Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes/Archive 9

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People's Republic of Poland

Since the article does not have space to describe every incident in detail some explanation should be given for inclusion of this particular incident. The Four Deuces (talk) 08:07, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Another lead variant

A significant number of people (estimates vary) died as a result of repressions, famines, and mass murders or executions in USSR under the regime of Stalin, in China under Mao, and Cambodia under Khmer Rouge. Because these regimes had some form of the Communist ideology in common, the deaths occurred there are often placed into one category by certain scholars studying mass killings of 20th century. Even though reasons which had led to the deaths seem to be regime specific some scholars analyze them as pertinent to Communism.

I am unhappy with the current version, and hope it could be improved. This is just a raw variant as well, but I like it more than the current. (Igny (talk) 01:23, 28 December 2009 (UTC))

It violates synthesis. It implies that there is a connection between the various theories of mass killings and that they developed in response to the killings. The Four Deuces (talk) 09:28, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The Evils of Communism and the Virtues of Capitalism

Every college student in the state of Louisiana must take a required course titled "The Evils of Communism and the Virtues of Capitalism", or at least they did when I was in college there. I don't know if that law is still on the books, but the content of that course resembles this article -- or would have done if the teachers of the course hadn't treated it as a big joke.

Shall Wikipedia also have articles titled "Mass killings under Christian regimes", "Mass killings under capitalist regimes", "Mass killings under Moslem regimes", "Mass killings under monarchs and emperors"?

Or, we could nominate this article for deletion. That would be another way to go. Rick Norwood (talk) 16:22, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

It has been tried. But the deletion never reached consensus, possibly due to strong presence of former Louisiana college students here protecting this article. ;) (Igny (talk) 18:39, 25 December 2009 (UTC))

Not sure what to say about such a course, but, as I've mentioned before, there is an article similar to this one entitled Anti-communist mass killings, which existed before this article was created I believe. Hmmm... perhaps this article should simply be renamed Communist mass killings, eh?--C.J. Griffin (talk) 23:09, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

No, Anti-communist mass killings was created in response to troll creating this article, and subsequent no-consensus AfD with 27 delete, 11 keep and 9 keep votes by the EEML group. What can I say, congratulations to the troll who created this article, for it survived 2 more AfDs although after renaming. (Igny (talk) 00:48, 31 December 2009 (UTC))

Is it anti-Russian propaganda?

From this article by Boris Kagarlitsky:

Действительная практика тоталитаризма, сопровождавшаяся миллионами жертв, породила задним числом целую литературную традицию антитоталитарных разоблачений, авторы которых, опираясь на эти чудовищные факты, дополняли их массой домыслов и прямой лжи. Чем ужаснее были подлинные истории, тем легче было врать и дополнять их новыми страшными рассказами. Так несколько миллионов жертв ГУЛАГА превратились в немыслимые десятки миллионов, история репрессий обросла фантастическими подробностями. Ложь оказалась поставлена на поток новой пропагандой, успешно заимствовавшей приемы тоталитарной идеологической машины. Парадоксальным, но закономерным побочным эффектом этой лжи оказались всё более массовые выступления в защиту Сталина, его режима и его времени.

Google translation (with my minor corrections):

Actual practice of totalitarianism, accompanied by millions of victims, has created retroactively whole literary tradition of antitotalitarian revelations, where the authors, based on these horrific facts, supplemented the facts with mass speculation and outright lies. The more terrible the true stories were, the easier it was to lie and to complement it with new terrifying tales. So several million victims of GULAG became unthinkable tens of millions, the history of repression gained fantastic details. The lie was streamed by a new propaganda, which successfully borrowed techniques of the totalitarian ideological machine. Paradoxically, but a natural side effect of these lies were more mass demonstrations in defense of Stalin and his regime and his time.

Any thoughts? (Igny (talk) 17:00, 25 December 2009 (UTC))

Another interesting article (in Russian) on comparing Communism in USSR to Nazism. (Igny (talk) 17:57, 25 December 2009 (UTC)_

The article then shows that exaggeration of the horrors of Communism serves as a justification of fascism. What I find interesting is why irrational anti-Communism should become popular now, long after the Soviet Union was dissolved. (Apparently the Black Book is accepted uncritically in much of Eastern Europe.) The Four Deuces (talk) 18:21, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Yet another article addressing holodomor specifically. (Igny (talk) 18:28, 25 December 2009 (UTC))

By providing these sources I just tried to demonstrate the confirmation bias by all sides contributing to this article. For some reason, Termer and Collect focus on sources which confirm their views. Here are the sources which confirm my views. (Igny (talk) 18:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC))

I am a tad curious -- what source did I focus on? And in what way did the source I focussed on confirm my views? Collect (talk) 19:14, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

My and your views are irrelevant on wikipeida Igny. However in case a Russian Marxist theoretician and sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky' views are relevant here, why don't you just add it to the article. After all, I always have pointed out that according to WP:NPOV instead of removing existing sourced materials from this article, any possible alternative viewpoints should be added to it. And since it seems Kagarlitsky has an alternative viewpoint, it should go in in case its notable.--Termer (talk) 19:17, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

PS. Of course everything has an alternative viewpoint and on that one for example "...natural side effect of these lies were more mass demonstrations in defense of Stalin and his regime and his time" they say: The rehabilitation of Stalin—an ideological cornerstone of the new Kremlin politics, See also Rehabilitating Joseph Stalin etc.--Termer (talk) 19:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

You all somehow mix the Kremlin official line with opinions of Russian public. People at power are just doing what they are supposed to be doing to remain at power. And that is to play the nationalistic card with the Russian masses thus gaining their support at the next election. And the attempts to diminish or unduly criticize the role of Russians as the nation in the past and in particular during and after the Russian revolution as well as the WW2 through lies and propaganda only helps Putin et. al. to play that card. If you really want to change the Russian official view, you'd have to change opinions of the Russian public first. (Igny (talk) 19:56, 25 December 2009 (UTC))

IOW, you have no sources which you claim I focussed on -- but now you seem to assert that WP in some way should be concerned with the attitudes of the Russian popu;ace. It should not - the aim here is to make a neutral encyclopedia. Collect (talk) 20:18, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

That was a noble goal, yes. Ideally. Sometime ago. Before nationalistic editors show up and push their agenda here. From all sides. (Igny (talk) 20:43, 25 December 2009 (UTC))

(out) The article should present mainstream views according to their acceptance. I do not know what acceptance Soviet dissident Boris Kagarlitsky's viewsw have received, but he is certainly not a Stalin apologist. We should look to see how accepted he is. Collect, you focused on among others a snippet view of the Farm Journal and the GMOC. The Four Deuces (talk)

On opinions of the Russian public about Stalin according to Igny, well, that shouldn't be news to anybody that Stalin and Stalinism always have had its place in Russian nationalism. To interpret all this as "anti-Russian propaganda" according to Igny is like saying all Russians are nationalists. And even in that respect, the the "greatest Russian" according to Russian polls is not Stalin but Alexander Nevsky. [1].--Termer (talk) 21:53, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

PS. other than that, the Armenian genocide is considered Anti-Turkish propaganda by the Turkish government and the nationalists, so there is nothing new in all of this really.--Termer (talk) 22:25, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I just wanted to clarify that you are fighting not the official Russian view or Kremlin or Putin. But general public opinion of most of the Russians. (Igny (talk) 22:50, 25 December 2009 (UTC))

(edit conflict) If I understand Igny's point correctly, two opposite statements - that Stalin killed almost nobody and that he killed 100 million - would have the same result. In both cases trustworthiness of the article as whole will be undermined, and it is easy to predict who will gain from that.
Marxist and other leftist scholars must be included, especially taking into account that majority of them do not question the fact of mass killing during Stalin's time. The article will become less shocking, however, for those who are interested in presenting truth, not to tell as many terrible stories about Communists as possible (no matter how exaggerated they are), it will hardly pose a serious problem.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:13, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I do not understand joy of contributors here when they find higher and higher death toll estimates. "Look I found 50 million!"; "This is even better, 100 million!"; "Wait, 10 million ukrainian victims in holodomor alone!". They do not seem to understand that with higher figures the credibility of the articles drops not increases. (Igny (talk) 23:42, 25 December 2009 (UTC))

It is wrong to group together actual genocides like the Armenian genocide with communist genocide. Here is a bibliography about the first, and as you see it has been studied by historians whose books have been published by university and academic press and whose articles are included in academic journals. In the second, you have a group of writers pushing an ill-defined concept without submitting their views to academic scrutiny. Any academic notice they have received has been negative. The Four Deuces (talk) 23:16, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

That brings us back to a question, why such a fact like "Estimates of the total number of people killed by communist regimes range as high as 110 million" published by Cornell University Press [2] Final solutions, p.91, keeps disappearing from the article?--Termer (talk) 00:17, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Because the wide range of the estimates and difficulties with getting a credible figure are not a topic of this article. (Igny (talk) 01:11, 26 December 2009 (UTC))

Agree with Igny. Valentino's statement has a footnote which is not in the Google Books version but probably refers to R. J. Rummel who based his estimates on Robert Conquest's work. The Four Deuces (talk) 01:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: "why such a fact like ..." Because Valentino's figures are not a result of his independent studies of mortality under Communist rule. These studies have been done by Conquest, Wheathcroft, Rosenfeldelde, Maksudov, Getti, Ellman and several other scholars. They did archival research, they worked with memoirs, they did comparative study of different sources to separate reliable data from hearsays and exaggerations, they (mainly before 1990) tried to do estimations. They did large, hard and meticulous work trying to establish numbers of Stalin's victims. Valentino just took some of these numbers and gave a different name to them. Rummel did several very rough and very inaccurate estimations (it is not my conclusion). If we want to add all questionable materials, let's add Soviet/Russian propaganda too.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:47, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

