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C00002 00002	lenin[w85,jmc]		Lenin's birthday in the Springer Calendar
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lenin[w85,jmc]		Lenin's birthday in the Springer Calendar

	Springer Verlag issues a calendar of the birthdays of
famous statisticians.  Included in it is the birthday of
V. I. Lenin, the first party boss of the Soviet Union.
When someone asked me why, I was able to reply that Lenin's
first published work was about Russian agricultural statistics.
However, I happened to know this fact through a childhood
exposure to communism rather than through familiarity with the
literature of statistics.

	We reactionaries tend to suspect various people and
institutions of leftist bias, but such charges are very difficult
to prove.  It is pleasant to find an example where the methods
of statistics can be applied to estimate whether the inclusion
of Lenin in the Springer calendar represents a contribution to
the science of statistics on his part in addition to his more
famous political activities or represents a tendency on the
part of the authors of the calendar to brown-nose
the Communists or the Soviet Union.

	The method is to compare citations in the statistical
literature to Lenin with those of the other statisticians
whose birthdays are referenced.  While we're at it we might
as well look for any famous statisticians whose birthdays
are unreferenced.  A conjecture of leftist bias on the part
of the authors of the calendar would generate the hypothesis
that statisticians who supported ideas like eugenics that are
anathema to the left might have their birthdays omitted.

	If it is feasible, we might pay special attention to
Russian statistical literature.