Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes/Archive 31

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Well...

Smallbones accused in presenting no sources or concrete edits, whereas Nug accused me in being one of the major contributors. And both of them ignore the obvious fact that the edits I propose are always suported by top quality reliable sources.

I presented exhaustive evidences that the Black Book (concretely, its introduction) is a controversial source, so it is hardly possible to use this source as a support for the first opening sentence of the article. Even this fact alone warrants a POV tag, and I need no consensus to add it per our policy, which says that the basic principles of neutrality policy cannot be superseded by local consensus.

However, I decided to wait with the POV tag for a while, and to try stepwise improvement of the article. For the beginning, I propose to replace the existing text form the "Terminology" section

Genocide Under the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide does not apply to the mass killing of political and social groups. Protection of political groups was eliminated from the UN resolution after a second vote, because many states, including Stalin's USSR, anticipated that clause to apply unneeded limitations to their right to suppress internal disturbances.

with the following text:

The term Genocide had been initially coined by Raphael Lemkin to describe Nazi policy in occupied Europe, and The Holocaust in particular. This term had been formalized by the UN Genocide Convention, which defined it as an act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, etnical, racial or religious group; genocide defined in such a way is a crime punishable according to international laws, thus applying limitations on the sovereignty of governments that destroy their own peoples. The legal definition of genocide has several limitations that made it inapplicable to many mass killing and mass mortality events in XX century. These limitations are as follows:

1. Protection of political groups was eliminated from the UN resolution, because many Eastern Bloc, Latin American, and some other governments anticipated that clause to apply unneeded limitations to their right to suppress internal rebellions.
2. The highest level of specific intent needs to be established for conviction of genocide.
3. The intent to destroy some group in part may fit the genocide definition only if the perpetrators view the part of the group they wish to destroy as a distinct entity which must be eliminated as such.

As a result, most mass killing and mass mortality cases in Communist led countries do not fit the legal definition of genocide as the acts against political groups (Great Purge, Cultural Revolution), or the cases with not established intentionality, or as the acts affecting just small part of some group (Soviet Famine of 1932-33, Great Leap Forward famine).
Some modern scholars proposed that the term "genocide" should be defined more widely that would allow expansion of protection of Genocide Convention on political groups, inclusion of both specific and constructive intent (i.e., the cases when perpetrator should realise that his behaviour makes the harm likely), and bringing the term "in part" in accordance with lay people's understanding. If this definition will be commonly accepted, it can be applied to most cases of violence in Communist led countries. However, such an approach has been accepted with skepticism by other scholars, who argued that loose definition would make genocide not a uniquely horrible and rare event, and large number of cases, starting from colonization of America and ending with the economic sanctions against Iraq would fit such a definition.
Nevertheless, many authors use the term "genocide" as metaphors for various forms of lethal and non-lethal violence, including the violence under Communist regimes. Limitations of the term "genocide" prompted scholars to propose alternative terms describing lethal forms of mass violence, which are being discussed below.

References

Nope. Your version sounds more like the opening arguments of a defence attorney rather than a reasoned exposition of the body of the article. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:29, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

If you have any concrete argument, please, share with us. However, from your responce I conclude that you simply don't like the text, but cannot clearly articulate why...--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:45, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The terminology section should restrict itself to explaining how "mass killings under communist regimes" is commonly defined in the literature, and any academic dispute about it. For a source we need an article about "mass killings under communist regimes" that explains the terminology. Since no sources exist, we should delete the section. Collect, your comments are disruptive, please stop. TFD (talk) 22:50, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

IIRC, you have made the precise same arguments at least ten times - without ever getting others to back you in a consensus. I suggest that WP:DEADHORSE has been reached for your iterations. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any concrete arguments/sources, or you have nothing to present except your bare emotions?--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:23, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It is not "bare emotions" it is noting that the precise same arguments have been presented here at l;east ten times - and if you did not get a consensus in the past for your position, you are unlikely (statistically speaking) to make converts using the exact same language as before. And wall of text methods do not work any better now than they did in the past. The lede of this article ought to reflect what is in the body of the article. That is the purpose of the lede. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Your comment is disruptive. I proposed a totally new and well sourced text, which analyses the subject from different points of view. In response, I got a rude and arrogant general comment that contains no arguments except vague references to some unspecified old dispute. You should either elaborate on your objections or stop it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

In addition, you should have noticed that currently we discuss not the lede but the "terminology" section...--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:06, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Pointing out what WP:LEDE states is "disruptive"? Not. Nor is pointing out that precept either "rude" or "arrogant." Ledes should summarize the content of the article. Have a cup of tea. +

The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article.

Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:09, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

As for the "terminology" section - the current one seems quite fine. Absent a consensus to change it, I suggest that it ought not be changed, noting the Sandstein rule. Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:09, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Collect, last time I observed the past XfD discussions, the matter was sent back here for resolution. And it hasn't been resolved. I don't think anyone has added anything productive in the last six months, I don't have anything new, so it remains, as it was, unresolved. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Collect, I never claimed the lede is "disruptive". The term "disruptive" refers to your post.

Regarding the terminology section, it is quite ok if you state the section is fine. What is not ok is your refusal to explain why the section in its present form is "fine", and what concretely is wrong with the version proposed by me. I expect you to explain that, otherwise your viewpoint has zero weight.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Read what I wrote before making aspersions claiming I wrote what I did not write! I find the current text reasonable, and your version a disimproivement. If you propose an actual improvement, I would live to see it. As for assigning "zero weight" to those who disagree with you -- that is not part of the Five Pillars that I can find -- perhaps you can show me where you find that rule? Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:37, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I carefully re-read your posts and I found no concrete argument/fact/source that supports your statement that the existing version is fine and mine is not. You simply do not like my version and you seem to be unable to explain why. You are not the only person who disagrees with me, but, as you have probably noticed, I didn't claim that the last Nug's or Smallbones' posts have a zero weight: they contain concrete arguments, which I am trying to address. In contrast, your assertions contains nothing but your bare emotions, there is nothing there which deserves a discussion, and therefore your opinion (by contrast to the opinia of some other my opponents) has a zero weight. Please, stop it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Please stop calling people disruptive. The proposed 22 line definition to replace the 3 line short version looks like complete overkill to me. I could see completely removing the terminology section, rather than making it into a 600 line polemic. Maybe just keep it short and put it at the bottom of the article? BTW, you should know that the first line is plain wrong "The term Genocide had been initially coined by Raphael Lemkin to describe Nazi policy in occupied Europe, and The Holocaust in particular." (with the 1947 reference!) I'm sure you've seen the sources that say he also intended to use the term genocide for the mass-killings going on in the Soviet Union. Please don't play games like that. Smallbones (talk) 02:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I never called anyone disruptive, I just characterised some posts as arrogant, rude and disruptive.

Re Lemkin, my text is absolutely correct. The term "genocide" was proposed by Lemkin in the book "Axis rule in occupied Europe" (this statement can be found in the source 1 cited by me) and initially was used to describe Nazi crimes. Later, Lemkin attempted to expand this term onto Soviet crimes, however, his politically motivated attempts were heavily criticised by many authors, including Anton Weiss-Wendt (cited by me). Therefore, by accusing me in playing some "game" you just demonstrate your unfamiliarity with the subject.

With regard to your proposal to remove the terminology section, I think, this idea deserves serious discussion. The problem with the current version is that this section is a collection of various instances of application of one or another term to one or another crime of one or several Communist regimes. However, this section does not include numerous sources that either dispute applicability of this terminology to MKuCR, or describe them otherwise. As a result, a neutral and balanced terminology section should be huge. In addition, such a section would create a completely false impression that the MKuCR terminology is a well developed subject, which obviously is not the case. Therefore, total removal of the "Terminology" section is a very reasonable idea, which I fully support.--Paul Siebert (talk)

I think the terminology section is useful, I dispute the first line of your intended change "The term Genocide had been initially coined by Raphael Lemkin to describe Nazi policy in occupied Europe, and The Holocaust in particular" citing a 1947 source as factually incorrect. Lemkin described Genocide in 1944 as:

"By ‘‘genocide’’ we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. . . .Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups......Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain, or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population and the colonization of the area by the oppressor’s own nationals." Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress. Washington, D.C., 1944, p. 79.

So Lemkin's definition is quite broad. In any case I don't think we need a detailed discussion of the term "genocide" in this article when a link to the Genocide article would suffice. --Nug (talk) 09:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You claim my source is outdated and you are trying to refute it using an even earlier work of the same author. I don't think such an approach to have any merit.

Yes, Lemkin never defined "genocide" as the act committed by Nazi regime only. However, initially he applied this term primarily to the Nazi regime, and not to the USSR. The Lemkin's 1947 article (cited by me) and Wess-Wendt's article ("In fact, Lemkin spoke about Stalinist terror for the first time only in 1949." ) fully support this my statement.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the last paragraph of your post, whereas I agree that detailed discussion of the term "genocide" belongs to the Genocide article, the "genocide" paragraph in this article is totally unsatisfactory. In actualuty, it says that the term "genocide" is not applicable to MKuCR (although implies that it should), so we have a contradiction between this para and the opening sentence, which says that " The following (terms) have been used to describe killing by Communist governments". If "genocide" was used for MKuCK, we need to explain (i) who concretely used this term for MKuCR, (ii) whether the usage of this term is universally accepted or not, and if not (iii) who concretely is a proponent and an opponent of the application of this term to MKuCR, and (iv) what are the reasons for that. I think, the whole section should be built based on this scheme. The present scheme is biased and unsatisfactory, and, if we will not achieve consensus about its modification I will support the Smallbones' and TFD's idea to remove it completely.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You mis-state my position, "I could see completely removing the terminology section, rather than making it into a 600 line polemic." I do not like polemics in an encyclopedia and wish you would stop it. Smallbones (talk) 18:36, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I also don't think we need to introduce unneeded polemics when the subject is not controversial. However, if different (opposite) viewpoints exist on a certain subject, all of them should be represented. That is our policy, and if you do not like it, you should try to change our policy first.--19:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I suggest moving the terminology section into the main "Mass killings" article, unless someone can explain how these terms are used differently when applied to communist regimes. For example, do we use a different set of criteria to call something genocide if carried out by Communists then we would if carried out by Western Europeans? TFD (talk) 16:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Paul, your proposed alteration adds more problems that the original 3 lines of text. I don't see any problem with the original text, so I don't know why you think it needs to be fixed, other than apparently some kind of reaction to your failed attempt to get a POV tag placed. Collect is right in observing that it reads like a defence attorney's opening argument because it is overly wordy and legalistic, and it actually confuses the legal definition of the term as defined by the UN and the original meaning of the term first coined by Lemkin. Thus the view you present, that Lemkin first coined "genocide" as narrowly defining Nazi crimes and formalised by the UN only to later expand that definition to include the Soviet crimes, is misleading, particularly when you cite Weiss-Wendt, who writes:

"Lemkin’s concept of genocide covered Stalinist deportations by default. That concept, as outlined in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, differed significantly from the wording of the UN Genocide Convention. Lemkin identified several forms of genocide: political, social, cultural, economic, biological, physical, religious, and moral…..Despite the fact that the UN Genocide Convention only deals with physical and biological destruction of life, Lemkin stuck to his original interpretation of genocide."

Which shows that Lemkin's original definition of "genocide" was always broad from the beginning but the legal UN definition was subsequently narrowed. So the original text is more accurate than your proposal. --Nug (talk) 19:39, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Martin, that is strange that you don't see the problems with original text. They are obvious. Thus,

1. Whereas the opening sentence says that "scholars use several different terms to describe the intentional killing of large numbers of noncombatants. The following have been used to describe killing by Communist governments:", the "Genocide" paragraph says literally that "Genocide Under the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide does not apply to the mass killing of political and social groups" and explains the reason for that. If this term is not applicable, why it has been mentioned?
2. The section totally ignores the fact that the term "genocide" has quite different meanings: (i) the rare and outstanding crime defined by the UNO convention, and (ii) the allegoric term used to describe various forms of lethal and non-lethal violence against some groups of peoples. Many sources (e.g. Weitz) call the whole topic devoted to mass killings (broadly understood) "genocide studies", and the scholars working in this area "genocide scholars", although even those "genocide scholars" themselves frequently refuse to characterise many events they study as "genocide" senu stricto. The section does not explain that.
3. The problems with expansion of the defintion of genocide is also totally ignored in this section. Many authors point at the limitations of the UNO definition, however, most of them agree that Lemkin's approach would make the UNO convention useless, because "if everything is genocide, nothing is genocide". As Ellman correctly noted, any attempt to expand the definition to make possible to fit Communist crimes into it would have a severe side effect, namely, that many crimes of democratic regimes would also fit this definition.
4. And finally, as I already explained, when we deal with some term that is not universally accepted as a characteristics of some phenomenon X, we need to explain (i) who is using this term to describe X, and why; (ii) who disagrees with that;(iii) what are the reasons of such disagreement. The current version does not do that, which creates a severe neutrality problems.

Regarding Lemkin, you seem to misunderstand my point. I never claimed initial Lemkin's definition was not applicable to Stalinism. My point was that he developed this definition primarily to apply it to Nazi Germany, and he never tried to expand it onto Stalinism before 1949. The paragraph preceding your quote says:

"As the United Nations General Assembly was preparing to vote on the resolution against genocide, Lemkin approached the Soviet delegation through Jan Masaryk, the Czechoslovak Foreign Minister. Lemkin conveyed to the Soviets that the resolution was not a conspiracy against them. As a result, nobody in the Soviet bloc opposed the resolution, which was unanimously adopted on December 11, 1946. Five years later, however, Lemkin was claiming that the Soviet Union was the only country that could be indicted for genocide. How to explain such a dramatic transition? "

That is a direct confirmation of my point, and it is unclear for me why you, being quite familiar with this paragraph, still came out with your quote.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:00, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry Paul, but you have not provided any evidence to support your assertion that Lemkin developed this definition primarily to apply it to Nazi Germany, as it is well known that the Armenian Genocide was one of the key events that contributed to Lemkin's formulation of the concept of "genocide". The passage you quote is primarily a rhetorical introduction and Weiss-Wendt goes on to partly answer his question "How to explain such a dramatic transition?": it was a) the need to get Soviet support for the UN vote and b) the fact of insufficient accurate information was coming out of the secretive Stalinist regime -

"In fact, Lemkin spoke about Stalinist terror for the first time only in 1949. That might have something to do with the quantity and quality of information coming from behind the iron curtain. Not even at the time of Lemkin’s death in 1959 did the western world have a clear picture of the extent of political purges and ethnic deportations carried out by the Stalin regime."

But Lemkin was not unaware of the barbarism of the Soviet regime:

"Raphael Lemkin had numerous encounters with Soviet power. In 1926 and 1928, Lemkin published two works in which he analysed the Soviet Penal Code. The Soviet and Nazi delegations walked away from the memorable 1933 Madrid conference when Lemkin’s proposal to ban what he then called the crimes of vandalism and barbarism was read."

--Nug (talk) 23:31, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I cannot provide such evidence simply because I never made such a statement ("that Lemkin developed this definition primarily to apply it to Nazi Germany"). My statement was much less ambitious, namely, that the term initially was used to describe the Axis rule of occupied Europe and the Holocaust in particular. My assertion is based on the explanations of Lemkin himself, who described this story in his 1947 article. According to him, his major idea was not to propose some new term, but to define a new crime, and the reason for the was not theoretical, but fully practical: by making this crime internationally punishable, it would allow any country to catch and prosecute the culprit regardless of nationality. Obviously, Armenia genocide, which occurred in early XX century was not among the primary Lemkin's goals. Lemkin clearly writes that the term genocide was developed by him in the book Axis rule in Occupied Europe, and the initial goal was quite concrete: to make possible to punish major Nazi criminals. In his 1947 article Lemkin discusses the genocide primarily in a context of Nazi crimes and no examples of other similar crime were mentioned by him there.

Regarding your quotes, I cannot understand what point you want to demonstrate by presenting the first quote. Since I never claimed that the initial Lemkin's definition was not applicable to Stalinism, your quote just confirms my point: independently on applicability of this definition, Lemkin did not apply it to Stalinism before 1949.

