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Archive 5←Archive 8Archive 9Archive 10Archive 11Archive 12→Archive 15

unlock

Unlock the page --93.82.3.193 (talk) 10:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Such a request should be made here. William Avery (talk) 10:38, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Vadiklk, 9 October 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} In the article it is written: Leader - 1922–1953 (first) Vladimir Lenin - 1985–1991 (last) Mikhail Gorbachev

While obviously it is not true, Lenin was the leader until 1924(The year he died), taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_leaders_of_the_Soviet_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin

The mistakes comes from a small misunderstanding, Lenin was the first and ruled till 1924, but Stalin was till 1953.

Overall: please change the year to 1924. Hopefully this will be changed.

Vadiklk (talk) 19:10, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Fixed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Done by Paul Siebert. Thanks, Stickee (talk) 23:30, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
FYI, this edit is the culprit, due to a misunderstanding of what the rows actually represent (I nearly made the same edit a while ago). Should the previous (more informative but also more confusing) state be restored? --Illythr (talk) 01:49, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Move

This should be moved to Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. --75.33.217.61 (talk) 14:14, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

This had previously been proposed and did not pass.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 1, 2010; 14:39 (UTC)

Badly written history section

The history section is badly written, badly sourced, and for some reasons centers to much on the Stalin era and to little on the Khrushchev and especially the Brezhnev era; Leonid Brezhnev was the second-longest serving leader of the USSR but he is barely mentioned in the article! --TIAYN (talk) 14:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Typo

I would fix this, but it's semi-protected and not worth it.

In the Energy section, it's fruitian, but the word should be spelled fruition.

Forevermac (talk) 22:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Done, along with a few other quirks in that section. The whole article needs a proofreading by a native speaker... --illythr (talk) 02:50, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Made in USSR symbol

I'd like to see some information on the ubiquitous pentagonal CCCP symbol found on Soviet products and elsewhere (shown on a plaque on a printing machine and a square interpretation of which can be seen here). This might be worth adding to the article (or, for example, State emblem of the Soviet Union) - or might even be worth an article of its own if we can find sufficient detail about it. ProhibitOnions (T) 11:06, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I've added a couple of links to related articles to make it easier to find. ProhibitOnions (T) 17:20, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Typo

Regarding the entry under the Education heading: "At the beginning, the Soviet authorities placed great emphasis on the elimination of illiteracy, therefore, people who could literate were automatically hired as teachers."

It appears that it should read: "At the beginning, the Soviet authorities placed great emphasis on the elimination of illiteracy, therefore, people who were literate were automatically hired as teachers."

— Preceding unsigned comment added by S. Saiba (talk • contribs) 17:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Religion?

Perhaps we should change the state religion in the box to "State atheism", rather than "None". "None", at least to me, gives somewhat of an impression that they were secular (didn't care about religion, thus the absence of a state religion), as opposed to being pro-atheist/anti-religion. The "None" redirects to the State athiesm article anyways. Seek75 (talk) 17:00, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

"None" is in the infobox because officially (wink-wink) the Soviet Union was a secular state, not an atheist state. Atheism was promoted and encouraged with various degrees of persistence over the USSR's history, but was not in general an official attribute of the state. Note the differences between this approach and the approach adopted by, say, Albania or by China in the 1950s–1960s, where atheism was indeed the state's official position on religion.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 21, 2011; 17:11 (UTC)
Ah, ok then. I thought before that they were officially atheist, but I suppose I don't know quite as much as I'd like. Thanks for clearing that up then. Seek75 (talk) 17:16, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
You are welcome. As for the link to "state atheism", that's where the Soviet position on religion is best explained, so the link is appropriate as well. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 21, 2011; 17:22 (UTC)
Actually, the reason for this setup in the infobox was a complaint (now buried in the archives) stating that "Religion: State atheism" is incorrect, because atheism is not a religion. --illythr (talk) 18:20, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
That's a valid point, too.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 21, 2011; 18:33 (UTC)

Incorrect flags

Incorrect (Soviet era) flags in "Succeeded by" for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan. Please update. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.56.244.190 (talk) 11:35, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Flag of independent Georgia is incorrect. This is correct. Laleksl (talk) 16:03, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

You could've just changed it yourself, you know :) I've fixed it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 4, 2011; 16:19 (UTC)

"Pay" system?

"While a Soviet citizen could not reapply after being rejected, just as in the US, US citizens can pay themselves into higher education."

Is this some kind of POV jealousy? It looks that way, but I don't understand what "pay themselves into..." means.

Also, where is it written that one can't reapply to a university in the United States after being rejected? I'm not aware of this rule. Ufwuct (talk) 16:04, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I would support removing this or (assuming it is true) just saying "Soviet citizens could nor reapply after being rejected". The rest... it's basically not true in the US that you can pay money to get accepted to an institution of higher education nor that you can't reapply. It may vary as most universities in the US are private institutions. Herostratus (talk) 22:06, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
It's garbled and I tried to fix it. The comparisons with the US are quite unnecessary in the first place. (by the way, lots of colleges--esp community colleges-- in the US accept all applicants with a high school diploma.) Rjensen (talk) 11:39, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

health

Regarding the first sentence in this section, cited with 114... the sentence seems to imply that the coverage issues are true for the whole of the soviet union's existence, yet the title of the cited book seems to imply that the book covers only the era after 1988. Can anyone verify or clarify? 68.75.181.72 (talk) 03:55, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Discrepancy

I want to move/merge the second paragraph of the Health subsection with the main demographics discussion, but I'm a bit puzzled. In the former, it states "After the communist takeover, the life expectancy for all age groups went up ... These improvements continued into the 1960s". How exactly does this jibe with "The first fifty years of the 20th century in tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union were marked by a succession of disasters, each accompanied by large–scale population losses"? Clarityfiend (talk) 02:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

World War I, Russian Civil War, Great Purge, World War II etc. --TIAYN (talk) 06:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Huuh? How does life expectancy rise in the face of all these disasters? Clarityfiend (talk) 20:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
You have to look into the sources what exactly they had in mind, regardless what a wikipedian might tell you. My guess is that the text has in mind the so-called "natural life expectancy" (life expectancy calculated discounting catastrophic events). BTW, I noticed that wikipedia's article "life expectancy" does not cover this concept. Lovok Sovok (talk) 05:53, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
I figured as much. Still, this needs to be explained better (and cited) in the article by someone more knowledgeable about such things. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:24, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from BuilderDogWilsonDanny, 27 February 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} During the Second world War, Joseph Stalin had made a compact with Adolf Hitler so when Nazi Germany fought Poland with the help of the Soviet Union, that the Soviet union would get some land from the Poles along with Germany.

--20:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)BuilderDogWilsonDanny (talk)

 Not done This "compact", commonly known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, already has a paragraph in the article. --illythr (talk) 22:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


Applicants who were rejected were not allowed to reapply.[109] - it's falce. At 1980's you can do it and be succeed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.2.64 (talk) 00:52, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

 Done The referenced page (plus-minus a couple) does not support this claim (it was probably true for the Brezhnev era, though). --illythr (talk) 18:07, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

In Soviet Russia, April Fools You

Since Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soviet Union (2nd nomination) has been closed as Keep, I've removed the AFD tag from this page. I'm also going to pass on actually listing this year's (and last year's) April Fools AFDs in the usual template; on the off chance someone does seriously intend to nominate this page, they can figure it out for themselves. Thanks to all who had fun with it this time around. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 13:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Preceded by

Wouldn't it make sense to also add Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the list of "Preceded by" in the infobox?Mrkarlis (talk) 23:14, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

The "preceded by" column lists the founding states. The Baltic states were annexed much later. --illythr (talk) 18:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for clarification Mrkarlis (talk) 09:17, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Comment

I removed a portion [1] that completely breaks logic and chronology of the text. The original text explains the development in 1920s and later, but insert tells something about 1983, and it is not really about soviet economy. Biophys (talk) 02:06, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Religion?

"State atheism"?


Really, where did the government of the USSR mandate that?

Shouldn't the "Religion" part simply read none, secular state?

Religion, although oppressed often in the USSR, still existed there.


Besides, didn't the CPSU calim to be "Marxist-Leninist"?

How can you be Marxist when in "Private Property and Communism", Marx said "Atheism, as the denial of this unreality, has no longer any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation. It proceeds from the theoretically and practically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as the essence. Socialism is man’s positive self-consciousness, no longer mediated through the abolition of religion, just as real life is man’s positive reality, no longer mediated through the abolition of private property, through communism. Communism is the position as the negation of the negation, and is hence the actual phase necessary for the next stage of historical development in the process of human emancipation and rehabilitation."? Bolegash (talk) 04:13, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

But wiki doesn't operate from speculation - what are your Reliable Sources that claim this? HammerFilmFan (talk) 02:33, 20 August 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan

Religion in the infobox =

I don't think we really need "religion = none (secular)" in the infobox. No other country that I know has their religion in the infobox, even "Islamic republics". So I propose removing this. Peter (talk) 10:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done --Σ talkcontribs 18:36, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Photo removal

Passers-by no longer pay attention to the corpses of starved peasants on a street in Kharkiv, 1933.

