Let's search the Great Soviet Encyclopedia!

[Ismail]

I wasn't really sure where to put this thread, so I guess "political debate" is the best but if not a mod could move it elsewhere.

encyclopedia2 .thefreedictionary .com/United%20States%20of%20America.

- example article, include the dot at the end in the URL (it directs specifically to the GSE article, as opposed to some other random encyclopedia's article.)

Names follow the format of surname and then first name, and some have middle names as well, particularly Slav names, thus:encyclopedia2 .thefreedictionary .com/Lenin%2c+Vladimir+Ilyich

If the Soviet encyclopedia doesn't look like it has an article, check to make sure. Scroll all the way down and look under "Full Browser," the articles with green squares next to them may be the Soviet encyclopedia titles, and occasionally under "Mentioned In." Also note that all of them will be under the green square (aka Encyclopedia.) So for instance entering "American Civil War" won't get you anything, but entering "Civil War in the United States, 1861–65, and the Reconstruction of the" will.

Since this was a comprehensive encyclopedia you can pretty much expect anything that existed as of the mid-70s to be in it, including unique stuff like various Marxist terms and figures.

Also, since the USSR took up its very own volume, you can find parts of it by searching terms like History, Economy, Foreign Policy, Constitution and Government, etc. Note also that some figures (like Trotsky, Bukharin or Yezhov) simply do not have articles.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Brings back memories for me as when I was a young lad, the county library held a copy of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

[Ismail]

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.")

Also:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Middle-aged Europe]

[Ismail]

Article on Charles Beard:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Thomas Paine:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[angus]

...the bourgeois revolution of 1861–77 consisted of two stages: the Civil War (1861–65), during which slavery was abolished and a military defeat was inflicted on the counterrevolutionaries, and Reconstruction (1865–77), during which the struggle to complete the bourgeois-democratic changes in the South continued.

 Throughout most of the USA a final victory had been gained in the farmers’ path of capitalist development in agriculture. All power passed into the hands of the bourgeoisie. In the struggle against the planters, the leading role belonged to those among the bourgeoisie who recognized the necessity of abolishing slavery and, after prolonged hesitation, embarked upon the path of revolutionary action. However, the decisive contribution to the defeat of the rebels was made by the popular masses: it was their lengthy and insurmountable pressure that made the transition to revolutionary war inevitable.

During Reconstruction the revolution proceeded with less intensity and a narrowed base, localized mainly in the South. The former slaves, who had struggled for their social and political rights, became the most revolutionary force. The democratic resolution of the agrarian question in the South was one of the principal tasks of the revolution. The bourgeoisie, however, having used the struggle of the Negroes in order to strengthen its own political power, refused to resolve the agrarian question, proceeded to work out an accommodation with the planters, and subsequently attempted to “restore everything possible, and do everything possible and impossible for the most shameless and despicable oppression of the Negroes” (V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 27, p. 142).

...the undermining of the power of the southern planters opened the way for rapid capitalist development as early as the first decade after the war. It was during this period that the industrial revolution in the USA was completed. Intensive railroad construction made possible the establishment of permanent economic ties throughout the country and the expansion of the domestic market. Between 1867 and 1873 about 54,000 km of railroads were built.

The socioeconomic development of the USA, accompanied by an intensified exploitation of the toiling masses, caused a sharpening of the contradictions between labor and capital. In 1866, W. Sylvis organized the National Labor Union, which was active until the early 1870’s. The first national trade labor union in American history, the National Labor Union, supported ties with the First International. After the Civil War the influence of the socialists increased. In 1867 sections of the First International were organized, and in 1872 the General Council of the First International moved its headquarters to the USA.

US foreign policy during Reconstruction was characterized primarily by an effort to strengthen US influence on the American continent and to weaken the influence of Great Britain and the other European powers. In 1867 tsarist Russia, burdened by the vestiges of serfdom and incapable of defending remote Russian settlements, sold Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to the USA...

[Ismail]

From the Encyclopaedia Britannica article:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Kinda amusing 'cause, you know, an encyclopedia dissing another 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).

[TNF]

The extent to which Trotsky was written out of official Soviet history is still amazing, given that he literally lead the Red Army to victory during the Civil War.

[Ismail]

The extent to which Trotsky was written out of official Soviet history is still amazing, given that he literally lead the Red Army to victory during the Civil War.

