Talk:Andrei Gromyko/GA2

2nd GA Review

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Unfortunately, this article is badly lacking with respect to WP:WIAGA criteria 2b (reliable sources) and 3a (broad coverage) and consequently 4 (neutrality). It thus cannot be considered for GA status in its current form.

The main source for the article is Gromyko's memoirs. But this is a WP:PRIMARY source and a very problematic one at that. All memoirs of political figures are inherently self-serving and unreliable. That goes for Soviets figures and Americans, communists and capitalists, everyone. While an occasional mention of a reaction or quote from memoirs can be good, it's simply unacceptable for whole swaths of the article (including 36 consecutive footnotes!) to be sourced only to memoirs. (I've written a number of political biographies here in WP, and I restrict memoir use to an absolute minimum.)

Gromyko was one of the most well-known Kremlin figures and there are plenty of third-party sources regarding him. Just to point to one, there are literally hundreds of stories involving Gromyko in the New York Times archives, including this long profile when he died.

The neutrality of the article also comes into question a bit, when claims like "During his twenty-eight years as Minister of Foreign Affairs Gromyko supported the policy of disarmament" and statements like "Disarmament is the ideal of Socialism" are taken at face value. Third-party sources are needed to establish exactly what Gromyko supported or didn't, not Gromyko himself!

Many key aspects of Gromyko's career are ignored or gone too quickly by here. It's not made clear that Gromyko's rapid ascent to prominence in 1939 was as a consequence of so many being wiped out by Stalin's purges (Darrell Hammer, USSR: The Politics of Oligarch). How exactly Gromyko survived the rest of the Stalin years needs explication. And what was his reaction to Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin? What was his reaction to the Soviet suppression of the revolts in Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia and Poland? The steps in Gromyko's party career seem to be missing – he was a candidate member of the Central Committee in 1952 and a full member in 1956. But although very well known in the West, he wasn't really an inner member or part of the top leadership until his sudden elevation to the Politburo in 1973. This promotion reflected a change in the balance of power between the government and the party that was significant at the time (Hammer). It also got Gromyko a top dacha for the first time (Hendrick Smith, The Russians). SALT I is mentioned but not the prolonged back-and-forth that Kissinger and Gromyko had about it. Nor are the attitudes of Soviet leaders towards Gromyko noted; both Khrushchev and Brezhnev made Gromyko the butt of jokes told to Americans (Kalb brothers, Kissinger). And these are just a few things I see missing based on a glance at books I happen to have on my shelves at home. A good research job on Gromyko's life and career will find much more.

Reviewer: Wasted Time R (talk) 07:41, 15 February 2011 (UTC)