Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes/Archive 45

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Fein 1993 wording

Davide King and TFD, given the 1RR rule, I think we should discuss the recent edits to the Cambodia section here because I think there is a subtlety being lost with the changes. The sentence was "Helen Fein, a genocide scholar, states that the xenophobic ideology of the Khmer Rouge regime bears a stronger resemblance to a phenomenon of national socialism, or fascism rather than communism.[184]" (in which "national socialism" had a wikilink to Nazism). Davide King changed it to "Helen Fein, a genocide scholar, states that the xenophobic ideology of the Khmer Rouge regime bears a stronger resemblance to a phenomenon of Nazism, or fascism rather than communism.[184]" in order to delete the duplicated wikilink to Nazism. However, the edit also changed the wording from "national socialism" to "Nazism", which changed the meaning from the source slightly, so I changed it back. Davide King reverted my revert, saying "the common name is Nazism, which is obviously what they are referring to, not Left-wing nationalism, and we say "or fascism"; so why not simply use common name and link to the main article". TFD then removed "or fascism" from the sentence, saying "the author attributes Nazism or "national socialism" rather than fascism", so that the sentence is now "Helen Fein, a genocide scholar, states that the xenophobic ideology of the Khmer Rouge regime bears a stronger resemblance to a phenomenon of Nazism rather than communism.[184]". Checking the source, found here, the reference is to page 819 and this is the relevant paragraph (I added bold for discussion purposes):

Communism, the leading ideology since 1945 until the present, promised social change even as it authorized killing on the basis of class and politics, identifying dissidents as "enemies of the people." But upon closer examination, the xenophobic ideology of the KR regime resembles more an almost forgotten phenomenon of national socialism, which Becker (1986) calls fascism. Such regimes themselves evoke the threats that demand purges, promoting paranoid myths of persecution or anticipated persecution as a means of inciting solidarity (Fein 1991).

Fein is clearly referring to a generic "national socialism" and not to the specific Nazi party, based on three things:

1) xenophobic ideology is not "an almost forgotten phenomenon" of Nazism. It's one of the things they are most remembered for;

2) "Nazism" refers to a single regime, but Fein is talking about multiple regimes ("Such regimes...") that fall under a category that Becker calls "fascism" and she calls "national socialism";

3) Fein mentions "Nazi" elsewhere in her article, so it is a deliberate choice that she did not use that term here.

We should use the words she chose and not substitute our own preferences. Some people don't actually think the Nazis were socialists. The closest we can get to a source is a quotation, so I propose this (without any wikilink on "national socialism"): "Helen Fein, a genocide scholar, states that the xenophobic ideology of the Khmer Rouge regime bears a stronger resemblance to "an almost forgotten phenomenon of national socialism", or fascism, rather than communism.[184]" AmateurEditor (talk) 05:22, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I see no distinction between Nazism the ideology of the Nazi Party of Germany and generic national socialism. In any event, we could make Nazism generic by not capitalizing it, and vice versa for national socialism.

The "almost forgotten phenomenon" to which Fein is referring is xenophobia, which is why phenomenon has an indefinite article ("an"). IOW she is saying that xenophobia is an almost forgotten phenomenon of Nazism as practiced in Nazi Germany. It literally means dislike of people from other countries.

Her source uses the term xenophobia once in the 1998 version of her book: "The records show the constant xenophobia of the Khmer Rouge who routinely killed foreigners discovered in the country." (Becker, p.267)[1] While we are all aware that Nazis hated people of most other races, their view of foreigners in general is largely forgotten. In the Malmedy massacre for example, American soldiers were murdered not because of their race, but because they were foreigners.

My concern is that we use terminology that is clearly understood by readers. If we use term national socialism, then we need to explain what it is.

TFD (talk) 15:16, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, I agree. If we use national socialism, it is not clear whether it means Nazism or Left-wing nationalism and I too see no distinction between Nazism as teh ideology of the Nazi Party and generic national socialism. By the way, who is Steve Heder and is he notable? We use him to state that "the example of such racialist thought as it is applied in relation to the minority Cham people echoed 'Marx's definition of a historyless people doomed to extinction in the name of progress' and it was therefore a part of general concepts of class and class struggle." This seems to be the same fringe view echoed by Watson that Marx and Engels came up with the idea of genocide. I see that we use many people who do not seem to be notable enough to even have their own article, hence why this article does not represents scholarly consensus and we are representing minority views, or simply the views of some academics from one side of historiography, as facts and mainstream theory. Davide King (talk) 16:02, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Heder is an expert, but I don't know what weight his theories have. That's the another major problem with this article. Opinions are presented without explaining their relative weight in the literature, which is required by policy. I am aware of the view that opinions should be provided equal weight. But in reality, most readers want to know which views prevail. Unless one really cares about a topic, one is most likely to accept the highest weighted opinions as most likely to be true. TFD (talk) 18:29, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

TFD, WP:WEIGHT defines just three categories of sources for weight concerns: "majority", "significant minority", and "extremely small minority" (or fringe). All the sources used in the article are correctly treated as "significant minority" views or weight purposes. The subsection WP:FALSEBALANCE applies to fringe or out-of-mainstream sources, none of which are included in the article now. AmateurEditor (talk) 19:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Do you not think that there are degrees of weight? For example, don't you draw any distinction between the consensus of expert opinion or a view held by 51% of experts (the "majority" category) or between "alternative theoretical formulations" published in peer reviewed journals and absolutely ridiculous views such as lizard people (the "fringe" category)? Do you not think there is no difference between a view held by a 49% minority and one held by a 10% minority?Notice that weight refers to "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Do you think that implies that there are only three possible weights? Opinions are not like toothpaste that comes in only three sizes. TFD (talk) 20:41, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

TFD, I do agree in the abstract that there are degrees of weights beyond those three categories, but practically-speaking we cannot know them at the one-percentage-point level of granularity you are suggesting (or even a ten-percent-level of granularity). The WP:WEIGHT policy mentions just the three large groups and all our sources for this article fall in the second group at the moment (none are fringe and none are claimed to be the majority opinion). In terms of weight within that second group, there is no policy guidance to follow that I am aware of. The only practical method is to assign the weight of a source as only the individual opinion of the individual author, using in-line attribution, rather than writing anything in Wikipedia's voice. In this way, as more sources are added, the proportions of viewpoints in the article will ever more closely approach the proportions in the body of published reliable sources as a whole. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I think this is the issue, that we are just using a bunch of opinions, which I find interesting but are not encyclopedic and which are admittedly a minority, although I would argue some of those, such as Watson, are fringe or borderline fringe, and many others are not that significant; we also do not give the proper weight to scholars such as Ellman, Getty, Ghodsee and others who disagree with the whole concept of counting the body and blaming it alone on ideology, or that communism, and by extension socialism and the left, is prone to mass killings. This is still presented as an uncontroversial academic fact or theory, when admittedly all of those are at best "significant minority views."

If the whole article is based on minority views, even significant ones, then what is the point? If there is no consensus or a mainstream view among genocide scholars and Soviet and Communist studies scholars, what is the point of this article other than showing how bad Communism was and that it is prone to mass killings, even though that is not what the sources says and Valentino says "most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing" and that he is mainly discussing what he terms "radical communist regimes", which I am assuming he is referring to "the Big Three."

That is why the article should not be deleted (I have already moved most of the content to other relevant articles, so nothing is going lost; and this goes back to the beginning where I stated I find the article and the opinion "interesting" but not encyclopedic) but completely rewritten and restructured to be about the theory or narrative, rather than the events which indeed took place but are besides the point since the main topic should be about the victims of Communism narrative. Buidhe, The Four Deuces, Paul Siebert, do you already have in mind a draft or sandbox on how such a restructuring and rewrite may look like? Davide King (talk) 15:33, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

The point of the article is to describe the topic as found in reliable sources as Wikipedia defines them. If there is material in Ellman, Getty, Ghodsee, etc. that is missing, then we should add it. If you want greater/less weight for a source, then we need to have justification for that based on Wikipedia policies. I thought I had provided evidence earlier that Ellman and Getty may not be considered "mainstream" (although I agree they also fall under the "significant minority" bucket with the other sources used so far and should not be given less weight for that reason). AmateurEditor (talk) 02:44, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, if something is not clear in the source, changing it to make it clear in the article is original research on our part. It may be that Fein intended to include left-wing nationalism when using the generic term "national socialism". FYI, notability is a policy that relates to topics only, for sources we follow WP:RS, which says to include "all majority and significant minority views" and does not define "significant minority". WP:WEIGHT includes three categories of source, one of which is "significant minority", and gives the following test: "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents". To err on the side of caution, we are treating all sources in the article as "significant minority" views, rather than majority views, and including in-line citations for all the sources in the article. AmateurEditor (talk) 19:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, and "[i]t may be that Fein intended to include left-wing nationalism when using the generic term 'national socialism'" is original research on your part, so which is which? This is a problem with other sources in the article, where we seem to have a different reading of what given ref is actually saying and whether it supports the topic, on which we either disagree or have a different understanding of it. You wrote "'Nazism' refers to a single regime, but Fein is talking about multiple regimes ('Such regimes...') that fall under a category that Becker calls 'fascism' and she calls 'national socialism.'" Does Fein actually clarify who are those "[s]uch regimes"? That would be helpful in clarify what she meant. Either way, I think the best solution would be, as you proposed, to not link anything and use her own words. "We should use the words she chose and not substitute our own preferences", that is fair, but then you wrote "[s]ome people don't actually think the Nazis were socialists." It is not "[s]ome people", it is the mainstream view that the Nazis were not socialists and it is the fringe view, pushed by some right-wing authors, especially in the United States, that the Nazis were socialists or left-wing. Davide King (talk) 19:37, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, it is not original research on my part retain the source's use of "national socialism", which is all I am proposing. About other such regimes, Fein says her use of "national socialism" is synonymous with Becker's use of "fascism". I think we agree with using the direct quote and not linking anything, but if you do want to investigate the source itself further, it can be found here. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, I was not referring to that as "original research" but to your comment that "[i]t may be that Fein intended to include left-wing nationalism when using the generic term 'national socialism.'" If I was doing original research for reading it as no difference with Nazism, which is boosted by the fact she says national socialism is synonymous with Becker's use of fascism, then so were you by stating she may have well referred to left-wing nationalism, which is not the case as she was clearly referring to fascism. Either way, it is not a big issue and I am fine with using the direct quoation and the exact wording you suggested, which is what I did here. Davide King (talk) 15:16, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

TFD, replacing a generic term from a source with a specific term for the article is original research on our part, as is replacing a generic term with a different generic term. If we need to explain generic "national socialism" to the reader without inserting original research into the sentence, then we could include a link to National Socialism (disambiguation). AmateurEditor (talk) 19:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

We should never insert a link when a term is ambiguous, we should explain it in the article, per technical language. And "Rewriting source material in your own words, while substantially retaining the meaning of the references, is not considered to be original research." In any case, per Use common sense, if you don't understand what the author means, you shouldn't add her material to the article. And since you introduced the theory, could you please provide a reliable source that distinguishes Nazism and generic national socialism? TFD (talk) 20:54, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

TFD, the point is that we are not "substantially retaining the meaning" from the source by replacing a generic "national socialism" with the specific "Nazism". I think using a disambiguation link would be common sense in this situation (the National Socialism (disambiguation) link begins with an explanation of most common use but includes other uses), but I am fine with leaving "national socialism" unlinked. There is no justification for assigning a more specific meaning to the source's words than what is in the source itself. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Can you find a source that defines "generic national socialism." Most of the disambiguation page refers to parties outside Germany that adhered to the ideology of the Nazi Party of Germany. The rest are parties that have no connection with fascism, which rules them out. TFD (talk) 03:35, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

We don't need to have a definition of generic "national socialism" to recognize that the term is being used that way by Fein (and that our changing it to be a reference to Nazism alone is incorrect to the source). If you don't think anything other than the Nazism can be referred to as "national socialism", then you should try to get the National Socialism (disambiguation) page changed to be a simple redirect to Nazism. AmateurEditor (talk) 05:48, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I also agree with direct quoting, it should not be manipulated what the author stated.(KIENGIR (talk) 06:32, 1 December 2020 (UTC)).

Why would we provide a direct quote when we don't understand what an author said? AmateurEditor, so you don't know what generic national socialism is, but you know that is what Fein meant? That would make a great introduction to a textbook: "The authors don't understand the subject, but decided to write the book anyway." TFD (talk) 17:03, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

We use a direct quote to avoid changing the intended meaning of the author and introducing original research on our part. Better safe than sorry as far as OR is concerned. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:29, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Usage of a direct quote just creates a visibility of lack of manipulation. If I remember that article correctly (I read it about 10 years ago), Fein does not use the concept "Communist mass killing". Instead, it compares a "revolutionary genocide" (Cambodian) with "counterrevolutionary genocide" (in Indonesia). Therefore, even direct quoting leads to misinterpretation: we imply the author accepts the "Communist mass killing" concept, which does not follows from what the source says. That raises an interesting question. As AmateurEditor correctly noted, to avoid a sine of original research, it is desirable to write the article based on some set of aggregator sources. However, to avoid a sine of POV-pushing, it is desirable to make sure the set of aggregator sources the article is based upon describe the subject fairly and without a bias. I am not talking about each single aggregator source, but the set of them must be neutral. Since Fein presents a comparative analysis of two different mass killings, that source should also be considered an aggregator source. However, the viewpoint of the author is underrepresented in the article, and even direct quotes do not fix that.

In connection to that, I propose to examine the choice of aggregator sources the article is based upon. Since that is a more general topic, I propose to move in to a separate section.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I agree and I thank you for expressing more concisely something I thought. I believe most sources currently used in the article are like Fein, in that they do not even use the concept of "Communist mass killing" and make more of a comparative genocide analysis, even between Communist and non-Communist regimes, which is not the main topic of this article, hence it is synthesis or original research. The problem is that the aggregator itself is synthesis and original research, as shown by the fact Fein does not use the concept of "Communist mass killing." Davide King (talk) 05:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, thank you for creating a separate section for the new discussion. About Fein using the "concept" of communist mass killing (I dislike the word "concept" as if this is a strange idea; it is not a "concept" so much as it is a "topic": the large-scale killing of non-combatants by communist regimes), Fein mentions it in the first sentence of the paragraph I quoted above: "Communism, the leading ideology since 1945 until the present, promised social change even as it authorized killing on the basis of class and politics, identifying dissidents as "enemies of the people."" AmateurEditor (talk) 06:27, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Do you agree with my definition of what can be called an aggregator source for that topic?--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I will respond in the next section below. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

VOC, Communist genocide, etc

If you don't mind, I'll collapse the part of the previous section that is totally unrelated to the topic. Regarding etymological fallacies, Wikipedia is being edited mostly by amateurs, so if something can be misinterpreted, it will be misinterpreted. If you want, you may waste your time explaining to each newcomers what etymological fallacies are, but I am not sure you will be able to persuade everybody, and, sooner or later some RfC will legalise a totally distorted, fallacious interpretation of that term.