To quote the Stalin-era Short Course history of the CPSU(B): "The Red Army was victorious because: a) it was able to produce from its own ranks military commanders of a new type, men like Frunze, Voroshilov, Budyonny, and others; b) in its ranks fought such talented heroes who came from the people as Kotovsky, Chapayev, Lazo, Shchors, Parkhomenko, and many others; c) the political education of the Red Army was in the hands of men like Lenin, Stalin, Molotov, Kalinin, Sverdlov, Kaganovich, Ordjonihdze, Kirov, Kuibyshev, Mikoyan, Zhdanov, Andreyev, Petrovsky, Yaroslavsky, Dzerzhinsky, Shchadenko, Mekhlis, Khrushchev, Shvernik, Shkiryatov, and others..." (this is from the 1945 edition, the 1938 one also mentioned Yezhov.)

Of course after the 1950s more names could be added to that list like Tukhachevsky and Yakir, but Trotsky remained practically unmentionable. Soviet authors would say "Lenin sent a letter to the Red Army command" or whatever to avoid mentioning Trotsky directly, and held that Lenin (from the 1930s-1956 Lenin and Stalin) had led the Red Army.

After 1956 the Soviets reduced mention of Stalin to the bare minimum. A guy I know has a Soviet history of the CPSU from the 1970s and Stalin is mentioned three times: as one of three Bolsheviks involved in the nationalities question in 1913, as one of the various commissars appointed after the October Revolution, and in 1956 as someone being denounced.

Since Stalin could barely be mentioned concerning the 1920s-40s Soviet authors referred to the Leninist Central Committee, which directed everything (industrialization, collectivization, WWII, etc.) If they had to name people then they named Kirov, Rudzutak, Postyshev, Manuilsky and so on as outstanding Bolsheviks and members of the Central Committee, either avoiding any mention of Stalin or reducing him to one person in a list of names.

Works by Kalinin, Dimitrov and various others praising the likes of Stalin and Molotov were edited to remove such praise as well.

[H. Ross Peron]

On Jesus:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Ismail]

For a moment I thought you said "Oh Jesus."

Today is the 97th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. The article is way too long to copy-paste here, but it exists.

The only mention of Trotsky in connection with it: "The situation called for decisive and offensive action by the revolutionary forces. However, some members of the MRC were still sluggish about moving ahead to attack the main centers of the counterrevolution—the headquarters of the Petrograd military district, the Winter Palace, and so forth. Some of them wanted to postpone the seizure of power until the Second Congress of Soviets had convened (the evening of October 25). The influence of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, L. D. Trotsky (who favored postponing the insurrection, which was equivalent to breaking it off), was felt, as was that of Kamenev and Zinoviev, who on the very eve of the insurrection argued that it was doomed to defeat."

[© tweed]

On Jesus:

...

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

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

On Jesus:

...

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

This doesn't really answer your question at all, but there's a lovely subplot early on in The Master and Margarita where Bezdomny has written an epic poem or something of that sort that offers a highly critical view of a 'Historical Jesus' character (presumably not the same quasi-'Historical Jesus' who is Himself a character in the novel), and Berlioz chastises him because he was supposed to make the poem mythicist somehow.

[Ismail]

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.

[© 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.

[Ismail]

Soviet assessments of a bunch of figures changed after the Stalin period. For instance Gandhi and Nehru went from being denounced as collaborators with the British to being praised as national heroes. The former's encyclopedia entry hints at this: "In Soviet historical literature until the mid-1950’s, there was an incorrect, one-sided evaluation of Gandhi’s role in the sociopolitical life of India and in the anti-imperialist struggle of the Indian people." Nasser, Nkrumah and a few others were denounced as American or British lackeys 'till the mid-50s.

Bolívar was a historical figure who was rehabilitated after the 50s. Original assessments during the 1920s-50s, basing themselves off of Marx, condemned him. Afterwards Soviet scholars claimed that Marx was misinformed by the few sources he had at his disposal at the time his views on Bolívar were formulated.

[H. Ross Peron]

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.

I suspect with the comparative lack of knowledge of ANE religion and society , there was wider acceptance  of the Victorian theories of people like Kelsey Graves (similar to the wider acceptance of Freudian psychology). I'm rather surprised personally at the relatively brevity of the Jesus article-its about the same length of even slightly shorter than the article on Mohammed and that's with half of the Jesus article being devoted to the discussion of the "Christ Myth" theory.

[Ismail]

The articles on the religions themselves are probably longer, not to mention various religious movements. I know the article on the Protestant Reformation is quite lengthy.

It'd be interesting to see Great Soviet Encyclopedia articles from the 1920s-50s. For example Leszek Kołakowski quotes excerpts from the the article on Henri Bergson from 1949:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The 1970s version is totally different. It leaves aside politics and the worst it says about his philosophy is that it's "internally inconsistent" and that Marxists have sharply criticized it.

[Ismail]

Here's an... interesting comparison.

1947 Great Soviet Encyclopedia article on Trotskyism: web.archive.org/web/20030317082452/http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/trotsky-bse-e.html

1970s: encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/trotskyism