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The Black Chapter of Communism

In a new book "The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities" Matthew White gives an overview of deaths under communism. According to him, there were five waves of mass killing associated with a Communist regimes (p. 453-456):

  1. civil war 21 million victims
  2. purges after victory 3 million
  3. starvation due to redistribution 41 million
  4. internal purges 8 million
  5. anti-Communist insurgencies 3 million

He estimates rough total of deaths due to executions, famine, labor camps etc. at 70 million. -- Vision Thing -- 12:32, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

The source is self-contradictory and contains highly disputable figures and statements. Firstly, White writes about mass killings associated with Communist regimes, not perpetrated by Communist regimes. That is especially important when he speaks about civil wars. He correctly notes that most Communist regimes emerged during the struggle against "brutal authoritarian regimes", and "are usually preferable to the status quo". In that situation, it is incorrect to ascribe all civil war deaths to Communists (many authors disagree with such an approach, and White also does not do that, at least explicitly). Secondly, at least some of purge deaths have been grossly exaggerated by White: thus, the number of Great Purge victims was 1.2-1.5 million, not 7 millions, as White asserts. Thirdly, to describe all famine victims as the victims of mass killings is not a universally accepted approach (as the sources provided by me demonstrate). Fourthly, anti-guerilla warfare is not universally considered as Communist mass killing, at least, such authors as Valentino do not describe them as such. And, finally, the publisher of this books is not a university publisher, it specialises on fiction, nonfiction, poetry, college textbooks, cookbooks, art books, and professional books. This source seems to be a tertiary source, and, taking into account numerous errors and inconsistencies, not the best one.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:34, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Does not appear to be rs, per the author's own webpage.[1] All his information would be drawn from other sources. TFD (talk) 15:38, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Fact that it is a tertiary source makes it more useful. Survey of secondary sources is exactly what is needed for the lead. It could be used to support a claim like: "Estimates of deaths under Communist regimes vary with average estimate being 70 million deaths." -- Vision Thing -- 08:37, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Per our policy, "Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from secondary sources". Whereas, "reliably published tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, especially when those sources contradict each other", in this particular case it is not clear from the source that the author (White) provided a "broad summary" (it is not clear, which concrete secondary sources did he used for this particular statement), and if the fact that the sources contradict each other has not been reflected in this book at all. This, as well as the fact that the author's academic credentials are not impressive (as he himself conceded) does not allow us to use this particular tertiary source to summarise the topic.
Re "Estimates of deaths under Communist regimes". Firstly, the article is not about the deaths, but about killings. We need to discriminate between deaths under Communists, and between population losses, excess mortality and mass killings. Each of the three last categories, starting from right to left is a subset of its left neighbour. "Excess mortality" was greater than the amount of victims of "mass killings", because it included not only the intentionally caused deaths, as well as the deaths from natural disasters. "Population losses" included, along with "excess mortality", also decrease of births rates and emigration. With regard to "deaths", they also included natural deaths, which, for the USSR only exceeded 200 million for 70 year period. Therefore, the statement "Estimates of deaths under Communist regimes vary with average estimate being 70 million deaths" is simply nonsense: much more people died under Communist regimes, simply because the population of Communist countries exceeded 1 billion, and the period of Communist rule was long.
However, if I understand you correctly, you probably meant "excess premature deaths", a term many serious scholars use to describe excess mortality as a result of the activity of some regimes. If that is the case, I totally agree. If we write that
  • Large number of people (tens of millions) died prematurely under Communist regimes;
  • Those deaths occurred from various causes, starting from famines or deportation deaths and ending with executions of political opponents;
  • Some authors describe part of those deaths (or all of them) as mass killings, although this approach is not universally accepted.
that would be an adequate description of the actual state of things.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:41, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
  • It is a 2011 publication, and its normal title is Atrocitology: Humanity's 100 Deadliest Achievements. Neither title is currently academically reviewed per Scholar. I'd say give it a couple of years and wait on reviews in scholarly journals. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:24, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Terminology

The first sentence in this section ("Communist regimes 'Communist regimes' refers..." looks out of place.[2] Shouldn't this be a bullet point in the list below? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:50, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

IMO, you are right.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:00, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
What does everyone else think? Normally, I would just go ahead and fix this, but with the article locked, I have to gain consensus for even WikiGnome-like edits. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:56, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Just ask user:Mkativerata to do that. I am sure he will make this change: the proposed edit is (i) unpoopsed, (ii) have been supported by at least one user (myself), (iii) is hardly controversial. I see no reason why this change cannot be made.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:24, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Good gnoming, I support this edit. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:25, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I've asked Mkativerata to implement the change.[3] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:14, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Stylistically, I dislike bullet points in Wikipedia articles per MoS [4] Specifically:
Do not use lists if a passage is read easily as plain paragraphs
- and poopse thereon. See also Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(lists)#Bulleted_lists Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:45, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Happy to do this. But before I do, are you quite sure? It seems to me that the reason all the other paragraphs are dot pointed is that they are a list of terms introduced by "The following have been used to describe killing by Communist governments:" The term "Communist regimes" is not naturally part of this list, so should it be dot-pointed? Just a question: I'm more than happy to implement the consensus. --Mkativerata (talk) 01:10, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Good catch. I still think it should have a bullet point, BUT, we have introductory text in the middle of the list. I'm not sure what to do. Let me think about it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:20, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

RfC Comments from involved editors

PLEASE NOTE: PRIMARILY, THE RfC ABOVE IS A CALL FOR EDITORS NOT ALREADY DEEPLY INVOLVED IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS TALK PAGE. Comments and !votes of deeply involved editors should be placed here. If not, I may take the liberty of moving the comments to this section. Sorry, guys. I hate to be so presumptuous, but I think the rather convoluted arguments of involved editors has been hindering the involvement of external editors. Thus, in the spirit of WP:IAR, let's see if this approach helps get more input. BigK HeX (talk) 00:09, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Please, no "votes". This issue concerns a policy, which is not negotiable, so votes are not allowed here.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:05, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Please explain - which policy prevents numbers from being used in the lede of an article? Chapter and verse please. Smallbones (talk) 05:08, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
The policy prevents presenting seriously contested assertions as facts. This policy is called WP:NPOV.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:10, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I am unable to find any reference to "mass killings under Communist regimes" in either mainstream or fringe writing. Could you please provide reliable sources that discuss this topic? It appears to be a POV article, mass killings occured in some Communist regimes and some enthusiatic WP editors have synthesized this into a highly original article which probably should be deleted post haste. TFD (talk) 01:50, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
TFD, such sources do exist. You simply should have to use "Communist mass killings". The major source is Valentino's "Final solutions". However, as I have already explained that before, to use this source properly, we need to explain that
  • (i) Valentino speaks about "deprivation mass killings" (the exp0lanation of what he saw under "deprivation mass killing" should be provided)
  • (ii) Valentino did not include anti-partisan warfare into this category (Afghanistan, etc).
  • (iii) Valentino states that majority of Communist regimes had not engaged in mass killings.
Therefore, this article is a synthesis of the Valentino's views (in particular, his concept of "deprivation mass killings") with the works of other authors.
In addition, since the term is not being widely used, it definitely should not appear in bold in the opening lede's sentence.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:01, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Then we should rename this article "Communist mass killings" and make it about Valentino's book. It should then be put into an article about Valentino's book. TFD (talk) 03:13, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Valentino's book and theory do not meet notability criteria—they are not the subject of an independent secondary literature. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:23, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Valentino himself meets notablity standards, so perhaps we could create an article about him and move this article there. TFD (talk) 03:44, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure he meets the academic criteria for notability, maybe he's independently notable? Fifelfoo (talk) 03:58, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
He beats two articles I nominated for deletion, one of which was kept and the other deleted after its fourth nomination, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lia Looveer and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Tylman (4th nomination). TFD (talk) 04:29, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Keep numbers in the lede they effectively summarize the topic. BTW, RfCs always have some mechanism for keeping track, call them !votes if you like. Sorry, but I can't think of a worse place to WP:Ignore all rules. Anybody who want to look at the bibliography in the article can find these numbers. I'll just put the first few here

  • Conquest, Robert. (2007). The Great Terror: A Reassessment, 40th Anniversary Edition.: Oxford University Press.
  • Courtois, Stéphane ed.. (1999). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. trans. Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer; consulting ed. Mark Kramer: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-07608-7. Google Books.
  • Courtois, Stéphane. (1999). "Introduction: the crimes of communism" in The Black Book of Communism. pp.1–32.

There have been numerous assertions that the book published by the Harvard University Press is not reliable. Pshaw.

I'll add one more - simply because several of the folks commenting immediately above have said that it's a fringe theory that Communist regimes have killed up to 100 million, and that any such killings have no relation to Communist ideology. Well George Bush was not my favorite president - but he was the President of the U.S. when he said "Until now, our Nation's Capital had no monument to the victims of imperial Communism, an ideology that took the lives of an estimated 100 million innocent men, women and children."[5] Numbers in the 60-100 million range are mainstream estimates, not fringe as some above might claim. Note that this article has been nominated for deletion at least 5 times, and it has been kept every time. Some folks just don't like seeing the facts, as presented in reliable sources. Smallbones (talk) 05:05, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Two of your sources are the intro to the same book and Conquest's book is about the Soviet Union only (published in 1968!). And George Bush's statements do not elevate to the level of reliable source. You are misrepresenting my position by the way. It is not about how many people Communist governments may have killed but whether there is any serious or even fringe writing that connects these events. TFD (talk) 05:34, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I referred to the entire bibliography in the article - if you'd like there must be dozens more references that could be used. As far as whether there is any serious writing that connects mass killings by Communist regimes, try Steven Rosefield, Professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:

"Communism in its various manifestation killed approximately 60 million people and perhaps tens of millions more in two distinct waves for naught in a vain attempt to make a flawed utopian scheme and similarly defective transition vehicles work well enough to satisfy leaders' despotic aspirations." (p.2)

There are too many mainstream sources that give numbers like this to claim that this is a "fringe theory." Please quit trying. Smallbones (talk) 14:12, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Rosefielde does not acknowledge any prior writers and it is clear he is developing a new theory. And there is no evidence that his theories have entered mainstream discourse. The book was actually published after this article was created. And not as I explained above, "It is not about how many people Communist governments may have killed but whether there is any serious or even fringe writing that connects these events". TFD (talk) 18:53, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep numbers in lede as proper summary of article And unless and until someone actually gives reliable sources otherwise, the figures in the body are "mainstream." Meanwhile, rehashing failed argumentd from AfDs in the past - which failed then, do not add to the colloquy here. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:35, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Remove numbers from the lede.
    • Below Paul has already provided tons of criticism of the source for these numbers, as well as the criticism of approach of using such numbers. Per WP:NPOV such heavily criticized source and view should not be presented as "fact", which is how the first line of the article leads. If it should be presented, than only alongside all due criticism.
    • Per WP:LEDE these numbers also should be deleted, because there is nothing in the body of the article about them. WP:LEDE reads: Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article.
    • Total numbers is a complex question which requires a separate section, like it is done in the article Gulag. We are not counting few apples here to make our own judgements, we are counting millions of people in many countries who died from multitude of causes. Just giving a bunch of sources with estimates for particular countries and events, and than claim that these separate sources support a total figure of 100 million is WP:OR and plainly unscientific, and there are no non-controversial reliable sources which support this figure directly.
    • A serious problem with this article is that some of its sources and many editors here actually speak of "excess deaths" equating them with mass killings. But these are two different things according to the definitions of mass killing and excess death. Mixing these two categories is a manipulation with statistics. GreyHood Talk 16:34, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Convenience break 2

To all users who vote for "keep" referring to the WP:V policy. Please, keep in mind that this policy says:

"Verifiability is one of Wikipedia's core content policies, along with No original research and Neutral point of view. These policies jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in articles. They should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should familiarize themselves with the key points of all three."

In connection to that, let me remind all of you that WP:NPOV says:

"Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts. If different reliable sources make conflicting assertions about a matter, treat these assertions as opinions rather than facts, and do not present them as direct statements."
"This policy is non-negotiable and all editors and articles must follow it."

In connection to that, let me re-iterate that the attempt to support the non-neutral statement with the reference to the WP:V policy is a violation of both policies. If you did that non knowingly, please stop that. I have already presented several reliable sources which question the figures and the very approach they are being used in. In this situation, the question if the statement we discuss should or should not be removed from the lede is not a subject of any RfC: it should be removed, and that is non-negotiable. The only way to preserve it in the lede is to provide an evidence that the sources presented by me are fringe, or non-reliable, or they have been explicitly debunked and rejected by majority scholars. Please provide these evidences. Failure to do so will result in removal of this statement, along with the reference.

The statement that the sentence we discuss correctly summarised what the article says is simply false: the article discusses famines and anti-partisan warfare in a "Controversy" section, so by no means the figures, which include those types of deaths, represent the mainstream views fairly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:49, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Paul, I'm afraid you simply don't understand what the mainstream is. Your sentence that the numbers should be removed, and that is non-negotiable seems to be completely removed from reality - what are you talking about? You've provided no source that gives alternate totals, and persistently refuse to do so. While you have provided some sources that criticize one minor aspect or another of the mainstream, you have not provided a source that says that the mainstream approach is wrong. If I'm mistaken please include these sources right here below. Readers can judge for themselves whether these sources refute the mainstream. Please do not include your usual extensive interpretation of these sources. Your usual wall of text approach is getting very tiresome. Smallbones (talk) 19:40, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Smallbones, I believe I fully understand what our policy means. If the source A says "100 million were killed", and the source B says that this particular number is a result of "dishonest playing with the figures", then we by no mean can have such a statement in the lede, unless the source B is completely debunked as fringe or non-reliable. Please, do that, or stop.
Re "that criticize one minor aspect or another of the mainstream" Although that is a minor comment, let me explain you that, firstly, the sources presented by me criticize many aspects of the BB (thus, one of the sources even says that the major conflict started between the co-authors of the BB, who deeply disagree with many statements of the Courtois' introduction). Secondly, the massive criticism of the BB (at least two other collective volumes, authored by renown professors have been publushed in France, 2000, and Germany 1998, where the BB is being detaily criticised) does not allow us to speak about the BB as a mainstream. --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:42, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I would say, the sources available for me criticise the figures from the Courtois' introduction in three different aspects:
  1. The figures are inflated;
  2. The figures have been arbitrarily and indiscriminately combined together to mislead a reader;
  3. No serious evidences have been provided that all those deaths are directly connected to Communism. It has been argued that some of those deaths should be attributed to the personalities of some Communist leaders, part of them can be attributed to the peculiarities of history of each particular Communist country, and some of them were the result of the activity of the Communist enemies (thus, the BB ascribes all Vietnam was deaths to the Communist government, although in actuality their opponents, the US and South Vietman are responsible at least in the same extent).
We can see that the criticism is detailed and serious, and by no means it is a criticism of "one minor aspect", as someone wants to represent it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:23, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Note: No sources given as requested, your own extensive interpretation inserted instead, despite my request. Please do something to bring your comments back to reality. We can't have a reasonable discussion if you just keep on saying "black is white." Smallbones (talk) 21:37, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Firstly, why did you decided that the approach you are advocating is "mainstream"? As far as I understand, the brouhaha around the BB was a result of its revisionism of an old concept...--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:45, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Read the sources given in the article. One or two might indirectly support what you are saying, but the rest are consistent with the mainstream. And there are many more from the mainstream, but I haven't seen a single source that directly supports your thesis. Please quit your wikilawyering, and get back to reality. Smallbones (talk) 23:08, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The questions regarding the usage of the Black Book in the opening sentence

Smallbones, in a response on my request to provide a source that debunks the criticism of Courtois' introduction, and one his concrete statement in particular, you responded with the list of the sources, part of which re-iterate some Courtois's theses. As far as I understand, you are trying to impress me with the lengths of the list. It worth noting, however, that some items are simply a duplication of the same source (Courtois's intro has been mentioned twice); other sources are single society studies (Cambodia, Stalin's USSR), which tell nothing about Communist in general; some sources are simply the sites of some state-sponsored organizations (Global Museum of Communism); some of them are obsolete (Rummel), and some of them were written by ex-Communist party top functionary (Yakovlev). Could you please clean this list and provide only those sources that are (i) reliable; (ii) non-outdated; (iii) contain a direct refutation of the criticism of the Black Book and Courtois' introduction? In particular, do you have something to say about the sources listed below? The questions I would like you to address are underlined:

1. "Why, then, did the Livre noir result in such a storm of copious, polemical articles in the French press and in the rather unusual spectacle of some of the authors-Werth, for example-attacking Courtois, who wrote the book's introduction and conclusion? What Werth and some of his colleagues object to is "the manipulation of the figures of the numbers of people killed" (Courtois talks of almost 100 million, including 65 million in China); "the use of shock formulas, the juxtaposition of histories aimed at asserting the comparability and, next, the identities of fascism, and Nazism, and communism." Indeed, Courtois would have been far more effective if he had shown more restraint." (Stanley Hoffmann. Foreign Policy, No. 110, Special Edition: Frontiers of Knowledge (Spring, 1998), pp. 166-169. Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC)
We can see that the author of this article, published by mainstream publisher, notes that the BB caused "a storm of copious, polemical articles in the French press", so it would be correct to conclude that the BB is/was a subject of major controversy. Please, demonstrate that there is no controversy around this book now, and this book has now been accepted as mainstream one.
The author (Hoffmann) agrees with Werth, a major contributor of the BB, and reputable scholar, who claimed that Courtois' figures had been a subject of manipulation. Please, demonstrate that this criticism had been successfully debunked.
The author (Hoffmann), along with Werth, accused Courtois in using shock formula to advance his own views. Please, demonstrate that the Courtois introduction is believed to be written in neutral and balanced manner by majority of authors, so the Hoffman/Werth criticism was unjustified.
2. "Two key contributors to the volume, Nicolas Werth for Russia and Jean-Louis Margolin for Asia, 'publicly dissociated themselves' from the conclusions drawn in the book by Stephane Courtois, the lead author"
"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." (Hiroaki Kuromiya. Review Article: Communism and Terror. Journal of Contemporary History;;, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 191-201)
Another source telling essentially the same. Please, demonstrate that during ten years after this publication it has been refuted as false.
3. "Courtois's introduction to Le Livre noir pairs the Nazi atrocities that motivated the Vichy syndrome with those of Communist states, pitting twenty-five million deaths at the hands of the Nazis against one hundred million deaths in Communist regimes. Data cited in Le Livre noir account for only eighty-five million deaths, leading Guy Konopnicki to call Courtois a Stakhanovite with his own 'personal Gosplan set at one hundred million deaths . . . Stephane Courtois gave to Stalinism a history which resembled Stalinism.' The one language that Communist-syndrome authors like Courtois and their critics share is condemnation of each other as Stalinist. For the French, who knowingly speak of the conflict between memory and history, the place of memory communities has been largely taken by the media. Mediatisation of scholarly works of history arouses particular concern in France as a contamination of the academy by the politicized forces of consumer capitalism. For Jacques Julliard, 'the effort to transform history into a pedagogical instrument' in works like Le Livre noir has a 'Jurassic Park side . . . you scare yourself cheaply by evoking all the monsters of high school.' He contends that 'historiography in the public square is definitely not worth more than justice populairej the trials French Maoists orchestrated during the years of Courtois's allegiance to Maoism.
(...)What characterizes all generations of Communists turned anti-Communist is their desire to surpass the critiques of Communism offered not only by earlier generations of anti-Communists, but also by liberals who had never been Communists." (In Search of the Communist Syndrome: Opening the Black Book of the New Anti-Communism in FranceAuthor(s): Donald ReidSource: The International History Review, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Jun., 2005), pp. 295-318)
We can see that the author traces the origin of the Black Book in the French Vichy syndrome and in the Communist (Maoist) past of Courtois, which makes him more radical than "earlier generations of anti-Communists, but also by liberals who had never been Communists." Please, demonstrate that the mainstream views of Communism has radicalized during last decades, and they are more anti-Communists now, so the Courtois' views are now in the middle of the opinion spectrum.
4. "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 intellectual 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." (Ronald Aronson. Communism's Posthumous TrialThe Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression by Stéphane Courtois; ThePassing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century by François Furet;The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century byTony Judt; Le Siècle des communismes by Michel Dreyfus. History and Theory, Vol. 42, No. 2 (May, 2003), pp. 222-245)
As we can see, the BB was, according to Aronson, still the subject of continuing controversy in 2003, and the author expected this controversy to last forever. Please, demonstrate that this controvercy has been resolved.
"Courtois's figures for the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Latin America go far beyond the estimates of the authors themselves, as does Courtois's final body count." (Aronson. Op. cit.)
One more demonstration of the controversial nature of the figures provided by Courtois. Please, explain if this Aronson's statement has been refuted, by whom, when as how?
"Writing together in Le Monde, Werth and Margolin reiterated these disagreements and also rejected Courtois's assertion that the crimes of Communism were rooted in its ideology. They further pointed out that each of his disputed claims was not a reasoned conclusion but rather an assertion not borne out by the book's concrete studies." (Aronson. Op. cit.) Please, explain, why, and on what ground, the viewpoint of two major contributors of the Black Book itself should be rejected.
"Nor was Communism everywhere and always as bloody as its worst episodes: Cuba and Nicaragua were not marked by such crimes, for example, and most victims died during ten years of Soviet rule and fifteen under Mao, the bulk of these in famines" (Aronson. Op. cit.) Please, explain why this author's point deserves lesser attention than the highly disputable assertions of Courtois.
5. A collective volume Le siècle des communismes (Michel Dreyfus, ed. Editions de l'Atelier, 2000 ISBN 2708235168, 9782708235168), coauthored by an international team of twenty-three scholars under the leadership of an early critic of The Black Book, Michel Dreyfus. In this book, they argue that the Courtois made a redundant stress on the role of Communist ideology. ""the history of Communism is inseparable from the existence of the violence which made its debut in 1914 and continues into our own times", one of the contributors of Le siècle des communismes, Wolikow argues in the introduction. They criticize redundantly politicized approach used by Courtois and argue the primacy of a scholarly rather than a moral approach. In particular, they argued that there existed vastly different kinds of communisms around the globe that cannot be treated as a single phenomenon, the argument that have been re-iterated, for example, by Michael David-Fox. (On the Primacy of Ideology Soviet Revisionists and Holocaust Deniers (In Response to Martin Malia) Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 5, 1 (Winter 2004): 81–105.)
Please, demonstrate that the criticism published in Le siècle des communismes is not mainstream.
That is enough for the beginning. Try to address this criticism, please. --Paul Siebert (talk) 02:56, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Your thesis, as I understand it is that estimates such as killing "60 to 100 million" can not be used because they are not mainstream, and that any numeric estimate cannot be used, because they are all inherently biased. You rather unfairly attack a single source. If you don't like the Black Book of Communism - published by Harvard University Press - then please look at the multiple sources I provided above e.g. Goldhagen, Jones, Midlarsky, Rosefielde, Rummel, Valentino - this is mainstream stuff and many, many more could be added. They directly address the issue of mass killings (or genocide in some cases) across multiple Communist regimes with numbers. Your criticism of numbers based on Werth is simply shameful, Werth disputed Courtois estimates and directly compared them to his own. Instead of 85 to 100 million, he gives numbers of 65 to 93 million. I'm still waiting to see a single source that says numbers can't be used because they are inherently biased. If the non-mainstream folks bother to actually give numbers, then let's by all means cite them and use them. Smallbones (talk) 03:45, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

In actuality, there are three different theses. The first theses is that the introduction to the BB is a controversial source, and it cannot be used in the opening sentence of the lede. I believe I demonstrated that quite persuasively, and, if you want this source to be in the lede, please, address all underlined questions. Btw, Harvaed University press has been criticised for publishing a translation of this book.
The second question is if the estimates should be presented in the lede before the explanation of what various authors see under "mass killings". This question is currently a subject of the RfC.
And, the third thesis is that the term "Mass killings under Communist regimes" is not common in scholarly literature, these words should not be shown in bold.
Regarding other sources you mention (Goldhagen, Jones, Midlarsky, Rosefielde, Rummel, Valentino), let's discuss them after the assertion that has been extensively contested will be removed from the lede, where it looks like the statement of fact, not an assertion (which is prohibited by our policy).--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:05, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Re Werth's "65 to 93 million", you simply misinterpreted his words. He wrote that the Courtois' approach as whole was totally unsatisfactory (he mentioned "65 to 93 million" vs "85 to 100 million" just to demonstrate intrinsic inconsistency of Courtois' views, however he never endorsed the "65 to 93 million" as the estimate of "mass killings under Communistst"). However, I recall, we have already had this dispute, and I have explained your mistakes to you. Why do you return to the same issue again?--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:40, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Convenience break 3

Paul, that is why we have an upper and lower range of deaths in the lede, to reflect the differing estimates by various authors. When we have sources on tangential topics like Oxford Handbook of political psychology citing Rummel, it is a good indicator that the concept of "mass killing under Communist regimes" is accepted as mainstream: "The greatest mass killings of the twentieth century have taken place in totalitarian societies, such as communist countries and Nazi Germany". Ervin Staub in his 2011 book Overcoming evil: genocide, violent conflict, and terrorism published by Oxford University Press cites another estimate of mass killing: "sociologist Paul Hollander estimates that under communism 100 million people were killed by their own governments". --Nug (talk) 19:59, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul Hollander's book was publshed by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and certainly it is an article of faith among this type of self-styled "conservative" that the Communists killed 100 million people. But I do not see these estimates supported in serious texts. TFD (talk) 20:30, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Apparently Ervin Staub's text published by Oxford University Press isn't serious enought for TFD, lol. --Nug (talk) 00:33, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Martintg, please, stop citing Rummel, who is known to produce the figures that have been inflated beyond any reasonable limits. The Oxford Handbook of political psychology is a tertiary source, so I am not sure we can rely on it in this particular aspect.
Re upper and lower limits, they may come from two quite different reasons: (i) obsolete and inflated earlier data (thus, Rummel claimed that 40 million were killed in Gulag, which is a 20-fold exaggeration), and (ii) mixing real killings with excess moratlity. We need to explain (in the body of the article) all of that. For instance, it should be explained that:
  • Khmer Rouge regime, which considers itself as Communist, although was not considered as such by most Communists themselves (except, probably, China) killed one third of its own population during geno/politicide. No major controvercy exists on that account, and the number of killed is more or less known.
  • Soviet regime directly killed several million peoples as a result of repression and deportations; much more people died as a result of civil war or famines, part of them were avoidable (I am not sure if Volga or post-WWII famines were avoidable). It was initially believed (Rummel) that the total excess deaths were ~50 million. Now most authors reconsidered this figure downward (Werth, Maksudov, Wheatcroft, >15 million).
  • China (I need to do more detailed literature search for that. I will do that when will find a more reasonable way to channel our discussion)
  • It is quite necessary to note, that many sources focus the reader's attention on the fact that the way Courtois and similar authors use the figures of excess deaths is quite misleading: by comparing 100 million "Communist victims" with 25 millions of the victims of Nazism he implies that Communism was much more murderous. However, according to those authors, Courtois overlooks (or deliberately ignores) the fact that Communist regimes controlled much larger population for much longer period than Nazi did, therefore, such a comparison is incorrect. Moreover, at least two Communist regimes (Soviet and Chinese) lead to dramatic increase of population's welfare and life expectancy. Therefore, if we are talking about dispossessive mass killings (the deaths as a result of the deterioration of the living conditions), we should simultaneously explain that much greater number of peopled hadn't died early due to the improvement of the living conditions.
    Of course, such a reservation is not needed when we speak about some particualr periods of the history of Communist states. However, since the article contains the claims about some intrinsic murderous nature of Communist regimes, it is quite necessary to explain that in actuality much more deaths had been prevented by Communism than imflicted.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:02, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
One way or the another, let's come back to the issue:
"The opening sentence of the lede contains some assertion, which has been contested by reliable non-fringe sources. This seriously contested assertions is presented as a fact in the lede, which is a direct violation of the policy. Please, provide the evidence that the assertion we are talking about has not been seriously contested in actuality, or stop arguing against the removal of this assertion."
--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:06, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul, I'm not citing Rummel, the editors of Oxford Handbook of political psychology are citing Rummel. Ervin Staub cites Paul Hollander's number of 100 million killed, got a source disputing Hollander's estimate? Your contention that "more deaths had been prevented by Communism than imflicted" is truly WP:ASTONISHing and is not supported by any source. Ervin Staub definitely links Communist ideology with mass killings, on page 141 of his 2011 book Overcoming evil: genocide, violent conflict, and terrorism:
"The role of ideology in mass killing in the modern age has been pervasive....Communist countries identified many and varied groups of enemies, based on their past as owners of production, as officials in past regimes, as educated people, as people showing or presumed to be resistant to communist practices such as collectivization, and as people whose past experiences in living in or dealing with capitalist countries made them class enemies. The children and other relatives of such people were not spared from that identification as enemies. Communists killed many they deemed a threat, they worked and starved people to death in prison camps, and they created conditions that, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally, killed huge numbers of people."[6] --Nug (talk) 00:33, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
You are citing Rummel to support the views you advocate, and it does not matter if you are doing that directly or indirectly.
Regarding Ervin Staub, other authors, for example, the authors of Le siècle des communismes or Michael David-Fox argue that there were many different communisms, and the ideology played no central role in the crimes of some particular regimes (see the Convenience break 2 section). One way or the another, I presented suficient amount of sources demonstrating that the BB is highly controversial book, and many scholars disagree with key conclusions made by Courtois. Try to demonstrate that this criticism has been successfully refuted (if you can). Providing the sources that simply say the opposite is not a refutation of the criticism.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:02, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Are the authors of Le siècle des communismes or Michael David-Fox directly refuting Staub, or are you simply extrapolating their viewpoints and applying it to Staub's work, if it is the latter than that is synthesis. --Nug (talk) 05:47, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
We are talking about the criticism of the BB, not about conflicting statements of two authors. Does Staub refute the BB criticism by Le siècle des communismes or not?--Paul Siebert (talk) 11:21, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
  • "Least astonishment" is not applicable - presentation of facts from reliable sources is not what that precept is about, and is a straw issue. As the lede is supposed to be a summary, and the figures are in the body of the article, there is no reason at all to remove them or to make them disappear. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:33, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Presentation of facts from reliable sources is quite OK, provided that those sources, and those facts are not a subject of major controversy. In this particular case, they are. Therefore, you should either address the arguments presented by me (see above) or to stop this nonsense.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:14, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I've never touched this topic before, but it's clear to me that Siebert's reasoning is much more in conformance with our standards of reliability, neutral point-of-view, and so forth, than the arguments for retention of the highly-synthesized numbers which re-define "killings" beyond the normal understanding of the term. The lede of an article should inform, not serve as a hater's stick with which to beat a defeated dogma. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

"Highly synthesized number", you are kidding me, right? This specific number has been published in a number reliable sources, nobody synthesized it. --Nug (talk) 19:19, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
The sources provided by me do not support this your assertion: the figures are the subject of manipulation. See above.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:24, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
A number of published sources explicitly state "100 million", that another published source disputes that figure is just another viewpoint. Removal of "100 million" based upon that disputing viewpoint would be siding with that particular POV. That is why a range of numbers is NPOV, clearly "100 million" is the upper figure that has been published, all we need now is to establish the lower figure. --Nug (talk) 19:43, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
You need to show that the 100 million figure has any acceptance outside a narrow ideological group, mostly publishing outside the academic mainstream or failing that explain who actually promotes this figure. TFD (talk) 06:46, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

It's clear this RfC is going nowhere, let's try something different

According to the rules we are now operating under, there has to be at least a strong consensus to change anything in this article. It's pretty clear that there is not a clear consensus to take numbers out of the lede. If we were to count !votes it would be about 5 against to 0 for (although Paul refuses to be counted based on his assertion that this RfC can't have !votes).

I'd like to suggest something completely different. Paul should write up a complete article based upon his views. This might seem silly, in that it would probably be a very short article, pretty much saying "Not much really happened, and if it did it was all very confusing, and nobody has documented anything to my satisfaction." But whatever he comes up with, we could do a real RfC and see if it is more acceptable than the current article. If it is judged better than the current article by a basic consensus or healthy majority, then it could replace the current article, if not we temporarily stay with the current article. Then somebody with a more realistic view of the situation could write up their version, have another RfC on the same terms. If that didn't succeed somebody else could take a turn, etc. until we come up with something that is reasonably acceptable. Any thoughts? Smallbones (talk) 04:02, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