[Here] is a link to an abstract of an article by Ronald Grigor Suny, "Russian Terror/ism and Revisionist Historiography", where he analyzes the Black Book and similar theories. The article is available at Questia. The Four Deuces (talk) 10:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

All this posted by Paul Siebert and any discussion about a credible figure would be relevant to this discussion and the article in case sources would be provided to back up such an analysis. At the same time none of this explained why such sourced facts keep disappearing from the article?--Termer (talk) 20:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

And now we are back to where we started. See beginning of this section. (Igny (talk) 20:10, 26 December 2009 (UTC))

See WP:V: Just because a source is reliable does not mean it should be included. All articles must adhere to Wikipedia's neutrality policy, fairly representing all majority and significant-minority viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in rough proportion to the prominence of each view. Tiny-minority views and fringe theories need not be included, except in articles devoted to them.[3] The Four Deuces (talk) 20:23, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I can read the wikilaw by myself, no need to paste it here. so what about the sources that have "a credible figure" like claimed above?--Termer (talk) 20:30, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

The figure of 110 million is not credible - it is merely the highest estimate offered. The Four Deuces (talk) 20:46, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

So what's the problem, that's more or less what the source says -it is the highest estimate. And again, please consider referring to any sources that cite "a credible figure" more accurately than the highest estimate given by Valentino. Thanks!--Termer (talk) 20:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Could you please provide us with explanation on what sources did Valentino used as a support his estimate? I am asking because he definitely didn't do his own studies and he relied on other scholars' data. Since many scholars re-considered their numbers after 1990, a probability exists that Valentino used some obsolete data. You seem to be a Valention's proponent, therefore, I believe you have read his book carefully, so I don't think it would pose any problem for you to give us the source Valentino used. Thank you in advance.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:49, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Termer, could you provide the contents of the footnote to the statement in Valentino's book? The Four Deuces (talk) 22:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Here you go: p.275. Also, I'm not anybodies proponent here, and I can ask this for the third time if needed, please anybody -consider referring to any sources that cite "a credible figure" more accurately. Thanks!--Termer (talk) 23:13, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I didn't analyze it in detail, however, taking into account that Valentino relies mostly on Rummel's data (Rummel's approach has been seriously criticised, you can find the relevant quotes on this talk page), I am not sure we need to present his numbers here. In addition, the key Valentiono's table (table 2) contains the numbers that cannot be verified because the author neither reveals his sources (he literally states: "figures in this and subsequent tables are the author's estimate made based on numerous sources"), nor he describes the procedure he used to obtain his estimates. If you read serious articles on that account you have to agree that these estimates (at least the way they have been presented) have nothing in common with a serious work.
Although Valentino's concept got some positive reviews that doesn't mean that his numbers deserve mentioning. He is not a specialist in this field, so we do not need to present his rough estimations when we have much more reliable numbers obtained by specialists.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:43, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Termer, I cannot find the footnote. To whom does Valentino attribute the source? The Four Deuces (talk) 00:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Again, whose numbers deserve mentioning in case the ones published by Valentino don't? Sorry guys but all this smells too much like WP:CENSORing, the activity that has been common to all totalitarian societies including the communist regimes. Please keep it away from wikipedia.--Termer (talk) 03:32, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

PS. The link is there for anybody to read and it's clear that Valentino doesn't refer to Rummel's data alone. Rummel even isn't the one with the highest estimate. So what are you talking about Paul? --Termer (talk) 03:44, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: "Again, whose numbers deserve mentioning in case the ones published by Valentino don't?" Try to read Wheathcoft's, Ellman's or even Conquest's works. They give a huge number of tables, many references to primary sources: archival data, memoirs, demographic and statistic data. They do complex analysis trying to find inconsistencies between different data sets, and finally, after reading their works you see how did they obtain these numbers. The procedures they use are transparent and verifiable, and that is a sign of real science. If you call the attempts to separate good quality works from a potboiler a WP:CENSORship, I support such a censorship.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Termer. I get a blank page (275) that says "You either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book". Also, please see WP:Weasel: " It is better to put a name to an opinion by citing sources which are reliable than it is to assign it to an anonymous or vague-to-the-point-of-being-meaningless "source" which is unverifiable." The Four Deuces (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

RE:Paul, Valentino refers to both Wheathcoft and Conquest in his book, not to Ellman though. So in case you prefer those names, for the 4th time why don't you use any of those authors you keep talking about and come up with "a much more reliable number"? Other than that, sorry, I'm not here to find out what is considered real science in your opinion. Nor is it relevant to anything if you'd choose to support censoring wikipedia.
RE:The Four Deuces switching browsers always works in case you "have reached your viewing limit for this book". Double checked it, the page comes through with both Firefox and IE.--Termer (talk) 07:49, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: "Valentino refers to both Wheathcoft and Conquest in his book". Yes, he does, but he seems not to use Wheathcroft data (at least, they seem not to affect his estimations). With regards to censorship, WP:V states: "In general, the best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source." Therefore, just paying the same attention to Wheathcroft's data and Valentino's estimations is against WP policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

what about the sources that has "a credible figure"?--Termer (talk) 22:24, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Termer, you do not seem to understand the difference between political philosopy and actions. Consider that Estonian politicians are corrupt, but corruption is not part of the ideology of Estonian political parties. We do not say that the Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica supports free markets and corruption while the Social Democratic Party (Estonia) supports social democracy and corruption. Instead we see corruption as part of Eastern European politics and separate it from the parties' ideologies. The Four Deuces (talk) 07:27, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I loaded Firefox and can now read the footnote. The evidence for the 110 million figure is Rummel. It also mentions The Black Book (85 to 100 M), Brzezinski (60 M), Mathew White (81 M), Todd Culbertson in Human Events ("perhaps 100 million"). "These estimates should be considered at the highest end of the plausible range of deaths attributable to communist regimes." Why should this be in the lede? The Four Deuces (talk) 17:13, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Why should this be in the lede? Because that's what the article is about - the people killed by the Communist regimes. And again, I don't see any other reliable numbers by any other sources here, so it seems the number goes in than.--Termer (talk) 21:30, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

New proposal

From the start this article has been controversial because the sources that support the concept of Communist mass killings are controversial while mainstream sources barely discuss the issue. I suggest the best way forward is to accept that the theories are controversial and explain how they developed, what the central tenets are and what acceptance they have. The subject is really a branch of anti-Communism rather than genocide. The sources found by Paul Siebert and the recent article by Ronald Grigor Suny provide a good basis for the structure and content of the article. The theory clearly developed out of earlier right-wing theories and forms part of modern right-wing ideology, particularly in Eastern Europe. The guidlines for fringe theories provide a helpful reference for writing the article. Sources like the Black Book and Lost literature are then treated as primary sources for the theories rather than secondary sources for mass killings. Problems concerning RS and SYN then disappear. The Four Deuces (talk) 20:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

well. please provide citations from secondary published sources to your claims and we can look into this. So far I have no idea what are you talking about. Especially about "right-wing theories and forms part of modern right-wing ideology, particularly in Eastern Europe" since the political movements like Solidarity etc. that brought the totalitarian communist regimes to the end in EE were definitely left wing political movements compared to the communist regimes. Therefore your opinions here about "modern right-wing ideology" sorry but it doesn't simply make any sense.--Termer (talk) 23:35, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I provided a source, but here are exerts from Suny's article:

From the 1930s to the present an irresistible comparison has been made between fascism, particularly Nazism, and Stalinism. From one political pole, historians have worked hard to preserve the distinguishing differences between [them], while others, like Francois Furet in his The Passing of an Illusion and Stephane Courtois, the editor of The Black Book of Communism, equate them. This comparison has never been free of politics and ideology....

[Furet] in the mammoth essay that makes up The Passing of an Illusion... settles accounts with the idea of communism....

Nazism had adopted much of its own program of terror from Lenin and Stalin and that Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was a preventive war....

Furet was originally slated to write the introduction to The Black Book.... The principal arguments of the book are retreads that had thrived during the Cold War, been marginalized during the heyday of social history, and revived with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a neototalitarian approach to Soviet history. "The first is that Communist regimes... were criminal enterprises in their very essence: on principle... they all ruled lawlessly, by violence and without regard for human life."... [T]he violence was a deliberative, not a reactive, policy of the revolutionary regimes and was based in Marxist "science"....

It is a work that employs academic historians, independent researchers, and journalists to write a polemic that poses as history. Indeed it raises the most serious questions about the practice of practicing historians, of their obligations to neutrality and balance, and their role as moral arbitrators of the past....

