ABSTRACT

This chapter considers some salient features of Russia's remarkable progress which began somewhat after the middle of the nineteenth century and reached its culmination toward the close of that century and the beginning of the present century. Russia has traversed a considerable distance during the last ninety years in its sociopolitical structure. It was an unlimited monarchy at the beginning of the period, changed to a constitutional monarchy in 1906, transformed itself in 1917, even before the Communist Revolution, to a federative republic, and finally became organized as a Union of Soviet Republics. Even more spectacular has been the sociocultural growth of the United States throughout its comparatively short history, and especially after the Civil War, the date coinciding significantly with the great reforms of 1861 and subsequent years in Russia. The progress of the United States in the fields of philosophy, humanistic and social sciences, ethical and juridical disciplines, and in the field of the fine arts is considerable.