No. The rules you are talking about have no precedence over our policy, so the texts that violate our policy should and will be changed irrespective to any consensus. The only way to prevent a removal of the ref to the BB from the opening statement is to address all questions I asked you. Please, do that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:08, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Regarding the second paragraph of your post, let me point your attention at two things. Firstly, you attempt to present a conflict as a conflict between me and majority of users is simply false: we have at least four (sometimes more) users who essentially share my views (or I share theirs), in addition to those who come to this talk page just occasionally. Secondly, your remark "Then somebody with a more realistic view of the situation could write up their version..." is grossly offensive. I suggest you to retract it.
One way or that another, I appreciate your attempt to try to find a way out of an impasse. In connection to that, I suggest alternative approach:
Step 1. You try to address the questions regarding the BB.
Step 2. If you, or your colleagues, are successful in that (just provide the sources that criticize my sources and refute them), we leave this statement (and the ref) in the lede; if not, we remove it. After thet we go to the step 3.
Step 3. I propose you to try to discuss and write the text together: only you and I. In this situation, the probability that our text will be accepted will be much higher. Agree?
--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:25, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I find your declaration that you are going to remove the numbers from the lede "irrespective to any consensus" to be grossly offensive. Your assertion that WP:NPOV requires, without consensus, the removal of the numbers in the lede simply gobsmacks me. You are just saying "black is white." I can't imagine coming up with a reasonable version of the article working together with a person who is simply denying reality. Your idea of "discussion" leaves me no alternative than to withdraw. Smallbones (talk) 05:08, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
If the declaration to follow the requirement of our policy seems offensive to you, then you have serious problems with understanding of the policy. Our content policies clearly explain that their basic principles cannot be superseded by editorial consensus, so if a consensus will be "keep the text despite the obvious evidences of its non-neutrality", then not only its removal will be correct, but it will be necessary.
I am not saying "black and white", I am opposing to the black and white statement that opens the article. This statement has been written based on the source that has been found controversial by many authors, and contains an assertion that has been extensively criticised. Therefore it should be removed if you will not demonstrate that the criticism was wrong. --Paul Siebert (talk) 05:24, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
It's fairly silly to declare an RfC "going nowhere" after only a single day. BigK HeX (talk) 04:45, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree with you.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:24, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I am gobsmacked at your understanding of NPOV. We don't remove numbers because one or two other authors may dispute them, we include a range of numbers per WP:YESPOV. Eminent scholar Ervin Staub accepts the estimate by eminent scholar Paul Hollander of 100 million killed, so I'm not sure on what basis you think that number should be removed, you have not supplied any source that refutes Staub/Hollander. --Nug (talk) 05:41, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
It is not clear that "eminent scholar" Ervin Staub supports Paul Hollander's numbers. The quote is "sociologist Paul Hollander estimates that under communism 100 million people were killed by their own governments". Anyone can google search for sources to support a POV. The reality is that the number is usually only promoted by extreme anti-Communist sources and is never supported by mainstream mass killings experts. And mainstream sources have explained why anti-Communists have fixated on this number, which has more to do with ideology than scholarship. TFD (talk) 06:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
This was a better kind of argument Nug; you're reading towards scholarly reliable sources. However, there are deep problems with your claims: Staub is not a demographer, sociologist of mass killing, or historian of communist societies. Hollander does have a relevant PhD, but he publishes in poison presses like Transaction or Intercollegiate Studies Institute. It matters who published Hollander, and how Hollander's book was reviewed in the academic literature. For example, nobody respects Courtois due to the overwhelmingly hostile reviews. However, many people esteem Werth's work in the same book, because Werth received positive reviews (and actually had the academic background to sustain his single society case study). Fifelfoo (talk) 06:13, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Is your evaluation of Staub and Hollander based upon your own original research or do you have a source to support your implied view that they aren't reliable? --Nug (talk) 08:01, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Look at Staub's research speciality. Compare him to Valentino or Werth. Hollander's publishers, based off his wikipedia article, are shit. ISI is a textbook house with a mission to push a particular political agenda. Transaction are a poison press. If you could provide your cite to Hollander, we could observe which press he published in. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:10, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
"Look at.... Compare him to...", sounds like you want me to engage in original research. I want a published source that has done this evaluation, you have one? --Nug (talk) 08:33, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Could you cite the sources you're relying upon for Staub's support and Hollander's numbers so that I may? Fifelfoo (talk) 08:38, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Seems Staub is a leading scholar on the psychology of genocide and mass killings, according to the reviews here. You have any cite for negative reviews of his work? --Nug (talk) 08:51, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
This makes him a demographer or historian how? Where are your citations. Fifelfoo (talk) 09:00, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I asked you first, got a cite that questions his expertise in the area of communist mass killings, or do we have have to rely upon your personal opinion? --Nug (talk) 09:11, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
It is impossible to refute the absence of an argument, what Staub text and Hollander text are you reliant upon? Fifelfoo (talk) 09:26, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
So in other words we have to rely upon your personal opinion. I linked Staub's book above, I'll link it again here. I'll go get some popcorn. --Nug (talk) 09:36, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Nobody has reviewed Staub's Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violent Conflict, and Terrorism in a peer reviewed journal. Nobody has reviewed it in a journal concerned with genocide, or history. More: Genocide and Holocaust studies noted it in a bibliography but still didn't review it. Your assertion that Staub is "eminent" appears to be in question. PsycCRITIQUES (1554-0138) a non-peer reviewed journal (via Ulrich's periodicals directory) claims in a review (DOI:10.1037/a0025326), "highly personal book" "his research and applied work has focused on the psychology of good and evil" as opposed to demography or history "Staub writes in the first person" "Staub has certainly written for a wide audience, drawing examples from his own experiences in Rwanda, Congo, and Israel/Palestine" "Overcoming Evil makes a significant contribution to the corpus of psychology literature that highlights the powerful role of situations, rather than dispositions or personality, in creating “evil.” This work is suitable for both university students and lay readers." The review proceeds to praise Staub's contribution to psychology. Staub lacks the qualifications to evaluate history and demography. He would be greatly useful at Psychology of Genocide but not here. His capacity to make a judgement regarding Hollander's claims is null: he is appreciated as a psychologist, he is ignored by historians. Could you provide your Hollander cite now please? Fifelfoo (talk) 10:23, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Re: "I am gobsmacked at your understanding of NPOV. We don't remove numbers because one or two other authors may dispute them, we include a range of numbers per WP:YESPOV." Yes, when the issue is in the numbers only. However, if one sources states that Communism killed 100 millions, and another source states that there were several communisms poorly connected with each other, and the very approach to describe the event with figures is flawed, to give a range would mean a bias towards the first POV.--Paul Siebert (talk) 11:35, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
To reject numbers on the basis that "several communisms poorly connected with each other" is synthesis, unless you can provide a cite that makes that argument. And even if you have such a source, it still would be POV to remove that number because you would be giving more weight to that source over the other. --Nug (talk) 19:05, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
@ Fifelfoo. In my opinion, the question is even not in a publisher or in the Staub's reputation as a historian. Has Staub made his own genocidal studies, or he, like Courtous, just cited one of numerous books written by Rummel or similar Cold war era authors? If the latter is the case, I don't see why should we pay much attention to such a source.--Paul Siebert (talk) 11:44, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Straub provides the source as Hollander's "Editor's introduction: The distinctive features of repression in communist states" in P. Hollander (Ed.), From the Gulag to the killing fields. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2006. Here is a link to that source. The closest I can get is "Nonetheless, when close to one hundred million people die...." (p. xvii). Hollander does not appear to have made any estimates. TFD (talk) 16:43, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
LOL, this is Wikipedia at its best, anonymous editors telling us that Staub's "capacity to make a judgement regarding Hollander's claims is null" and "I don't see why should we pay much attention to such a source.". And your capacity to judge Staub's or Hollander's claims is based upon what exactly? Have you guys actually published anything in this field? Staub's published view carries infinitely more weight than your unpublished opinions. --Nug (talk) 19:05, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, it is Wikipedia. Our policy says: "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." Who, in your opinion, are supposed to make a judgement about the "professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts", or about the "the degree of scrutiny given to these issues"? We, Wikipedians. And, as an example of User:William M. Connolley demonstrates that even the opinion of a renown scientist in some area has the same weight as that of an ordinary users (that may be ridiculous, but that is a fact).--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:42, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
No. it is the peer review process when the article/book is published that provides "professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts" and "the degree of scrutiny given to these issues", not Wikipedians. But that is not the issue, you are directly judging a published scholar's capacity to make a judgement, which is clearly outside Wikipedia policy. --Nug (talk) 19:51, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Red herring. We do not judge reputable/reliable sources, we represent them fairly and accurately. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:52, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
If you want to know what weight the academic community provides to different theories then the best source is one that explains the weight the academic community provides. Neither Straub nor Hollander do this. Note too that "peer-review" does not make mean that when Straub refers to an opinion expressed by Hollander in a non-peer reviewed book (and oddly enough misstating it), it does not elevate it to a fact. TFD (talk) 19:54, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Nobody is elevating "100 million" as a fact, it is a published upper estimate on the numbers of killings, but you guys want to remove it altogether, which is a breach of NPOV. --Nug (talk) 20:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
There was a similar discussion in Glenn Beck and related articles where his supporters claimed that 1 million people attended his 9/12 rally, a figure that was picked up by Fox News Channel. It would seem to me that when we include dubious upper (or lower for that matter) ranges that we need to distinguish them from mainstream estimates, perhaps here by saying the estimates come from Courtois and Rummel. TFD (talk) 20:17, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Nope, not even close, there is no comparison between what is published by Fox News and what is published by the academic press. By insisting on excluding Courtois' estimate because Werth disputes it is essentially siding with Werth, and thus is a violation of WP:NPOV. --Nug (talk) 23:06, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Nug, I am entirely uninterested in the complexion of the lead; and, solely interested in source reliability. Psychologists are not experts in history or demography. Courtois' introduction and conclusion are not academic texts: they have been reviewed with great hostility, an singled out for hostility in reviews that are favourable to other sections of the work such as Werth's chapter. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:01, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Ofcourse psychology is central to understanding the roots of genocide and the pathology of communist ideology and why so many communist regimes had a tendency to commit mass killings. Staub says that it is in fact quite similar to that of the Nazi mindset, stating on page 141:
"There is an oft-cited talk by Himmler to German SS officers about their sacrifice in killing Jews, the great hardship this placed on them, which they must bear for the higher cause. Later generations will glorify them for it. Paul Hollander shows through quotes from communist authors and argues persuasively that the Communists believed the same. While the personalities of leaders like Stalin and Mao contributed to the widespread killings and brutality, the culture of the communists imbued perpetrators with the feeling that all is justified for the higher good."
--Nug (talk) 01:49, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
What does that have to do with the discussion thread? And if you think Straub's views should be included, could you please provide a source that explains the degree of acceptance they have. TFD (talk) 06:44, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

One more solution

Firstly, I suggest to separate two issues: the usage of the Black Book in the opening sentence of the lede and presenting the figures of the number of killed. The first issue is quite straightforward: I provided reliable sources that directly contest the Courtois' introduction, and I am waiting for serious (supported by reliable sources) refutation of this criticism. If no such criticism will be provided, the source will be removed (via consensus, admin's action, ArbCom, or other means). Therefore, I suggest those who are interested to preserve this particular source in the lede not to waste their time in fruitless discussions and to go to their local libraries.
The second question is more complex: do we need to present the figures in the lede, and why? I see three aspects of this issue: reliability, political motivation and terminology.
Regarding reliability, I have to concede that the figure of 100 million died/killed/murdered/etc under Communists is cited quite frequently by various authors, whose books devoted to various aspects of violence in history, and who did not do their own demographic studies. Where this figure comes from? According to Wayman and Tago, the only two scholars who have the world wide database of geno/politicides are Rummel and Harf. Harf does not include Chinese famine into the geno/politicidal death toll, so it is highly likely that the figure comes from Rummel. If that is the case, then this figure has just historical value, because Rummel's data are obsolete (at least, for the USSR), and dramatically inflated. In connection to that, let me remind you that per our policy, "the greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source". Therefore, I suggest to rely upon only those sources that provide a detailed description of the procedure, according to which the number of victims have been determined. If Staub did his own research, he is supposed to provide a description of the procedure, according to which he obtained his figures. If he used the results of others, the reference must be present in his book. Otherwise, the degree of scrutiny given to the mass killings issues is not sufficient to consider it a good source for our purposes.
The second aspect is the political motivation of the authors. Most works that cite the figure of 100 million killed do that in a context of comparison of Nazism and Communism. Serious single society historians simply ignore this issue, and the authors who disagree with such a comparison simply do not come out with alternative figures, because they believe they are misleading. Therefore, by making a stress on the figure of X millions killed by Communism we make a redundant stress on the works of those authors who (i) believe that Communism was the equal (or even greater) evil than Nazism, and (ii) see a considerable commonality between mass killings in different Communist societies (by contrast to others). However, only a part (probably, a minor part) of the authors share this views. Therefore, to present the figure in the lede would mean to give an undue weight to only one group of authors.
The third aspect is a terminology. There is no consensus among scholars about the proper term for all these events, and even no consensus about the need of a single term for that. The very terms "Communist mass killings" or ""mass killings under Communist regimes" are used very infrequently in scholarly literature, therefore to combine the authors who provide the estimates of "excess premature deaths" or "repression victims" into a category "mass killings" would be a pure synthesis.
In connection to that, I suggest:

  1. Remove the reference to the BB, along with the figures, from the lede. Note, the Valentino's figures are still there, and I do not propose to remove them.
  2. Start to write a section devoted to the history of the question of the scale of Communist repressions and mass killings, where detailed information, with all notable sources, will be provided, and all nuances will be explained.
  3. When the section will be finished and added to the article, return to the figures issue in the lede.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:40, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul, I have an issue with the first part of your proposal. If author A estimates that X people were killed, that is A's POV; and if author B contests A's estimate and states it is wrong, that is B's POV; we don't go removing A's estimate because it was contested by B, particularly when A's estimate is cited quite frequently by various authors. That is not how YESPOV works. We do not take sides here, but summarise it like "estimated death toll numbering between Y (footnote about B's estimate) and X (footnote about A's estimate) million". But I agree with part 2, by all means write a section on the history of question of the scale. --Nug (talk) 03:14, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Glad to here that you agree with the part 2. However, before we started to work on this section, do we agree that any discussion on the estimates in the lede should be postponed until the section is ready? My point was that only after the section will be added in the article the figures in the lede will be a reflection of what the article says.
Regarding your vision of YESPOV, you summarised it quite correctly. However, I do not see how the opening sentence of the lede (in its present form) is in compliance with YESPOV. The sentence says:
"Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll numbering between 85 and 100 million.[1] "
This sentence cites only one source (and both figures come from this source). By writing that we imply that this source summarises the mainstream views adequately, and both upper and lower limits reflects the scholarly consensus. That is obviously not the case because:
  • This source has been heavily criticised for providing these figures in particular;
  • The very idea to combine the deaths resulted from absolutely different causes has been heavily criticised;
  • The very idea to combine all Communism related deaths together is flawed, according to many authors, and
  • The idea Courtois is trying to convey by these figures (that Communism was a greater evil than Nazism) has been criticised and rejected by many authors.
Therefore, correct application of YESPOV would mean that we have to combine all these theses in the first sentence. I do not think that is technically possible, however, if you have any idea on how to do that, feel free to propose your version. Maybe, it will be a solution.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:52, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
In addition, the Courtois' introduction obviously fails WP:V test. I do not imply that it does not meet the RS criteria per se, however, if we compare it with, for example, Valentino's "Final solutions", we will see that Courtois is simply a potboiler. Valentino provides a long list of secondary sources he used for his works, and we know, for example, that he relied on the works of Conquest, Rummel, Wheatcroft and other authors, so we at least know where he took his figures from. By contrast, Courtois writing is simply an essay that contains no references. Which data (primary or secondary) did he use? Whom he took into account and whom he disregarded? How concretely did he combined different sources for making general estimates? We don't know. Therefore, not only he must be removed because he has been seriously criticised, but because much better sources exist.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:59, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't think there is consensus on a specific number, that is why we must have a range. If author A states W killed, B states X, C states Y and D states Z killed, and W < X < Y < Z, then it would be sufficient to state in the lede "the estimate ranges from W to Z million killed". You have been trying to remove "100 million" from the lede for months now, it will not kill you if it remains for the additional days or weeks it will take to write the new section you propose, then we can evaluate a suitable summary in the lede. --Nug (talk) 04:31, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
We should not provide parity with discredited theories and servious estimates provided by experts, per the policy WP:WEIGHT. TFD (talk) 06:40, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Do you read my posts, Martin? The idea I am trying to convey is that not only there is no consensus about the numbers (and the BB by no means summarises them), but the very idea to present some single number (or range) of the victims of Communism is supported by only those authors who advocate the thesis that Communism was equal/greater evil then Nazism. However, this idea is shared by only a part of authors. Therefore, if we present any number, we thereby give undue weight to just one school.
In other words, a correct description of a situation is as follows: an author A stated W killed Communists, an author B states the killings should not be attributed to Communism, the author C states that only a part of the deaths were a result of killings, the author D states the very concept of Communist killings is politically motivated. In that situation, any speculation about the numbers without presenting the viewpoint of B, C and D, would mean that we give undue weight to just one viewpoint. That is a violation of WP:YESPOV you are referring to.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:58, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
I did not realize that this is another name for Martin. This has all been explained to Martin already. I had assumed it was a new editor unfamiliar with Wikipedia policies. TFD (talk) 07:25, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul, this notion of yours that "idea to present some single number (or range) of the victims of Communism is supported by only those authors who advocate the thesis that Communism was equal/greater evil then Nazism." seems be your own synthesis. From what I have read even the harshest critics of the "Communism=Nazism" thesis acknowledge that Communist regimes killed lots o' people, nobody except fringe neo-Stalinists would dispute this. Just recently Pol Pot's number two claims that the genocide in Cambodia are just "fairytale accusations"[7]. Now whether or not these four viewpoints you articulate exists remains to be seen and will be proven by the writing of your proposed section. --Nug (talk) 11:53, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
You are creating a false dichotomy between those who accept Courtois' estimates and people who claim no one was killed under Communism. In fact mainstream thinking lies between the two extremes. TFD (talk) 14:19, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Martin, you seem to resort to accusations in synthesis too easily. Did you ever think that the problem may be rather in your unfamiliarity with the literature? The source that supports my assertion is:
"Using the figure of 100 million deaths said to be attributable to Communist regimes and movements worldwide, Courtois claimed that Communism was more perfidious than Nazism. For making this assertion, an editorialist in Le Monde rather predictably raised the charge that the introduction was anti-Semitic. Even more remarkably, two of the book's co-authors publicly distanced themselves from Courtois'introductory essay, objecting to"the manipulation of the figures of the number of people killed" and to "the use of shock formulas, the juxtaposition of histories aimed at asserting the comparability and, next, the identities of fascism, and Nazism, and communism. " Nearly 15 years ago, arguments of this kind that were mounted by Ernst Nolte and others in Germany set off the watershed Historikerstreit (historians' controversy), the ultimate outcome of which was the general acceptance among serious-minded people that the evils of Nazism were more insidious than those of Communism, even if the number of deaths attributable to the former was smaller." (John Torpey. What Future for the Future? Reflections on The Black Book of Communism. Human Rights Review, January-March 2001)
This source directly links the attempt to come out with some figure and the Courtois' political agenda. Note, the author left the issue of the actual number of deaths attributable to Communism beyond the scope, because serious-minded people do not play in these Guinness type games.
Regarding Kampuchea, let me remind you that I always maintained that that case is the most clear and unequivocal manifestation of geno/politicide, and there is no controvercy among mainstream scholars on that account. However, to link the victims of KR genocide with, e.g. the victims of Volga famine is hardly appropriate, and most authors do not do that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:53, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Let me add a word of support for what TFD says above. Too many editors of this article indulge in what is called black & white thinking. Either communists killed gazillions of people or they didn't kill anybody. Either communists are all evil or you must love communists and want your sister to marry one. This mode of thinking is the antithesis of all intellectual activity, which is by its nature nuanced, and cautious in its assessments. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:41, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