Re your second quote, it was taken out of context. The end of the paragraph says:

"Raphael Lemkin had numerous encounters with Soviet power. In 1926 and 1928, Lemkin published two works in which he analysed the Soviet Penal Code. (...) It does not mean though that Lemkin had a grudge against Stalin regime or that he was watching closely the developments in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and early 1940s. In fact, Lemkin spoke about Stalinist terror for the first time only in 1949. That might have something to do with the quantity and quality of information coming from behind the iron curtain."

Again, that confirms my thesis that initially Lemkin did not try to apply his "genocide" to Stalinism.

And one more point. In contrast to democide, classicide or other "cides", "genocide" was conceived not as a scholarly term, but as a new internationally punishable crime. Therefore, we must distinguish between "genocide" as defined by UNO and various loose definitions of genocide used by various authors, including Lemkin. Lemkin himself was heavily criticised fo his later attempts to expand this term, and that fact should be clearly articulated in the article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:51, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Paul, I'm amazed that you persist with this misleading idea that genocide was originally narrowly defined, only to be broadened later by scholars, when the reverse is the case (The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies, Chalk, Jonassohn, p10):

"In this early resolution, the United Nations significantly narrowed Lemkin's definition of genocide by downplaying enthnocide and one of its components, but, at the same time, it broadened the definition by adding a new category of victims - "political and other groups" - to Lemkin's list. Soviet and Eastern bloc delegates protested against the inclusion of political groups. … The Great Powers seem to have made a behind-the-scenes compromise to preserve the remainder of the Genocide convention. Political groups were excluded from the definition of genocide by a vote of the delegates"[1]

I'm not sure why we need to change the original text to obfuscate this fact. --Nug (talk) 21:03, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Martin, I'm amazed that you continue to misinterpret me.

I never claimed that genocide was originally narrowly defined. Below is a summary of the issue as I see it. I tried to reflect it in the above version, although not all claims listed below are presented there explicitly:

1. That the term "genocide" was originally proposed by Lemkin in his book "Axis rule in occupied Europe";
2. That the Lemkin's definition was rather wide, and he tried to apply this term to such non-genocidal events as the Nazi policy in Luxembourg (the viewpoint that currently is not accepted by mainstream sources);
3. However, he didn't try to apply his definition to Stalinism until 1949;
4. That the definition of "genocide" as an internationally punishable crime, which was adopted by UNO, was narrower than the original Lemkin's definition;
5. That this narrow definition is not applicable to most Communist mass killings;
6. That some authors discuss a possibilities to expand the definition of genocide, whereas others see more drawbacks than advantages in such a step;
7. That many authors use this term allegorically, so the term (but not the strict legal definition) became almost a synonym for "mass murder".

In connection to that, can you explain me, do you see a difference between the following two statements?

"The term "genocide" defined by Lemkin was initially applied mostly to the Nazi crimes."

and

"The term "genocide" defined by Lemkin was initially applicable to the Nazi crimes only."

I cannot believe you really do not see the difference.

And, finally, I refuse to understand how can a good faith user resist to addition of this detailed and well sourced explanations to the article under a pretext that "it is not an improvement". --Paul Siebert (talk) 21:46, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Most of the individual points are valid, except for your assertion "That this narrow definition is not applicable to most Communist mass killings" is unsourced. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia is currently prosecuting communists for the crime of genocide, Also Ethiopian communists like Mengistu Haile Mariam were also convicted of the crime of Genocide. Both countries are mentioned in this article. --Nug (talk) 23:04, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, Cambodian genocide is quite atypical case, according to many authors. Secondly, whereas many authors agree that it was genocide, many scholars, including those specialised in Cambodia refuse to call it genocide. Thirdly, I wrote "most", not "any". If few mass killings were recognised as genocide, that changes nothing: every rule has exceptions. And, lastly, Mengistu became a "Communist" by pure coincidence: during the conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia both states tried to get a support from the USSR. The Soviet leadership, for unclear reason decided to support Ethiopia - and this barbaric regime suddenly became Communist whereas another one became anti-Communist. In actuality, I doubt any serious studies can confirm that that sudden conversion of Mengistu into Communism caused any increase of mass killings (and, similarly, I doubt Somalia without Communists immediately became a democratic and humanistic state: as you see, this state is even more barbaric that Ethiopia). --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:01, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

It's just making a mountain out of a molehill. A 3 line piece of text that is a side-issue! PS wants to replace it with 25 or so lines that are likely to cause more problems. And it's just not an improvement in terms of explaining what the article is about. I suggest you select something reasonably important to change. Smallbones (talk) 23:18, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

The only idea a reader can draw from those 3 line text is that the term "genocide" is not applicable to MKuCR. If that text satisfies you then I seriously doubt if your goal is to improve the article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:01, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I believe I addressed all legitimate concerns raised here. Does anyone have any fresh comments/objections/arguments?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that at least three editors are against this being included - and it doesn't help that you've been questioning their good-faith and just pushing your POV without listening to theirs. Please don't try to manufacture a "consensus" out of this - it's just not there. Smallbones (talk) 15:34, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

No. It is pretty clear that (i) one editors does not like the proposed text, although he seems to be unable to provide any resonable explanations and sources in support of his opinion; (ii) the second user (you) expressed a legitimate concern about the length of the proposed text; however, I believe that your concern has been successfully addressed; (iii) the third user, Nug, focus his objection at one concrete phrase only, and I think my explanations seem to satisfy him. Therefore, since all legitimate concern seem to to have been addressed, I think we can speak about some preliminary consensus about possuble inclusion of this text (unless someone will not come out with fresh arguments).--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:59, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

It is clear that several editors demur on a change, thus you do not have a consensus for any such change. Thus no consensus to include any of your proposal. Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:13, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Again, the same behavioural pattern that is being discussed there. What legitimate concern has been raised in your last posts that have not been addressed by me?--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:29, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

The "specific concern" is that WP:CONSENSUS is clear, and the notice at the top of this page is extremely clear. Unless and until you gain consensus for an edit, it is barred by the clear notice above. Note on the policy that "wide agreement" is necessary. Cheers. And your aside about the WQA complaint about The Four Deuces is hardly needed here,. Collect (talk) 18:53, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

The WP:CONSENSUS tells about legitimate concern. What is you legitimate concern? That you don't like the proposed text? --Paul Siebert (talk) 19:30, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

My concern is that the proposed edit does not in any way improve the article. Edits which do not improve an article can and should be declined. Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:49, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

During the above discussion, I demonstrated several major weaknesses of the existing text, and explained, why concretely my proposal is an improvement. In contrast, you restricted yourself with just a general statement. If you think that by reproducing it in bold you made it more concrete, you err. Please, show respect to your opponents if you want to be treated with respect.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:56, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

comments

I consider the new 22 line section not to be an improvement over the current section. It inserts arguments into the edit which do not belong in a "terminology" section. It also promotes a "legalese" defense for what has become a term in common usage, even when applied to cases the edit asserts are not "legally" genocide. We can let readers ascertain what is, and is not, "genocide" without giving "legal loopholes" for it. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:12, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

The existing 3 line text is not a description of the term "genocide", as Collect asserted, but an explanation that the term is not applicable to MKuCR. Therefore, the current text is totally unsatisfactory.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:57, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

More countries.

You have sections on the likes of mongolia and east germany, so maybe more counties would improve the page like possibly adding something about the mass executions that happened in cuba in the follow up of the revolution or a section on tito's Yugoslavia who's regime may be responsible for up to a million deaths or on laos who are said to have massacred countless Hmong after taking other. Other communist countries like angola and poland or any other communist country known to have commited mass killings would be good to add to this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.168.116.77 (talk) 23:34, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Just bring in reliable sources that describe these as mass killings or something similar (e.g. "mass executions" should do), write up a short paragraph or two and place it here, and we'll take a look at them. Smallbones (talk) 00:45, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia and it's anti-communist bias

Funny thing, one can edit tha article related to the mass killings that occurred under anti-communist regimes, but no edits can be done here. Also, it should be noted that the above mentioned article has a neutrality tag, but this one does not (it's quite obvious why it happeens). As a fellow Wikipedian, I demand that the Wikipedia anti-communist administration put such tags here too, since it's heavily biased and counts only with anti-communist references. User:Guto2003 Talk to me 11:50, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

Agreed--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The article has a number of neutrality issues. Below is a brief list of some of them:

1. The lede starts with the statement taken from the highly controversial source, the Courtois' introduction to the Black Book of Communism. It should be moved to the article's body and supplemented with needed commentaries and explanations.
2. The "Terminology" section is highly biased: it contains the list of examples of application of one or another terms to MCuCR, but contains no discussion of the sources saying otherwise. Thus, a large amount of sources exists that say that the term "genocide" cannot, by and large, be applied to most MCuCR.
3. The discussion of famines, which are not seen as the instances of mass killings by majority sources, is also biased. The emphasis is made on the sources that describes them as mass killings, whereas the sources that describe them otherwise are lamost ignored.
4. The "Comparison with other mass killings" is terribly biased: it contains a discussion of the sources that equates Nazism and Communism and totally ignores the opposte viewpoint.
5. The discussion of the causes of mass killings totally ignores a historical context (thus, most Communist regimes that have been engaged in mass killings were preceded by long lasting brutal authoritarian regimes, and they emerged as a result of brutal and prolonged struggle, which lead to overall increase of cruelty of new societies), etc

To fix these and others issues would require enormous efforts and time (the problem with #1 took more than six months and is still unresolved). I plan to return to this activity, and, meanwhile, I request the neutrality tag to be restored per ##1-5.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

(EC below) Pshaw! The Neutrality tag should not be used as a "badge of shame" rather it should be used to bring in new editors and new ideas. It was put on in December under that understanding and no new ideas were offered, no suggestions were put forward on this page to improve the article.

There is a very old idea at work here - that the article should be deleted. I believe that there have been 6 AfDs in less than 18 months - most of which failed spectacularly, plus a few renaming RfCs and the like. Give it up, there is consensus to keep the article.

You need to bring in reliable sources, propose changes here and we will make them. Trying to delete material, based on claims that the sources used are not reliable, is not believable after the sources have been approved several times at WP:RSN and other places. WP:NPOV requires that all major viewpoints be presented. I have not seen any of the viewpoints that you consider to be "mainstream" in this article because you have not given sources for them. Rather you just argue that sourced material be removed. Just get your sources, make your proposals to include new material, and we can procede. Smallbones (talk) 17:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I do not use it as a "badge of shame". This is an indication that the article has serious neutrality issues, and that I am going to start fixing them (and to draw attention of fresh editors to facilitate that process).

Re "You need to bring in reliable sources, propose changes here and we will make them." I brough an enormous number of reliable sources in the past, and you are perfectly aware of that. In connection to that, I do not think your post was made in a good faith.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:31, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I have not seen you bring in reliable sources that say what you seem to want them to say. I have seen you bring in sources that say that they dislike some of the sources in this article, without saying much more, and then you using that to try to delete material. Regarding your " I do not think your post was made in a good faith" - shame on you. Please list your reliable sources and briefly state what material in them you wish to include here. Smallbones (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

N Edit request declined. Please establish consensus for proposed changes before requesting an administrator to make these changes.  Sandstein  17:10, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I respectfully disagree. The instruction to the usage of the POV template says:

"Place this template on an article when you have identified a serious issue of balance and the lack of a WP:Neutral point of view, and you wish to attract editors with different viewpoints to the article. Please also explain on the article's talk page why you are adding this tag, identifying specific issues that are actionable within Wikipedia's content policies."

I identified the issues, which are serious. I demonstrated that at least some of them have long history and are still unresolved. I properly explained them on the article's talk page. All criteria are met, and I do not need consensus to introduce the tag that indicates that there is not consensus among the editors about the content of this article. Your sanctions regulate standard changes, and they neither espablish new rules for using neutrality tags nor they have precedence over our standard neutrality policy, so I expect you to reconsider your decision.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:27, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Obviously the article is biased because it incorporates material that is not taken from sources about the topic and are used to support the thesis that there is a connection between communism and mass killings. So for example mass killings by the Soviet government in Chechna are added to the scorecard, but may have more in common with mass killings by tsarist and post-Communist governments in Chechnya. So the article reads more like an anti-Communist tract than an encyclopedia article. TFD (talk) 17:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Obviously some editors confuse their own political POV with what is actually published in reliable sources. It truly is incredulous that Paul claims this article is biased, given that he has such a big role in editing it with the second highest edit count (C.J. Griffin tops the list while Fifelfoo comes in third, and these editors are definitely not "anti-communist")[2]. I agree with Smallbones, give it up, tags shouldn't be used as a badge of shame because of six failed AfDs in 18 months. --Nug (talk) 21:24, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

If for example one were to write an article about "Economies under communist regimes", one could go to The socialist system: the political economy of communism.[3] The book examines the economies of 26 Communist countries, explains how they were influenced by Communist ideology, how they compared with and differed from one another, explains difference views of the subjects, and identifies the main literature discussing the topic. We could compare our theoretical article with this book to see that we have provided proper weight to different aspects of the subject. Now please provide the name of a book that explains MKUCR, and we can determine whether the article is neutral. TFD (talk) 22:28, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• In summary, three users (TFD, I and Guto2003) identified several serious neutrality issues. Two other users, Smallbones and Nug, declared that the article has no neutrality issues. Obviously, consensus is not required to add the neutrality tag into the article, because the tag is needed to demonstrate that the article has serious neutrality issues, which are the subject of ongoing debates. The example of such debates can be found below. In connection to that I request (for the second time) to add the NPOV tag to the article, and I point the admin's attention at the fact that, unlike ordinary article's content, the NPOV tag, as a rule, requires no consensus [4]. Therefore, the above Sandstein's rules are not applicable to this tag, and the request to achieve consensus is overkill in this concrete case.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:26, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Not done: In light of a failure to reach consensus re: the tag, the restrictions this article is under in particular, and the RFC, which serves the same purpose of drawing outside eyes to the discussion. Tags are an optional method of alerting readers of a problem with the article; they are not mandatory. Probably more productive to discuss the issue you'd like to mark with the tag, rather than argue over whether the tag should be there. Danger ^{High voltage!} 23:32, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

In the news

[5] Washington Post:

The European Court of Human Rights said Monday it cannot rule on whether or not Russia properly investigated a World War II massacre of thousands of Polish officers because it has not received vital documents from Moscow to properly judge the case. The court found Russia in violation of its commitments to the European Convention on Human Rights.Fifteen Poles have complained that Russia failed to hold a proper investigation into the 1940 killing by the Soviet secret police of some 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in the Katyn forest and other places.

Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:42, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

What do you think we should put in? The Katyn massacre is already in the article and Russia is not a Communist regime. TFD (talk) 20:53, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

First - I only noted the current court result. Second, I had thought Russia during WW II was indeed Communist, but if you say it was not Communist during WW II, then I assume you know the "truth." Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:26, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Russia was founded in 1991, long after the conclusion of the Second World War. TFD (talk) 00:00, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, commonly called Russia antedated 1991. Is that what is important here? Any real reason for the factoid about the Russian Federation? Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:13, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The RSFSR was not a a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, and therefore did not come under its jurisdiction. Furthermore, it was not a sovereign state but a republic within the USSR. TFD (talk) 00:40, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Umm, constitutionally the RSFSR was sovereign. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 01:26, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

And since the Russian Federation possesses continuity of sovereignty (with the RSFSR and Soviet Union), having ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in May 1998, it would be subject to judgements not limited by statutes of limitations and associated with its free choice of its past. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 02:28, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Please, remember that this page is not a forum. What concrete edits are you discussing in this thread? The right of the relatives of Polish officers to get needed information has no relation to the events the article discusses (1940 mass killing). Had the ECHR make a decision that the investigation of the Katyn mass killing has to be renewed because of insufficient information provided by Russia in past, we would have to include this information in the article, because that would imply that we may expect to get some new facts soon. However, afaik, the ECHR did not make such a decision, therefore, the present decision sheds no additional light on the factual side of the 1940 events. Therefore, the ECHR's decision may be relevant just to the Katyn massacre article at best.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:46, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The news article makes clear that such mass killings are in current news, and that the current Russian government appears to want it to "go away." I did not raise the interesting claim that "Russia is not a Communist regime." Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:26, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The talk page is neither a newspaper nor educational portal. If you propose no concrete changes to the article, do not spam the talk page, please.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:58, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

A single note about a court case which might well be mentioned in the article is not "spamming the talk page", Paul. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:32, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

You proposed no concrete edits. In addition, I doubt the decision contains anything that deserves mention in this concrete article. Again, had the court decided that additional investigation is needed, we could discuss inclusion of that fact into the article. However, as far as I know, the court abstained from making such a decision thereby supporting the status quo. --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:12, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Really, the court is complaining about Russia not being forthcoming with information concerning an atrocity by its chosen sovereign predecessor. That is notable. The content (i.e., how to incorporate/represent the newspaper account) is what is being discussed. I don't see what "status quo" you are contending is being "supported," there is no "status quo." You are contending the court is validating Russia's poor conduct? VєсrumЬа ►TALK 16:51, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

We discuss the mass killing article, not the Russia's poor conduct towards several descendants of Communist victims. This material belongs to the article that discuss all aspects to this mass killing (i.e. to the Katyn massacre article). The only information relevant to this particular article is whether Russia concealed any key information that may require to speak about renewal of the investogation of this crime. The ECHR decision contained no such statement, so I don't think we have anything to discuss on this talk page. By writing that, I do not claim this info is irrelevant to the Katyn massacre article: it is relevant, and, if noone has added it there yet, it should be added.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:01, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Unless I am misinterpreting your logic, your argument that the ECHR did not state that Russia was concealing information crucial to investigation of this event appears to be specious. To rule on knowing concealment, the ECHR would need to know what is being concealed. The ECHR clearly does not know. Therefore they can only rule they cannot rule because information is not forthcoming. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 21:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The question is whether Russia concealed some crucial information or there is no ground for such a statement. Had ECHR decided that some important information about this mass killings had been concealed, and that its publication may significantly change our understanding of that tragedy, we could discuss addition of this this ECHR statement to the article. However, no such decision has been made, so I simply do not understand what we are discussing.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:39, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Many people think Russia is still communist. I don't think Collect is to be blamed. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 23:27, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Collect should have understanding of the type of government Russia has before involving lots of editors in a discussion thread. TFD (talk) 01:47, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I absolutely did know the type of government Russia has - it was you who appeared desirous of making it appear you knew more than I - your aside here is of nil value. Cheers. Collect (talk) 02:13, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

It is important in this article to know which states were communist regimes. The Union of Soviet Soviet Socialist Republics, which was headed by Mikhail Gorbachev, was a communist regime, but ceased to exist in 1991. Mass killings following that date should not be included in the article. TFD (talk) 02:36, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

And how in the name of anything can you interpret the news article as saying anything remotely akin to what you appear to accuse me of saying? Does the news article say the mass killings just occurred? Sheesh! Collect (talk) 08:19, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

(od)@Paul, we can discuss further at Katyn, however, your entire construct of:

"The question is whether Russia concealed some crucial information or there is no ground for such a statement. Had ECHR decided that some important information about this mass killings had been concealed, and that its publication may significantly change our understanding of that tragedy, we could discuss addition of this this ECHR statement to the article. However, no such decision has been made, so I simply do not understand what we are discussing."

postulates an impossibility. How can the ECHR decide that important information has been concealed? The ECHR cannot know what it does not know. All the ECHR knows, and explicitly indicated, was that Russia did not cooperate and provide information. That most certainly does not engender trust. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 04:12, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Irrelevant to the article - neither Russia nor Europe are communist regimes. TFD (talk) 04:33, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, since we are already discussing something irrelevant I will point out a similar bit of news [6]. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 04:06, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization in title

Is there any reason why 'Communist' is capitalised in the page title? The MOS specifies that titles should not be capitalised unless it's a proper noun, 'communist' is an adjective and shoud not be capitalised. IMO, the page should be moved to Mass killings under communist regimes. Has there been a previous discussion? LK (talk) 05:14, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I think you need to look at the artile history - back to when "genocide" was in the title. The capitalization appears to have been done by consensus, and used in the common (capitalized) sense of "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-whateverist regimes". Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:34, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Big "C" Communism refers to the ruling parties of the countries mentioned in the article. Presumably small-"c" "communist regime" would be an oxymoron, because once communism was achieved the state would have "withered away". TFD (talk) 12:50, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

RfC on proposed edit of term "Genocide"

The current article has a short description of "Genocide." An editor has proposed a substantially longer exposition. Is the proposed edit superior to the existing wording? 21:06, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Current wording:

Genocide Under the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide does not apply to the mass killing of political and social groups. Protection of political groups was eliminated from the UN resolution after a second vote, because many states, including Stalin's USSR, anticipated that clause to apply unneeded limitations to their right to suppress internal disturbances.

Proposed wording:

The term Genocide had been initially coined by Raphael Lemkin in the work "Axis rule of occupied Europe". This term had been formalized by the UN Genocide Convention, which defined it as an act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, etnical, racial or religious group; genocide defined in such a way is a crime punishable according to international laws, thus applying limitations on the sovereignty of governments that destroy their own peoples. The legal definition of genocide has several limitations that made it inapplicable to many mass killing and mass mortality events in XX century. These limitations are as follows:

1. Protection of political groups was eliminated from the UN resolution, because many Eastern Bloc, Latin American, and some other governments anticipated that clause to apply unneeded limitations to their right to suppress internal rebellions.
2. The highest level of specific intent needs to be established for conviction of genocide.
3. The intent to destroy some group in part may fit the genocide definition only if the perpetrators view the part of the group they wish to destroy as a distinct entity which must be eliminated as such.

As a result, most some the most deadly instances of mass killing and mass mortality cases in Communist led countries do not fit the legal definition of genocide as the acts against political groups (such as Great Purge, Cultural Revolution), or the cases with not established intentionality, or as the acts affecting just small part of some group (Soviet Famine of 1932-33, Great Leap Forward famine).
Some modern scholars proposed that the term "genocide" should be defined more widely that would allow expansion of protection of Genocide Convention on political groups, inclusion of both specific and constructive intent (i.e., the cases when perpetrator should realise that his behaviour makes the harm likely), and bringing the term "in part" in accordance with lay people's understanding. If this definition will be commonly accepted, it can be applied to most cases of violence in Communist led countries. However, such an approach has been accepted with skepticism by other scholars, who argued that loose definition would make genocide not a uniquely horrible and rare event, and large number of cases, starting from colonization of America and ending with the economic sanctions against Iraq would fit such a definition.
Nevertheless, many authors use the term "genocide" as metaphors for various forms of lethal and non-lethal violence, including the violence under Communist regimes. Limitations of the term "genocide" prompted scholars to propose alternative terms describing lethal forms of mass violence, which are being discussed below.

Note: The "proposed wording" has been altered since the RfC was started. See [7] for version at start. The term Genocide had been initially coined by Raphael Lemkin to describe Nazi policy in occupied Europe, and The Holocaust in particular. Collect (talk) 00:08, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Collect, please stop this ridiculous wikilawyering. You took my version (with which you strongly disagree) and started the RfC without attempting to discuss it with me. Of course, I have a right, as a proposer of this text, to modify it to take into account some reasonable concerns that have been raised during the previous discussion. If you want others to assume your good faith, please, behave accordingly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:10, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I used the version existing at the time the RfC was started - well after you posted at the Consensus talk page positing a hypothetical edit of:

I propose to add the following sentence to the article:

"The rain in Spain stays only in the plains"

Which I considered as being a teensy bit far from the actual edit you sought. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:05, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

???--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:24, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. This new text presents more problems than it solves, for example this statement "As a result, most mass killing and mass mortality cases in Communist led countries do not fit the legal definition of genocide as the acts against political groups (Great Purge, Cultural Revolution), or the cases with not established intentionality, or as the acts affecting just small part of some group (Soviet Famine of 1932-33, Great Leap Forward famine)." appears to be pure synthesis not attributable to any source. --Nug (talk) 10:08, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

You seem to correctly identify one more issue. Whereas many sources state that the term is not applicable to separate major instances of MKuCR, it would be not correct to make a general claim. I changed the text accordingly to take into account your second concrete objection. What other concrete issues do you see with the text?--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:12, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose The edit is not an improvement. It is lengthy, makes legal arguments, and is not a furtherance of the topic of the article. It may also contain OR/SYNTH, and evince a POV. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:05, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. There is already an article on genocide. The purpose of the article here is not to discuss who invented the word "genocide" or all the different ways in which genocide is not technically, legally speaking, genocide. Far from clarifying, this just injects content which detracts from the topic at hand. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 18:00, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Though the proposal is well sourced and written it is overly long when an article on genocide already exists, the current wording is ample so long as there are a link to the genocide article. Darkness Shines (talk) 12:27, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

• I was asked to comment here by the RfC robot. In light of the framing of the question, I would have to oppose this proposal for reasons that have already been stated. However, I will add the caveat that I think there is room for improvement to the definition of genocide provided (this may even mean incorporating some of the proposed elements above, if it can be shortened considerably). Namely, the current phrasing seems concerned only with explaining what genocide is not, thereby providing a segue into politicide and democide. A very basic affirmative definition would also be appropriate, given that there are some elements of campaigns under communism that arguably do satisfy the conventional definition of genocide (eg. the persecution of Tibetans from the 1950s onward). Homunculus (duihua) 14:17, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah because the anti-communist KMT regime and Ma clique totally have no plans to annex Tibet and reclaim lost territory including Outer Mongolia, and totally didn't launch the Sino-Tibetan War against the 13th Dalai Lama. LMAO--PCPP (talk) 13:15, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• RfC Comment

Oppose:, for the following reasons: (i)As mentioned by several others, the topic here is not 'genocide'. (ii) The poorly constructed alternative text (iii) The Genocide Convention does not provide a legal definition of the term. And thus, to paraphrase Collect, the proposed wording may contain OR/SYNTH, and evince a POV.--Misha Atreides (talk) 19:33, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

(i) The topic is "application of the term "genocide" to MKuCR", so it has a direct relation to genocide.

(ii) What concretely is poorly constructed?

(iii) That is simply untrue. The Convention defines genocide as a crime, and provides a legal definition of this crime [8]. Based on this legal definition, a number of international tribunals took place; obviously that would not be possible in the absence of legal definition.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

(i) It still does not make 'genocide' the topic of this page, unfortunately. Further, arbitrarily re/defining and expanding the term as a sub-topic, when it already has a page of its own, is rather superfluous.

(ii) The odd use of past perfect continuous tenses (had been), spelling (etnical), poor construction (many Eastern Bloc, Latin American, and some other governments and the whole third paragraph) and the use of both British and American spellings in the text .

(iii) Actually, it is. You're confusing definition with 'legal definition'. To this day, jurists continue to struggle to legally define genocide - to distinguish it from war crimes and crimes against humanity, questions on the exclusion of certain socio-political-cultural group from its ambit of protection and perhaps most importantly, whether deaths are even required in a genocide prosecution. A couple of reading materials: 1 2 --Misha Atreides (talk) 09:00, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, as a proposer of the text I need to explain the following. I was not an initiator of this RfC. I posted this text just to initiate a discussion about improvement of the existing text. Instead of that, Collect started the RfC, and the goal, obviously, was to preserve the existing version. In contrast, I am open to any discussion about improvement of the proposed text (or of the existing version).

Secondly, you are obviously not right. There is a profound difference between word "genocide" an all other "cides": whereas the latter are just scholarly terms, "genocide" (as it was defihed by the UNO Convention) is a crime, and an accusations of genocide sensu stricto have concrete and severe legal consequences. That would be impossible if the Convention contained no legal definition of genocide, so the Convention provides a legal definition of this crime. For sources of this my claim, see, for example, Hagnn et al, Criminology of genocide: the death and rape in Darfur. Criminology Volume 43, Issue 3, 18 AUG 2005. However, many authors, including Lemkin himself, started to expand the meaning of this term, so it became a generic category that is evoked to describe various forms of lethal and non-lethal mass violence. The latter meaning makes it applicable to most events described in this article, so that does make it the topic of this article. However, such an interpretation of the word "genocide" has no legal consequences, and it is not a mainstream view (although it is a significant minority view). For sources, see Ellman (op. cit), Weiss-Wendt (op. cit).

The present version is totally unsatisfactory: it just tells that the Convention is not applicable to the MKuCR, and, as a result, the first question upon reading this paragraph is: if this term is not applicable, why do we need to mention it at all?

--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:01, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Paul, it seems that the primary objection that has been raised to the wording proposed in this RfC is that it is excessively long (such is my reading, anyway). Do you have other proposals on what the phrasing could look like? I think there is a legitimate need (if we can call it that) to improve this definition, and your comment above demonstrates why. Another RfC is probably not necessary; a collaborate process, perhaps involving more voices, might yield better results. Homunculus (duihua) 15:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try to do that. Do you have any concrete ideas on that subject? I can try to take them into account.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I would (very humbly) submit the following for consideration. Note that I have likely lost some important layer of nuance or sophistication, and am not at all attached to this wording. I am just trying to be helpful in whatever minor way I can be.

The term Genocide is defined under the UN Genocide Convention as an act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. It is a crime punishable according to international laws, thus applying limitations on the sovereignty of governments to destroy their own peoples. The legal definition of genocide has several limitations that make it inapplicable to many mass killing and mass mortality events; notably, protection of political groups was eliminated from the UN resolution because many states, including Stalin's USSR, anticipated that clause would limit their right to suppress political opponents. Consequently, some the most deadly instances of mass killing and mass mortality in Communist-led countries do not fit the legal definition of genocide as the acts targeted political groups (such as Great Purge, Cultural Revolution), or did not involve explicit intent (Soviet Famine of 1932-33, Great Leap Forward famine). Some modern scholars proposed that the term "genocide" should be defined more widely, including expanding protection to political groups. Limitations of the term "genocide" prompted scholars to propose alternative terms for lethal forms of mass violence, which are discussed below.

I will defer to the judgement of other editors on how this might be improved further. My one additional suggestion is that it might be worth noting that some events under Communism do more clearly satisfy the conventional definition (though when it comes to genocide, there is rarely a consensus). Homunculus (duihua) 00:51, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I like this text, although I have some comments. Firstly, my idea was to discuss each term according to the following general scheme: (i) who proposed the term and why; (ii) how the term is defined; (iii) to which instances of MKuCR it was applied and by whom; (iv) what are the limitations of this term. If you agree with that, then we need to explain the limitations of the term "genocide", and the problems with its usage. The main problem is that the term is being very frequently used by various writers to describe a wide range of the events in Communist states, so we in actuality have two totally different terms: "genocide" in its strict legal definition, which is applied to a very limited range of very rare events, and "genocide" as a term used to discredit political adversaries. In addition, the word "genocide" is frequently being used by scholars as a synonym of mass killings. Thus, Straus in his article "Second-Generation Comparative Research on Genocide" World Politics, Volume 59, Number 3, April 2007, pp. 476-501, discusses the works of six authors, Levene, Mann, Semelin, Midlarsky, Valentino, Semelin and Weitz, almost each of whom proposed or used their own terminology to describe mass killing events, and he speaks about them as "genocide scholars", despite the fact that those authors did not see majority of the events they study as "genocides", and used "mass killings", "politicide", "classicide", etc, instead. Obviously, Straus uses "genocide" as an umbrella term, and that "genocide" has little in common with the internationally punishable crime described by the UNO convention.

