I scan (mostly) Soviet books (in English) and put them online

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > General Bullshit > I scan (mostly) Soviet books (in English) and put them online

Enver Zogha: Nov 12, 2008; The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Stalinists, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is what they have in mind. But, on the contrary, they glorify us with this epithet; it is an honor for us to be Stalinists.

One day I came to a startling realization: there's very few books (at least published in the 1960s-80s) from the USSR online. I have since dedicated part of my life to solving that problem. Most of the other books are from the CPUSA back in the day, and I've scanned those with permission from the publisher. I also have a few books from other countries (the DPRK, Vietnam, Albania, etc.) There are books on political economy, the history of countries, biographies, speeches of leaders, etc.

You can find what has been scanned here: https://archive.org/search.php?query=uploader%3A%22kocotosi%40gmail.com%22&sort=-publicdate

As you can see a few have been scanned or sent by other people who help me out with the project. Said project is coordinated at a forum for mostly historical/political forum games some goons are on here. I go by the name "Ismail" on there so if you want to help out then I guess go there.

As I write this I have a bunch of books on my desk to scan. One I'm going to start scanning as soon as I make this post is a Soviet biography of Che Guevara.

Enver Zogha fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Aug 24, 2016

# ¿ Aug 20, 2016 01:41

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 01:12

Enver Zogha: Nov 12, 2008; The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Stalinists, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is what they have in mind. But, on the contrary, they glorify us with this epithet; it is an honor for us to be Stalinists.

a hole-y ghost posted:

Did you ever scan the Martin Luther King one I asked you to?

Yes.

https://archive.org/details/TheLifeAndDeathOfMartinLutherKing

Enver Zogha fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Aug 20, 2016

# ¿ Aug 20, 2016 02:31

Enver Zogha: Nov 12, 2008; The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Stalinists, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is what they have in mind. But, on the contrary, they glorify us with this epithet; it is an honor for us to be Stalinists.

OctoberBlues posted:

My girlfriend had to do some kind of book scanning translation thing for a couple semesters in college, I think she hated it.

It seems some people take hours to scan a decently-sized (say 250-page) book. That isn't the case with me, my scanner acts fast. It's only inglorious when the book is large in terms of width or height.

Meanwhile, I've now scanned the Che bio: https://archive.org/details/ErnestoCheGuevara

Next up, a Soviet history of the world from 1917-1945, 700 pages in length.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2016 03:42

Enver Zogha: Nov 12, 2008; The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Stalinists, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is what they have in mind. But, on the contrary, they glorify us with this epithet; it is an honor for us to be Stalinists.

Prokhor Zakharov posted:

Do you have Roadside Picnic?

Nah, I don't scan novels.

proof of concept posted:

are you handling any of the math/engineering/otherwise technical literature the soviet machine produced?

There's actually a site dedicated to scanning those sort of books: https://mirtitles.org/

Onkel Hedwig posted:

OP, what is the best way to get rid of moir� artefacts in scanned images? Like in this one https://archive.org/stream/ErnestoCheGuevara/Ernesto%20Che%20Guevara#page/n1/mode/2up

That I don't know.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2016 10:51

Enver Zogha: Nov 12, 2008; The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Stalinists, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is what they have in mind. But, on the contrary, they glorify us with this epithet; it is an honor for us to be Stalinists.

H.H posted:

OP, is there a reason you're focusing on non-fiction published by communist regimes?

I mean, cool as this project may be, topics like the speeches of the 9th congress of the USSR communist party or whatever seem like extremely niche subjects that would interest mainly academics who can read all this stuff in the original. The English publications are mainly propaganda aimed at western audiences, and while it may be curious in a historical context, it seems like way too much effort for such a small target audience.

Most of the works I scan deal with history, economics, ideology, stuff like that. Stuff along the lines of "speech by important Soviet figure on why Reagan is stupid" tend to be pamphlets and thus no big deal to scan.

Rutibex posted:

i've got some Soviet books! have you scanned these ones? (of course you have ). my favourate part about soviet books is the lack of a copyright page. where a copyright page would be there is just a blank page with "printed in the union of soviet socialist republics"

I have not. Soviet books in English from the Stalin period are actually pretty well-covered by other scanners. You can find one particular collection here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B1ZP6ZurgOg-REtjWmJoeVRJUlE

Helical Nightmares posted:

Edit: what do you have from Vietnam and the DPRK?

https://archive.org/details/ModernHistoryOfKorea
https://archive.org/details/TheHistoricalExperienceOfTheAgrarianReformInOurCountry
https://archive.org/details/OutlineHistoryOfTheVietnamWorkersParty

Insanite posted:

You are a good and cool person, OP

why not novels, though?