The article in its present form clearly pushes quite concrete idea: that Communism was greater evil than Nazism. That has been done using three tools: (i) by providing total figures without explanation of what various authors see under them, and without separation of obsolete and new data; (ii) by making a stress on the authors who see commonality between Communist regimes, which leaves the single society studies beyond the scope: thus, the article pays undue attention to Courtois, whose introduction contains nothing new for a reader who is familiar with the subject (per Torpey, Op. Cit.), and ignores Werth, the only author who used fresh archival materials for his chapter; (iii) by making a stress on the idea that Communism was a greater evil than Nazism.
Incidentally, the source Smallbones cited (Weiss-Wendt, Anton (December 2005). "Hostage of Politics Raphael Lemkin on "Soviet Genocide"". Journal of Genocide Research (7(4)): 551–559. http://www.inogs.com/JGRFullText/WeissWendt.pdf), contains a very interesting story of Lemkin's genocide. Weiss-Wendt argued that Lemkin initially persuaded the USSR to sign this convention, and, since the US were persistently refusing to sign it (they did that only after Lemkin's death), Lemkin decided to persuade American administration to sign it under a pretext that that would be a useful tool against the USSR. To do that, he relied upon numerous Easter European diaspora, who were extremely anti-Communist, and who believed Communism was greater evil. Does it remind you anything?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:19, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Renaming is essential for this article to have a chance to devolop into something decent and neutral. I suppose that titles like the Population history of the Communist countries or the Demographics of the Communist states are good variants, which could include not only the "excess deaths", but the opposite category of "excess lives". Any demographic categories could be included into such articles without turning them into WP:SYNTHESIS which is the article under the current title. Also, the very term "regime" is non-neutral and should be avoided in any title. GreyHood Talk 18:48, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul's claim that this article "clearly pushes quite concrete idea: that Communism was greater evil than Nazism" is a strawman. Nowhere in the article is any comparison made with Nazism nor is there any stress that Communism is worse that Nazism, show me in the article where it does that. Nor does it give undue attention to Courtois, many authors are cited. This notion that the existence of single society studies proves there is no commonality is like claiming studies on single trees means forests don't exist, having ten papers on individual tree species and one paper forest ecology does not mean the existence of forests is a fringe minority viewpoint. And Paul's insinuation that the Eastern European diaspora somehow conspired to give the Bolsheviks a bad name cannot be taken seriously, it is like claiming the survivors of Pol Pot's regime conspired to give the Khmer Rouge a bad name. --Nug (talk) 19:32, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
If the survivors of Pol Pot's regime would conspire to give bad names to the Communist Vietnam (which put an end to the Khmer Rouge) and to the People's Republic of Kampuchea (installed by Vietnamese), that would be closer to the situation in Eastern Europe, where the Soviet Union put an end to Nazism. GreyHood Talk 20:30, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Unlike the Nazis who were actually elected by a sizable number people in 1933, nobody elected the Bolsheviks, they just seized power at the point of the gun. They slaughered and imprisoned millions fellow Russian to consolidate power. It wasn't the Soviet Union that put an end to Nazism, it was the sacrifice of the long suffering Russian people, the first victims of Soviet oppression. Yelena Bonner, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, summed it up in a nutshell: "We didn't liberate anyone, we weren't even able to liberate ourselves, although for four difficult years of war we hoped for it. We even said 'After the war, if we survive it, all life will be different.' It didn't happen; not in 1945, not in 1991!". There is no reason to suppose that if the Bolshevik coup d'état failed in 1917 and a democratic government emerged that Russia would not have still developed into a modern state, but without the killings, and they still would have defeated Nazism anyway. so I don't understand why some people defend Stalism, the Soviet regime. It is well known that totalitarian regimes are somewhat sub-optimal when it comes to societal development. --Nug (talk) 23:35, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
This seems to be off-topic, but I'll give few short answers 1) Bolsheviks did have significant support, though not always the majority, perhaps. 2) It was the Soviet Union, like it or not, people could not win a war without a state, like a man can't fight without a head. 3) There were not just Russians but many other ethnicities as well. 4) Bonner's view is in utmost minority in modern Russia and Belarus. 5) We may regret what happened in 1917, but Bolshevik coup d'état was only the last chord in the disastrous rule of the "democratic" liberal Provisional Government. 6) History doesn't know subjunctive mood. 7) "Soviet regime" was very different throughout its history, as was "Stalism", and had both positive and negative traits. The history is not black and white, it has more colors. And the fact that there were many tragedies in the Soviet history doesn't give us an indulgence to blow these tragedies out of proportion. GreyHood Talk 01:14, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
The article on forests is not a collection of sections about individual species of trees, and of course not all trees are in forests. TFD (talk) 20:42, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Martin, you claim "Nowhere in the article is any comparison made with Nazism nor is there any stress that Communism is worse that Nazism, show me in the article where it does that.". I think you either didn't read the article or you are trying to deliberately mislead us. A special section in the article has been devoted to the comparison to other mass killings. It says:
"Daniel Goldhagen argues that 20th century Communist regimes "have killed more people than any other regime type."[52] Other scholars in the fields of Communist studies and genocide studies, such as Steven Rosefielde, Benjamin Valentino, and R.J. Rummel, have come to similar conclusions.[53] [2][26] Rosefielde states that it is possible the "Red Holocaust" killed more non-combatants than "Ha Shoah" and "Japan's Asian holocaust" combined, and "was at least as heinous, given the singularity of Hitler's genocide." Rosefielde also notes that "while it is fashionable to mitigate the Red Holocaust by observing that capitalism killed millions of colonials in the twentieth century, primarily through man-made famines, no inventory of such felonious negligent homicides comes close to the Red Holocaust total."[53]"
Interestingly, the opposite viewpoint (the general acceptance among serious-minded people that the evils of Nazism were more insidious than those of Communism) is not presented in this section, as well as the opinion of several reputable authors who published their views in ‘Roter Holocaust’? Kritik des Schwarzbuchs des Kommunismus [A ‘Red Holocaust’? A Critique of the Black Book of Communism], Jens Mecklenburg and Wolfgang Wippermann, eds, Hamburg, Konkret Verlag Literatur, 1998; ISBN 3–89458–169–7;)
Moreover, the whole article is organised in such a way that serious single society studies that see no or little commonality between different killing events in Communist countries will inevitably have lower weight than poorly compiled and inaccurately written highly politicized writings like that of Courtois. And by adding the figures to the lede without needed explanations we exacerbate this situation further.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:26, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul, in an article that is over 99kB in size, only four sentances discuss comparison with other regimes, with an oblique reference to "Hitler's genocide" in the third sentance attributed as an author's viewpoint by name. Since you claim this 99kB article "clearly pushes quite concrete idea: that Communism was greater evil than Nazism" based upon the evidence of four sentances, it iseems evident that you are seeing this article through an overly sensitized lens of your political convictions, magnifying a tiny section I missed when I looked for references to Nazism and blowing it up into "this whole article clearly pushes the idea". I suggest you have a cup of tea. --Nug (talk) 02:47, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Martin, I believe you should have to concede your mistake first, because, as I have demonstrated, your initial claim ("Nowhere in the article is any comparison made with Nazism") appeared to be wrong. Usually, good faith users apologize for such mistakes, not suggest me to have a cup of tea. Did anybody tell you about such category as "politeness"?
Secondly, although only a short section of the article is devoted to the direct comparison with other mass killings, other sections convey the idea about some outstanding murderous nature of Communism as ideology (and several references to "Red Holocaust" indirectly compare Communism with Nazism). The authors that express the opposite opinia are not cited at all, despite the fact that many, if not majority scholars do not see a direct connection between Communism and mass killings. --Paul Siebert (talk) 05:17, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
We present extreme controversial fringe views published outside the academic mainstream (e.g., Daniel Goldhagen), without explaining how mainstream sources view them. Please read WP:WEIGHT, which explains why this is the wrong approach. TFD (talk) 05:56, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Do you have a source that states Daniel Goldhagen holds "extreme fringe views", or did you just commit a BLP violation? --Nug (talk) 07:56, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
See WP:FRINGE#Identifying fringe theories: We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field." You should be aware that Goldhagen rejects the views of earlier scholars and his views have not been incorporated into modern scholarship. Goldhagen puts the blame for genocide on "peoples", notably the Germans ("Hitler's willing executioners"), but his latest book names other peoples as mass murderers. But I will change extreme to controversial for clarity. TFD (talk) 17:26, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Yugoslavia

Someone should add the mass killings that Yugoslav Communists committed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.176.187.164 (talk) 01:32, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Goldhagen

TFD characterized Goldhagen's book as controversial, and Martin seems disagree with that. Taking into account that this authors has been extensively used in the article, we need to resolve this issue.
The most famous Goldhagen's book (Hitler's willing executioners) has been cited immense amount of times (per gscholar) and by no means can we say that his writer has been ignored by scholarly community. However, does in means his views are shared by others? In my opinion, the article "The Goldhagen Phenomenon" authored by Raul Hilberg put all dots on "i". Raul Hilberg professor emeritus at the University of Vermont, where he held the John G. McCullough chair of political science; he is the author of "The Destruction of the European Jews (1961;rev. ed. 1985), Sonderzuge nach Auschwitz(1981), and Perpetrator, Victims, and Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945 (1992), so he is definitely an expert in this field. Hilberg writes:

"Knowledgeable specialists like Henry Friedlander, who had written an illuminating book about the men of the euthanasia program, Peter Hayes, author of the definitive history of the IG Farben company who went on to study the prewar acquisitions of Jewish enterprises, exposed Goldhagen's work as flimsy. So did experts in Germany. By the end of 1996, it was clear that in sharp distinction from lay readers, much of the academic world had wiped Goldhagen off the map" (Raul Hilberg. The Goldhagen Phenomenon. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Summer, 1997), pp. 721-728)

Note, I present the opinion on Goldhagen, which is based on his the most famous work, and this opinion is that by contrast to lay readers, the academic world considers Goldhagen as a marginal author ("wiped Goldhagen off the map"). In connection to that, please, explain me, do we prefer to write Wikipedia from the lay reader's point of view, or we prefer to use good quality academic sources? Do we prefer to amplify popular stereotypes, of we rely on the opinion of professionals? And, why, for instance, medical WP articles are not based on the traditional medicine sources, but prefer to rely on Medline, and in history we use garbage sources simply because they support out own stereotypes, or a POV we like?

Going back to the Goldhagen's "Worse than War". Do you know that the opening sentence of the first chapter of this book starts with the words:

"Harry Truman, the thirty-third president of the United States, was a mass murderer"

Do you find this statement mainstream or significant minority opinion? I doubt if that is the case. And how do you propose to treat the rest of this book? To avoid accusations in original research, let me cite one of few reviews on this book authored by Adam Jones (University of British Columbia, published in Journal of Genocide Research (2010), 12:3-4, 271-278). The author praises Goldhagen for non-trivial thinking, and for "good intellectual dust-up." However, a general conclusion of the author is "that Goldhagen’s book—despite its fluid style, commendable passion, and genuine contributions—is undermined throughout by a casual approach to basic research, and by the author’s hubristic tendency to overreach and overstate his case."(Jones, Op.cit)

Moreover, Jones argued that the Goldhagen’s research "is worse than inadequate: it is painfully, almost derisorily thin." Goldhagen refers to ‘several general sources’ he used as a factual base of this book (seven, according to Jones): one is a statistics posten on the Internet, another is ... Rummel. By contrast, Goldhagen totally ignores the "stellar post-Lemkin theorists of genocide, from Leo Kuper to Mark Levene and Martin Shaw."
In other words, not only Goldhagen is a superficial writer whose conclusions are poorly supported by adequate sources, he even did no demographic/genocidal research by himself! His figures are in actuality the Rummel's figures, which he quoted uncritically.
My conclusion is that Goldhagen, as a highly controversial writer, who is not recognised as serious author by mainstream scholars gives no additional weight to the old Rummel statistics. Moreover, dramatically unproportional attention has been paid to his view in the article. That must be fixed per WP:UNDUE.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:08, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Goldhagen's controversial book of course was reviewed by numerous scholars and is discussed in learned papers because of the controversy it caused. But the research and views have been ignored in writing on the topics covered by Goldhagen. TFD (talk) 19:41, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
I've read that review, and while Jone is critical of some aspects of Goldhagen's work, as all good critics ought to do, he also praises his work and even cites it in his own:
"In preparing a new edition of an introductory textbook on genocide (Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, 2nd ed.), I found myself citing Goldhagen regularly—not just for his treatment of the Holocaust on the eastern front, but for some less appreciated contributions as well, including those in Worse Than War. He is commendably clear-eyed on gender and genocide, for example, particularly with regard to women’s genocidal temptations and com- plicities. In a passage I have often cited from Hitler’s Willing Executioners, he seems to me to have articulated the significance of the gender-selective killings of a community’s males in an unusually thoughtful and nuanced way."
So while Jones is quite happy to cite Goldhagen in his own work despite his review, Paul Siebert wants to throw it out entirely. So TFD's claim that "mainstream" scholarship ignores Goldhagens work is simply just not true. You would gave to show that the claims by Goldhagen used in this article have been directly refuted by other. --Nug (talk) 20:01, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
That is out of context. Here is a link to Adam Jones book review, which says, "Goldhagen himself has greater celebrity than scholarly status.... [His] research is stuck at an undergraduate level. When this is combined with his penchant for hyperbole and overstatement, the consequences for his interpretation of the theory, law, and practice of genocide are serious and deleterious." TFD (talk) 20:43, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
It is not out of context, that quote is from the same review you linked. Despite Jones' citicisms, he is still perfectly happy to cite GoldHagen in his own books. --Nug (talk) 21:02, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
The reviews posted here so far indicate that Goldhagen is not well-regarded within the academic community. BigK HeX (talk) 23:24, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Questions regarding Goldhagen as a mainstream author

Martin, the fair discussion is possible only when both sides address each other's arguments seriously. In my previous posts, I quoted two authors. You preferred to totally ignore the conclusions of one of them, and, since you managed to find something positive in the second review, you find that fact sufficient to consider my arguments to be refuted. That is not the case, however. I already quoted the Jones' conclusion who conceded that the Goldhagen's book is not without merit, but "what is good is not new, and what is new is not good." He agreed with some Goldhagen's points, but he seriously criticises him in general, and the conclusion articulates that quite adequately. No good faith person can deny that.
In connection to that, I have to say the following. The article currently cite Goldhagen (several times) as a mainstream author, and this situation is acceptable only if that is the case. If he is not recognised by the scholarly community as such, a structure of some sections should be revised. Therefore, I respectfully request you (or other users who share your POV) to answer following questions.

  1. Raul Hilberg (professor emeritus at the University of Vermont, where he held the John G. McCullough chair of political science; he is the author of "The Destruction of the European Jews (1961;rev. ed. 1985), Sonderzuge nach Auschwitz(1981), and Perpetrator, Victims, and Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945 (1992), so he is definitely an expert in this field) states that "By the end of 1996, it was clear that in sharp distinction from lay readers, much of the academic world had wiped Goldhagen off the map." (Raul Hilberg. The Goldhagen Phenomenon. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Summer, 1997), pp. 721-728) Please, provide a reference and the quote from some at least equally reliable source that states the opposite and directly refutes this prof. Hilberg's statement.
  2. Adam Jones (University of British Columbia) states that the Goldhagen's "Worse than War" "is worse than inadequate: it is painfully, almost derisorily thin."(Journal of Genocide Research (2010), 12:3-4, 271-278). Please, provide a source that criticises this Jones' conclusion.

Your failure to provide the sources that prove that the sources provided by me are unreliable automatically means they are reliable and mainstream: they were published in Western peer-reviewed journals, and the authors' credentials are sufficient to warrant their reliability and non-fringeness. Therefore, the Goldhagen book automatically fails WP:UNDUE, which means that the way Goldhagen's views have been presented in must be changed.
In addition, I would like to ask you the following.

  1. Golhagen starts his book, ("Worse than War", a book where the number of 100 million killed by Communism is taken from) that Truman was a mass murdered. Do you agree that Truman was a mass murderer, and if not, why do you still believe the book that starts with such a claim is mainstream as whole?
  2. Jones (Op. cit.) claims that the historical information "Worse than War" is based on has been taken from just seven sources, only two of which are not entry-level anthologies. Do you believe the book that has been written basically on the entry-level anthologies deserves to be considered as some new research?
  3. Jones (Op. cit.) claims that one of those seven sources is "a useful statistical index posted on the Internet." Do you believe the book written based in the data from unknown quality statistics from the Interned is reliable?
  4. Jones (Op. cit.) claims that one of two "not entry-level" sources Goldhagen relied on was Rummel's "Death by government". Are you still insisting that Goldhagen's book contains fresh non-obsolete data about the scale of Communist mass killings.