Regarding "Communist genocide", yes, that article had that name originally. However, there were two huge problems there: (i) It pretended that "Communist genocide" was some single event, or a single phenomenon (similar to the Holocaust), which obviously contradicts to what an overwhelming number of scholar think on that account. (ii) An overwhelming majority of mass deaths under Communists were not genocidal deaths, and many authors stress that Communism is an intrinsically non-genocidal doctrine. Read just one source Mao’s China: The WorstNon-Genocidal Regime? by Jean-Louis Margolin, who is incidentally one of two major contributors of the Black Book, and whose opinion, in contrast to the opinion of the author of the worst part of the book, is significantly underrepresented in this article. Incidentally, since Chinese mass killing constitute more than a half of all VOC, that means China was supposed to be excluded from the "Communist genocide" article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

That is why precisely I oppose using Communist genocide or Communism and mass killings, or using any other terminology on which there is no agreement among scholars themselves. They are not supported by the literature. Another possibility could be Communist death toll but I believe Victims of Communism is more accurate because that is the narrative used in popular literature and by some scholarly sources, albeit minority views, that it was "Communism" to blame, hence those are "victims of Communism." Outlining the "victims of Communism" is exactly what Courtois and Malia tried to do in their infamous introduction. The topic should not be about the events themselves, which we already discuss in detail at the relevant articles, but about a linkage between all excess deaths under Communist states and communism, i.e. as a theory or concept that is very popular in mass media and popular literature ("since the MKuCR topic appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature") but it is a minority views in academia, hence why my proposal to divide it into Popular and Scholarly literature, with criticism of both. Davide King (talk) 20:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

No. "Communism and mass killings" is perfectly supported. Some authors (Courtois, Malia, Rosenfielde et al) claim Communism is a primary driver of mass killings, and some of them pile together all premature deaths under Communist regimes to come to a conclusion that Communism was the worst killer in XX century, AND that Communism was much worse than Nazism. Other authors directly criticize these theories, or, importantly provide different explanations. Thus, Valentino totally reject a linkage between mass killings and ideology, and his main idea is that leader's personality played much more important role. I can continue further, but I prefer to do that later, after we resolved the main question.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether the title accurately reflects the topic, but what the topic is called in mainstream sources. For example, the Boston Massacre, which is mentioned in Non-neutral but common names, was not a massacre, but was inaccurately described as one by partisans for propaganda purposes. The word massacre is even used in the title of articles about events where no one was killed, such as the Saturday Night Massacre, where three high ranking U.S. officials were either dismissed or resigned, but faced no other consequences. MKuCR OTOH is a descriptive title: "if the article topic has no name, it may be a description of the topic." Using that title then allows anything that is a mass killing that occurred in a Communist country to be included. It doesn't matter that the consensus in reliable sources is that the Khmer Rouge murders of ethnic minorities were carried out for nationalist rather than Communist motivations, they were still mass killings under Communist regimes. Therefore all that is required for inclusion is that the source describes a mass killing that occurred under any regime that happened to be Communist. There's no need to explain how these murders are connected. Onion#Varieties by comparison lists various types of onions, but does not explain why scientists consider all of them to be onions. That's because there is scientific consensus that they are all onions. TFD (talk) 20:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

No.

Your arguments work only for the well defined topics for which some universally agreed terminology exists. In our case, a situation is totally different. One category of sources (category "A") says some specific Communist mass killings took place, AND they share some significant common traits, AND they include famine deaths into the total death toll, which is huge. Another category of sources ("B") explicitly criticize say the sources "A". The third category ("C") does not apply the term "Communist mass killing/Red Holocaust, VoC etc" to those events, they either group these events totally differently (for example, all genocides, Communist/non-communist, in Asia, or all mass killings in Eastern Europe, both by Hitler and Stalin, Chinese famine vs Bengal famine etc), or they discuss single countries. The category "C" sources use totally different terminology (thus, most famine experts do not use the words "mass killing/genocide/democide etc.", and prefer some neutral terminology, such as "entitlement famine"; experts in Stalinism speak about collectivisation/repression, but they do not use words like "Communist mass killing" at all; some authors openly say that "victims of Stalinism is a politically loaded and vague term, and so on, and so forth). However, it is the category "C" which is the most numerous and highest quality sources that describe mass killing events in Communist states. However, the category "C" plays a subordinated role in MKuCR/CG/VoC articles, because the topic is defined based on the terminology picked from minority sourses (sources "A").

Some topic is well defined if the google search results are not significantly dependent on subtle key word variations. Meanwhile, if you compare this, this, this, this, this. and that, you get totally different sources and totally different authors writing about essentially same set of events. In other words, by using VoC out of many "parallel Universes" only one is selected, and it is represented as a majority view.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

But there are universally accepted definitions for VOC and CG. They are narratives that ascribe the murder of 100 million people to the Communist movement and ideology. Whether or not their narrative is correct does not mean it is not a narrative. Consider for example the article, "Advocating for the cause of the "victims of Communism" in the European political space: memory entrepreneurs in interstitial fields" It seems like a well-defined topic for the author.

Your approach I think is that the article should address the question, "How many people did the Communists kill and why did they do it?" But the only way to do that is through synthesis because only VOC advocates actually answer the questions. No serious scholarship exists that studies all the killings and compares them. The closest we get is the introduction to the Black Book. Instead, we have numerous articles in reliable sources written by political scientists, not genocide experts, that write about the VOC/CG narrative. They provide a description of what the theory is, who advocates it, why they advocate it, what influence it has, etc. While they may question some of the numbers used, that is not central to their writing.

This reminds me of the long discussion we had on Jewish Bolshevism a long time ago. You thought that article should explain in depth the number of Jews who were Communists. I said that was irrelevant. In the end, my view won out and another editor created an article "Jews and Communism." I complained at articles for deletion that although there were books about Jewish involvement in Communism in various countries that there was no global study. The article was deleted when it was found that the article was based on a study published in an anti-Semitic journal.

TFD (talk) 22:25, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I believe The Four Deuces hit the nail in the coffin when they wrote "the only way to do that is through synthesis because only VOC advocates actually answer the questions. No serious scholarship exists that studies all the killings and compares them." Hence why no actual topic as you describe exist and this article should be deleted. On the other hand, there is a clear topic about the "victims of Communism" narrative correctly summarised by The Four Deuces, which should be the topic of this article. Again, it seems that while we agree the currently-structured article is problematic, we have different views on the solution. To solve this, it would be good to have a draft or sandbox where we can compare both versions.

My view is that Victims of Communism should be presented as a narrative, structured similarly to Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory and Jewish Bolshevism, where we explain the narrative that "ascribe the murder of 100 million people to the Communist movement and ideology", perhaps adding a section about the "authors (Courtois, Malia, Rosenfielde et al) [who] claim Communism is a primary driver of mass killings, and some of them pile together all premature deaths under Communist regimes to come to a conclusion that Communism was the worst killer in XX century, AND that Communism was much worse than Nazism." Those authors are essentially proposing the same thing, exactly as you quoted them, although they may disagree on some of the estimates and details which we may explain. The narrative is essentially the same and it would not be presented as a majority view.

Then we add a Scholarly analysis section where we mention the criticism, that this is a popular view among the public and anti-communists but fringe or minority view in academia and that most scholars not only disagree with the estimates used by the narrative but they also disagree that communism was the main culprit or that communism, socialism and by extension the left must inevitably end in genocide and mass killings. How would this be any different from your proposal, especially in explaining the theory and narrative rather than the events as in topic A? The Black Book of Communism is the book that popularised the narrative. It would not be presented as a majority view; on the other hand, I think giving a main article to your proposed topic would imply it is a majority view and is widely accepted.

This seems to be the only clear topic that would be encyclopedic and not devolve into original research or synthesis. The problem of your proposed topic is that it is essentially a minority view and cannot be separated from its narrative of Communist victims. If scholars disagree about terminology, that means the topic as you propose does not exist and can only be incorporated as part of the narrative. Do you really disagree with the structure I proposed or just with the name? You seem to be proposing a comparative analysis of mass killings under Communist regimes but I think the main topic should be the narrative, or perhaps these should be separate articles like Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism, or Comparison of Communist regimes in these case, or Comparison of mass killings under Communist regimes, if you want to focus on mass killings. Then again, why not start a section about it at Mass killing and if it grows big, then it can be a main article? Davide King (talk) 23:14, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

It has been 10 years since the fifth attempt to delete the article, time for another AfD? --Nug (talk) 23:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, that would make sense. As written by Aquillion, "[t]here would be no harm in putting this article up for AFD - the last AFD was ten years ago, and the article actually spent an absurd six of those years fully-protected (!), part of the reason its quality is still so low. I'm dubious a consensus could actually be found to delete it at this point, but it's somewhat silly to place too much stock in a ten-year-old RFC one way or the other; Wikipedia has changed substantially since then. At least a new AFD would give us a better sense of where things stand."

I just doubt anything good is going to come out from it because we actually disagree on the main topic and users are going to be for Keep that since the events indeed happened, which no ones denies, how dare you proposing it to delete it? This completely misses the point and does not address any arguments we extensively gave for why there is no serious scholar literature for the topic as currently-structured and that an analysis of sources show they do not actually support it (see my analysis here).

Most sources, and the topic itself, are taken for granted because it appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature; indeed, that Communism and Nazism were equal is taken for granted as a mainstream view, in light of the Prague Declaration (a political decision rather than a reflection of scholarly consensus), when it is actually a revisionist and minority view among scholars. As I argued here, this results in confirmation, implicit and systematic bias.

Admittedly, "[a]ll the sources used in the article are correctly treated as 'significant minority' views or weight purposes." If they are all minority views, what is the point? And how are they significant? If they are all minority views, why should it be a standalone article? Especially when it is presented as an uncontroversial academic theory and there is no consensus on the terminology.

So I believe we should at least try to reach a consensus on the main topic before an AfD because many may be for Keep but actually advocate different topics (see how many are mixed up here) and that should be actually taken as Delete since the article is supposed to have only one clear main topic. Davide King (talk) 00:29, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The problem with this terminology argument Paul presents is that "mass killing" is a core characteristic of "democide", "politicide", "classicide" and "genocide", not just another term. Democide, politicide, classicide and genocide are all mass killings with differing characteristics, but a particular mass killing isn't necessarily one or any of the 'cides, it could be famine too, exacerbated on by Communist regime criminality/incompetence. Just as poodles, greyhounds and bulldogs are all dogs with differing characteristics, yet are all dogs never the less, but a particular dog isn't necessarily a poodle. --Nug (talk) 23:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

That puddles and greyhounds are dogs is an objective and independently verifiable fact, which is universally recognized. In contrast, various "-cides" are (with one exception) just occasional intellectual exercises of a small group of authors. It is not a surprise that the attempts to develop such a "terminology" were a complete failure.

Your analogy with dogs works if we speak about something what is really objective, e.g. human deaths. We know that more than one hundred million non-combatant were killed in XX century, and a significant part of them in Communist states. How do different sources discuss them? Some sources discuss Great Leap famine in a context of Bengal and Irish famine, and they provide a very detailed and professional analysis without resorting to usage of various "-cides" and other buzzwords. These articles are authored by real experts, they cover a half of all deaths ascribed to Communism by other authors, and the viewpoint of these scholars is dramatically underrepresented in this article. Another group of sources discusses mass killings in underdeveloped countries with rudimentary political culture and low respect to human life. As a coincidence, significant part of those countries were under Communist rule during a part of its XX century history. They also do not link mass killings exclusively to Communism. And so on, and so forth.

I am expecting some more deep arguments from you.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Putting aside for one moment the connection with mass killing or genocide with communist regimes, we can objectively agree that a genocide is a mass killing, but a mass killing isn't necessarily a genocide? --Nug (talk) 23:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Not exactly. Forced assimilation of children was recognized, is some cases, as an act of genocide. Some deportations too. Therefore, some non-lethal events can be an act of genocide.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:52, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, you write "[s]ome sources discuss Great Leap famine in a context of Bengal and Irish famine, and they provide a very detailed and professional analysis without resorting to usage of various "-cides" and other buzzwords." Perhaps this should be discussed at the Great Chinese Famine and Great Leap Forward? There is simply no serious scholarship that "address the question, How many people did the Communists kill and why did they do it?' But the only way to do that is through synthesis because only VOC advocates actually answer the questions." The only one that does a comparative analysis is Crimes Against Humanity under Communist Regimes by Klas-Göran Karlsson, whose notability you disputed. It is a little too little.

I think for what you propose, we need two articles. One about the scholarly analysis of Communist regimes, which includes the events, with both more nuanced and more critical analyses, i.e. it does include mass killings but that its not its sole focus and also includes the proper context and the rising from backward agrarian countries to more advanced industrial ones, without blaming it on "Communism" or saying communism, socialism and by extension the left are prone to mass killings and genocide, hence any proposed radical change is going to result in new "victims of Communism." The other article would be this and be exclusively about the narrative, including both the popular literature (the topic "appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature") and the analysis of authors such as Courtois, Malia, Rosefielde et al. Davide King (talk) 00:08, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Re " Perhaps this should be discussed at the Great Chinese Famine and Great Leap Forward?", all facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article except in the case of a spinoff sub-article. That is our policy, and it is not negotiable.

Re "There is simply no serious scholarship that address the question, How many people did the Communists kill and why did they do it?'" What do you mean? There is a lot of scholarship about various deaths in Cambodia, China, USSR, as well as other countries. Yes, there is almost no serious scholarship that combine all deaths in Communist states into one category. The reason is obvious: serious authors do not consider them a single event. Indeed, the causes of Great Purge and Cambodian genocide are totally different, and there were probably more common features between Cambodia and Indonesia than between Cambodia and USSR (remember, Cambodian genocide was provoked by American bombing, Khmer Rouge were supported by the US, and the genocide stopped due to the Soviet supported Vietnamese intervention).--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:24, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that there should be no spinoff sub-article, as explained by The Four Deuces below. "[T]here is almost no serious scholarship that combine all deaths in Communist states into one category." That is exactly what I was referring to, when I wrote that, so perhaps we have a different understanding and we are referring to different things? You are proposing a comparative analysis, The Four Deuces and I are proposing the narrative that combine "all deaths in Communist states into one category." If they do not consider a single event, then we should not have a single article either. At best we may have an article comparing, what it was?, with the Indonesian mass killings. The only sources that make a comparative analysis of Communist regimes is Crimes against Humanity under Communist Regimes by Karllson. If all the other sources make a comparative analysis of only two Communist regimes, then either are not notable for a main article or they should not be mixed up and synthesis, i.e. if a source makes a comparative analysis of the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia, the article will be Comparative analysis of the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia, we do not mix up all Communist regimes together or use titles implying that, such as Communism and mass killings or Mass killings under Communist regimes. Davide King (talk) 00:42, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, while your examples (cultural Marxism, Jewish Bolshevism) are fringe theories, the same applies for mainstream majority and minority views. Unless a theory represents consensus mainstream thought (e.g., evolution or climate change), we don't present it as a given. In social sciences of course, there are far fewer theories that enjoy consensus support than in natural sciences.

