Efim Gorodetsky

Career Documents on the Defeat of the German Occupation in the Ukraine in 1918 (1942). Edited by Gorodetsky and I. I. Mints.

The History of the Civil War in the USSR. Vol. 2 The Great Proletarian Revolution (1942) for his part in which Gorodetsky received the State Prize of the USSR in 1943. Gorodetsky worked as a historian for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and at the (MIFLI/МИФЛИ) in 1932 and 1933 after the Humanities faculty of MSU was abolished.

In 1940, he was appointed associate professor of the Department of History of the USSR of the Soviet Period, in the Faculty of History of Moscow State University and in 1943 he was awarded the State Prize of the USSR for his contributions to Volume 2 (1942) of the history of the Russian Civil War. Sidorov criticised Gorodetsky, Édourd Burdzhalov, Isaak Mints, Nikolai Rubinshtein, and others he described as the "Mints group" for denying the central role of the Soviet people in determining their own path, as lacking in patriotism, and as acting as tools of the enemies of the people. He claimed that the historical approach of the group, of which he described Gorodetsky as a "patron" ("покровитель"), had become dominated by bourgeois objectivism, was too fact-based, lacking in partisanship, and emphasised international proletarian activity over domestic activity, the last of which had, however, until recently been party orthodoxy.

After Stalin's death in 1953, the norms of historical scholarship began to reassert themselves, with a push by Soviet historians in the rest of the decade to eradicate the "falsifications" and "distortions" of the last years of his rule. and his highly cited Rozhdenie sovetskogo gosudarstva 1917-1918 gg on the birth of the Soviet state in 1917-1918 (1965). Reviewer Rudolf Schlesinger felt that, notwithstanding the central and approving place that the author gave to Lenin, in the book Gorodetsky had taken an undogmatic and fresh approach different from his contemporaries in either the West or the Soviet Union.

Later life In 1987, Gorodetsky received the traditional interview in Voprosy Istorii on the 80th anniversary of his birth. It was translated into English and published in Soviet Studies in History (now Russian Studies in History) in 1988. He died in Moscow on 20 June 1993. In 1997, an article by V. S. Lelchuk was published in Russian History titled "Lessons from Gorodetsky (on the occasion of his 90th birthday)".

Selected publications Articles "Soviet reform of the higher school in 1918 and Moscow University", Vestnik moskovskogo universiteta, 1954, No. 1 (social science series). "Iz istorii oktiabr'skogo vooruzhennogo vosstannia i II vserossiiskogo s ezda sovetov", Voprosy istorii, 1957, No. 10, pp. 23–48. "Demobilizatsiya armii v 1917-8 gg", Istoriya SSSR, No. 1, 1958. "Voprosy metodologii istoricheskogo issledovaniia v posleoktiabrskikh trudakh V. I. Lenina," Voprosy istorii, 1963, No. 6, p. 32. "Contemporary Soviet Literature on the October Revolution", Istoriya SSSR, 1977, No. 6.

Books Dokumenty o Razgrome Germanskykh Okupantov na Ukraine v 1918 Gody. (Documents on the Defeat of the German Occupation in the Ukraine in 1918) OGIZ, Moscow, 1942. (Edited with Isaak Mints) История Гражданской войны в СССР T. 2 Великая пролетарская революция. (The History of the Civil War in the USSR. Vol. 2 The Great Proletarian Revolution) Moscow, 1942. (Joint) Из истории Московского университета. 1917–1941. (From the history of Moscow University. 1917–1941) Moscow, 1955. (Editor) Sverdlov: Zhizn' i deiatel'nost . (Sverdlov: Life and work) Gosizdat, Moscow, 1961. (With Yuri P. Sharapov) Velikaia obtiabr'skaia sotsialisticheskaia revoliutsiia: Bibliograficheskii ukazatel' dokumental'nykh publikatsii. (The Great October Socialist Revolution: A Bibliographical Index of Documentary Publications) Moscow, 1961. (Editor) Rozhdenie sovetskogo gosudarstva 1917-1918 gg. (The Birth of the Soviet State 1917–1918) Nauka, Moscow, 1965. Lenin onovopolozhnik sovetskoi istoricheskoi nauki: Istoriia sovetskogo obshchestva v trudakh V.I. Lenina. (Lenin is the founder of Soviet historical science: the history of Soviet society in the works of V. I. Lenin) Nauka, Moscow, 1970. Sverdlov. 1885-1919. Life and activity. Life of Great People No. 501. Young Guard, Moscow, 1971. (With Yuri P. Sharapov) Stroitel'stvo sovetskogo gosudarstva: Sbornik statei k 70-letiiu E.B. Genkinoi. (The construction of the Soviet state: Collection of articles on the 70th anniversary of E.V. Genkina) Nauka, Moscow, 1972. (Editor)