Talk:Soviet (word)

As the term Supreme Soviet suggests, there were gov't organs called soviets at other levels, as reflected in the versions recent to the splitting out of Soviet (council). IMO that could be acknowledged in an article w/o being silly, but on the other hand, we may never need to refer to them, and we needn't do so in advance. --Jerzy(t) 06:34, 2004 Apr 30 (UTC)

At this point, the article misdescribes the scope of Soviet (council), making it appear that lower gov't organs are not covered at all. The actual division, into obvious and somewhat obscure uses of "soviet" may be the ideal resolution of the problems of the preceding version (for the structure of which i bear the responsibility). I'll make an attempt to fix soon if others do not. --Jerzy(t) 03:10, 2004 May 1 (UTC)

Soviet, soviets
So can those term be used as a synonime for Bolshevicks and Red Russians between 1917 and 1924 or not? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:18, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Make redirect to Soviet Union
Please click on "What links here" at the side of the Soviet article, and you will see the huge number of pages that link there, very likely nearly all meaning Soviet Union. Considering this, I suggest that Soviet should be made a redirect to Soviet Union, with at the top of Soviet Union either ''"Soviet" redirects here. See also soviet (council) and Supreme Soviet. or "Soviet" redirects here. For other uses, see Soviet (disambiguation).'', where the current content of Soviet would be moved to Soviet (disambiguation). Is there agreement on the redirect?--Pharos 01:39, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * OK with me for the second version. Just like "american" is 90% adjective to the USA, "soviet" is mostly an adjective to USSR in common usage. Mikkalai 02:11, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've done the move.--Pharos 03:02, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I disagree - it should be to Soviet (disambiguation). Jake95 16:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Jake95--from admittedly anecdotal evidence, it seems like a number of people want to know what a Soviet is, and so they naturally enter "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet" into their URL bars. When they're redirected to the Soviet Union page, there's no way for them to get to Soviet (word) or Soviet (disambiguation).  The better (but admittedly more work-intensive) strategy is to fix the links that point to Soviet that should be pointing to Soviet Union. --Atemperman 18:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

== It is a complete error to say that the Russian noun 'soviet', meaning 'council', only refers to a workers' council. The Tsar had a 'State Soviet' from as early as 1810, and the upper house of the Duma was known by this name from 1906 ==

I strongly doubt that anyone who knows Russian has contributed to this article. 'Soviet' (or 'sovet' by standard transliteration) is the Russian word for both 'council' and 'counsel' (advice). In English, the meanings of these two words are related - thus members of a Privy Council are known as 'Privy Counsellors'. In Russian, the two meanings are also related, and a single word is used. It may come a surprise to non-Russian-speakers in the US, but in Russia, the State Soviet was functioning as early as 1810. In English it is normally referred to as the Privy Council, but in Russian it was known as the Gosudarstvenniy Sovet, i.e. 'State Soviet'. The upper house of the Duma after 1906 was also called the 'State Soviet' - the word being exactly the same as the one used for the Supreme Soviet ('Verkhovniy Sovet'), and local soviets ('mestnye sovety' - 'local councils') during the Bolshevik period.

It is of course conventional, when using English, to leave the word 'soviet', in the meaning of a discussion/decision body, untranslated in a 1917-91 context (and also, with regard to workers' councils, in the context of 1905-06), and to translate it to 'council' in all other contexts, whether post-1991 or pre-1917. But such a distinction just could not occur in Russian, since exactly the same word is used in all of these contexts!

I am not sure that I will find time to correct this article. I could do a rough-and-ready job, but I feel it should be done with proper care, which would require time that I can't spare at the moment.

Anyone who wants to revise the article to take the above into account should read A Note on the Use of the Word Soviet. I think a link should be given to this article at the end too. 158-152-12-77 00:11, 26 August 2005 (BST)

One thing I have found time to change is the last bit, which says that the noun 'soviet' was used as a noun to denote a person from the USSR. This was only true in vulgar usage. You would say 'he is Soviet', not 'he is a Soviet'. The latter would be akin to saying 'he is a French'. 158-152-12-77 11:44, 27 August 2005 (BST)

I have now found time to do a revision. 158-152-12-77 00:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Move from Soviet (disambiguation)
(I wrote this in User talk:Commander Keane, let's continue the discussion here.)

I strongly oppose your move and subsequent deletion (un-disambiguation) of the Soviet (disambiguation) page. I hope you only intended this as a temporary measure.

I plan to create a new disambiguation page for Soviet. The present contents should be moved to Soviet (russian word) and Soviet redirected to Soviet Union. Petri Krohn 03:02, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for doing the move and redirecting Soviet to Soviet Union :-) Petri Krohn 03:24, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah everything seems to be sorted out now. I made the change after I looked at this talk page and didn't see an active discussion, thanks for putting it right.--Commander Keane 03:27, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * It's just plain wrong to redirect Soviet to Soviet Union, and not worthy of a respectable encyclopedia. There are now errors all over the place, e.g.
 * 1) "soviet" was never used as a noun meaning any of the "soviet" republics (despite many people in the West falsely believing otherwise) (anyone who is sceptical, please research it, e.g. ask someone who knows about the field - there is no point saying look it up in Ozhegov's dictionary because someone who doesn't know it already is hardly likely to know any Russian);
 * 2) "council" does not mean the same as a group of advisers;
 * 3) whoever wrote that 'sovetsky' and 'sovetskaya' are the adjectives is clearly unaware of how many genders are in use in Russian, which is one of the first things learnt by anyone learning the language.


 * In English, French, German, etc., "soviet" is, like it or not, a loanword from Russian. It is not an English, French, or German word. Again, if this is not clear, I'd encourage someone to find out the meaning of the word "loanword".


 * I did a lot of work knocking the entry into shape, and I would be quite happy to see a good article on the word 'soviet' go into Wiktionary rather than Wikipedia, but unfortunately the current Wiktionary article has been hacked out by someone who, to be blunt, has little knowledge about the subject and makes false assumptions, such as that the State Soviet set up in 1810 lasted all the way through to 1917. I reckon they only learnt of its existence from my version, which is fine, but making a lazy assumption about the date of its demise and then posting it into the article, isn't. I have posted up my previous version on the word to the Wiktionary page. Hopefully it will enlighten. If it's butchered by the ignorant, I'll just let it be... It can't be long now until Wikipedia is sold to Microsoft anyway!


 * 158-152-12-77 00:24, 12 April 2006 (BST)


 * This is not the Russian Wikipedia.
 * If you think that some of the uses of soviet now falsly go to Soviet Union, please correct them to point to Soviet (disambiguation) or the correct article. Petri Krohn 08:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)