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This article has a fundamental problem

Upon reflection, I came to a conclusion that this article cannot be a summary style article for a large group of events in Communist states. The reason is simple: this article and its "daughter articles" discuss the events from totally different perspectives, and it is not fixable. The problem is that it describes all human life losses under Communists as "mass killing" or something like that. That means it is intrinsically incapable of serving as a platform for providing a neutral and comprehensive review af all points of view.

Thus, this article claims Soviet famine was a mass killing, and the main problem is if it was a "mass killing", "democide", "politicide", "classicide", of a broadly defined "genocide" (that is what the lead says). In contrast, the Soviet Famine article says it was "a major famine that killed millions of people", and "major contributing factors to the famine include the forced collectivization of agriculture as a part of the Soviet first five-year plan, forced grain procurement, combined with rapid industrialisation, a decreasing agricultural workforce, and several bad droughts. " Moreover, the fact that we have a separate Holodomor genocide question article demonstrates the question whether that famine was a mass killing is still open. The same problem is with Chinese famine.

In contrast, this article includes all famine deaths into the combined "Communist death toll" and characterise that as mass killing. That means it is a POV-fork, and it cannot be a summary style article for all those events. The problem is that we cannot exclude these events from the article, because the "Communist death toll" immediately drops more than two fold, and because the "aggregator sources" used in this article do not allow us to do that.

Therefore, we have just two options:

  • convert this article to the article about some theory that links Communism and mass killing;
  • delete this article as a POV-fork.

Everything else would be a violation of our policy. I think RfCs or similar procedures will not help. Taking into account that the conflict around that article is more than 10 years old, it may be a good time to resort to arbitration (if the participants of that discussion will not propose some compromise solution that is consistent with our policy). --Paul Siebert (talk) 02:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually, the situation is even worse: this article is a two-layer fork. It is based on several works by few authors (Courtois, Rummel, Rosefielde, Valentino). Other authors do not cover that topic in full (even Valentino doesn't, because he claims that majority of Communist regimes were not engaged in mass killings, contrary to what this article implies). Anyway, these are the authors whose works create a framework of this article. However, we already have separate articles about the views expressed by these authors: Rummel's Democide, Benjamin Valentino, The Black Book of Communism, and Red Holocaust do exist in Wikipedia. We also have a Mass killing article, where all general theorisings about the nature of mass killing and the terminology is presented. In other words, that is also a violation of our policy, because we have several articles about the same subject. In addition, that means if this article will be deleted, no essential information will be lost from Wikipedia, because it is already present in other articles.
The only way to save this article is to convert in to the article about the group of theories that link Communism and mass killings.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:05, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Your reasoning doesn't really follow. Calling some event a genocide can certainly be controversial, as the article Holodomor genocide question shows, however as you point out, millions of people were killed in that Soviet famine, hence masses of people were killed, i.e. it was a mass killing. The term "mass killing" is absolutely neutral, it makes no inference as to whether it was a genocide, democide, politicide or classicide. Hence it cannot be construed as a POV fork because it expresses a factual concept, not some POV. --Nug (talk) 06:12, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, that is what I noted too and why I opened the thread about the main topic in the first place. Here and elsewhere, I analysed these authors and they are not actually discussing the same topic; as you correctly noted, even Valentino does not. I also proposed to move these at the relevant articles, which is something I have already done for Democide, Mass killing, Rudolph Rummel and Benjamin Valentino, so it is indeed true "no essential information will be lost from Wikipedia, because it is already present in other articles." Davide King (talk) 06:23, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, it seems you don't understand it: the discussion has moved to another level: we are not discussing what genocide is, and if Stalinism perpetrated mass killings (surely, it did). The problem is much more severe and much more simple: "we have several articles about the same subject that describe it from different perspectives: different core sources, different wording, different authors". That will be obvious to any uninvolved admin/arbitrator. If I bring that to an attention of ArbCom or AE, the violation will become apparent to any user with no previous knowledge of the subject, because it is a formal violation of NPOV. That violation must must be fixed,and I propose a way to do that. Let me say that again: we are not having a content dispute anymore, we are talking about a formal violation of our core content policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:18, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul, NPOV is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies, as you say yourself. You and I have been around long enough to know that ArbCom or AE rule on conduct, not content issues, but if you think differently, then be my guest and raise it with ArbCom or AE. --Nug (talk) 02:55, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, systematic introduction of the content that violates NPOV is a conduct issue, so it is perfectly in the ArbCom's/AE scope. See Guidance_for_editors for more details.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:35, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
That is not the question of what you think: I pointed at multiple violations of our policy. If you can prove there is no violation, feel free to present your arguments. However, please, keep in mind that we are talking about violations of our core content policy, which is non-negotiable and cannot be overruled by a local consensus. Therefore, this discussion is not just a content dispute. Violation of NPOV are potentiall sanctionable per DS, and the sanctions may be severe.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:13, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't see your arguments holding much weight, which is why the article is fine as is. No policy violations that I can see. PackMecEng (talk) 16:53, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
It would be more constructive if you could explain why you don't think those arguments hold weight. TFD (talk) 17:05, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
PackMecEng, if one editor says "This text violates some policy because the article A says X and cites the source Y, whereas the article B says Z and cites the course ZZ", that is a verifiable claim that can be easily checked by any uninvolved user/admin. If another user says "No, there is no policy violation here" and provides no arguments, that situation is not a content dispute. It is a conduct issue, and that type problems should be resolved using different tools. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:14, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug explained it well here and in the above section. Basically you are claiming things that are not supported by sources, but they actually are. It is going into original research territory. This is a long running issue on this talk page. Honestly look at the wall after wall of text. At this point it is looking like a forum rather than an article talk page. As I and others have said repeatedly at this point, start an RFC, AFD, request merge, or something. PackMecEng (talk) 17:41, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
PackMecEng, please, re-read this section only, and show me where did I write that something is not supported by sources. As I already explained, the discussion has elevated to the next level: from that moment on, I am NOT going to focus on what various sources say. Instead, I am focusing on the fact that different WP articles say different things about the same subject, and they use different core sources written by different authors. That is directly prohibited by NPOV.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

It seems some my colleagues do not understand one important thing. My original post on the top of this section describes a serious policy violation. This description is not just my opinion, it is verifiable (and falsifiable), and that can be done by any uninvolved admin who has no preliminary knowledge. Therefore, the editors who reject this arguments without pointing at logical inconsistencies in what I wrote are endorsing the policy violation described by me. That is a conduct issue, not a content dispute. Let me remind you that this topic is under ARBEE. I can post a DS warning template at talk pages of every participant of this discussion, which means both I and you would be duly warned, so we all may be subjected to AE sanctions for policy violations (including NPOV violation). However, I would like not to do that, because that by no means is helpful for creating collaborative atmosphere. Therefore, I am asking:

  • If you see formal logical flaws in my description of the major NPOV issue, please, do me a favor, point at them. Otherwise, let's think how can this problem be fixed. I already proposed two solutions, both of them comply with our policies.