The Four Deuces (talk) 00:23, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm missing how all this is related to the current article, perhaps you'd need to take it to Totalitarianism, over there the comparisons and similarities between Nazism and Stalinism have been made.--Termer (talk) 03:26, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

That is interesting that you brought this up. At some point a suggestion was made by me and others to rename the article into "mass killings under totalitarian regimes". However, I do not remember now what were the main objections. (Igny (talk) 03:33, 27 December 2009 (UTC))

How it relates to the article is that this article is about an hypothesis called "mass killings under Communist regimes", which posits that mass killing is an essential element of communist rule. The passage explains the theory along with its origins, validity and degree of acceptance. BTW why stop at totalitarian mass killings? Why not include all killings by government in one article? The Four Deuces (talk) 04:01, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Igny didn't get it exactly, are you suggesting also that there is no difference between lets say the Communist regimes that this article is about and Nazis and Fascists etc? Therefore all those mass killings by those totalitarian regimes in history would need to go into one article? Why don't we add Caravan of Death&Operation Condor as well? I would also consider adding Inquisition as Christianity in general (+ all the other monotheistic religions) are clearly just other totalitarian ideologies like communism or nazism. I'd suggest calling such an article Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.--Termer (talk) 04:11, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

The history of the human race is one long history of mass killings. Until the invention of birth control, mass murder was the only way to prevent mass starvation. Humans are like gerbils. When our cage gets too crowded, we kill our young. When, for propaganda purposes, side A wants to score points against side B, they bring up all the mass killings by side B, and ignore the mass killings by their own side. In 250 BC, the Romans talked about the mass killings by the Carthaginians and the Carthaginians talked about the mass killings by the Romans. It has nothing to do with the relative merits of the two sides. This article is anti-communist propaganda and nothing more. But the anti-communists are one generation behind the times. My students don't know what the word "communism" means, and couldn't name one communist if their life depended on it. Anti-communism these days is as quaint as antidisestablishmentarianism. In another generation, the last communist and the last anti-communist will both be dead, and we'll have to argue endlessly and pointlessly about something else. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:15, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Right, and Inquisition is anti-christian propaganda?--Termer (talk) 22:56, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

This article is not about Inquisition, NKVD, or Gestapo. Existence and activities of these entities is not under question here. What is under question is the validity of comparison of Nazism to Communism by pointing at their common traits, the traits which are in actuality common in any human society from beginning of time. In essence, it is an attempt to invalidate a theory by sophistry, attempt to attribute the evils of human nature to a particular ideology in a smear campaign. (Igny (talk) 23:46, 27 December 2009 (UTC))

Termer: if the article Inquisition were titled "Mass killings by Christians", that would be an inappropriate title. Igny: if Wikipedia needs an article about "Similarities and differences between Nazism and Communism", then it should have such an article, but this isn't it. The article exists for only one reason, to single out bad things about commies, and not to mention any good things about commies or bad things about non-commies. That makes it propaganda, pure and simple. Rick Norwood (talk) 19:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you shoudl try out your logic on articles relating to the Final Solution. Because by your logic, since no articles on the Final Solution are favourable to its instigators, the articles must be propaganda, pure and simple. Except they are not; and nor is this.--Toddy1 (talk) 20:24, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Articles about actual events with specific causes are acceptable, including the Final Solution, the Killing Fields, etc. What is unacceptable is to group together a series of unrelated events and create a new concept. For example, we could group the Final Solution with the My Lai Massacre and call it right-wing genocide, group the My Lai Massacre with the Black Hole of Calcutta and call it Aryan genocide, group the Black Hole with the Killing Fields and call it Asian genocide, etc. Propaganda is arranging real and false information in order to establish a defend a political position, in this case that Communism (and by extention any ideology that deviates from libertarianism) is inherently evil. The Four Deuces (talk) 20:44, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: "Perhaps you should try out your logic on articles relating to the Final Solution". This argument doesn't work because Nazims spanned much shorter period than Communism did, and it was geographically limited with the Third Reich. Therefore, when we write about Nazi mass killings, it is quite clear that we mean a Hitler's regime, because we had (fortunately) no other Nazi regimes. Therefore, the titles and articles like the Final Solution are absolutely justified. By contrast, as Valentino correctly writes, not all Communist regimes perpetrated mass killings. Moreover, even those Communist states that committed mass killings did that only during limited periods of their history. For instance, mass killings in the USSR took place only during the Civil war (when there were no USSR but RSFSR, and when both sides killed each other in about the same extent), and during Stalin's rule (when, according to some scholars, that was a result of Stalin's desire to seize and maintain a dictator's power in the country). Therefore, although it is possible to discuss crimes of some Communist regimes during some periods of their history, it is incorrect to combine them into the article like this in the manner it is doing in its present form.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:21, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

RE:Rick Norwoodon "Mass killings by Christians". So? This article is not called "Mass killings by Communists" not even "Mass killings by Communist regimes" but Mass killings under Communist regimes. In case you really think this article is not based on facts but is propaganda, please go ahead and take it to the 4th AfD.--Termer (talk) 21:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I still say that this will not be a viable topic unless Wikipedia also has an article of "mass killings under capitalist regimes" which allows massive WP:SYNTH to try to prove an ideological connection between capitalism and mass murder. Simonm223 (talk) 21:45, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Mass killings under some Communist regimes?

On page 91 of his book Valentino writes:

"Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as Communist or been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing"

In other words, Valentino considers Communist mass killings regime specific, not Communism specific. In connection to that, his statement on the same page (that the Mass killings have occurred in the Soviet Union under Stalin, the People's Republic of China under Mao, and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and also appeared to have been carried out by the communist regimes in North Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe and Africa) seems completely obscure. Since the only Communist regimes (besides Cuba) were in the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, Indo-China and, possibly, Africa, and all of them did commit mass killings, what most regimes that have described themselves as Communist or been described as such by others did not commit mass killing? In my opinion, by selectively quoting the page 91 one can write two quite different texts.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

How about Mass killings under some regimes that described themselves as Communist?(Igny (talk) 15:49, 27 December 2009 (UTC))

I don't speak about changing the article's name now. My point is different. The Valentino's main idea is not clear for me: from the page 91 we can conclude that mass killings were both Communism specific and regime specific. The text on the page 91 looks ambiguously, so selective quoting is not acceptable.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:10, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

"Some" versus "most". Quite possibly Valentino differentiated between USSR regimes under Stalin and under Khruschev, for example. (Igny (talk) 19:26, 27 December 2009 (UTC))

Valentino's concept of mass killing was that governments committed mass killings in order to achieve personal or ideological objectives and did not create a separate category of communist mass killings. He used the examples of Communist regimes because their mass killings were most clearly ideologically driven. He also described mass killings that were genocide (Armenia, Nazi Germany and Rwanda) and counter-insurgency (Afghanistan, Guatemala). This is a complete rejection of the revisionist views found in The Black Book and other right-wing pseudohistories. The Four Deuces (talk) 19:43, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

That is true. So let's summarize briefly which sources can be used as a support for the statement that mass killings under Communists were Communism specific (in addition to Black Book)?--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:45, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

François Furet seems to have developed the theory before The Black Book and was supposed to be its editor, so he should be mentioned. It seems he adopted his theories on Communism from his earlier interpretation of the French Revolution, which itself is based on the ultra-royalist interpretation. But I think rather than relying on primary sources for the theory we should use secondary sources that describe the theory from a neutral point of view. There is a critical difference between this article and e.g. an article about mass killings under Pol Pot. In the second case there is a clear connection between an event and a regime, while in this article there is no such connection. The Four Deuces (talk) 22:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems the chapter titled Communist mass killings: The Soviet Union, China , and Cambodia in the book called Final solutions by Valentino speaks for itself. About the communists who haven't killed anybody in the effort bringing the paradise on to Earth, I hear that in India there are some communists elected into local parliaments in some provinces. I'm not sure if that can be called a "communist regime" though. Other than that, all this sounds familiar, a little like "guns (read ideologies) don't kill people, people do". --Termer (talk) 22:42, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is something that might interest you, and could educate the reader who is ignorant of Communism: According to John Weiss from Lehman College, CUNY: [4] "Lenin and Stalin replaced Marxism with a tyrannical, totalitarian and terrorist doctrine, in accordance with their belief that, by the use of force, they could skip the "bourgeois-capitalist" phase of history that Marx insisted must come before socialism? Bolshevism had nothing to do with the original ideas of Marx and Engels, let alone with the peaceful and democratic socialism of the West." In case similar opinions can be found about the communist regimes in China and Cambodia, theat should do it what you're after here.--Termer (talk) 23:07, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Termer, you should let Valentino speak for himself. He does not posit a theory of "communist mass killings" but uses that title for case studies. He did not think that mass killing was an objective of Communism (or of any other government for that matter) but was used to achieve personal and ideological objectives of its leaders, which varied according to the resistance encountered and individual choices by leaders. The revisionist theory is that Communism is inherently evil, that mass killing is a central tenet of Communism and that secret instructions can be found in The lost literature of communism. We must not confuse legitimate academic sources with fringe theories. The Four Deuces (talk) 23:27, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Termer, the problem with your source (which presents a mainstream although minority view) is that it contradicts the concept of "communist mass killings". According to your source the terror of Lenin and Stalin had nothing to do with communism (they had replaced Marx). Furthermore it does not explain any connection between mass killings in the Soviet Union and mass killings in communist countries that were not ruled by Lenin and Stalin. It is not enough to find independent analyses of events in China and Cambodia. There must be a connection between all three countries. The Four Deuces (talk) 23:49, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: "It seems the chapter titled Communist mass killings: The Soviet Union, China , and Cambodia in the book called Final solutions by Valentino speaks for itself." The quote on the section's top has been taken from this very chapter. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Termer, could you please take this conversation seriously. The names given to articles do not indicate the arguments given. If you believe that Valentino advanced a theory, could you please indicate what he said about it. The Four Deuces (talk) 06:23, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Valentino, Final Solutions, 93 is reasonably clear, "Why did the communist utopias of the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia become history's greatest slaughterhouses? I argue that radical communist regimes have proven such prodigious killers primarily because the social changes they sought to bring about have resulted in the sudden and complete material and political dispossession of millions of people." Yet again, its a subset of his dispossessive mass killing theoretical category, and there is no uniquely communist element to this, in fact, "It is the revolutionary desire to bring about the rapid and radical transformation of society that distinguishes radical communist regimes from all other forms of government, including less violent communist regimes and noncommunist, authoritarian governments." (93). A particularly sloppy theoretical category, especially given the rapid and radical transformation of society which occurred, for example, in the DRVN, without mass killing in his schema. But important for noting that Valentino's case study on communists explicitly rules out communist examples: it is an example, not a type or category. I am, however, reserving judgement until I read the work above in full after the fourth. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:06, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

