Let's search the Great Soviet Encyclopedia!

[© tweed]

Most articles on the Founding Fathers are pretty supportive, like they'll be "he wasn't a communist obviously but he was a revolutionary person for his time." They're especially fond of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, and more critical of Washington and John Adams ("one of the leaders of the Federalist Party, which represented the interests of the conservative wing of the American bourgeoisie.")

what do they have on Alexander Hamilton?  and Aaron Burr, by any chance?

[© tweed]

Most articles on the Founding Fathers are pretty supportive, like they'll be "he wasn't a communist obviously but he was a revolutionary person for his time." They're especially fond of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, and more critical of Washington and John Adams ("one of the leaders of the Federalist Party, which represented the interests of the conservative wing of the American bourgeoisie.")

what do they have on Alexander Hamilton?  and Aaron Burr, by any chance?

ah, found it

In 1789 he was the leader of the Federalist Party. He favored a constitutional monarchy based on the English model. From 1789 to 1795, Hamilton was secretary of the treasury. He advocated a centralized government that would foster the development of a capitalistic economy. Hamilton’s research on the problems of value, money, and cost had a major influence on the further development of a bourgeois political economy in the USA. Oriented towards Great Britain in foreign policy, Hamilton, like other Federalist leaders, promoted the conclusion of an Anglo-American treaty that was not fair to the USA (the Jay Treaty).

[© tweed]

On Jesus:

...

was Mythicism more popular in 70s scholarship or are they (presumably) intentionally overstating its influence?

[© tweed]

On Jesus:

...

was Mythicism more popular in 70s scholarship or are they (presumably) intentionally overstating its influence?

If I recall right Engels tended to treat Jesus more as a mythological figure than as someone who really existed, so Soviet authors followed him. Not an actual answer to your question but yeah.

though Kautsky did endorse the categorical idea of a historical Jesus, though he denies the historicity of the vast majority of what's in the Gospels, including events that are seen as certainly historical by >98% of contemporary scholars.  Kautsky was, of course, force-fitting Jesus into a model of anti-imperialist revolutionary and nothing more.

Kautsky was probably treated as an unperson a la Trotsky in official Soviet History, but he's another data point on how Marxists treated Jesus.

[© tweed]

..ah, somewhat to my surprise, an article on Kautsky does exist in the 1979 Soviet Encyclopedia.  he's treated as a man who left the good way: "At first a Marxist, but later became a renegade."

they say Lenin 'exposed' him and WW1 proved him and the right-wing socialists wrong.  the final sentence of the article: "Contemporary right-wing socialist leaders use the opportunist and revisionist views of Kautsky to substantiate their reformist policies."

this does display a recognition of nuance that was not possible during Stalinism.  under Stalinism, there was no possibility of a once good man turning bad. he could only be eternally a hero or villain through all trials and tribulations.