Cheers. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:33, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with your summary of the problem. Note also that Valentino says that not all of the deaths could be attributed to Communist ideology. He saw Soviet mass killings in Afghanistan as having the same motivation as mass killings by American clients in Guatemala and called these "Counterguerilla mass killings." Some writers see the mass killings of ethnic minorities in Cambodia as motivated by xenophobic nationalism, rather than Communist ideology. Unfortunately, no one has compared and contrasted all the different theories. Hence no topic exists in reliable sources and the article is synthesis.
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.
TFD (talk) 22:12, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
TFD, you have been involved in this article for over ten years now, and during that time have advocated unsuccessfully for deletion in five AfD discussions, and you even initiated one as well. One AfD attempted a POV fork argument too, but that resulted in a "KEEP". Now after ten years maybe you believe Paul may have finally hit upon a winning permutation of the POV fork/synthesis argument, so please, raise another AfD. --Nug (talk) 02:41, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
As you say, AfD may be difficult. OTOH, ten years is a long time. People who formed their opinions during the Cold War who remember duck and cover die out and new generations were no longer formed by the Cold War mentality of the 1950s. We can write honest articles about water fluoridation, that might have been more difficult during the Cold War. Most Baltic people, Poles and Ukrainians are more concerned about building their nations than re-fighting WW2. OTOH, irrational hatred of Russia remains a problem. In a perfect world, editors would view these subjects objectively. But as you point out, that doesn't always happen with controversial topics.
Anyway, I have never been a supporter of Stalinism. My interest in this article has been that it represents a right-wing perspective, which I am interested in. Interacting with editors who support this article has given me an insight I would not have found just by reading books and articles. Even if I disagree with you, I am very interested in what you have to say, what you believe and how you defend those views. TFD (talk) 03:01, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't see it as an anti-Russian thing at all, they were after all the first victims of a Communist regime. Nor do I see it as left/right thing either, since there were many similarities between the extreme left and right, but see it more as a human-rights issue. I fully support government funded public education and universal health care, fwiw. --Nug (talk) 03:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Nmm, I checked archives, and I found that
"The article can be kept, provided, but only provided, that all SYNTH and OR are removed from there. However, based on previous AfD discussion I conclude that most opponents of the article's deletion simultaneously oppose to removal of synthesis and OR from there.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:34, 13 July 2010 (UTC)", and later I proposed several improvements to prevent possible future AfD nominations.
In connection to that, first since I never voted for deletion, you Nug owe me an apology. I request for explicit and formal apology.
Second, more that 10 years have passed since the last AfD, so the references to them seem irrelevant.
Third, I am not going to initiate a new AfD. The fact that this article is being viewed very frequently, that it contains blatant violations of NPOV, and the very size of its talk page archives seem to be sufficient to aderess directly to ArbCom. This article has been a focus of arguably the longest sluggish edit war in the history of Wikipedia, and I am sure arbitrators will take this case.
Fourth, I expect you Nug to provide some logical counterarguments to my fresh arguments presented above. If you will continue arguing in the current style, that will be tantamount to resisting to removal of NPOV policy violations from the article, which is a sanctionable misbehaviour.
We either fix the article and resolve NPOV issues, or I address to ArbCom directly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:33, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
this is insufficient.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:36, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I also checked and amended my comment above appropriately. Go for it Paul, make your address to ArbCom if you feel the need. --Nug (talk) 03:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
So far, I don't feel such a need. I believe you realize that if I go to ArbCom, I will request the article to be deleted and salted. I am still preferring to keep this article, I have always believed the article should be kept, I was just advocating removal of NPOV violations. However, if I'll see that the number of users who refuse to respect our policy is too big, I will have no choice but to go to ArbCom. You alone are not a significant factor, the problem with your refusal to respect our policy can be solved individually. Do you have a fresh DS warning on your talk page, or I have to refresh it?--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:00, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
I doubt ArbCom will delete and salt this article. DS applies equally to you too Paul, and anyone else editing this page, read the talk page banner above. Since AfD seems out of the question for the moment, the other alternative you suggested was converting this article to an article about some theory that links Communism and mass killing. Given the potential opposition that this change could entail, and the fact that this article is under DS, I would suggest you draft this change in Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes/sandbox, so that we all can better understand what you are proposing. --Nug (talk) 04:17, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I know DS warning works in both side. With regard to ArbCom, I am going to present the following arguments:
  • The article described facts and events that have been already described in other WP articles (a long list will follow);
  • The article describes them from a totally different perspective, using different core sources authored by different scholars. Both these facts are easily verifiable, and I will provide a brief and formal analysis, which will make that blatant NPOV violation apparent to all ArbCom members;
  • The article is a focus of a 12 years long incessant conflict, and it probably has one of the longest talk page in Wikipedia. that will be an evidence that all possible means to resolve the conflict have been exhausted;
  • I will present a list of users who resists to NPOV problem fixing. The goal is not to inflict sanctions of them, but to demonstrate that standard means for achieving consensus will not work.
  • I will also explain that I myself is a proponent of keeping that article, but the supporters of NPOV violation leave me no choice but to request for deletion.
  • Finally, I will persuasively demonstrate that no important information will be removed from Wikipedia after deletion of that article, because all facts and opinia presented here are already presented in other articles (I will provide a long comperensive list).
If you want the events to develop according to that scenario, please continue in the same vein. If you want to fix NPOV problems, let's discuss. I believe the problem cannot be resolved without your active participation (under "resolved" I don't mean deletion, because that is an outcome I myself want to avoid).--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:32, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Sure Paul, and I will show that significant improvement occurred in the last three years without conflict. And you yourself was the third highest contributor to this alleged POV fork in that period. --Nug (talk) 05:01, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
...and I will easily demonstrate that there was a constant drift from neutrality, and majority of my edits were reverted. Please, be serious. So far, you provided ZERO counter-arguments.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:51, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, as I wrote below, we are no longer proposing deletion but a rewriting and restructuring. However, I agree that a sandbox would be helpful and is what I suggested too. Davide King (talk) 04:21, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
David, sandbox would be a waste of time if some user assume a self-appointed position of reviewers/approvers. --Paul Siebert (talk) 05:51, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, I agree, but I am positive the article will get rewritten according to your proposal, so we might start somewhere. Davide King (talk) 06:55, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, the reason why I supported deletion (which would not be a deletion in the truest since "no essential information will be lost from Wikipedia, because it is already present in other articles"), even though I did not partecipate at any AfD and entered the discussion only recently, was because I did not think the issues you so nicely described could be solved; they have not been solved despite all the years passed and these in favour of keep have shown a zealous amount to ownership in not only rejecting any solution to the NPOV et al. issues but even denying they are real in the first place. However, an article about the narrative, and the theory as described and structured by you, Buidhe and The Four Deuces, would solve the issues and avoid deletion; the only disagreement between us seem to be about the name because, more or less, we agree on the main topic to discuss and its structure. Since keepers have rejected any compromise and cooperation in improving the article by removing these issues, perhaps ArbCom must really be addressed. I believe Buidhe, The Four Deuces, Paul Siebert and I found a clear main topic that is supported by reliable sources and has a clear literature while others are uncritically supporting the unclear, mixing-up topic that violates NPOV et al. Perhaps the ArbCom could determinate which side is 'correct' and whether guidelines are indeed violated as Paul Siebert et al. argue. That seems to be the only solution since your comment "[t]he article can be kept, provided, but only provided, that all SYNTH and OR are removed from there. However, based on previous AfD discussion I conclude that most opponents of the article's deletion simultaneously oppose to removal of synthesis and OR from there" is still very accurate. Long discussions have not resulted in any improvement, so I see no other solution. Davide King (talk) 04:19, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
As a newcomer you probably don't know that since the last AfD in 2010 where article kept, "provided, but only provided, that all SYNTH and OR are removed from there", significant effort has been made to improve the article in last last three years. Ironically Paul himself was the third highest contributor to this alleged POV fork. --Nug (talk) 04:43, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
{Comment removed.) TFD (talk) 04:34, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Your allegation "Of course you hate anyone who has ever led Russia and it blurs Russophobia and anti-Communism." is just plain BS. You ought to delete your comment as it could well be construed as a personal attack by some patrolling admin. --Nug (talk) 04:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
TFD, I am not sure commenting on what Nug thinks and what he loves/hates is a good idea. Let's be more formal: there is a clear NPOV violation in this article (since Nug proposed no counter-arguments, that means he implicitly agrees with that). We all want to keep this article, because several authors have argued Communism (as some single phenomenon) was the worst killer in XX century. This view is influential among some journalists and it is advocated by several scholars. It is not a majority view (otherwise other WP articles about USSR of Chinese history were saying the same, but they don't). However, it is a significant minority view. Therefore, by fixing the NPOV problem we can keep this article. We all are interested in that, that mean we all (including Nug) can collaborate.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:44, 5 December 2020 (UT
No, I don't implicitly agree with your contention, I suggested you draft something in the sandbox so that everyone has a clear view what you are proposing. --Nug (talk) 04:46, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Before I do that, I need to know what exactly is wrong with my arguments. If you think they are logically or factually incorrect, please tell that now. If you just disagree that there is a NPOV violation in the article, but provide no arguments, that means you support policy violation. That is a serious misbehaviour.
To make your life easier, I can briefly explain how the article can be fixed.
  • In the lead, all statements of fact must be replaced with attributed opinia (several authors believe that mass mortality and killings in Communist states are linked primarily with Communism etc...)
  • Terminology section is removed (majority of those terms were proposed not for MKuCR, but for mass killings in general, and all essential information is in the parent article)
  • The death toll is discussed in a proper context: who made an estimate, how it was made, which numbers were included, how these numbers were interpreted, and what conclusions were drawn, who supports this interpretation and who criticize, and why)
  • Who links the mass killings with Communism and why (that will include a double genocide theory, Courtois, "generic communism" etc). How this theorising is accepted by scholarly community.
  • The country-specific sections should discuss not how many were killed, but focus on historical context (in accordance with what specialised articles say).
