Abstract: The article is devoted to the history of terrorist organizations that arose as a response to the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the rise to power of Fidel Castro and the policies of his government over the following decades. An important role in the creation, financing and support of these organizations was played by people directly or indirectly connected with the American special services and the political leadership of the United States. The activities of Cuban counter-revolutionary terrorists have led to tragic consequences, including the deaths of innocent people, not only Cubans, but also representatives of other Latin American countries. The use of terrorist methods for political purposes is an extremely urgent problem in the 21st century, and therefore an appeal to the history of this phenomenon is objectively necessary to effectively combat this evil. The history of terrorist activity by opponents of the Castro regime is of interest both to historians and political scientists, whose interests include the study of the Caribbean region, the history of foreign policy and the activities of US intelligence agencies, and to specialists in international relations in general. The methodology of the research is based on the principles of historicism, scientific objectivity and consistency. This allows us to consider the problem under study as an integrated system, where the facts are analyzed in their entirety and interrelationships. General scientific (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, descriptive) and general historical (historical-comparative, historical-systemic) research methods are necessary for conducting research. The present study has a scientific novelty, since it is based on sources not previously used in the Russian scientific literature. A significant part of the corpus of sources used by the author of the article are classified CIA documents until recently. To a certain extent, working with such arrays of information is not only a historical, but also a political science study that allows us to better understand the realities of modern geopolitics. As for the conclusions of this study, they may be summarised respectively: 1) the United States, at least in the recent past, was a direct sponsor of international terrorism; 2) the activities of anti-Castro terrorist groups in the 20th century still hinder the process of restoring diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba; 3) a violent change of power in the state inevitably generates a cycle of violence that evades the risk of interference in the internal affairs of the country from the outside.

Keywords: Escambray, Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, USA, Cuba, John F. Kennedy, Jorge Mas, terrorism, Fidel Castro, CORU

Abstract: The subject of the research of the scientific article is the peculiarities of the process of training firefighters on the basis of the Irkutsk Fire Technical School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR during the period of activity of this educational institution from 1968 to 1993 on the territory of the Irkutsk region. In this publication, on the basis of previously unpublished and not introduced into scientific circulation archival materials, historical data on quantitative changes in the recruitment and training of cadets of the Irkutsk Fire Technical School during the period of their educational activities are investigated. The author considers the issues of organizing entry examinations for incoming applicants, notes significant events in the educational activities of cadets, and summarizes data on the number of specialists who have completed training. The article identifies the features of the educational process on the basis of the school, which allowed the formation of a professional staff of firefighters in the regions of Siberia and the Far East.  The research methodology includes a concrete historical approach (M.V. Astakhov, I.D. Kovalchenko, V.F. Kolomiytsev, A.P. Pronstein, etc.), as well as generalization, comparison, synthesis, classification, concretization; analysis of archival documents, legislation and scientific literature; retrospective analysis; method of historical analogies. The novelty of this scientific article lies in the fact that during the scientific research, historical and pedagogical sources, archival data describing in detail the history of the formation and development of the cadet recruitment structure of the school, as well as a detailed report on the quantitative and qualitative indicators of graduates of the fire school by year of graduation were identified and summarized. The conducted research is of interest to a wide range of readers, since the study of the educational activities of the school, structural and organizational measures for the recruitment and graduation of firefighters is a very important component in the study of the formation and development of departmental education of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR in the territory of the Baikal region in the XX century. The list of heads of these structural divisions at the stage of formation and development of the Irkutsk Fire Technical School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR is considered.

Keywords: the training system, fire education, graduation of specialists, extinguishing fires, fire fighting school, fire fighting, cadets are firefighters, professional training, the history of the Baikal region, training of specialists

Abstract: The subject of the research in the article is the image of the First and Second Chechen Wars, created by journalists of The New York Times newspaper in the 1990s and reflecting the views of the American democratic public. The subject of the study is the headlines of articles related to this topic in the American daily newspaper The New York Times. At the end of the 20th century, the periodical press continued to play a significant role in public life, including shaping the news agenda and creating the image of certain events. Often, journalists sought to impose their vision of Russian politics on the reader. Reputable publications, avoiding the techniques of the "yellow press", used more subtle and unobvious manipulative forms. Such manipulations include the newspaper's choice of lexical units with a certain connotation and the frequency of their use. In this study, the author attempts to explicate the hidden information that is embedded in the headlines of The New York Times. To analyze the information identified by the author in the headlines of The New York Times newspaper, the article used methods such as historical, comparative and quantitative content analysis. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the headlines of The New York Times newspaper of this period were first considered as a source of analysis of the transforming view of the American democratic press on the events of the First and Second Chechen Wars. According to the results of the study, the following conclusions were drawn: the image of the Chechen conflict of the 1990s in the American press has undergone significant changes. If the First Chechen War in The New York Times appears as a legitimate struggle of the Russian authorities against the separatist movement in Chechnya, albeit with a number of critical remarks, then the image of the Second Chechen War is radically different from the previous campaign. The newspaper presents the events of the Second Chechen Campaign as a new colonial war, while the emphasis was shifted towards criticizing the Russian leadership for violating human rights and freedoms in the Chechen Republic, as well as a direct impact on destabilization in the North Caucasus region.

