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Literacy programs and ideology in Soviet Russia, Nicolas Werth. Teaching people to read and write was one of the priorities of the Soviet revolution. Linked as of 1917 with indoctrination and politicisation, the education of the masses was meant to be carefully controlled. After a crash literacy program during the civil war period, done with the army's help, publishing was less rigidly watched over and shows the divergences between readers'tastes and those of the Party's guides. The tightening of the screws in the Stalinist period led to the " classic " book becoming an envied item, highly prized today on the black market.

The French communist party's " battles for the book " (1950-1952), Marc Lazar. From 1950 to 1952 the French Communist Party organized several " book battles ", occasions for communist or sympathetic writers to go to the " people " and reconcile the books and the workers. The work place was part of the " fight for peace " strategy, set up at the time by the Kominform on the rallying theme - reject of the " American model " - of the intellectuals. And while the record of this ideological war front was generally negative, the " battles " enable the historian to get a better understanding of the relations between communist intellectuals and party apparatus.

Thirty years of spy literature in France (1950-1980), Erik Neveu. The spy novel, the product of a social-cultural context which it both reflects and influences, is a historical object. Provided three successive strata since 1950 are identified : the classics, political-fiction, and the marginal novel. Although the last category has remained on a superficial level, the first two constitute a soil on which a real idea of the world has sprouted. What are, then, the characteristics which make of them, in a way, the inheritor of the nationalist right studied by René Rémond and Raoul Girardet, and how can we explain the ideological roots of the genre ?

The French and Social Security Public opinion surveys (1945-1982), Dominique Schnapper, Jeanne Brody, Riva Kastoryano. Opinion poils show the deep attachment of the French to Social Security since its creation in 1945. Beyond ideological debates, its management and deficit have been worrying the insured, who are also contributors, for more than 30 years. Generally speaking, despite deep economic changes, the System has not been questioned. The article is based on an exhaustive study of all available polls.

Religion and politics in Poland (1945-1984), Krzysztof Pomian Although the Polish Worker's Party (PWP) still claims its devotion to marxist-leninist ideology, it proclaims, unlike the USSR, its indefectible attachment to the principle of religious freedom. But Church-state relations have not always been smooth since 1945 : they were peaceful only for three brief periods, from 1944 to 1948, from 1956 to 1958, and since 1978. While the state accepts the individual religious practice, it condemns " militant clericalism ". The definition of this expression is a source of conflict. What criteria can be used to draw the line between religious intolerance and the exercise of pastoral activities ? The limit of the PWP's concessions to the church does not go beyond the conducting of liturgical ceremonies and the teaching of church doctrine, provided no allusion is made to the modem daily life of church-goers. From this point of view, Father Popie-luszko's assassination may be seen as the ultimate result of the tendency to fight " political clericalism " and to equate certain priests with counter-revolutionary militants. This explains the force of contestation that the Catholic church can represent and direct within contemporary Polish society.

Life story, social discourse, and true words, Régine Robin To think that oral history is a more democratic history escaping the traps of institutions and power is illusory. Life stories always incorporate social discourse and social " noise " ; they are built on stereotypes ; they fit into frameworks. " Making the silence of history talk ", Michelet's old ambition, may be possible only through fiction, far from the " raw facts " that oral history is supposed to provide.