I simply lack interest in obtaining novels. If someone cared to send one my way I'd scan it, but otherwise I focus on non-fiction works.

psychokitty posted:

i went to the ussr in 1990

just thought i'd let you know

That must have been a sad experience. Should have gone in 1970 when Soviet living standards were just about at their height and the country wasn't being torn apart by the pernicious forces of nationalism and capitalism.

The Soviets were still putting stuff out as late as 1989-1991, but were trying to appeal to English-speaking audiences by publishing dreck like Behind the Fa�ade of the Masonic Temple which contains paragraphs like this:

quote:

The world bourgeoisie finds the organization with its clandestine, arcane ways very convenient in secretly shaping the more covert aspects of its domestic and foreign policies. "In capitalist society everything that particularly interests the citizens � their economic conditions, war and peace � is decided secretly, apart from society itself," Lenin noted.

Enver Zogha fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Aug 20, 2016

# ¿ Aug 20, 2016 21:35

Enver Zogha: Nov 12, 2008; The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Stalinists, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is what they have in mind. But, on the contrary, they glorify us with this epithet; it is an honor for us to be Stalinists.

Junk posted:

This is fuckin' rad. Since you mentioned it, I'd be interested to see any DPRK literature you have. I've always heard about how terrible it is but I want to experience it first hand.

Check out Modern History of Korea, should be more than enough.

Meanwhile I've now scanned that 700-page Soviet history of the world from 1917-1945: https://archive.org/details/AContemporaryWorldHistory19171945

So if you wanted to know what the Soviets thought of Canadian politics back in the day or whatever, there you go.

Next is a Soviet book from 1990 on consumer, producer, and other kinds of cooperatives in Asian and African countries which also contains a chapter on how cooperatives operated in the USSR.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 21:37

Enver Zogha: Nov 12, 2008; The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Stalinists, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is what they have in mind. But, on the contrary, they glorify us with this epithet; it is an honor for us to be Stalinists.

Scanned the Soviet book on third world cooperatives: https://archive.org/details/CooperativeMovementInAsiaAndAfrica

Next I'll be scanning four books on Africa, the first three books from 1960-63 by a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain who focuses on the independence struggles, the role of the working-class in them, and prospects for socialism, and the fourth book being a Soviet work from 1974 titled The New Scramble for Africa.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2016 11:00

Enver Zogha: Nov 12, 2008; The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Stalinists, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is what they have in mind. But, on the contrary, they glorify us with this epithet; it is an honor for us to be Stalinists.

mobby_6kl posted:

There's no way I'm gonna scan it, but you can find it already OCRd here: http://bse.sci-lib.com/ and just use google translate if necessary.

You can actually find the English edition online. I'll quote from something I wrote elsewhere:

quote:

The online version in English is a bit inconsistent (some articles appear to have been written as early as 1970, some are as late as 1982), but yeah. The articles will always have a "Warning" on top saying that they come from the GSE and therefore might be biased. Sometimes you'll have to scroll down a bit since there can be different articles from different encyclopedias. GSE articles will always have a warning on top of them saying it "might be outdated or ideologically biased."

Here's a start: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/United%20States%20of%20America.

(note the dot in the URL, it's because the article is so large it cannot coexist with other, non-Soviet encyclopedia articles on the USA on that website)

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

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

Since this was a comprehensive encyclopedia you can pretty much expect anything that existed as of 1982 to be in it, including unique stuff like various Marxist terms and figures.

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

# ¿ Aug 24, 2016 20:03

Enver Zogha: Nov 12, 2008; The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Stalinists, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is what they have in mind. But, on the contrary, they glorify us with this epithet; it is an honor for us to be Stalinists.

So I didn't scan those African works yet, but I did manage to scan a book from 1943 on the Baltic states put out by Latvian social-democrat, called The Baltic Riddle.

Meanwhile a guy I know scanned a Soviet polemic from 1982 called Stop Terrorism! which examines groups like the Red Brigades and, well, doesn't like them.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2016 14:11

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 01:12

Enver Zogha: Nov 12, 2008; The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Stalinists, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is what they have in mind. But, on the contrary, they glorify us with this epithet; it is an honor for us to be Stalinists.

Among the works recently scanned are a history of attempts to overthrow the Soviet Republic in its formative period, a 1973 analysis of the politics and economy of Israel, and a 1989 Soviet study on workplace participation schemes in capitalist countries.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2016 01:51

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > General Bullshit > I scan (mostly) Soviet books (in English) and put them online