And, can you answer honestly, do you still find possible to continue to cite Goldhagen as an argument in our dispute?--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:05, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Goldhagen's views appear to be outside mainstream writing. For example, he wrote, "The most important national groups who aided the Germans in slaughtering Jews were the Ukrainians, Lativians and Lithuanians, about whom two things can be said. They came from cultures that were profoundly anti-Semitic...." (The case for Lativia, disinformation campaigns against a small nation, p. 116)[8] TFD (talk) 05:40, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul, you have totally ignored the fact that despite Jones' criticisms, he is still perfectly happy to cite GoldHagen in his own books:
"In preparing a new edition of an introductory textbook on genocide (Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, 2nd ed.), I found myself citing Goldhagen regularly—not just for his treatment of the Holocaust on the eastern front, but for some less appreciated contributions as well, including those in Worse Than War."[9]
If Goldhagen is good enough to be cited by Professor Adam Jones in his own books, he is good enough to be cited by Wikipedia. --Nug (talk) 18:22, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I didn't ignore that. As I explained, Jones find Goldhagen quite interesting and provocative writer, and that is probably a reason why he quotes him frequently. By contrast, you have totally ignored the following:
  1. Raul Hilberg's opinion (Goldhagen is popular among lay publics, but is not a serious scholar).
  2. Jones final conclusion is mostly negative (see the quote above);
  3. Jones' explanation of the sources Goldhagen used for his book (see above).
Taking into account all said above, I simply do not understand how a good faith user can continue to insist on expensive usage of Goldhagen. I find your persistent refusal to recognise the obvious as an indication of the desperate lack of your good faith. I have already had very serious reasons for doubts in your good faith, and I expect you to provide at least minimal signs of your will to listen the arguments from others.
And, please, answer a simple question that I already have asked twice:
"If you believe Goldhagen is a mainstream author, do you agree that Truman was a mass murderer?"
--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:00, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Re "If Goldhagen is good enough to be cited by Professor Adam Jones in his own books, he is good enough to be cited by Wikipedia." That is a pure demagogy. Jones explained in details that the basic facts Goldhagen relied upon have been taken from just seven sources, and only two of them were not an entry-level anthologies (and one of remaining two is Rummel). In this situation, I do not understand how can a good faith user insist on taking factual statements from this source, which, for this purpose, is just a poor quality tertiary source.
If you do not want to conduct a serious discussion, maybe you should just stop?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:04, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul, this article makes no mention of Truman, so your question is irrelavent. The fact that Goldhagen has a particular view on Truman did not stop Jones' citing of Goldhagen in his own books for his treatment of the Holocaust on the eastern front. This isn't a totalitarian communist regime were "unreliable" writers get denouced and any reference to them expunged from articles. Some of Goldhagens views are criticised, some have merit, it depends on the particular topic. --Nug (talk) 19:39, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, which Goldhagen views have merits, per Jones and Hilberg? In particular, what concrete statements from Hilberg's review allow us to conclude that Goldhagen as a scholar can still be considered seriously? Your failure to address this my question will be an indication that you have no arguments against the Hilberg's conclusion.
My second question. What concretely in the Goldhagen's "Worse than War" has merit per Jones' review? In particular, what is the opinion of Jones about Goldhagen's research base?
Please, address these two questions as much precisely as possible. No attempts to distract the dispute towards minor points, please.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:03, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Regarding your "This isn't a totalitarian communist regime were "unreliable" writers get denouced and any reference to them expunged from articles," I believe you are absolutely wrong. Wikipedia is by no means democracy, and unreliable sources must be expunged from it per our policy. I would say, Wikipedia is more Communist (people are working not for money, and they do that for something that they believe is a common good), than democracy (votes are not permitted).--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:08, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
PS. BTW, to avoid misunderstanding, I never proposed to expunge Goldhagen, Rummel or similar authors from Wikipedia. My point is that we cannot pay undue attention to this writers. However, since these writers are popular among some lay readers, the article containing no references to them would be treated with suspect by those readers. Therefore, in my opinion, they should be mentioned, but as minority or obsolete views.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:13, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul, Jones states: "I found myself citing Goldhagen regularly—not just for his treatment of the Holocaust on the eastern front, but for some less appreciated contributions as well, including those in Worse Than War". Now Jones does not say what they were, but none of the specific opinions used in this article were criticised in that review. I've re-read the article and Goldhagen's viewpoints are properly attributed as his opinions, not as the absolute truth or fact, and his books are certainly reliable sources for his opinions. Being a prominent author in his own right I certainly do not think the few lines given to his viewpoint is excessive in a 100kB article. --Nug (talk) 11:45, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Jones states that Goldhagen research base is worse than inadequate. It also says that one of two books he relies upon for historical facts is Rummel's "Death by government", another is the Ben Kiernan’s "Blood and Soil". I didn't fine a mention of 100 million communist mass killiongs in Kernan's book. Are you still insisting that Goldhagen did his own studies, not just cited Rummel?
In addition, as I already explained, I didn't propose to remove Goldhagen completely. He simply should be treated as minority or fringe author. Taking into account all my arguments, do you have anything to say to support your assertion that he is a mainstream author who did his own statistical research, and who provided his own data that independently support the old Rummel's figures? If not, Glodhagen should not be used as a source for figures.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:20, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Given that only a few lines of a 100kB article is given to Goldhagen, which I don't think is undue, and it is properly attributed as his opinions for which his books are a reliable source, it is not clear to me what you are proposing here, other than conducting some kind of exercise in constructing straw man arguments, since I never said Goldhagen conducted his own population studies nor did I make any assertions as to whether he is mainstream or not, as you claim. I had objected to TFD's characterisation as "extreme fringe", you can see how extensively Jones cites Goldhagen in his latest book[10]. If and how to cite Goldhagen's book was previously extensively discussed and the current wording was the consensus result of that previous discussion, so as I said it is not clear what the proposal is here. --Nug (talk) 10:49, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Paul Hollander

During the previous discussion, an argument has been put forward that "eminent psychologist" Staub cited Hollander's estimates to mass killings perpetrated by Communists to be 100 million. It is not clear for me which concrete Hollander's work did Staub cite, however, according to this Hollander's article, he did no his own studies, and simply cited Rummel, Malia, Tony Judt, Robert Conquest, and Dmitry Volkogonov. The works he cites are as follows:

  1. R. J. Rummel, “War Isn’t the Century’s Biggest Killer,” Wall Street Journal, July 7, 1996; see also his Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers 1996);
  2. Stephane Courtois et al., Black Book of Communism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. x.
  3. Tony Judt, “The Longest Road to Hell,” New York Times, December 22, 1997;
  4. Robert Conquest, The Great Terror (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 485–86;
  5. Dmitri Volkogonov, Victory and Tragedy: The Political Portrait

of Stalin (Budapest: Zrinyi, 1990), p. 413.refore, he did no his own studies.

Therefore, I conclude that this author simply summarised the results of others, and took them mostly from the newspaper and magazine articles; I already explained that Rummel's data are simply obsolete; my questions regarding the critique of Courtois are still unanswered, therefore, it should be considered unreliable for figures; Conquest's area of interests is the USSR, and it is strange that Hollander preferred to ignore such reputable scholars as Wheatcroft of Maksudov (who give much lower figures); Volkogonov was a Communist Party functionary, and, as some reviews say, his estimates had been seriously affected by the needs of political struggle between Gorbachev and reactionary CPSU leaders, so it was desirable to provide inflated estimates of the victims of Communism.

My conclusion: Hollander did no his own studies, he simply quoted few NYT and WSJ articles, along with a couple of books he found interesting. Neither fresh nor serious source. And, more importantly, it is a tertiary source.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:25, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Paul, the cat is out of the bag, the horse has bolted, the milk is spilt, the genie is out of the bottle, the plain fact is that "85 to 100 million" is a widely published and cited number, and we simply cannot exclude mentioning it. You dismiss scholars who endorse that number as "politically motivated" and describe those scholars that refute that number as "reputable". As much as you personally want to remove the viewpoint of a whole range of scholars, policy simply does not allow us to do so. Sorry. --Nug (talk) 19:27, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
The figures taken from Rummel's Death by Government are widely published and cited numbers. However, these figures are being cited by the authors who do not pay a special attention to the issue, and do not analyse them critically. By contrast, such specialists as Harf note that Rummel estimates are dramatically exaggerated, and should not be trusted. For those who want create good Wikipedia (and for those who follow what our policy says) the voice of few specialists have much greater weight than multiple articles in newspapers, popular books or magazines.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:46, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
PS BTW "85 to 100 million" in relation to Communism have been cited only 11 times, according to gscholar...--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:26, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
The figure is a SUMMARY of the figures in the body of the text. Summaries do not need to be separately cited, Paul -- they only need to reflect a summary of the figures in the body of this article. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:33, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
We are discussing the body, and the sources used there, in particular. As I have already demonstrated, the Courtois' introduction has been severely criticezed for the figures it cites, and nobody has provided even a single source that refutes a criticism quoted above (see this section). In the absence of refutation of criticism from mainstream authors, the Courtois' intro should be considered as fringe for this particular statement.
The next source is Goldhagen. However, as a mainstream author (Hilberg) concluded, this writer is not considered as serious scholar by scientific community (by contrast to many lay readers) . As Jones concluded, the Goldhagen's research base is quite insiatisfactory: he used just two non-entry level books as his sources, and one of them was Rummel's "Death by Government". Therefore, Goldhagen is not reliable source for estimates.
The third author is Rummel, whose estimates are known to be inadequate and obsolete.
Other two authors cited in the article are Rosefielde and Valentino. Rosefielde is a specialist in the Soviet history, so the data for other Communist countries are taken by him from the research of other scholars. He is known to lean towards the higher estimates in the opinion spectrum, by contrast to his eternal opponent, Wheatcroft. In addition, although his "Red Holocaust" seems to be written based on his previous articles published in peer-reviewed journals, he uses much less encyclopaedic language in his book than in his peer-reviewed articles. In any event, he is mostly a single society scholar, and he is a proponent of higher estimates for the USSR.
The last author is Valentino. He honestly writes that he did no independent studies of the mass mortality in the Communist states, and he created the estimates based on numerous secondary sources. He is the only author in this list who have done massive analysis of literature. However, a problem with this author is in his concept of "mass killing": he consider almost all instances of mass mortality under Communists as "mass killings". In other words, the problems with this author are as follows:
  1. He performs no critical analysis of the figures (he uses both Rummel and Wheatcroft, and treats them equally, despite the fact that Rummel's data are known to be exaggerated), and
  2. He gives his own interpretation to these figures: according to him, all of them are mass killings, the statement that is not present in most sources he used.
In summary, we have several very questionable sources who de facto reproduce the same Rummel's figures, plus one single society author (Rosefielde) who tries to expand his own ideas about "Red Holocaust" (and uses highest estimates to support them), and one tertiary source (Valentino), who combined most (new and outdated) estimates of mass mortality under Communists and give his own interpretation to these figures (defines them as "Communist mass killings").
In other words, the figures in the lede are an alleged summary of the figures in the body (although never in the BB could I find an explanation of where did Courtois take his figures from), which are in actuality the Rummel's figures reproduced by several authors. Valentino and Rosevielde stay apart. They can be discussed seriously. However, as you probably noticed, Valentino's figures have already been cited in the lede, so there is no need in additional figures in the opening sentence. Moreover, if we write the article based Valentino's or Rosefielde's concepts, we need to explain that we discuss the views of these two concrete authors, not the commonly accepted theory. --Paul Siebert (talk) 22:19, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
IOW, the Chinese (PRC official) source for an estimate of over 43,000,000 (IIRC) deaths in a short period does not exist to you? Seems that that single reliable source agrees with the other estimates quite nicely - and is definitely not "fringe" no matter how one defines the word. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:09, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Firstly, we are discussing not the actual amount of excess deaths, but several quite concrete sources (this section, if you noticed, is devoted to Paul Hollander). Do you have to say something concrete on these sources? If not, let's close this part of the dispute and move further.
Secondly, I have absolutely no doubts that violent social transformations in such a huge country as China lead to large (absolute) amount of excess deaths, some of which (unknown fraction) were the result of direct killings, direct starvation, etc. However, do you claim that the (unnamed) official PRC source says that 43 million people were the victims of mass killings? By asking that I do not claim I don't believe in such a figure, I am just wondering if the official PRC recognized that all of them were killed deliberately.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:29, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Collect, why do you think that the Communist Party of China is a reliable source? Do you think they should be used for other articles? TFD (talk) 06:10, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I fear your opinion is not going to be held by others - in law, there is a concept of Statement against interest which implies that, if anything, a person in that position would seek to minimize the number of reported deaths. Thus that principle would indicate the number as a likely Lower bound if anything. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:02, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I hardly think a PRC official would inflate numbers that would put his own party in a poor light. --Nug (talk) 11:47, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I agree with Collect and Martintg that the opinion of Chinese official can be trusted, if we consider it as a lower bound, although such a conclusion is not universal. Thus, as I already wrote, in late USSR, some party official (Yakovlev, Volkogonov) provided inflated numbers when it was dictated by the needs of inter-party struggle.
In addition, the PRC source is a primary source, and these numbers should be treated with cautions. In connection to that, please, explain me if the POC official and majority of sources dealing with Chinese history describe those deaths an "mass killings"?
One more comments on Martintg and Collect. Please, do not ignore the questions you find inconvenient. If my post contains the arguments A, B, C, and D, addressing only the argument D means that you agree with A-C. Avoiding inconvenient questions does not allow you to refer to "no consensus" in future, because if you have nothing to argue, your "disagree" has a zero weight. Let's play fairly, guys.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:06, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Um -- considering I have repeatedly answered your cavils in the past, iterating them does not make any weight change. The person who posts the greatest amount of repeated verbiage to a discussion, is least likely to be correct Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:19, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Please, remind me how and when did you addressed my arguments about Hollander, Courtois and Goldhagen. You provided zero sources to refute the sourced criticism of the latter two authors, and you totally ignored my points about Hollander. The person who post large amount of texts does that in the attempts to convince others. The person who briefly replies that he "already answered all cavils" simply does not want to be convinced, independently on the number and quality of evidences.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:26, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I checked the talk page, and I found no your serious responces on my questions about the criticism of the Black Book, Hollander and Goldhagen. Therefore, your claim that you "have repeatedly answered your cavils in the past" if blatantly false and insulting. If you do not want to participate in civil and polite consensus building process, please, say that clearly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:53, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Read WP:NPA and WP:AGF and a few other policies before making such an absurd and improper post in the future. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:02, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, the claim that one's words are blatantly false can be refuted quite easily. In this particular case, that can be done by showing at least a single your sourced post in a response on the summary of the criticism of the Courtois' introduction that I presented above (here or here). You totally ignored my request, and after that you dare to claim that you answered my criticism. In my opinion, this your claim is a direct lie. However, I am ready to retract this my statement if you will demonstrate me how and when did you address my points.
In addition, you call my detailed and well sourced criticism "cavils". This is an insult. Therefore, although our policy advises us to continue to assume good faith yourself where we can, I am not sure if in this particular case I can. However, I'll be glad if you will demonstrate that I was wrong.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:37, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Articles need to follow the policies of WP:RS and WP:NOR. That would greatly reduce the unproductive talk page discussion. TFD (talk) 13:05, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Back to the Black Book

I noticed a tendency of some participants of the dispute to divert the discussion towards minor details to dilute the major thesis. I am not sure that is a fruitful way to conduct a discussion. I suggest to devote this section exclusively to the brief answers on the questions I asked here. Concretely, I am interested to know what concrete sources (not unsubstantiated arguments) directly refute the sources cited and quoted by me. Please, leave only those posts here that contain only reliable sources that are directly relevant to the questions I asked. If you believe these questions have been stated in incorrect way, please explain me my errors in the section Counter-arguments against the questions asked by Paul Siebert below. All posts that have not been supported with reliable sources will be moved to the "Counter-arguments ..." section.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:47, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Sources that refute the criticism of the Black Book

Counter-arguments against the questions asked by Paul Siebert

Useless straw man

Is what has been given. Straw man arguemntsm on article talk pages which do not get responded to stick out like a sore thumb. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:21, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Straw man argumentation implies "misrepresentation of an opponent's position, twisting his words or by means of [false] assumptions." In connection to that, I would like to know what concrete words have been twisted by me, how did I misinterpret the position of my opponents, and what my assumptions are false. Please explain.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:21, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

China famine deaths

While my questions regarding the BB, Goldhagen &Co are waiting for (sourced) answers, I think we can discuss the Great Leap famine in China, which constitutes the lion's share of the deaths some authors describe as "Communist mass killings". Below I describe several single society studies that deal with this famine. These articles were published in international scholarly or economical journals, passed a peer-reviewing procedure and by no means are unreliable or fringe.

Shujie Yao. A Note on the Causal Factors of China's Famine in 1959–1961. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 107, No. 6 (December 1999), pp. 1365-1369 Published by
The University of Chicago Press

Sources used by Yao:

  1. Ashton, Basil; Hill, Kenneth; Piazza, Alan; and Zeitz, Robin. ‘‘Famine in China, 1958–61.’’ Population and Development Rev. 10 (December 1984): 613–45.
  2. Chang, Gene Hsin, and Wen, Guanzhong James. ‘‘Communal Dining and the Chinese Famine of 1958–1961.’’ Econ. Development and Cultural Change 46 (October 1997): 1–34.
  3. Eckstein, Alexander. Communist China’s Economic Growth and Foreign Trade: Implications for U.S. Policy. New York: McGraw-Hill (for Council Foreign Relations), 1966.
  4. Lardy, Nicholas R. Economic Growth and Distribution in China. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978.
  5. Lin, Justin Yifu. ‘‘Collectivization and China’s Agricultural Crisis in 1959–1961.’’ J.P.E. 98 (December 1990): 1228–52.
  6. Peng, Xizhe. ‘‘Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China’s Provinces.’’ Population and Development Rev. 13 (December 1987): 639–70.
  7. Perkins, Dwight H., and Yusuf, Shahid. Rural Development in China. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press (for World Bank), 1984.
  8. State Statistical Bureau. Statistical Yearbook of China. Beijing: Statistical Publishing House, 1991.

Major Yao's conclusions.

  1. Yao does not describe this famine as "mass killing".
  2. In 1959–61, the total amount of extra deaths in China was 18.48 million and the births deficit was 30.79 million.
  3. The estimated extra deaths were similar to the estimates made by Peng (1987) and Chang and Wen (1997), and smaller then earlier estimate (Ashton et al. (1984)).
  4. The famine was caused by six independent factors: (i) poor weather, (ii) wrong policies, and (iii) low production incentives—caused a sudden reduction in domestic food production. (iv) The near absence of a statistical and monitoring system, (v) the inability to import grains, and (vi) international isolation—led to the failure to respond to a food shortage.
  5. In addition, breaking up with the USSR led to total isolation of China; the latter had to export grain to pay debt to the USSR.--Paul Siebert (talk) 07:58, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Cormac Ó Grada. "The ripple that drowns?"

Full citation: Cormac Ó Grada. The ripple that drowns? Twentieth century famines in China and India as economic history. Economic History Review, 61, S1 (2008), pp. 5–37. This is a revised version of the Tawney Lecture delivered at the Economic History Society conference hosted by the University of Exeter, 1 April 2007.

Some sources used by the author for statistical analysis:

  1. Official statistical data;
  2. Luo, S., ‘Reconstruction of life tables and age distributions for the population of China, by year, from 1953 to 1982’ (Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1988).
  3. Lardy, N., ‘The Chinese economy under stress, 1958–65’, in R. MacFarquhar and J. K. Fairbank, eds., The Cambridge history of China, vol. 14 (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 360–97.
  4. National Bureau of Statistics, Comprehensive statistical data and materials on fifty years of new China (Beijing, 1999).
  5. Yang, D., Calamity and reform in China: state, rural society, and institutional change since the Great Leap Famine (Stanford, Calif., 1996).
  6. http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/
  7. Ash, R., ‘Squeezing the peasants: grain extraction, food consumption and rural living standards in Mao’s China’, China Quarterly, 188 (2006), pp. 959–88.
  8. Mokyr, J. and Ó Gráda, C., ‘What do people die of during famines? The Great Irish Famine in comparative perspective’, European Review of Economic History, 6 (2002), pp. 339–64.