This photo has been inserted by at least 5 editors, and removed by 2 or 3. The reason for removal has been stated as "This photo is a fraud." Actually, I don't think that anybody knows that, but it is safe to say that the provenance is disputed. Given that the Soviet Union was a police state in the 1930s, it is safe to say that any photo from inside the USSR at that time that had negative implications for the government would have an unclear provenance. If we take as a rule that photos of unclear provenance from the USSR in the 1930s can't be included, then we would clearly be biased toward presenting the USSR through the eyes of the government - a government that almost everybody now recognizes as having been criminal in nature. Harvard University displayed this photo, that should be good enough to include it here with the minor addition to the caption "on a street, believed to be in Kharkiv, 1933" Smallbones (talk) 13:47, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

The source displays this photo with a note that "The provenance of these 'famine' photos is neither claimed nor implied and are shown for comparative academic research purposes." and for a good reason, since Holodomor is known for multiple hoax photos. It is indeed interesting for comparative academic research purposes. But for the encyclopedic purposes in such high-profile article as the Soviet Union we should use images with non-controversial provenance. This particular image might not be a fraud, but it seems it is not proven conclusively that it is authentic. And to mantain accuracy and NPOV this image should be titled "Passers-by no longer pay attention to the corpses (dead or still alive) of possibly starved peasants on a street in what is believed to be Kharkiv, possibly 1933." This would be a joke title. Also, the question of the criminality of the Soviet government is not particularly related to the question of the authenticity and quality of the photo, and whether it is the best photo to illustrate the 1930s in the USSR. GreyHood Talk 14:08, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
The web site these photo are taken from contains the following disclaimer:
"The provenance of these 'famine' photos is neither claimed nor implied and are shown for comparative academic research purposes."
That means that these photos are intended for research purposes only, which means that anyone who uses these photos has thereby engaged in original research. I don't think it is accordance with our policy. I suggest to discuss all photographs from this web site at WP:NORN.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:22, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense - these photos were published by Gareth Jones a journalist who has the highest reputation (see, e.g. the BBC). He is a reliable source and he believed them to be real and accurately described. Insistence on a Soviet government approved provenance would simply be the highest form of bias in this case. Smallbones (talk) 17:32, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

These photos are not by Gareth Jones and were not published by him. They were published in Austria in 1935 and seem to be just used on the site dedicated to Gareth Jones for comparison and for the lack of any better illustrations. GreyHood Talk 21:06, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
Also, nobody insist on "a Soviet government approved provenance". We need just any provenance, a certainty that these images were made when and where they are claimed to be made and that they indeed depict what they are claimed to depict. GreyHood Talk 21:11, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
The image doesn't even relate to the text in the section, in my opinion. --Σ talkcontribs 19:40, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
Hunh. Now this is interesting. Here's some points:
  • According to the file descriptions, they were apparently published in 'Muss Russland Hungern?' [Must Russia Starve?], published by Wilhelm Braumüller, Wien [Vienna] 1935. Braumülle may have been (or been taken in by) an anti-Soviet fraudster, but it wasn't published under Nazi rule -- Austria was free in 1935.
  • Later it was in Famine in the Soviet Ukraine 1932-1933: A memorial exhibition, (Widener Library, Harvard University, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1986, p. 35). Harvard's a big school and their exhibition curators aren't fools. They may have made a mistake, but you have to assume they did some checking before pasting them on th wall. It's a data point.
  • Moving on to Gareth Jones (journalist). Yes he says here "The provenance of these 'famine' photos is neither claimed nor implied and are shown for comparative academic research purposes". But how about telling the rest of the story? Immediately after that he says "However, Marco Carynnyk's [sic] in his paper entitled; 'Swallowing Communism: Pro-Communist Ukrainian Canadians and Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s' believes them to be authentic" and then goes into some detail about why Carynnyk believes this. (Marco Carynny is a writer, translator, and I think also an academic, but I don't know much about him.)
There is a Commons category "Holdomor hoax photos" but this photo isn't in it. (The photos are authentic, but depict the early 1920's famine, not the Holdomor, and are only hoaxes in that sense.)
"Given that the Soviet Union was a police state in the 1930s, it is safe to say that any photo from inside the USSR at that time that had negative implications for the government would have an unclear provenance" is not convincing. Publishing the photo, or taking a photo of a secret government installation would have been difficult. But snapping a quick photo on a public street and smuggling a roll of film out of the Union would have been brave but far from impossible, and given how widespread and important the famine was it'd be at least as surprising if no one had accomplished this.
I'm going to take this up on Commons. This photo is used in about a score of the other-language Wikipedias, so if it's not correct that's a global problem. Maybe they can sort this out, or maybe that's not their job.
This photo is not alone. There are a bunch of photos from the same source. If they're not authentic, someone has staged a very elaborate hoax. From what we know of the Ukrainian famine, we'd expect to see scenes like this. The curators at Widner library seem to think it's authentic. So does Marco Carynnyk.
There's little in this world that we can be 100% certain is The Truth. Maybe people never did land on the Moon, and so forth. But Occam's Razor tells us to be wary of elaborate-hoax explanations when a much simpler explanation is at hand. This is such a case, it seems to me, and the burden would be on the people claiming the elaborate hoax to provide material supporting that. Herostratus (talk) 17:54, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
All what you need is a reliable source that confirms the origin of these particular photographs. In the absence of such a source, especially taking into account the preamble (the photos are "shown for comparative academic research purposes"), your considerations, whatever reasonable they are, represent pure original research.
Had some of these supposedly secretly made authentic photos been described by some reliable source as Holodomor photos, we would be able to use it. However, we cannot currently do that, and, accordingly, any attempt to download them to Commons should be supplemented with cautious description, including the formula quoted by me above ("The provenance of these 'famine' photos is neither claimed nor implied and are shown for comparative academic research purposes.") Scholars or journalists can use these photos, but we can't. Let's wait for some reliable source to use them first.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
We do have a reliable source: Widener Library at Harvard University. Harvard University is one of the most prestigious universities in the world, and the Widener Library is the core of its university library system, the world's largest. I think it's the third largest library in the United States (After the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library) and is certainly one of the most prestigious. This is not Johnson County Community College and I would expect that their exhibition curators are among the world's best and absent evidence to the contrary we can assume that. The exhibition curators at the Widener Library, by including this in an exhibition of Holodomor photographs, have said "this is a photo from the Holodomor" and they doubled down on that by then publishing a book of the exhibition. What more do you want? This is very reliable source, I would say.
To refute that source we'd need some evidence to contrary. We don't have any. The cite of Gareth Jones (journalist) isn't it. He doesn't say he thinks the photos aren't authentic. He simply says that he, personally, isn't willing to offer an opinion on the matter: "The provenance of these 'famine' photos is neither claimed nor implied" one way or the other (he then offers material supporting their authenticity). So give me something to work with here. Give me a credible source refuting the Widener. Absent that, we have to go with the Widener, I would say. Herostratus (talk) 03:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Gareth Jones (journalist) died (was killed) in 1935, so the claim about dubious provenance seems to be made by researchers from University of Wales (some kind of Gareth Jones foundation). Here they also explain that the very first publication of the set of photos in question was published alongside with photos which had been already known to be fradulent by that time.
As for the exhibitions of Holodomor photographs, as far as I know, many of them (even in recent years) did include long-exposed fraudulent photos for some reason. So I'd say the fact that some photo was included into some exhibition is not a testimony for anything. We should discuss the photo itself and the information on its origin. GreyHood Talk 07:15, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Here's some more info on the Widener book: it's ISBN is 978-0-674-29426-4 and the authors/editors are Oksana Procyk, Leonid Heretz, and James Mace. I don't have a copy and can't find one online, and its in few libraries. We can't know what the Widener book says until we get hold of a copy. It's very unlikely they said "Here is a fraudulent photograph", but they might have said "Here is a photograph of uncertain provenance". And even if they said "Here is a valid photograph" they might have been wrong; I assume they're diligent and reliable, but nobody's perfect, and Mace in particular (don't know about the other two), while a distinguished academic, had a point of view about the issue and so an incentive to want the photos to be seen as authentic. The Gareth Jones page you cite above -- eej, this is hard to sort out, they're presenting various people arguing about the issue and I can't figure out what's going on here. I'm certainly not qualified to judge whether the photo must have been taken with a camera that didn't exist in the early 1920s or not. But all in all, I take your point. I'd like to see what the Widener book says, but absent that, I think that the argument that the photo is of uncertain provenance is strong enough that we shouldn't use the photo. Case closed, in my opinion. Herostratus (talk) 16:25, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Education

"Access to higher education was restricted, however; only 20 percent of all applicants were accepted. The rest entered the labor market or learned a skill at a vocational technical school or technicum"

