Short Course of the History of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)—An Encyclopedia of Stalin's Personality Cult

Abstract

In the struggle for the new thinking and restoration of historical truth that has been underway since the Twenty-seventh CPSU Congress, one of the main tasks of our science is to overcome the false dogmas and stereotypes that have become entrenched in it. The source of roost of them was the Short Course of the History of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) [Kratkii kurs istorii VKP(b)]. It incorporated the main premises of the ideology of Stalin's personality cult, which is alien to Marxism-Leninism. So far, unfortunately, extensive criticism of the book has not been reflected in our literature. Yet without this it is practically impossible to reconceptualize the history of the CPSU in a truly Leninist manner. The vital necessity of doing this has been eloquently emphasized in this journal.1 The present article seeks to learn lessons from the history of the writing of the Short Course.