I believe it is not necessary to explain that this author, who, judging by his publication list, is a specialist in famines (including Irish famine), does not use the terms "mass killing", "deliberate starvation" or similar terms, and prefers to speak about "excess deaths", or even "demographic cost". Note, this mainstream single society study also does not speak about "mass killings" in this case. Author's major points:

  1. The "demographic cost" of famine "is often reckoned in excess deaths plus ‘lost’ births". The estimates of the demographic cost, defined in such a way, amounts to 43 million.
  2. A considerable part of the ‘lost’ births seem to have been ‘postponed’ births (i.e., the decrease of birth rate during the famine was partially compensated by the outburst of births in 1962).
  3. Regarding the number of direct deaths as a result of famine, more recent estimates Peng (23 million; Peng, X., ‘Demographic consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China’s provinces’, Population and Development Review, 13 (1987), pp. 639–70.), Yao (Op. cit) (18 million), and Houser, Sands, and Xiao (15 million; Houser, D., Sands, B., and Xiao, E., ‘Three parts natural, seven parts man-made: Bayesian analysis of China’s Great Leap Forward demographic disaster’ [WWW document]. URL http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~exiao/china.pdf [accessed on 12 Oct. 2006].) are lower than the 30 million or more that were widely cited in the 1980s, or the "figures of fifty and sixty million deaths . . . cited at internal meetings of senior Party officials"(cited by Becker, J., Hungry ghosts: Mao’s secret famine (NewYork, 1996)). In other words, we have the same situation here as in the case of the USSR: old estimates of the mass mortality appear to be greater than the results of more recent analysis of new sources.
  4. According to Ó Grada's own estimate, 15 million is a lower bound of death toll.
  5. During XIX and XX centuries China experienced famines regularly, which allowed Tawney to describe China as a "land of famine" (Tawney, Land and labour, p. 77). In 1876–9 the Great North Famine killed 9.5 million to 13 million, which, in terms of per capita mortality surpassed the Great Leap Forward famine). China suffered from major famine in 1935–6 (resulting in significant infanticide), and in 1942–3 (with typical traits of mass famine, including cooked elm bark and cottonseed, suicides, beggars at every city gate, voluntary slavery, dogs eating bodies by the roadside, and even cannibalism. ) According to Ó Grada, the GLF famine was surpassed by most of those and others earlier famines.
  6. In 1950, China was very poor country, even poorer than the African states. Sharp economic transformations were extremely risky in this situation.
  7. The role of the Communist party leadership in the disaster was important, although bad relations with the USSR and the US left no space for maneouvre for them.
  8. The role of the weather in 1959–61 remains controversial and underresearched, although poor weather had considerable impact.
Cormac Ó Gráda. Making Famine History. Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Mar., 2007), pp. 5-38
  1. According to this source, recent estimates of population losses are based on data released by the Chinese authorities in the early 1980s. "The quality of those data has been questioned but, since their release was part of the official effort to discredit Maoist policies, they are unlikely to downplay the tragedy. The evidential basis for wilder estimates such as "figures of fifty and sixty million deaths . . . cited at internal meetings of senior Party officials" is very flimsy."
  2. Precise estimates are hard to do because of uncertainty of the non-crisis (normal) mortality data.
  3. Based on recent careful estimates (see above), the author concludes that the GLF famine was almost certainly the biggest in history in absolute terms.

I believe that is enough for the beginning. As the serious literature provided by me demonstrates, the specialists do not describe the greatest famine under Communists as "mass killings", and the modern estimates of the population losses are dramatically lower than those used by some anti-Communist writers (who rely on old data, mostly from Rummel).
In connection to that, I believe a considerable part of the article should be modified to comply with our YESPOV policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 07:58, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Manus Midlarsky in The killing trap: genocide in the twentieth century published by Cambridge University Press describes the Great Leap Forward as an instance of Communist mass killing and in fact compares it to Cambodia[11] . --Nug (talk) 11:11, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, you want me to subject Mildarsky to the same analysis as Goldhagen? Before I started, could you please do the following. Try to answer the following questions:
  1. What was a Mildarsky's research base (what concrete sources did he use)? Consretely, did he use Rummel's data, old CPC data (which are flimsy and outdated), or he has done his own research?
  2. What is the ground for Mildarsky's alleged conclusion that the population losses during GLF famine in actuality are equal to the amount of victims of mass killings committed by Comunists?
--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:42, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
PS I checked Midlarsky's book and I found no statements there that characterises GLF famine as mass killing. Interestingly, your attempt to search for "mass killing" "great leap forward" in gbooks retrieved just 121 results, some of them refer to the Wikipedia mirror.
My conclusion is that the article, which is based on such flimsy ground (a largest part of "mass killings", the GLF famine, appeared to be dramatically exaggerated, and, importantly, is not characterised by specislists as such; they prefer to talk about "population losses", major part of which were the postponed births, and do not see GLF famine as something outstanding in Chinese history).--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:50, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


Editors have repeatedly pointed out that the exact term "mass killing" is not a sine qua non for any source to be used - only that the excess deaths documented in reliable sources fall under the scope of this article. This has been dealt with at the many AfDs as well -- setting up such a straw argument makes no sense at all, has not made any sense at all, and shall continue to make no sense at all. The sources indicate that a great number of "excess deaths" (to use the euphemism) occurred in China, that a Chinese government official confirmed those deaths, and that is sufficient for them to be mentioned in this article. Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:12, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Although I wrote in the past that I do not support the idea to delete this article, I've realised now that the article in its present form cannot exist. It should be either deleted or rewritten. I prefer to follow the second way, and the scheme I propose is as follows:
  1. Some authors believe that Communist regimes committed mass killings during some periods of their history;
  2. These authors claim that the scale of those mass killings surpassed all other mass killings in history;
  3. According to these authors, a major part of those mass killings were famines and similar disasters, which partially were the results of the policy of Communist authorities.
  4. Modern famine studies provide much lower estimates for the scale of the famine deaths, and do not describe the population losses as mass killings
  5. Modern studies put most mass mortality events into historical context, and explain their onset based on society-specific factors.
Of course, that is just a preliminary draft, it will probably need some serious modification, but the main idea is clear from it.
If my attempts to convert the article into something reasonable will be rejected, the only way will be to delete this article. In connection to that, let me remind you the following. A first AfD failed because of the activity of the EEML cabal. During other AfDs, I was not a serious proponent of the article deletion, and later I even abandoned the camp of deletionists. However, taking into account recent results of the analysis of the sources I changed my opinion: the article should be either about the views of some authors (who did no their own studies of the subject, relied on the obsolete sources and whose writings do not reflect the majority viewpoint), or the article should be deleted. If the events will develop in the second direction, I'll approach to that seriously, and the article will be deleted, either by normal AfD or by arbitration.
With respect.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:41, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
OMG! The dreaded EEML cabal rears its head here? Sorry Paul, that dog don't hunt. And in case you did not know it ArbCom never takes on content disputes. Cheers, but you really made my day be raising the EEML demon canard here! Collect (talk) 18:20, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
You cited AfDs - and I explained why they failed. First AfD failed because of hidden coordinated efforts of the EEML cabal, and no good faith user can refer to its results. Other AfD failed mostly because NPOV arguments have been rejected based on WP:V ground, and, importantly, because I was not an active proponent of deletion. However, if I'll approach to this issue seriously, I'll succeed in that.
Re "ArbCom never takes on content disputes." You are not completely right. ArbCom does not usually do that. However, I have recently been advised by a knowledgeable admin that that type issues can be resolved by means of arbitration, and I do not rule out a possibility that I'll follow this advise.
However, to avoid misunderstanding, let me re-iterate: deletion of this article is not my first choice. We should try to convert it into something reasonable first. Do you agree to collaborate?--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:37, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul, your claims regarding the "EEML cabal" is demonstrably false, there have been 5 AfD, when the EEML was active 3 AfDs resulted in "no consensus", and when the EEML were banned 2 AfDs resulted in "keep"! Go figure. Midlarsky does make the connection between Cambodia and the GLF, from the page I linked above:
"And if this was the total of the mass killing in Cambodia, then we could easily place Cambodia (especially the annihilation of the Vietnamese) along side the Holocaust, the Armenians and the Tutsi as an exemplar of genocide. But, as we know, this is not the case. The murdered 10,000 Vietnamese, even including the additional residents of the east murdered with them, amount only to a small fraction of the total. Other sources to be found in communist ideology and behaviour are far more relevant. One immediate source is to be found in the Chinese Great Leap Forward of 1958-61 and the later Cultural revolution of the mid-1960s"
Milarski then goes on to discuss how the Communist model was responsible for both the Cambodian and Chinese situations. You cite one or two authors who refute some aspects and claim their view is the "mainstream". However whether or not a view is mainstream is judged by whether or not that view is present in reference works, like encyclopaedias, handbooks and other tertiary sources. If the mainstream view is that the GLF was just a famine and not a mass killing, how come it is mentioned so often in reference works on genocide?[12] --Nug (talk) 20:02, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Nug, you provide a long extract from Midlarsky then explain the support for your viewpoint can be found elsewhere in the book. If you think that the article should present Midlarsky's view as a fact you need to do two things: provide a source for Midlarsky's views and a source that says they are regarded as factual. Otherwise you are just arguing about what you believe, which is why there are 28 archived talk pages and this article is garbage. TFD (talk) 22:33, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Dear Martintg. Thank you for pointing at my mistake. You are right, not one AfD failed because of the EEML cabal's activity but three. Therefore, to speak about 5 failed AfDs is totally incorrect. With regard of the remaining two AfDs, as I already explained, I was not an active proponent of the article's deletion. However, after the analysis of the sources I came to a conclusion that the article has much more serious neutrality and reliability issues, and I have a serious reasons to suspect that the proponents of the article deletion will prevail if we will not find a way to resolve serious POV problems in this article.
Regarding Mildarsky, I find your habit to ignore my questions non-construstive. I'll address your arguments, however before doing that I would like you to answer the questions about Mildarsky that I already asked.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:35, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Fine, continue on with blaming "EEML cabal" of wrecking the AfDs, and insult the intelligence of everyone else who voted "keep" in the previous AfDs.
Regarding Mildarsky, I thought your questions were rhetorical because you can find the answers to your question by reading the link I provided. Back to your mainstream scholar Adam Jones who you cited for his criticism of Goldhagen's work. From his book Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction he states:
"Scholars of such calamities who accept the validity of a genocide framework, including this one, generally argue that culpable negligence may constitute genocidal intent (Jone's italics), as Martin Shaw has suggested with specific reference to the Chines famine of 1959-62: "If leaders know that their polices may lead (or are leading) to the social and physical destruction of a group, and fail to take steps to avoid (or halt) it - as Mao Zedong, for example, knew of the effects of the Great Leap Forward but continued his polices - then they come to 'intend' the suffering they cause and may similarly be guilt of genocide"[13]"
Ofcourse we are more cautious in this and rather use the neutral term "mass killing" rather than "genocide", but I guess now that we see that Jones sides with those who call the GLF a genocide I guess that Adam Jones is no longer "mainstream" anymore, is that right? --Nug (talk) 23:38, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Re EEML, you probably remember that the majority of those who opposed to deletion was not overwhelming, so the orchestrated actions of the cabal were quite capable to tip the balance.
Re Mildarsky, you repeatedly ignore my questions. Please, remember, we discuss two things: the scale of mass deaths and the terminology used by various authors for those deaths. Accordingly, I would like you to answer the following questions:
  1. Based on what you read in the Mildarsky's book, can you tell us what was his research base for the scale of mass deaths and births deficit as a result of the GLF famine? What concrete sources did he use for the numbers?
  2. Which part of those deaths and birth deficit was a result of genocide, according to Mildarsky?
I noticed that you prefer to ignore majority of my arguments, so only few arguments from each my post appear to be addressed by you. Therefore, I would prefer to continue the discussion only after I'll get answers on these two questions. Your failure to do so will mean that you do not know what sources did Mildarsy use, and what was the scale of "famine mass killings" in China, according to him.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:57, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
This is nonsense Paul, the sources Midlarsky used are found in his book, and the relevance of the scale of the killings to Midlarsky conclusions is what exactly? BTW, did you know your two alleged "mainstream" papers contradict each other. With respect to Cormac Ó Grada's paper "The ripple that drowns?" you state: "According to Ó Grada, the GLF famine was surpassed by most of those and other earlier famines." Yet in his paper "Making Famine History" you state: "the author concludes that the GLF famine was almost certainly the biggest in history in absolute terms." So which is it? Apparently Ó Grada is an economist, so how come TFD and Fifelfoo aren't chiming in with "Ó Grada isn't a sociologist of mass killing or historian of communist societies so we cannot attribute much weight to him"? --Nug (talk) 01:22, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
  1. As you correctly noted, the sources Midlarsky used are found in his book. In connection to that, could you please explain us what these sources are? I ask this question for a third time.
  2. With respect to Ó Grada's paper, only the person who does not read his article carefully can see a contradiction there. Ó Grada speaks about the famines in relative (i.e. per capita) terms. You probably know that the population of China had been rapidly growing in XIX-XX century, so 10 million victims of the Great North Famine (1876–9) make it much more severe than the GLF famine (15-18 million) in terms of per capita mortality. Please, read my posts carefully. That will help you to avoid ridiculous mistakes.
  3. With respect to TFD and Fifelfoo, although their contributions are always welcome, let them speak for themselves. However, I have no doubt in their intellect, and I do not believe they will reiterate your nonsence: Ó Grada is a respectable famine scholar, and he is much greater expect in famines than "historians of communist societies". By the way, one of the greatest problem of this article is that is relies on various "historians of communist societies", whereas real experts in each of those societies (in Chinese, Soviet or Cambodian histories) are left beyond the scope.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:56, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Frank Dikötter, who had unprecedented access to official Communist Party archives, in his book Mao's Great Famine estimates 45 million deaths[14]. Given that the authors you have cited haven't had the same level of access to these archives, their conclusions must be called into doubt. No suprise to learn that Ó Grada (who has not had the same access to official archives) is critical of the book. --Nug (talk) 02:47, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
@Martin. Dear Martin, did I understand that the fact that you ignored my question about Mildarsky is an indication of your inability to find an answer? If yes, then, please, let us know, and we will close the discussion of Mildarsky and start a discussion of the next source found by you. I believe you will not mind me to interpret your silence regarding Mildarsky as a sign that this part of the dispute has been successfully resolved...--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Given that you have not actually articulated what your issue with Midlarsky, if you feel that that part of the dispute is resolved that is fine with me. --Nug (talk) 05:17, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
We determine the weight to be given to different views based on their prominence. That of course is determined by the degree of recognition they receive in academic writing. I am unable to find any acceptance of Dikötter's research, although that may be because his book came out recently. However, this review article would seem to indicate that the book will not gain acceptance in mainstream scholarship. TFD (talk) 03:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
The humanities publish and review on a slow cycle, between 18 months (at the fastest) and about 5 years (at the slowest). For reviews see:
  • Cormac Ó Gráda (2011) "Great Leap into Famine: A Review Essay" Population and Development Review (Ulrich's shows as peer reviewed) 37:1 191–202 DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2011.00398.x. My access shows this item as "Free". As a "Review Essay" this will be substantially more than a mere "Review" or "Book Review", and will probably contain a critical academic engagement with the reviewed work/s. As this appears to be open access, I'll let other editors evaluate Gráda's opinion.
  • Steven Yearley (2011) "BOOK REVIEW: Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine" Food Security (This is 1876-4517, the peer reviewed scholarly journal called Food Security by Springer) 3:1 113-115, DOI: 10.1007/s12571-010-0110-3. As I suspect there is no open access version, I will selectively quote. Disappointingly, however, most of the review is narrative of the GLF, not text critique or analysis. The three quotes below are the ones most connected with the quality of Dikötter's scholarship and capacity to produce a narrative.
    • "From 1958 he [Mao] introduced the Great Leap Forward. To say that Dikötter finds this set of policies entirely misguided is an understatement. What the text documents is that there was a nearly perfect storm of poor policy, mindless implementation and concealment of errors."
    • "The strategy of using individuals’ stories conveys the horror of the famine period with great immediacy, though it is sometimes hard to work out how representative the events are."
    • "The book finishes with a sort of reckoning and a note on sources. Earlier estimates of the death toll were likely low, in part because of the sources used. Dikötter calculates it far higher. In the end Mao’s “one finger in ten” might not have yielded too much of an over-estimate, with one in ten or fifteen of the entire population having perished."
  • (All quotes for the purposes of evaluating the utility of Dikötter to produce the encyclopaedia, and as part of the editorial scholarship of this group of encyclopaedists). Fifelfoo (talk) 04:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
You missed the open sentence of the review: "This book stands out from other accounts of the famine inflicted on China from 1958-61 on account of its basis in recently opened archives and in the countless compelling details which are provided to clarify the interlocking themes of the text." --Nug (talk) 05:11, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Ta, its useful to have up. I didn't think that needed to be quoted as I thought we were all in agreement that Dikötter had worked out of recently opened archives; and, given reading the abstract of one review and the other in full I doubt the detail focused nature of his work would be contested. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:59, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
The opening sentence does not explain us what concrete new sources Dikötter used, but Ó Grada does. For the famine figures, Dikötter relied upon the Cao Shuji’s (Cao, Shuji. 2005. Dajihuan—1959–1961 nian de Zhongguo renkou [The Great Famine—The Population of China from 1959 to 1961]. Hong Kong: Dangdai guoji chubanshe gongsi), the data Ó Grada is quite familiar with. However, other sources were totally ignored by Dikötter, an omission Ó Grada points at. Therefore, under "recently opened archives" the opening sentence probably means some other data, most probably non-demographic. Therefore, since we discuss the scale of the GLF famine, the Dikötter's book is less reliable than the data from Ó Grada and others.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:08, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Journal of Economic Literature isn't peer reviewed, and I'd suggest on that basis that it shouldn't be used. The other journal mentioned in relation to Cormac Ó Grada is peer reviewed (EHR). (Via Ulrich's directory) Ó Grada has published on famine demography as an economist as his UCD staff page demonstrates; both in Peer Reviewed Journals, and UPs. (I wouldn't trust him for the psychology of famines though). (I don't always contribute here as I find this article fatiguing and disappointing, if people want a response from me on a particular topic, please ping my talk page). Fifelfoo (talk) 03:53, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Book reviews published in peer-reviewed journals are not peer-reviewed and therefore carry no more weight that a review in the book section of a newspaper. Notice that the book was published outside the academic press, which explains the number of errors, the unsupported estimates and the generally polemical nature of the work. The author has received funding from the KMT-backed "Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation". I believe that if we are to write neutral accurate articles then we should use good secondary sources published in the academic press, rather than popular books. TFD (talk) 04:39, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
TFD, you are not right. The reviews are usually written by established scholars, and the very fact that the editorial board chooses them as the reviewers is a demonstration of teh fact that the their opinion has a significant weight. Such reviews are reliable sources.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, some review essays, like the ones in American Historical Review are peer reviewed (per the Australian Higher Education Research Data Collection publications (HERDC) criteria, based on prominent generalised international criteria for determining research and review status); I can't determine with the Ó Gráda Review Essay. But when a book review is published in a non-peer reviewed journal, you can be pretty sure that it was only edited, but not peer reviewed, prior to publication. Ó Gráda thanks a number of prominent relevant academics for comments, in what appears to be thanks for criticisms of a seminar paper. YVVM, Ó Gráda's review looks good to me, if only on the EXPERT criteria given his wide publishing wrt famine history and demography. The other review, less so, mostly due to the status of the journal as a journal that doesn't peer review (according to Ulrich's). Fifelfoo (talk) 04:53, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
No they are not peer-reviewed, that would mean reviews of books would be published 18 months to 5 years after they were published. As this source explains, "Not everything that appears in a peer-reviewed journal is an article. Peer-reviewed journals also contain items such as editorials and book reviews, and these are not subjected to the same level of critique". Ó Gráda's article however is presented as a "review article", not a book review and therefore probably meets rs. TFD (talk) 05:27, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I've looked through the Ó Gráda's review briefly, thank you for a reference. My impression is that Martin's assertion ("Given that the authors you have cited haven't had the same level of access to these archives, their conclusions must be called into doubt. No suprise to learn that Ó Grada (who has not had the same access to official archives) is critical of the book.") is a result of elementary ignorance: according to Ó Grada, Dikötter used the same sources (e.g., Yao 1999; Peng 1987; Ashton et al. 1984; Cao 2005). The discrepancy comes from the procedure used by Dikötter:
"Rather than engage with the competing assumptions behind these numbers, Dikötter selects Cao Shuji’s estimate of 32.5 million and then adds 50 percent to it on the basis of discrepancies between archival reports and gazetteer data, thereby generating a minimum total of 45 million excess deaths."
Therefore, the Dikötter's study has been simply made based on selectively chosen sources and liberal assumptions.
I have to concede, however, that the Dikötter's work has been praised for usage of large amount of factual material, such as "the stories of individual villages and villagers, people whose letters of complaint are recorded in archives across China."(Steven Yearley, Food Sec. (2011) 3:113–115) I conclude from that, that whereas the Dikötter's book is less reliable (than Ó Grada's works) for total death toll, it is complementary to the works of the former, because it uncovers the psychological details of this catastrophe. However, that is both an advantage and disadvantage. Per Ó Grada, this book "reads more like a catalogue of anecdotes about atrocities than a sustained analytic argument," (Ó Grada. Op. Cit.) and should be treated as such.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:13, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Given that Ó Gráda would not have had the same access to the archives as Dikötter, who reportedly is the first Western academic to have access since these archives were recently opened, I would have to wonder upon what Ó Gráda based his criticism on. --Nug (talk) 05:11, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I believe my above post addressed your concern. In future, try to avoid premature assertions.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:14, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
In addition, it is not clear from Dikötter's book if he means population losses or famine deaths: the former includes both the latter and the decrease of births. If that is the case, then 32.5 million are close to Ó Gráda's own estimates. However, you should realise that large part of this figure were not the actual deaths, but unborn children (most of whom would born in 1962, which was famous for outburst of births).--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:19, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
You have not addressed (nor Ó Gráda in his review for that matter) how earlier estimates by other authors would be more accurate given the fact that the formerly inaccessable official archives were recently opened and Dikötter was allegedly the first scholar to access them. --05:27, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Both I and Ó Gráda had addressed that. Re-read my 05:13 post. The description of the sources used by Dikötter and the origin of discrepancy has been explained there. In addition, as far as I understand, under "the only author to have delved into the Chinese archives" the Independent article meant the testimonies of numerous witnesses. That is probably true, but that is quite a different story.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:33, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
It is not up to us to criticize the methodology of either writer. In this case we must determine the weight that should be provided to Dikötter's book which we do be determining the degree of acceptance it has in the academic community. The only academic source we could find was highly critical. In order to include it we need sources that say the scholarly community has provided acceptance of the original views. TFD (talk) 05:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
No. Our policy advises us that "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. " Since "the degree of scrutiny" is supposed to be determined by us, we can and have to analyse the methodologies. Obviously, the better methodology, the more reliable a source. More on Dikötter's methodology:
"It is not a comprehensive account of the famine; it is dismissive of academic work on the topic; it is weak on context and unreliable with data; and it fails to note that many of the horrors it describes were recurrent features of Chinese history during the previous century or so."
--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:39, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
No, we cannot examine each article or book to see whether fact-checking etc. was done properly. Instead we look at the publisher, which in this case is Bloomsbury Publishing's non-fiction subsidiary, Walker & Co.[15] While they provide a fascinating list of books, I would not use them as sources for articles. TFD (talk) 06:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Cannot fully agree. If we have two different sources and one of them provides a detailed analysis of the subject using multiple sources, whereas another one provides a superficial analysis based on few sources, the former is obviously preferable.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:49, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
We address that by using books and articles from academic sources, and avoiding popular books. TFD (talk) 06:58, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Interesting Ó Gráda's original working paper is described as a "review article", is explicitly titled a "review essay" when it is published in Population and Development Review, likely a way for the journal to indicate this review was definitely not peer reviewed, since as we know an essay is often written from an author's personal point of view. Ofcourse Hong Kong based Dikötter won the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction[16], and ₤20,000 is a lot of cash for an academic, so that probably accounts for some of the tone of Ó Gráda's review essay, which is seems split between promoting his own conclusions about the GLF and reviewing Dikötter's book, and he may well be attempting to raise the profile of his own work through riding the acclaim of Dikötter book. What ever Ó Gráda's motives, he certainly has become hero of the looney left[17],[18]. --Nug (talk) 10:28, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

