Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokrovsky (1868-1932) - the largest Russian Marxist historian, Soviet politician. The leader of Soviet historians in the 1920s, " the head of the Marxist historical school in the USSR ". Pokrovsky's works became an integral part in the history of Soviet historical science and even more - in world Marxist historiography. Pokrovsky's works with all their content were directed against an idealistic understanding of history. Overthrowing the idols of the old, bourgeois historical science, they contributed to the establishment of a new, Marxist-Leninist historical concept, which was developed in the works of subsequent generations of Soviet historians. The selected works of Pokrovsky offered to the reader are intended to give an idea of ​ ​ the main works of a prominent Soviet historian, to show his real place in the development of historical science. Volume 2 - Russian history from ancient times (Volumes III and IV)