This makes no sense as "vocational technical school or technicum" are higher education. Can someone find sources which don't try to deceive and fix this to actually mean something. Thanks, Public awareness (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Vocational technical schools or techicum were not considered as higher education in the USSR. The reason of this confusion may be that there were no bachelor/master division in Soviet higher education system. After 10 years in school prospective student entered what in the USSR was called "high school" (equivalent of universities in other countries). After five years in high school (universities of specialized technical or medical instinutes, in the latter case they spend 6 years there) students got a higher education diploma, an equivalent of master degree. After that, they could enter aspirantura (post-graduate cources), where they had been engaged mostly in research, and after three years there (or later) they defended kandidat (PhD) thesis.
Alternatively, after 8 years in school the students could condinue their education in technicums, the program was essentially equivalent to 9th-10th grade school program plus serious technical training. However, that was not considered as a higher education.
Nevertheless, I agree that there are some problems with the statement quoted by you. What does "access to higher education was restricted" means? To the best of my knowledge, the access was restricted mostly with the number of vacansies, which is a common situation whroughout the world. Of course, due to corruption and nepotism, the access to some types of education was somewhat restricted, however, to make generalisations would be incorrect. Since the access to higher education was not more restricted in the USSR than in other countries, this statement should be removed as misleading.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:54, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Except for Jews there indeed were explicit restrictions (secretly), in 70s and 80s at least. In each big city only few insitutions were specifically designated as allowing Jewish students. In all the rest the Jewish applicants were unfairly given low grades in entry exams so that to deny them entry. Some universities would use special examinators to fail specific (Jewish) applicants among the regular ones, others (like MFTI) formed special "death groups" of applicants in which no-one were allowed any grade above barely passing, which was not enough to go through anyway. There was a whole subculture in samizdat of literature teaching a Jewish student to prepare to overcome the unfair entry exams in such forbidden universities. Sources?? What sources?? History of CPSU didn't write about it, anyone too loud about it would be sent to GULAG. Are there any sources in the matter? WillNess (talk) 11:23, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Leonid Brezhnev's wife, Viktoria Brezhneva, came from a Jewish family. If the state was antisemite why did the Soviet leader marry a jew? It's paradoxical to then assume that Brezhnev's Soviet Union was anti-semitic, don't you think? --TIAYN (talk) 11:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
To rely on guesswork is stupid. Guesswork will lead you nowhere. To Think is Not to Guess, it is to examine evidence first, and build refutable theories later, and then verify them. Learn about evidentiary base, study Facts, refrain from inventing explanations prematurely. When you invent explanations prematurely, you invent them based on what you know at the time. And obviously you know nothing about the USSR as of yet. What I've described above is a set of specific FACTS about one specific aspect of Life in the USSR in a specific decade or two of its history. WillNess (talk) 12:10, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
And just to clarify: there are many shades of antisemitism. Think about this statement. Compare Hitler's antisemitism with that of Hungarian and Romanian antisemitism in WWII, and then compare them with that of the USA in the time of WWII which didn't allow Jewish refugees into the US even to the low quota that they had, and didn't spare one bomb to drop on railways to the death factories. These were all different shades of antisemitism, same in the USSR. WillNess (talk) 12:14, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm not inventing, Brezhnev's wife came from a Jewish family. Trotsky came from a Jewish family, several Soviet officials were Jews. It's true that Stalin had something against the Jews, and even ordered some of them killed in the late-1940s or early 1950s, but Lenin talked positively about the Jews, and even said that they had some features which the Russian people lacked. Lenin actually said that the Russian people were not as good as the Jews in some areas - how is that anti-semite?? Brezhnev's policies towards the Jews in the 1970s and 1980s came from the policy that the West requested the Jews right to emigrate abroad. People rarily had the right to emigrate in the Soviet Union, people rarily had the right to leave a city without talking to the authorities. Because of this some discrimination occured against the Jews occured, but the Soviet state was not anti-semite - a claim which is proven by that several Soviet officials and politicians had a Jewish background. The Soviet Union was many things, but not anti-semite! The discrimination of the Jews was just one of many features of the totalitarian system which existed at the time. --TIAYN (talk) 12:18, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
A secret all-pervasive system in the 70s and 80s (probably 60s too but I have no personal knowledge about that), which specifically forbids the Jewish students entry into any higher education institution except the select few, is NOT a state antisemitism? Talking about "Brezhnev's policies" is delusional, sorry. On the emigration, yes, it was probably (part of) the reason for the discrimination. And again I repeat, I only talked specifically about anti-Jewish discrimination in higher education in the 70s and 80s. You've floated away into generalizing things. I didn't generalize. But to say that there was no antisemitism in the USSR since the murder of Mikhoels, is just plain wrong. WillNess (talk) 12:46, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Anti-semitism existed in the USSR, and some individuals, like Mikhail Suslov, were chiefly Russian nationalist. Anti-semitism existed, but the Soviet Government was not anti-semite. What I'm saying is this; differentiate, there is a difference between the state and individuals. Stalin was an individual, who, sadly, became synonymous with the state. So yes I agree with you, elements existed, but the state was not anti-semitic, but some individuals within it were! --TIAYN (talk) 14:31, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
There were no systems that "specifically forbad the Jewish students entry into any higher education institution except the select few". Otherwise such persons as Khodorkovskiy, Abramovich, Berezovskiy, Gusinsky, Nevzlin, Aven as well as many others less notable Jews as Mikhail Gelfand ([2]), Evgeniy Schvarts (director of Russian WWF [3]), and many, many others less notable persons would never obtain high education. It would be more correct to say that some quotas existed in some institutions that made impossible to accept too many Jews. However, that is a totally different story.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:10, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
You are just ignorant of the facts. In Moscow, in the 1980s, specifically 5 higher-education institutions allowed Jews unrestricted entry: steel institute, rail-roads institute, roads institute, oil institute and something to do with wood I think. FIVE. The State Uni had strict control - percentage of Jews allowed among general student body, a low percentage. MFTI had 2% allowed rate (that's 2 students in a faculty of 100), and MIFI disallowed ANY Jewish student (possibly German too) at all (being a base for Soviet nuclear industry).
I specifically referred to selected few institutions not "Jews". That would be a crazy claim. WillNess (talk) 15:36, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
"Forbidden unrestricted entry" and "forbidden entry" are two quite separate things, so I see that you retracted your earlier statement. Yes, it was possible for Jews to obtain high education, although that was more problematic than for other ethnic groups. However, that was a part of general strategy: each ethnic group had its quota, which was proportional to the share of this group in population, so various low educated minorities, whose representatives, as a rule, had no desire (or possibility) to enter MFTI, had obvious advantages over Russian and Jewish population. That resembles a situation with white Caucasian males in present-days western countries: they have more difficulties with obtaining higher education as compared to coloured minorities (and disabled persons).--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:15, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Really? Allowing no more than 2 Jewish students in a body of 100, when there are say 40 Jewish applicants that would otherwise qualify, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR THE 38 OF THEM? "Each ethnic group had" no quota, BULLSHIT. Ukrainians had no quota, Tatars had no quota, nobody had any quota except for the Jews. The "unrestricted" uni's had no quota for the Jews either. Whoever passed the entry exams, got in fairly. But such were only FIVE institutions in Moscow, in the 1970s and 1980s. MIFI was completely forbidden, various venues for future diplomats and spies (linguists etc.) were totally forbidden, etc. etc. To learn to become teachers the Jews could only go in Moscow oblast' teachers institution, not in Moscow itself, etc. etc. Way to go whitewashing the Soviet regime. Next you'll say the workers in Gulag weren't slaves, they just received somewhat lower wages. RIGHT.
Today's situation with corrective discrimination in the US is absolutely different - first everyone gets evaluated fairly, and then the "handicapped" get some advantage. In the USSR the discriminated-against were evaluated unfairly, received artificially lowered grades. It was a secret policy, in the US etc. it is open policy. WillNess (talk) 21:30, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
For someone who doesn't know anything about the subject, you are extremely self-confident, you know that, right? --TIAYN (talk) 22:18, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Making it personal, are you? This borders on WP:NPA so be careful. That you have no substance in your claim is another matter entirely, but there is no point in telling you this, evidently.
Anyhow, all I ever said, there was a secret policy of restricting free access of Jewish students to higher education in the USSR, and that is a fact. Whitewash it however you want. WillNess (talk) 23:21, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
You are right that corrective discrimination systems in the USA and the USSR worked differently, although the roots of this difference were more complex. Firstly, whereas the exams in the US are strictly formal, the exams in the USSR were organised as a conversation between an examiner and a student. That gave more flexibility for the examiners both for revealing good students (having non-standard thinking) and for failing those who deemed to be undesirable (for various reasons). This system had both advantaged over the US system (which I would like not to discuss here), and drawbacks. The most obvious drawback was a possibility to prevent talented students (including Jews) from entering some universities. With regard to quotas, there were quotas for national minorities, and many absolutely stupid students from national minorities were accepted to top universities as "national cadres". There were no quotas for Ukrainians or for Russians, because they were majority. I agree that to speak about quotas for Jews was somwhat hypocritical, especially because most of them didn't see themselves as Jews. Let me point out, however, that your example with 40 applicant is somewhat arrogant: being a Jew does not automatically mean eligibility for entering MFTI: some Jews, despite their ethnicity, were not able to enter MFTI of MIFI even when the exams were totally fair.
By writing that, I do not imply that there were no discrimination of Jews in 79s-80s. Yes discrimination took place, and it was considerable. However, that does not mean that Jews were prohibited from entering top universities, including Moscow State University. --Paul Siebert (talk) 01:01, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Ah yes, the 98% is not a 100% rebuttal. Well, obviously. But only nominally, because there was no fair competition for the remaining 2 slots either, these were allocated for the academicians' nephews and the rectors' grandchildren, etc. So in reality there *was* a total prohibition for common people. Don't ignore the many cases where the entry was forbidden absolutely, I gave you examples. MIFI was completely forbidden, as was schools for foreign relations, etc., stop misrepresenting the case. As for quotas, I was referring to repressing, limiting quotas. You're quite right about the enabling ones, but to mash the one with the other is just illogical.
As for exams, there were written ones too, and with supposedly total separation of names from the papers to be graded (which separation was breached on party orders, or NKVD or whatever they called themselves). And calling THAT system "corrective" discrimination is way off base, it is to take propaganda at face value (and again, mashing in the repressive anti-Jewish quotas is even beyond that).
As for hte other stuff, yes, the Moon isn't made of green cheese. How preposterous - and arrogant - of you to propose that! Whatever you purported to refute, I never claimed. That's a strawman par excellance you pulled off there. WillNess (talk) 09:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
About 40, I will concede that between 10 and 20 is much more realistic number, but still. WillNess (talk) 09:50, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
(later addition: before you jump in, I don't believe for a moment that nationality - i.e. ethnicity - is a useful indicator for handicap: what about poor Russian children from deep far-away villages etc., don't they deserve a break too? And wouldn't a true break be better schools, not unfair exam grades? So it was all just propaganda.) WillNess (talk) 10:01, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Re "Ah yes, the 98% is not a 100% rebuttal." You have a problem with math: if the quota was 2%, and between 10 to 20% of all applicants were Jews who deserved to be accepted, then 100*(1-2:20)=90% were rejected, not 98%. 1:10 is a normal ratio for admission to such a top institution as MFTI. However, I still doubt in those numbers, because that would mean that Jewish applicants were dramatically more talented than their non-Jewish competitors (a statement, which I found unconvincing).
Re "these were allocated for the academicians' nephews and the rectors' grandchildren" So you imply that most academicians were Jews (despite their discrimination)?
Re "So in reality there *was* a total prohibition for common people." No. In actuality, no common prohibition existed in the USSR, because, as you probably know, "stringency of Soviet/Russian laws is/was compensated by negligence of their executors": in many cases these instructions were easily ignored or circumvented; many Jews managed to change their records in the passports, etc.
Re: "I don't believe for a moment that nationality - i.e. ethnicity - is a useful indicator for handicap" Partially agree. However, the same can be said about the present days handicap in the US. Moreover, no universal and uniform handicap policy can be elaborated in principle, which would fully compensate for socio-ethnic inequality, and the Soviet scheme was not the best one. Nevertheless, this system did provide some advantages for poorly educated non-Russian minorities, and for peoples from province. In addition, I agree that one more goal of this system was to discriminate Jews, so it would be hypocritical to negate this fact. However, to exaggerate that policy would be equally incorrect, and most talented Jews were able to obtain good high education during Soviet times.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:11, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
It is equally wrong to play it down, like you do in your comments here. What about doing some facial surgery in order to not look too Jewish, or a foreskin restoration surgery. Would these be acceptable means of "fitting in"? Some Jews were able to live through Nazi occupation under falsified documents, does that negate the existence of Nazi policies or does that strengthen the evidence for its existence?
And you have problem with logic. In addition to talent there is motivation, and family traditions. Whom do you see more in American top engineering uni's departments, Jews or Asians? What was the situation 50 years ago? Is this a question of being talented only?
And you have a problem with math. You want to count your thing, when I was counting mine. Shifting your perspective is not conducive to clear thinking. I was talking about prohibition. The set prohibition goal was in some places 100%, and in others 98%, and in others it was 0%. If one Jew with a passport of a Jew looking like a Jew (irrelevant) was unfairly discriminated against (as part of a secret state-wide policy), for reason of being born to Jewish parents - ... there's your answer. WillNess (talk) 15:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Re "academicians' grandchildren" - again you miss the point. There were too few restricted slots to fill to begin with. There were some Jewish academicians - and in fact maybe not so few, as they were educated in 30s and 40s - and we were talking here about the secret policy of 70s and 80s. WillNess (talk) 15:39, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
What you are talking about? Currently, I am working for one western university, and several colleagues of mine (as well as their friends) are former Russian/Soviet scientists who emigrated in 90s. Many of them graduated from MFTI, and they are either Jews by themselves, or they know many Jews who had been the MFTI students concurrently with them in 80s. They do not remember if any specific limitations existed for Jews. Just look at the "faculty" section in any top American university: you will find ex-Soviet/Russian professors there with Jewish ancestry. Majority of them graduated from MSU, MFTI or other leading Soviet universities. Do you think it would be possible, had Jews been prohibited from obtaining high education (as you assert)? Note, this is just a top of an iceberg: it is natural to expect that only a small part of Jewish Soviet scientist were able to obtain tenured faculty positions, so much larger amount of them are currently working in industry (for electronic, software of biomedical companies). --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

