History textbooks: sometimes a "cigar" is just a cigar, but other times it is nothing like a cigar.

[Boojatta]

Consider an event such as what was superficially a political electoral process, but that was such a process in name only. It seems that some authors consider it biased to provide evidence that an event didn't actually fit its official description. For example, one may find history textbooks that refer to the Communist Party in East Germany as very successful in elections.

A student might speculate that the Communist Party might gather some support in what used to be West Germany. Some students might suspect that, in today's unified Germany, the Communist Party stands a fair chance of forming the federal government without resorting to either violent revolutionary activity or electoral fraud.

What not? Did unification somehow cause evaporation of support that the Communist Party had in East Germany? Does the number of eligible voters in the western region of Germany who choose to vote overwhelm the number of eligible voters in the eastern region of Germany who choose to vote?

Another possibility is that there never were genuine elections in East Germany. They may have been called "elections" and it may be monotonous to refer always to "what were said to be elections" rather than simply to "elections", but isn't it better to make a sacrifice with respect to style than to allow some students to be misled with respect to substance?

[imdjh]

1. Yes. But....

I was going to say that it was like saying that Rome was a republic, when in fact it was a hodgepodge of aristocracy, dictatorship, representative government and mediatized monarchies. But, then I was thinking that our own history says that this nation was founded as a republic, when in fact it included elements of democracy, aristocracy, and nations under submission.

[Boojatta]

2. Kick