https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_events_of_the_20th_century#The_Russian_Revolution_and_Communism
Footnote 19: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1169&context=honorsprojects
The whole section of the Wiki article is regurgitated bad history, but citing a literal rando is low even for Wikipedia
I got curious and dug kinda deep, found the edit where it was added: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Key_events_of_the_20th_century&diff=next&oldid=870871907
This edit changed almost none of the content of the page, just found citations to (maybe) support whatever it already said. It was done by PraiseVivec, who has over 3000 edits. They are passionate about "Incredibly specific subjects [they] literally knew nothing about 5 minutes ago" and are "particularly proud" of this page.
I hate this dogshit website lmao.
One of the weaknesses of Wikipedia's model is sources aren't weighted. It's either cited or uncited, and Cochrane reviews don't look better than web citations.
It's pretty low on the Wikipedia reliable source hierarchy, you could remove it. Then again, some chud could reverse it.
I'm 100% sure that Wikipedia editors of contentious topics know what they want to write and then just go to Google Scholar to source their idea. Heaps of the references are terrible.
That's clearly what happened here. There's no way they happened to know this undergraduate thesis.
It doesn't really surprise me, because up until late undergrad, the structure of most of my writing assignments was that you would choose a topic/thesis first, assume it's correct, and find evidence to support it. If you realized you were actually full of shit, then you had to start over and do extra work and thus you were rewarded for doubling down on your original idea even if the data was against you.
If it's on paper, it's intrinsically trustworthy and notable.