If a significant number of users, including Nug and AmateurEditor, agree, in general, with that plan, we can start writing some draft, otherwise I see no reason to waste my time. If somebody propose another plan, let's discuss it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:03, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Okay, regarding the argument that this article is a POV fork, note that Staub defines "mass killing" as "killing members of a group without the intention to eliminate the whole group". The article's reliably sourced claim that the Soviet famine was a mass killing is not inconsistent with Soviet Famine article, because due to the contributions of government policy of forced collectivization of agriculture, forced grain procurement and a decreasing agricultural workforce due to rapid industrialisation, millions of people were, at the very minimum, unintentionally killed by government policy. Holodomor genocide question is about whether that mass killing was in fact intentionally targeting specific groups and therefore a genocide. So on that basis, this article isn't a POV fork. Ofcourse, if this article was called Genocide under communist rule I would agree with you. --Nug (talk) 09:31, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly how I myself saw that until recently. However, if you take a look at what policy say, you will see that "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". Taking your example, either this article is supposed to be a spinoff article of or the Soviet famine article, or vise versa. The policy gives an example of how that should be organized, and the current situation with that article does not fit these criteria. A good example is Holodomor - Holodomor genocide question. The parent article says the event was "famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians", which leaves a space for describing all important views on that event. The spinoff article discusses if it was mass killing/genocide. That is perfectly ok. In contrast, this article says that all described events were mass killings/democide/genocide/etc, and it implies they all were linked to Communism. In contrast "spinoff articles" discuss them in a totally different way, and they provide a large number of country-specific factors and sources, which are totally ignored in this article. Just compare the lead section in each of those "spinoff articles" with what this article says about the same event.
Therefore, in the article's hierarchy, this article, which provide a very specific view that is different from a majority viewpoint, can be only a spinoff article of country-specific articles (Great Chinese Famine etc). However, I don't see how can that be organized. I would say, a natural hierarchy, theoretically, is as follows
However, that organization required that all important views on the events in each concrete country are presented here. That can be done only if we re-write the article completely and rename it into something like "Population losses and mass mortality events in Communist states". After that, we should write that several events lead to mass mortality in Communist states, including civil war, repressions, deportations, war, famine and disease. Then we provide a neutral description of historical background, describe why and how all of that happened, and later we add that some authors characterise all of that as mass killing/democide/ genocide etc. That would be a good summary of how the scholarly community sees it, because such authors as Valentino or Rummel may be popular, but their views are not shared by majority of country experts.
Another, way to fix the article is the way I already proposed: to describe only the views of Courtois (which are different from his co-authors say), Rosefielde and few other authors, and explain that that is just one group of theories explaining the events in Communist states. In that case, a hierarchy is simple: this article has just the "Third level B" spinoff articles.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:52, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Upon reflection, I realised that the above hierarchy is not completely correct. If the current article is made a spinoff of Mass killing, that narrows the space for presenting all existing views on, for example, Chinese famine, which was clearly man made, but it was a combination of natural factors, poor management and the lack of adequate statistical information about the harvest. Majority of authors do not describe it as mass killing at all, so the article telling about that event cannot be a spinoff article of any "Mass killing ...." article.
The adequate hierarchy should be:
  • Level one: A This article (Mass mortality/population losses in Communist states); B Mass killing
  • Level two, I: Great Purge, Great Chinese Famine, Cambodian genocide, etc. They are spinoff articles of either A (that include Chinese famine and some others) or both A and B (Cambodian genocide)
  • Level two, II: Some article that links Communism and mass killing (not written yet, let's call it "Generic Communism theory"; that is just a working title), it will be a spinoff of both A and B;
  • Level three: The Black Book of Communism, Red Holocaust (spinoff articles of the "Generic Communism") --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:35, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
    Paul Siebert, one question. What would be the difference between Mass mortality/population losses in Communist states and the currently structured article? And what would be the difference between Mass mortality/population losses in Communist states and Generic Communism theory? Davide King (talk) 00:42, 6 December 2020 (UTC) The Four Deuces preceded me, as I asked this question before reading their comment below and essentially I asked it because I wondered the same thing and I agree with their explanation below, so it should be clarified. Davide King (talk) 00:46, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
As I explained below, if we define the topic as mass mortality, that will be an objective definition, which will allow us to include all major views and opinia. Currently, majority of authors are not included because they either do not write about Communist mass killing as whole or do not call these events mass millings. You must admit that is ridiculous.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:49, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
The article mass killing defines it to exclude genocide, which it defines as killings targeting ethnic groups. It's a different definition from the one used in this article, because some of the events in this article were genocide (Cambodia) or have been described as such (Ukraine). I don't see why this should be a spinoff of any similar article because that implies that it is a type of mass murder when only the Courtois and the VOC Foundation say that.
As I said before, if we want to put all the Communist killings in one article, then we need to focus on the literature that does that. We can't use scholars who provide different explanations for different countries unless they address the category as a whole. Except for Werth, the only scholars who write about the VOC narrative are experts on right wing politics, not genocide scholars, and they base their criticisms of the VOC numbers by relying on the writings of genocide scholars, rather than their own expertise. And their main focus is not whether the numbers are right or wrong or whether Communism was the cause of all these deaths, but the implications of the narrative for modern politics. They argue for example that it is misleading to compare the numbers of people killed by Nazi Germany over 12 years with the number of people killed over 100 years in multiple countries covering as much as a third of the world's population. They also mention how the narrative is used to discredit the left in Europe and rehabilitate Nazi collaborators who chose the lesser of two evils. It is not that important to them to determine whether the Communists killed 85 million people or 100 million. What matters is that the VOC narrative choses that number, which is in the range of possibility, because it is exactly double the number of people killed by the Nazis. Similarly, they chose the number 10 million for the number of Holodomor deaths because it greatly exceeds the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis. But they don't actually try to determine the actual number of victims, they just rely on what genocide scholars say because that is not the focus of their enquiry. If you are looking for a genocide scholar who challenges the numbers, you won't find one, except for Werth. TFD (talk) 00:41, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
The current article includes Cambodia, China and the Soviet Union, but perhaps we could rename the article Mass killings under totalitarian regimes, then we could add Nazi Germany to the article. Would that work for you? --Nug (talk) 11:34, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
The person who linked totalitarianism and state killing was Rummel, and per our policy such an article should be a section if the Democide article. However, you must keep in mind that "second generation genocide scholars" do not share Rummel's views, so I see some problems with your proposal. It does not mean it doesn't deserve a discussion, but I am afraid it there may be some problems with its implementation.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:40, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
No. Barbara Harff, a renown genocide scholar, says Rummel's data are inaccurate, but she sees no problem with that, because Rummel's main conclusions are not affected by data inaccuracy. However, that is not the main argument.
If some claim is not challenged, that may mean that it is universally recognized or it is universally ignored. You can hardly find any serious astronomy paper that challenges the claim that the Moon is made of cheese.
We can take some unchallenged claim seriously if this claim is reproduced by majority sources. How frequently Valentino's theoretical conclusions are cited by experts in Soviet history? His article was cited 81 times, but there are just 7 references, mostly master thesis that cite him in a context of the Great Purge. That means Great Purge experts ignore Valentino.
With regard to Courtois, I saw several reviews (I presented them in talk page archives) that say numbers are unreliable, and, importantly meaningless. I see no reason to ignore them under a pretext that these reviews come not from genocide scholars. By the way, Werth is not a genocide scholar either, he is a historian. "Genocide studies" is some self-proclaimed discipline that is trying to find some general laws that would allow us to predict future genocides. So far, there is no evidences that it is not a pseudoscience. Therefore, I have no reason to claim the opinion of genocide scholars weighs more that the opinion of some expert in one country's history. I would say the opposite: so far, country experts seem to be more knowledgeable about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:08, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
The problem is that if we want to fully and neutrally cover the topic, we need a complete set of the literature that presents all important facts and opinia on the subject. That works if the object is objectively defined. The problem with that topic is that different sources define the object differently. The only non-subjective descriptor is the number of human losses. However, different sources describe those deaths using different terminology, group them according to different traits, or do not group them at all. Therefore, if we select only those sources that write about "Communist mass killing" then our narrative will be inevitably skewed to the views of such authors as Valentino, whereas such experts as Wheatcroft, O'Grada or Ellman will be in a subordinated position, which is unacceptable.
Therefore, if we want this article to be a parent article for a number of specialized articles (as described above), it must be the article about excess mortality (mass killings is just a minor subset thereof, according to majority of sources).
However, that would be a tremendous work, so it would be easier just to convert this article into the article about the "generic Communism" concept (obviously, that is just a working title).--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:49, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
When you say that different sources define the topic differently, you mean that different sources describe different topics. If you want to compare and contrast them, then you should write an article for an academic journal. We cannot do that in this article. Each article can only describe one topic. TFD (talk) 04:16, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
No. When Erlichman says about population losses in USSR, he is discussing the same deaths as Valentino. However, since Erlichman does not operate with the "Communist mass killing" concept, some users conclude his works have no relation to the topic. When Rummel provide his "estimates" for "Communist democide" which include dramatically inflated and outdated figures for USSR, he is writing about the alleged deaths that never occurred according to Erlichmah (who gives more modest figures). However, since Rummel includes his "estimates" into the "Communist democide death toll" we assume his works are relevant to this topic. However, Erlichman's data (which are a subset of Rummel's data, except they do not include figures for other countries and they exclude the alleged deaths that never occurred, according to moderns study) are excluded, because they do not relate to the total communist death toll, and are not called "Communist mass killings" by the author (Erlichman).
If two sources write about the same event (e.g. GULAG deaths, collectivisation deaths, repression deaths), but call them differently, they do describe the same topic. If we claim one of those sources do not describe that topic, that means the topic was poorly defined. I already proposed how to fix that, I don't understand why you cannot understand it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:44, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul, Barbara Harff in The Comparative Analysis of Mass Atrocities and Genocide defines the conceptual relationship between "mass killings", "genocide", "democide" and "politicide" when she writes: "In short, conceptually democide includes all the mass killings associated with genocide and politicide". In other words, mass killing is associated with genocide, mass killing is also associated with politicide, while democide includes all the mass killings of both genocide and politicide. So mass killing is the super set of democide, genocide and politicide. Democide, genocide or politicide is essentially a classification of a mass killing. Is that not the case? --Nug (talk) 11:00, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