He also discusses this in the introduction where he states that personal and ideological objectives of leaders drive mass killings (rather than ideology), but I can no longer access these pages on Google Books. The Four Deuces (talk) 17:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The theoretical question "Why" also looked into by Valentino is completely secondary in the context and can be answered by common sense or by reading Animal farm. The fact is such killings occurred under regimes that were ruled by Communist parties and there is nothing more to it. Since Valentino also speaks about "radical communist regimes" in the context, we could rename this article into Mass killings under radical communist regimes perhaps.--Termer (talk) 21:49, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Animal farm? No, let's rely on non-fiction sources. As I remember the book, Orwell subscribed to the the Trotskyist view that the revolution was betrayed, so mass killing in the Soviet union was Stalin's fault. (Lenin and Trotsky are seen sympathetically.) The original pigs were well-intentioned but the bad pigs took over. This is in total contradiction to the right-wing view that mass killings is an inherent attribute of communism. The Four Deuces (talk) 18:26, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Should we try again to just delete the article?

I understand one attempt to delete the article failed, I suspect because not enough people knew about it. It isn't, after all, a title people are apt to do a search for. But now it has attacted the attention of some rational people. Maybe we should try again. Clearly, Wikipedia is not the place for articles whose very title indicates obvious bias. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:34, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

The typical argument of deletion's opponents was that Communist mass killings is a well recognized and widely accepted concept. They provide a number of rightist sources as a support, and formally they are right. The problem is that those scholars who do not study Communist mass killings as something pertinent to Communism as an ideology, but do studies on separate Communist countries rarely write explicitly that the Communist mass killing is a flawed concept. As a result, we have two groups of scholars, one of them openly supports the Communist mass killings (murders, genocide, etc) idea, whereas another one does not support it. Since the second group's scholars do not proclaim their view explicitly preferring to focus on more concrete tasks, we hear the voice of only one side. This is a pretext anti-Communist editors are using to prevent this article's deletion.
What we really can do is to convert the article from the list of all known cases of excess mortality under Communist rule (united under the name "Communist mass killing") into the comparison of different scholars' opinions on which of these events were mass killings and how are they pertinent to Communism as an ideology (a thing I proposed many times).--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:18, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Suppose I were to start an article titled "Bad things done by Republican presidents". I'm sure I could find a number of left-wing authors who wrote books on that subject. It still wouldn't be an appropriate title for a Wikipedia article. Rick Norwood (talk) 16:43, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

You could re-nominate it for deletion, merge it with another article, break it up into individual topics or treat it as a fringe theory. As the article is now written however it suffers from both bias and synthesis. The Four Deuces (talk) 17:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: "Suppose I were to start an article titled..." That is correct, however, I believe after reading this [5], this [6] and this [7] you will agree that much more serious arguments are needed to achieve a consensus on the article's deletion. I personally do not believe it will be possible because some anti-Communist editors will use every formal reason to avoid a consensus. In my opinion, to modify the article to conform it with its name (this is possible, because some mass killings did take place under Communist rule) would be much more realistic goal.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

A number of the editors who defended the article in the past have now been blocked. See EEML.[8] Also, some of the editors who originally supported the article have changed their minds after finding that there are no academic sources for the topic. On the other hand, various editors continue to vigorously defend the article and many Wikipedia editors will defend the existence of any article. Incidentally there are several related articles: Communist terrorism and Putinism are examples. The Four Deuces (talk) 19:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: "A number of the editors who defended the article in the past have now been blocked." Although majority of them were my opponents, I think it is not honest to use their topic ban to push new article deletion. Although I personally support the deletion, I am not sure we have a moral right to do that if EEML editors oppose it (I am intended to ask their opinion if new AfD procedure will be initiated). Only in the case if majority editors really changed their mind will I support the article's deletion. We can ask informally for opinion of most editors who worked on this article during last months. If they don't mind to delete the article, AfD nomination makes sense. Otherwise, it would be more realistic to refocus the article to the mass killings concept and to made a major stress on Valentono's works (because he seems to coin this term), plus discuss various controversies over this term.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:21, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

While I am one of those who have changed their mind about the article and would now vote to delete, I strongly support Paul Siebert's point here - another AfD is highly unlikely to result in a consensus, and would most likely be very counter-productive. --Anderssl (talk) 23:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Given that this article has had three AFDs, and last one was in November, it seems inappropriate to go through it all yet again.--Toddy1 (talk) 20:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd still vote to Delete. This article is the same pile of anti-communist POV crap it's always been. Simonm223 (talk) 20:59, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I would still vote delete as well, but there is a valid point made above that we might be better off first seeing what a non-OR version of this page would look like. My sense is that ultimately such a page will become a showcase for Valentino's work, and then the content could be merged to a page about Valentino, as would be most appropriate. By the way, Four Deuces is correct that the communist terrorism page is a similar one to this; in fact, I think it is far more problematic (at least here we have Valentino -- on that page there is no reliable source whatsoever for a concept of "communist terrorism"!). It may be time to re-list that page for deletion. In fact it survived AfD in the past thanks primarily to cooperation among EEML members (though long before anyone knew of the existence of the list). It has been well over a year since the previous AfD; it would be interesting to see where an AfD discussion would go on that page today. csloat (talk) 00:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually the article was only nominated for deletion once. It was nominated for deletion twice when it was Communist Genocide, but EEML decided after the first nomination that they would change the name during the next nomination in order to get around WP:SYN and WP:POV objections. The name was changed during the second nomination and therefore there has been only one AfD under the current title. Since EEML, which had over ten members, is now blocked from this article, the outcome might be different. The Four Deuces (talk) 01:11, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Guys, I think you are attributing too much to the EEML (who btw are banned from EE topics, not general communism topics). The EEML had minimal input into this article as seen here. The move had broad concensus, only one EEML member voted, see the original move discussion. Note that the AfD was actually opened after the move request, as this discussion indicates here. --Martin (talk) 05:35, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a specific mention that this article is excluded? If not, I will file a Request for Clarification from Arbcom. The Four Deuces (talk) 06:48, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Please do ask for clarification; it seemed very clear to me from the discussion on the proposed remedies that articles such as this one were very definitely included in the ban. csloat (talk) 07:44, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I will give Martintg time to respond, because I will have to notify all involved parties of the request. In the meantime, I suggest that we do not nominate the article for deletion or merger, or conduct any major re-writes until that issue has been resolved. The Four Deuces (talk) 08:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the article should be deleted. There appears to be no clarity as to what the title actually means, and it is inherently impossible for it to sit above an article that conforms to NPOV. EEML I know knothing of, but if there is a suspicion that past attempts at deletion have been unfairly subverted, then that makes any new attempt virgin territory. --FormerIP (talk) 07:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Recent edits [9] may serve as an argument in support of the article's deletion: the article with such a name seems to have a strong tendency to evolve into the catalogue of Communist crimes, an another version of the Black Book of Communism. That mean that, probably, my proposal (to convert the article into something neutral and non-OR instead of deleting) will not work.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

{undent}I'm willing to wait for the Four Deuces to get the clarification requested prior to posting another AfD but, looking at this discussion topic, I think an AfD would be appropriate. Simonm223 (talk) 20:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I have made a request to Arbcom for clarification whether the EEML topic bans applies to this article.[10] The Four Deuces (talk) 07:12, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Astounding -- the purpose of ArbCom is not to make it easy to disqualify everyone who disagrees from editing -- the case involved co-ordinated efforts at AfD, and has precious little to do with any disputes here. It is better to deal with disparate points of view than to simply try to get those with other points of view disqualified from the article. Collect (talk) 14:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Could you please assume good faith. According to Arbcom, there was off-wiki canvassing on this article to bring people who had the same point of view. The proper course of action is to invite comment from the wider WP community. The Four Deuces (talk) 14:50, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

The place to handle content disputes is here. Not with ArbCom. And Tznkai was right about using EEML as a modern shout of "witch!" (vide Monty Python). Collect (talk) 15:03, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

It is difficult to handle content disputes when extensive canvassing has taken place. You should re-read our previous discussion about canvassing. The Four Deuces (talk) 15:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you asserting current canvassing? Collect (talk) 15:35, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I wrote "According to Arbcom, there was off-wiki canvassing on this article...." As you can see I am not asserting anything but repeating their findings. The Four Deuces (talk) 15:44, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

IOW, no canvassing at this point by a long shot. Collect (talk) 15:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

NO - This article is of high importance, given the amount of casualties. It should be continued and adapted following WP regulations. Facts, referenced, should be listed. --Stijn Calle (talk) 15:40, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

How do you propose we adapt this article to follow WP regulations? The Four Deuces (talk) 15:44, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

AGF and seek consensus on the talk page instead of using multiple noticeboard attempts to simply excise those with who you disagree. Collect (talk) 15:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's not pretend that the reason for deleting this article is because anyone disputes the imporantce of the events described. These events are already the subject of separate articles. The problem with this article is original research in the form of unjustified synthesis -- bringing together a lot of bad things that happened under communist regimes, without offering any evidence that the bad things happened because the regimes were communist. Bad things happen under every form of government, and no form of government is all bad, so what (other than the obvious -- anti-communist propaganda) is the justification for this article? Rick Norwood (talk) 17:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