Paul Siebert, if the Great Leap Forward famine was similar in cause to the Irish famine, why would we include it in this article? We don't have an article "Accidental automobile deaths under Communist regimes" because there is no obvious connection between automobile deaths in various Communist countries. We could of course find sources for automobile deaths in each Communist country and create n article similar to this one.

Nug, I agree that under most definitions, genocide is form of mass killing. Forced assimilation is sometimes called genocide because it had the same objective - the destruction of a race - and was often used in tandem with mass killings.

TFD (talk) 00:20, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

We include it because some authors (Courtois, Rosefielde, Rummel) describe that famine as mass killing and add all victims to the total "Communism death toll", which perfectly supports their theory about Communism as the worst murderer.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:27, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, I do not disagree with anything you wrote. I think you are referring to the fact many users feel we should say why a theory is correct or wrong, when only "a theory represent[ing] consensus mainstream thought (e.g., evolution or climate change)" can be "present[ed] as given." As I wrote, I agree that we would simply describe the narrative. Or were you referring to my Scholarly analysis (response or whatever one wants to call it; we may have no section of it and simply incorporate in the body, which would be better) section proposal, which you would oppose for the reasons you just enounced?

Paul Siebert, the problem is that "add[ing] all victims to the total 'Communism death toll', which perfectly supports their theory about Communism as the worst murderer", is exactly what the narrative is about, so I still fail to see on what we actually disagree, other than you feeling Victims of Communism is a POV title or that it implies it is a majority view; it does not, as explained by The Four Deuces. The authors you listed are espousing the same "victims of Communism" narrative The Four Deuces and I propose to be the main topic. As I wrote above, this does not preclude us from presenting those authors' views and their interpretation. Davide King (talk) 00:52, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@TFD's "Your approach I think is that the article should address the question, "How many people did the Communists kill and why did they do it?"" No. I thought I already explained that, but let me do that again. There are some objective and universally recognized facts about mass deaths under Communist regimes. We know that nearly 50 million died as a result of famine, diseases and war. Some other events were war crimes, repressions, deportations etc. All of that are facts. These facts have already been carefully analyzed in specialized scholarly publications, and some common causes were identified for some of those cases, whereas others are explained separately from other events. All of that is perfectly known, and we even have separate WP articles for almost every event, starting from Katyn massacre to Great Chinese Famine. We don't need, and we cannot discuss all of that again, because our policy does not allow us to do so. What we can and should do is the following. Some, relatively small, group of authors argue that all those deaths were mass killings (democide, genocide, Red Hololcaust etc), and all of them were a direct consequence of Communism, and they claim that that makes Communism the worst XX century killer. Some authors add explicitly that it was far worse than Nazism. These theories have a significant support among some journalists and general public, especially in Central Europe. This article should discuss these theories, their strengths and weaknesses, their support and criticism. That would be a quite legitimate topic.. This time, have I been clear enough?--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I do not see how that is any different from what The Four Deuces and I are actually proposing, that is the narrative of "victims of Communism" proposed by those authors which has "significant support among some journalists and general public, especially in Central Europe." Nor I see how "[s]ome, relatively small, group of authors argue that all those deaths were mass killings (democide, genocide, Red Hololcaust etc), and all of them were a direct consequence of Communism, and they claim that that makes Communism the worst XX century killer" is precluted from what The Four Deuces and I are proposing or an article called Victims of Communism. Those victims, according to the narrative, include all those events, but we should not describe them; we should simply report their interpretation of them they use to support the narrative. It seems we only disagree on the name. But I will let them speak themselves if they disagree. Please, The Four Deuces and Paul Siebert work together to make a draft or sandbox, so we can compare them. I believe they would be discussing the same topic, structured very similar and prove the main issue to be about the name. Davide King (talk) 01:07, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I agree with your topic proposal. However the current title does not address it. Instead, it implies that the events were connected and therefore there is no reason to explain the connection and we can just get on with enumerating the death toll. We have no more than a few sentences in any reliable sources saying that all these deaths were connected and nothing saying they weren't. All we have in reputable is analyses of individual countries or comparisons of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. TFD (talk) 01:29, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the title is a really big problem. The time and efforts that will be needed to change it do not commensurate with possible benefits from renaming. In addition, the title is not that bad: everybody agree that some mass killings did occur under Communist regimes, therefore, the discussion of the views of some authors who connect them together and do some very strong generalizations can perfectly fit the current title. The title is by no means the worst article's problem.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:53, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't see the same arguments about lack contentedness of all the deaths to Colonisation regarding the article Mass killings under colonial regimes. I don't think Greek colonisation caused any mass killings. --Nug (talk) 01:50, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

...and that is why I will enthusiastically support a careful examination of that article for possible synthesis. And if the analysis will show the article violates NOR, I will gladly support its deletion.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:55, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Well let's identify what that synthesis is here, given the article has recently been tagged. With over 40 pages of archived talk pages any synthesis has long been eradicated a long time ago in my view. --Nug (talk) 02:04, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, the article is Genocide of indigenous peoples, with Mass killings under colonial regimes being a redirect. I would not oppose a retargeting to Mass killing#Colonialism where we actually discuss it in a paragraph, since Valentino includes in the second category of mass killings (coercive mass killing) the colonial expansion. Yet, this article actually implies that communism caused mass killings; this is stated as fact, when all we have are the opinions of those supporting this view, rather than stated as part of the theory and narrative. I see no similar thing for the linked article, whose name is actually Genocide of indigenous peoples, with no mention of ideology or system. Regarding synthesis, the problem is precisely that is not been eradicated at all. Anti-communist mass killings should similarly be deleted for synthesis because the topic in literature does not exist. Both of those articles are synthesis and problematic, so I believe to be pretty consistent.

The Four Deuces and Paul Siebert, since we actually agree on the main topic, I believe we should seriously start working on it and only discuss the name when the dust settles and the rewriting is complete. I still support Victims of Communism because that is the common name for the narrative and because they make no distinction between direct killings and civil war, famines, wars and any other excess death; there is no agreement among sources on the terminology but there is agreement that, according to this narrative, all of these were "victims of Communism." But I agree we should really focus on how to fix the article and we can worry about the name later. Davide King (talk) 02:25, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

You appear to be jumping straight into the solution (a total rewrite) without actually identifying what the synthesis is beyond claiming that it exists. What's the evidence? I don't think the article implies that communism caused mass killings, just that mass killings occurfed under Communist regimes. Opinions as to the connection to the ideology of a particular regime is reliably sourced. And in any case, in the view of Communist regimes, most Victims of Communism were fascists, reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, etc, etc, right? --Nug (talk) 02:31, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

That you write "[I] appear to be jumping straight into the solution (a total rewrite) without actually identifying what the synthesis is beyond claiming that it exists" can only be explained by you not having read or closely followed the whole discussion ("The article is intrinsically biased because the very topic is beyond the scope of the scholarly community. The very concept 'Communist mass killing' is not a universally accepted concept, so the authors who are not writing in that paradigm (i.e. an overwhelming majority of historians who specialise in history of some particular country) are beyond the scope of this article, and their views are either ignored or distorted in this article.").

Paul Siebert and others repeatedly explained and showed the issues, in particular the section about terminology. The problem is that this article's main topic should not be about all mass killings that occurred under Communist regimes, and which no one is denying they did not happen, because "[w]e don't need, and we cannot discuss all of that again, because our policy does not allow us to do so." The main topic is supposed to be about the popular and scholarly minority interpretation of the events as "all those deaths [include deaths from famines and wars] [being] mass killings (democide, genocide, Red Hololcaust etc), and all of them [being] a direct consequence of Communism, and they claim that that makes Communism the worst XX century killer", with the claim that "Communism is a primary driver of mass killings, and some of them pile together all premature deaths under Communist regimes to come to a conclusion that Communism was the worst killer in XX century, AND that Communism was much worse than Nazism." This is supposed to be the main topic, not the actual events which we already describe in detail at the relevant articles. It is supposed to be presented as a controversial but popular theory and narrative but reading the article gives a misleading impression this is a mainstream, uncontroversial theory, rather than minority opinions.

As written by Siebert, "[t]echnically, the article is in good shape, mostly thanks to AmateurEditor. Unfortunately, that makes it especially harmful to Wikipedia's reputation, because it visually a good quality and well sourced article that provides a very one sided and biased picture." The article meets the definition, as given at Wikipedia:Citation overkill, of "[a] well-meaning editor [who] may attempt to make a subject which does not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines appear to be notable [or supported by scholarly literature, as in this case] through quantity of sources." Most of sources used and listed are not even about comparative analysis, or where Communist regimes are discussed together as a single thing, which is what we currently do. We cite Conquest about the Soviet Union, even though he "did not write about mass killings under Communist regimes, he wrote about the Red terror, the Holodomor and the Great purge in the Soviet Union. He treated these as separate subjects and did not develop a theory of mass killings under Communist regimes. We should not put together a group of events and create an article when no one else has."

Thanks again to The Four Deuces for expression this more concisely here and here; I wrote all of these before their response. I may also add the scholars noted how Cambodia reflected more fascism than communism and one critique of lumping all Communist regimes together is that "a connection between the events in Pol Pot's Cambodia and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union are far from evident and that Pol Pot's study of Marxism in Paris is insufficient for connecting radical Soviet industrialism and the Khmer Rouge's murderous anti-urbanism under the same category" and that "[w]hether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss." Davide King (talk) 03:37, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

It is implicit synthesis. It implies there is a connection without explicitly saying there is. It's like saying, "Jim has red hair and he's a criminal, Sam also has red hair and he's a criminal. Then there's Sally, who has red hair and is a criminal. I think I'll create an article about red-headed criminals. No I don't think that red hair has anything to do with them being criminals. No of course I don't like people with red hair, that has nothing to do with it and if you try to delete this article you must have red hair yourself because who else would defend red-headed people."

Also, the statement that in the view of Communist regimes most VOC were fascist etc. is incorrect. The mass killings by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were all condemned by the Communist leaders who replaced them. TFD (talk) 03:31, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Seeing "implicit synthesis" may be more a function of ones personal POV? Norman Naimark devotes a whole chapter called Communist genocides in his book Genocide A World History, published by Oxford University Press. Benjamin Valentino also has a chapter called Communist mass killings in his book Final Solutions Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, published by Cornell University Press. Both discuss the communist systems of Cambodia, Soviet Union and China, both Naimark and Valentino are scholars, their works published by reputable university presses. So there is no synthesis here in grouping the communist regimes of Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#Cambodia, Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#Soviet_Union and Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#China together in this article. At least two independent scholarly sources have already made that connection. --Nug (talk) 06:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, all of that have already been addressed very recently. Just read the talk page. By the way, can you tell me how exactly does Valentino explain linkage between Communism and mass killings?--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:42, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, I said there was implicit synthesis in the article because it implies there is a connection between mass killings and Communist regimes without explicitly saying there is. You say I am wrong because the connection is explained in reliable sources. So what is that connection? TFD (talk) 07:12, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

All has been addressed before in the talk page, that is why I am perplexed all these old arguments for a wholesale rewrite are being recycled again. User:Davide King writes above "scholars noted how Cambodia reflected more fascism than communism", but actually only one author, Helen Fein, wrote that back in 1993, decades before Valentino's and Naimark's more up to date research. You can read for yourself Valentino's linkage as written in the Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#Ideology section of the article:

Benjamin Valentino writes that mass killings strategies are chosen by communists to economically dispossess large numbers of people, arguing as such: "Social transformations of this speed and magnitude have been associated with mass killing for two primary reasons. First, the massive social dislocations produced by such changes have often led to economic collapse, epidemics, and, most important, widespread famines. [...] The second reason that communist regimes bent on the radical transformation of society have been linked to mass killing is that the revolutionary changes they have pursued have clashed inexorably with the fundamental interests of large segments of their populations. Few people have proved willing to accept such far-reaching sacrifices without intense levels of coercion".

—Nug (talk)

References

It's not clear what the reason for the economic dispossession is. Certainly killing people dispossesses them of their property, but why do they do this? TFD (talk) 11:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually, the opinion of Valentino is quite clear: "I content mass killing occurs when powerful groups come to believe it is the best available means to accomplish certain radical goals, counter specific types of threats, or solve difficult military problem" (p. 66). Per Straus (World Politics, Apr., 2007, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Apr., 2007), pp. 476-501), Valentino claims ideology alone is an insufficient explanation, and the leader's short time goals and leader's personality explain mass killings better.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:27, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, this is another problem I noted, namely that the article even misrepresents the views of its proponents. Is "mass killings strategies are chosen by communists to economically dispossess large numbers" even an accurate summary of what he wrote? Valentino does not seem to say Communists 'chose' those strategies but that they were the results of their policies of radical transformation, which is very different. Nug, the first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. If these seems to be a repetition of what has been said in the past, perhaps that is because none of the issues have been actually solved, rather than "synthesis [being] eradicated a long time ago in my view" as you claimed. Davide King (talk) 15:47, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug didn't tell us what the connection was but provided quotes for us to figure out. I hope that he can explain it concisely in his own words. Then we can find who actually articulated that view, so that we can define the topic. At that point we can determine what the topic is normally called, whether it is notable, who its supporters are and what degree of acceptance it has. TFD (talk) 22:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

?? If you are unable to comprehend Valentino's own words, why would it be any more likely you would comprehend my words? Davide King, I think the real problem here is that some people haven't taken the time to read the underlying sources. Rather than read the Valentino book directly for the wider context of the cites given, we have Paul Siebert citing Straus' interpretation of Valentino, while The Four Deuces asks for my interpretation. If we can't rely on a direct reading of Valentino, why would a direct reading of Straus' interpretation of Valentino be any more reliable? Just seems all a bit odd. --Nug (talk) 05:53, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, surely our own reading of Valentino does not hold the same weight of an academic such as Strauss? Is not that exactly why we should use secondary sources for analysis rather than primary ones which are going to reflect the editor's POV? Davide King (talk) 06:03, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I certainly am able to understand Valentino's own words and two other editors have been helpful in explaining them. None of us can see what the connection is and that's why I asked you to explain it. Anyway I am sure you are capable of explaining the concept in your own words, which we need to establish the topic. if you can't explain it, then perhaps you can find another source. TFD (talk) 07:20, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I propose to look at that from a little bit different perspective. When you look at this article, its main focus is

• How should we call MKuCR?
• How many victims?
• What are common causes of those killings?
• Some concrete details about separate countries/events.

The total death toll plays an important role in this article. Actually, it is implicitly assumed that only the sources that provide some figure (total number of victims) can be considered real aggregator sources. In connection to that, Great Chinese Famine plays an essential role in this article: if we exclude this and other famines, the "Communist death toll" becomes much less impressive.

