Short course in the history of the CPSU (B)

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The book History of the CPSU (B) - Kurzer Lehrgang , often referred to as Kurzer Lehrgang for short , is a propaganda textbook about the origins and history of the CPSU . The (B) in the book title stands for Bolsheviks . It first appeared in Russian in 1938 .

Structure and content

The book contains 12 chapters in chronological order, divided into several sub-chapters. There is a short summary at the end of each chapter .

The book begins with a brief reference to the first Marxist circles and folks in the 1880s who are portrayed as "opponents of Marxism". The First World War is referred to in the 1944 edition as the “first imperialist war”. After the socialist October Revolution of 1917, the “victory of the socialist revolution” is proclaimed. The last chapter mentions the adoption of the Soviet Constitution of 1936 and the Purges in the Great Terror , which appear under the heading The Liquidation of the Remains of Bukharinsch - Trotskyist Spies, Pests and Traitors .

The book refers - often in the form of quotations - to the "socialist classics" of the time: Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin . It also contributed to the personality cult around Stalin. Its role in the October Revolution and the subsequent years of building the Soviet state is overemphasized. The importance of Stalin's opponents, on the other hand, is systematically denied; these people themselves are discredited.

Stalin's work On Dialectical and Historical Materialism is printed for the first time in the book .

history

The short course in the history of the CPSU (B) was drawn up under the editing of a commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU and was first published in Russian on October 1, 1938. In 1939 the publishing house for foreign language literature, Moscow, published the first German-language edition.

The short course was used in the Soviet Union and after the Second World War also in the states of the socialist camp and in the KPD of West Germany for political education and was used for training purposes until the 1950s. By the spring of 1956, over a million copies appeared in the GDR alone, after the XX. At the CPSU party congress, however, the book disappeared into oblivion. In 1980 the GDR Defense Minister Heinz Hoffmann described the book as “an indispensable companion on the arduous journey to the heights of science”.

The work experienced a brief renaissance in the K groups after 1968.

Reviews

• “The history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course, must serve as the most important material for the study of Marxism-Leninism . This is the best synthesis and generalization of the experiences of the international communist movement in the last hundred years, a prime example of the connection between theory and practice, which is so far unique in the world in this perfection. If we see how Lenin and Stalin integrated the generally valid truth of Marxism with the concrete practice of the Soviet revolution and, on this basis, further developed Marxism, then we probably know how we have to work in China. "( Mao Zedong , 1941)
• “The 'short course' was… the most brutal, most arbitrary interpretation and falsification of history, which blocked every creative development of historical and social sciences in the communist world movement and through dogmas, through the binding definition of what was seen through Stalin's eyes and practiced with his methods Party and socialism model replaced. "( Günter Judick , 2003)

literature

• History of the CPSU (B) - Short course. Verlag Olga Benario and Herbert Baum, Offenbach, 2012, ISBN 978-3-86589-091-7 .

Positive reviews

• History of the CPSU (B) reissued. In: “Roter Morgen”, central organ of the KPD / Marxist-Leninists , July 24, 1976.
• Hans Heinz Holz : World Design and Reflection: Attempt to Lay the Groundwork for Dialectics , Metzler, 2005, ISBN 978-3-476-02071-0 .

Negative reviews

• Jakob Moneta / Ernest Mandel , Rise and Fall of Stalinism. On the history of the CPSU. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, [1977], ISBN 3-88332-027-7 .
• Günter Judick : The shortened course. 65 years ago: “Short course in the history of the CPSU (B)”. In: "our time", newspaper of the DKP, November 14, 2003.

Web links

• Short course in the history of the CPSU (B) on stalinwerke.de; also available there as a PDF.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ From politics and contemporary history , at Google books
2. ^ Günther Judick: The shortened course
3. ↑ Eds. Hans Ehlert and Armin Wagner, Comrade General! The military elite of the GDR in biographical sketches . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin, 2003. ISBN 3-86153-312-X . Page 254
4. ↑ For example: History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course . Verlag Neuer Weg, Stuttgart, 1978. ISBN 3-88021-080-2 .
5. ↑ Mao Tse-tung, Reshaping Our Studies . In: Selected Works , Volume III. Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Beijing, 1969.
6. ^ Günter Judick, The Abbreviated Course in the History of the CPSU (B)