Why the paradox of a revolt against the Communist regime in Russia in a place which had been a Bolshevik stronghold at the time of the October Revolution? Like many paradoxes, this one, when understood, leads to valuable insights. The effort to comprehend the causes and aims of the Kronstadt revolt sheds much additional light on the contemporary nature of the Soviet regime, the crisis which it was then experiencing, and the trend of its evolution. Conversely, the Kronstadt movement itself becomes much more intelligible when viewed in this broader context.

The revolt did not actually begin as such, but rather as a mass movement of protest, which was symptomatic of the general state of internal crisis in Soviet Russia. Military Communism had reached an impasse; violent intervention by the State into all aspects of economic life, particularly the requisitions from, the peasantry, together with the unemployment and shortages resulting from the general collapse of the nation's economy, had in many places brought large segments of the population to the verge of open revolt against the Soviet regime. In some instances, armed peasant uprisings had broken out, notably in Tambov gubernija.

The almost continuous conflict between the interests of the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire in the Near and Middle East, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, gave rise to several attempts on the part of Pan-Slavs and some Slavophiles to win the English over to the Russian point of view. It was the opinion not only of such a prominent Slavophile as Ivan Aksakov, and the militant independent, Mikhail Katkov, but also of certain officials, that a “great understanding” with England would be more advantageous to Russia than “a great war.” Many, even before 1878, sought to woo England by interpreting to the English public Russian objectives in the Balkans and Central Asia. With the aid of sympathetic English journalists and encouragement from leaders of the Liberal Opposition, these Russian groups sought to explain Russia's past sins and honest motives. It was, in effect, a strange alliance of the anti-imperialist and democratic Western Liberals and the imperialist Pan-Slavs and a small group of reactionary Slavophiles, united by a common desire for peace.

At the end of 1948, after supplying the United States steel industry in the course of the year with an exceptionally heavy volume of manganese ore, in response to a strong and rising market demand, the Soviet Government decided to reduce the shipments of this vital, steel-conditioning mineral to minimum quantities short of an outright embargo. This decision was conveyed to the principal importing firms in the United States in December, 1948, in a brief business communication from the appropriate Government export corporation (Sojuzpromexport) to the effect that owing to increased domestic demand only small, token shipments of manganese ore would be available for export to American markets, during the following year. The reduction in shipments was quite drastic. Only ten manganese cargoes arrived in United States ports during 1949, unloading a total of 73,000 long tons of ore, as compared with 385,000 tons, or 34 per cent of total United States imports brought in from that country during 1948. In one year, therefore, the USSR abandoned its role of major supplier of manganese to the United States to become a minor source, supplying only 5 per cent of total imports in 1949 and less than 3 per cent in 1950.

The premature death of Waclaw Borowy in October, 1950, is a great loss for Polish literary scholarship and for Polish culture in general. By common consent Borowy was the most outstanding literary historian and critic of his generation. In his work he blended the best traditions of philological study with a modern approach to literature. He was a man of huge reading both in Polish literature and in foreign literatures and he was well versed in history, philology, and the arts. His thorough knowledge of foreign languages (French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian) enabled him to present Polish authors and Polish literary trends against a broad comparative background and to evaluate them in an objective fashion. Finally, Borowy was a master of Polish literary style, uniting perfect clarity and conciseness with charming elegance, subtle humor, and fine irony. Nothing written by him was ever dull, not even his bibliographical surveys!

This essay seeks to establish the line of semantic cleavage between itti and ekhat' and between nesti and vezti both for old literary Russian and for contemporary literary Russian. It does not attempt to treat the problem of the relationship between the so-called determined and the so-called undetermined groups (e.g., the difference between itti and khodit)' though significant differences in usage have also taken place here in the two periods.

In pre-Petrine Russian, that is, in the literary Russian from the tenth or eleventh century through the seventeenth century, the distinction between itti and ekhat' (whether in simple or compounded forms) seems to be not unlike the difference between the English go and ride.