Regarding you notion that "some events under Communism do more clearly satisfy the conventional definition", to my big surprise, even Kampuchean Genocide, which was the purest example of Communism related genocidal event (especially taking into account extreme Khmer nationalism and racism), is not described as genocide by some authors. They prefer to use "classicide" or similar terms instead.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I see. Hmm. Could we not simply add a sentence to the proposed definition to note that the term is often used loosely (ie. not necessarily in according with the strict legal definition) to described MKuCR? I think it may be beyond the scope of the 'terminology' section to include the more detailed etymology and history of the term and its specific applications. I might suggest that, where specific events have been described as genocides, that debate be described in the relevant sections. Thoughts?Homunculus (duihua) 17:27, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

That is also an option. We may simply say that the strict legal definition of the word "genocide" has been applied to a very limited Communism related mass killings, namely, to Kampuchean genocide and Ethiopian mass killings (I am not aware of other cases). However, some authors use this term loosely, and they frequently apply it to many other lethal and non lethal cases of mass violence in Communist, as well as many other states. This approach has been criticised by others, who believe that such an leads to trivialisation of genocide. Accusation in loosely defined genocide has no legal consequences for the perpetrators.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:51, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

References

Wikipedia and it's anti-communist bias

Funny thing, one can edit the article related to the mass killings that occurred under anti-communist regimes, but no edits can be done here. Also, it should be noted that the above mentioned article has a neutrality tag, but this one does not (it's quite obvious why it happeens). As a fellow Wikipedian, I demand that the Wikipedia anti-communist administration put such tags here too, since it's heavily biased and counts only with anti-communist references.

Guto2003 Talk to me and prove your point instead of deleting this —Preceding undated comment added 01:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

The tag was removed one year ago, and I didn't re-add it in a hope that that would help us to achieve consensus. Instead of that, some users started an edit war which eventually lead to full article's protection. The tag was re-added by the admin after my request, however, it had been removed soon after that, despite the fact that no neutrality issues were resolved. Although that is not sufficient to speak about anti-Communist bias of the admins, however, that is strange...---Paul Siebert (talk) 02:07, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Other communist regimes

In the "Anti-communist mass killings" page the deaths of regimes such as 60's Iraq, Pinochet and the White Terror in Hungary where the number of deaths is listed in the thousands, I think their needs to be mentions of mass killing committed by Castro (10's of thousands suspected of being murdered), the Sadanista's (Thousand's suspected of being murdered), the MPLA (10's of thousands suspected of being murdered) and Cold war era Poland. I think reliable sources could be found for these 4 regimes (especially Cuba) and their degree of mass killing is certainly comparable if not much higher than Pinochet's Chile and Arif's Iraq. Even if their is ambiguity over these mass killings they could be placed under the "Controversies" section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.218.11 (talk) 13:36, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Discussions about other articles should take place on their own talk pages. I was not aware by the way that Castro, the Sandinistas, the MPLA, and Polish Communists were anti-Communists, let alone responsible for anti-Communist mass killings. TFD (talk) 21:39, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I too am confused. Editor, can you clarify whether your recommendation relates to anti-Communist mass killings, or if you were just invoking that page as an example? Homunculus (duihua) 21:59, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I was saying killing of a similar (if not smaller) magnitude are listed in the the page Mass killings under anti-Communist regimes. The examples I cited were Pinochet's Chile and Arif's Iraq. Since as far as I am aware killingd of a comparable scale (if not considerably higher in the case of Cuba) occured in Castro's Cuba, Sadansitan Nicaragua, under the MPLA in a Angola and in Communist Poland, I thought it would only be fair if there were sections about these 4 regimes on this page (Mass killings under Communist regimes). I did not mean to imply that these four regimes were anti-communist. I was merely comparing them and the alleged scale of their crimes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.218.11 (talk) 19:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

That's what I suspected. You are welcome to propose some text for inclusion on the talk page, along with references. I think some of the other editors involved here may have a better handle than I on some of these events, so I will withhold comment on whether I think they are notable enough to meet whatever criteria for inclusion is in place here. Homunculus (duihua) 21:28, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I would certainly think Castro's Cuba fits the bill. According to R J Rummell, Communist Cuba murdered 73,000 people from 1959-1987, with a lowest pssible estimate of 35,000 and a high 0f 141,000. Most of these deaths are attributed to executions and prison camps (gulags). This is the link: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB15.1B.GIF Certainly comparable and just as credible as the sections on Bulgaria, Romania and East Germany. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.218.11 (talk) 21:54, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Never use Rummel as a source for figures. Thus, he claims about 40 million were killed in Gulag, whereas the total amount of those passed through Gulag was ca 14 million. There is a consensus now that the total number of Stalin's Gulag victims was ca 2 million.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I highly doubt that is true. 2 million is far far too low. I have never heard a credible source say that only 2 million died. 14 million is probably the annual number of people in gulags or the total from Soviet Archives. Rummell estimates that an annual camp population ranging from 9,000,000 to 12,300,000. Rummell is the most well known expert about democide so I think he is a credible source. As well as that the word Gulag is used to refer to all types of labour camps. The Gulag Archipelago estimates like a total of 50 million prisoners under Stalin. This specifically refers to Gulags. Many figures on Wikipedia uses his source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.218.11 (talk) 15:26, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

You read obsolete sources. Please, read the Gulag article. It cites such renown scholars as Conquest, Wheatcroft, Ellman and others, and the sources are the most reliable Western sources available now. 14 million passed through Gulag from 1927 to 1953 is a mainstream point of view now: after opening of Soviet archives the large estimates had been reconsidered.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:40, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Changes to opening Opening paragraph

"21 million to a high of 70 million" Why is the highest estimate only 70 million. R J Rummell's mid level estimate for these 3 regimes is like 133 millions so at the very least this should be the highest credible estimate (regardless of whether yo agree with his estimates).

Source: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.TAB1.1.GIF, http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/CHINA.TAB8.1.GIF (this table does not include the 32 million he attributes for Chines famine. I have added this figure to the 133 million approximation), http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.TAB9.1.GIF

I suggest you reword the lines to "21 million to a high of 133 million" or something along those lines since having a high of 70 million is factually wrong since that is not the high estimate. Interestingly enough even 133 million is by no means a the highest estimate since the max range Rummel gives for these 3 regimes is much higher than is something like more than 200 million so I don't think 70 million as a max range is reasonable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.218.11 (talk) 21:16, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Read the past discussions where several editors seemed to think "ten million" was as high as we should offer the readers. Collect (talk) 22:39, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

As I explained, Rummel is unreliable and obsolete source for figures (see, e.g., his claim about 40+ million killed in Gulag, or his estimates of Chinese famine "democide" when he added the amount of actual deaths with the amount of unborn infants). --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Regardless 70 million is by no means the highest estimate for these 3 regimes so I think keeping this figures is therefore highly inaccurate. Also I don't see what is so wrong with his estimates on the Chinese famines. His estimate is 35 million. That seems rather close to most other estimates. Also can you please give me sources indicating that Rummel is considered unreliable and obsolete since I would like to know more about these statements.

Not "unreliable" or "obsolete" in general. I wrote "unreliable" or "obsolete" for figures. For example, almost nobody cites Rummel's "data" in contemporary scholarly articles about Gulag. Regarding sources, look, for example at those:

1. Dulić. Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jan., 2004), pp. 105-106
2. Vincent. International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Mar., 1987), pp. 119-125
3. Swain. Reviewed work(s): Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917 by R. J. Rummel. Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Oct., 1991), pp. 765-766
4. Harff. Reviewed work(s): Death by Government by R. J. Rummel. Source: Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Summer, 1996), pp. 117-119

--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:08, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of the inaccuracies of Rummel's figures regarding the Gulag, I still think it would inaccurate to have 70 million as the highest credible estimate especially when many credible scholars claim the Chinese Famines as democide. Maybe you could change this line "21 million to a high of 70 million" to "21 million to a high of over 100 million". I think that would be more accurate since (including the Famine) legitimate high estimates would definitely be higher than 100 million — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stumink (talk • contribs) 12:02, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

We can add higher estimates, provided, but only provided, that the clear connection will be explained between each particular estimate and what the author saw as killings. In the case of Rummel, it should be clearly explained that he saw almost every premature death under Communists as "killing", hence such astronomic numbers. Again, if we clearly explain that the estimations that take into account only direct killings (murders, executions, deliberate starvation, repressions) give about 10 million for all Communist states, whereas the estimates that lump together both direct deaths and all other demographic losses (including a birth deficit) give 80-100 million. I would not mind against that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:23, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Well I may try find a good source. And I would also day say direct killings by communist regimes must be much higher than 10 million (including Holdomor but excluding the Chinese Famine). I think you are being a bit generous especially to Stalin.

The difference between Soviet and Chinese famines do not allow us to describe the former as a mass killing and the latter as not. There are no consensus about intentionality regarding neither the former nor the later.

Regarding direct killing, we have a problem, because the figures of direct killings may be found only in single society studies, whereas the authors who try to accuse Communism as whole in mass crimes tend to combine both direct and all other demographic losses under the category "Communist mass killings" ("democide", etc). --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:12, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

The opening line says "There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries." Ithink it's dubious to say that the killings in North Korea were on a smaller scale than Cambodia, since the overall tally may be higher. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.218.11 (talk) 23:41, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Is North Korea a Communist state? --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:23, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Who owns the means of production? That should likely be a clue. Collect (talk) 12:50, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

In ancient Egypt the land (the major mean of production) belonged to state too. The same is true for most ancient Asian regimes. The Korean ruling party is not a Communist party, and the name of the country has no linkage to Communism (although has a linkage to democracy). The concept of Juche is a deep revision of Stalinism, so it is hard to tell if this ancient Asian ideology has anything in common with initial Marxism, whose history can be traced back into European Enlightenment. --Paul Siebert (talk) 16:40, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I would say it was close enough.

If there have not been any scholarly studies comparing, for example, Ramses and major communist figures, ancient Egypt is likely irrelevant. Yes, (post Cold-War) scholarship describes North Korea as communist despite aspects such as inheritance of ruling position. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 17:59, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

That is pure demagogy: the point was that state ownership of the means of production is sufficient to claim a state is Communist. I proposed several examples demonstrating that state ownership of the major mean of production (land or water) was common in the East. Regarding contemporary North Korea, it is a weird mixture of Stalinism, Confucianism and Korean nationalism, so the connection to European Communism can be traced only by some ideologically motivated individuals.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:38, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Aren't you overreacting a bit? Certainly state ownership of means of production in the contemporary era is a litmus—though perhaps not definitive—test. Bringing up ancient Egypt as a counter is rather a bogus refutation. As for North Korea being Communist, I only go by what scholarly sources state (including post-Cold War). You contend that individualities within X are proof of X not really being X as opposed to X is X regardless per basic features, albeit with individualities. You may have mistaken me (and apparently reputable scholars) for someone who has a POV axe to grind (your denouncement of those blinded by ideological motivation). "Demagogy" is an over the top accusation. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 20:27, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

AFP [9] From a small and crowded office in a Seoul backstreet, Park In-Ho shines a light on one of the most closed and secretive nations on earth. His Internet newspaper Daily NK is one of about a dozen South Korean organisations collecting news about North Korea, through sources inside the hardline communist state and contacts or staffers in neighbouring China. 14 May 2012.

Irish Times [10] also from yesterday: His diplomatic bag of swag includes a distinctly unglamorous canteen of “stainless steel and gilt cutlery” he was given during a visit to Pyongyang, the capital of the communist state. He was there on a mission-impossible to promote tourism.

So widely asserted by multiple foreign reliable sources to be a "communist state." As of yesterday. AFP and Irish Times are not "ideologically motivated individuals" by the way. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:01, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I think we can forgive journalists for this inaccuracy. Yes, North Korea was seen by Stalin as an orthodox Stalinist country, but Kim decided otherwise. The specialists in Korean issues describe that as follows:

"When Kim Il Sung delivered his anti-Soviet reformism juche speech to propagandists and agitators of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) on December 28, 1955, he made no references to the classical Marxists Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. As for Leon Trotsky, he was simply unthinkable. Despite Kim’s training in Stalinism and Maoism from 1931 to 1945, he also did not mention his political mentors Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. Stressing the “Korean revolution” as the subject (juche) of party ideological work, the North Korean Stalinist leader emphasized the need to patriotically study national culture, national history, and national traditions. Moreover, as a national-Stalinist, he called for a creative application of Marxism-Leninism to North Korean conditions. Neo-Confucianism having been the state ideology of the feudal Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) and Kim knowing more about Confucianism than Hegelian and Marxist philosophy, it would seem reasonable to conclude that his emergent juche ideology was a political adaptation of Neo-Confucian thought. Historian Bruce Cumings, for instance, uses the phrases “Neo-Confucianism in a communist bottle” and “Chu Hsi in a Mao jacket.”" (Source: Alzo David-Wes, Between Confucianism and Marxism-Leninism: Juche and the Case of Chŏng Tasan, Korean Studies Volume 35, p. pp. 93-121 (2011) Published by University of Hawai'i Press. DOI: 10.1353/ks.2011.0007)

--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:16, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Minor grammar edit

This is a very tiny issue, but shouldn't we change the beginning of the third sentence from "Some higher estimates" to "Some of the higher estimates"? I'm not sure what the procedure is for such minor edits. -- Amerul (talk) 07:41, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Tito

Why is there no mention of Tito's government's mass killings? It is pretty clear that his government is responsible for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of deaths so there really needs to be a mention. You may not agree with Rummel's figures, but these links give to an indication of Tito's mass murder (both as leader of the Partisans and of Yugoslavia). It seems hard to deny that Tito's government is responsible for mass killings even if Rummel figures are wrong. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.TAB14.1.GIF http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB9.1.GIF http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP9.HTM http://dalje.com/en-croatia/rummel--titos-regime-took-million-lives/71942

Other links: http://www.andrija-hebrang.com/eng/marshal_tito.htm http://www.gpanet.org/content/genocides-politicides-and-other-mass-murder-1945-stages-2008

Also it seems clear that the MPLA (Angola) killed a large number of people in mass killings and FRELIMO (Mozambique) as well in mass killings and deaths in re-education camps. Rummels figure here would be useful to give an indication. They also cite a number of sources that support my claims.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB14.1C.GIF http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB14.1A.GIF http://www.frontline.org.za/news/vol%205%201993/AngolaKillingFields.htm

Fair point. I will take a look tomorrow and add some of this if no one gets to it before me. Or you can just start summarizing this information and adding it yourself if you see fit. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 22:12, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Take a look at the sanctions on this page: no edits, except minor changes, without talk page consensus. Might be wise to make a concrete proposal here, solicit feedback to establish consensus, and only then edit the page. How anything gets done here is beyond me, but it's a credit to the persistence and collaborative spirit of everyone involved that any changes go forward.Homunculus (duihua) 22:19, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

OK.... well, does anyone object to a section on Tito consisting of one or two paragraphs summarizing the key information presented above? (Note that lack of objection passes for consensus in my books). The Sound and the Fury (talk) 22:25, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The links cited above are not sufficient to move the proposal forward. I would ask the editor suggesting content for inclusion to actually write a proposal of what would go on the page, including reliable source citations representing a range of views. Before then, what are we supposed to be reaching consensus on? Homunculus (duihua) 23:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Cannot agree. The very concept of "Communist mass killings" was proposed by Valentino, who explicitly wrote that most Communist states have not been engaged in mass killings. By combining all events described by at least one author as MKuCR we (i) arbitrarily expand the Valentino's concept and thereby perform a synthesis, which is not allowed per WP:NOR, and (ii) ignore the works of other authors who describe the same events otherwise (which is prohibited by WP:NPOV). --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:21, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Why is Valentino's definition of this term, or his statement that "most Communist states have not been engaged in mass killings", to determine the content on this page? This is a Wikipedia page on the idea "Mass killings under Communist regimes" not "Mass killings under Communist regimes as defined by Valentino," isn't it? I've never heard of the logic you're proposing. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 01:26, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

That is simple. We cannot create concepts by themselves. If you want some article to contain all instances of mass killings under Communist regimes, we need a reliable source that states that those mass killings form some separate category. In fact, only few sources state that, and Valentino's "Final solutions" is arguably the most authoritative one. However, if we accept it as a source, we must follow his main idea. --Paul Siebert (talk) 02:00, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Please do propose some text so we can get some consensus. Don't take Paul's "logic" too seriously, I'm not sure anybody else does after they've heard it 25 times. Smallbones (talk) 01:48, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

In case it's unclear, the idea of "mass killings under X regime" is not some concept that a particular person has a copyright on. With that said, let me look at the sources tomorrow and propose some language. Note that if the rules of this page are such at Paul Siebert can simply object to anything for any reason, and it is therefore impossible to make changes, I will be out of here quicker than you can blink. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:23, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I would even develop your idea further. The very idea of mass killing is too vague concept, so various authors see it quite differently. However, to group Communist regimes (or other regimes) in a single article discussing mass killings means that there was some significant commonality between those events, in contrast to all other mass killings/genocides, etc. Obviously we need reliable sources for such generalizations, especially in a situation when, e.g., African genocides/civil wars are frequently grouped together without any connection to Communism, civil war or guerilla war mass killings are also discussed without connection to Communism, etc.