(unindent) Ask them for specifics, where exactly did they learn, were they registered as Jews or Russians, etc. The Devil is in the details.

And stop misrepresenting what I said. JUST STOP. I never claimed complete prohibition, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. I will not respond to any further misrepresentation of what I said. WillNess (talk) 19:58, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I asked. They explained that the tests (exams) of students entering MFTI was performed not by MFTI faculty, but by the scientists from the research institutions belonging to the Soviet Academy of Sciences, who weren't instructed to fail Jewish students (I am talking about the MFTI students at beginning of 80s, late Brezhnev's time). They did not remember any discrimination, although noone paid serious attention to that issue during those times, therefore, it was possible that some discrimination still took place. With regard to "were they registered as Jews or Russians", you should have to understand that the question is stupid: they would pay attention to that only if that seemed important to them during those times. Of course, they do not remember. What they know for sure is the fact that significant part of students had either Jewish last names or Jewish phenotype.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

The Question of Nationalities or "Autonomisation" V Lenin

I would like to include some material from this text, would this be considered a RS? Would anyone object to me adding material from this source? Darkstar1st (talk) 14:45, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Add it. --TIAYN (talk) 17:22, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 2 December 2011

I would like to edit the date the author wrote, changing it from 1990 to 1991.


Russia98 (talk) 00:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. →Στc. 01:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Was the USSR a "federation"?

Yes, I think so. First of all, it was technically so by name ("Union of.. Republics") and in its constitution. And as a practical matter, in some ways. For one thing, the constituent republics where often historically distinct nations (e.g Khazakstan, Estonia, etc.) (in the ethnic/historical sense) or distinct regions, and not just random provinces laid out from Moscow. And the party bosses of the republics had a lot of power, they would run their republics as little fiefdoms often enough.

It's true that central control flowed from Moscow in many ways, but that's also true of other federations. The United States is a federation but a lot of things are decided in Washington.

And "Even though the USSR was technically a union of 15 independent republics..." is correct, I think. The passage does say technically. If not "independent republics" then perhaps "autonomous republics" would be best. Herostratus (talk) 19:17, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

For a non-Soviet source, the Library of Congress' country study on the USSR mentions a "Soviet federation" multiple times. →Στc. 01:25, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, it was officially a federation of republics, it was not a federal republic as some have claimed.--R-41 (talk) 01:48, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
No. AFAIK, federation does not allow secession. Some members of the USSR (Russia, Georgia, Uzbekistan) were federations, however, the USSR itself wasn't. Membership of UkrSSS and BSSR in UNO is additional formal confirmation of this fact.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:45, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
According to the constitution, members of the Soviet Union were sovereign entities participating voluntarily and with the right to secede equally voluntarily. UN membership for Ukraine and Belarus were a ploy to gain more puppet votes. From a practical standpoint the USSR was a federation whose members were neither sovereign as advertised (despite having their own constitutions) nor free to leave as constitutionally guaranteed. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 03:01, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
We are speaking about a formal side. The power of CPSU, which prevented some republics from secession was informal.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:18, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Criticisms of whether the Soviet Union acted as a federation or not can be placed in the article. But formally the Soviet Union was a federation by its constitution and its name officially presented the state as such.--R-41 (talk) 07:19, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Its name officially presented the state as a union, by contrast to Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:17, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, hrm. An editor has changed it to "Status = Union" and removed "Federation" from the "Goverment Type" in the infobox, leaving only "Marxist–Leninist single-party socialist state". It's not clear to me that this is correct or agreed upon... also as near as I can tell the "Status" field is not part of {{template infobox country}} and doesn't show anything. Looking at the article Political union, though, maybe "union" is a better description than "federal" or "federation".

