On October 28, 1917, Izvestiia published V.I. Lenin's directive on printing, which articulated his vision for reshaping the printing press as the “inseparable” literary organ of the party. Although Lenin's views on printing and publishing were known to his close associates, this directive outlined a clear process upon which the party was able to base its revolutionary goal of total consolidation, thus reshaping local publishing cultures and determining the fate of the ethnic press during and after the Russian Revolution. The end goal of this process was to create an extensive publishing apparatus, which was subservient to party orthodoxy and homogeneity. This article discusses the consolidation of the ethnic press by highlighting the case of the Tatar printing press during the early Soviet period.

The purpose of this paper is to fill in some of the gaps in the history of the Polish Communist movement in the interval between the dissolution of the old and the formation of the new Communist party. English-language sources in particular devote little space to the period or contain serious factual errors. Consequendy, there is a need to put the record straight by presenting new evidence which has been appearing in Polish sources since the spring of 1956, when the prewar Polish party was officially rehabilitated. Obviously, not all the evidence is in as yet, and some of it may never be made available. Nevertheless, the new sources represent a significant step forward and throw light on some hitherto obscure segments of the history of Polish communism.

The symposium on “Comparative Politics and Communist Systems” (Slavic Review, March 1967) represents, I believe, a general consensus among social scientists in Slavic studies that the study of Communist countries should be integrated into developments in the social sciences in general. The question is how this should be accomplished. The symposium participants argued for immediate and direct integration through various models such as the developmental or bureaucratic model. Another group, represented by the Communist Studies Conference of the American Political Science Association and the recent Carnegie grant for comparative communism, proposes that comparative communism be considered a major subcategory of comparative analysis. At least in the initial stage, it is reasoned, the various Communist systems should be compared with one another. I would suggest, however, that before either scheme is accepted the net be cast wider for a broader, more flexible organizing device.

At a very early stage of the Bolshevik experiment with economic planning it became obvious that the economy could not be made to function without the use of money and other financial instruments. In fact, a financial history of the Soviet economy would show a gradual but relentless expansion in the number and functions of financial instruments. This expansion has been gradual largely because Soviet economists, planners, and administrators have had both ideological (theoretical) and practical reservations about the appropriate uses as well as the potential abuses to which financial instruments can be put. The process has been relentless nonetheless, because for a number of essential economic functions the possible substitutes or alternatives to financial instruments are either impractical or nonexistent. Let me attempt to explain briefly the fundamental reasons for the ambivalence in Soviet financial policy.

All performance involves some kind of communication between performer and spectator. After the socialist realist model was established in the mid-1980s, Soviet professional theaters typically relied on conventional input from patrons: attendance, emotional reactions during performances, and applause. Known for its exceptional interaction with audiences, the Taganka Theater decorated its lobby to correspond to a production and even asked spectators to cast ballots indicating whether they enjoyed the performance of Ten Days that Shook the World. But for professionals, such efforts to bridge the gulf between the stage and the house were unusual.