In summary, I would like to see serious arguments explaining why the events you are talking about (each of which have its own article) need to be grouped together, and this argument should be in a form of mainstream reliable source, not your speculations.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:35, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

@ both of you. Please stop your ad hominem arguments, which are highly inappropriate. Let me remind you that the tactics described by The Sound and the Fury is being used by the opposite side: all my proposals, while supported by some users, face automatic objections from some others, so any development of the article seems impossible. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:39, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

• Anyone is of course welcome to draft and present a proposal for this page. If the IP editor wished to try this, they may. There is no guarantee that the proposal will be accepted.
• I am inclined to agree with Paul on one issue here: that Wikipedia editors should be careful not to invent concepts and then pull together disparate facts whose connection is not established in reliable sources. To do so may be consider a violation of WP:SYNTH, though there is a considerable grey area, and the interpretation of that policy may not be absolute.
• To that end, I think there is reasonably good cause to have an article such as this one. There is a body of scholarship positing that communist states share certain characteristics in common related to their strategic cultures, propensity for violence, etc. I am not familiar with Valentino, but my understanding of volumes like the Black Book of Communism is that they are premised on this notion that the ideology of communism has produced a unique style of governance (including the mass killings, purges, etc.) observable across communist states.
• While I accept the above, I am have reservations about the idea that a discussion of MKuCR cannot go beyond the ideas presented by one or a few scholars, such as Valentino. I would propose a slightly broader criteria for inclusion. Let's use the example of Tito: if there are scholars who have written of his rule, and who have identified mass killings he committed as being directly related to or inspired by communism—that is, if they are identified as sharing the same character as other MKuCR—then it might pass for inclusion. Barring that, it is difficult to assess whether or not killings were actually related to communism, or if they would be better explained another way. If there is disagreement among scholars, that debate can be presented. Homunculus (duihua) 04:31, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Please, correct me if I am wrong, but most Tito's killings occurred during and immediately after the WWII, and they had direct relation to the struggle of Partisans with Nationalists, to persecution of real or perceived Nazi collaborators, etc. I am not aware of any works that draw parallelism between Tito's killings and, e.g., collectivisation killings in the USSR. We should probably ask for the opinion of our Yugoslavian colleagues on that account.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:23, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I am in no position to correct you. I know when I'm out of my depth. This is far from my regional specialization. Homunculus (duihua) 09:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

You'd be surprised regarding the Black Book. The Black Book is primarily single societies studies, written by individuals of varying quality: some chapters are by experts at the top of their field. The only multiple society discussion in the Black Book are the introduction and the conclusion, both by Courtois. Courtois expounds over three paragraphs in the introduction the sole multi-social cause: that Communism is not Catholicism. The remainder of the introduction and conclusion lack comparisons between societies, and do not discuss causation. I believe that this is the standard interpretation of Courtois' discussion of causation.

Valentino does discuss multiple societies in a comparative sense, but there has been extensive debate amongst editors here as to whether his analysis actually contains a category specifically dealing with Communism (I hold that it doesn't, and rather, that Valentino's categories, if supported by other scholars, would allow us the article Dispossessive mass killing). Finally, a great deal of the literature which accumulates deaths in Communist societies has no theoretical or causative basis. This was true six months ago, I haven't done my yearly literature review of this field. Some editors argue that Valentino's descriptive accumulation of some Dispossessive mass killings under a subtitle in one chapter as "Communist mass killings" supports this article's existence—this analysis is not unreasonable to make even though I disagree with it, I would suggest it would be unreasonable to rely upon a single study whose theoretical categories have not received attention in the genocide studies literature to produce an article. Other editors argue that a coherent causative basis across multiple societies is not required to support this article—and in my opinion this is disgusting COATRACKing. As always with MKuCR, I'm always happy to revise my position based on new scholarly research that theorises a common cause in communism for these deaths. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:55, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Fifelfoo, usually under The Black Book people mean the introduction, the most controversial part of the book. The intro has been heavily criticised, and by no means can be considered as a mainstream viewpoint.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok first, if you'll pardon the ad hominem, can I point out that this thread being posted by an unsigned IP is somewhat suspicious? These are the Balkans you've just entered, after all. The Rummel figures he's posted are very dubious indeed. To anyone familiar with the subject matter they appear plain ridiculous, and, if I recall, Paul discredited them quite effectively at Talk:Democide (see the "This article is BS" section :)). The total of WWII deaths in Yugoslavia was estimated (by Zerjavic) at 1,027,000. Rummel posts the number of 1,072,000 killed by communists (did he just switch the "7" and the "2"?). As for andrijahebrang.com, well, that's just ridiculous (see below).

As regards the killings in Yugoslavia, they took place almost exclusively in the aftermath of WWII (1945, '46 perhaps at the latest). I would not wish to generalize in any way since, as one might expect of Yugoslavia, they're diverse in size, scope and motivation.

• the Bleiburg massacre usually springs to mind immediately. The numbers here are completely uncertain, but, to my knowledge, most conservative estimates range between 15,000 and 30,0000 (some say the massacres did not even take place, whereas others claim figures of 50,000 or even 200,000, its a guessing game really). The victims here were mostly collaborationist troops (some say there were civilians there as well, some don't mention them). Independent State of Croatia troops, Chetniks, Slovene Home Guard.
• Foibe killings. Killings of Italian fascists and fascist sympathizers in the aftermath of WWII. This is such an unknown I won't speculate on anything.
• Expulsion of the German minority (not a mass killing per se, but usually associated with the others)
• repression of Stalinists during the Tito-Stalin split. This occurred well after WWII, and I know very little about it. I know Yugoslavia was under imminent threat from invasion by Soviet and Hungarian troops, and arrested large numbers of actual or alleged Stalinists among the ranks of the Yugoslav Communist Party and put them away to the Goli Otok ("naked island") federal prison. I'm not sure if it qualifies as a "mass killing", though. A quick note on Andrija Hebrang (of andrijahebrang.com). The man was a prominent Croatian Jewish Stalinist politician who probably got assassinated by the Yugoslav State Security Service for supporting Stalin during the split. Sabrina P. Ramet, as I remember, plainly states he was dealing with Stalin and was supposed to come to power as head of the party once the Red Army had ousted Tito. How he managed to get himself "martyred" by Croatian nationalists is beyond me.

All that said, what exactly is being proposed here? -- Director (talk) 08:17, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

There a number of possibly useful links talkng about events Angola and Mozambique on this page: http://www.frontline.org.za/mission_reports_angola.htm http://www.frontline.org.za/mission_reports_zambia.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.168.123.112 (talk) 10:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Frontline Fellowship News (ISSN 1018-144X) is not indexed in Ulrich's, it isn't scholarly, and there's no reason to believe it is peer reviewed. It is a radically insufficient source for this article. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:28, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Please note that the above IP is actually Stumink (talk · contribs) based on the pattern of their contributions Nick-D (talk) 12:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

To get down to business, I propose a subsection under States where mass killings have occurred->Others->Yugoslavia which, to begin with, says something like:

"The regime of Josip Tito committed "massive democide," according to Rummel, killing some 500,000 people. Targets of the killing were "collaborators," "anti-communists," guerillas, and other critics. After World War II the Tito regime is accused of killing "even more people," including rich people, landlords, and clerics.Valentino, however, writes that while thousands were imprisoned "there were few executions."

The references are [1] Rummel, Rudolph (1998). Statistics of democide: genocide and mass murder since 1900. LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster. p. 178. ISBN 3825840107. [2] Valentino, Benjamin A (2005). Final solutions: mass killing and genocide in the twentieth century. Cornell University Press. pp. 91–151. ISBN 0801472733.

Thoughts? The Sound and the Fury (talk) 16:54, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Um.. again: Rummel has been criticized and his figures have been discredited (do I need to copy all this stuff here). I am also against using invented words of his, like "democide" or "megamurder". The figure of 500,000 is just painfully overblown, at best its the upper extreme of estimates (at worst its just farcical). -- Director (talk) 17:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I see. To be honest, this is not one of my areas of expertise. I was trying to help and push things forward with content that I had assumed was reliable and good for inclusion. So let's step away from Rummel on Tito and put the question another way: are there good sources and a basic consensus among scholars, minimally sufficient for inclusion here without misleading readers or perverting the historical case, that discuss mass killing under Tito's regime? Where are those sources? The other possibility is that it has been discussed and found that there is not such sourcing warranting of inclusion. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 17:08, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

As I expected, and Director's post demonstrated that I was right, most killings under Tito had a direct connection to the WWII, i.e., to the Allied war efforts. Any mention of "Tito mass killings" should contain the explanation of this fact. Uniqueness of Yugoslavia was not in the Communism, but in large scale and extreme brutality of the partisan war there, as well as in fierce rivalry between two national-liberation movements (Chetniks and Partisans). Therefore, to attribute those mass killings to Communism would be totally misleading. As Director correctly noted, Rummel, who, in attempts to push his viewpoint, always selects highest possible number of victims, simply equated all WWII related victims to victims of Communism. BTW, the same trick was used in the Black Book, which attributes all Vietnam War casualties to Communists. Therefore, the only way avoid misleading representation of the data you are talking about is to supplement them with detailed criticism of those views.

Re Valentino, he himself explains that he did no his own estimates of the scale of mass killings, and he just summarized what secondary sources say. Rummel was one of the sources he relied upon, so Valentino, for this concrete purpose (the figures), should be seen as a tertiary source.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:52, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @The Sound and the Fury. Well there's this

"You are to undertake the most energetic measures to prevent at all costs any killing of prisoners of war and of those arrested by military units, state organs or individuals. If there are persons among the prisoners and arrestees who should answer for war crimes, they are to be handed over immediately to military courts pending due process." (Ramet 2007, p.274; Goldstein 2005)

— Josip Broz Tito, telegram of 14 May 1945 to the Partisan command in Slovenia

Its quoted in two secondary publications as indicating Tito's personal uninvolvement in the killings. There's also this

"Considering the nature of the struggle among the various competing forces during the Second World War in Yugoslavia, the Ustaša atrocities against the Serbian population in the territory of the Independent State of Croatia and against all pro-Partisan Croats, the fact that the Ustaše adhered to the Nazis to the bitter end, and finally the fact that the Ustaša leadership wanted to put its troops at the disposal of the Western Allies for possible use against Yugoslav and other Communists, no mercy on the part of the Yugoslav Partisans toward these troops could have been expected." (Tomasevich, Vucinich, 1969; pp.113-114)

Its a comment at the end of a detailed elaboration on Partisan war crimes by Jozo Tomasevich. I'm an amateur in this field, but I've read more than a few sources on this. Tomasevich is probably the highest-quality, neutral, and careful author on this complex subject. Now there are lots of publications covering one, several, or all of the four main "atrocity clusters" I've listed above, but in my experience none do it in more detail than Tomasevich. He points out that there are three "extenuating circumstances" that need to be taken into account: 1) the "nature of the struggle", by which he means that the Ustase (who got massacred) never took Partisan prisoners and considered them rebels, not Allied Yugoslav soldiers (which was their official status); 2) "the Ustasa atrocities", meaning that the Ustase, who were legally Yugoslav citizens engaged in high treason, went about Yugoslavia for four years slaughtering civilians en masse; and 3) the fact that the Usatse were just about the last to surrender in Europe, and were actually hoping to see action against the Partisans again (i.e. the Yugoslav army).

Hopefully this might bring some balance to the discussion. Unless Josip Broz Tito is explicitly noted as responsible in a reliable source (for all or a particular war crime), he should not be mentioned by name. In a neutral encyclopedia text, "Tito's regime" ought to be "Yugoslavia". -- Director (talk) 18:12, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

This does not explain why the war crimes and persecution of Nazi collaborators should be listed among "Communist mass killings". Thus, going back to Valentino, he clearly distinguishes between "Communist mass killings" (which he sees as a result of large scale social transformations, or as a mean to implement them) from "mass killings having relation to Communists" (or "Mass killings under Communist regimes"). For example, in his book, he analyzes Afghanistan not in the chapter 4 ("Communist mass killings") but in the chapter 6 ("Counterguerrilla mass killings"), where the Afghan war is being discussed along with the war in Guatemala. Therefore, not only combining of all instances of Communism related mass killings is not supported by Valentino, it directly contradicts to what he says.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:26, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

http://necrometrics.com/20c100k.htm#Tito The source above has a number of estimates regarding democide under Tito's government. It could be useful.

And this link has the stuff relating to during WW2 in Yugoslavia. http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm#Yugo — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stumink (talk • contribs) 18:21, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Have you read the discussion? What is the need to repeat the arguments that have already been refuted?--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:27, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

What exactly has been refuted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stumink (talk • contribs) 18:37, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As regards whether these were "Communist mass killings", I'm not sure. They were motivated by "anti-those-people-who-partitioned-the-country-and-introduced-mass-terror" sentiments first and foremost, there I have to agree. But in Yugoslavia its all so mixed up I personally don't consider myself equipped to speculate on the subject of motivations. The Foibe killings may have been motivated by anti-Italian sentiment, but it may have been anti-fascist, ideological killing. The Partisans hated the "traitors and collaborators" (the "servants of the occupier"), but there might have been some plain anti-Croatian sentiment in the Bleiburg killings. Its more like "we hate your guts 'cuz you're traitors and you presided over the genocide of your own people" sort of thing, than a "you're anti-communist and you should die". I don't know. That's all my own speculation. -- Director (talk) 18:39, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Do the killings have to be under Communist regimes or have Communist motivation (land reform, political terrorism etc)? Surely the title would imply that killings to be under Communist regimes and that is all.

Also do you have any specific info regarding anti-communists being murdered by Tito's regime or mass killings committed during land reform, collectivization and in gulags? If you have good sources regarding that then they would be suitable for inclusion surely.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Stumink (talk • contribs) 18:49, 24 May 2012

1. If the title just implies that the article tells about the killings under Communist regimes, I see no ground for the article's existence. Obviously, the title implies some strong casual linkage, and we cannot use the sources that see no such a linkage (although we definitely should use the sources that explicitly reject the existence of such a linkage).
2. I am not aware of any land reforms, collectivisation, etc in Yugoslavia that might lead to mass killings.
3. What Yugoslavian Gulag are you talking about?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:14, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Well Im no expert on this issue but regarding gulags I would say Goli otok might fit the bill. I don't actually know how many were killed during land reform and collectivization. I was wondering if anybody else knew. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.168.123.112 (talk) 19:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

If you are not an expert, may be the first thing to start with would be to take a break and to read good sources?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:40, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Goli Otok was a very nasty place, but it wasn't really a "gulag". That's kind of a stretch. It was a federal prison built for - Stalinists. -- Director (talk) 19:49, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

It does not matter if it was built for good or bad guys. A major part of Gulag inmates were also just ordinary criminals. What is more important is the fact that many (if not most) regimes have special place where the political opponents are kept in more or less barbaric conditions. And this is not something specific to Communism.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:57, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Right. But it was the world's first gulag for Stalinists :). Still, "gulags" are Soviet by definition. It was a Yugoslav forced labor camp. -- Director (talk) 21:12, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Lost talk page archives

Talk:Communist genocide/Archive 6, Talk:Communist genocide/Archive 7, Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes/Archive 1 (note the small c), and possibly others have been left unlinked to the Archive box. The first two were inexplicably archived to Archive 6 and 7 by Miszabot, when they should have been sent to Archive 1 and 2. I did not trust Miszabot's operator before, having seen arbitrary selection of sections to be archived, and as I noted in the current archive #2, which hopefully will be properly made #5, Miszabot's mis-archiving also archived an ongoing RFC. I trust her/him even less now. Has a bot ever been taken to ANI, I wonder; remember, there are too many redundancies in computer programs for there to be truly such a thing as computer error, there is only computer programming error or operator error. The erroneous use of the small c by the archiver prevented it from being the first archive after the Miszabot 'glitch'; it should be the third archive.