How about this: "Union,
Marxist–Leninist single-party centralized socialist state"?

with "Union" devolving to Political union and "centralized" devolving to Centralized government (which is not a very good article actually, but whatever). I have gone ahead and done this, subject to revert and discussion as desired.

Whether "centralized" belongs I'm not sure; it some ways it was very centralized, in other ways, maybe partly because of being so large, a lot of important things were decided on at the level of the republics. So this is arguable. It's also possible that "Union" should read "Union (formally)" or something, not sure. Herostratus (talk) 17:09, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Union is more accurate than federation. @Herostratus, I'd be satisfied with your (original) proposal. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 03:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Centralized is unnecessary, almost all Marxist-Leninist states were centralized.--R-41 (talk) 15:38, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
True, but do our readers know that? →Στc. 21:00, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Demographics graph - misleading

The graph currently under "demographics" is misleading. For clarity, the Y axis should start at zero. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 09:29, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Education, demographics and information control

Re: this edit. In my previous edit I was referring to a practice of placing education, language, religion etc. as subsections of the Demographics section, found in the article like Russia, United States, France etc. Society is too general upper-level section name to be used, since it also covers politics, which is a different section and should be so.

The one-sentence uncited section Information control does not belong to this article. If ever a substantial section on that is written, it should be placed into the Politics section, obviously. GreyHood Talk 00:27, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Correct. Regarding the Peters' edit summary, I am not sure the structure of the articles devoted to totalitarian and non-totalitarian states should be different.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:05, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
I am, frankly, gobsmacked that anyone would contend that an article regarding totalitarian regimes (in this case, one of the most repressive of all time) require no different structure than, say, typical modern Western democracies. Instead of deleting appropriate mention of information control the appropriate action would be, then, to organize and request expansion at article talk. And information control has only partially to do with "politics." That's hardly an appropriate heading for societal engineering as was practiced in the USSR. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 01:38, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

This article is a bad joke on oh so many levels. There was no planned economy in the USSR, there was a command system, pretending to be planned economy, in the USSR. There were no politics in the USSR, only the masquerade of pretense. No mass deportations of several peoples wholesale is ever mentioned. No state antisemitism (of varying degrees in each sub-epoch, true) is ever mentioned, including severe restrictions on freedom of higher education for Jews in the 70s and 80s. Censorship is only mentioned being lessened in the Kruschev's supposed "thaw" which apparently allowed for freer expression of artists!!! Was this written using the History of CPSU (bolsheviks) as a reliable source?????!!!!!!?!?!!!!??? WTF! -- WillNess (talk) 11:04, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Leonid Brezhnev's wife, Viktoria Brezhneva, was a jew. He couldn't have been a antisemite as you claim, the fact is that jews had a harder time to get higher education and work because of their stance on Israel and all other things, they held political leanings and views which the Soviet leadership could not accept. But seriously, several ethnic and social groups were repressed in the Soviet Union, the jews were not the only one. A planned economy is by definition the same as a command economy, to say that the Soviet economists did not control the economy through planning is wrong. But i get you're point, the system was centralised, but their were instances were people tried to decentralise the economy (see 1965 Soviet economic reform or the Alexei Kosygin page for instance). Censorship was lessened under Khrushchev, the Khrushchev era was a much much less repressive era then the years under Joseph Stalin, but of course, the country was stil extremely repressive. The only thing you've proven with you're comment is that Stalin's Soviet Union was extremely repressive, even more repressive then his succesors, who were all, with the exception of Gorbachev, also inhumanly repressive. The article is a mess, especially the history section, and yes, a section about the repression of dissidents and information should be included in the article, but a section with only one sentence does not contribute to improving the article! A section with one sentence doesn't do shit, a reader does not learn anything about the Soviet Union's repressive measures and policies in one sentence. --TIAYN (talk) 11:15, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