A more general answer
:Not exactly. This terminology is used mostly by "genocide scholars", i.e. a group of non-experts in each country's history, who are trying to identify some general rules that explain mechanisms of mass killings in general. The goal is to predict future genocides (which may allow their prevention). To the best of my knowledge, the pioneer was Rummel, whose main approach is "combine all available data on all non-natural deaths caused, directly or indirectly, by governments, make the most plausible estimates of deaths in each state, and, using the factor analysis, find corellation between these numbers and each regime's type". He made some estimate (the approach was criticized by Dulic) and found some correlation, the primary correlation was with totalitarianism. However, first, correlation does not mean causation, second, his figures are dramatically unreliable for the USSR, and, third, he is working with numbers only, and ignores historical context (if you want, I can elaborate on that later).
That is why Rummel's explanations (which are not explanations in reality) are not satisfactory, and second generation genocide scholars (Valentino, Mann, Wayman&Tago etc) continue digging. However, their study an emerging scholarly topic, and these theories still have little predictive and explanatory power. It is not a surprise that true historians essentially ignore the theories of those authors. They exist in "parallel universes", and country experts do not cite, as a rule, the books or articles authored by "genocide scholars".
Therefore, if we want to write the article about the events (actual deaths that occurred in Communist states), we must write in from the perspective of true historians (actually, that has already been done in such articles as the Great Purge or Great Chinese famine), and than add a chapter that described the views of genocide scholars. The way this information is presented in the current version of the article would be quite acceptable if the theory of "genocide scholars" (Valentino) and anti-Communists (Courtois) were universally accepted by historians. However, that is by no means the case, so this article dramatically violated NPOV.
Regarding "mass killing is the super set of democide, genocide and politicide", no, that is not true. "Democide" was actually a technical term that was proposed by Rummel to include all deaths caused by some state. For example, George Floyd's death should be considered an act of democide. Therefore, a correct answer to your question is: "democide" is a superset of mass killings, and all -cides. Thus,
  • "Mass killing" = "democide" - all events where less than 50,000 were killed (per Valentino, although he was not the first person who defined this term);
  • "Genocide" = "democide" - any killings that were not aimed to destroy some group (fully or partially) - killing of the members of some political group;
  • "politicide" = "democide" - killing of anybody but members of some political group;
etc. In reality, even "genocide scholars" do not use all that "terminology". Some authors use "geno-politicide", some use "genocide", some call it "democide", and they apply these terms to essentially the same event. The fact that most of those terms are used interchangeably means all of them are worthless, and that no such a discipline and "genocide study" exists yet (it would be more correct to call it an emerging discipline, but it has not be universally recognised as such yet).
However, although "democide" sounds similarly to "genocide", it is a totally different category. It is neither a crime nor a some concrete type of events. It is just a statistical category used by Rummel to collect statistical data. Therefore, it has no explanatory power per se. If we say "this event was an act of democide" that sounds scary, but that means just one thing: some state killed some person or persons, and we even do not need to know if it was in accordance with some legal procedure (capital punishment) or it was a criminal act.
"Democide" includes all death caused, directly or indirectly, by some state. If it will be recognized that COVID-19 deaths were caused by strategic blunders of trump's administration, they should be considered as democide deaths. "Democide" is a super-category, and that makes it essentially useless. And, taking into account that it sounds similar to "genocide", this term is deeply misleading.
Had I answered your question?--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I accept that different writers may use different terms to refer to the same thing, or the same terms to refer to different things.

