The beginnings of the Soviet encyclopedia

Abstract

In this paper we focus on the beginning of publication of the Large Soviet Encyclopedia, launched in 1925. We present the context of this launching and explain why it was tightly connected to the period of the New Economical Policy. In a last section, we examine four articles included in the first volumes of the encyclopedia and relative to randomness and probability, in order to illustrate some debates of the scientific scene in USSR during the 1920s.