The article suffers from the same problems as this one did. I suspect a number of editors can't see beyond the façade of a "well-researched article", created by the sheer number of sources used. _{Óðinn ☭☆ talk} 18:44, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Synthesis is advancing a new position, what new position is being advanced in this article that has not already been published by Benjamin Valentino, John Gray, Eric Weitz, Ronit Lenṭin, Rebecca Knuth, Peter A. Zuckerman and Benjamin Wiker? --Martin (talk) 20:22, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

RE: Rick Norwood, concerns like "original research in the form of unjustified synthesis -- bringing together a lot of bad things that happened under communist regimes" should be taken for example to Cornell University Press & Benjamin Valentino Ph.D. who have published/written on Communist mass killings; To Helen Fein a founder and first President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars who has written on Soviet and Communist Genocides and Democide etc.--Termer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

This article is now included in Wapedia under the category of "historical revisionism (political).[11] The Four Deuces (talk) 23:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

In what way is that relevant here? Collect (talk) 00:25, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The mainstream considers what you are promoting to be a conspiracy theory. While Wikipedia should describe conspiracy theories, it is actually embarrassing that this article promotes one. The Four Deuces (talk) 03:38, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

What are you alleging is the "conspiracy"? Seems to me that the article relies on what reliable sources say, which is how WP articles are supposed to be written. It is not up to any editor to "know" the truth, nor is it proper for editors to use what they "know" (see Josh Billings) as the basis for edits. Collect (talk) 03:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Although mass killings occurred under Communist regimes occurred, the theory of "mass killings under Communist regimes" is a conspiracy theory. It is basically an update of the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It is a manichaean view that divides the world between good and evil. The theory simply does not exist in reliable sources. If you want to promote this and other conspiracy theories, you should contribute to conspiracy theory websites and remember that Wikipedia articles should present mainstream views, not conspiracy theories. BTW I am not wearing a tin foil hat so maybe that skews my viewpoint. The Four Deuces (talk) 04:03, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Hyperbole does not work. Making statements that it is like the Protocols serves not to advance any position you have. And kindly do not assert that I am promoting any "conspiracy theories" - my position here is solely that WP policies and guidelines must be followed. Thanks! Collect (talk) 04:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC) Collect (talk) 04:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

All you are doing is taking an historic conspiracy theory and renaming it, although it does not exist in academic literature. It is similar to when Americans renamed their theory "separate but equal". If it is not a conspiracy theory, please provide evidence that any reliable sources have ever promoted it. The Four Deuces (talk) 05:13, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)Agreed that it is incorrect to speak that the Communist mass killings concept is a pure OR. However, since the term was coined by Valentino, the article has to present views of Valentino and few scholars who share these ideas, and that should be stated explicitly. It is possible (and necessary) to include also the works of scholars who criticise or question this concept. Any other sources, that have not been cited by Valentino and similar authors and that do not address the term "mass killings" (e.g. the sources that use "mass murders", "victims of Stalinism", "population losses" etc.) should be removed from the article, because their introduction constitutes WP:SYNTH. The article with such a name can exist only in a form similar to the Black Book of Communism article, i.e. not as an article about the events, but as an article about the concept. If, for some reason, it is impossible, the article should be deleted.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I do not think it is correct to say that Valentino coined the concept "Communist mass killings". Rather he used the term "mass killings" and used Communist regimes as examples. The concept does not exist in serious academic writing. The Four Deuces (talk) 12:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

IOW, you do not find Valentino to be an RS despite the fact that a great number of others do find it RS? BTW, I find it hard to claim that a murder is not a "killing" -- while not all killings are murder, all murders are killings. Collect (talk) 13:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea what you mean. Valentino is a reliable source. Your comment "I find it hard to claim that a murder is not a "killing"" is a non sequitur. The Four Deuces (talk) 13:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: "I do not think it is correct to say that Valentino coined the concept "Communist mass killings"." You are right that Valentino didn't propose a "Communist mass killing" concept. However, it is incorrect to say that he just used the term "mass killing". Frank W. Wayman and Atsushi Tago in their article "Explaining the Onset of Mass Killing, 1949–87" (Journal of Peace Research, September 23, 2009, p. 1-17.) write:

"Our term, ‘mass killing’, is used by Valentino (2004: 10), who aptly defines it as ‘the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants’."

I believe these words mean that it was Valentino who introduced a definition of "mass killing" (not "Communist mass killing"). Interestingly, the authors contrapose the Valentino concept of mass killings and Rummel's democide. According to these authors, Valentino didn't consider mass killings as something pertinent to Communism, whereas Rummel insisted that direct linkage exists between Communism and democide (not mass killings). Wayman and Tago statistically analyzed existing data sets (leaving the question of measurement biases beyond the scope) to establish statistically significant correlations between types of regime and probability of mass killings/democides. They concluded that:

"It would therefore appear (assuming for the moment that there are not any big measurement biases) that autocratic regimes, especially communist, are prone to mass killing generically, but not so strongly inclined (i.e. not statistically significantly inclined) toward geno-politicide."

My conclusions are
(i) To mix Rummel (geno-democide) and Valentino (mass killings) in the article named "Communist mass killings" is synthesis
(ii)"Communist mass killings" form a "mass killings" subset, and Valentino have never proposed "Communist mass killing" to be a separate concept.
(iii) To claim that democide is something pertinent to Communism is incorrect.
(iv) The article's name seems to be a result of selective use of Valentino's "mass killing" (not "Communist mass killing") term, and, probably, is inappropriate.
The more I read about amss killings the more I realize that we have only two options: either to clean the article from OR and Synth (and constantly wacthlist it to prevent these stuff from re-introduction) or to delete it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Another way to resoleve this issue is to create a Mass Killings (not mass murder) article and to move there all considerations on different definitions of mass killings, democide, genocide, politicide etc, as well as their applicability to crimes of differnt type regime. A subsection named "Comminist mass killing" can be created in this new article (along with the corresponding daughter article).--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

An idea that the scholars do not speak about the same subject while referring to either Communist mass killings, or Communist genocide, Communist democide or politicide etc and therefore its SYNTH here can't be taken seriously. And Genocides in History can always expanded so that it would list all state sponsored mass killings/genocides/democides/politicides.--Termer (talk) 19:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

No, An idea that the scholars do speak about the same subject while referring to either Communist mass killings, or Communist genocide, Communist democide or politicide etc and therefore its SYNTH here can't be taken seriously. The Four Deuces (talk) 20:03, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

(out) I do not think that Valentino created a Communist subset, he merely included case studies from Communist countries in one chapter. Note that his book also covered mass killings by the USSR in Afghanistan under a chapter about counter-insurgency, along with killings by right-wing regimes. This article could be expanded to a mass killing article and reflect mainstream academic views. On the other hand, it could concentrate on the fringe theory of Communist genocide, in which case Valentino's theory would only be relevant as a rebuttal to the fringe theory. The Four Deuces (talk) 19:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"on the fringe theory of Communist genocide": Calling for example Helen Fein a founder and the first President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars who has termed the mass state killings in the Soviet Union and Cambodia as the "Soviet and Communist genocides and Democide" a fringe theorist is not a serious argument. But in case you insist, we can take it to WP:FTN.--Termer (talk) 20:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you read the sources you are providing, rather than quoting Google Book snippets. Helen Fein did not promote the theory of Communist genocide any more than Valentino promoted a theory of Communist mass killings. The Four Deuces (talk) 20:32, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: "An idea that the scholars do not speak about the same subject while referring to either Communist mass killings...". Please, read carefully texts you are going to question. Wayman and Tago write clearly that there is no statistically significant correlations between Communism and geno-politicides, whereas some correlation exists between authoritarian regimes (especially Communist) and mass killing. By writing that they explicitly contrapose mass killing and geno-politicide. In addition, they took Rummel's numbers "as is", leaving the question of their validity (questionable, or highly questionable, according to some scholars) beyond the scope.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: "Helen Fein did not promote the theory of Communist genocide any more than Valentino promoted a theory of Communist mass killings." Correct. Helen Fein is very highly cited [12] (by standards of human sciences area), and therefore, is for sure a RS, however, her point of view differs from what Termer thinks about that. In her article devoted to a comparison between Communist genocide (Cambodia) and Anti-Communist Genocide (Indonesia), (Helen Fein. Revolutionary and Antirevolutionary Genocides: A Comparison of State Murders in Democratic Kampuchea, 1975 to 1979, and in Indonesia, 1965 to 1966. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 796-823) she concludes that although "in terms of social structure and problems, there were few similarities between Cambodia and Indonesia", there were some common features between these two genocides, and the differences are not attributable to Communist ideology. ("What Asian communism, fascism, Sukarno's Guided Democracy, Lon Nol's authoritarianism, and the succeeding New Order of the generals, have in common is their disdain for liberal democracy, the limits of constitutionalism and rules, and the personalization of enemies. Which form of authoritarianism wins out depends on many contingencies."). It also worth noting that Fein uses almost no references to Communist ideology in her analysis of Khmer Rouge's regime, drawing more parallelism between KR and Nazism ("But upon closer examination, the xenophobic ideology of the KR regime resembles more an almost forgotten phenomenon of national socialism, which Becker (1986) calls fascism. Such regimes themselves evoke the threats that demand purges, promoting paranoid myths of persecution or anticipated persecution as a means of inciting solidarity (Fein 1991).") Fein also sees many common features in behaviour of the US, who supported Indonesian massacre, and PRC, who supported Khmer Rouge ("The United States has supported Indonesia since then uncritically, supplying arms despite mass killing and genocide in West Irian and East Timor. China has continued to arm the KR, which, many informed observers believe, still has the capacity to come back in Cambodia, given the negotiated truce concluded with the participation of the permanent members of the Security Council. Thus, both superpowers defend their clients consistently.").