Keywords: periodical printing, The American press, press analysis, content analysis, newspaper headlines, manipulative techniques, Source studies, The New York Times, The Chechen War, image

Abstract: The article deals with the problem of the influence of representatives of the National Armed Forces of Venezuela on the course and results of the coup in April 2002. The relevance of the topic is determined by the fact that the failed coup became a key point in the first stage of the government of Hugo Chavez and largely determined the president's policy towards further establishing personal control over all institutions of power, as well as definitively outlined the harsh anti-American vector of the Bolivarian policy. The emphasis on the actions of military officials in the coup makes it possible to determine their real significant role in the April events. In this regard, attention is paid to the influence of the institution of the army in general and individual officers in particular on political processes in Venezuela. The methodological basis in the article is provided by general scientific (descriptive, analysis and synthesis), as well as historical (chronological) and political science (institutional) research methods. In Russian historiography, the episode with the coup, as a rule, was considered within the framework of global studies on H. Chavez and Chavismo in general. Therefore, within the framework of the work, more emphasis is placed on foreign historiography. These facts determine the novelty of the work, which consists both in attracting previously unused materials to the study, and in specifying the topic of the coup and the role of the Venezuelan Armed Forces in it. Based on the analyzed data, the conclusions of the work indicate that the actual intervention of senior officers in the political crisis in the country initially brought the presidency to the putschists, and then deprived them of almost seized power, ensuring the return of Hugo Chavez to the Miroflores Palace. In addition, independence in the actions of the military is emphasized in the conditions of chaos and a vacuum of power that came on April 11, 2002. In this regard, it is also indicated that specifically the senior officers acted spontaneously and were not actively involved in the real-life conspiratorial circles that were preparing a coup d'etat. Therefore, when the military most important for the coup saw that the measures taken by the putschists did not meet their vision, they deprived the right of their support and did not actually oppose the fact that another group of military officers returned the legitimately elected president to office.

Keywords: Venezuelan coup d'état attempt, General Raul Baduel, General Efrain Vasquez Velasco, Hugo Chavez, National Armed Forces of Venezuela, armed forces, coup d'etat, Venezuela, Avila plan, Pink tide

Abstract: The author examines some aspects of the daily activities of foreign war correspondents who accompanied the Manchurian army in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The article is based on texts published by journalists, materials from foreign periodicals, documentation from military and foreign ministries. Attention is paid both to the everyday peculiarities of the professional conditions of accredited journalists in Manchuria, and to the characteristics of the social environment, which had a significant impact on the process of collecting information in the theater of military operations. The issues of interaction of foreign correspondents with representatives of the Russian army, the local Chinese population and other reporters are touched upon, which is closely related to their possession of relevant foreign language competencies. The dynamics of the number of foreign military personnel in the theater of war and its connection with the course of hostilities are analyzed.  The use of the historical and comparative method made it possible to identify common and special features in the situation of foreign reporters and other guests of Manchuria. The differences revealed in the characteristics of daily activities between foreign war correspondents and representatives of the Russian press, as a rule, were associated with a language barrier for foreigners and greater distrust of them on the part of censorship authorities. In comparison with military attaches, correspondents noted the complete independence of the journalistic corps in solving everyday issues in Manchuria. In the course of the study, several stages were identified in the dynamics of the number of foreign reporters in the theater of war. The correlation of the pace of correspondents' accreditations with events at the front has been revealed and demonstrated. It has been established that the 1904 campaign, especially its summer and autumn events, received the most attention from foreign journalists. For the first time, a range of issues is outlined for the study of which the legacy of foreign war correspondents may have the greatest scientific and cognitive value.

Keywords: European press, periodical printing, Russian army, military censorship, Manchuria, foreign correspondents, war journalism, war correspondents, Russo-Japanese war, journalistic accreditation