The current Archive #1 should be fourth, #2 should be fifth, and so on. Anarchangel (talk) 08:56, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

You think the archiver had a deliberate political agenda of some sort? Seems to me that all the material is archived and readily findable on Wikipedia, and all you can object to is the archive numbering? In point of fact, however, this talk page is quite the wrong place for such arguments. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:32, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

The article was called "Mass killings under communist regimes" until 13 September 2009 when I reverted to "Communist genocide".[11] It was moved to its current name on 24 September 2009.[12] So the numbering of the archives is accurate. TFD (talk) 13:34, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I repeat; Archives "have been left unlinked to the Archive box". They are not named differently to all the other archives, and in limbo; as there is renaming to be done, I would prefer that they were renamed based on the dates they were archived. I have contacted Miszabot, and assume this will be rectified. Anarchangel (talk) 22:50, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Again - the way the archives are handled here is exactly how they are handled on other articles. Trying to do thinks differently here is not gonna happen. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:57, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

When an article is moved, are the archives moved too? TFD (talk) 16:14, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Not necessarily - they remain linked through the talk page history when the talk page is moved. Frequently when renaming is done, there may be more than one page with a related name and the bots do not try merging what may be multiple concurrent pages for obvious reasons. Since "searvh" does work, it is bteert than telling folks to randomly real all the archives. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:52, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 3 July 2012

Hi, there is the Polish article now. Could you please add a link? Best Regards Kojoto (talk) 02:09, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Kojoto (talk) 02:09, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

most of us here don't read Polish - can you provide the link here? Smallbones (talk) 02:15, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done Thank you. Rjd0060 (talk) 02:27, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Editors may have some interest in this work for other articles

I noticed this 2012 work of history has just been published Theatres of Violence and it provides some useful contemporary accounts, primarily of massacre, in single societies. I know editors here generally keep their eyes over such articles, and as we don't really have a wikiproject covering this domain, I thought I'd let people know this work may be of interest to them. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm surprised this is an actual wikipedia article.

A couple quick points:

• where is the mass killings under capitalist regimes article (ie war in Vietnam, Afghanistan, civil war in Russia, starvation, lack of medical access, etc.)?
• Where is the mass killings during WWI article?
• How about for WWII?

Also, if the article includes famines, then shouldn't the title be something like "people who died in communist states with some elaboration about intentional killings"? To try and reduce bias, I propose, at least, that an article like this be constructed for capitalism, or that the "killings" and "famines" and specific events be covered specifically rather than under an over generalized pseudo topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AnieHall (talk • contribs) 06:55, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

If the contributors to this article were 'trying to reduce bias', the article wouldn't exist in the first place... AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:56, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree completely (which is why I'm surprised this article exists). I would argue that this topic is absurd. But I'm not familiar enough with what is and what isn't a suitible subject for a Wikipedia article. AnieHall (talk) 19:32, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

We may need a frequently asked questions list for this article, because I have read some of these reactions before. AnieHall, if you want a mass killings under capitalist regimes article, or any other article, there need to be reliable sources to base it upon. A "Mass killings under capitalist regimes" was started and did not survive nomination for deletion, because no reliable sources were presented to justify it (you can read the deletion nomination here). But the existence of this article does not justify having another one to "balance" it in the first place. An article must not be biased within itself, regardless of the existence or absence of any other article. If you think this article is biased, adding another article with another bias does nothing to reduce bias within this article. Doing so increases bias on Wikipedia rather than cancelling it. If there are specific examples of bias within this article, then this talk page is the proper place to raise them for discussion (you may have noticed that editing the article is currently under a very peculiar set of restrictions), but you may want to review the extensive talk page archives first. I suggest reading the last two deletion nominations, which will be much quicker. AmateurEditor (talk) 19:57, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

See WP:POINT: just because an article that violates Wikipedia's core policies exists, is no reason to create sister articles. You claim for example that capitalism mass killed 1.5 million people in Afghanistan. If you want to create a neutral article, then you need sources that explain what role capitalism had in the mass killings. The fact that the killings were carried out by people from capitalist countries is insufficient. TFD (talk) 21:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I too am surprised but for entirely different reasons to do with process. There are a number of editors here who have cogently (but to my mind, unsuccessfully) argued that this article's topic exists. There are other editors here who have cogently (and to my mind, successfully) argued that this article's topic does not exist. In both cases discussion has been with reference to scholarly literature, and in the case of this article's supposed topic the article's title comes from a subsection of a chapter of a comparative genocide text. While an editor in good faith could misread the literature to suppose that this topic exists; the same is not true about "mass killing in capitalist regimes" etc. It is impossible to read in good faith that such a construct exists in the scholarly literature—when mass mortality attributed to the capitalist mode of production (my construct) exists in the comparative scholarly literature, it is compared and discussed in terms of causation other than capitalism. Non-scholarly accounts, such as Andy Anderson on food charity, tend to be single society and do not contribute a sufficient body of literature to justify a wikipedia article. The real debate with this article is between the two kinds of editors previously mentioned, both of whom interpret their readings of the literature in different ways.

In the field of genocide studies (which I have come to know too much about), petty moralism went out with the Lemkin generation and attempts to actually grapple with the problem of inflicted mass mortality in modernity focus now on the massacre as the "single unit" of genocide. The massacre authors seem to be getting somewhere with their microstudies, so good for them. In the meantime this article will continue to be deficient in the area of topic, and what should be of greater concern to those who read it as legitimate, deficient in terms of synthesis and coatracking separate to the topic issue. AnieHall, your concerns aren't encyclopaedic in nature—to the extent that repugnant theoretical constructs exist, an encyclopaedia should report them and evaluate them in terms of the scholarships' opinions of them. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

@AnnieHall, what separates this from capitalism is state terrorism conducted against its own citizens and others under its jurisdiction, whether legitimate or not, as a matter of policy. And for capitalism we have the Holocaust et al. for Nazi Germany, etc., so you cannot say that Communism is being POV singled out. To NOT have this article would be POV. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 00:25, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

No. What 'separates this from capitalism' is that the supporters of this policy-violating article also support capitalism. It is an enencyclopaedic propaganda piece... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:42, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

You are forgetting McCarthyism, the war in Vietnam, the war in North Korea, the American attacks in Cuba and South America - all of these are examples of capitalist state funded terrorism, and there are many more - these are specific to the United States, one of many states with a capitalist economy. The US may have a 2 party system, but it has 1 economic system, and both parties subscribe to it, even though they may disagree on a few of the details. Capitalism is ideological. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AnieHall (talk • contribs) 01:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Ah -- there are articles on WP just for yoiu! See Anti-cmmunist mass killings for one splendid example. And List_of_war_crimes#United_States_perpetrated_crimes etc. Else kindly read WP:NPOV = this article uses as neutral an outlook as any in this area. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Hence we have an article the United States and state terrorism, as well as articles about all the subjects you mentioned. But to have a neutral article about capitalism and mass killings you would need a source that the reason the U.S. and other countries carried out these actions was capitalism. TFD (talk) 13:59, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. you mean something like the black book of capitalism or hegemony or survival and quite likely numerous articles by socialist scholars? It makes more sense to me that the named articles (and the ones under “mass killings by communist regimes” be kept separate, and not be lumped together into categories like "mass killings under communist regimes" and "mass killings under capitalist regimes". But if the existence of one is legitimate, obviously the other follows. And to say that there is no literature to support “mass killings under capitalist regimes” seems unbelievable. The American interference in Vietnam and Korea was precisely because the Americans feared the “domino effect” and wanted to preserve capitalism in their own state as well as others because, well, it’s tough to trade with a nation that does not have an economic system in the same spectrum (obviously not only that, but I’ve already blathered on long enough).

Based on that, Anti-communist mass killings seems like it should be lumped in with a "mass killings under capitalist regimes" since in capitalist states anti-communist propaganda has been prolific at times (i.e. the red scare), and drives people to fear supporters of communism. Also note that the title is "under communist regimes" not "by", and is "under capitalist regimes”. So there does not need to be anything that says it "was capitalism", it merely has to have occurred under a capitalist government.AnieHall (talk) 07:47, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Three things

1. Boy are we off the subject.

2. Anie. There have been several mentions on this site and others for the creation of a "Mass Killings under Capitalist regimes" (I was one of the suggesters). Somehow, no one evers seems to put together such a page. I can guess at the failures, but I won't.

3. Since when has the Holocaust been associated w Capitalism. Carefully unmentioned by the current MSM, Hollywood, and English profs is the fact that they were in love w National Socialism for the same reason they were in love w the communists. Hitler himself admitted there was no difference a National Socialist and a Communist. THE NAZIS WERE FAR LEFT! Something everyone w an ax to grind seems to ignore.

Let's get back to discussing the article.Aaaronsmith (talk) 03:39, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, re 3.:The National Socialist party was not communist – Hitler despised communists – he sent them to concentration camps – he invaded Russia – capitalism was alive and well in Nazi Germany if you were a member of the right race, religion, political part, etc. the “socialist” part was more about being an Aryan community member and about the government being able to redistribute the wealth that belonged to Jews, communists, people opposed to their regime, etc. The war was about acquiring more “living space” (property, factories, goods, etcetera) for the Aryans, and regaining the wealth that was lost from the great war and the treaty of Versailles. Also, the national socialist party was on the left????? No, it was not. Fist year political science courses will instruct you that the Nazi party was the far right, and fascist – not communist. Infact, they are polar opposites. There are similarities (at least between Hitler and Stalin), of course, but that is off topic. Unless my 101 textbook and instructor who has a PhD in political science and also teaches Germany in the 20th century and is also from Germany is a liar, you are mistaken. Maybe Hitler did make that comment (I’d like to see the source, but if it’s not being published – don’t waste your effort - unless you have it on hand) when he was pretending to be buddy with Stalin and signing a treaty (which he would eventually break). AnieHall (talk) 04:04, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I suggest you read the articles in peer-reviewed journals stating that Hitler's attacks were based on economic and political factors unrelated to capitalism entirely -- specifically the building of a new HRE under German rule, which is actually a step further than simply retaking the lands lost after WW I. Irredentism, to be sure, was part of his appeal, as was his vast undertaking of housing and road building programmes etc. Hitler, btw, sought and obtained a treaty with the USSR, in case you forgot that. I suggest you also read the peer-reviewed modern articles on "fascism" which make clear that in current views, the entire "left-right linear political spectrum" is considered out-of-date. Lastly, if you wish to start such an article - go ahead. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can try to edit. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:54, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

"THE NAZIS WERE FAR LEFT!". Nope. An utterly ridiculous argument concocted by right-wing revisionist 'historians', given no credence whatsoever by academia - or by anyone else except a few right-wingers who evidently have some sort of guilt-complex. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:58, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Collect, in the Greek legislature, deputies are seated from left to right: communists, socialists, conservatives, right-wing populists and neo-nazis. One of the socialist parties even calls itself the Democratic Left. Do your sources explain why they keep this "out of date" seating? TFD (talk) 14:33, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Do your sources show why the Democrats in the US are seated on the right? Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:47, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Because, in spite of claims to the contrary, they aren't actually left-wing by most standards? Though of course this would imply that the Republicans should be seated in another room entirely... ;-) Seriously though, 'left' and 'right' still have meaning in most political contexts, and such meaning is a reflection of political perspectives, not seating arrangements. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:10, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The tradition of seating according to ideology began with the French legislature in 1789 and was not adopted by either the US or UK. Funny that you would imply that the Democrats are left wing as part of your reasoning that the terms left and right are meaningless. TFD (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I made no such implication at all. Both parties are, by international standards, quite "centrist." What it does show is that seating is arbitrary and in many countries has zilch to do with any "political spectrum" at all. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:05, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

no, i did not forget that Hitler signed a treaty with Stalin. I also did not forget that he broke that treaty the first opportunity he saw fit. And, yes, I am well aware that the Third Reich had dreamed of lasting a thousand+ years and had divided up the world into which sections it figured should be under German hegemony. That does not eliminate the "capital" factor. If other nations did not have food/factories/slave labour for the taking, Germany would not have been interested in adopting them into their “hre”. Motivation for invading other states is almost always economic, despite the other pretenses that are presented. Also, if the left/right-wing spectrum is out of date, then why are you bothering to arbitrarily rearrange it? And, I find it hard to believe it is out of date, since I can’t even count the articles in newspapers, magazines, and current university level text books I’ve seen it in (and used accurately, I might add), which leads me to believe that this is some fringe theory. Obviously, not all parties fit specifically in one category (left or right), it’s a spectrum, and a party can have mixed ideas. Anyways, preferably we can end reviewing 1st year university.AnieHall (talk) 21:39, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Read the journals - it is the specialists in political science who no longer adore the "linear spectrum". As for "popular usage" in newspapers - show me the ones which are peer-reviewed <g> as all the latest articles specify the limitations of a linear spectrum, and have done so since Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. wrote against it a half-century ago. What is "right wing" in Putin's Russia is not the same as in Zimbabwe, or in Singapore, or in China, or in Canada, or in the US etc. Each place and each time has different criteria, and that is the inherent problem in the wonderful overly simplified "linear spectrum." "HRE" by the way is "Holy Roman Empire" as you appear not to have deciphered. And which was not "capitalist." Collect (talk) 22:02, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I did decipher it. The holy roman empire is not a secret. Even if it were not obvious, everyone here has access to Google. You appear not to have completely read my post, i wrote "newspapers, magazines, and current university level textbooks". No one suggested that the "right-wing" was exactly the same in all states, nor did anyone suggest that all right-wing parties are identical. Also, the third reich was "not" the hre, it was used as more of a way to emphasize the expansion of power and influence throughout europe and the world... Hitler did not want his party to literally be the holy roman empire... and the holy roman empire was anything but communist. Also, just because a "specialist" in political science points out flaws in the left/right spectrum does not mean that the academic political science community has rejected it.AnieHall (talk) 23:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

(od) Hitler specifically called the HRE the "first Reich" - I suggest you read a bit more <g>. And "not communist" != "right wing." At any time or in any place. And I note that you do not furnish cites for what you assert you "know" to be the "truth" - making this colloquy pretty much non-utile. Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:31, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

1. Sorry for the absence of citation, I assumed much of this to be common knowledge and easily accessible, AND, also, I am not discussing publishing what I am discussing, I am merely pointing out the errors in dialogue as I see them. This discussion has been led astray by a red herring.

2. Hitler calling the HRE the first Reich does not = the third Reich being the third Holy Roman Empire (Fulbrook, Mary. History of Germany 1918-2000 . Second Edition. Blackwell Publishing. 2006. = my primary source, among various articles and The Third Reich)

3. Note how in my previous comment I mentioned, specifically, the Holy Roman Empire and the third Reich in the same sentence? That is because I am aware of the correlation between the two, and that correlation is empire. Key word is empire. Hitler wanted to create an empire (hence, Reich) that would last (hence me mentioning the 1000 years blah blah blah), like the Holy Roman Empire; not that he wanted to recreate the Holy Roman Empire exactly. Emphasis on lasting empire, not equivalent to the hre.

4. I did not say that "not communist" = right-wing; however, I was implying that an economy that is not communist is generally capitalist, unless it’s an indigenous economy based on hunting and gathering… which is often kind of like communism, usually (the sharing and egalitarian-ness). Although most, if not all, economies are mixed to some extent, I think it is safe to say that most economies can be defined as primarily command (generally synonymous with communist) or market (capitalist). And, I mentioned that hre = not communist because you (collect) said that national socialist = communist, and that national socialist = hre, so in short you suggested communism = national socialism = holy roman empire, and by extension communism = hre, which I disagree with.