Another interesting conclusion drawn by Fein is there were no significant connection between post 1945 genocides and ideology:

"However, while totalitarian states have been more likely to commit genocide than are other states, most cases of contemporary genocide since World War II were committed by authoritarian, not totalitarian states, and are not ascribable to ideology."

My conclusion is that Fein cannot be used as a support of the article's claim. I haven't done appropriate changes in the article because I see that the article's concept is intrinsically flawed (see WP:COAT and WP:CHERRY), so minor modifications cannot improve it. --Paul Siebert (talk) 22:23, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

PS. Another Fein's article is devoted to comparison between Warsaw Ghetto, Sudan and Cambodia ("Genocide by attrition is epitomized by the Warsaw Ghetto (1939-43), Democratic Kampuchea (1975-79), and Sudan (1983-93)."(Helen Fein. Genocide by Attrition 1939-1993: The Warsaw Ghetto, Cambodia, and Sudan: Links between Human Rights, Health, and Mass Death. Health and Human Rights, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1997), pp. 10-45) Again, almost no mention of Communism.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:37, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I can read the source rather well. What Helen Fein says in the chapter titled Soviet and Communist Genocides and Democide is that "in the last decade advances have been made in scholarship on genocides and mass state killings -sometimes termed politicide- in the Soviet Union and Cambodia, and much remains to be learned about China and other communist states." well, that was back in 1993, until than the cap on China has been filled.--Termer (talk) 03:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Then should also have read, "As Soviet archives are opened and independent scholars gain access to new sources, we can expect more critical scholarship in this area". Helen Fein does not promote the conspiracist view of Communist genocide. The Four Deuces (talk) 03:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea if anybdoy is promoting "conspiracist view of Communist genocide". It just the way Helen Fein has called the state mass killings in countries that were run by communist parties. and she seems is right on with "independent scholars gain access to new sources..." that may explain why Valentino has much more on the subject.--Termer (talk) 03:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: "I can read the source rather well." I am not sure. Although Fein writes about killings in Cambodia or early USSR or China (and no one can question the fact that that they did occur), she never writes about Communist mass killings as some phenomenon specific to Communism. By contrast, the quote provided by me demonstrates that she does not consider these events to be specific to Communism as ideology.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:28, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea if Heln Fein "considers these events to be specific to Communism as ideology". She just titles the chapter that looks into those state mass killings with words Soviet and Communist Genocides and Democide. And even the common sense can tell that ideology doesn't kill people, not Christianity or communism, its people who use ideologies to justify their hunger for power. Please see Pioneers of genocide studies By Samuel Totten, Steven L. Jacobs pp. 168 [13] "How can we undrestand all this killing by communists? It is the marriage of an absolute power with an absolutist ideology. Communists believed that they knew the truth, absolutely...etc."--Termer (talk) 04:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Again Termer could you please read the sources you provide before offering them to the discussion. The quote you provide is actually from a chapter written by R. J. Rummel, and does not reflect the views of the editors. The Four Deuces (talk) 05:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I do apologize for not pointing out who was the author of the chapter in the book exactly. I ensure you though that I read the sources before and not after citing anything.--Termer (talk) 07:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

People's Republic of Poland - again

A new section has been added for Poland with different content from the last insertion. Almost none of the new section relates to mass killings. Furthermore, I do not see why these killings should be included. One of the mass killings was a group of 100 to 200 soldiers which is only a fraction of the supposed 100,000,000+ total Communist mass killings. The Four Deuces (talk) 11:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The section that was inserted (and you immediately deleted) explains what happened after the Soviet back into Poland in 1944 in too much detail for this article. Broadly speaking Soviet Forces and collaborators arrested about two million people of whom about 20,000 were murdered. I think a summary has a place in this article, with a reference to an article that goes into more detail.

Imagine if the Soviet Forces had behaved like British troops in France, Belgium and Holland. In that case it would be perfectly reasonable to have a short section quoting that as an example of where mass killing did not occur. Unfortunately the Soviets were not like the British. --Toddy1 (talk) 13:30, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Since 20,000 represents 1/50 of 1% out of 100M victims of Communism, you need to explain why it is significant. Also, since the 2M arrested were not killed they do not belong in this article. The Four Deuces (talk) 13:50, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: "Unfortunately the Soviets were not like the British" Unfortunately the Eastern front was not like the Western front. The overall scale of hostilities, their duration, Nazi crimes' scale and degree of collaboration were much greater in the East than in the West. therefore, it is deeply incorrect to attribute to Communists those things that are explained just by overall brutality of the war. And, please, take into account that, 20,000 may include those who collaborated or were believed to collaborate with Nazi. Contrary to contemporary Poles' opinion, Poles did collaborate with Nazi during WWII (to some extent). Another category was the Home Army members, however, this was a counterguerillaactivity, not Communist crimes.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Not that its directly related to anything here really but once you brought it up Paul, the Eastern front was not like the Western front, and that was so because of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol.--Termer (talk) 21:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

You are right. It is not related at all. (Igny (talk) 22:15, 31 December 2009 (UTC))

Re: "...that was so because of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol..." By saying that you step into the realm named "WhatIf". Was MRP a necessary condition for WWII, or it prevented an even worse scenario? Different opinions exist on that account and I am not sure truth is possible to establish. However, two things are obvious. First, if MRP made WWII's outbreak possible, its secret protocol added nothing to that, because the only thing Hitler needed was Soviet neutrality. Second, brutality of the Eastern front were a result of vehement ideological and racial opposition, that was absent in the West (and neither MRP nor its secret protocol had any relation to that). Your statement about MRP reflects a local POV and is irrelevant here.
Anyway, I wish you happy New year and hope that in next year we will find some point on which our opinions will coincide.
Good luck.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:48, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not here to exchange personal opinions with anybody Paul but only to provide wikipedia readers with facts and opinions according to secondary published sources. Therefore in case you can keep what you call "our opinions" out of the picture, we will coincide. Happy New Year!--Termer (talk) 20:34, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: "I'm not here to exchange personal opinions with anybody" You statement about Molotov-Ribbentrop pact implies that you are. Anyway, although I also think Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is absolutely irrelevant here, a relaxed Dec 31st's atmosphere is favouravle for some off-topic posts. I apologize for that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

So what is the way to proceed?

Apparently there is no need to AfD this article. Most of the content if not all is salvageable. Following Paul's arguments above, and keeping in mind arguments of Valentino's adherents, material from genocides in history, mass murders, and this article could be summarized in mass killings in history. However, one of the problems may be the length of the new article (see similar issues at genocides in history). Even though many incidents have their own articles, even summaries of so many articles may run up to a long article. Which could potentially lead to splitting parts of the article into subarticles, say by some common criteria, such as common ideology. And we are back to square one, dealing with communist mass killings, religious mass killings, democratic mass killings, or mass killing in 1940s, 1950s, etc... Any thoughts? (Igny (talk) 02:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC))

Try copyediting to reduce verbiage. There is, as far as I can tell, agreement that the distinction between "murders" not being "killings" fails. There is also agreement that a great number of people died as a result of either deliberate actions, or acts which could have reasonably expected to cause deaths, by the regimes listed. There is, moreover, little need to expound at length on any single event for which another article on WP exists (including articles dealiing with broader historical material on a country) - in such cases a precis of the article is sufficient. I would also suggest that, perforce, the article deals primarily with mass killings post-WW I. I think adding in Caesar's killing of Gauls simply would not make sense <g>. Collect (talk) 02:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

How about mass killings in 20th century? (Igny (talk) 03:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC))

This article is about the terms like Communist genocide, democide used by scholars like Helen Fein, Rummel etc. I see no reasons to expand this article by adding Caravan of Death, Operation Condor etc. to it. That would be WP:SYNTH indeed.--Termer (talk) 03:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

...whereas the article as it is is merely a vanilla form of WP:SYNTH? "Terms used by scholars" looks like self delusion. "Communist genocide" is very clearly not a category commonly employed by scholars, which is what would be required to justify this article. --FormerIP (talk) 03:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Wasn't Final solutions: mass killing and genocide in the twentieth century (By Benjamin A. Valentino) your own argument against SYNTH tag in this article? Did you read the book at all? (Igny (talk) 03:15, 3 January 2010 (UTC))

Either "Communist genocide" is a common term, I don't know. But in case it's not, thats why the article has a descriptive title borrowed from Valentino "Mass killings under Communist regimes".--Termer (talk) 03:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, Valentino's book is on mass killings in 20th century, right? Or you skipped all the chapters but one? I wonder why. (Igny (talk) 03:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC))

Well, nothing should prevent anybodoy writing articles according to Valentino. So why not have articles about Ethnic mass killings and Counterguerrilla Mass killings, and once those are there, why not have an umbrella article mass killings in 20th century. Just that what has all this to do with the current subject?--Termer (talk) 03:34, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The best way forward may be to treat it like any other fringe theory like "Ancient astronauts". Following the lead there the article could begin:

According to some revisionist historians, Communist ideology was the cause of mass killings in the Soviet Union, Maoist China and other Communist regimes. These theories have been popularized, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century, by writers Furet, Conquest, Gray etc. Such theories have not received support within the academic community, and have received little or no attention in peer-reviewed studies from historical journals.