My admiration for Leszek Kołakowski doesn't discredit his views despite my politics; I think that component of your argument was more of a rhetorical appeal than an encyclopaedic argument. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:41, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Smallbones, writers on social sciences normally do have opinions on the topics about which they write and those views range from right to left. However when they write in the academic press they are constrained by the medium and there work is reviewed for factual accuracy and logical consistency, never political ideology. That is why we cannot say that because Dikötter and Ó Gráda are scholars that we should accept their writings in ideological or popular writings. Nor can we reject their mainstream academic writing. When we introduce this popular polemical writing we are not able to determine the weight to provide the opinions and have no ensurance of the accuracy of the writing. It seems though that Ó Gráda's "review article" is peer-reviewed. Even so, we cannot determine the weight of his views of Dikötter's book. If enough scholars publish articles about the book, then we may be able to determine this. TFD (talk) 15:32, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

TFD, I think the issue less complex. We do not discuss the validity of the Dikötter's book in general, we are talking about the famine deaths figures. As I have demonstrated, Ó Gráda used various modern data to estimate the scale of the GLF famine; he performed his own statistical analysis, which is detailed and correct; he also compared his results with the results from the recent studies of some other scholars, and all these figures are mutually consistent (in general). The data he used have been described on the top of this section, so everyone can check this my claim. By contrast, the only two things we know about Dikötter's book so far are:
  1. that Dikötter used some new archival data;
  2. that Ó Gráda criticized Dikötter for taking the data of one author only (Cao, Shuji. 2005.) and ignoring other data, and for making a very liberal assumption (he multiplied the Cao's figures by 1.5)
Based on that, we can conclude that Dikötter's new archival data were not about the scale of the famine, but about something else. In other words, we do not need to question Dikötter in general. He simply is less reliable for famine figures.
However, I may be wrong. That is why more detailed Martin's explanation about this book would be useful.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:21, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
While academic sources must acknowledge mainstream views, popular sources do not. That is why we should use academic sources. Incidentally Courtois also wrote for Maoist publications, so I suppose Smallbones would exclude his writings as a source. TFD (talk) 17:00, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Since Nov. 22

I am still amazed at how disruptive some editors can be on this article. On Nov. 22 I withdrew from the discussion here because Paul was insisting that he could unilaterally remove the figures in the lede as a matter of Wikipedia policy. This type of statement, repeated several times, just seemed to be an effort to make the article into a battleground, and no response would be appropriate. Since then, Paul is saying that he will rewrite the article, and if this rewrite is not accepted, then he will have the article deleted either by regular AfD or by the Arbitration Committee. I am again gobsmacked. Such a statement has no basis in the rules (or the spirit) of Wikipedia, and seems utterly divorced from reality. If Paul ever does list the article for deletion, I'll simply quote his statement, and that should be enough to insure that the article will not be deleted.

The proposed rewrite is the one bright spot, however. Paul should offer up his version of the article for review. All he has done to this point is say that sources should be deleted and I am very interested to know what he actually believes can be included in the article. It would at least be a start. We could do an RfC to see if his version is better than the current version. We could then offer a complete rewrite by the folks who disagree with Paul and do another RfC. Can we have this ready to go by early January? Smallbones (talk) 14:39, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

You accusations in disruptive behaviour would have much greater weight had you tried to present at least one source that refute the criticism of the Courtois introduction as I requested there and there. However, the Back to the Black Book section is still empty, and that nullifies everything what are you saying in that regard. I am waiting for the source, and for closure of the AfDRfC, which have had a minimal external input so far (one or two uninvolved users supported your viewpoint, and at least one experienced uninvolved admin totally supported my position in general. I am still waiting for fresh input/sources/arguments, and then I'll decide what my next steps will be.
With regard to your "Paul should offer up his version of the article for review", the idea that I should propose some text and you will approve or reject it is totally flawed. You either demonstrate (with sources) that your viewpoint is based on reliable sources, adequately reflects what majority sources say, and contains no synthesis, or you accept that the article should be seriously modified. In the latter case, your collaboration with those users who support the article's rewrite is always welcome.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:38, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
(minor) Paul's "AfD" above should obviously be "RfC". Smallbones (talk) 17:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for pointing at this my mistake. I am a little bit annoyed with persistent attempts to present recent failed AfDs as an argument against any change of the present article's version. To avoid misunderstanding, let me re-iterate that I am not a proponent of the article's deletion, provided that the article will be purged from non-neutral statements.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:11, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Smallbones. You did in fact offer to write a section on November 23rd: "Start to write a section devoted to the history of the question of the scale of Communist repressions and mass killings, where detailed information, with all notable sources, will be provided, and all nuances will be explained", and I agreed that would be a good start, but you have subsequently wasted your time trying to debunk so-called "anti-communist" authors. Since the article is locked, you will have to present it on talk first in any case. --Nug (talk) 19:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Firstly, I didn't waste noone's time. Instead of that, I (with your help) identified several new and reliable sources regarding the GLF famine (an event that constitutes a lion's share of Communist victims worldwide), and analysed several sources that tried to summarise the amount of total victims of Communism. Identification of the sources that can be used for the section about the scale of mass killings is an important prelimenary step. That means that de facto the work on this section has already started.
Secondly, the idea that I write something, and then you reject almost everything (if everything at all) means wasting my time. I perform a serious work, and need some guaranties that my efforts will be treated seriously (and not rejected under laughable or no pretext). Therefore, my conditio sine qua non is that all my opponents must be involved in this work from the very beginning. BTW, I never "offer to write a section " by myself, I proposed to start to work together.
Thirdly, I think it is your time to do something serious. We conducted a good analysis of some recent sources, and your opposition was an important and useful component of this work. Some your points appeared to be valid, and I am ready to recognise that. To summarise this part of our activity, I suggest you to summarise our previous discussion about the GLF famine, and total victims of Communism as whole. Please, write, briefly, what concrete sources should be used in the section about the scale, causes and historical context of this famine, and which sources seem to be outdated or unreliable. It would be good if you summarised the discussion about Hollander, Goldhagen etc. That would help us to identify major points of disagreement, as well as the points out positions coincide. After that, I'll propose my version, and eventually we will outline the list of the sources our future work on this section will be based on.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:36, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul, you are the one who perceives flaws in this article, despite the fact that this article has undergone extensive re-writes after five AfDs. You seem to think there are a lot of POV statements that need to be removed even though these statements are properly attributed as opinions of various authors. So you need to do the heavy lifting with regard to writing a new section. It is pretty sad if you cannot AGF and believe that a properly structured and sourced section would be rejected outright. --Nug (talk) 20:25, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Of course, I am ready to do a considerable part of the work, however, it is quite necessary, in my opinion, that all parties be involved in it from the very beginning.
Regarding AGF, I have had a serious reasons to doubt in good faith of some users. Therefore, I would see that we achieved an agreement at least about the sources. That is why I respectfully insist on my proposal. Please, summarise your vision of the outcome of the discussion about the sources. Please, identify the point of our disagreement regarding the sources, as you see them. If you believe some additional sources should be used, please, explain us what they are. We cannot move further until we get an agreement about the sources.
In addition, by doing so you will dispel all AGF-related doubts. --Paul Siebert (talk) 21:47, 28 November 2011 (UTC)21:05, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Editors may wish to relax a little bit. Have people considered slow formal mediation? Could we informally self-mediate by selecting someone who doesn't care about particulars, but cares heavily about policy, to guide editorial discussion, long term process, etc? Fifelfoo (talk) 01:04, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I would be glad if all major participants agreed on formal or informal mediation. However, that does not prevent us from discussing the sources. By the way, I found that one 1998 isssue of Chinese Economic Reviews (an official journal of Chinese Economic Society ( Volume 9, Issue 2, Pages 103-170 (Autumn 1998)) is devoted exclusively to the GLF famine.
Agreement about the sources is an important part of each mediation of that kind. We already started this work. I suggest to continue it, and if all major participants will join us, we can go to mediation. (Although I cherish a hope that in that case mediation may be redundant)--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:32, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Intentional killings differentiated from killing resulting from error

I have not read everything above, but am familiar with both the Black Book and Russian and Chinese history. There were deliberate killing campaigns, the Red Terror, killing priests, political opponents, the Cambodian campaigns. However, the majority of the deaths resulted from attempts to restructure the economy, collectivization, the Great Leap Forward. These can be ascribed to hubris, callousness, or desperation, but the point was to restructure not to kill lots of people, although many, many deaths resulted. Both the title and the lede are bad due to failure to adequately disambiguate the two types of situations. User:Fred Bauder Talk 04:47, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

During the course of seizing and maintaining power, communists killed millions of people (probably less than 10 million, maybe only 2 or 3). In addition, tens of millions of deaths resulted from attempts to restructure the economic and social life of the countries they controlled. There are a number of ambiguous situations, for example, the Ukrainian famine which seemed to have genocidal overtones, and the situation in the camps where, at times, people were worked to death. Anyway, an article based on the facts, a limited number of deliberate killings, and a much larger number of deaths resulting from campaigns of restructuring. I understand the viewpoint that deaths resulting from decisions by a totalitarian government is killing, and perhaps that should be set forth, but it does not belong in the title or lede. Nor does blanket denial or obfuscation. User:Fred Bauder Talk 05:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Blanket denial and obfuscation are the main problems as I see it. No matter what evidence from reliable sources is presented it is always attacked by the deletionists as being unreliable simply because somebody, somewhere has criticized it. And then removed via edit-war tactics when that was still possible. Nobody is arguing that 100 million people were executed by the Communists. Fine points and nuances can be included, once the basic breadth of the killing is included, and this should include the fact that the majority of the deaths were caused by starvation. But if a total number can't be included, then the fine points become irrelevant, and the article becomes a puff-piece for the Communists along the line of "This stuff you may have heard about tens of millions being killed by Communists is all just propaganda."
Please consider the following quote from the Black Book, by Nicholas Werth, an author often lauded by the deletionists when it suits their needs:
Regarding just the famine of 1932-33, he states that
"the forced collectivization of the countryside was in effect a war declared by the Soviet state on a nation of smallholders.... (The famine of 1932-1933 was) a terrible famine deliberately provoked by the authorities to break the resistance of the peasants. The violence used against the peasants allowed the authorities to experiment with methods that would be later used against other social groups."[19]
Werth estimates the total death toll of that famine as 6 million.
As things stand now, that expert opinion would have no chance of being included in the article because of the deletionists.
Similarly, Goldhagen - a prof at Harvard when he wrote the book - presents convincing evidence that the Chinese famine of the 1940s was planned and was related to Communist (or perhaps Stalinist is a better word here) training and ideology, and I included a quote last year. The quote was removed about a dozen times in a few days, with only the briefest explanations of "not reliable". I finally had to more or less drag in an uninvolved admin to watch over it, to make sure that it wasn't deleted by edit-war tactics. The sense of the quote was finally included briefly, but has been eroded away since.
There's no possibility that fine points can be properly included when the basic story is not allowed to be included. If this were all a finge theory (and it most decidedly is not) then there could still be an article on it in Wikipedia (perhaps as the biggest hoax of the 20th Century) and the "basic story" would still have to be treated with more respect (by Wikipedia guidelines) than it is in this article. If this were all a pure propaganda campaign by the CIA (and it most decidedly is not) we would still have to include what the propaganda actually said. Not to say that some of this was not used as propaganda, but that is one of those fine points that can only be included once the basic story is included.
So please do stick around this page and help get basic information from reliable sources into the article according to the basic policies, guidelines and procedure used in Wikipedia. Fine points will then be included as a matter of course. Smallbones (talk) 06:05, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I think you misrepresent the editors here who have repeatedly suggested that this is a COATRACK SYNTHESIS. Could you point to the scholarly source that suggests that these events have a common cause rooted in their communism? Last time I was here people rejected the Swedish Review Article I noted; and Valentino's work used a supercategory not related to these communist events of "dispossessive mass killing," that wasn't found in other theorist's works. (Imagine the quality of the Great Purge if we'd put all that effort in there.) None of the deletionist editors have suggested that these events didn't occur; but, Raphael Lemkin has been demonstrated to be fringe; George Watson is off his fucking head—much of this comes out of a persistent FRINGE narrative that (at least from the article considering Lemkin) is notable in itself. I'm not convinced there's a non-FRINGE scholarly narrative making the connection. Rummel is judicious in avoiding making a claim of a common cause in scholarly publications because he doesn't believe he can sustain that at the moment. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
The article topic constitutes a huge WP:SYNTHESIS. It throws together a smattering of studies on individual countries and then puts them under this umbrella of "Communist regimes" with a clear POV intent to suggest that there is a link to "mass killings", with only one (maybe two) authors that actually propose such a connection. Moreover, these one (maybe two) works are NOWHERE in academic literature described as being generally accepted conclusions, making them WP:FRINGE ideas, per policy ("If proper attribution cannot be found among reliable sources of an idea's standing, it should be assumed that the idea has not received consideration or acceptance; ideas should not be portrayed as accepted unless such claims can be documented in reliable sources").
Even further, the article VERY tenuously lumps together many types of deaths as "killings" which is severely criticized in academic literature as being a questionable way to inflate death tolls. BigK HeX(talk) 07:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

