User:Md188/Soviet Elections Post Signing of the 1936 Soviet Constitution/Alpenschatz Peer Review

General info

Whose work are you reviewing?

Md188

Link to draft you're reviewing

User:Md188/Soviet Elections Post Signing of the 1936 Soviet Constitution

Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)

This is a new article.

Evaluate the drafted changes

(Compose a detailed peer review here, considering each of the key aspects listed above if it is relevant. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what feedback looks like.)

Note: As this appears to be an article which md188 is constructing from scratch, there is not an extant article to use as a reference point.

Lead

At present, it is indeterminable as to whether or not this article contains a formalised Lead section. Considering this is a new article and is still early in production, there is no extant Lead section to work from, as there may be with an article that already exists. Therefore, here are several possible suggestions that could be implemented to create a stronger Lead section.

On December 5th, 1936, the second Soviet Constitution was signed and formally replaced the original constitution of 1924. The new constitution was enacted by the former Congress of Soviets and signed by former General Secretary, Joseph Stalin. As a result, the Congress of Soviets was dismantled and replaced by a new Supreme Soviet. This meant that almost all democratic ideologies used in the previous constitution were forgotten and replaced by totalitarian view points. The new constitution also allowed for one party, known as The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to assume full control of the government without any form of opposition from other parties. However, the new constitution did come with some benefits for the average person. Economic liberties such as the right to work allowed for the average soviet citizen to not be discriminated against in the workplace. Also, protection of leisure time, education, and housing were some of the other benefits soviet citizens were able to enjoy from the new government.

If the author would desire to use elements from the above section from their current draft of the article to compose their Lead section, a possible choice of wording could be:

The Soviet Constitution of 1936 was signed on December 5th, 1936, formally replacing the original Constitution of 1924. It was drafted and enacted under then General Secretary Joseph Stalin and the Congress of Soviets to re-direct the ideological orientation of the Soviet Constitution in order to better reflect changing party politics at the time. etc.

Something this basic would better suit the article as it exists presently, but as more sections are added that flesh out a definable set of policies, it may be improved by adding a sentence or more that briefly summarise some of the major alterations to the Constitution that were implemented. More importantly, since the focus of this article is less about the 1936 Constitution itself than the elections that were carried out afterward, it is absolutely essential that the author includes some information that directly relates to this subject matter. Emphasising how the 1936 Constitution substantially affected the nature of post-1936 elections should be the ultimate focus of this Lead section.

Content

While the bloc of text that was quoted above is definitely an essential component to understanding the article subject as a whole, it would be better to focus more on developing sections more like the one below, as this is the most topical to the subject matter.

1937 Election

Shortly after the signing of the new constitution, elections were held to determine the head of the Soviet Union. As promised by the government a multi-candidate election was held but was soon corrupted after the Great Purge, a time of political distrust and oppression. Many political candidates and threats to the CPSU were arrested as a part of a mass arrest effort to ensure the victory of the communst party. As a result, one candidate was left standing halfway throughout the election process, Joseph Stalin. Stalin had won both the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities through a landslide vote.

Stalin had won The Soviet of the Union by a vote of 461 deputies to 108. He had also won the The Soviet of the Nationalities by a vote of 409 deputies to 165.

It is entirely the author's discretion as to whether or not highlighting specific elections as examples is the best course of action for developing a balanced article. However, it may be more efficient in the long run to focus more on defining traits or elements that were common across post-1936 elections generally, and saving the inclusion of specific elections for highlighting strong examples of these traits or elements in action.

