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In historiography, historical revisionism is the process of revisiting, reexamining, and attempting to revise the established, commonly-held view of an historical event. This can be a good thing when the conclusions reached are supported by the evidence and lead to a more accurate understanding of the past; or bad when it paints in inaccurate picture of the past and relies on incorrect, selective, or manipulated data.
When used in Marxist contexts it can mean the telling of historical events in a pseudohistorical or ahistorical way. A relative of political revisionism, which implies a betrayal of the scientific political view, historical revisionism refers to a betrayal of history or historical accuracy.[1] History is a cornerstone of dialectical materialist theory. Historical materialism ensures an accurate and scientific retelling of history, one which is told by the masses rather than by the bourgeoisie. To betray a materialist conception of history in practice, whether by error or by intention is to engage in historical revisionism because it is a regression into idealism and idealist errors. In other words, historical revisionism is a falsification of history, whether intentional or unintentional.[2]
Cultural revisionism is a related term that implies a historical revision of culture, one that is always necessarily false.
Bourgeois historical revisionism[edit | edit source]
See main article: Historical nihilism
It could be argued that all bourgeois historians engage in some level of historical revisionism at least when it comes to certain topics, because their telling of history is biased towards the bourgeois class and loyalty to this class, rather than truth or the masses, is the measure of 'accuracy', as is the case for bourgeois science in general.
One modern example of historical revisionism is the way the history and status of Tibet is misrepresented by bourgeois ideologues and Tibetan nationalists. Tibet has been part of China for over a thousand years since the Tang dynasty, and no country has ever recognised Tibet as a sovereign nation, yet many bourgeois ideologues (particularly in the West) as well as Tibetan separatists argue that Tibet is an independent country that was only forced to join China in 1950 after a supposed "invasion". They also often glorify the feudal era of Tibetan history when over 90% of the population were either slaves or serfs and living conditions were deplorable for most people.[3] This gross mischaracterisation of Tibet's history is made by bourgeois propagandists in an attempt to lend legitimacy to separatist movements in China, as China represents a threat to the liberal international order, and the Capitalist Bloc consequently seeks the balkanisation of the modern Chinese nation-state.
Bourgeois history of the Soviet Union is similarly altered to suit the needs of their country's bourgeoisie. After the Second World War ended, the Soviet Union published a booklet replying to the historical revisionism of the western Allied Powers that was intended to portray the Soviets as supportive of Nazi Germany rather than their victims.[4] Nevertheless, the Soviet Union's role in the war was diminished so much in the following decades that by 1994 the majority of French citizens polled believed the United States contributed the most to the defeat of Germany when in 1945 they had named the Soviet Union.[5] During the 1980s, a group of Statesians and members of the Soviet Academy of Science's Institute of World History gathered to review Statesian and Soviet elementary and high school history textbooks with both groups concluding that the Soviet textbooks contained more accurate historical information, while the Statesian textbooks undermined and downplayed Soviet history and contained basic factual errors.[6]
Examples[edit | edit source]
- Anti-Katyn
- Armenian genocide denial
- Australian indigenous genocide denial
- Canadian indigenous genocide denial
- Clean Wehrmacht myth
- Gay Nazis myth
- Holocaust denial
- Holodomor
- Irish slaves myth
- Jewish war declarations
- Lost Cause myth
- Nakba denial
- Native American genocide denial
- Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy theory
- Preventive War Myth
- Revisionist school of Soviet history
- Stab-in-the-back myth
- Tibetan sovereignty debate
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ VNGiapaganda (2016-04-03). Defending Communist History in Practice Marxist-Leninist Theory from VNGiapaganda. Archived from the original on 2017-04-03. Retrieved 2025-09-04.
- ↑ Rajani Palme Dutt (1963). Problems of Contemporary History. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
- ↑ "China, Tibet and U.S.-sponsored counterrevolution" (2008-04-01). Liberation School. Archived from the original on 2021-06-19. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
- ↑ Falsificators of History (1948). Washington, D.C.: Soviet Information Bureau.
- ↑ Olivier Berruyer (2019–05-08). "L’enseignement de l’ignorance : Quelle est la nation qui a le plus contribué à la défaite de l’Allemagne en 1945 ?" Les Crises. Retrieved 2025-09-05.
- ↑ “"All sides agreed that Soviet textbooks contain a great deal more solid information about the world in general and the United States specifically," said Ben Eklof, senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center here.”
Barbara Vobejda (1987-12-05). "U.S., SOVIET TEXTBOOKS GIVE DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS OF HISTORY" The Washington Post. Retrieved 2025-08-06.