We could then describe the evolution of the theories, various versions, and reasons for their popularity, then explain how mainstream historians view these events. Again, "Ancient Astronauts" could serve as a model for the layout of the article.

The Four Deuces (talk) 03:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been looking forward to seeing how "mainstream historians view these events" according to The Four Deuces? That would be a valuable addition to this article.--Termer (talk) 04:59, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I suggest then that you read the current discussion threads where various editors have explained mainstream opinion which is reflected in the writings of Valentino and Fein.

(edit conflict)Re: "This article is about the terms like Communist genocide, democide used by scholars like Helen Fein" Please, re-read the Fein's conclusion: "However, while totalitarian states have been more likely to commit genocide than are other states, most cases of contemporary genocide since World War II were committed by authoritarian, not totalitarian states, and are not ascribable to ideology". In connection to that, I do not see how can her works be used as a support of "theories" that combine different mass killings that took place in quite different countries accidentally declaring that they follow the Communist doctrine. I believe the "Comminust mass killing" is no more relevant name than "Mass killing in countries with names starting from 'A' - 'F'".--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course her work cannot be used to support the theories of Communist genocide any more than the works of archeologists can be used to support the Ancient astronauts theory. That is how fringe theories go. We report the fringe theory, identifying it as such, then present mainstream explanations. The Four Deuces (talk) 05:20, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't say so. Several scholars, including Rummel, proposed the concept of Communist democide (or something of that kind). this fact cannot be ignored. However, it doesn't mean that we can add cherry-picked statements of reputable scholars (who do not share these views) to these theories to give them a visibility of mainstream views.
In connection to that, the first step should be to change the article's name, because Valentino, an originator of the mass killing concept, did not propose Communist mass killing as a separate concept (according to him, ""Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as Communist or been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing". The article can be named, e.g. "Communist democide" and it can discuss Rummel's views on the role of Communism in XX century's mass mortality. The article can present the Rummel's views, theories of his few supporters, and POVs of other scholars, who, like Valentino, Fein, Wayman, et al, see no statistically significant connection between ideology and geno/democides.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I am not saying that the article should ignore R. J. Rummel. What it should do however is recognize that although he is an academic he has not submitted his "communist genocide" theory to peer review. In fact I can find no article advancing a theory that Communist ideology was a cause of mass killings except in non-academic writing. The theories do not appear in academic journals or in books published by university or academic publishers. That makes them fringe theories leaving us with an alternative: either base the article exclusively on academic sources (i.e., omitting the Black Book, etc.) or base it on the writings of revisionist historians in which case it should follow the guidelines for writing about fringe theories. The Four Deuces (talk) 06:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, maybe, a good start would be to clean the article from various (and dubious) "historic examples"? For instance, who concretely call Tibet genocide "Communist mass killing"?--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Helen Fein writes: there are instances where communist states have targetted specific groups which have been considered genocide by several genocide scholars in which deaths have been much greater; e.g. the Soviet Union in the Ukraine in 1933 and in the cases of the deported peoples during World War II, and China in Tibet in the 1950's. So I guess if the deaths in Tibet are not called Communist mass killings exactly, Mass killings under communist regimes like the article is titled would do fine.--Termer (talk) 07:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, let's look at complete Fein's paragraph:

"Communist states (excepting Cambodia where terror and genocide was combined) have killed far fewer people as a proportion of their total population than perpetrators of genocide have of the targetted groups: the Soviet Union, .42% (42 in 10,000) a year from 1917-1987; the Peoples Republic of China .12% a year (or 12 in 10,000) between 1949 and 1987 according to R. J. Rummel. (See Death by Government). However, there are instances where communist states have targetted specific groups which have been considered genocide by several genocide scholars in which deaths have been much greater; e.g. the Soviet Union in the Ukraine in 1933 and in the cases of the deported peoples during World War II, and China in Tibet in the 1950's."

It is clear from these words that: Firstly, Fein contraposes Communist states and "perpetrators of genocide", and, secondly, she refers to "several genocide scholars", who believe Holodomor, deportations and Tibet were genocides. It is clear that "several genocide scholars" is not a mainstream POV.
In addition, Fein draws her conclusions based no the Rummel's data whose approach has been severely criticized by other scholars. Moreover, Fein seems to consider the Guiness Book of World Records a reliable source. ("I will confine myself to the question of ranking atrocities by the numbers, based on the Guiness Book of World Records, a source not heretofore discovered by genocide scholars.") I cannot understand how can serious scholar do that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

PS. I would appreciate if in future you restrict yourself with quotes from peer-reviewed sources. That will allow us to speak more seriously.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Paul, please stop publishing personal analysis on sources on the talk page here, the source is available for anybody to read and it speaks for itself.--Termer (talk) 20:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The fact that we interpreted this source differently testifies that the source doesn't speak for itself.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Revolutionary terror

I read the following statement,

Communist states are alleged by some genocide scholars, such as Daniel Goldhagen and Benjamin Valentino, to be responsible for deaths far in excess of any other regime type.

and I noticed one important bit missing. That is the phrase "so far" at the end. I contend that the communist states combined hold that dubious record at the moment. Who held the previous records? I mean individual regimes and ideological teams? History of humankind knows a lot of mass killings, but I noticed two particular tendencies. One is that the number of victims rise with time as the population size increases. The other is an apparent link of many mass killings to revolutions. During revolutions when old systems get broken and new ones emerge there were always mass killings associated with the radical changes. The Reign of Terror is just one such example which occurred at the end of 18th century and resulted up to 40 thousand of rather random killings which is a rather significant number, considering the population size at the time, and yet no democide, or genocides in history, or the mass murder by state mention that event. They all seem to focus on the most recent emergence of a new ideology and that is the rise of communism. Was there a study of mass killings pertinent to revolutions, the breaking of the system, so to speak? (Igny (talk) 05:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC))

I am not sure we have to speak about that seriously. Valentino does not describe a procedure he used to obtain his numbers, and he doesn't disclose his sources. He writes that the numbers he presents were obtained by him by analysis (using unknown procedure) of "numerous" (unknown) sources. This does not satisfy a major criterion of good scientific research (verifiability) and is sufficient to fully ignore these numbers. Although his theory can be discussed seriously, his numbers cannot.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

the sources from where valentino gets the numbers are not unknown of course but clearly listed on page 275. Also Rummel has the list of sources here from where he gets his figures for what he calls communist democide.--Termer (talk) 07:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be unaware of the way good scholarly articles are written. Valentino lists these sources, but he does not explain which concrete sources from this list did he take, how did he resolved considerable inconsistencies between them and to which data did he give more weight. For example, there was a very long dispute between Conquest and Wheathcroft on the amount of Stalinism's victims. They discussed these question in very details, analyzed a huge amount of sources, but haven't come of agreement yet. And how it is possible to pretend to establish the number of Stalinism's victims using the data of these two reputable scholars just by "careful analysis" of these works? Valentino's statement is premature and arrogant. With regards to Rummel, please, re-read this talk page again. I provided the sources that demonstrate that Rummel's numbers are not reliable.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I see that you're being given the run around by Termer's tendentious and disruptive misquoting of sources. This has been a habit of Termer's and they haven't shown improvement. Attempting argument with Termer, or accepting quotes from Termer as substantiating argument is counterproductive to improving the article. Fifelfoo (talk) 16:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:NPA should be adhered to. Collect (talk) 18:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Collect, I have just read the NPA article and cannot see how those comments could be considered a personal attack. The Four Deuces (talk) 18:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: Collect. I believe, now we have to speak not about and WP:NPA, but WP:IDHT. I agree with Fifelfoo that it is unacceptable that I have to waste my time explaining (repeatedly) the same obvious things.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

People who think this article should be deleted need to lay off on the personal attacks, as well as the disruptive editing. Disruptive editing includes, IMHO, deleting reliable sources that don't agree with your POV. The habit here of discussing sources seems to be a prelude to the removal of the sources by folks who vote for deletion. We are not here to discuss sources but to improve the article. If you think that improving the article means deleting it - please abstain from editing it. If you think a source is not reliable; please take it to WP:RSN. There are repeated references to the "mainstream" that suggest the idea that Communists killed millions as a "fringe theory." Please give a reference to what this "mainstream" is - some sort of book or article. If you really think this article represents a "fringe" POV, take it up with the fringe theory folks - but I think they'll laugh at the idea. The facts are:

• Communist regimes killed something like 100 million people
• Scholars all over the world discuss this fact, and argue why they did it
• the majority of editors do not think that this article should be deleted

so trying to delete the article one source at a time is certainly disruptive editing. Smallbones (talk) 21:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: "seems to be a prelude to the removal of the sources by folks who vote for deletion" Correct. We either remove all irrelevant information from here, or (justified) attempts to delete the article will be constantly repeated.

Re: "We are not here to discuss sources but to improve the article." Sometimes it is necessary to remove reliable but irrelevant sources to convert an article into something reasonable.

Re: "Communist regimes killed something like 100 million people" Incorrect. These are estimations of some scholars who considered all premature deaths as a result of Communists' deliberate actions and as a consequence of implementation of the Communist doctrine. Many (if not majority) scholars (except some "genocide scholars") agree that it was not the case. In addition, the procedure these numbers were obtained was extensively criticized (see this talk page to find the sources that support both these ststements)

Re: "Scholars all over the world discuss this fact, and argue why they did it" Incorrect. The very number of ca 100 million is a subject of discussion, majority scholars disagree with it, and majority scholars discuss different Communist countries separately (or group them according to some traits other than adherence to a Communist doctrine, e.g. Cambodia vs Indonesia). See this talk page for sources.