5. This discussion has gone from “this article’s existence on Wikipedia is surprising to me” to a debate over the accepted definition of right and left wing (Source: Guy, James. People, Politics, and Government: A Canadian Perspective. Sixth Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall. 2006. or there are most often decent wikipedia or britannica articles on many of these terms) and whether Hitler was communist and whether Nazi Germany was trying to be the holy roman empire. So, I’ve had enough of this red herring, and I imagine I am not unique in this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AnieHall (talk • contribs) 05:06, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

So many misstatements of what I wrote and so little space to deal with them. I would point out that when you assert that an editor said something which he did not say, that such is non-collegial and a violation of the Five Pillars from the start. Almost all of what you claim I said falls into that category, and as such this colloquy hase become remarkably futile. Enough to point out that saying (collect) said that national socialist = communist is a blatant and outright lie, and I stand by using that strong word with regard to that claim. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:02, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, well, what you did say is this (following a comment asserting that national socialism = communism (paraphrasing)): “Hitler's attacks were based on economic and political factors unrelated to capitalism entirely -- specifically the building of a new HRE under German rule,”

And, “Hitler, btw, sought and obtained a treaty with the USSR, in case you forgot that” (collect, above). From these two comments, I gathered that you were suggesting that: 1. since the “economic… factors [were] “unrelated” to capitalism entirely” that you must have meant that they were related to some other form of economy (and I imagined that indigenous forms of economy, ie hunter gatherer, were obviously ruled out), which basically leaves communism, or an economy that is mixed but leans most greatly towards communism. 2. The purpose of you mentioning the treaty with the USSR was to emphasize the relationship between national socialism and communism (if this wasn’t the purpose, then what was?) So, yes, I apologize, you did not precisely write that “national socialist = communist”, I had inferred it from the above dialogue, and was not blatantly lying. Sorry if I hurt your feelings. I won’t try and imagine what kind of economy you were thinking of when you made the above statements. On another note, kind of reminds me of how you wrote that I wrote the following: “- I suggest you read a bit more <g>. And "not communist" != "right wing."” – which was an inaccurate conclusion from what I had written. Don’t fret, my feelings were unscathed. Rather than asserting that you (collect) were blatantly lying, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that you had glossed over the comment (as I imagine that many of us here do not have all day to sit around reading wikipedia talk pages in detail), or that I had not been clear enough, or you had simply come to an erroneous conclusion, and I chose, instead, to clarify what I meant. Also, is this really the place for this kind of dialogue? If you think I’m being “non-collegial” and am “violating” the pillars, is it the custom to hash it out here, for everyone to suffer through, or should it go elsewhere? For some sort of moderator to decide if I should receive some kind of Wikipedia reprimand? I ask because I have no idea.AnieHall (talk) 04:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

When caught telling such an outright lie, it is better to apologize instead of digging a deeper hole. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

So, perhaps you should report it.AnieHall (talk) 18:01, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Edit protected request to add 'see also'

I just happened on this article and found missing some sort of comparison with other historical genocides. In the section "Comparison to other mass killings", it would be useful to have a 'see also' link to Genocides in history. Can an admin please add to the top of that section:

{{see also|Genocides in history}}

Much thanks, FurrySings (talk) 10:58, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

object no substantive source given for this edit Fifelfoo (talk) 11:14, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand. It's a simple 'see also' link to the Wikipedia article about all genocides in history for the section titled "Comparison_to_other_mass_killings". This allows the reader to understand how 'mass killings under Communist regimes' fit into the larger picture of all mass killings in history. Why does that need a source, why is that objectionable? Could you explain a bit more? FurrySings (talk) 12:25, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Weiss-Wendt, Anton (December 2005). "Hostage of Politics Raphael Lemkin on "Soviet Genocide"". Journal of Genocide Research (7(4)): 551–559. This is an article on fringe sociologies. See Valentino (2005) p9, or the article itself, "Theories, such as those of R. J. Rummel, that propose communism as a significant causative factor in mass killings have attracted scholarly dispute;[23] this article does not discuss academic acceptance of such theories." "This allows the reader to understand how 'mass killings under Communist regimes' fit into the larger picture of all mass killings in history. Why does that need a source, why is that objectionable?" because you're pushing FRINGE up hill without a source. Fifelfoo (talk) 17:47, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Not done: For procedural reasons only: the conditions required in the sanctions box at the top of this page have not been fulfilled. Anomie⚔ 14:38, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Anomie, according to the "Procedural Details" section of the discretionary sanctions box at the top of the talk page, the conditions can't be fulfilled until 72 hours have passed, so you have jumped the gun here. AmateurEditor (talk) 01:05, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

No, the gun was jumped when FurrySings added {{edit protected}} before consensus was gathered. Should consensus eventually turn out to support this addition, a new {{edit protected}} may be added then. Anomie⚔ 07:52, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Apologies, I had thought that it was an uncontroversial proposal. I guess the problem is that 'mass killings' may or may not be the same as 'genocides'? FurrySings (talk) 08:32, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, genocide generally refers to the mass killing of a specific race/ethnic/religious group. Most of the mass killings here do not fit into the genocide category. Although there is a section of this particular article (the intro) that mentions something about 'loosely defined genocide' (or something similar). So, depending on how good the source is for that statement, there may be a loose connection between mass killings under commununist regimes and genocide - I've never read anything elsewhere to support it, so I'm not arguing in favour. But that, obviously, doesn't mean there isn't a reasonable argument out there in favour. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AnieHall (talk • contribs) 09:26, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

No need to worry about it. A few articles, like this one, have been the source of much controversy in the past, so the community wants to make sure people discuss pretty much anything beyond fixing a spelling or grammar error or maintenance edits that don't affect the content in any way. Anomie⚔ 14:15, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

BAD misnomer (this and a lot of other pages/articles/arguments/lectures,etc.)

this is not a forum, even for ridiculously wrong arguments
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
} The editors of this article (and most others, including my bull session friends in Berkeley) have something seriously wrong. I suppose it is a misnomer, but it's actually a BIG mistake of concept(what would be the word for a "misnomer" of concept?)). Communism is not the opposite of Capitalism. Marx expressed it as Labor vs Capital and Communism (a word he never used) was the proposed cure for the evils of Capitalism. Rarely noticed by ANYONE is: Labor = opposite of Capital Communism (socialism) = opposite of Free Market. Hope this helps.Aaaronsmith (talk) 17:44, 20 September 2012 (UTC) Misconception would be the word you are after. I find it hard to believe that Marx never used the word communism, since he is one of the authors of The Communist Manifesto... unless communist has been mistranslated from German to English consistently throughout the last century and a half... I'm also not sure how you come to the conclusion that capitalism and communism are not at odds, since under capitalism, the means of production are privately owned, whereas under communism they are owned by the public... I could go on, but I'm not sure of the purpose of this post, do you have a suggestion for improvement to this article and others? or is this just going to be another never ending thread of definitions and pseudo-definitions?AnieHall (talk) 04:21, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Mozambique and Angola

Could the the communist governments of Angola and Mozambique perhaps mentioned in this sentence. "Mass killings have also occurred in Vietnam,[135] North Korea[136] and Romania.[137]"

Here is the info regarding these countries alleged mass killings from other wiki pages: "Rudolph Rummel estimated the democide of the FRELIMO government between 1975 and 1987 to be in between 83,000 and 250,000 dead with a mid level estimate of 118,000. Most of deaths are from executions and re-education camps."

And for Angola:

"After Nito Alves's attempted coup in 1977, Agostinho Neto ordered the killing of suspected followers and sympathisers of "orthodox communism" inside and outside the party. Thousands of people were estimated to have been killed by Cuban and MPLA troops in the aftermath over a period that lasted up to two years, with some estimates claiming as high as 70,000 dead. "

"Human rights observers have accused the MPLA of "genocidal atrocities," "systematic extermination," "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity.""

What do you think? I think they could be mentioned.Stumink (talk) 15:57, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

You need to explain howese killings were "communist" rather than typical of African tribal warfare. Do you have any sources that claim the MPLA became more humanitarian after they ceased being communist? TFD (talk) 07:41, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Well regarding the MPLA the deaths listed are all relating to the murder after an attempted coup so this is an internal purge. I'm not sure that would count. And they also definitely involved in tribal atrocities. I think Mozambique would however definitely count. The deaths are listed as being mainly from "executions and re-education camps". Re-education camps is certainly a common future of communist regimes and many were killed in what you may term as "gulags". Regardless does it really matter if the killing were of a communist nature. I just wanted to add them to the sentence "Mass killings have also occurred in Vietnam,[135] North Korea[136] and Romania" so shouldn't it just be any "Mass killings under Communist regimes"?

And regarding Angola being more violent when it was communist or after I'm sure it wasn't when you consider the Halloween massacre. However I'm not sure why this would matter.Stumink (talk) 11:58, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

As you are no doubt aware, these groups embraced communism, but embraced neoliberalism after Communist rule ended in the USSR. Did their respect for human rights improve when they became liberals? Also, how did their respect for human rights compare with their "liberal" opponents, UNITA and the FNLA?

Well the UNITA and the FNLA are hardly "liberal and im sure they comitted human rights abuses. However know estimates and this is hardly the place to discuss them. However why it does matter. We are merely discussing "Mass killings under Communist regimes". Therefore since "mass killings" occurred under communist Mozambique and Angola I think that is all that matters. Why should matter their behavior was under socialism or why should we care what the FLN or UNITA did. I do not see why it matters. Also the killings listed for Mozambique are like many same methods used by countries like North Korea and Vietnam(Gulags and Re-education). Considering these are similar methods and the countries mention communist, isn't this enough?Stumink (talk) 17:46, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The rationale for this article is that there is a connection between Communism and mass killings, otherwise it would be original research. We would not have for example articles about mass killings in countries whose names' begin with an "A". So you need to explain what these mass killings had to do with the ideologies of the regimes. TFD (talk) 18:33, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Well the sources indicate Mozambique committed mass killings through re-education camps similar to place like Vietnam, North Korea, China etc. Would mass killings through re-education count? Stumink (talk) 19:53, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Do the sources specifically make that claim? It would be helpful if you could be specific about the source. TFD (talk) 20:39, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

This source specifically mention they committed mass killings through re-education: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB14.1C.GIF. Surely this is good enough.Stumink (talk) 14:44, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a personal web site of Rummel. It is not reliable.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Then you can source straight from the books, if that is somehow more reliable than the website as the info from the book is the same as on the website and is written by exactly the same author. Stumink (talk) 16:17, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The way forward

TFD's deliberate failure to understand my question to him above (see here), his acknowledgement-by-deletion of my notice to him about it on his talk page here, and his decision not to change his response is blatant disruption, as defined by WP:DISRUPT ("refusal to 'get the point'" and "failure to understand the point" are both rightly considered disruptive). Also a problem is his mischaraterization of a source two days ago.[13] He has a very long history with this article, and has been warned about his disruptive editing before, the earliest I recall being when he tried to extend a resolving (and nearly unanimous) article name change discussion by opening a separate Request-for-Comment on the issue in a new talk page section while the Requested-Move discussion was wrapping up.[14][15] He has established a pattern of disruption over a long period of time, including a period in which he insinuated that pro-article editors were fascist and anti-semitic, but in his defense it was a very heated time and there was no consensus for this article's right to exist prior to the first "Keep" AfD decision on April 22, 2010.

In fact, I'm inclined to think that everyone's behavior prior to that point should simply be forgiven. There was blame to be had on all sides.

As I see it, the only relevant issue now is how best to proceed at present. Deliberate talk page disruption is harmful under normal circumstances, but because of the particular editing restrictions on this article which depend upon productive talk page discussion in order for any article changes at all to occur, disruption on this talk page is even more problematic. However, every article needs critics, if only to cancel out the over-enthusiastic. TFD is capable of constructive criticism and it would be best if he continued to participate here without being disruptive. However, it is important that he stop being disruptive, and since he won't discuss this on his talk page, I think it is best to give him what I consider his first warning notice here. AmateurEditor (talk) 17:23, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Could you explain why you think you are qualified to be handing out 'first warnings'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:26, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Didn't mean to imply any kind of official action, I've changed it to "notice". AmateurEditor (talk) 17:48, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I think I'd like to note that many of TFD's comments tend to be, well, astute. As well, s/he tends to avoid wasting time on ridiculous disputes on definitions which should be obvious and/or easily accessible, which seems wise to me, but is kind of unrelated to this, maybe. I'm also not convinced that this is the proper place to be reprimanding others??????? But I'm not an expert in the details of how Wikipedia talk pages operate. I also think maybe certain people should relax if a person one time misses your point, as absurd amounts of dialogue get thrown down on this page, which for a person with a life, can be quite a bit to chew through (and sections of talk like this do not help the volume of blah blah blah). At any rate, this section of talk seems like a good candidate for deletion if there ever was one.AnieHall (talk) 22:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, in your weltanschaung, Communists kill people because that is what Communists do. You may be right. However in order to present a neutral article you need to present a source that claims that, then we can search the literature and determine the extent of agreement with that belief. TFD (talk) 02:24, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the original title of this section, "TFDs disruptive behavior and the way forward", was inappropriate ("Reporting on another user's edits from a neutral point of view is an exception..."), but if it bothers you enough to change it then I am not going to change it back. I have never taken a position on why these killings occurred, and your assumption about my thoughts is offensively wrong. It is another example of disruptive editing on your part: please direct your comments at "content and actions rather than people". It is not too late for you to prove AnieHall right that you had just misunderstood our previous discussion: please answer why you think the comparative sources presented to you were not comparative. Or just admit that they are and we can move forward. It's an important point. AmateurEditor (talk) 19:24, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

See WP:TALKNEW: "Never use headings to attack other users: While no personal attacks and assuming good faith apply everywhere at Wikipedia, using headings to attack other users by naming them in the heading is especially egregious...." If you do not see any connection between these killings then there is no reason for the article. In order to save me the time of commenting on each and every "ccomparative" source you linked too, could you please provide one and I will explain. TFD (talk) 19:37, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The last sentence of the section you just linked to said, and I quoted it above, "Reporting on another user's edits from a neutral point of view is an exception...". I have also never said that I "do not see any connection between these killings". I have never offered my opinion on this at all, because our personal opinions do not matter when the issue is what reliable sources say. I linked to excerpts from 4 sources. Here is the link again. Unfortunately, because you said none were comparative, you are going to have to comment on each one to demonstrate that. AmateurEditor (talk) 19:53, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Alright, since they all supposedly are comparative studies, I will comment on the first, Valentino's "Communist Mass Killings: The Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia". As the title implies the comparison is restricted to three countries and in fact three leaders - Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. Far from seeing these mass killings as an essential aspect of Communism, Valentino writes, "most regimes that have described themselves as communist or been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killings" (p. 91). Also Valentino does not describe all killings by the Soviet Union as communist in nature and in fact groups their mass killings in Afghanistan with "Counterguerrilla mass killings". Curiously, most of these mass killings were carried out by capitalist countries (US, Nationalist China, France, etc.), yet you object to having an article called "mass killings under capitalist regimes". Your exception btw is not a license to attack other editors, rather it allows one to use such headings as "User:A reported by User:B" at the edit-warring noticeboard. And note that the wording still must be neutral and not express your personal opinion. TFD (talk) 20:33, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad you agree a comparison between the killings of Communist regimes does exist in that source. Do you agree that a source does not have to "see mass killings as an essential aspect" of Communism or "describe all killings by the Soviet Union as communist in nature" in order to be a source on this topic? You are either confusing me with someone else or just making a faulty assumption when you say that I "object to having an article called "mass killings under capitalist regimes"". I have done no such thing. You are right that the "exception" is not a license to attack other editors, and that it allows one to use such headings as "User:A reported by User:B" at the edit-warring noticeboard. You are wrong that I had attacked you with my headline. I accurately, and with diffs, called specific behavior on your part disruptive (which does not necessarily mean acting in bad faith, disruptive behavior can be in good faith as well). It is important to understand that using an editor's name in a noticeboard heading is "especially" allowed, not exclusively allowed. I take your admission of the comparative nature of the first of the four sources to mean you will not be commenting on the others. Fair enough. AmateurEditor (talk) 00:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't work for you mate, and have no obligation to comment at length on all your sources. I picked the first one because you said they are all the same. By your logic if someone compares mass killings by France and the US, then we can have mass killings under capitalist regimes. Unless we are tendentious, we would title such an article Comparison of French and American mass killings or something similar. TFD (talk) 00:51, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