In connection to that, it would be logical to consider the current article a summary artcile, and the Great Chinese Famine, Holodomor etc articles are child articles. Per our policy, we are not allowed to have more than one article about the same event, and the "summary article - daughter article" is the only option that may allow us to preserve both articles. However, a comparison of those article with the current article shows they are written from a totally different perspectives. That is a violation of our core content policy, which is not negotiable. I am expecting those users who oppose to significant modification of this article to explain how that violation (which is obvious) can be fixed. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:12, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

In this section I would say I mainly agreed with Paul, especially about "Communism and mass killings" is perfectly supported, etc. About the above section where he pinged me in, will react later, due to the enormous amount of material hard to read through so quickly (the latter I won't allude anymore, take it permanent in such conditions).(KIENGIR (talk) 10:13, 5 December 2020 (UTC))

KIENGIR, to save your time, just read the section below, because it describes the most important problem.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:56, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Related move discussion

Template_talk:Decommunization_in_Europe_since_1989#Requested move 10 December 2020

Has all of Europe experienced "decommunization" since 1989? (t · c) buidhe 17:28, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Aggregator sources selection criteria

As AmateurEditor correctly noted, to avoid a sine of original research, it is desirable to write the article based on some set of aggregator sources. However, to avoid a sine of POV-pushing, it is desirable to make sure the set of aggregator sources the article is based upon describe the subject fairly and without a bias. I am not talking about each single aggregator source, but the set of them must adequately reflect the current state of knowledge. I have serious reasons to suspect the current set of aggregator sources is not doing that job well, and I propose to think about a better set of sources. First, let's agree on what an aggregator source is. I propose the following definition (for that topic).

"An aggregator source is any article of book that provides a summary or a comparative analysis of more than one mass killing event in at least two different states, and at least one of those mass killings took place in some Communist state"

Do you agree with that definition? (I would appreciate if every participant of that discussion voiced their opinion explicitly).--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:19, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I think in order to be useful, "An aggregator source is any article of book that discusses more than one mass killing event in at least two different states defined by the author as 'Communist'". If the source is comparing, eg. mass killings under Stalinism and Nazism, it is relevant to comparison of Stalinism and Nazism but not this article. (t · c) buidhe 04:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC) OK, Siebert makes some good points below. Well, if it were up to me we'd just delete the damn thing since it seems virtually impossible to cover it in an encyclopedic way. (t · c) buidhe 05:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, do I understand you correct that if the source discusses Cambodia, Indonesia and China, it is not an aggregator source for that article, but if it discusses just Cambodia and China, it is an aggregator source?

If your answer is "yes" that means we artificially separate those authors who believe there were more commonality between Cambodia and, e.g. USSR from the authors who believe that Cambodian genocide had more common traits with Indonesia than with USSR. In my opinion, that would be a direct violation of neutrality policy.

The same can be said as follows:

• If the article's topic is a MKuCR concept, then the definition of an aggregator source is close to what you propose. However, that means the focus of this article should be the MKuCR theories, including their acceptance and criticism. The events themselves should not be discusses in details, and all facts and figures should be provided with attribution and commentaries.
• If the article's subject are the events (mass killings A, B, C, D, E, F...), then the aggregator source is any article that performs a comparative analysis of more than one of mass killing events. In that case, it does not matter if all of them took place in some Communist state: any comparative analysis that involves at least one event from that list can be considered an aggregator source.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I support the view "the article's topic is a MKuCR concept, then the definition of an aggregator source is close to what you propose. However, that means the focus of this article should be the MKuCR theories, including their acceptance and criticism. The events themselves should not be discusse[d] in details, and all facts and figures should be provided with attribution and commentaries." However, I propose the article to be called Victims of Communism, which is the term actually used to describe this topic, as there is no agreed terminology among genocide and other scholars. The article would describe the MKuCR topic which appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature, where it is called "victims of Communism", and the concept or theory of MKuCR proposed by some authors and scholars, structured exactly as you proposed in the first example. We could divide this into Popular and Scholarly literature sections, would you agree?

Buidhe, I agree "if it were up to me we'd just delete the damn thing since it seems virtually impossible to cover it in an encyclopedic way" but that is simply not going to happen because the theory, which is not widely accepted among scholars and is a minority, if not outright fringe view, at least as currently structured and reported in this article, is held as mainstream among our imagination and is legitimised by the Prague Declaration, meaning anyone who disagree that Communism and Nazism were equal is an apologist for genocide and mass killing, even though the equivalency thing was first proposed by revisionist right-wing historians such as Courtois, Furet, Nolte and others; and it amounts to Holocaust trivialisation and overlaps with the double genocide theory, both of which are widely popular and promoted in anti-communist, right-wing and far-right circles, and is hardly 'centrist.' However, a restructuring and whole rewriting, with a renaming, could work, that is why it would be helpful if we start a draft or sandbox to start this. Davide King (talk) 05:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

See the next section

IMO, "Victims of Communism" implies the article's subject is the victims themselves, not some theory, so I am afraid other users wil start to add more and more facts about real of perceived victims of Communism to the article, and it will become a collection of various facts. If other participants of this discussion agree that the article's topic is some theory that links Communism and mass killings, the title should be different. We can either keep the current title of change it to "Communism and mass killing" to emphasize that the article's focus is a link (or a lack thereof) between Communism and mass killing.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC) We have had long, long discussion over the title and the current one Mass killings under communist regimes was the best compromise in the end. Are we going to start repeating all the archived arguments on why the name should be changed? We agreed long ago that use of small c "communist regime" was preferable to using big C "Communism" because the mass killing were primarily due to the implementation of what the regimes viewed to be Communism rather than due to the Communist ideology directly, that why the proposed titles Victims of Communism and Communism and mass killings don't make sense. --Nug (talk) 16:22, 2 December 2020 (UTC) Nug, actually it should be capitalised because the capitalisation refers to the Communist party regime, not to communism. Of all sources, The Black Book of Communism makes this distinction and capitalises Communism, so we should do the same for Communist-related articles. Finally, I would like to note that consensus can change, I was not involved in this article until recently and that the arguments by Siebert et al. for why the article is problematic, synthesis and violates NPOV are still valid and should not be dismissed but taken seriously. Davide King (talk) 19:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC) Nug, another possibility could be Communist death toll but I believe Victims of Communism is more accurate because that is the narrative used in popular literature and by some scholarly sources, albeit minority views, that it was "Communism" to blame, hence those are "victims of Communism." The topic should not be about the events themselves, which we already discuss in detail at the relevant articles, but about "a linkage between mass killings in Communist states and Communism", i.e. as a theory or concept that is very popular in mass media and popular literature but it is a minority views in academia, hence why my proposal to divide it into Popular and Scholarly literature. Davide King (talk) 19:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC) Paul Siebert, editors could only interpret VOC that way if they used the etymological fallacy: that the present-day meaning of a phrase should be similar to its historical meaning. For example, Semites includes Arabs and Jews, but anti-Semitism refers only to prejudice against Jews. Some editors disingenuously argue that Arab nationalists cannot be anti-Semitic because they are pro-Arab. In the case of VOC, we would follow the definition used in reliable sources and in the literature of the proponents of the concept, which is that the Communists murdered 100 million people for ideological reasons. That's why in fact I supported keeping the original name of the article, Communist genocide. Both those titles are more common than MKuCR, which is the title of only two articles, this one and the one in Metapedia. TFD (talk) 17:57, 2 December 2020 (UTC) The Four Deuces, I agree. Victims of Communism is the actual name for this topic and concept. Paul Siebert, I believe The Four Deuces gave a very valid explanation for why your concerns are overblown and that we should start focusing on the restructuring, which will show that Victims of Communism is the accurate name for the theory and concept. Davide King (talk) 19:13, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, TFD and Nug, please, stay focused. The current section is about the criteria for the aggregate source selection to make the topic coverage more comprehensive and neutral. That is NOT something that can be found in archives, that is a totally new question. Again, that section is NOT about the article's name, and NOT about the article's topic. If you want to discuss these two questions (or other questions), please, do that eslewhere. I would be grateful if you all clearly answered the following questions (I reproduce them below for your convenience): Do you agree with the following?

• If the topic of the current article is a linkage between mass killings in Communist states and Communism (in other words, the idea that mass killings in Communist states had some essential common traits, and therefore, they should be discussed as some single phenomenon; I denote that topic as "A"), then an aggregator source that can be used for this article is ""any article or book that discusses more than one mass killing event in at least two different states defined by the author as "Communist"." (a definition "X"). However, that means the focus of this article should be the MKuCR theories, including their acceptance and criticism. The events themselves should not be discusses in details, and all facts and figures should be provided with attribution and commentaries.
• If the article's subject is the discussion of the mass killing events that took place in Communist states, so the primary topic is theh killings that happened in Communist states (the topic "B"), then the aggregator source is "any article or book that performs a comparative analysis of more than one mass killing events, and at least one of those mass killings took place in some Communist state". (a definition "Y") In that case, the article's topic is not supposed to change, but the set of aggregator sources must be significantly expanded to achieve neutrality.

In this talk page section, I don't want to discuss what should be the article's topic. I want clear answers to a simple question: "do you agree that if the article's topic is "A", the aggregators sources are defined as "X", and if the topic is "B", the aggregator sources are "Y""? If you don't, how would you define what should be considered an aggregator source for this article? Thank you in advance for your cooperation and you short and clear answers. --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, as I stated above, I agree the article's topic should be A. While I am not yet sure on the aggregator criteria, I suppose it is fine, but I think it would be helpful to start a draft and sandbox to see how it may look like with different source aggregators and choose which one is the more appropriate. Davide King (talk) 19:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, if the article topic was A ("a linkage between mass killings in Communist states and Communism"), then an aggregator source (that is, a source upon which the existence of the article was justified) would be one in which that article topic was discussed as a distinct topic for multiple Communist states. An aggregator source would not be X ("any article or book that discusses more than one mass killing event in at least two different states defined by the author as "Communist"") because such a source may discuss those mass killing events in a way that has nothing to do with the states being communist. That is, a source may discuss mass killing in two communist states among several other non-communist states as part of a discussion of a different topic altogether, such as "mass killing in Europe". If the topic in the source is not about "communist states", then it does not act as a justification of the topic A article's existence. It may still be used as a supplemental source for relevant details (assuming there are other sources that do discuss the article topic distinctly and justify the article's existence).

If the article topic was B ("the mass killing events that took place in Communist states"), then an aggregator source is one in which mass killing in multiple Communist states is discussed as a distinct topic. Definition Y ("any article or book that performs a comparative analysis of more than one mass killing events, and at least one of those mass killings took place in some Communist state.") is incorrect because again there might be a source that discusses multiple mass killing events in communist and non-communist states together without making the communist state killings a distinct topic of its own.

There are an almost infinite number of topics found in reliable sources (more than six million of which have articles in the English wikipedia, currently). A single source can have any number of topics discussed within it, limited only by the length of the source. In order to justify a wikipedia article, there really just has to be sufficient material found in reliable sources to support an article without any original research/synthesis by wikipedia editors being required. But the sources that justify the article's existence do have to discuss the topic of the article as a distinct topic. One important point to remember: sources do not have to be unbiased. WP:NPOV is a requirement for wikipedia editors to present sources fairly, not for sources to be free of bias or opinion. AmateurEditor (talk) 07:42, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree. (what a surprise :-) ). Jesus, since I last time read the things here, again exponentially roboust talk page material has been generated, will need time to read carefully the next section, and I think I am not alone....(KIENGIR (talk) 10:20, 3 December 2020 (UTC))

AmateurEditor&KIENGIR, it seems there is some logic problem with what you say. The topic "A" is not mass killings per se, but some set of theories that link mass killings with Communism. In that case, the aggregator sources you are talking about are the objects of discussion, the article cannot and should not be written from their perspective.

With regard to the topic "B", it is not some theory(s), but the events (human deaths and the events that lead to them). Per our policy, All facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article except in the case of a spinoff sub-article. Therefore, if the Great Chinese famine is discussed in some source in a context of Bengal famine, that source MUST be presented in this article. If some source discusses Cambodian genocide in a context of Indonesian genocide, it MUST be presented in that article. And the Great Purge must be discusses in the same terms, and using the same approach and sources both here and in the Great Purge article. If some source links mass killing with low political culture, backward economy, or sees more common features in Asian genocides than in Communism linked genocide, that viewpoint MUST be duly represented in that article.

In contrast, if we select only those sources that discuss mass killings primarily in a context of Communism, and group them together according to that trait, we artificially narrow the range of sources that tell about that subject. I respect your opinion, but we have the policy, and what you propose directly contradicts to that.

If we chose the option "B", this article must be fully consistent with specialized articles (Great Purge, etc), which means it must use the same sources (or the most essential subset thereof), and it cannot describe these events from different perspective, and it cannot made generalizations that are not universally supported by main authors who write about each specific event or each specific country. And, importantly, it must include all comparative general theories related to these events: if Cabmodian genocide is compared with Indonesia, Bosnia or Rwanda, that discussion MUST be presented here, because that is required by our policy ("All facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article ...", and, since the subject of the article are mass killings, not some theory, then all significant points of view of Cambodian genocide must be presented).

To avoid duplication of the text, I suggest User:Nug to consider that a response to his post below.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:00, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, for an article about topic A ("some set of theories that link mass killings with Communism"), we would need sources that specifically contain topic A. That is, we would need sources that discuss a set of theories/multiple theories that link mass killings with Communism. It would not be enough to just have one source that discusses one theory and another source that discusses a different theory with neither of them referencing the other. Creating an article about the set of theories based on those two sources would be a form of original research because the topic of the set of theories does not exist in either source. It would fail the general notability guideline for topics, which says a topic must have "received significant coverage in reliable sources" (""Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content."). In this case, topic A does not exist in either source and is only emergent when wikipedia editors group different sources together.

For an article about topic B, "the events (human deaths and the events that lead to them)" that took place in communist states, the key words in the WP:NPOVFACT sentence are "on a given subject" ("All facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article except in the case of a spinoff sub-article."). If an event or communist regime is included in a source about a different subject, then it should be included in the article about that other subject (such as an article about the comparison of the Cambodia Genocide with the Indonesia killing). If the source that discusses a comparison between the Cambodia Genocide and the Indonesia killing contains relevant material to the article on topic B, then it can still be used there in a supplemental capacity. If there is a source that discusses mass killing generally without mention of topic B, it should only be used in the topic B article in a supplementary capacity if it has relevant material. You probably aren't suggesting this, but to be clear: we cannot use a source that does not mention topic B to imply that topic B is not accepted as a topic by that source, because that would be synthesis. Based on past discussions with you, I believe you are saying that we must include sources with other explanations of communist killing events that do not relate to communism as the cause and I agree those sources can be included as supplemental sources but they cannot serve as the basis for the article.

