviet occupation (SBZ) to which was to succeed in 1949 the GDR, the performance of the miner Hermecke is particularly significant. The objective was to demonstrate through his example the superiority of one mode of operational functioning (socialism) over the other (capitalism). This superiority was to be reflected not only by the organization of enterprises but also by its principal institutional actors (the Party and the Union). A particular behavior inspired by convictions and loyalty corresponding to the new collective form of ownership, yielded in compensation an increase of material and moral rewards for the person that acknowledged the merits of the new order. From this point of view, the record of the German Stakhanovist summarized the basic principles of the new regime.

Gabriel Gorodetsky, The impact of the Ribbenirop-Molotov pact on the course of Soviet foreign policy. The author challenges the current historiography which tends to assume that in signing the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact Stalin, motivated by greed for territories, had thrown his lot with Germany. An examination of Allied archives and Soviet sources reveals Stalin's foreign policy to be unscrupulously realpolitik, dominated by a realization of the Soviet Union's relative weakness. The pact, however, was not regarded as a foolproof guarantee for Russia's western borders in view of Stalin's deep-seated suspicion of a British-German reconciliation. Thus rather than commitment to Germany and a division of Europe to spheres of influence Stalin regarded strict neutrality as the crowning success of their diplomacy. Such neutrality, however, remained precarious throughout the interregnum of 1939-1941 . It was sapped by the Soviet benign attitude to Germany, by contemplated Allied action against Russia, and by the profound gnawing fear in the Kremlin of a British connivance in a future war with Germany. Consequentially, especially after the fall of France, Stalin was forced to resort to such exceedingly subtle dual diplomacy that its meaning was often lost on his partners. His obsessive suspicion of a separate peace hampered his judgment and contributed to the paralysis which struck him as war drew nearer.

Pezhmann Dailami, The Bolsheviks and the Jangali revolutionary movement, 1915-I920. This article examines the activities of the Bolsheviks in the Gilan province of Iran during the years 1915 to 1920 when the Jangali revolutionary movement dominated the politics of that province. It questions the established belief that the Bolsheviks only entered the politics of Gilan in 1920 when their forces landed on the Gilan coast of the Caspian. It examines the role that the Bolsheviks played in Gilan and sheds light on the hitherto unexplored history of the Jangali-Bolshevik relations prior to the establishment of the "Soviet Republic of Iran" (in Gilan) in May 1920. The article concludes that their relationship was firm and generally friendly and calls for a «examination of Jangali-Bolshevik relations during the Republic.

Simon Markish, Zhabotinskii, a Russian journalist. The purpose of this article is to examine a part of the journalistic legacy of one the most important representatives of twentieth-century Jewish literature, expressed in Russian : V. (Zeev) Zhabotinskii, much better known as a politician. The part of the legacy in question consists of publicist articles properly Russian, and not Russian-Jewish. The chronological framework covers the whole of the pre-revolutionary (in Russia) as well as the post-revolutionary (in emigration) period of Zhabotinskii's life.

Agnes Kefeli-Clay, The petition of the priests of Nizhnii-Novgorod in 1636. In 1636, Patriarch Josaphat of all Russia received a petition of nine priests from Nizhnii-Novgorod. This document is interesting from two points of view : first, it shows the concerns for reform of a particular group inside the Russian Church - the parish priests, who had been hitherto excluded from the political power of the Church ; second, it gives a detailed picture of the peasant festivals of the time. This source sheds new light on the term "pagan" which does not indicate a superficial Christianization of the Russians but simply the presence of a peasant culture which did not fit the petitioners' own vision of Christianity.