SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES A. I. DANILOV. S. D. Skazkin and Certain Aspects of Historiographical Analysis The author examines the approach to historiographical problems manifested by Academician S. D. Skazkin - one of the founders of the Soviet school of research in the history of the Middle Ages. Whatever aspect of research we take-the historiography of the West-European peasantry, the feudal state, the transition from the period of antiquity to the Middle Ages, the historiography of the Renaissance or the problem of land ownership in the French countryside of the 18th century - it is characteristic of S. D. Skazkin invariably to display a profound class analysis of historical phenomena, making it possible to trace their essence. At the same time, S. D. Skazkin always emphasized the class limitation of bourgeois historiography which determines its methodological nature and inevitably leads to idealism in interpreting the substance of the historical process. The young generation of Soviet researchers in medieval history, the author notes, must learn from S. D. Skazkin to use all the achievements of historical knowledge in order to advance in science, to carry on a consistent struggle against every departure from the methodology of Marxism-Leninism and against all varieties and manifestations of bourgeois ideology. F. A. KAREVSKY. The Activity of the Political Departments at the Machine and Tractor Stations in the Volga Country In the two years of their existence (1933 - 1934) the political departments set up at the machine and tractor stations (MTS) carried out extensive and many-sided work to consolidate the MTS and the collective farms organizationally, economic-ally and politically. As is clearly shown in the article, the political departments played an active part in thoroughly restructuring and improving the work in the sphere of Party organization and political education of the masses in the collective farms and the MTS with a view to making them economically e ... Read more