Addressing the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February, 1956, Anastas Mikoyan rhetorically asked, "Is it normal that, although almost forty years have passed since October [1917], we have neither a short nor a comprehensive Marxist-Leninist textbook on the history of the October revolution . . . ?" To this inquiry one can safely reply that the absence of such a book is not only normal, but represents the most salient characteristic of Bolshevik historiography of the October revolution. For forty years Bolshevik historians of the revolution have labored under the most frustrating circumstances.

The situation of scientific and scholarly thought in the Soviet Union is perhaps most clearly illuminated by a comparison of the status of the natural and applied sciences (technology, medicine, agricultural sciences) with that of the social and human sciences. It is true, the ideology of the state requires certain beliefs to be professed also with regard to the reality of nature, and readers of the official Soviet journal of doctrine, Problems of Philosophy, would, for instance, learn that important developments in modern science like Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy, or cybernetics, or symbolic logic are being condemned as contrary to materialism. However, if readers were to conclude that Soviet science and technology are at present in fact operating without the benefit of these concepts and tools, they would be utterly mistaken.

The reorganization of the administration of industry and construction that is taking place at the present time in the Soviet Union has a significance beyond that of previous major shifts in the economic administration that have occurred since the Soviets came into power. Whereas the nationalization of industry was dictated by Communist ideology and precipitated by contemporary crises, and the periods of War Communism and the NEP were brought about purely by needs for expedient measures and were considered from their inceptions as temporary deviations from policy necessary to the recoupment of productive forces which would eventually end in reversals of tactics once they had served their purposes, the present reorganization stems from needs brought about by the long-term development of industry and is considered by the Soviets to be a permanent reorientation toward decentralization and regional control.

At the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February, 1956, Nikita A. Khrushchev raised the possibility of "employing the parliamentary form for the transition to socialism." According to the First Secretary,

No such course was open to the Russian Bolsheviks, who were the first to effect this transition . . . Since then, however, the historical situation has undergone radical changes which make possible a new approach to the question. . . . In these [changed] conditions, the working class . . . has an opportunity to defeat the reactionary antipopular forces, to win a firm majority in parliament and to convert parliament from an organ of bourgeois democracy into an instrument of genuinely popular will.

The year 1956 may be regarded as the third milestone in the postwar history of private initiative in Poland.

Until 1949, the official attitude towards private initiative was one of relative toleration. The basic concept was that in a period of reconstruction of the economy, the private or "third" sector could coexist with the State and cooperative sectors without infringing the canons of socialist economics. However, even in that period, a number of legal, administrative, and economic measures were taken, the effect of which was to restrict the scope of activity and stunt the growth of private initiative.

The Hungarian War of Independence (1848-49) in which the Hungarians fought with desperate heroism against the numerically superior forces of Austria and Russia, ended in dismal failure. Some of the Hungarian leaders escaped abroad; many of those who remained were imprisoned, some even met death under the gallows.

Despite the ultimate collapse of the war, it had reverberations throughout the civilized world. Kossuth's fiery speeches were read everywhere, and his valiant efforts in behalf of his unhappy country aroused so much interest in Hungary that innumerable books and articles were published in England and America dealing not only with Kossuth and his helpmates, but also with Hungary, her language and literature, and the customs of this heretofore unknown country. Kossuth's activities, including his American tour, did not secure active help for the Hungarian cause, yet, they led to no mean achievement: they put Hungary, so to speak, on the map.

In his Nobel Peace Prize lecture in Oslo, December 11, 1957, Mr. Lester B. Pearson, the former Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs, called attention to a fact that his generation and mine are more aware of than our younger contemporaries. He said that as a result of the spectacular advances in the physical sciences during the last fifty years, a man who had lived in 1507 would have felt more at home in 1907 than one who had died in 1907 if he came back to life today. Mr. Pearson went on to say that" a great gulf has been opened between man's material advance and his social and moral progress; a gulf in which he may one day be lost if it is not closed or narrowed."