# Talk:Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Soviet Union)

Am curious about this recent renaming of the article, from the "Ministry of Foreign Affairs" to the "Ministry of External Relations". Formally, the renaming was, no doubt - fully correct: It is true that the ministry itself was renamed, and the latter name is the one it had during the last period of its existence (until the dissolution of the USSR). However, that last period was what, 36 days long (and that, during the time when the USSR was obviously on its last legs), as compared to the preceding 45 years during which it was the "Ministry of Foreign Affairs" (or just "MID" in Russsian). The  "Ministry of Foreign Affairs" is, of course the name under which it mostly occurs in the English-language literature, while hardly anyone remembers what name it had during its last month of operation. I mean, I read articles on foreign affairs fairly regularly, but it's only from looking at this article today that I learned about the MER moniker! See About 112,000 results on Google Books for 'Soviet "Ministry of foreign affairs"' vs. 970 hits for Ministry of External Relations. -- Vmenkov (talk) 04:23, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I much agree, the "Ministry of Foreign Affairs" title is much more appropriate per WP:COMMONNAME. Most English sources refer to the agency under the name "Ministry of Foreign Affairs" and very few sources use the "Ministry of External Relations" name. I'll probably post a formal request for a revert move via WP:RM. Nsk92 (talk) 05:27, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Soviet Union)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Wizardman Operation Big Bear 05:42, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I will review this article. -- Cirt (talk) 19:41, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Since Cirt's busy with other matters, I will review this article, hopefully soon. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 05:42, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
Here are the issues I found:

Done "From 1946 to 1991 known as Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Russian: Министерство иностранных дел), or for short, MFA." sentence fragment
Done "but the MER also represented the country abroad and participated in talks with foreign delegations on behalf of the Soviet government." not sure if 'but' is the right word choice, since both parts of the sentence seem to connect.
Done "economic interests were carried out joinly with" jointly
Done "overal Soviet consular" overall
Done "Notable goals adopted by the Collegium was" were
Done "Further, the Collegium" furthermore
Done "This joint gathering led to more participations" participation, unless you meant participants
Done "This organ also discussing" discussed
Done "there were no longer any distinction between" was
Done "structure as following:" as follows:
Done "for propaganda purposes and so-called "active measures" then other non-Soviet affiliated foreign ministries" than other
Done "and the use accusations and derogatory terminology," use of
Done "the Soviet MER, had a much higher budget than" no comma needed
Done "Andrei Gromyko notes in his memoirs," noted; make sure no present tense like that is in article.
Done "He's ideas" His ideas
Done Getting someone from WP:GOCE to copyedit this would be a bonus, since I may have missed a thing or two.
I'll put the article on hold. When the issues are fixed, I'll either pass it or request an outside copyeditor browse through the article first; that I'll sleep on. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 05:15, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Now that the article's been copyedited, I will pass this article as a GA. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 03:21, 27 January 2011 (UTC)