If Ehrlichman does not write about Communist mass killings, then his writing is off topic.

In an article for example about Pol Pot's mass killings, it would be entirely acceptable to use sources that describe only killings in one part of the country or one segment of time. That's because the connection between Pol Pot and his mass killings is a fact.

In this article there is no agreed connection between communist ideology and mass killings carried out under countries governed by communists. In Vietnam for example since both sides carried out mass killings, it's not clear whether the mass killings carried out by the North were a result of their ideology or instead the nature of the war in which they were involved. Few writers attribute all mass killings by Communist states to their ideology.

Synthesis of published material says, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." If Erlichmann doesn't mention communist ideology as a factor in the deaths, then it is synthesis to say that he accepts or rejects it. He might for example attribute mass killings to government objectives. We would then have to determine whether those objectives were driven by communist ideology or were an exception.

I think your view is that this article should address to what extent the mass killings were attributable to Communism. The problem is that no reliable sources discuss that in any depth. All we have is the VOC/CG narrative that has been reported on extensively in reliable sources. But those sources do not seek to prove or disprove their conclusions but to explain their significance to current political debates. In France for example the non-Gaullist Right who had collaborated with the Nazis used the Black Book to defend their record and to villainize the Left, who had worked with the Soviet Union. Americans use the theory as an argument against universal health care.

TFD (talk) 12:27, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

TFD, don't you see a dramatic logical contradiction between your first and second sentence?
Pol Pot is not the best example, because it was a single event, for which the number of victims was reliably determined, and there is no significant disagreement about the mechanism of that mass killing, with one exception: true historians, such as Kiernan, put this event into a proper historical context, and explain it by a number of factors (ultra-Maoism is just one of them, and not the most important), whereas some genocide scholars provide a superficial explanation that links it mostly to some generic Communism. I emphasized "some", because other genocide scholars group that genocide into a different categories, and do not link it directly to Communism. Therefore, event such a relatively simple case as Cambodian genocide is described in this article in a totally biased way, which emphasizes the view of just a fraction of genocide schilars, whereas the views of other genocide scholars and of historians are essentially ignored.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
In fact it wasn't a single event but many events which are considered to be connected to such a degree that we see it as a single event. Anti-Communists see CG as exactly the same thing: a deliberate effort by the Communist movement to kill people. Both cases require synthesis to connect the events. The difference is that in the first case the synthesis is carried out by scholars and in the second case by Wikipedia editors. TFD (talk) 16:47, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
It was more a single event than any other "Communist mass killings". I do not mean it was really a single event, but it is one of the simplest cases.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:01, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
You mean the connection in the first case is obvious and I agree. Nonetheless, we have to have sources that treat it as a single event before we can do that. TFD (talk) 17:10, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Regarding Nug's proposal (Mass killings under totalitarian regimes), it obviously should be either a subsection of Democide or it spinoff article. It should say the following:

  • Rummel assembled Cold war era data on all deaths caused, directly or indirectly, by each state (a.k.a. democide) and, using a factor analysis, found a statistically significant correlation between totalitarianism and the scale of democide. Bases on that, he concluded that totalitarian regimes, mostly USSR, China, Nazi Germany, and Kampuchea (in that order) were the worst XX century murderers.
  • The methodology of Rummel's statistical data was criticized (ref Dulic), and his conclusions were challenged by second generation genocide scholars.
  • More detailed description of the events in each country can be found in specialized articles (links)

