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Stalin once gave a lengthy speech that was later released on vinyl. The entire B-side consisted of recorded applause.

I've seen this claimed in one syndicated article, but I can't seem to find other sources confirming this.

Did the USSR or maybe someone else release Stalin's speech in such a format, with one side of the disc containing only applause?

JRE
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Fizz
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    Hm. I suppose putting another speech on the B side migth suggest it was an inferior speech. – Weather Vane Aug 10 '22 at 19:25
  • @WeatherVane: the way the Soviet speeches were organized, they had applauses inserted between segments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nMDjKtTigQ And these moments were even communicated in the drafts distributed to the press. So, that's another reason to be suspicious of the claim. – Fizz Aug 10 '22 at 20:07
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    @Fizz, it's not contradictory. It's also not uniquely Soviet: at least Hitler's speeches are also peppered with the [applause] remarks. An official stenogram of the speech is _supposed_ to include them all. In case of cult leaders such as Stalin, there was a perverse situation which was applicable to real life as well as records: just _who_ dares to stop first (or cut short) the applause to our great leader? All the time one can find remarks (in text records) like [lengthy, vigorous, enthusiastic applause turning into standing ovation]. I don't _know_ the answer but I don't find it surprising. – Zeus Aug 11 '22 at 00:57
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    Reminder: [Sorry, but we don't care about your political opinions.](https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3858/sorry-but-we-dont-care-about-your-political-opinions) – Oddthinking Aug 11 '22 at 02:11
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    The way "this article" & "other confirming" are phrased sounds to me a bit like 'lack of notability'. But this story/claim is found in other 'sources' (making it quite notable), albeit with an equal lack of apparent reliability/references/'proof' (in what I read; thus repetition is present, but no real confirmation other than being widespread). You may want to clear that up? – LangLаngС Aug 11 '22 at 08:56
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    Possibly relevant: Stalin died in 1952, and [the LP record](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_record) was only introduced in 1948. A 78rpm shellac record holding 5 minutes of speech and 5 minutes of applause is rather different from a microgroove LP holding 25 minutes of each. I'm not sure either would qualify as a "lengthy" speech. – IMSoP Aug 11 '22 at 09:21
  • @IMSoP: well, at least there seem to be some later speeches of East block leaders on vinyl https://www.discogs.com/release/16530354-Brezhnev-Fidel-Discurso-De-Brezhnev-Discurso-De-Fidel There was apparently an entire box collection of Stalin speeches in 78rpm https://www.discogs.com/release/20543815-%D0%98-%D0%92-%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD-%D0%94%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4-%D0%A2%D0%BE%D0%B2-%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D0%98-%D0%92-%D0%9D%D0%B0-%D0%A7%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B2%D1%8B%D1%87%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BC-VIII-%D0%92%D1%81 – Fizz Aug 11 '22 at 09:40
  • @Fizz Oh, I don't doubt that such recordings were made, just that "a whole side" sounds a lot to us, because we think of a side of an LP, or a disc in a CD box set, but it's actually closer to a single "track". That box set you linked to isn't a *collection* of speeches, it's *a single speech* spanning 42 sides of shellac disc, which would probably fit on one or two CDs. The last of those sides being a few minutes of applause is very different from twenty minutes of applause on the back of a "microgroove" LP. – IMSoP Aug 11 '22 at 10:38

1 Answers1

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Apart from simple repetition, there is at least one non-fiction book that mentions this anecdote:

There existed at the time a gramophone record of one of Stalin’s longer speeches. It ran to eight sides, or rather seven, because the eighth consisted entirely of applause.

— Martin Amis: "Koba the Dread. Laughter and the Twenty Million", Vinatge Books: London, 2002, p170.

Unfortunately, Martin Amis is not exactly a historian and Koba the Dread falls short on properly referencing this rather vague anecdote. However, this book is cited or quoted in quite few publications (like this diploma thesis).

A direct proof for this exact claim seems lacking.

Various sites list archives of audio recordings with Stalin's speeches, sometimes with varying for exactly the purportedly exact same speech.

Stalin's ~"Report on the draft Constitution of the USSR November 25, 1936" ("И.Сталин. Речь о проекте Конституции СССР. Доклад на Чрезвычайном VIII Всесоюзном съезде Советов 25 ноября 1936 г.", found in this rar-file) for example lasts for 1 hour and 42 minutes. It starts with ample applause, has especially towards the end some applause sown in, and ends with a full 15 minutes of frenzied ovations that then slowly fades away into singing The Internationale.

Given that recordings on a phonograph record (with 'vinyl' only becoming widespread available very late in Stalin's lifetime) can vary quite a lot:

[…] the early discs played for two minutes […]

with later phonograph/gramophone disc formats by far not approaching the perhaps 'expected' vinyl-LP-recording lengths, the assertion that '(at least) one collection for one of Stalin's speeches had one disc-side that was (at least largely) filled with applause' seems very plausible.

LangLаngС
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    I'm guessing that rar file has a stitched up version of the same speech distributed on 21 x 10", 78 rpm discs https://www.discogs.com/release/20543815-%D0%98-%D0%92-%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD-%D0%94%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4-%D0%A2%D0%BE%D0%B2-%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D0%98-%D0%92-%D0%9D%D0%B0-%D0%A7%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B2%D1%8B%D1%87%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BC-VIII-%D0%92%D1%81 If it's exactly the same recording, the last 3 discs should be entirely applause (incl. the singing)! – Fizz Aug 11 '22 at 11:51
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    @LangLangC I found [an article describing the grammophone recording](https://museum-nt.ru/news/news/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=3643) of that speech by a museum that owns a partially-complete piece. According to the article, it's a 21-disc album; and not only the last b-side, but also the first a-side are mostly applause. That said, the article describes the "applause segment" as 3-minutes (one side duration) long; but it also notes that neither of two articles museum owns is complete (one has 16 out of 21 discs, second - 19 of 21). – Danila Smirnov Aug 11 '22 at 12:16
  • @DanilaSmirnov of some interest; 19-disc [speech](https://www.discogs.com/release/20540137-%D0%92-%D0%9C-%D0%9C%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2-%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%83%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F-%D0%A1%D0%BE%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%BC%D0%B0-%D0%A0%D0%B5%D1%87%D1%8C-%D0%9D%D0%B0-%D0%A7%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B2%D1%8B%D1%87%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BD) by Molotov as well; also on the 1936 constitution. – Fizz Aug 12 '22 at 01:38
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    There are also some shorter speeches of Stalin recorded, e.g. https://www.discogs.com/release/20539654-%D0%98%D0%92-%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD-%D0%A0%D0%B5%D1%87%D1%8C-%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%89%D0%B0-%D0%98-%D0%92-%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BC-%D1%81%D0%BE that's only a 5-disc set from a 1937 speech. On something like that I can imagine the final applause being just one side of the last disc. – Fizz Aug 12 '22 at 01:45