My point was that you commenting on the others would be redundant at this point because you had said that "none" were comparative. But I did not say they were all the same, I said they were all comparative. I agree that if multiple reliable sources discuss mass killings by capitalist regimes, in those terms or in functionally equivalent terms (say, "Capitalist mass killing" or "mass murder by capitalist countries" or "Blue holocaust", to imagine a few), then yes, there can be such a Wikipedia article. This is Wikipedia's logic, not just mine.[16] And if there was no commonly accepted term for the topic, we would title such an article descriptively, based upon editor consensus.[17] AmateurEditor (talk) 01:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Judging just from these recent interactions, User:AmateurEditor does not seem to be in a mindframe to effectively facilitate a productive Way Forward. BigK HeX(talk) 12:06, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

If you have any suggestions for how we might work past our differences here, please propose them. I think they are needed. I agree with you that I am not appropriate person to "faciliate a productive Way Forward". I have been deeply involved here and no doubt some people think me a partisan. Maybe mediation of some sort is necessary. But I do think it is very important that we all be less tolerant of clearly disruptive behavior, such as repeatedly refusing to acknowledge evidence contrary to our assertions, even from editors whose conclusions we agree with. If we do that as a group, perhaps we won't need any outside help to make progress. AmateurEditor (talk) 23:27, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Numerical Sourcing and Statistics - A Modest Proposal

Leafing through the copious and, I must admit, rather amusing talk archives that accompany this page (after all, seeing the intellectual battles of the Cold War recapitulated at lightning speed over the Internet is something that cannot fail to please some rather twisted people, such as myself), I notice the lede for this page remains controversial. It is indeed strange that this page opens with, effectively, a decontextualised quote from a book already rather NPOV on the subject of Communism. The figure cited is preceded by this qualification:

"Nonetheless, we have to start somewhere. The following rough approximation, based on unofficial estimates, gives some sense of the scale and gravity of these crimes: "

Black Book of Communism, Introduction

Those two qualifiers, "rough approximation", and "unofficial estimates" make this statement substantially less strong than the mere qualification of "estimated" that we find at the top of the page. We could just edit that to better reflect what the source actually says... and end up turning the lede into a block quote from Courtois's masterwork.

I propose something a little more radical, and a lot more sensible. There is a reason Courtois uses this extensive qualification before he lists these numbers. This particular section, unlike the rest of the book - and indeed the rest of the introduction - is entirely uncited. Describing it as a "rough approximation" from "unofficial estimates" gives him an extremely large amount of leeway in what this actually means. I believe this isn't the level of rigour that an encyclopaedic work such as Wikipedia requires.

As such, at the very least when it comes to matters of pure number, I believe it should be made a policy for this page to only quote and cite sources which themselves have some backing more substantial than the author's assurance - ideally to the level required of a peer-reviewed article or similar. This might not even mean changing the lede particularly, as many seem quite happy with the numbers as they are, and so I'm sure they can find alternative and more rigorous sources for them.

Oh, and in addition - the Black Book of Communism is freely available on Archive.org. It might be a good idea to change citation links to lead there.HauntologicalPhenomenon (talk) 00:14, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

agreed. good concise points.AnieHall (talk) 00:46, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Partly disagree. I am very uncomfortable enacting narrower standards for this article than what Wikipedia requires for all its articles. We could change the wording in that first sentence to better reflect the source (and certainly that estimate should be stated as the specific estimate of that person, rather than as a straight statement of fact), but I think you will find that all the numerical estimates out there are similarly rough, or more so. I think we must attribute every numerical estimate to being the particular opinion of its author, with the particular criteria used noted (such as inclusion of famine deaths, etc.), and avoid crowning any particualar estimate over the others. In fact, I think the article needs a section specifically devoted to the numerical estimates, but I don't see that happening under the current editing restrictions. The actual numbers are simply unknown, and this should be made clear. AmateurEditor (talk) 17:19, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that this is a narrower standard than is required for all Wikipedia articles. WP:SOURCES states that sources should be "appropriate to the claims made". Given that statistical claims are quite clear-cut compared to other claims, particularly in the context of history, I don't see it as at all unreasonable that the source used to make such a claim is equally clear-cut. For a matter as grave as the possible deaths of millions of people, I'm not sure why standards shouldn't be closer to the level required for an article about a living person, rather than a Pokémon. If it is not clear-cut, then either make this obvious by giving due weight (WP:DUE) to other sources that make different claims, or remove that claim from the lede. Indeed, the former in itself would require removing this claim from the lede, as that is not the place to present competing claims of equal weight - it is the place to establish what an article is about. Hell, the very fact that all of this has been presented over hundreds of thousands of words of discussion in this talk page indicates that perhaps the controversy itself requires mention in the beginning of the article?HauntologicalPhenomenon (talk) 00:13, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you that the first sentence is not now appropriately written and should be changed. I also support adding other sources with different estimates (and I agree that this should be done in the body of the article, rather than in the lead). I only disagree insofar as you seem to be thinking that the issue with the numbers will merely be getting the best sources to back up a conclusive/consensus statement of fact. By contrast, I've seen the numerical issue as one of some inherent ambiguity, not only due to the limited availability of documentation, but also with the disputed reliablity of that documentation and the underlying value judgements involved in whether or not certain portions should be included (particularly regarding famine deaths). From this perspective, then, presenting the full range of ranges, along with the critiques of them, is the most appropriate way. Again, I agree this is not appropriate for the lead. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:08, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Aha! So, this at least is something we could get consensus for? I will state now that I would prefer a quite radical re-casting of the entire article, given the problematic title, the way events and processes are being conflated in a vague fashion that quite likely constitutes original research, and so on. But this would definitely be an improvement. Also, particularly given the fact that this article has received a grand total of four edits since the year began, is there any reason it couldn't be moved back to semi-protected status? HauntologicalPhenomenon (talk) 03:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The figure of 100 million, which has no acceptance in peer-reviewed writing, is an article of faith in fringe anti-Communist sources. The main problem with this article is that there is no literature specifically devoted to the subject and it is basically a polemical rather than encyclopedic article. TFD (talk) 17:47, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. The article does appear to be polemical in nature to me, as well. But there must be some sort of consensus otherwise, since the article continues to exist. So, I think, since this article is (or at least the figures are) largely based upon the Black Book of Communism, the language surrounding the "unofficial estimates" should be true to the source, and not make the figures appear to be sounder than intended by the original authors. Since this is a contentious article, it seems wise that the language used be carefully and accurately selected. Not doing so certainly lends credence to the position that this article may be polemical. I would think that any good, reasonable and accurate suggestion that moves this article away from perceived bias should be acted on.AnieHall (talk) 20:36, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

In light of what I've said above, the further comments on the fact that these figures are all apparently "rough estimates" or indeed "unknown", and the existence of a fairly broad historical controversy on this matter that cuts right across the mainstream of history academia, perhaps we could come to some consensus on an alternative lede that makes all of this clear? Historical articles on Wikipedia have, I'm afraid to say, a pretty bad reputation, and the seeming distrust of just presenting things that are uncertain or controversial as such is pretty much why. HauntologicalPhenomenon (talk) 00:22, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

They are "reliably sourced" per Wikipedia policy, and the recap in the lede is pretty much the result of very lengthy discussions in the past. I oppose therefore any removal of the number range. Collect (talk) 11:09, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The estimates are sourced to the introduction to the Black Book and represent Courtois's personal estimate, which has no acceptance and was attacked by Werth, the major contributor to the book. Instead, we should use a source that explains the ranges estimated by scholars, rather than the range used by one. The range is probably wider than Courtois' estimate, and we should also emphasize which ones are most widely accepted. TFD (talk) 14:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

You were here when the ranges were chosen - and they do not include the highest numbers at all -- perhaos you disremember the colloquy thereon? They are based on the multiple sources discussed at that discussion. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:07, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The first sentence has a footnote which gives the Courtois's estimates in the introduction to the Black Book as a source. Should we keep the source and say that it is Courtois's estimate, or should be provide a source that explains what the estimates are? TFD (talk) 15:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

We should all be able to agree if we just add a couple words to the sentence where it is. How about something like "Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century, with the most widely known estimated death toll being Stéphane Courtois' approximation approaching 100 million worldwide." I would really love us to make some small progress on this article. AmateurEditor (talk) 23:17, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I think everyone knows that I'm convinced that this article's topic doesn't exist per policy. However, using Courtois on this is abominable due to the deep criticism he's received, his absence of field specific experience, and the ludicrousness of his contribution (see the extensive reading regarding Courtois' hypothesised causation in the archives). Not Courtois by himself. If someone decent uses Courtois' number, then cite it to them (scholars can work around flaws in sources that we can't.) Surely that swede think tank or that mass killing guy has a high end figure. Citing Courtois for anything would be worse than citing Lemkin on methodology, at least in his era Lemkin behaved in a scholarly fashion. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:03, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

When did you change your mind on the topic's existence, since the last time we spoke you seemed to think differently?[18] We are already using Courtois in the lead, as well we should since he is far and away the most famous of the sources and the one most likely to have prompted readers to the article in the first place. My proposed change waters the language down considerably. Rather than treating the 100 million figure as part of a statement of fact, it labels it merely widely known without taking a position on its accuracy at all. AmateurEditor (talk) 00:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

(Regarding the topic, I reread the Swedish paper over 2011, 2012 in light of further analysis of its contents by other editors—I'm not hostile to scholarly analysis of a common cause of mortality in specific societies being actually-existing socialism or Marxist ideology, I just don't think that such an analysis has been put, as your diff shows I am open to change based on sources. I was disappointed in the result of the reading because a positive demonstration of the topic would immediately change the quality of this article for the better in weight, structure, coatrack, synth/or components (like lumping in single society studies unmentioned in comparative literature)) The problem is, that even were this article to exist, Courtois shouldn't be front and centre, but relegated to a FRINGE section. I think that the people who believe this article should currently exist agree that it should be primarily sourced out of scholarly literature, a literature that Courtois is not part of. The Swedes, the mass-killing chapters (dispossessive and the other one) front and centre; noting of the single society cases via discussion of the evidence in the previous section (undiscussed cases relegated to see also:); outdated studies in the middle when discussing the origin of the scholarly construct (Lemkin); scholarly studies that impinge upon the topic but aren't causative (the demographic stuff), including the FRINGE but notable components such as part of the democide series of studies; FRINGE stuff like Courtois' relatively hysteric suggestion of causation at the end, and only to the extent that they've received popular attention. An inverse pyramid of presence in the scholarly literature. (I actually quite regret/enjoy having become involved in editing this article because I now have a much better understanding of research projects in genocide studies) Fifelfoo (talk) 01:15, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I totally agree with that, however, the problem is even deeper. A lion's share of Courtois 100 million killed are the victims of famine, mostly in China. We already discussed that before, and I provided the evidence that large scale famines were quite routine events in China before the Great Leap Forward (but not after that). Many authors discuss the causes of this and previous famines, some of them ascribe the famine (partially or fully) to the actions of Communist authorities, but only few authors describe them as mass killings. However, the article, in its present form, relies mostly, if not exclusively, on the works of those authors who describe all mass mortality events under Communists as "mass killings", and ignores the studies that describe them otherwise. I believe we need to do something with that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:41, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

@Fifelfoo I can agree with that. My only concern is that FRINGE should be demonstrated by WP:WEIGHT, rather than segregation into a dedicated "FRINGE section", unless we have reliable sources describing them as such. AmateurEditor (talk) 22:07, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

(out) The problem is that there are no comparative studies, just studies of individual countries and the odd comment that Communists killed lots of people because they wanted to create a "Utopia". That comment itself seems odd, not only because of Communist views on utopian socialism, of which Courtois as an ex-Maoist would be aware, but because Stalin was hardly the most idealistic Communist leader. It becomes like the "Republican sex offenders" website, which lists everyone from Ted Bundy to elected officials having sex with other men in public toilets, but does not explain what connection may exist. It therefore is little more than opaque and ineffective advocacy. TFD (talk) 05:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

There are multiple comparative studies (that is, studies which discuss the commonalities and differences between the killing by Communist regimes, rather than simply focusing on the killing by a single regime) and you have in fact seen some of them several times already, unless you did not completely read the deletion debates that you participated in[19][20], follow the link I provided specifically to you in discussion on this talk page[21], or bother to examine those such sources already cited in the article. Did you forget about these, or are you just dismissing them? AmateurEditor (talk) 23:36, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I remember discussing this and have looked at your sources again and none of them are comparative studies of mass killings under Communist regimes. TFD (talk) 03:21, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

What are they, then? AmateurEditor (talk) 04:13, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

None of them. TFD (talk) 04:44, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't answer the question, and they clearly are. And you'll probably pick this one apart, but The Distinctive Features of Repression in Communist States have definitely been discussed by scholars.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:38, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Meanwhile, you've all encouraged AnieHall to create a Mass killings under capitalist regimes article that accuses capitalism of killing 1.6 billion people based on message board postings and dead links to "The Maoist Rebels News".TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:41, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, a month ago they weren't dead links. at any rate, i've fixed it. hopefully. although there is ongoing deletion and rewriting, of course.AnieHall (talk) 06:38, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

(out) Your link is to the introduction to a book written by Paul Hollander, an advisor to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Notice that the topic of the article is "repression" in Communist states, not "mass killings". Obviously mass killings are an aspect of repression, but notice that even the most partisan authors writing outside the mainstream do not write articles specifically about "mass killings under Communist regimes". Hollander actually notes in his article that there are no comparative studies of mass killings under Communist regimes.

Also, please see WP:POINT. That some editors have chosen to invent an anti-Communist article does not mean that we should balance it with an anti-capitalist article. The correct approach is to ensure that all articles are based on sources, are not original research and are neutral. If there are scholarly sources that link the capitalist economic system to mass killings, then we can determine the degree of acceptance these views have and write a neutral article. We should not just put together a hodge-podge of mass killings carried out by what we determine to be capitalist regimes and create an article that implies that capitalism was the cause of these mass killings. TFD (talk) 17:18, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Rather than vague mumbo-jumbo if you want to change the article, please just show what the changes should be. Show us the text with the sources. Folks who say that this article can't exist should read the six previous AfD's and then just get over it. Saying you don't like the current sources after all this time without offering your own sources, is just nonsense. New editors showing up and quoting policy on their second edits, after all the nonsense that has gone on here, makes me quite suspicious. In short, show us the text you want! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:40, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

There was no consensus for deletion because you and other editors claimed that there were sources. The result of the AfDs is not that people who claimed there were no sources must find them, and it seems more reasonable to expect those editors who claimed there were sources identify them. TFD (talk) 18:00, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

There are lots of sources in the article right now. If there were sources that said Communist regimes did not kill masses of people or that this wasn't a "Communist phenomenon" you could put them in the article. The likely reason you haven't put them in the article is that they don't exist. You claim that the sources in the article are not reliable, but they've passed WP:RSN many times and clearly pass the WP:RS standards. You could put in sources that disagree with the sources in the article, but have failed to do so (do they exist?). It's time to go along with the obvious consensus that this article is allowed to be on Wikipedia. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 11:44, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

The reason there are not sources saying it was not a "Communist phenomena" is that there are no sources that say it was. All we have are studies of individual countries that we have grouped together as an exercise in original research. TFD (talk) 14:55, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Just look in the current article for the sources. Just because you don't like what they say, doesn't mean you can deny that they exist!. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)