Tone and Balance

It would be better to be cautious regarding the way in which certain sentences are written. In regard to specific examples of possible tonal issues, sentences like:

Also, protection of leisure time, education, and housing were some of the other benefits soviet citizens were able to enjoy from the new government.

and

However, the new constitution did come with some benefits for the average person.

might be outside the bounds of what could be considered neutral writing. If a source that you are using specifically claims that "X policy granted citizens benefits they did not possess beforehand" or "Citizens could now enjoy X, Y, and Z things", be sure to frame it as a direct quotation, ideally mentioning the specific author who has stated this claim first before proceeding with the quote. Otherwise, these sorts of claims are generally not within the purview of a Wikipedia article, which is ideally meant to be a sum of factual statements, not opinions. If a certain number of Soviet citizens claimed to have enjoyed a policy change, present it in the form of a statistic (for example, a poll) and cite where you found this information, if you can find it. Bear in mind too that because the Soviet Union did not possess a renowned track record for freedom of speech, especially under Josef Stalin, this information could also suffer from questionable reliability, and may jeopardise the perceived reliability of the article as a whole for some readers.

When it comes to specific rights or privileges afforded to Soviet citizens, again try to use neutral language, e.g. "The Soviet Constitution of 1936 provided an exemption from the blanket ban on firearms ownership for rural citizens living in selosoviets who required a firearm to hunt for food or hides." (This is not a factual statement and is only something I came up with as an example). Be sure to also cite where you found this information. If you are directly citing it from the wording of the Constitution itself, you may want to look up how to cite a historical document such as that on Wikipedia.

Sources and References

At the moment, the author appears to have yet to include citations for the material present. While this may be acceptable at the moment due to the rough nature of this draft, it would be better to get into the habit of including hyperlinks (like this as an example) and citations early on to avoid having to spend large amounts of time going back over previously written material to find sentences in need of citation and then inserting the relevant citation. Including both a Bibliography and a References section (the References section being only followed with the Insert --> References list, which will automatically log all citations you have created) is absolutely essential. Below are examples of how both sections are usually composed at the end of Wikipedia articles.

Bibliography

Last Name, First Name (2021). Book Title. Location: Book Publisher. pp. 1–999. ISBN 12-34567-890

Last Name, First Name (2021). "Webpage Title". Name of Website. Retrieved 12 March 2021.

References

As for hyperlinks, the example Lead section earlier in this review is a good litmus test for what to include hyperlinks for and what not to. It is best to avoid having hyperlinks more than once for a particular term within any given section or set of sections. As an example, including a hyperlink for Josef Stalin when he is first mentioned in the Lead section and in your first section of material is ideal so that people can be easily directed towards specific events, organisations, or people if they wish to learn more about them independently of the article, but you do not want to include hyperlinks every time Stalin is mentioned afterward. Including hyperlinks has the added benefit of also making the article more polished, but of course hyperlinks cannot be substitutions for citations. Nonetheless, including hyperlinks for specific events, concepts, organisations, people, etc. that are mentioned in a quote or a citation that are not previously mentioned in the article is a very good idea.

Organisation

With the current structure of the draft being as bare-bones as it is, there isn't a lot to comment on directly regarding its organisation so far. Generally speaking, though, having the background information on the Constitution of 1936 and what changed as a result of it first and then following it with sections describing how it affected Soviet elections is likely the best approach. Also, make sure to capitalise all proper nouns, e.g. Soviet, Stalin, Russia, etc. Common nouns like "constitution" (not referring to a specific Constitution, but to constitutions in general) should not be capitalised.

New Article

I have no idea what sort of sources are available for this subject matter as they have yet to be added, so I cannot comment as to whether this article will meet Wikipedia's notability requirements. As for infoboxes, my recommendation would be to find a similar article (e.g., this article Elections in the Soviet Union), go into the source editing for it, and copy over all of the relevant info boxes into the source editing on your article.

If you are having trouble finding good information for this article, perhaps it would be best to actually combine this with the above article, and broaden your subject to Soviet elections as a whole, while also ensuring to include what you're already working on as subsections.

Overall Impressions

I think this article has a lot of potential for growth, and with the right resources to use for references, could be made into a strong article on its own or combined with the Elections in the Soviet Union article. The subject matter is helped by the fact that it's legitimately an interesting topic, and if fleshed out and given the right references, I think it definitely would have a fitting place amongst the host of other articles that discuss the history of the Soviet Union.