"Brezhnev" "couldn't be" an antisemite "as [I] claim"? Buddy, please do humanity a favor and stay away from editing this article. You have no understanding of what that regime was if you think it's about any individual on top and his wife. Molotov's wife was Jewish, and she was repressed too (that means, sent into "Gulags" FYI). Mythical thinking and guesswork ("because .. of their stance..." etc.) is not a good methodology. Politburo ruled that country, and they didn't explain why they did what they did. They didn't publish minutes of their decisions. It was a state secret. You'd get 5 to 8 years if you'd speak openly about it, in the 70s, it'd be deemed "anti-Soviet propaganda", article 58.
Is it mentioned in the article? Is G.U.L.A.G. ever mentioned in the article? Belomor-kanal ever mentioned? Solovki concentration camp? Is there a section on slave labor? What about persecution of dissidents? What about "spetz-khran"'s (special sections in libraries, with restricted access). Is it mentioned in the article?
If you say that planned economy is same as command economy you don't know squat about USSR. The GOSPLAN pretended to plan, but CPSU gave direct orders, and plans were amended according to orders.
As for repression of several ethnic groups, isn't it what I said? Don't you lecture us who was repressed less or more, buddy. I don't prove nothing with my comments, I point out the gaping holes in this bad joke of an article.
As for one-sentence sections, it is called a stub. Learn about the concept. It at least mentions the phenomenon which is otherwise totally ignored by the article. It provides for a placeholder for others to come in and add more content. Removing valid content, even if still unsourced (after whole half a day of wait), is no way to improve an article. And please, refrain from scatological thesaurus if at all possible. Thanks. WillNess (talk) 11:56, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
As for censorship, if it was lessened under Khrushchev, what was before, then? Where is it discussed in the article????? WillNess (talk) 11:58, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
It's not discussed, which is a problem. But before Khrushchev there was even more rigid censorship, think present day North Korea - Khrushchev and Brezhnev were never presented as all-knowing people, as Stalin, but mearly as supreme leaders of the state. For example, several foreign written books were allowed into the country in large quantities in post-Stalin USSR, this was not the case under Stalin were most people were not allowed to read capitalist materials. My point is, and the point which modern historians are trying to make, is that Stalin's policies did not come to an end, but were liberalised. Under Khrushchev a liberalisation occured, Brezhnev partially reversed it, but it never returned to the same features as it had under Stalin. The word you are looking for is change.--TIAYN (talk) 12:11, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
oh yeah, you're right, Stalin didn't like the Jews, but Stalin didn't really like anybody :P You have a point, but Stalin was a deeply disturbed individual. Under Stalin the Politburo did not excercise any power without Stalin. Stalin did not rule through the party, but through Khrushchev and Brezhnev or their successors were not anti-semite. I seem to know more about the USSR then you! --TIAYN (talk) 12:27, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
@WillNess. TIAYN is a major contributor to this article and the author of a number of good and featured articles on the Soviet Union. Please do not make advices here to "stay away from editing this article".
Remember that this article is quite large and could become a good one in case some additional work is done. One-sentence unreferenced paragraphs (and placed in a wrong section) are better to be avoided. Either write a decent paragraph or incorporate your sentence into some relevant section in the Politics. Remember also that it is a general overview article. It can't tell about every single bit or aspect of criticism of the Soviet state. Only most important and general things. GreyHood Talk 15:37, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
So why isn't GULAG even mentioned? And no, passing reference to "gulags" doesn't count, I'm talking about a MAJOR element of life in the USSR that was never mentioned as such in your article. If that's the quality, too bad for the "contributions" of such "quality". Editors that employ personalized mythical thinking in place of rational critical analysis and take USSR propaganda at face value, can not make any meaningful contribution by definition in anything but meaningless trivia at the most. WillNess (talk) 10:07, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
To say that I follow Soviet propaganda is bullshit. I'm guessing you've not read the articles I've contributed with have you? See Leonid Brezhnev and History of the Soviet Union (1964–1982), and yes, I do mention repression, the dissident movement and I even mention the gulags. + the Gulags is mentioned in the article, we should of course expand the article on the subject, but it is mentioned. --TIAYN (talk) 14:33, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
There never was no "gulags" in Soviet Union, there was however the Head Camps Authority, namely GULAG. And there were camps. WP is not a journalistic endeavor. And no, GULAG is not mentioned in this article, the head article about the USSR. WillNess (talk) 15:12, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
As for propaganda, it was a Soviet propaganda line that USSR had a planned economy, when in fact it was a command economy, pretending to be planned economy. There is a big difference. The GOSPLAN was not the final authority on setting out "plans" for the next year or five. Politburo was. WillNess (talk) 15:14, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
That doesn't mean it's not a planned economy. Do you have sources for this claim? There is no DIFFERENCE between a command and a planned economy. Have you always been so stupid? Yes, GULAG is mentioned in the article; "Famines ensued, causing millions of deaths; surviving kulaks were persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour." (a sentence from the article, wow, I guess GUlAG is mentioned in the article). Again, Wow, you were wrong again, shit I'm surprised. Why on earth are you trying to convince people about your bullshit claims when you neither have references or sources, but only you're stuborness to depend on! --TIAYN (talk) 15:35, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
"Gulags" is not GULAG. First is a journalistic reference to the camps without clearly mentioning them; second is the name of the governmental institution, the Head Camps Authority, Glavnoe Upravlenie LAGerei. There was only one.
If Soviet economy were planned, GOSPLAN would be the sole authority in setting out specific plans to fulfill goals set by the Higher Council. Instead, the CPSU did what they please, and gave orders as they please, and GOSPLAN just wrote them down and invented explanations after the fact. Do you understand this now? Put down the History of the CPSU, it is not a good source, really. Higher Council was not parliament, and Soviet of Ministers was not government. WillNess (talk) 15:51, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Here's one example: was the corn affair under Khrushchev planned, or ordered? .......... ?
So to call the Soviet economy "planned" is to repeat the Soviet propaganda line, and to support a Soviet propaganda claim. To call it what it is, is to call it a command economy. This would be a neutral wording. WillNess (talk) 16:05, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Karl Marx never says which specific organ should create the economic, he only says a socialist economy should be led by economic plans. The party may have overstepped its mark, but that doesn't make it less of a planned economy. Secondly, the Premier of the Soviet Union was always a member of the Politburo; the Premier was the head of the government (e.g. the Council of Peoples Commissars, the Council of Ministers and the Cabinet of Ministers). The chairman of the state planning organ was a member of the Council of Ministers. While it's true that all decisions were reached at the Politburo, it doesn't mean that the Council of Ministers had no authority. If you knew anything, Stalin, at the end of his life, ruled the Soviet Union through his office as Chairman of the Council of Ministers (e.g. Prime Minister/Premier), and not through the Politburo. Khrushchev recentralised the party's power, but he to also became head of government. At the beginning of the Brezhnev era, the Prime Minister (Alexei Kosygin) and the general secretary (brezhnev) were equal in power. But because of Kosygin's backing of economic reforms, his positioned weakened, but it was still him and the state planning chairman who controlled the most important over the Soviet economy. It was the Premier who controlled the economy, at least de facto. Its also wrong to say that the State Planning organ had no power, it had a lot. Without the State Planning organ it would be plan. And its stupid to think that a nationwide economic plan should not be accepted or altered by the country's leaders. Its not like the current Secretary of State in the United States can create her own foreign policy without consulting Obama; the chairman of the state planning committee could not initiate a plan without the consent of the country's leaders. If you knew anything about the USSR, you would know that the USSR was ruled by a collective leadership from Stalin's death to its demise.
And to reassert my point, the economy was planned. They planned how many rubles they were to spend in one sector, how many car the country was to produce and so on. The planning process was of the many faultlines of the economy. --TIAYN (talk) 16:11, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Does Federal Reserve Bank report to the President?
As for being ruled by collective leadership, that was my whole opposition to your constant focus on personalities. You still understand it too narrowly, in the confines of the Soviet own narrative (and not coincidentally perhaps, that phrase was also a line of Soviet propaganda). The CPSU's nomenclatura was a collective ruler of that country. It had its own shops. It had its own news bulletin. It had its own transportation law. Is nomenclatura even mentioned in your article? WillNess (talk) 16:25, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Lastly, this article should reflect the reality of the USSR, not what Karl Marx has said in which of his books. From the neutral point of view, not from a point of view of a socialist with vested interest in seeing theories of his chief ideologue be fulfilled. That would be a conflict of interest. To compare the realities of USSR with the Marx's theories is of course fine and worthy endeavor, but not to use it as your own point of reference, or as a looking glass to look through. IOW I don't think a Marxist can write about Marxism objectively, not easily at the very least. WillNess (talk) 16:36, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
In some countries they are, for example, the State Bank of Norway was under direct supervision and control of the Norwegian Government for several years. It should also be noted that the United States ensues a much more right-wing economic policy then Europe (if we forget the UK for a minute). The nomenclatura was not always the collective ruler, not under Stalin. Stalin had supreme command. Even so, the whole nomenclatura never actively co-ruled the country, only members of the Central Committee under Lenin, Politburo under Khrushchev and his successors, and the Council of Ministers had several interludes. Stalin ruled as an autocrat, Brezhnev and Khrushcev tried ruling as autocrats. And yes, I used the term collective leadership - it doesn't matter if that was a Soviet made term, the fact is that the majority of historians use that specific term when analysing the Soviet political system. You're view on the Soviet Union is really simlistic. You can't compare the US economic model with that of the Soviet economic for one reason; the two countries had two very different economic systems; one socialist, one capitalist. And to make myself clear, I'm no marxist, never have never will. However, if you really want to know were I stand politically, I'm a social democrat, and I'm a card-carrying member of the Norwegian Labour Party. Just because I know more about Marx then you do doesn't mean I'm a Marxist! --TIAYN (talk) 17:11, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
What happened exactly to a Politburo chairman (or whatever his title was at the time) Khrushchev, when nomenclatura decided he was contradictory to their interests? Who was the actual ruler there? And of course it is all post-Stalin only, although he wasn't a fearless, confident leader in his late years too, was he.
And I never tried to compare SU and US. I was refuting your point where you said the body responsible for a policy must submit to supreme authority. I gave you a counterexample of a body which really is responsible for a policy and precisely for that reason does not answer to higher authority. Otherwise they would be executing the policy, not setting it. Acting on command of those who were really setting the policy, like the Politburo was, in the USSR, where GOSPLAN acted on the orders it received.
And as long as you're able to separate your ideology from your editing, you can be whomever you chose to be, I think that is the WP take on the issue.
But being foreigner to the USSR, you're at great disadvantage. The most important things were never said out in the open in the USSR. The names were given to stuff not in order to clarify, but in order to obscure their true nature. It was all a sham. You tend to take everything at face value. You do regard Council of Ministers as government just as I suspected. It was no government. You think that having a GOSPLAN chairman seat at the "gov't" table means something. It meant nothing. The party ruled that country, and specifically, the party's nomenclatura ruled that country. The nominal leaders could never go against it, not where it mattered. Beria as it turns out, planned some moves towards liberalization in external politics (namely, cutting Germany loose) after he eliminated the Great Leader, and was promptly executed. Malenkov tried internal liberalization, only to be deposed afterwards. etc. etc.
Here's the key about nomenklatura, and I already told you this. They had their own shops, and special production lines in food factories dedicated to producing the high quality food for them, and nobody else. The existence of special shops was a state secret. To talk about it was to spread anti-Soviet propaganda, and be sent to the camps for it. Think about it.
It was Inner Party, pure and simple. WillNess (talk) 17:44, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
And yes, the existence of nomenklatura was a state secret too. WillNess (talk) 17:47, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Read that article to understand what the true power structure of the USSR really was. All the "councils" and "committees" were just a sham theater. WillNess (talk) 17:54, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
You do know right that everybody who worked at the middle-top and further up in the Soviet system were nomenklatura right? They worked in different groups.... The Council of Ministers was the Government, even if the party ruled the country, doesn't mean it was not the government. That's like saying modern China doesn't have a government, are you thick? We all know that the party ruled the government apparatus, but that doesn't make the de faco government any less de jure.. There never was any chairman of the politburo, just a General Secretary. I'm wondering how you actually dear to say I don't know shit abou the Soviet Union, it's laughable. You're claiming that I'm somehow ideological linked with Soviet communism, something which is just plain stupid. This is as stupid as claiming that Obama is a socialist (you probably believe this). Malenkov was more for political reform then Khrushchev, but he didn't want to end one-party rule. And no, the party was not the supreme institution. If you had known anything about Stalin's rule, you would know he left his party post in 1934, and abolished in 1952. He ruled the country from 1941 not from his party office, but the head of government office. This is were most meetings were kept, this was the place were most decisions were taken. You didn't know this of course, but that doesn't surprise me.
Just to make it clear, I've never read any Soviet or communist propaganda. I've instead read plenty of books. Seeing how you don't know shit about the political system, you should check out these books: How the Soviet Union is Governed (1991) and Executive Power and Soviet politics (1992), it would straighened up you're views a bit.
What's you're point? A GOSPLAN had of course to take orders from somebody. The GOSPLAN chairman was not the leader of the Soviet Union, he was one of several public figures, who worked for the Soviet state. Of course he had to orders. Even if the politburo said the five-year plan should focus on heavy industry instead of, lets say, agriculture, it doesn't make the five-year plan any less planned because it was still planned. The only thing the Politburo did was to set goals for the plan which the GOSPLAN tried to set motions. Of course, you are right to say that some plans were planned then others, such as the first five-year plan. But it was planned, they planned everything.
You have to be the most arrogant wiki user I've met. You've actually accused me of being both a marxist, a pro-Soviet communist or somebody who symphaties for the Soviet Union. You do understand how biased that sounds right? Considering that I've never been accused of being neither a communist or a marxist my whole life this comes as a suprise. Why are you here on editing on wiki? is it to force you're own views on others??? Is it because you want to be an asshole??? Or is something else??? All I'm asking is this, were are you getting you're information from?? --TIAYN (talk) 18:49, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Парни что не так с Брежневым и евреями? Кто, блджад, ограничевал евреев в учёбе? И вы так говорите "коммунизм", как будто это что то плохое!? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.84.9.126 (talk) 17:13, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

State Succession

The lede says:

The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.