About Mkucr (which is about the set of mass killings under communist regimes, not about a set of theories), it would not be enough that one communist regime killing was discussed in one source and another communist regime killing was discussed in another source. To justify Mkucr as an article, we must have sources that discuss mass killing under multiple communist regimes (and we do). Single regime/single event sources can still contribute to the article in a supplementary capacity. But if all we had were the single regime/event sources, the topic would fail WP:GNG. AmateurEditor (talk) 05:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I am sorry, AmateurEditor, but all of that is not important now, because I recently realised the article has much more serious problem: it tells about the same events as a number of other articles, and it discusses several theories that have already been discussed in other articles, which means it is a huge POV fork. Our policy does not allow that, especially, taking into account that this article describes the facts from a totally different perspective than other articles do. We either fix that, or the article will be deletd. I would be grateful if you commented on how my proposal to fix it and to save from deletion. Therefore, the only option is "A" (the theories and generalization). This topic is definitely notable (The BB is considered one of the most notable books, although one of the most controversial), and discussion of all controvesies surrounding the theories that links Communism and mass killings would be a very interesting and useful story. --Paul Siebert (talk) 06:07, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree this discussion, while interesting, is not going anywhere. I suggest we take a break, The Four Deuces and Paul Siebert to work together on a draft for a rewriting and discuss all this again only after that is done to hear what everyone else think of it and whether it should be implemented. Davide King (talk) 15:51, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't want to waste my time for draft preparation until the major disagreement has been resolved. However, I propose to look at that at a different angle (see below).--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:52, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

None of this explains why Metapedia is the only other 'encyclopedia' doing this and having this article. What should be done, if it must be discussed, is to have an article about, e.g. Soviet genocide (Soviet genocide), where we discuss events that have been described or called as genocide, explain why and present what is the consensus among scholars. Same thing for Colonial genocide (colonial genocide), Nazi genocide (Nazi genocide), etc. None of those should be redirects because they redirect to a description of the events whereas those articles should be about discussing which events were genocides, why they were and what is the consensus among scholars; and Nazi genocide is not certainly limited to the Holocaust, that was not the only event for which they have been guilty of genocide. There are sources that discuss both of those, yet we only discuss Communist genocide as a stand-alone article; this show there is an implicit anti-communist bias. This article should present the theory that link all those events together and explain why those authors link them and present the opposing views. Capitalism and genocide (capitalist genocide) should present the views of the authors who see a link between the two, not detailing the events which we already discuss elsewhere.

Do you even disagree with any of this? What you actually propose should be incorporated at Genocide, Mass killing, etc., where we create a section specifically discussing Communist genocides and mass killings; after all, Valentino's book is not about communism but about genocides and mass killings in the 20th century, hence it should be discussed in those articles. This article should merely presents the theory, narrative of "victims of Communism" and explain the views of the authors who see a link between Communist regimes and those opposing it, as proposed by Buidhe, The Four Deuces, Paul Siebert and I. This is not a deletion and in my view it is a fine compromise, so what is the issue? Davide King (talk) 15:40, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, wikipedia operates under its own policies, not what some other website/encyclopedia chooses to do or not do. Metapedia is irrelevant to this discussion. If you are concerned that this article exists but other articles do not, then find sources justifying those other articles and go create them. The existence of one wikipedia article does not depend on the existence of other wikipedia articles. Having this article is not "anti-communist bias" on the part of wikipedia. Remember, WP:NPOV applies within articles, not between articles. "Victims of Communism" as a topic is not neutral, so I don't see how it is better than what we have now. AmateurEditor (talk) 05:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, does not the fact Metapedia as the only other encyclopedia to have this article raise alarms? How is "Victims of Communism", an actual topic as noted by The Four Deuces ("The only narrative that makes the claim that all these deaths are related and provides a tally is that of the Victims of Communism/Communist Genocide, originally expressed in the Introduction to the Black Book. It is covered extensively in reliable secondary sources independent of the proponents. Therefore it is possible to write a neutral article without synthesis."), not neutral but the currently-structured article is? The article is titled Mass killings under communist regimes but it should be titled Victims of Communism because essentially it is that what is saying, except this is presented as an uncontroversial fact and mainstream view, rather than a narrative and at best significant minority view.

This is justified because the events did indeed happen but ignores the fact that the link between communism and mass killing, and the link all communist regimes as a single phenomenon, is a theory and narrative proposed by some authors, journalists and a few scholars. This also misses the point that, as explained by Paul Siebert, if the main topic is the set of events themselves, it is (1) a POV fork because all these events already have their own articles; and it is (2) synthesis because it "combine[s] material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources."

You are essentially supporting a POV fork and you admitted it yourself, albeit you do not think it is, by writing this "is about the set of mass killings under communist regimes, not about a set of theories", but we already have articles about them and it is synthesis to mix them all together just because they happened under a Communist regime. This can be easily solved by following the proposal suggested by Paul Siebert which would keep the article rather than delete it. You are essentially proposing the events themselves as the main topic whereas Paul Siebert et al. are proposing the theory that link them all together.

As also noted by Buidhe, your topic, which is the current one, violates our guidelines. In our view, it lumps different topics together, taking the Communist mass killing concept from Valentino, even though Valentino was not about "the set of mass killings under communist regimes" but "Communist mass killing" as a subcategory of mass killinɡ; similarly, Courtois was about the evils of Communism in general and Rummel about mass killings by governments in general; in other words, all three's main topic was not about the events as you propose but as the theory or concept, hence the proposal of Communist mass killing as subcategory of mass killing, Communism as evil and worse than Nazism, and how government is the biggest killer but democratic governments are the least likely to kill. In other words, the sources themselves actually support the topic summarised by Siebert (i.e. the theory) rather than yours (i.e. the events).

So these three authors are mixed up together to list all mass killings under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pol, and add all excess deaths under all Communist regimes, even as only few scholars and from one side list all non-combatant victims (famines, wars, etc.), to suggest all these were "victims of Communism", its more accurate title that, however, does not really solve all those issues (undue weight, original research, synthesis, more than one topic, NPOV, etc.). Davide King (talk) 06:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Again, what metapedia does or does not do has no bearing on what wikipedia does. I don't pay attention to metapedia and I suggest you don't either. Besides the fact that wikipedia articles must be judged on their own merits according to wikipedia policies, there are millions of articles in wikipedia that exist nowhere else (assuming we are not counting the thousands of mirror sites), so having an article topic appear somewhere else is not a problem. If you are suggesting that metapedia's having an article means the topic itself is inherently biased because metapedia is inherently biased, then I think you haven't thought that through: I'm sure there are any number of articles there with counterparts here that you would not object to. I also suggest you verify other editor's points yourself before repeating them. People are often incorrect; in this case, a quick search of this article's archives for "metapedia" will show you that not only is metapedia not the only other encyclopedia with an article on this topic, but TFD acknowledged that it wasn't back in 2015. Having said that, again, metapedia makes no difference to us here. The word "victim" is non-neutral because it assumes regime culpability for those killed. Some sources excuse famine deaths in particular as inadvertent. Because there is no consensus name for the topic of those killed by communist regimes, we are required to follow WP:NDESC and make a "non-judgemental descriptive title". That there were large numbers of non-combatants killed by communist regimes is indeed an uncontested fact (it's the details that are contested). I will address Paul Siebert's POVFork argument in that section below, but you are incorrect about this article being synthesis. And if you believe the topic to be synthesis, then changing the name wouldn't change that, so you appear to be contradicting yourself there. If you are saying that the "victim of communism" topic is a different topic, then it's irrelevant to this article. Similar but distinct topics can both exist as separate articles. It's the same topic in different articles that poses a problem. And remember, a topic may exist in a source even if it is not the main topic of the source. Per WP:GNG: "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material." I'm reluctant to respond to your repetition of Buidhe's point because something may have been lost in translation, but "Communist mass killing" and "the set of mass killings under communist regimes" are the same thing. AmateurEditor (talk) 04:01, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Note that The Four Deuces' other encyclopedia is Conservapedia. Ah well, we are good when the only other two 'encyclopedias' are Conservapedia and Metapedia! While I agree "[W]ikipedia articles must be judged on their own merits according to [W]ikipedia policies", you missed the point it is still alarming these are the only two 'encyclopedias' to cover the topic; if the topic, as currently-structured, was a notable and as widespread as you claim it is, we would see it appear in other, actual and proper encyclopedias. "If you are suggesting that metapedia's having an article means the topic itself is inherently biased because metapedia is inherently biased, then I think you haven't thought that through [...]" Again, you are just assuming things. What are these articles you are referring to? Anti-communist mass killings should be similarly deleted, so your point, "I'm sure there are any number of articles there with counterparts here that you would not object to", is moot.

You write "[t]he word 'victim' is non-neutral because it assumes regime culpability for those killed" but we already do so! The current article and sources used already treat these as victims of communism and that government and the ideology were to blame. In addition, I would like to see these "sources [that] excuse famine deaths in particular as inadvertent" because that is not what we say; all the estimates used include these famines. They consider the Great Chinese Famine and the Holdomor as part of the Communist death toll and, as noted by Getty and Paul Siebert, over half of the 100 million deaths which are attributed to communism were due to famines; so if, as you say, "[s]ome sources excuse famine deaths in particular as inadvertent", the proponents of the concept (Courtois, Rummel, et al.) certainly do not; and these who do, like Getty and others, do not accept or support the concept.

I also take it as an insult you wrote "I also suggest you verify other editor's points yourself before repeating them", like I cannot think for myself and I have not already analyised both your and their points! I am actually willing to change my mind in light of evidence, but neither your nor Nug, nor others, have been willing to do the same. That you think "[I am] incorrect about this article being synthesis" is your word against ours, so just repeating this will not change anything; I believe Paul Siebert et al. gave enough convincing evidence and reasoning arguments. "And if you believe the topic to be synthesis, then changing the name wouldn't change that, so you appear to be contradicting yourself there." This misses the point we are not proposing a name change; Paul Siebert is more concerned about the structure and they, Buidhe, The Four Deuces and I are supporting a rewriting and restructuring, not just changing the name. Again, Buidhe and The Four Deuces have shown how Victims of Communism is actually discussed in secondary, independent reliable sources and it does not violate POV title because it is the common name, there are exceptions and this fullfills it. You are supporting a topic about the events that is already discussed elsewhere and that this article should be about the theory or concept that links all these events into a single phenomenon. You want that we do both, that we report the events, of which we already write in other articles, and the theory or concept supported by some authors that links communism and mass killings as a single event and phenomenon. That you think "'Communist mass killing' and 'the set of mass killings under communist regimes' are the same thing" is part of the problem. Davide King (talk) 04:37, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

If you agree that "[W]ikipedia articles must be judged on their own merits according to [W]ikipedia policies", then we no longer need to continue discussing other encyclopedias/websites and what they do or don't do. Per policy WP:NDESC, the descriptive title should "reflect a neutral point of view" and avoid "judgmental and non-neutral words". Per guideline WP:BIASEDSOURCES, "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective." About the disagreement over famine deaths, we have a whole section on that in the article called "Debate over famines". If you want me to change my mind about something, prove that I am incorrect by citing both the specific policy language being violated and also the specific article language that shows this violation (not your paraphrasing of it). This is not really a matter of opinion. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:32, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, none of this really addresses my points, so it is a waste of time and I expected more from a good user like you. Paul Siebert et al. clearly explained the policy and guidelines' violations. The problem is not biased sources, but that they are cherrypicked and synthesised with Courtois et al. and presented as an universally-accepted terminology and view. Attribution does not mean much when these are minority opinions and come only from one side, and do not even treat this as a single event or phenomena. You essentially want this article to be about the events, but we already have articles for all of them, so this article should only be about the scholarly theory and narrative that Communism killed 100 millions and was worse than Nazism (Courtois), that it was a "Red Holocaust" (Rosefielde) and the biggest killer of the 20th century (Rummel). Davide King (talk) 08:34, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul, thanks for the notification, but indeed I was curious as well about this thread...here I mainly agree with Amateureditor, and yes, it's irrelevant what would be on Metapedia or other encyclopedias, the former anyway copy-paste many articles and content from Wikipedia, etc. Will check as well the ongoing thread down.(KIENGIR (talk) 11:17, 8 December 2020 (UTC))

KIENGIR, you probably noticed that I myself never use references to Metapedia or other encyclopaedias, because I also believe that type arguments are not working (imo, the argument was not that the same topic is found in Metapedia, but that it is found nowhere else but Metapedia). Anyway, I started this thread to resolve the problem with "aggregator sources" selection criteria. My point is that the current selection resembles circular reasoning, which is usually typical for non-neutral editorial style:

1. The editor finds some topic (for example "mass killings under Communist regimes"), but performs no check to verify if it is mainstream.

2. The editor selects only those sources that describe that concept.

3. Other sources are either ignored or moved to "Debates over..." section"

4. Bingo! You got a perfectly non-neutral article!

In contrast, a neutral way would be the following:

1. Make a list of all major events (no matter how they are called in literature). In our case, these events are all mass mortality events in Communist states.

2. Summarise all significant opinia about those events (for each event taken separately or grouped according some criterion: if O'Grada writes about Chinese famine and Irish famine, his opinion still must be taken into consideration. If Fein writes about Cambodia and Indonesia, tis article should also be included).

3. Demonstrate that most sources describe those events as "mass killing", "democide", "classicide", "politicide", and that they agree that there were more commonality between them than with other events.

4. If they do, then the article's concept is valid, and aggregator sources are selected correctly.

I did, partially, that work, and I found that mainstream scholarship do not describe these events as such. I also found that some scholars group Cambodia with Indonesia, or Stalinism with Nazism. I also found that Valentino, which is considered THE aggregator source, is also misused in this article, because he did not include Afghanistan, and he wrote majority Communist regimes did not commit mass killings. He also set a strict criterion (no less than 50,000 killed in no more that 5 years), and many events listed here do not pass this criterion. That means Valentino included only a part of the described events, and I don't see why Valentino, who excluded Afghanistan, is considered an aggregator sources, but other authors who excluded USSR are not considered aggregator sources.

Anyway, the problems with policy violation are even more serious, so I suggest you not to waste your time with that thread.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I know you directed this comment to KIENGIR, but I want to make three points. 1) This topic is mainstream as far as I can tell. The four aggregator sources I normally point to are all top tier (mainstream) academic publishers: Cornell University Press, Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, and Princeton University Press. When asked to present sources saying this in not mainstream, you have tended to resort to what other sources do not say, which is very weak evidence. 2) Valentino is considered an aggregator source for this topic because he discusses mass killing under communist regimes as a group. Another source that does not discuss mass killing by communist regimes as a group (but happens to include a communist regime in some other group of regimes/mass killings) is not an aggregator source for this topic but would be an aggregator source for whatever topic they are discussing. That second source could still contribute to this article as a supplemental source if it has something relevant to say (so that the points it makes are not being unfairly excluded), but it cannot serve as the basis for the article's existence or structure because it does not contain the article topic of mass killings under communist regimes as a group. 3) Valentino uses "mass killing" in two different senses, which can be confusing. One is the generic sense that other sources use when defining the various -cide terms (and as is used in this article title to cover all the various terms that mean killing on a large scale) but he also assigns a very specific definition to "mass killing" in his book (with a definition of "at least fifty thousand intentional deaths over the course of five or fewer years" that other sources do not seem to use except when citing him). In his book, when he says most communist regimes have avoided this level of mass killing ("Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing. In addition to shedding light on why some communist states have been among the most violent regimes in history, therefore, I also seek to explain why other communist countries have avoided this level of violence.") the "level" must be read as the "50,000 killed within 5 years or less" level of mass killing, not generic mass killing. It is only this very high level that he is saying most communist regimes have avoided. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:26, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, your logic is deeply flawed. You implicitly assume that mass killing by communist regimes as a group is a mainstream topic, and, based on that poorly substantiated assumption, you select only those sources that define this topic as such. That is cherry-picking in a chemically pure form, and typical circular reasoning.