I think that is all what we can say, if we don't want to violate NPOV policy. Actually, the links to specialized articles and the summary is all what a reader needs, because the rest is already present in other Wikipedia articles, and we are not allowed to duplicate that content without a serious reason. So far, no such reason have been provided.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:04, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Your argument boils down to WP:I don't like it. Well, I do, and I think the article gets the reader into the subject well and true. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 20:10, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
My arguments point at clear and unequivocal policy violations: we have more than one article that say different things about the same events. In contrast, your post "boils down to "I don't like your arguments". Actually, it seems you even haven't bothered to read my arguments before commenting: I never advocated this article's deletion, and I am discussing various ways to save it. Therefore, posting a link to the essay about a deletion discussion is a kind of disrespect. And nobody cares if you like this article or not: if it violates our policy, it should be either deleted or fixed (the later is preferable, and that is what I am trying to do).--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:20, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Your argument boils down to "I like it" and amounts to ownership, where it is simply assumed to be impossible the article is currently violating our policies and guidelines, some of which are non-negotiable. Davide King (talk) 04:54, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, I don't think that totalitarian mass killings has adequate notability. It's just on Rummel's website. Note he defines totalitarianism as government with absolute power which he believes is the cause of mass killings. While anti-Communists sometimes group Communist, Nazi and Burmese mass killings together, they see the connection as socialism. But sometimes they see Nazi mass killings as self-protection against Communism. Hence they can put the blame on Communism. TFD (talk) 21:00, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
So essentially you are arguing that some kind of right-wing anti-Communist conspiracy is at play to besmirch the good reputation of Communism, and this article is a manifestation of that insidious slander, is that correct? --Nug (talk) 22:03, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, your explanation is muddled and confused. Your assertion that "democide" is a superset of mass killings is demonstrably false. There is general consensus that mass killing is the act of intentionally killing a number of non-combatants (see p55 in Handbook on the Economics of Conflict by Keith Hartley). Democide is defined as the intentional killing of non-combatants by the state. However, mass killings can also be perpetrated by non-state actors, between 1945 and 2000 out of the 42 episodes of mass killings, only 30 were perpetrated by the state (see p52 of the Hartley source). Therefore since mass killing contain both state and non-state killings, it follows that it is a super set of democide, which only includes state sponsored killings. So, to summarise in simple terms:
  • Mass killing - intentionally killing of a number of non-combatants
  • Democide - intentionally killing of a number of non-combatants by the state
  • Genocide - intentionally killing of a number of non-combatants on the basis of ethnicity, race, nationality or religion - by either state or non-state actors
  • Politicide - intentionally killing of a number of non-combatants on the basis of political affiliation - by either state or non-state actors
--Nug (talk) 22:03, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Nug, my explanation is crystal clear, if it is not taken out of context. We are speaking about Mass killings under Communist regimes, right? Obviously, this article described killings by Communist regimes, not the killings that just happened under Communist rule. At least, that conclusion will be made by most readers. Therefore, as soon as we discuss the deaths inflicted (intentionally or non-intentionally) by Communist regimes the differences between "democide" and "mass killing" (as defined by Valentino) is as follows:
(i) democide has no low threshold, whereas "mass killing" is killing of at least 50,000 intentional deaths over the course of five years or less; and
(ii) democide does not imply intentionality (intent is discovered through looking at outcomes), whereas "mass killing" does imply intentionality. Therefore, "democide" is definitely broader. (Or course, in a context of Communism inflicted deaths).--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:41, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
You are right, mass killing does imply a threshold, for which there is no current consensus as it ranges anywhere from 4 to 50,000 depending upon the author. However Staub also defines "mass killing" as "killing members of a group without the intention to eliminate the whole group", so taken together with Hartley, mass killing includes both intentional and unintentional killings of non-combatants by state and non-state actors. --Nug (talk) 23:20, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, the problem is that all those terms, except "genocide" are being used by a relatively small group of scholars, they are not used by true historians (country experts) and are unknown to public. "Mass killing" is especially misleading, because a layman may easily associated with "mass murder". Anyway, take a look at my example below (the Holodomor round table articles).--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:22, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug&TFD, let's forget for a while that "anti-Communist" vs "pro-Communist" argumentation. We have a crystal clear and totally formal violation of the policy: the article discusses the same events that have already been discussed in other articles, and essential views are either ignored or underrepresented in that article. That is an NPOV violation, which, obviously, must be fixed. Anybody who argue against that is neither anti-Communist nor pro-Communist, but a violator of WP policy. How do you propose to fix the problem?--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:05, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree, let's keep the "anti-Communist" vs "pro-Communist" argumentation out, it doesn't add any value to the already complex discussion on the degree of any policy violation that may (or may not) exist. I do think there is some merit in a hierarchical structure of articles, but the question is which one is the right one. --Nug (talk) 23:20, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
The right hierarchy is the one where the higher level articles are in accordance with lower level articles, and the events are described in spinoff articles in the same way, and all essential facts and opinia described in spinoff articles are in agreement with their summary (in the higher level articles). The hierarchy proposed by me comply with the principles that were described in our policy and further elaborated in guidelines. So far, just that hierarchy has been proposed, so you should either agree with it, or propose your own hierarchy, and demonstrate that it complies with the policy. Or at least point at logical problem with already proposed hierarchy. That will help me to understand you better.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:35, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
When a hierarchy is correct, a higher level article always operates with the most general terms and categories, and a spinoff article is more specific. Your example with Holodomor->Holodomor genocide question is very good: the main article briefly outline the subject of the dispute, and the spinoff article analyses it in details. The main article does not claim "Holodomor was a mass killing", it uses more balanced terminology However, all of that does not work here. Let's take the most extreme example, Great Chinese famine. I call it the most extreme, because, first, if we exclude it, the "Communism death toll" immediately falls almost twofold, and, second, because the "spinoff" article tells a totally different story than this article tells. Therefore, to include GCF, this article must operate with such terms as "excess mortality" (which is consistent with what all sources used in the GCF article say, and does not contradict to what Valentino or Rummel say, for "mass killing" or "democide" are a subset of excess mortality, but nor vise versa). I see no possibility to make this article a spinoff article of GLF, so the only possible hierarcy is "this article" -> "GLF article". However, that hierarchy requires a complete rewrite of this article (with possible renaming). --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:17, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
I'll have a think about the structure over night. However I don't think this article is inconsistant with the Holodomor, because we have established that a mass killing doesn't necessarily have to be intentional per Staub, the only threshold being the number. Furthermore, the Holodomor genocide question is about whether there was an intention to target ethnic Ukrsinians, but it seems there is no dispute that there was an element of politicide involved and certainly democide, since we have also established that democide doesn't necessarily need to be intentional either, neglect and bad government policy is a sufficient condition. --Nug (talk) 01:15, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
It seems you don't fully understand me. Regarding Holodomor, I was discussing it as a parent article for its spinoff article, and I found that pair complies with our policy. With regard to this article as a parent article for Holodomor, the situation is less obvious. For these two articles to be a true pair of parent-daughter article, the latter is supposed to start with something like that: "Holodomor was a mass killing in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, when millions of Ukrainians were killed by hunger." Instead, the actual wording is different (check it by yourself). Your reference to Staub is not working, because the special terminology that is being used by genocide scholars is not accepted by general historians and country experts, and sounds somewhat misleading to a general reader (thus, Valentino's "mass killing" is not exactly the same as a commonsensual mass killing, and if we do not explain the difference, we mislead a reader). In that respect, the optimal wording would be the one that satisfied simultaneously Kutchitsky, Maksudov, Ellman, Wheatcroft, Conquest, Rosefielde, Erlichman, and other experts (and that is achieved in Holodomor). Staub's opinion is much less important: he is not an expert neither in Soviet/Ukrainian history (like the above mentioned scholars), nor in famine (Wheatcroft, for example, is an expert in grain harvest statistics). Staub is just a general theorist, and he provides some general explanations that might be right or wrong, but they have not been universally accepted so far.
By the way, as regards to " there was an element of politicide involved and certainly democide", if you check the sources you will find that most sources in the Holodomor genocide question article do not use the term "democide" (and derivatives thereof) at all. At least, I found no such terms in the article, as well as in the articles authored by Kulchitsky, Ellman and Wheatcroft. (It is used by Rosefielde, but, keeping in mind his unresolved dispute with Wheatcroft, it is by no means a demonstration of universal acceptance of that terminology). Which is a demonstration that the "genocide scholarly terminology" is not used by mainstream authors.
I wish you have a fruitful night :)--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, to demonstrate how marginal all those "-cide" are, take a look at the materials of Ukrainian famine round table.
