Talk:Harry Pollitt/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: GhostRiver (talk · contribs) 16:18, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I will be reviewing this! — GhostRiver 16:18, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Infobox and lede

• Per Template:Infobox person, the "cause of death" parameter should only be included when the cause of death has significance for the subject's notability, e.g. murder or assassination
• Per MOS:INFONAT, use of the "nationality" and "citizenship" templates should be avoided when the country to which the subject belongs can be inferred from the country of birth. Since he was born in England and was an English politician, that he was of English nationality and British citizenship can be easily inferred.
• Link Marjorie Brewer in the infobox and add the year of their marriage using Template:Marriage
• Add links to Nikita Khrushchev, Russian Civil War, Polish–Soviet War, Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), and Spanish Civil War, and include capital letters for proper nouns accordingly.

Early life

Childhood and early career

• "and joined the Communist party" → "before joining the Communist party"
• Link Communist Party of Great Britain
• Delink "died in infancy" per MOS:OVERLINK
• "little sister" → "younger sister"
• "working alongside his mother"
• Comma after "also particularly affected Pollitt"
• "first world war" → "First World War"
• "Pollitt gain experience of leading strikes during the war." Outside of the poor grammar (gained experience of leading strikes), this area needs some more explanation
• Comma after "1917 October Revolution"
• "workers like me...had defeated the boss class" → "workers like me ... had defeated the boss class" per MOS:ELLIPSIS
• Link Sylvia Pankhurst and Workers' Socialist Federation
• "had gain experience of public speaking." → "had gained experience with public speaking"
• Combine last two paragraphs

Communist campaigner

• Comma after "In September 1919"
• "Soviet Russia" → "the Soviet Union"
• "Russo-Polish war" → "Polish–Soviet War"
• Introduce CPGB acronym after first mention of the full title
• "WSF membership, and as such Pollitt was a founding member of the party, and attended their founding "Utility Convention"." → "WSF membership. Pollitt, thus a founding member of the party, attended the CPGB's founding "Utility Convention"."
• "In 1921" → "The following year,"
• "during his visit he shook hands with Vladimir Lenin, he was later to describe the day of his meeting with Lenin as the greatest of his life." → "During his visit, he met and shook hands with Vladimir Lenin, an experience later described as the greatest day of his life."
• Is it Marjorie or Marjory Brewer?
• Link libel
• Glading was the best man at the wedding? If so, that should be the second sentence of the paragraph
• Comma after "During the same visit"
• Link and use full names for first instances of Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin
• "'United Front' policy" → ""United Front" policy" per MOS:DOUBLE
• "candidate allowing the Conservatives to win" → "candidate, thus allowing the Conservatives to win"
• No comma needed after "This policy of attacking other left-wing organisations"
• WL trade unions

Leadership of the CPGB

Pre-war and the Stalinist terror

• "Stalinist terror" feels somewhat POV – suggest replacement with "Great Purge", since that's detailed more heavily
• "elected him" → "elected Pollitt"
• "On his appointment Stalin told him" → "On his appointment, Stalin told him,"
• "In his public statements, Pollitt was loyal to" → "Pollitt made clear in his public statements his loyalties to"
• Delink Joseph Stalin in the second paragraph
• Comma after "He was a defender of the Moscow Trials"
• Comma after "12 March 1936" per MOS:DATECOMMA
• "himself shortly to vanish and his photographs airbrushed from history by NKVD archivists." → "whose likeness would be retouched out of the photograph following his 1940 fall from favour and subsequent execution"
• "Tom Mann (who was then treasurer of the NUWM)" → "Tom Mann, then-treasurer of the National Unemployed Workers' Movement (NUWM)"
• This section falls into proseline a bit with the two short paragraphs beginning "In 1932" and "In 1935"
• Comma after The Citizen and His Government
• Make Cohen's connection to Pollitt clearer in the caption, and right-align the image per MOS:IMAGELOCATION
• Pipe "conscription in Britain" to Conscription in the United Kingdom
• Comma after "French communist party"

Spanish civil war

• Capitalize "Civil War" in the subhead
• "1936-39" → "1936–39"
• Comma after "During the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War"
• Pipe "Republican" to Republican faction (Spanish Civil War)
• " Pollitt also played a role in approving applications from British volunteers to join the International Brigades, and vetoed George Orwell's application to join them. Pollitt's veto was based on what he believed to be Orwell's political unreliability." → "Pollitt also played a role in approving or vetoing applications from British volunteers to join the International Brigades. One such veto went to George Orwell, who Pollitt believed to be politically unreliable."
• "Pollitt also wrote many of the letter of condolence" → "Pollitt was also tasked with writing letters of condolence"
• Comma after "In August 1937"

Secret communications etc.