It is generally accepted that culpable negligence does constitute intent. Genocide scholar Adam Jones discusses this in his book Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction stating:

"Scholars of such calamities who accept the validity of a genocide framework, including this one, generally argue that culpable negligence may constitute genocidal intent (Jone's italics), as Martin Shaw has suggested with specific reference to the Chines famine of 1959-62: "If leaders know that their polices may lead (or are leading) to the social and physical destruction of a group, and fail to take steps to avoid (or halt) it - as Mao Zedong, for example, knew of the effects of the Great Leap Forward but continued his polices - then they come to 'intend' the suffering they cause and may similarly be guilt of genocide"[20]"

It is for that reason that famines like that which occurred during the Great Leap Forward are invariably mentioned in regard to the topic of genocide [21]. However given that genocide has a specific definition in international law and is somewhat emotive, "mass killing" is a more neutral term. --Nug (talk) 11:04, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Nug that homologous or deeply analogous technical terms ought to be considered together; this is relatively facile for encyclopaedists to determine by evaluating the compatibility of criteria for various theories. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:07, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Yes, provided that they are homologous. However, in the case of genocide we have a totally different situation. We have (i) the UNO genocide convention, where this term has been strictly defined, and (ii) persistent Lemkin's attempts to expand the scope of this term beyond any reasonable limits (in attempts to persuade the US to sign it; the US were persistently refusing to sign this convention, because the USSR had already signed it, and Lemkin tried to persuade the US that the convention may be used to describe Communist crimes). The latter attempts have been seriously criticized (Weiss-Wendt, Anton (December 2005). "Hostage of Politics Raphael Lemkin on "Soviet Genocide"". Journal of Genocide Research (7(4)): 551–559.) for "if everything is genocide, nothing is genocide".
    As a result, another term, "politicide" was proposed to complement "genocide", and many serious authors use this term for politically motivated mass killings when "genocide" is not applicable. An example of its application is an article authored by Barbara Harff (American Political Science Review Vol. 97, No. 1 February 2003). Harff, according to Wayman and Tago is a leader of the large team of scholars who collected "cross-national, long-range datasets (covering the whole world spatially, and many decades temporally)". The list of all geno/politicides can be found on the page 60 of this article. It contains only two records regarding China "3/59–12/59 Genocide and politicide 65,000 victims", and "5/66–3/75 Politicide 400,000–850,000 victims". As we see, the GLF famine does not fall into the geno-politicide category, according to Harff. Therefore, Martin's assertion that " famines like that which occurred during the Great Leap Forward are invariably mentioned in regard to the topic of genocide" is simply wrong: Harff is too notable to ignore her opinion.--Paul Siebert (talk) 11:48, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
  • @ Rummel. Fifelfoo correctly noted that " Rummel is judicious in avoiding making a claim of a common cause in scholarly publications". His scholarly publications (as well as the Rosefielde's scholarly articles, whose tone is much more modest than in his "Red Holocaust") contain much much more modest conclusions, and the reason is in his method. As I already explained for several times, Rummel is being praised for being the first person who applied factor analysis to genocide studies. However, the only thing factor analysis can do is to reveal correlatopns, which is not an explanation of the essence of the events. Therefore, major Rummel conclusion was "Totalitarianism and mass kilings ("democide") correlate". Nothing specific about Communism --Paul Siebert (talk) 11:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Werth and Smallbones. Werth explained his viewpoint in details in this publication, where he seems to support the Graziosis's idea (Graziosi, A., 2005, Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 46: 453-472.) that the famine was not designed intentionally, but at its apex it became an anti-Ukrainian action. Therefore, part of famine victims may be considered as the victims of geno/politicide/mass killings. However, many other scholars, including Davies and Wheatcroft, Martin, Ivnitskii, Kondrashin and Penner, do not speak about Soviet famine as genocide/intentional killing. Therefore, in a situation when part of the Great Famine victims are considered as the victims of mass killings/genocide by some authors and are not considered as such by others, it would be correct to follow what the article currently tells: it describes this event in the controversy section. However, to make the article as whole self-consistent, we cannot write about the total amount of deaths as if all authors agreed that all victims of all famines under Communists were mass killings. Only a minor part of the authors agree with that. My analysis of literature demonstrated that the same is true for the GLF famine.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
The Werth article you cite this publication is very revealing and completely consistent with his chapter in the Black Book. Somewhat stronger in fact. You argue that the 1932-33 famine was not a mass-killing by citing a source that says it was genocide. Your argument is very sloppy, at best. Werth says in his closing paragraph that the Ukrainian part of the famine was genocide (read the first sentence please) - perhaps not the usual form of genocide, but genocide nonetheless.
"This specifically anti-Ukrainian assault makes it possible to define the totality of intentional political actions taken from late summer 1932 by the Stalinist regime against the Ukrainian peasantry as genocide. With hunger as its deadly arm, the regime sought to punish and terrorize the peasants, resulting in fatalities exceeding four million people in Ukraine and the northern Caucasus. That being said, the Holodomor was very different from the Holocaust. It did not seek to exterminate the Ukrainian nation in its entirety, and it did not involve the direct murder of its victims. The Holodomor was conceived and fashioned on the basis of political reasoning and not of ethnic or racial ideology. However, by the sheer number of its victims, the Holodomor, seen again in its historical context, is the only European event of the 20th century that can be compared to the two other genocides, the Armenian and the Holocaust." Werth - final paragraph of of Paul's citation above
Smallbones (talk) 19:21, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


  • Therefore, to combine all famine death toll under the category "mass killings" means to present the viewpoint of those scholars who seen no nuances as a mainstream viewpoint, which is obviously untrue. The most striking example is the GLF famine.
  1. Various authors estimate the direct deaths from 15 million to 18 million.
  2. In addition to direst deaths, the famine affected fertility, causing up to 31 million lost births in 1959–61.
  3. Some authors (e.g. Ashton et al. (1984)) combine the impact on both mortality and fertility together, and, based on that the authors like Goldhagen or Valentino speak about 50+ million victims of mass killings.
  4. However, even if we consider lost births (which by no means were killings) as a part of demographic losses, that would be not fully correct, because, as the outburst of births in 1962 demonstrated, a significant part of those lost births were just postponed births (infants who had not been born in 1960 were born in 1962), so the actual demographic losses were lower.
Therefore, even if we consider all direct GLF famine deaths as mass killings deaths, we should speak about no more then 20 million. Where the remaining 56-60 million victims of Communist mass killings come from? (Remember, the article cites 85-100 millions of the victims of direct mass killings, and even if we assume that Werth's 15 million refer to mass killing, a conclusion Werth himself does not make, the total amount, in the USSR, China, Kampuchea, will be 30-40 million).
Frankly speaking, I myself has been impressed seeing the Harff's table (see above; according to her, a scale of Chinese geno/politicide did not exceed 1 million). Until that moment, and before starting to read the sources about the GLF famine my knowledge about China were limited with the Guinness book, who spoke about mass killing of 50+ people under Mao. However, as I see, serious scholars approach to this issue from quite different angle, and even more adequate and sober literature is available for China then for the USSR.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Moreover, as soon as we started to talk about the GLF famine, it is quite necessary to re-iterate that, by contrast to Ukraine, where no major famines happened before Holodomor, China was the country where famines were routine phenomenon in XIX-XX centuries. In XX century only, pre GLF famine took comparable amount of lives as the GLF famine. Therefore, it would be quite ahistorical to attribute all deaths to the malicious will of Communist authorities. Of course, they are totally responsible for the way their stupid experiment has been implemented, however, that was hardly a deliberate or planned mass killing, and majority of authors do not describe it as such.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
More on the Harff's table. This table, published in American Political Science Review (Vol. 97, No. 1 February 2003) lists all Genocides and Politicides from 1955 to 2001. It contains following Communism related records (out of 37 events):
  1. South Vietnam, 1/65–4/75 Politicide 400,000–500,000
  2. China, 3/59–12/59 Genocide and politicide 65,000
  3. China, 5/66–3/75 Politicide 400,000–850,000
  4. Angola, 11/75–2001 Politicide by UNITA and government forces 500,000
  5. Cambodia, 4/75–1/79 Politicide and genocide 1,900,000–3,500,000
  6. Ethiopia, 7/76–12/79 Politicide 10,000
  7. Afghanistan, 4/78–4/92 Politicide 1,800,000
The only regime that has been left beyond the scope is Stalin's USSR (Stalin's geno/politicides occurred earlier). As you can see, the figures are far less impressive even as compared with the Vietman war victims (for which the such a democratic country as the US are responsible in a considerable extent). However, even this table contains some questionable items. Thus, "South Vietnam" mass killings were not mass killings under Communist regime (SV regime was not Communist, and Harff writes nothing about SRV/DRV), Angolian politicide, although formally a mass killing under Communists was not mass killings exclusively by Communists (UNITA was their opponent).
One way or the another, this table is a perfect demonstration of the fact that the authors who study Communist mass killings and the authors studying mass killings in general stick to quite different concepts. However, I see absolutely no reason to ignore the opinion of the latter.--Paul Siebert (talk)
(edit conflict) @Paul: How is it that there was no major famine in Ukraine prior to Holodomor? What happened to 1921-23 in the USSR? That famine certainly struck Ukraine—and those fleeing the Volga basin into the Ukraine only compounded the desperate situation.
Deaths during that famine are not genocide because eventually Ukrainian authorities did eventually allow in famine relief—but delayed by a month as compared to the rest of the areas of the USSR afflicted. Holodomor, by its active confiscation of grain and family food stores and restriction of movement was a policy directed specifically at the Ukrainians. The ensuing starvation was neither an unintended consequence of collectivization nor "stupidity." There is plenty of scholarship to confirm mass killing and, quite frankly, genocide. (As I recall, politicide was to be part of the eventual UN definition of "genocide" but was removed under Soviet pressure.)
Note, also in 1921-23, Lenin took in foreign relief aid whereas his successor Stalin suppressed existence of the later famine—I have not seen any scholarship that attributes that action by Stalin to "stupidity." By that measure, all the famine deaths under Stalin were preventable, not just Holodomor in Ukraine; refusal of foreign assistance qualifies all those deaths as "mass killing."
Your nuances require further review. I would add, however, regarding your comments elsewhere, that I see no burning need to rewrite the article or otherwise delete it. I would also note that any summary either of us creates that does not already exist in sources is WP:SYNTHESIS. Where such summaries are incomplete or in conflict, we represent that; there is no choosing one over the other. (Re: your Vietnam reference, I'd also request you stick to the article topic and avoid anti-U.S. sniping, which I find strongly suggestive of sound bites from the Alyona Show on RT.) PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 14:44, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
The question if Holodomor was genocide or not has no universally accepted answer - and that is why it should be in the article, but only in the "controversy" section, and its victims should not be added to universally accepted MKuCK death toll. I saw no seriously sourced agruments agains that so far.
Starvation was neither unintended consequence nor intentional. The most serious authors are inclined to think that the truth is in the middle: some victims were the direct result of Stalin's criminal policy, others were not. However, that does not allow us to add all 5 million (only part of whom were Ukrainians) to the genocidal death toll. BTW, do you know that Ukrainian populated Donetsk region had not been affected by Holodomor? Why? Because it was an industrial region, and Stalin tried to support urban population at cost of peasantry. Hoe does it fit into a genocide concept?
My anti-US sniping simply mirrors one of the publications, which criticized the Black Book for adding all Vietnam war victimg to the Communist mass killings death toll. I don't see a reason to provide the extended quote, because noone, I believe, doubts that I am able to do that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:49, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
We need either delete this article as WP:SYNTHESIS, a huge WP:NPOV failure and a constant magnet for WP:BATTLEGROUND, or rename the article into something with a broader scope, such as Population history of the Communist states, which will make possible a non-controversial inclusion of both mass-killings and excess deaths, and other demographical aspects so as to make the picture truly neutral. GreyHood Talk 15:07, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
We can speak about deletion only if the attempt to rewrite will fail. However, I still believe that common sense will prevail.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:49, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I also hope so, but my hopes on that have greatly diminished recently. GreyHood Talk 17:16, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

There is no synthesis here, the idea that communist regimes perpetrate mass killing has been published by numerous authors, most comprehensively by Valentino, but also by Staub, Rummel Watson, Gray, Pipes, Rosefielde and many others, including Jones, who discusses the view point of Werth in his 2010 book Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction stating:

"Nicholas Werth declined to render a verdict of genocide in his long chapter on Stalinist crimes for The Black Book of Communism in 1999. But by 2008, his previous position had shifted:
A whole panoply of repressive measures was put in place, ranging from closure of shops to police questioning any peasants trying to flee from their starving villages. Over and above this range of repressive measures it is clear that Stalin, from the end of the summer of 1932, really had decided to worsen the famine that was beginning, to turn it into a weapon, to extend it deliberately … Recent research has shown, without any doubt, that the Ukrainian case is quite specific, at least from the second half of 1932 onwards. On the basis of these new considerations, it seems to me legitimate to classify as genocide the totality of the actions taken by the Stalin regime to punish, by means of famine and terror, the Ukrainian peasantry(Nicholas Werth, The Crimes of the Stalin Regime: Outline for an Inventory and Classification, in Dan Stone (ed) The Historiography of Genocide (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p415 Emphasis in original)[22]"

So now Werth agrees that the Ukrainian famine was genocide. --Nug (talk) 20:03, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

And what about the authors listed by me above? BTW, add Maksudov to this list too.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:05, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Nug, could you attempt to write the claim of a common cause in Communism from the authors you note? It isn't at all clear to me, nor is it clear in the article. Doing this would be of significant benefit to the article. I'd suggest you'd need to note the criteria used, the homo or analogous relationship to other authors (and note their criteria). In the last Valentino book I read his criterion was "dispossessive mass-killings" and he descriptively dealt with a small number of communist states, while dealing with other states. I assume (and believe) he's published more recent work that you're relying on? There is a need to demonstrate that there is a literature; which is why we need to connect these scholars in this way. The last time I read Rummel in the scholarly press, he proposed a category of Politicide, which did not analytically address Communism, for example. From my own reading, I doubt your position, but it would be good to see it put coherently and included in the article, that there is a social science object of "mass killings in communist states caused specifically by causes limited to those states." Are you seriously proposing that the small press publication by the literary critic George Watson is a useful analysis here—I take it you have noted Watson's supposition that reactionary cultural anti-modernism causes all socialists to seek to murder is as FRINGE as Courtois' suggestion that non-Catholicism caused mass-killing in all soviet-style societies? I'm quite openly asking to be convinced about a number of authors sharing a literature that mass killings were caused by common features of communist societies, and am suggesting that writing this for inclusion in the article would vastly improve the article. Because eight months ago when I last reviewed the field, I couldn't find this. And when I checked the article today, I couldn't find this. I keep trying to understand this, but every time I look I see the misapplication of supersets of analysis as Rummel's category which is not specific to these states, or with the earlier Valentino text where he establishes a category of dispossessive mass killings; or, non-analytical categories; or, FRINGE content like anti-modernist intellectual culture causing millions of deaths. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
As one review on Valentino says, his major point is that the regimes resort to dispossessive mass killings when their leaders decide to start global social transformations. Therefore, a commonality is not in concrete details of the ideology, but in its transformative pathos.
Regarding Rummel, he proposed not "politicide", but "democide", and his major conclusion was that democidal nature of state correlates (among other factors) with the degree of the totalitarian nature of power.
And, last but not least, what should we do with numerous single society studies that see no commonality at all? From one hand, we should not ignore them, from the another, I see no way how to include them without a danger of SYNTH. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
  1. ^ Courtois (1999) "Introduction" p. X: USSR: 20 million deaths; China: 65 million deaths; Vietnam: 1 million deaths; North Korea: 2 million deaths; Cambodia: 2 million deaths; Eastern Europe: 1 million deaths; Latin America: 150,000 deaths; Africa: 1.7 million deaths; Afghanistan: 1.5 million deaths; the international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power: about 10,000 deaths.
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