The following authors, Getty, Etkind, Cameron, Graziosi, Penter, Suny, Naimark, Pianciola, and Wheatcroft discuss various aspects of Holodomor, but I found not a single word "democide" or "politicide" in their articles. They do not use that terminology at all!--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:13, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
That you point out that they do not use that terminology at all is an Argument from silence. --Nug (talk) 12:34, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
But if "-cide" is a majority view (as you are arguing), you would expect it to be used by the majority of sources. If it's not, you have to show it's the majority view in some other way, such as finding a reliable source saying, "Most scholars consider the Holodomor a form of mass killing". (t · c) buidhe 13:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Argument_from_silence#Author's_interest could apply, what may be relevant to a genocide scholar may not be relevant to a country scholar. --Nug (talk) 13:19, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Again, since you're the one making this argument, the burden of proof/WP:ONUS is clearly on you to show that this is the majority view. (t · c) buidhe 13:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Argument from silence do not apply here. I clearly demonstrated that the terminology used by country experts is totally different, so we need to use universally accepted terminilogy unless we agree the MCuCR is describes just a minority POV (that is acceptable, but we can clearly explain it in the article).--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, I would argue Mass killings under totalitarian regimes implies that totalitarianism is an established and widespread fact, rather than a useful concept. As noted by The Four Deuces, Communists, Nazis and others are grouped together because they see them all as socialists. Indeed, Rummel is an American libertarian, so one can see why he proposed the democide concept, and I would not be surprised if Rummel thought the Nazis were 'socialists' rather than 'fascists', or that there is no real difference between 'socialism' or 'fascism'. Rummel also thought Obama and the Democrats were allegedly destroying liberal democracy and set to establish a one-party state; he also did not hold mainstream views on climate change. All of this must be kept in mind because Rummel cannot be seen as mainstream and Courtois, Rosefielde and Rummel's views that either Communism and Nazism were equal, or Communism was even worse than Nazism, are not mainstream but revisionist, going back to Nolte, who saw the Holocaust as a reaction to Communism, and the Historikerstreit. Courtois, Rosefielde, Rummel and Valentino are either revisionists, non-mainstream, or non-notable, in that they are not really relied on by actual country experts, as demonstrated by Paul Siebert. Davide King (talk) 04:51, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Did Rummel also beat his wife? Certainly his alleged non-mainstream view on climate change is compellingly relevant to this article. Thank you. --Nug (talk) 12:45, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
The main issue is that many of Rummel's figures for deaths just don't line up with those used by the scholars who study the various events in depth. If the underlying assumptions are wrong, it's quite likely that the conclusion is also wrong. And Davide King is correct that "totalitarianism" is also a disputed concept. (t · c) buidhe 13:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
As Paul Siebert above notes: "Barbara Harff, a renown genocide scholar, says Rummel's data are inaccurate, but she sees no problem with that, because Rummel's main conclusions are not affected by data inaccuracy." --Nug (talk) 13:11, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
But you forgot to explain what main Rummel's conclusions were. His main conclusion was "democratic peace", and at that level his "estimates" work quite well. However, they by no means should be trusted as an source of accurate figures.
Frankly, I am somewhat disappointed. I expected to see Nug's thoughts about possible hierarchy of articles, and I prepatred for a serious discussion. Instead, I see some totally frivolous and superficial argumenst. I am really disappointed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, none of this addresses my main point, namely that the concept is not the majority view and its main proponents are either revisionists or not mainstream in the field of Soviet and Communist studies and are not even the majority view among genocide studies. A rewriting and restructuring as suggested by Buidhe, The Four Deuces and Paul Siebert should be followed to account for this and not act like the link between communist ideology and mass killings (i.e. a deliberate effort by the Communist movement to kill people, that Communism was worse than Nazism) is the mainstream, even widely accepted in academia, view among scholars the current article implies, whether directly or indirectly. Attribution does not mean much when these are minority opinions and comes 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); 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, that will inevitably result in the Soviet Union et al. Because the introduction to The Black Book of Communism and other scholarly work such as Rosefielde and Rummel is 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) 14:10, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't see it as a a spin-off article of genocide, but as a spin-off of anti-Communism. If there is a spinoff, it would be Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. In the same sense, intelligent design (ID) is not a spin-off of evolution, although it provides an alternative explanation of it. Like ID, this topic is more about the poltics of the theory, than its underlying science. TFD (talk) 13:58, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
The Four Deuces, I agree. The problem is that these who do not see any problem with the current article seem to see it as merely describing the events, or they have a misguided view of scholarly literature thinking this is a mainstream and widely accepted thing; this is in part legitimised by things like the Prague Declaration or the Victims of Communism Memorial, which are considered as 'centrist', rather than as Holocaust trivialisation, double genocide theory, and other unsupported, non-mainstream views by academia, i.e. fringe or at best minority views, as the majority view; both of these were more of political decision rather than reflecting scholarly consensus or literature. And they ask us to prove they are not; the onus is on them to show they are. If this is so self-evident and widespread as they claim or think it is, it should be very easy for them to prove. As I wrote above, this article should not be a list of mass killings under Communist regimes but rather a scholarly analysis that links them as a single event or phenomena, or at least that links communism and mass killings, with the latter being caused by the former, both of which are not widely supported, if at all. The article is justified by the fact the events happened (but this ignores we already discuss them and it is a content fork, which is used to push a POV and hence violates NPOV) and that it is claimed to be supported by scholarly literature as an established fact and widely accepted thing, rather than a popular but minority theory and narrative. Davide King (talk) 14:20, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Both the Prague Declaration and the VOC were initiated by the right half and received challenges from the left half of the poltical spectrum. Note that the VOC monument in Ottawa, Canada attracted a lot of controversy over the years and very little public support,[1][2] while the Washington, D.C. memorial seems to have attracted opposition from mostly Russia and China. I haven't read about any attempts to build similar monuments in Western Europe, which unlike the U.S. has social democratic parties. But the degree of support for such monuments seems to vary according to position along the left-right spectrum, unlike Holocaust memorials, where only neo-nazis such as James von Brunn would have objections. TFD (talk) 15:05, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Beating this to death with acres of text is getting nowhere. And to say that Lenin and the Communists (inclduing followers in other countries) killed off lots of suspected 'enemies of the resolution' is not anticommunist. It is simple historical fact. Anne Applebaum asserts that "without exception, the Leninist belief in the one-party state was and is characteristic of every communist regime" and "the Bolshevik use of violence was repeated in every communist revolution". Phrases said by Vladimir Lenin and Cheka founder Felix Dzerzhinsky were deployed all over the world. She notes that as late as 1976 Mengistu Haile Mariam unleashed a Red Terror in Ethiopia.[1] Said Lenin to his colleagues in the Bolshevik government: "If we are not ready to shoot a saboteur and White Guardist, what sort of revolution is that?"[2] 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:01, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Hollander 2006, p. xiv.
  2. ^ Fitzpatrick 2008, p. 77.
(Not to quibble, but Ethiopia was not a one party state.) The issue is not whether Communist states killed people, but its connection to Communist ideology. Incidentally, most revolutions are violent, even the American Revolution. But you would probably find it biased to have an article that grouped the U.S. Revolution, the bombing of Hiroshima and the My Lai massacre together, without some explanation as to what the connection was other than that they were carried out by the U.S. government or its agents. TFD (talk) 16:30, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Points well taken. If there are WP:RS maybe we should draw them together. You forgot Abu Ghraib, Nicauraugua, Rendition, and Guantanamo, to name a few more, which are not a pretty picture. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:36, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
No. That would be a bad idea. That may work only if that will be presented as some minority view, because I have no evidences that mainstream scholarship link there events togenter.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:28, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
7&6=thirteen, there are some universally accepted views and minority views. It is quite ok to write about mass killings in Cambodia as an act of genocide, and about killing of "enemies of the people" by Stalinism as a mass killing. That would be a non-controversial and universally accepted description of these events (and we already have artilces in Wikipedia about that). Howeveer, to write that Cambodiam genoscide+Katyn massacre+Great Chinese Famine+Dekulakization+The Greeat Purge etc were a manifectation of a single phenomenon and all those events were Communist mass killings when 100+ million were killed - that is a minority POV, which is presented in this article as a universally accepted view. That is a violation of our policy. Actually, the very fact that more than one article writes about the same event is inconsistent with our policy (each time when the content is split among more than one article, it should be done in accordance with strict rules, which are described in the policy and further explained in guidelines), and I persualively demonstrated that these rules are violated in this article. That is not a question of someone alleged anti-Communist, pro-Communist, leftist, or rightist agenda etc. That is just a claim that our policy is violatred/ I expect you to demonstrate why, in your oponion, this my claim is wrong. If you can prove my claim is wrong, plese, do that, otherwise, it would be fair if you stopped arguing and joined our discussion, which is aimed to fix these violations.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