Re: "the majority of editors do not think that this article should be deleted" It would be easy to demonstrate that it is a completely false statement, however, I don't have to do that. Fortunately, WP is not a democracy, so not a number of editors matters but the arguments they put forward and the sources they provide. I saw almost no fresh arguments in support of the article in its present form, and most sources provided by the article's proponents were either cherry-picked or irrelevant.

Re: "so trying to delete the article one source at a time is certainly disruptive editing". Please re-read WP:DE before throwing such accusations.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:22, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Smallbones, could you please assume good faith by not questioning the motives of other editors. The Four Deuces (talk) 22:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Smallbones questions our motives. He understand them quite correct: to convert the article into something readable by removal of tons of irrelevant (or marginally relevant) stuff, to fix the WP:COAT, WP:SYNTH, etc, and, if it is impossible, to delete the article completely. His problem is that he proposed no fresh arguments in support of his POV.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I repeat "Please give a reference to what this "mainstream" is - some sort of book or article." You keep saying that there is a fringe POV in this article. I'll call you on this again and again - Where is a statement of what you claim is mainstream? Smallbones (talk) 02:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

As I already mentioned, you can find the sources on this talk page. With regards to the validity of the the Rummel's numbers see archive 6 [14]. Interestingly, Rummel seems to be unaware of Wheathcroft's works, and Wheatyhcroft seems to ignore Rummel's "data" that may serve as a sign that he does not take him seriously (by contrast to, e.g. Conquest). Wayman and Tago (the ref can be found in the article) analyze Rummel's data, however, they admit that these data may be biased and leave the question of their validity beyond the scope.
With regards to your second point, since historians (not "genocide scholars") do not accept >100 million as ultimate truth, I don't see how can they "discuss this fact". Many historians consider Communist regimes separately, and this is a sign that they see no significant common traits in mass killings perpetrated by Communists, and, therefore, it is not correct to combine these events together in the same article. For sources, see Helen Fein ("However, while totalitarian states have been more likely to commit genocide than are other states, most cases of contemporary genocide since World War II were committed by authoritarian, not totalitarian states, and are not ascribable to ideology"), at this talk page[15]
--Paul Siebert (talk) 07:30, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a fringe view, as represented by the Black Book, Gray and the far right that Communist ideology is a cause of mass killings. That theory does not exist in mainstream, i.e., peer-reviewed academic literature. Examples of mainstream writers are Valentino and Fein. The Four Deuces (talk) 07:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Finally a straight answer to what is considered the mainstream: Valentino and Fein:

from Final solutions: mass killing and genocide in the twentieth century‬ By Benjamin A. Valentino [16] In Chapter 4. Communist Mass Killings, The Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia p.93

"Why did the communist utopias of the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia become history's greatest slaughterhouses? I argue that radical communist regimes have proven such prodigious killers primarily because the social changes they sought to bring about have resulted in the sudden and nearly complete material dispossession of millions of people. These regimes practiced social engineering of the highest order. It is the revolutionary desire to bring about the rapid and radical transformation of society that distinguishes radical communist regimes from all other forms of government, including less violent communist regimes and noncommunist, authoritarian governments."

Helen Fein -"The study also confirmed our expectation that genocide is most apt to be practiced by authoritarian states and (e)specially by one-party communist states, which were more than four times more likely to have committed genocide since 1945 than other unfree states were." [17]

This scholarship gives excellent examples of why the "synthesis" or "original research" arguments for deleting this article are pure nonsense.

One last question - Who says that the Black Black of Communism (published by Harvard University Press) is part of a fringe viewpoint? Smallbones (talk) 15:32, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You've engaged in the repeatedly criticised category and typology error. Valentino's category (I assert, I won't claim until I've read the thing this week), from his typological chapter is "Dispossessive mass killings." By decontextualising the chapter in a whole book the claim appears to be a unique category rather than the actual subset. With Fein what's the causal explanation? It appears from this decontextualised quote to be a description. Can you put her category definition and causal explanation? This is still "list of blue things" grade. Fifelfoo (talk) 15:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Pure mumbo-jumbo response. Back to the question "Who says that the Black Black of Communism (published by Harvard University Press) is part of a fringe viewpoint?" Smallbones (talk) 15:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Please, be polite. In addition, you seem to ignore my arguments. The quote you provide demonstrate that there is a phenomenological connection between authoritarism and mass killing, whereas, the same author (see the quote provided by me) concludes that there is no connection between Communism (as an ideology) and mass killing. For instance, Fein describes KR as a fascist regime that tried to establish an exotic form of "agrarian Communism", and she sees almost no connection between KR and classical Communism.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: "Who says that the Black Black of Communism (published by Harvard University Press) is part of a fringe viewpoint?" I found five reviews on this book in peer-reviewed journals (jstor.org database). One of them (by David J. Galloway, The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 587-589) characterized it as an "excellent survey of scholarship on the Soviet system and the systems of other communist states".
Other four reviews are generally negative. Thus, Amir Weiner (Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Winter, 2002), pp. 450-452) writes:

"That said, this thick volume is seriously flawed, incoherent, and often prone to mere provocation."

"The problems with the authors' flawed comparison are not merely intellectual. Intentionally or not, their argument opens the door for all kinds of apologetics. This is a sad outcome for a country that until re- cently excelled in avoiding its murky wartime past. Communism deserves to be buried, but not by those whose writing and methodology so closely resemble its basic tenets."

Alexander Dallin (Reviewed work(s): The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression by Stephane Courtois ; Nicolas Werth ; Jean-Louis Panne ; Andrzej Paczkowski ; Karel Bartosek ; Jean-Louis Margolin ; Jonathan Murphy ; Mark Kramer. Slavic Review, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Winter, 2000), pp. 882-883) pointed out:

"It would be uncorrect to say that the book tells us more about the authors than about the subject; however, it be equally fallacious to omit the time and place ... from its etiology"

"The book must have required an immense effort by a groop of dedicated contributors. It is unlikely that its impact will be commensurate."

Hiroaki Kuromiya (Reviewed work(s): The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, and Repression by Stephane Courtois. Reflections on a Ravaged Century by Robert Conquest. Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 191-201) writes:

"Courtois' attempt to present communism as a greater evil than nazism by playing a numbers game is a pity because it threatens to dilute the horror of actual killings."

"Courtois is irritated by his perception that most western intellectuals are softer on communism than on nazism and that therefore the crimes of communism have not been fully exposed."

And, finally, Ronald Aronson (History and Theory, Vol. 42, No. 2 (May, 2003), pp. 222-245) concludes:

"The intensity of the continuing controversy suggests that we may not see it resolved anytime soon. Comparisons with Nazism, central for one side of this discussion, cannot but inflame the other. Accusations of bad faith, denial, and dishonesty flow off the pen easily, especially when it becomes clear that intel- lectual positions cannot be separated from political positions. But this was always true concerning capitalism and Communism and concerning the Cold War, just as it is true of virtually all important historical discussions. Nevertheless, even scholars on opposite sides of such questions, writing from deep commitments, operate according to, and are subject to, common standards of argument and evidence. In other words, it has always been true that the major obstacle to historical understanding is not commitment, but distortion."

"The point is not simply the psychological and political one that conflict creates a natural tendency to self-justification as well as selective moral bookkeeping. Yes, during the Cold War both sides' faults were kept from the other side, who certainly used them as a weapon whenever they could. But just as Communist violence cannot be fully understood without being placed in the context of what the left saw as bourgeois violence, from Verdun to Hiroshima, so Communist moral blindness can only with great distortion be treated all by itself, lifted from the life-and-death struggle with bourgeois society and capitalism's own histori- cal crimes. It is artificial to demand symmetry between the two, but it is no less myopic to ignore capitalism's evils in discussing Communism's. As much as anything it was the total war between the two systems that shaped either side's responses-the downright lying, the one-sidedness, the moral blindness, the selective amnesia."

"The 1997 brouhaha over Le Livre noir du communisme at least posed the possibility of an unself-righteous and non-propagandistic perspective towards Communism, one which might combine a critical stance, a self-critical spirit, and a genuine effort to give the facts their due. An adequate moral history of Communism is still worth writing, and still to be written."
Let me re-iterate the following. I provided all reviews on the Black Book I could find. I didn't cherry-pick anything. I believe the only conclusion that can be drawn from these revirews is that the Black Book represents fringe views.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Is this the best you can do? 5 reviews, 1 says it is excellent, 1 says it is horrible, in 2 you have found some criticisms (how many reviews have zero citicisms?), and 1 is very critical of the fact the the authors left out "capitalist crimes". This doesn't add up to "this is a fringe theory." Sorry, but just not good enough. Take it to WP:RSN if you disagree. Smallbones (talk) 22:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: "Is this the best you can do?" You probably misunderstood me. I didn't try to do my best, I just looked in jstor for all reviews on this book. I found no other reviews there (that implies low notability, btw).

Re: "how many reviews have zero citicisms?" See above. No other reviews were found.

Re: "5 reviews, 1 says it is excellent, 1 says it is horrible, in 2 you have found some criticisms (how many reviews have zero citicisms?), and 1 is very critical of the fact the the authors left out "capitalist crimes"" The first reviewer does not say the book is excellent (in actuality he says that it is an "excellent survey of scholarship on the Soviet system", this is not the same). With regards to the other reviews, they don't have to be very critical. Other reviewers simply do not treat the Black Book seriously, and that is what you asked me to demonstrate (your question was "Who says that the Black Black of Communism (published by Harvard University Press) is part of a fringe viewpoint?"). I believe I was able to do that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)