You failed to demonstrate that that approach (a description of mass killing by communist regimes as a group) is universally accepted by historians, you just declare it is. You totally ignore alternative explanations and alternative theories. And you totally ignore the fact that most sources you base the article upon are either outdated (Rummel), incorrect (Rummel), severely criticized (Courtois and Rosefielde), or are just tangentially relevant (Valentino).--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:01, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I am not just assuming that mass killing by communist regimes as a group is a mainstream topic, because I have shown several high-quality reliable sources for that topic that are published by top-tier (mainstream) academic publishers (Cornell University Press, Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, and Princeton University Press). It is demonstrably a mainstream topic based on those four sources alone (Valentino, Mann, Semelin, and Chirot & McCauley). I have also shown mainstream sources at the other end of the reliable sources spectrum, newspapers, discussing the topic (The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Washington Post). That is the opposite of a "poorly substantiated assumption". It is not cherry-picking to select sources for an article by looking for those that discuss the topic of the article, it is what we are required to do to justify the article's existence. Per WP:GNG, "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." I have repeatedly agreed that contradictory sources can be included in the article when they are found. Some of them are in the article already. Criticism of the sources by other reliable sources is appropriate for inclusion, but is not grounds for removing those sources. We are supposed to describe disputes between sources and not take sides, so adding the criticism of Rummel is legitimate, but removing him or others because they have been criticized is not. And I have not ignored the dates (or "outdated"ness) of sources such as Rummel; just the opposite: all the estimates are presented in a chronological timeline with their years of publication so the reader can see how these estimates have evolved over time as new sources have been published. You, on the other hand, have advocated for us "fixing" what reliable sources say and have insisted that single-country/event sources that do not mention communist regimes as a whole are not doing so because they reject the idea of grouping communist regimes in this way, which is itself a very "poorly substantiated assumption". AmateurEditor (talk) 06:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

KIENGIR, the point is the fact only 'encyclopedias' such as Conservapedia and Metapedia discuss the topic shows that it is not a notable topic and not as widespread and accepted as you guys imply but the fact is "mainstream scholarship do not describe these events as such"; again, if it was, it should be very easy to demonstrate that. So yes, Paul Siebert, "the argument was not that the same topic is found in [Conservpedia or] Metapedia, but that it is found nowhere else but [Conservapedia and] Metapedia." I believe this is also what The Four Deuces meant when they made the example. Anyway, as you yourself suggested, the topic should be about mass or excess mortality, not mass killings, although I still agree with The Four Deuces that "[the] approach I think is that the article should [not] address the question, 'How many people did the Communists kill and why did they do it?'" That is synthesis.

As noted and succinctly explained by The Four Deuces, "the only way to do that is through synthesis because only VOC advocates actually answer the questions. No serious scholarship exists that studies all the killings and compares them." I believe the article should simply describe the theory and narrative of the 100 millions "victims of Communism", with a popular and scholarly section, since these who propose the narrative rely on the literature of Courtois, Rummel et al., so we should present both, as I wrote here:

[These opposed to any change] essentially want this article to be about the events [and mass killings, even though there is not an universally-accepted terminology or scholarly literature that link them together like we do, as explained again and again by Paul Siebert et al.], but we already have articles for all of them, so this article should only be about the scholarly theory and [popular] narrative that Communism killed 100 millions and was worse than Nazism (Courtois), that it was a "Red Holocaust" (Rosefielde) and the biggest killer of the 20th century (Rummel); and the popular narrative described by The Four Deuces that essentially amounts to either double genocide theory or Holocaust trivialisation and obfuscation, namely that the Allies and the West made the wrong choice by allying with the Soviet Union and how it is used to discredit the left in Europe and rehabilitate Nazi collaborators, who chose the lesser of two evils; and against any allegedly left-leaning policy such as universal health care, or any government control of something [or even that Communist, Nazi and Burmese mass killings are grouped together, with their connection being socialism, pushing the fringe view the Nazis were socialists, while sometimes they see Nazi mass killings as self-protection against Communism. Hence they can put the blame on Communism], that will inevitably result in the Soviet Union et al. Because the introduction to The Black Book of Communism and other scholarly work[s] such as Rosefielde and Rummel [are] used and justified by authors, politicians and others to push the aforementioned described popular narrative, hence why we need to describe both; the scholarly analysis, which is more nuanced, albeit still a minority view; and the non-scholarly, popular but fringe view present in popular literature and promoted by some right-wing politicians and anti-communist organisations.

— Davide King (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, notability has a specific meaning in wikipedia based on reliable sources. As I said, most wikipedia articles have no counterparts in any other encyclopedia and this is not a problem as far as wikipedia's notability policy is concerned. I don't see what other points you were trying to make other than repeating/paraphrasing other editors. If you have reliable sources that you think the article should be based on, then present them. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:26, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, Notability actually says "[i]nformation on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable, independent sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article." Courtois, Rosefielde, Rummel and Valentino are primary sources, i.e. they are the proponents of the link between Communism and mass killings, hence primary sources for the topic; that you think primary sources would be Communist governments rather than the proponents of the topic is part of the problem. All we have are sources from the proponents of the concept or theory; that is what the article should be about, which is actually supported by independent secondary sources, if it is rewritten; the events topic is not, because these are all minority views that make the link. Why do you ignore the fact scholars argue that a connection between the events in Pol Pot's Cambodia and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union are far from evident and that Pol Pot's study of Marxism in Paris is insufficient for connecting radical Soviet industrialism and the Khmer Rouge's murderous anti-urbanism under the same category, or that questioned "[w]hether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss" and which is also what we do here? And honestly, I am tired of you asking me to do the job for you; you are the one who want to keep this article as it is, so why do you not try to add criticism of the concept or that these are all "significant minorities" rather than mainstream, majority or widespread? I would not know how to do that because I think the article needs to be rewritten but perhaps you do. Davide King (talk) 13:37, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, Courtois, Rosefielde, Rummel and Valentino are not primary sources of the topic of mass killings under communist regimes; they're secondary sources. See WP:PSTS, which says "Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. Primary sources may or may not be independent sources. An account of a traffic incident written by a witness is a primary source of information about the event; similarly, a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment. Historical documents such as diaries are primary sources. [...] A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources. Secondary sources are not necessarily independent sources. They rely on primary sources for their material, making analytic or evaluative claims about them.[e] For example, a review article that analyzes research papers in a field is a secondary source for the research.[f] Whether a source is primary or secondary depends on context. A book by a military historian about the Second World War might be a secondary source about the war, but where it includes details of the author's own war experiences, it would be a primary source about those experiences. A book review too can be an opinion, summary or scholarly review."

The article currently includes critical sources (see the "Debate over famines" section and other sentences throughout the article), so that is not being ignored. You say it is a fact that "scholars argue that a connection between the events in Pol Pot's Cambodia and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union are far from evident [...] or that questioned "[w]hether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together", but you haven't presented these sources. No one here should just take your word for it. Especially since you are essentially either saying that calling all these various regimes "Communist" is not generally accepted in the scholarly community or that there were lots of non-combatants killed by these regimes is not generally accepted in the scholarly community (only the famine deaths are controversial; if we ignore the famine deaths, there are still lots of uncontroversial deaths remaining). If you have reliable sources for that, that view can be included in the article (but not until such a source is identified). If you are not willing to demonstrate your assertions with sources, then those assertions should be ignored. Also, the term "significant minority view", per WP:WEIGHT, does not mean outside-the-mainstream. It means "not the majority view", because we do not have a source yet that explicitly described what is the majority view. It may be that there is no majority view at the moment. AmateurEditor (talk) 05:30, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Again, as I wrote above, that is part of the problem because the topic of the article should not be about the events but about the theory that links communism and mass killings; in this, they are primary sources. If this is not enough, I will make an analysis and explain why they are problematic but they can be used for what we propose. That is limited to the debates on the famine; there is no criticism of the concept of linking communism and mass killing, or that communism alone was the cause. The sources are Dallin 2000, David-Fox 2004 and Mecklenburg & Wippermann 1998. I am also going to further analyse Courtois et al. and explain why they are problematic but they can be used for the topic we propose.

"Especially since you are essentially either saying that calling all these various regimes 'Communist' is not generally accepted in the scholarly community [...]." That is not what I wrote or meant, so I suggest you to back down. I was paraphrasing the quote "[w]hether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss." What is not accepted is lumping all them together and claim there was a link between communism and mass killing, or that they were all a single event or phenomena. Courtois discuss Afghanistan while Valentino does not and discusses it as part of counter-guerrilla mass killing. Rosefielde limits himself to Stalin, Kim, Mao, Ho and Pol Pot, saying the cause was not found "in Marx's utopian vision or other pragmatic communist transition mechanisms."

"[...] there were lots of non-combatants killed by these regimes is not generally accepted in the scholarly community." No one is denying this. The problem is you want the events to be topic whereas we want the concept that ties all these together to be the topic. What is not accepted is that communism alone was the main culprit (see generic communism theory, mentioned by Paul Siebert, or that there is a link between communism and mass killing is widespread accepted among scholars; it is certainly not accepted among historians of Communism.

Still, if it is not the mainstream majority view, we cannot present this as fact and the topic should be about the concept, theory, or narrative that there is a link between communism and mass killing, and/or that communism or ideology alone was the main culprit and cause. I suggest Buidhe, The Four Deuces and Paul Siebert work on a draft (this is not going nowhere and we are dismissed, villified and our views misunderstood) because you may actually support it but currently you have a misleading view of what we propose, but if you see a draft, that may change your, and others', mind. Davide King (talk) 05:55, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King,

I think it is irrelevant if something is, or just only in alternate *.pedias, since it may be possible as well Wiki did not catch up a topic, so we should abandon this part.

Paul, I utterly respect your special, professional, deep analysis', not just on these articles but others as well, it is apparent you put your whole heart in a good faith and many occasions you even revised yourself in issues where the n+1 depth level analysis concluded so. As getting through on this Phd of this article (not any irony, as you said maybe it would top as the one of the longest conversations time-invariant), I would say on we may go forward with scientific methods inside the framework of WP, that means we have to simplify the subsequent steps to the instances of functional relations per each, and arbitrate them (do not confuse with with ArbCOM yet :-) ). If we reduce and evaluate these functional relations, the whole issue will be on an on simplified and eventually will turn on a rail, from which major deterrence will not be possible. (Btw. I consider the best quality arguments overall yourss and Amateureditor's, if I take into account all methodologies (especially depth), of course it does not mean others would not share same qualities at some parts, however given the earlier mentioned functional relations's issue I would see a result combined both of your arguments to be satisfied somehow, but it remains to be seen if logically it would be possible. Neverthless, currently the situation seems an NP-Complete problem).(KIENGIR (talk) 19:05, 10 December 2020 (UTC))

KIENGIR, actually, it would be an NP-complete if the discussion between users A, B, C, D, ... occurred simultaneously, and each of them had to respond to all others. Let's make it simpler. I've proposed AE to resolve our dispute on my talk page (to avoid spamming this one), and I propose you to be a mediator or an arbiter. I also think we should set some rules (for example, only one argument is being discussed, when an agreement is achieved, we switch to the next argument, etc). Do you agree? ("AE" is AmateurEditor, not Arbitration Enforcement :))--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:00, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

KIENGIR, that still misses the point the only 'encyclopedias' treating the topic are Conservapedia and Metapedia; I do not think there is anything good in either of these, or do you disagree? What I was saying was "the argument was not that the same topic is found in [Conservpedia or] Metapedia, but that it is found nowhere else but [Conservapedia and] Metapedia." This means your proposed topic is not really notable whereas ours is and can be written neutrally.

Paul Siebert, I still think the best solution is a better worded RfC about the main topic; what is the main topic? What is should be? I also do not see how KIENGIR is uninvolved and neutral, as they clearly do not see much, if any, issue with the article, have opposed the new lead per Staberide, who wrote "this hyperbolic text doesn't look even remotely neutral and isn't really related to the article as it stands at all", which essentially miss all our points. I would be saying the same thing if I was asked to do it; it should be someone uninvolved but also someone that has not made their mind yet on who is right or wrong. If KIENGIR has not made their mind yet, that is contradicted by their comments, which show they support, more or less, the current article and do not actually support your proposal. By all means, do that if it can at least provide a better understanding of each other's arguments. Davide King (talk) 01:51, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, I already answered, and I don't think extraordinarly relevant if just only these other two sites mention it, it may be as much relevant as irrelevant. I will answer to Paul's request below.(KIENGIR (talk) 00:31, 12 December 2020 (UTC))

Different article

I agree with schetm that the proposed lead is the lead of a different article. I supported the TFD's lead because I saw it as a tentative lead of that new article. However, I think it makes no sense to start working on a new draft if we still have a disagreement about the article's scope. In connection to that, I want all of you to answer the following question:

• What NEW information the current version of the article conveys?

Under "new" I mean the information that cannot be found in other Wikipedia articles. Currently, we have three groups of articles related to this topic.

(i) General articles about Mass killings, including Democide, Politicide, Classicide, etc. They provide an overview of theories of genocide scholars, needed definitions etc.

(ii) The articles about each mass mortality events in Communist states, starting from Cambodian genocide (a pure mass murder), and edning with Great Chinese Famine, which is not considered a mass killing by overwhelming majority of authors. These articles provide a detailed description of those events, including historical background, causes, and the number of victims;

(iii) The articles about some specific books, such as The Black Book of Communism, Red Holocaust and several others, where their authors make some general claims that link Communism with mass killing.

Therefore, it is not clear for me what new information is presented in this article. In a hypothetical case if this article will be deleted, no information, facts or sources will disappear from Wikipedia, because all information about the deaths that are linked to Communism by at least one author will stay in other Wikipedia articles.

Please, give me you answer to this question.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:37, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

It's not a different topic, it's the same topic written in neutral tone. At present, the article presents the POV of the CG/VOC interpretation that MKuCR occurred as a direct result of communist ideology. We could have an article called mass killings under fascist regimes and include the Holocaust, Ethiopia, Spain and Argentina. The reason I would not create one is not that I am pro-fascist, but I would need a source that linked them to fascist ideology. Arguments such as we have to tell people how horrible fascists aren't part of policy and all the events in such article already are described in other articles. TFD (talk) 16:34, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Do you have a source that supports the POV of the CG/VOC interpretation that MKuCR occurred as a direct result of communist ideology? The only one I could find is Shafir who only has 2 cites. Valentino, on the other hand, has 897 cites. So which author represents the minority viewpoint? --Nug (talk) 00:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, I would be grateful if you answered my question: what additional information this article conveys? Evading that question may demonstrate that you yourself are not sure what this article is about.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:47, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, you asked two contradictory questions:

• care to post these sources that claim that Communist ideology was not a factor in mass killing in these regimes?
• Do you have a source that supports the POV of the CG/VOC interpretation that MKuCR occurred as a direct result of communist ideology?