• This subhead is very long; how can it be shrunk while retaining the spirit of the content?
• Comma after "From 1933 until November 1939"
• Don't need to repeat "in November 1939" in the second sentence
• 'having difficulties' → "having difficulties" per MOS:DOUBLE
• ""Such treatment as I received in Paris is a scandal"." → ""Such treatment as I received in Paris is a scandal."" per MOS:LQ
• Commas around "including Harry Pollitt"
• "were the subject of" → "were subject to"
• Are there any other examples of these monitoring efforts besides the one?

World War II

• "he welcomed the British declaration" → "Pollitt welcomed the British declaration"
• Comma after "By November 1939"
• Comma after "disavowed his previous pro-war position"
• Comma after "During 1940"
• Comma after "For his part"
• Link and add comma after "Operation Barbarossa"

Post-war defence of Stalinism

• ""millions of lads" who were "led by their Shop Stewards""
• "for the sacking of Ernest Bevin" → "for Ernest Bevin to be fired"
• More proseline concerns with the paragraphs beginning "In 1951" and "In 1952"
• "independence form Moscow" → "independence from Moscow"
• Comma after "and stating that"
• Link death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin
• "neutralist government in Yugoslavia, however when Krushchev visited Belgrade in 1955 CPGB was forced to recant" → "neutralist government in Yugoslavia; however, when Kruschev visited Belgrade in 1955, CPGB was forced to recant"
• "resigned as General Secretary in May 1956 and was appointed CP Chairman, with John Gollan succeeding him as General Secretary." → "resigned as General Secretary in May 1956, with John Gollan succeeding him, and was appointed CP Chairman."
• "was formally made public in June 1956" → "was formally made public the following month"
• Comma after "that hung in his living room"
• "the crisis in the party worse, particularly as CPGB" → "the CPGB crisis worse, particularly as the party"
• "Eastern Block" → "Eastern Bloc"
• Comma after "Soviet invasion of Hungary"
• "Most of its intellectual figures (including Doris Lessing and E. P. Thompson)" → "Most of the party's intellectual figures, including Doris Lessing and E. P. Thompson,"
• Comma after "In 1959"

Electoral record

• "he lost by 8,433 vote, with 38.2% of the vote compared to the Labour candidate who had 61.8% of the vote." → "he lost to the Labour candidate 61.8% to 38.2%, with a margin of 8,433 votes."
• "Labour candidate's 16,733 vote" → "Labour candidate's 16,733 votes"

Death and legacy

• "Harry Pollitt died, aged 69, of a cerebral haemorrhage, after years of worsening health, while returning on the SS Orion from a speaking tour of Australia on 27 June 1960." → "After years of worsening health, Pollitt died at age 69 of a cerebral haemorrhage while returning on the SS Orion from a speaking tour of Australia on 27 June 1960."
• "and scrapped in 1997" → "and was scrapped the next year."
• "(and hence inaccurately refers to him being murdered)" → "and hence inaccurately describes his murder"
• Commas for parentheses around "the official journal of CPGB"

References

• "THE LIMELITERS HARRY POLLITT LYRICS" should be brought down to title case per MOS:ALLCAPS

General comments

• All images are relevant and properly licensed
• Per MOS:IMGSIZE, you should refrain from using a fixed pixel size without very good reason, and the two smaller images especially need to be bumped back up to their normal thumbnail size
• No stability concerns in the revision history
• Earwig turns up a mirror site but no other copyright concerns

Putting on hold to allow nominator to address comments. Feel free to ping me with questions. — GhostRiver 18:55, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks for the very detailed review GhostRiver. All edits accepted except Soviet Union for the Polish-Soviet war since the USSR didn't officially exist until 1922, but to clarify this I've added a link to Soviet Russia. Also I need to research the other instances of Pollitt being spied on beyond MI5 infiltrating CPGB, tapping his communications with Moscow, and planting bugs in the CPGB offices. Let me know if what's been done is sufficient for the GA pass - I'll work on other instances of surveillance involving Pollitt specifically (from memory the archives have verbatim conversations he had but only guesses from the author as to how these were obtained). FOARP (talk) 10:50, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

I have made a handful of small MOS fixes to address my remaining comments. I trust you to find other instances of this surveillance. In the meantime, I'll mark this article down as a pass. Thank you for addressing my comments! — GhostRiver 16:23, 16 October 2021 (UTC)