The above clearly suggests that the State no longer exists - but isn't Russia its legal successor? Isn't Russia regarded as a founding member of the UN etc? (not a new State established in 1991/92). Isn't the sentence clearly wrong? 86.45.48.69 (talk) 18:16, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Russia was a republic within the USSR. --TIAYN (talk) 22:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Not sure what your comment above TIAYN had to do with my post - I am aware that the territory that now forms the Russian Federation was the terrritory of one of the Republics (the Russian SSR) within the USSR. Of course, it would be entirely wrong to say the Russian Federation was a Republic within the USSR. The Russian Federation is the successor to the USSR (in its legal entirety by virtue of State succession). That is the point I wanted to flag: the USSR's legal existence is not historic - it continues on today through the "Russian Federation". Therfore the lede, as I have pointed out, is inaccurate/misleading. I think some small rewording is needed. Any one any views on this? 86.45.48.69 (talk) 22:12, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
I wouldnt think that is correct; Russia is only considered the successor of the USSR because of its size. Russia was not the Soviet Union, just the leading republic within it. --TIAYN (talk) 09:40, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
TIAYN - From what you have again posted, I can only presume you are not too au fait with international law and state succession and the like. Or simply don't attribute much importance to those things...What you have said has no connection with those topics. Confusing size of a country with State succession rights etc. Given that that is what I am trying to solicit informed input on, I do not think I can have a useful exchange with you (or you could read up...). Does any one else have any views? I know any change needs consensus. 86.45.48.69 (talk) 12:20, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
The Soviet Union was dissolved by its own republics in 1991; Belarus, Ukraine, Russian and Kazakhstan... Russia is the successor state because of its size; it was the biggest republic, with the biggest economy, with the largest populations. etc. The Soviet Union was dissolved, it didn't collapse, it was dissolved by its own republics. Therefore, the USSR ceased to exist on December 25 1991. --TIAYN (talk) 13:07, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
The state no longer exists. Russia is the successor state. For instance, Russia took over the permanent Soviet seat on the UN Security Council. So as far as the UN is concerned Russia is a continuation of the Soviet Union. In many other ways large and small Russia has been treated by other states as a continuation of the Soviet Union, both legally (for instance as regards treaties) and de facto. It's not the same state, but it would be arguably worthwhile to include the succession info in the lede. I'm OK with the lede as it is, but "...existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991 and was succeeded by the Russian Federation" would be OK also. Herostratus (talk) 17:26, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
What you're saying seems clear from the lede already. The sense in which the USSR was succeeded by the Russian Federation is that it assumed its rights and obligations, which is already in the lede. Of course, it was also a successor in the sense that it inherited the same people that compromised the population of its territory, etc., but that's true of every other Soviet republic as well. So there's no need to change any wording about succession in either sense -- it's a non-issue. 24.146.229.212 (talk) 00:59, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
I think there is some confusion as to the difference between state succession and state continuity. With state succession, previous treaties, debts, assets and memberships to international organisations are not passed on to the succeeding state, however Russia assumed all debts, assets, treaties, diplomatic property, etc, of the USSR. According to this source[4] the Russian Federation is essentially a continuation of the USSR, albeit smaller in geographical size. --Nug (talk) 01:37, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
There was neither state continuity or succession from tsarist Russia to Bolshevik Russia/then Soviet Russia; there was no state continuity but there was state succession from the Soviet Union to today's Russia. That was by treaty agreement which formed the CIS, i.e., the other former constituent republics of the USSR agreed to cede succession of the USSR solely to Russia. The Baltic states did not participate and are considered continuous with their pre-WWII selves. As for citizenship, as I understand it, all citizens of the former USSR had a time window within which to apply for conversion of their USSR citizenship to citizenship in the Russian Federation regardless of their domicile as long as it was within the former Soviet Union. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 05:09, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I think a change along the lines suggested above (by Herostratus) is needed i.e...."existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991 and was succeeded by the Russian Federation". Some Editors (e.g. TIAYN) confuse size of territory etc with State succession but other Editors (e.g. Herostratus and Nug) here are well tuned in to the point in question. The Russian Federation is the sole legal successor to the USSR. Another Editor (24.146.229.2120) was entirely confused and seemed to think the Russian Federation was no more the successor than any of the other ex Soviet states. I do think a change is needed. Any support for the change suggested by Herostratus? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.205.222.104 (talk) 01:15, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

And some anon IP's sound pretty confused themselves. HammerFilmFan (talk) 18:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Bordering Countries; Should be geographic order, not alphabetic

Bordering states are currently listed in alpha order. All a nonsensical confusing jumble when one is picturing the map in the mind. It is much more logical that they be listed in geographic order. Either going clockwise or CCW. My suggested (and preferred) CW revision: "The Soviet Union bordered North Korea, China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Finland, and Norway from 1945 to 1991." 98.164.238.217 (talk) 13:37, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment(s)???? 98.164.238.217 (talk) 12:39, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

RfC: East Germany

A Request for Discussion has been started on whether East Germany (the former German Democratic Republic) should be described as a 'satellite state' of the former USSR. Please see: Talk:East Germany#Satellite state of the USSR or not. Editors are welcome to comment. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

A federal union

The wording "A federal union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly-centralized national government and economy" should be restored to the lede in place of "Even though the USSR was officially a union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, its government and economy was [sic] highly centralized." [5] Regardless of the centralization of power in Moscow, the Soviet Union was formally a federal union; its constitution and subnational structure (the RSFSR, 14 SSRs, and autonomous republics) clearly reflect that the structure of the Soviet state was designed on the federal principle.

The Encyclopedia of Soviet Law, Second Edition (1985) entry on "Union Republics" (p. 797) begins this way:

The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) is a federal structure made up of two components: the central All-Union level, and the constituent republics (or SSRS).

Needless, to say political power in the Soviet Union was highly-centralized and was disproprtionately exercised by the national government throughout history, as reflected in the proposed wording. On the other hand, without the federal principle as a legal basis of the union, none of the declarations of republican law superceding federal law (see, e.g., War of Laws) in the years preceding the dissolution of the USSR would have been possible. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 19:59, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Umm, secession was declared illegal by the central Soviet state. "Federal principles" with regard to purported (on paper) constitutional rights of the republics did not make the break-up possible. What made the breakup possible was the will of the peoples who could no longer be militarily repressed (not that innocents demonstrating for freedom weren't murdered in an attempt to suppress their voices). PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:14, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Secession was also declared illegal by the central American state (see Abraham Lincoln). Does this mean the USA is not a federal state? At any rate, I pointed you to War of Laws, and not the various declarations of independence that followed it. I also just provided you with a source on Soviet federalism. Right now you're talking past me about something else. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 20:26, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
You are missing my point. Secession was completely legal under the Soviet constitution, but when it came time to exercise that "right", it was declared illegal by the central authority, indicating that the "federation" you purport existed and made possible the breakup of the USSR did not facilitate said breakup (and existed only on paper). The U.S. in the mid 19th century is not relevant. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK
Whats you're point? Is it that the USSR was not a democracy?? Cause if it is, I must tell you, we all know this. --TIAYN (talk) 21:14, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
The point about the U.S. in the mid 19th century was brought up in response to your assertion that Gorbachev's denial of the right to secede implies that the USSR was not a federal state. My point is that the secession issue is at best tangential. Federalism is a structural division of power between government entities on two or more levels. The USSR had that, in the form of republican governments - each Soviet republic had a seperate governing body. Each Soviet republic had its own Supreme Soviet (legislative body) and even its own foreign minister. They passed their own laws and administered their own courts under their own criminal codes. Homosexual acts between males, for instance, were banned in Soviet Uzbekistan in the 1920s but remained legal in the Russian SFSR for another decade. When the republics engaged in the "war of laws" in the 1980s, they did so through their own Supreme Soviets. The declarations of independence in 1991 were also carried out through those Supreme Soviets. Naturally, such declarations would have been impossible had the Soviet Union been structured as a full-blooded unitary system, since there would have been no Supreme Soviets to sit as legislative bodies at the level of the republics. Admittedly, these subnational republics were neither sovereign nor independent, but that is beside the point. I am not talking about the recognition of the break-up, but the fact that Soviet law explicitly recognized a federal structure, and that this structure had some effect on the political processes in the state. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 21:23, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Seems to me this federation thing is nothing but WP:OR it was de jure "unbreakable union of free republics" the words "federal" "federative" etc.... was never mentioned in the national level constitutions of 1924 , 1936 and 1977 the olny official use of federation is the russian rfsr and the russian soviet republic olny , please read evrything you wrote you are synthising arguments to a personal conclusion , as i said the soviet union never officialy de jure called itself federation in any form , and de facto was a unitary state ruled almoust exclusivly by moscow Ami Deutshe (talk) 14:40, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
There is no OR. Look at the source I provide here. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 19:12, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I find both recent edits adequate, and suggest adding them together. Comparison with the U.S. looks awkward. Ukrained (talk) 14:59, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