You yourself answered your second question multiple times, for example: Many books do make a link between communist ideology and genocide, see Eric D. Weitz's book A century of genocide for example.

Can you please explain why you have changed your mind and forgotten what you wrote. I posted some of your comments at the first AfD above, in case your cannot remember.

TFD (talk) 05:24, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, exactly. What is the main topic? Is it about the events? Is it about the link? Or is it about both? None of these supporting the currently-structured article actually answered or clarified this. As shown here, sources do not actually support neither of these topics; they support ours.

According to Jacques Semelin, "Mann thus establishes a sort of parallel between racial enemies and class enemies, thereby contributing to the debates on comparisons between Nazism and communism. This theory has also been developed by some French historians such as Stéphane Courtois and Jean-Louis Margolin in The Black Book of Communism: they view class genocide as the equivalent to racial genocide. Mann however refuses to use the term 'genocide' to describe the crimes committed under communism. He prefers the terms 'fratricide' and 'classicide', a word he coined to refer to intentional mass killings of entire social classes." We already discuss this at Classicide.

In other words, Courtois, Margolin and Mann are actually discussing or proposing a concept or theory (!). They are not about Communist genocide but about the equivalence of class and racial genocide, or of Communism and Nazism. Now whose reading holds more weight? Random Wikipedia users, or actual scholars? Hmm. Davide King (talk) 04:29, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

My understanding is that this is how Wikipedia works. One of us deletes the article, or modifies the article (though I don't think the latter is going to go anywhere). The supporters of the article restore it. After three deletes and three reverts, the Wikipedia gods step in. How they will decide is anybody's guess. Rick Norwood (talk) 23:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

• "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." That fits the past decade on this talk page to a tee. The status quo in the mainspace has been maintained. And, while I'm cool with that, those who actually want this article changed might want to try a different tact. We have the sandbox. You have the ability to publish a new article. There is no consensus that the main topic is either the status quo or the myriad proposals. No consensus defaults to the status quo. Write the article you want to write. Show the dissenters something concrete, rather than just walls of text on a talk page. Consensus might then happen. It might not. If it does, the article gets changed. If not, perhaps you can publish it anyway, then put both up for deletion and let the wider community decide. A radical solution sure, but it's likely to effect more change in the mainspace than anything on this page. schetm (talk) 18:49, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

schetm, writing anything would be a waste of time if there is a disagreement about several key points. I would say, to refuse discussing these points and to propose to write something first is a kind of disrespect: we are not kindergarten children, we have more important things to do rather than writing a draft that will go nowhere.

I would not mind to write something if another party demonstrated some willingness to collaborate. I haven't seen it so far. Thus,I asked a very concrete question about the hierarchy of Communism related articles. Finding the commonly acceptable answer to this question would greatly facilitate re-writing of this article and would help us minimize possible conflicts. Indeed, this article is not the only Communism related article in Wikipedia, if we know which articles are spinoff articles of this one, and which articles are summary style articles for this one, the scope ond the content of this article becomes reasonably clear. Had anybody bothered to explain their vision? No. Only one user, Nug, conceded that would be useful, but he disappeared after that. Is it a demonstration of your good faith? I doubt. Again, in that situation, writing any draft would eb a waste of time.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:26, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Judging by the walls of text written here by you and others I would think you have the time to spare. Never know, trying something different might actually be a way forward since the previous attempts have not been helpful. PackMecEng (talk) 04:34, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• Schetm, I hope Rick Norwood can answer you but I would note I have indeed repeatedly asked Buidhe, The Four Deuces, Paul Siebert and others to work together on a draft; so I beg you, please start doing that because this discussion is going nowhere. However, a draft may make our proposal more clear, since several users did not clearlly understand what we proposed, and may change some minds.
• I would also note that the first three AfDs, out of five, resulted in No consensus and the last two still noted the article was not problem-free. The last AfD clearly stated "[a]lthough there are likely many areas where the article could use improvement, rough consensus is that the concerns brought up do not make grounds for deletion [which is something us no longer propose]. However, further discussion on the article's future (including the name choice, synthesis identification, rewriting, and/or merging) is strongly encouraged on the article's talk page." In addition, I would say that if there is no consensus, the article must be kept is wrong.
• The onus is on these proposing content, in this case an article itself, so the onus is on them to gain consensus to keep the article in the first place. When there is no consensus for the article to be kept, the obvious solution is not to keep the article but the compromise on both sides would be to turn the article into a redirect and move or merge content in other relevant articles, thus satisfying both sides (the article is not kept when there is no consensus for it but the article is not outright deleted either; I would note most of the content here is already at other articles). This is what should have done under the first or three AfDs. Only when there is consensus to keep, or having the article existing, in the first place, should the article actually existing and in that case be recreated.
• I actually counted these results for each AfD:

1. (K) 22–27 (D) with 3 "Strong keep", 1 "Weak keep" and 5 "Strong delete" (counted in totals)
2. (K) 17–20 (D) with 1 "Strong keep", 1 "Weak delete" and 1 "Strong delete" (counted in totals)
3. (K) 16–7 (D) with 1 "Weak keep" (counted in totals)
4. (K) 16–7 (D)
5. (K) 27–14 (D)

• Totals:
• (K) 98–75 (D) with 4 "Strong keep", 2 "Weak keep", 1 "Weak delete" and 6 "Strong delete" (counted in totals)

• I do not see this strong consensus in favour of keeping the article. In addition, why 3 and 4 are listed as No consensus and Keep, respectively, despite having the same result? If 22–27 was seen as "No consensus", 98–75 should be seen as "No consensus", or at best "Weak keep", which even these opposed to the current article support, rather than deletion. Of course, Wikipedia is neither a democracy nor a vote, and I think these against the article gave better arguments (not necessarely for deletion but for a rewrite), so it is more an 80–80 or 80–90 in either direction. In other words, there is no consensus on the article. The good thing to do would be to rewrite it rather than keep an article on which we cannot even agree on a clear main topic.

References

• Davide King (talk) 05:24, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Where we stand on the main topic

I count, as either supporting the current article or supporting the main topic to be about the events, the following users:

1. AmateurEditor
2. KIENGIR
3. Nug
4. PackMecEng
5. Schetm (added by schetm)

I count, as either opposing the current article or supporting the main topic to be about the concept, narrative, or theory (proposed by Paul Siebert et al.), the following users:

1. Aquillion
2. BeŻet
3. Buidhe
4. C.J. Griffin
5. Davide King (myself)
6. The Four Deuces
7. Paul Siebert
8. Rick Norwood

Oppose both TFD proposal but support making the article more neutral by simply mentioning mass killings without putting the blame on any ideology

1. Vallee01

Wikipedia is not a democracy or a vote, but I suggest these supporting the current article to not act like there is no issue or there is consensus for the current article; and stop from not assuming good faith or not showing some decency to all the users who invested their time and efforts into this matter. Davide King (talk) 01:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

This doesn't seem right Schetm and other editors have stated they don't support the addition. Davide King also there are currently only one person who stated they support your change. The actual list looks something like this:

Davide King are you trying to get around consensus? Only one other editor stated they support changing the lead. Vallee01 (talk) 01:45, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Have you even read the part where it is clearly stated the list of users who either support the current article or the main topic to be about the events, and the list of users who either oppose the current article and support another main topic? Since you have not even participated to this discussion, which goes back to the archives, you should actually read it or inform yourself before making such false accusations. This is not about the proposed lead but about the main topic, on which there is disagreement. Davide King (talk) 01:48, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I thing counting votes is a very bad idea. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and the strength of arguments plays much more important role.

i think we need to finish the process of placement of this article into the general hierarchy of Communism related article. When we determine which articles are its parent article, and which article are its spinoff articles, the question about the topic will be naturally resolved. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm only opposed "the proposed lede without a change to the article's subject" and I added you, even though you only got recently involved while all the others either were here from the start or have contributed to the discussion; and it would still be 6–8. Davide King (talk) 01:42, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I mean, since y'all asked, I'd support #4 in your RFC, but not strongly. I'd be OK with that or the status quo. But the lede should not be changed if the status quo is maintained. Honestly, it's been a decade, and someone should have the cojones to throw this thing at AfD to see what the community says. schetm (talk) 02:06, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm, I agree that "the lede should not be changed if the status quo is maintained", that is why I have not voted. As for the AfD, the reason why I have not done that yet is that these who are for Keep may actually support a different topic (one may support 2, another may support 4, another may support 5 and so on; these are not all the same thing; Valentino proposes Communist mass killing as a subcategory of dispossessive mass killing, which is different from Mass killings under Communist regimes), making it worthless because the article is supposed to have only one, clear main topic; or even if there is consensus for Keep, it does not mean there is consensus for the main topic; and if there is no consensus for the main topic, it should be either rewritten (as we propose) or merged, and only recreated when consensus on a clear, main topic can be established. Davide King (talk) 02:18, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm, if all editors at AfD relied on policy-based decision-making, then this article would have been deleted long ago. However if you add together editors who think the article is biased but could be reformed, editors who will vote to keep the article for ideological reasons and a large group of editors who will vote to keep any article regardless of what it is about, that may be difficult. Unfortunately, the lead I proposed could be used as evidence to keep and rewrite the article. Then it would be kept but not re-written. Nug for example wrote at the first AfD,Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Communist genocide:

• "communist genocide" is a specific concept, for example Rebecca Knuth treats it as such in the chapter Understanding Genocide: Beyond Remembrance or Denial.
• Quite a number of authors such as Stéphane Courtois, Benjamin Valentino, John Gray, Eric Weitz, Ronit Lenṭin and Rebecca Knuth have made the connection between mass killing in a number of communist regimes, the connection being that communist ideology was used as the justification for the killing.
• See the works by Stéphane Courtois, Benjamin Valentino, John Gray, Eric Weitz, Ronit Lenṭin and Rebecca Knuth.
• Not abductive synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray actually discusses the concept of "Communist genocide" here.
• Actually the concept is not synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray published the concept of "Communist genocide" here.
• The concept of "Communist genocide", linking the genocides committed by various communist governments and attributing the phenomenon as a feature of Communist policy is published here.
• Many books do make a link between communist ideology and genocide, see Eric D. Weitz's book A century of genocide for example.
• Either way, ideology is a factor, the question is to what degree. Communist ideology promotes the destruction of national groups, no question about that, and destruction of national groups is genocide according to Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
• It is well known that Karl Marx was a racist.
• Ellen Frankel Paul in the book Totalitarianism at the crossroads discusses the general concept of "communist genocide."
• How can you say it is synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray discusses the concept of "Communist genocide" here, linking the genocides committed by communist governments and attributing the phenomenon to Communist policy.
• Never the less, the notion of "Communist genocide" being a specific feature of Communist policy common across many Communist regimes has be published.
• Genocides have particular characteristics, Nazi genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for Jewish people, while Communist genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for any small, "backward" and reactionary peoples.
• The line "Communist genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for any small, "backward" and reactionary peoples" is from a published source.
• this article does the opposite and aggregates a number of genocides into one article, an aggregation that is supported in the literature because of its particular features related to Communist ideology that makes it stand apart from regular genocide.
• Plenty of published sources associate mass killings with Communism
• Some seem to hold the view that there is no causal link between communist ideology and mass killings. The view seems to be that the mass killings in the former USSR, the Democratic Kampuchea, in the People's Republic of China and Ethiopia were all independent events where the ideology of government was just co-incidental, not a root cause.
• There is no escaping the fact that there is a significant body of literature that does discus and make the link between mass killing and the implementation of communist ideology.
• care to post these sources that claim that Communist ideology was not a factor in mass killing in these regimes?
• “Communism” is a reasonably well defined term, referring to a collectivist, egalitarian economic order, and these mass killings were effected as an avowed part of an avowed attempt to bring about or to maintain such an order.

All I am asking is that if we keep this article we should put in the lead the points that Nug raised as well as expert commentary on their degree of acceptance in reliable sources. Note that there was no discussion about whether these killings actually occurred, but how they should be interpreted.

TFD (talk) 02:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I think I have made it clear that I think this article should be merged into individual articles on the mass killings in question, since the evidence for grouping them under this general heading has been doubtful at best and has, in several cases, misrepresented what the sources actually said.Rick Norwood (talk) 12:57, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Rick Norwood, I agree; problem is that is not going to happen. These for Keep are just going to argue per sources, even though I believe we have demonstrated they do not actually support what they think they do or are misrepresented; perhaps we may have to ask actual scholars what they think. Even making individual articles about mass killings by country would be problematic and still be a fork or synthesis because they are not really discussed together or as having a common cause or link; that is the problem and that is what we do here. The only solution would be to turn this article from the events, which we already describe in individual articles, to the concept, narrative, or theory, where it would be described and presented as a minority view among scholars but very popular, especially among Canada, Eastern Europe, the European Union and the United States. Davide King (talk) 13:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

This source cited 897 times, makes the connection between the mass killings clear. What evidence do you present that it is a minority viewpoint? --Nug (talk) 00:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, that argument is a step in a right direction. However, one has to keep in mind that Valentino's work is devoted not to Communist mass killings specifically. To check the context Valentino is being cited in, I did that refined search: it shows how Valentino is used to describe an obvious case of "Communist mass killing", namely, Great Purge. I picked two first publications from this list that were available online, namely, The Full Weight of the State’: The Logic ofRandom State-Sanctioned Violence and Explanatory Account of Stalin’s “Great Terror” and the Rwandan Genocide. In both cases, Valentino's alleged concept of "Communist mass killing" as a specific category is not mentioned at all. Instead, the second article uses Valentino's theory to demonstrate that his approach is equally applicable to Rwanda and Stalinism. Never in that article the author makes a reference to the Great Purge as a manifestation of "Communist mass killings". Instead, the author says that:

"In both instances, interpreting the utility of these mass killings affords extensive explanatory insight. The presumption that leaders are motivated to instigate massacres as means of ascertaining political objectives holds true in both instances. Stalin’s purging of the Soviet Red army functioned to secure his absolute power. Likewise, the Hutu hardliners decision to instigate genocide stemmed from their motivation to retain power. Respectively, strategic proponents, such as Valentino, are right to assert that recognising the perceived functions of massacres identifies what motivates their implementation."

and concludes,

"Both of the two empirical studies demonstrate that the strategic factors of opportunity, utility and capability provide consistent explanatory insight. "

I haven't done a comprehensive analysis of all sources, but I am pretty sure Valentino is being cited not as a creator of some "Communist mass killing" concept. His concept by and large ignores Communism as some specific cause or common trait. His concept essentially ignores ideology and regime type as a primary factor, and it consists in something else. Maybe, you should read Valentino before writing about him?

