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.

[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:

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[Ismail]

Article on Charles Beard:

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Thomas Paine:

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[Ismail]

From the Encyclopaedia Britannica article:

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

[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.

[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."

[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.

[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.

[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:

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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