I added a reference about it being federal. At the same time I fail to find a place in wikipedia where the overall structure of the Soviet state is described. (No, it is not in "Soviet state.") Lovok Sovok (talk) 00:36, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Just glancing over this, but what's the deal with adding "[sic]" following the word "was" in the quoted text, above?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 21:19, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
The deal is that the wording "government and economy" is grammatically followed by the plural "were" - and not the singular "was." Aside from making factually correct claims, an article should begin with the use of grammatical language. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 06:35, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
ah, I see. I thought there was something else going on there. I'd argue that grammar point, but... meh.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Protection

Following a note at ANI, I have fully protected this page for a few days. I recommend that those editors involved continue to discuss this issue here before continuing to edit the page, taking it to the dispute resolution noticeboard if necessary. Do also read the message I left at ANI. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 20:55, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Holodomor

I think the man made Holodomor famine need to be mentioned in the history section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stumink (talk • contribs) 23:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

No, it shouldn't, because there is no evidence it was manmade as you describe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.221.133.190 (talk) 12:26, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Afghanistan 1979

I have reverted an edit concerning the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.[6] The intention with the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was the replace the Khalq communist government of Afghanistan with a Parcham communist government. There was no intention for Soviet forces to fight an insurgency war against the Afghan people - that was the DRA army's job. Of course, things did not work out as the Soviet leadership intended, and as a consequence of the 1979 invasion, 40th Army ended up fighting a counter-insurgency war in the 1980s.--Toddy1 (talk) 17:31, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I was not edit warring. My original edits were so that it would mention that the soviet were fighting the mujaheddin. Anyway invaded is wrong because the Afghan leadership they would later replace allowed them into the country and requested them to help to provide security. They went to Afghanistan to try and stabilize the situation by fighting the Mujaheddin and keep the communist government afloat but they thought Amin was problematic so they got rid of him. Amin wanted the Soviets in the country and they were there prior to his overthrow. They intervened to keep the commie government stable and then they replaced the leadership with someone more favorable. Amin had already let 80,000 troops in to Afghanistan. They did not fight there way in. They intervened on behalf and request of the Afghan government. Amin's overthrow was a like an internal coup done by Soviet forces. Just because they replaced the leader does not mean they invaded the country. They were allowed in and they they fought with government troops from the start(apart from operation storm which happened after they were let in) so invade is incorrect. How can they invade a country when they were let in and they fought alongside them. 88.104.213.81 (talk)

National anthem

Why is it that the words the national anthems of the USSR are not played in English language Wikipedia? Are they illegal in England and America? They are available in Russian Wikipedia,ru:История гимна России.--Toddy1 (talk) 22:37, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

RSFSR

the soviet union did not "dominated in almost all aspects by the RSFSR" the rsfr level administration did not have any influence on the central ussr government until it was about to collapse in 1991 with the help of yeltsin, am not denying that the russians was the dominant ethnic group but as the intro mentions " A theoretical union of 15 subnational Soviet republics" the rsfr was just as theoretical as any other soviet republic or even less due to the lack a cpsu branch until 1990 when the cpsu lost official power in the ussr, anyway is there sources confirming those claims? no ! Yiddi (talk) 13:47, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

This isn't an insult, but unless you get a better command of English writing and comprehension skills I would suggest you refrain from editing or contributing, though I appreciate you bringing this here. Please do not proceed to edit by simple adding this to the talk page and then going on to edit, using this as a justification when there has been no discussion or consensus. In fact, per talk page, look at the above discussion where editors agreed to add this phrase to the intro. Wholesale edits and removal of work is just disruptive.
"the soviet union did not "dominated in almost all aspects by the RSFSR" the rsfr level administration did not have any influence on the central ussr government " - The RSFSR was the official name of the Russian Republic, just like the official name of Britain is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and America's official name is the "United States of America".
A theoretical union of 15 subnational Soviet republics" - YES. It was theoretically a union of 15 equal members, but the Russian republic was so large is dominated the Union in its character and ethnicity etc, which is why peopel referred to it as Russia, also, many of its top leaders were drawn from Russians.
"the rsfr was just as theoretical as any other soviet republic or even less due to the lack a cpsu branch until 1990 when the cpsu lost official power in the ussr, anyway is there sources confirming those claims? no " I didn't understand any of this to be honest and where are these sources? --JTBX (talk) 20:42, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Firstly, domination by RSFSR and domination by the Russians are two different things: thus, about of 40% of Kazakhstan population was ethnic Russians, the mother tongue of almost a half of Ukraine population was Russian, etc. Secondly, the idea that RSFSR as a (sub)state entity dominated in the USSR can be easily verified: thus, the examples can be provided that the voices of the leaders of the RSFSR were much weighty then those of the leaders of other republics. I would like to see such examples.
"The RSFSR was the official name of the Russian Republic". Wrong. Russian Republic was a quite different entity. If you want as analogy with the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", it is the USSR, not RSFSR. By the way, even a ratio between English and Scott population is similar to that of Russian and Ukrainian population.
In any event, the statement the the USSR was dominated by RSFSR needs to be supported by some reliable and mainstream source. If no sources will be provided, this statement will be removed soon.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:12, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Again, facepalm, what did you just write? Just read that to yourself, does that make any sense to you? I thought it was just Yiddi. Sigh, I was using the example of official names, not country by country basis, what I said was that the Russian soviet republic was called the RSFSR OFFICIALLY. I was not even talking about the other republic you brought up.
And yes it may need to be clarified, but the fact is the RSFSR was the largest of the republics had the same capital city as the USSR, center of most of its cultural and societal life and that it was called Russian, and as you pointed out, Russians then emigrated, ethnically speaking, to other republics. Please, I simply don't understand what you are writing, perhaps it is my fault for assuming you can all write English, as this is the English Wikipedia after all and comprehension skills matter. --JTBX (talk) 14:52, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I am writing the following. The statement: "dominated in almost all aspects by the largest subnational republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR)" needs to be supported by reliable mainstream sources. I doubt that is correct, and there are several reasons for that. "Domination" means that the authorities of RSFSR had much greater weight than the authorities of other republics. Can you provide examples of that? I doubt. In actuality, RSFSR was totally dominated by the Union's authorities, and no evidences exist that SPSU or Supreme Council were dominated by RSFRS. In contrast, the very structure of Supreme council (Soviet of Unions + Soviet of Nationalities) implied that the voice of peoples from other republics had somewhat greater weight. If you look at the Soviet leaders, most of them (except Lenin) either were born outside of RSFSR (Trotsky, Stalin, Brezhnev) or had strong linkage to other republics (Khruschev). Moreover, during first period of Soviet history, Russian nationalism was significantly suppressed. Another examples are territorial division of the USSR, and transfers. Do you think transfer of Crimea (with almost zero Ukrainian population) to Ukraine was possible in a situation of dominance of RSFSR? Another example is Kazakhstan: valleys of Ural and Itrysh rivers are populated by Russians (Cossack, not Kazakh). How those territories appeared under control of Kazakhstan in a situation of alleged RSFSR domination? These and other questions should be addressed. In any event, the statement quoted by me is not supported by mainstream reliable sources, and it does not follow from what the article says. This statement will be removed if no sources (not speculations) will be provided.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:52, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough, as I finally understood you. Perhaps it could be rephrased, again it was to a large extent personified by the Russian republic in the world. Remove or whatever you see fit. JTBX (talk) 16:31, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
good am now removing that as per this talkpage and what Paul Siebert and you just said Yiddi (talk) 17:08, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you both for your collaborative spirit. Two comments. Maybe, it makes sense to add a couple of words about "Soviet Russia" as unofficial name of the USSR in the West? Secondly, Russian was not official language in Georgia, and, probably, in Armenia.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:13, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
yes as i said am removing that and restoring the better quality original version Yiddi (talk) 21:27, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

We dont have to remove it, I rephrased it. Its fine now. 20:28, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

It was really a question of Russian hegemony, not a domination of the Russian SFSR. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 04:18, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
  • An anonymous editor is trying to change the discussed sentence to this, claiming that this variant was established here. I don't see anyone but Vecrumba supporting it though. As I'm quickly getting bored reverting that, I'll just leave a note for whoever cares enough to sort it out. --illythr (talk) 19:32, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
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