I think your argument would be stronger if you demonstrate that Valentino "Communist mass killing concept" is used by historians, for example, experts in Soviet history, to explain causes of mass killings. At least, to demonstrate that those historians cite Valentino.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:41, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

As argued by Paul Siebert above, the number of cites does not mean much if it is not really used for the topic we are discussing, the link between communism and mass killing, and is not really used by experts of Communism. If this was not enough, Valentino does not make any link; for him, ideology is not the cause of mass killing. It is a minority viewpoint because most historians of communism ignores him and do not really discuss the topic; even Conquest "did not write about mass killings under Communist regimes, he wrote about the Red terror, the Holodomor and the Great purge in the Soviet Union. He treated these as separate subjects and did not develop a theory of mass killings under Communist regimes. We should not put together a group of events and create an article when no one else has." If historians of Communism and genocide scholars disagree, we cannot act like there is consensus on this link or that it represents the majority view. If this is not enough, I will make an analysis of sources you presented and explain why they are problematic for what you propose but they can be used as opinions for what we propose. Davide King (talk) 05:24, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I thought we could add to my proposed lead that there is an academic consensus that at least some if not most of the deaths, particularly under Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia and in some other Communist states were connected in that Stalin was copied by Mao and some other Communist leaders, while Pol Pot copied Mao's cultural revolution. However some of the deaths had causes unrelated to Marxist-Leninist ideology and mass killings was not a necessary element of Marxism-Leninism or a feature of most Communist states. TFD (talk) 05:24, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I would also add what the foreward to the Black Book says, that the main research could only be conducted after the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, and that the conclusions had political implications for France's Socialist Party. TFD (talk) 05:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

According to Malia, the French right has been tainted by its associated with the Nazi Vichy regime whereas "'knowing the truth about the U.S.S.R.' has never been an academic matter" until recently (the latter point is false, as shown by reviewers questioning the claim made in the book that "a lot of what they describe 'crimes, terror, and repression' has somehow been kept from the general public"). Malia then cites the example of the Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, who was in need of Communist votes to gain a parliamentary majority. While the non-Gaullist right cited The Black Book of Communism to attack the Jospin government "for harboring allies with an unrepented 'criminal past'", the Gaullists "remained awkwardly in place."

Malia cites the liberal [not communist or socialist] Le Monde as arguing that "it is illegitimate to speak of a single Communist movement from Phnom Penh to Paris. Rather, the rampage of the Khmer Rouge is like the ethnic massacres of third-world Rwanda, or the 'rural' Communism of Asia is radically different from the 'urban' Communism of Europe; or Asian Communism is really only anticolonial nationalism", further stating that "conflating sociologically diverse movements" is "merely a stratagem to obtain a higher body count against Communism, and thus against all the left." Malia criticizes this as "Eurocentric condescension." Malia also cites the conservative Le Figaro, summarizing its argument as "spurning reductionist sociology as a device to exculpate Communism" by replying that "Marxist-Leninist regimes are cast in the same ideological and organizational mold throughout the world" and that "this pertinent point also had its admonitory subtext: that socialists of whatever stripe cannot be trusted to resist their ever-present demons on the far left."

This shows their conclusions were already problematic from the beginning and not widely accepted. This is revisionist history. Incidentally, Malia proves The Four Deuces right this is used against socialists or anything to the left of them ("this pertinent point also had its admonitory subtext: that socialists of whatever stripe cannot be trusted to resist their ever-present demons on the far left.")

According to historian Jon Wiener, "[The Black Book of Communism] was especially controversial in France because it was published during the 1997 trial of Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon for crimes against humanity for his role in the deportation of Jews from Bourdeaux to Hitler's death camps. Papon's lawyers introduced the book as evidence for the defense." The Black Book of Communism has been especially influential in Eastern Europe, where it was uncritically embraced by prominent politicians and intellectuals—many of these intellectuals popularized it using terminology and concepts popular with the radical right.

According to political scientist Stanley Hoffmann, "[t]his gigantic volume, the sum of works of 11 historians, social scientists, and journalists, is less important for the content, but for the social storm it has provoked in France. [...] 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." Davide King (talk) 06:05, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• Here's an idle thought (in terms of solutions that might actually be implementable.) Retitle this article to "List of mass killings under communist regimes" or something along those lines. Move most of the content to sub-articles on individual mass killings, trimming it down to a few paragraphs that note that some writers have connected these killings and this is disputed. It doesn't completely solve everything, but it would resolve most of the problems you outlined. Then, once the bulk of the content has been moved to more specific articles, we can reconsider what purpose the list serves, perhaps. One advantage to this approach is that a WP:RM is a clear question that we could reasonably get an answer to rather than going in circles as we have for the past few years - I suspect that some WP:RM is probably the answer here, whether it's that one or not. --Aquillion (talk) 08:45, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

  Aquillion, thanks for your comment. The problem is there has been no willingness to make any change to this article from these who think there is no issue; some of them still deny there is any issue at all. The second problem is that there is still no criteria on what to put. The Holodomor or the Great Chinese Famine were neither a mass killing nor a genocide (which is still in dispute for the Holodomor). It would not be much different from making "an article called mass killings under fascist regimes and include the Holocaust, Ethiopia, Spain and Argentina. The reason I would not create one is not that I am pro-fascist, but I would need a source that linked them to fascist ideology. Arguments such as we have to tell people how horrible fascists aren't part of policy and all the events in such article already are described in other articles." I do not think your proposal would solve the issue because one side believes a link between communism and mass killing has been conclusively shown and established by academics and scholars, and the other side says that is not true (neither Rosefielde nor Valentino attributes it to communist ideology; and both Courtois and Rummel seem to be more about how evil Communism and non-democratic governments were, respectively), it is a minority view (popular among the public and popular literature but a minority view among scholars and other experts) and it should be presented as a concept, narrative, or theory, rather than an academic fact. Davide King (talk) 08:54, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

  In addition, most of, if not all, the content is already at other articles and it does not have new content, so no content would be lost with a deletion, merge, or rewriting. Davide King (talk) 08:59, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Aquillion, that might be difficult because of ambiguity as to what constitututes a mass killing. For example, do we include the coronavirus pandemic? The president and CEO of the VOC Memorial Foundation blames Communism ("Blame the Chinese Communist Party for the coronavirus crisis", USA Today, April 5, 2020). User:The Four Deuces (talk) 15:02, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

No, we don't include covid deaths until and unless we have multiple WP:IRS grouping covid deaths with communism. As for listifying the article, this is a proposal that has possibilities. I don't support it yet, but it's a better alternative than the rewrite that's been proposed. A list of such events would certainly meet points 1 and 2 of WP:LISTPURP. It also seems to satisfy WP:LISTCRIT. So then, we come to the question of WP:LISTN, which has been raised above. The relevant policy reads: "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources." We have the sourcing that connects mass killings under communist regimes - just look at what's been assembled below. No one's pretending that those sources don't exist, and the arguments against them, absent of reliable sources supporting opposition to them, boils down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. We have Semelin's critique of Courtois and... Davide King. And that's all that's been presented. Not good enough. The topic, as it stands right now in the article or as a proposed list, "has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources. It is notable. Period. schetm (talk) 15:53, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

There are multiple reliable sources linking the covid deaths with the Communist government of China. The disease began there because of the Chinese Communist policy of allowing wet markets, which they briefly banned after SARS, the Chinese Communist government hid the epidemic from the public and provided false information about its spread to the WHO. It failed to prevent people from travelling from the affected areas to foreign countries, where they brought the virus with them. TFD (talk) 00:00, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

But are they being called "mass killings"? Also, that really wasn't my main point. schetm (talk) 00:53, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm, neither the Great Chinese Famine, the Holodomor and a bunch of other events we current discuss here are called genocide or mass killing in their individual articles or by scholarly literature, hence it is synthesis. If you say we should not list COVID-19 deaths because they are not called mass killings (I agree), you must also support the removal of these other events which are called neither genocide nor mass killing. Do you get it now? Davide King (talk) 09:36, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

It's not about what you say. It's not about what I say. It's about what the sources say. And if the sources eventually group covid deaths with the other events described in the article, then we should roll with it. schetm (talk) 18:40, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm, problem is that is not what sources say. As I show in my analysis of sources, they do not link communism and genocide/mass killing, or say communism was to blame. They only discuss the events, but we already discuss the events individually (we do not call them genocide or mass killing; the only exception may be the Cambodian genocide) and to "lump them together", as we do now, we would need a link other that self-declaring Communist regimes. Cherrypicking a few sources as you did here is not good. We need consensus among scholars and none of your sources show that. As noted by Anton Weiss-Wendt, the field of comparative genocide studies has very "little consensus on defining principles such as definition of genocide, typology, application of a comparative method, and timeframe." There is not even consensus on the terminology among genocide scholars. To understand why that is synthesis, see Siebert's argument in this discussion. Long story short, "the overwhelming majority of experts in history of separate Communist states do not use these terms at all." Davide King (talk) 05:47, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm, did you even actually read my analysis? I know it is long, but I tried to bold the most important parts. The fact is that these sources do not actually support the link you claim they do, that is the point! Semelin is not a critic since he has actually been claimed in support of this article; but when even the source claimed to support the topic says that Courtois, Margolin and Mann do not support this topic but are about an equivalence between class and racial genocide, or of Communism and Nazism, it actually proves my point. So why is your reading that they support the topic correct but mine, which is backed by a scholar who is himself claimed to support the topic but actually does not, is not? Your, and these who do not see any problem, arguments boils down to I just like it and ownership of content. So I do not understand how you have the nerve of saying "[w]e have Semelin's critique of Courtois and... Davide King." I could reword this to say "we have Schetm and a few other random Wikipedia users who claim these sources support the link, even though Semelin says Courtois et al. are about equivalency between Communism and Nazism, and Straus reviewing Valentino says Valentino does not think communism, or ideology, is to blame for genocide or mass killing. Why should I trust your reading of Courtois and Valentino over that of actual scholars?

"The topic, as it stands right now in the article or as a proposed list, "has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources. It is notable." We are not actually advocating deletion, so what is your point? It depends on what topic you mean? Because only Conservapedia and Metapedia make the link between communism and genocide/mass killing. Now what is the main topic? Is it about the events only, the events and the link, or both the events and the link? Please, answer this. We agree it is a notable topic, but we have a different understanding of the topic; it should be about the theory that communism is to blame for the events, hence the narrative these were victims of Communism.

If it is just about the events, we need a link that connects them, other than calling themselves Communist. Note that the Great Chinese Famine, the Holodomor and other events are neither called genocide nor mass killing in their individual articles, so it is synthesis and it is a coatrack article to prove a point or blame it on communism. If it is about the events and the link, or the link only, we still need sources that do that for us. As I have shown below, they do not actually show the link and they do not make a comparative analysis or studies of all Communist regimes, at best of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, so this article should be renamed accordingly and rewritten to reflect this. Davide King (talk) 09:33, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Bro, we have a ton of sources that group these "mass killings under communist regimes" together. You laid them out yourself. You put forth one source critical of these sources. Cool. Put that criticism in the article.

You write: "So what is your point?" My point is that the topic as it stands right now in the article as it exists right now should stand.

You write: "Because only Conservapedia and Metapedia make the link between communism and genocide/mass killing." That's a load of BS and you know it.

You write: "Please answer this." The main topic is the article as it exists right now: mass killings under communist regimes. That necessarily includes a discussion of terminology, sources, and counterarguments. But it is event focused, grouping the events together as a set, as linked by the reliable sources you put forward, for the purpose of giving the reader more context.

You write: "it should be about the theory that communism is to blame for the events." Cool. But that's not what this article is about. This article is primarily event-focused. To change that would require consensus, which you don't got at the moment. Write a new article, parallel to this one, and then put this one up for deletion when it's done. Unless you want to spend the next decade wrangling on this talk page...

You write: "...we need a link that connects them, other than calling themselves Communist" No, we don't. The link is mass killings (or mass mortality events, which I think would be better) that took place under communist regimes. Still event-focused, and still linked together by reliable sources. schetm (talk) 18:40, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

schetm, yes, some sources group these events together. However, how can you make sure these sources reflect majority views? I am asking because in social sciences, topics may be poorly defined, and you may obtain significantly different sets of sources using different sets of keywords. That is why a correct approach would be keep in mind that out goal is to provide a neutral and comprehensive description of very concrete events, so we have to collect sources that write about some event (i.e. objective facts), not a topic (someone's subjective interpretations). What these events are? The Big Three is "Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot". Just pick some of them and check what sources you get

1. Stalin. stalinism repressions

2. Mao. Great Chinese Famine

3. PolPot cambodian genocide

I picked just some events that happened under Communist rule. These evemnts did occur in reality, which means the sources that I found reflect the state of human knowledge about these events, and they are not just sources that support some concrete concept. If the topic that you are advocating is the mainstream view, then majority of the sources in the above list are expected to be in agreement with your concept. Concretely, they are likely:

• to cite the "communist mass killing" (or similar general terms) in the introduction;
• to cite at least one of the authors who, really or allegedly, proposed the "communist mass killing" concept (I mean Rummel, Valentino, Courtois and few others)
• to refer to one of the theories that explain mass killings in each concrete Communist states as a part of a bigger phenomenon ("Communist Mass killing")
• to discuss the events in some communist states predominantly in a context of the events in other communist states.

In reality, that is not what I found. Majority of sources do not do that. They never (with, probably, very few exceptions) cite "founding fathers of Communist mass killing studies". They rarely discuss, e.g. Cambodia in a context of the USSR (at least not more frequently than in a context of, e.g. Indonesia). They frequestly discuss "Communist mass killing" is a context of other events (for example, they compare Stalin with Hitler, but not USSR as whole (1922-1991) with Hitler, and not Communism with Nazism), and so on.

Of course, if you want to find sources that support your POV, you can always find them (unless your POV is totally fringe). However, that does not mean your POCV is a majority view.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:55, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm, see my response point-by-point here, where you can reply me, so as to avoid discussing everything here. I am also curious to see your response to what Paul Siebert wrote above. Davide King (talk) 06:55, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Summary style

Sidebar to the above discussion, ostensibly this entire article is a summary style split from Communist state, the parent article linked in the lede, but I don't see it mentioned there even once? I suggest paraphrasing it there, similar to Democide § Communist democide. That exercise, I think, will resolve the question of what endemic connection exists between "communist regimes" and "mass killings/genocide". czar 19:23, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

That is a minor part of the problem. This article is a multiple summary style split of many articles, each of which tells different things about the same events. See the above discussion.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:01, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Sidebar to the above discussion <<< I'm aware of it. I still think this suggestion would bring the central question closer to resolution. czar 01:11, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Czar, what do you think of Paul Siebert's proposed hierarchy? By the way, I too suggested a merge at Communist state, Criticism of communist party rule, Democide, Genocide, Mass killing and other articles because they are more relevant there. This article, as currently structured, is synthesis and violates our policies and guidelines of one main topic per article. Davide King (talk) 06:58, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

He proposed something similar in the 2010 AfD. I don't think it's necessary to spell out the relationship between all articles since related articles can be summary style splits of each other in multiple directions. What remains for the near-term: Criticism of communist party rule and Mass killings under communist regimes both exist as subarticles (ostensibly summary style splits) that are not (or no longer) represented in the main parent article, Communist state. That would have to be resolved regardless of what is decided on this page. Let's keep the discussion about one topic at a time. There are other threads for claims of synthesis and I don't think there is talk page agreement on that point. czar 07:28, 13 December 2020 (UTC)