User:Paul Siebert That's my opinion, based on what I have read in the article and above. Demand what you want. Pound sand and see how that goes. Done feeding you. Have a happy holiday and be careful out there. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:43, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

7&6=thirteen, do you realize you called me a troll? Although I am not going to pay too much attention to that, I cannot understand your logic. I described, totally neutrally, a number of serious NPOV violations and proposed two ways to fix it. You claimed (without providing ANY arguments) that and I was a troll. Do you sincerely believe that behaviour is acceptable?--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Actually, if you present some arguments (not your opinion, but your agruments, with references to some policy) that may demonstrate some logical flaws or factual errors in my arguments, I will consider the incident resolved.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:59, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
This discussion is so extended and bloviated that it has become irresolvable. If you are not persuaded already, nothing I can say will change that. WP:Duck. I have already said what I thought was constructive. We will have to agree to disagree. I WP:AGF, but I observe imperviousness to persuasion. Carry on. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Per Aumann agreement theorem, two logically thinking persons cannot agree to disagree about the subject that belongs to their common knowledge domain. That is not an assertion, that is a mathematically proven fact. In the walls of text above, I made good faith efforts to put all facts I am operating with into the common knowledge domain, so I left virtually no space for disagreement. So far, I saw no logical arguments from your side, which means you have nothing to add to our common knowledge. That means, the only way you can prove I am not right is to show some inconsistencies in my logic. Instead, what you say more resemble a !vote, but Wikipedia is not a democracy. Therefore, your apologies (if you wanted to apologise for calling me a troll) are not accepted. You should either stop disrupting a consensus building process, or leave a discussion.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:36, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
So you are unable to accept that you are wrong on this? PackMecEng (talk) 15:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
PackMecEng, so far, one user called me a troll, and provided no other argumemts. Another user (you) told me I am wrong, but provided no arguments. I am still waiting for a response from three other users (Nug, KIENGIR, and AmateurEditor, who expressed a desire to discuss that matter, but whose arguemts I haven't got yet). And there are several users who generally agree with me. Do you think your question is legitimate? Maybe it is you who must accepoyt you ae wrong? If you are not ready to accept this, please, explain me why my arguments about policy violation are wrong. So far, I got no logical counter-arguments.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:48, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, you wrote, "to write that Cambodiam genoscide+Katyn massacre+Great Chinese Famine+Dekulakization+The Great Purge etc were a manifectation of a single phenomenon and all those events were Communist mass killings when 100+ million were killed - that is a minority POV, which is presented in this article as a universally accepted view." But there is nothing wrong with having articles about minority points of view. Why not just accept that as the topic of the article and ensure that it does not claim it is a universally accepted view? TFD (talk) 18:20, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
TFD, that is one of possible solutions, and I myself proposed it many years ago. However, I anticipate some edit war may start if we attempt to do that, so I would like to det a preliminary agreement on the talk page.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, thank you for a good faith effort to advance the conversation here. I apologize that it has taken me so long to respond to this section, but I have other time commitments (and there has been so much activity on this page recently that it can be hard to keep up with everything).
1) "The problem is that it describes all human life losses under Communists as "mass killing" or something like that." Not true. The sources (and the topic) exclude the human life losses from war, for example. Some exclude certain famines (for example, Rummel's 110 million figure excluded the Great Chinese Famine due to the deaths being unintentional until he changed his mind in the light of new evidence of Mao's knowledge of what was happening). I believe every source cited restricts their death tolls specifically to intentionally killed non-combatants (although the famines are a gray area, since the deaths were indirect and sources speak to regime culpability for the deaths). If a source is in there that includes war deaths, it is by mistake and should be removed. There are disputes between sources on the totals and also on the intentionality for certain events (particularly the famines). The topic is about mass killing, so we would expect that all the loses of human life described in it were mass killing or something like that.
2) "That means it is intrinsically incapable of serving as a platform for providing a neutral and comprehensive review af all points of view." No, it means that it is limited to just the specific topic of "mass killings under communist regimes". It is not about the wider topic of "all human life losses under Communists". Keep in mind that WP:NPOV is about wikipedia being neutral between various reliable sources, not about the reliable sources being neutral or un-opinionated about a topic ("All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.").
3) "Thus, this article claims Soviet famine was a mass killing, [...] the fact that we have a separate Holodomor genocide question article demonstrates the question whether that famine was a mass killing is still open. The same problem is with Chinese famine." Yes, and this article acknowledges that open debate as well, in the "Debate over famines" section. The very next sentence after your excerpts from the Soviet famine article lead, states that it is a possible genocide, so I am not seeing the problem with inconsistency here ("Major contributing factors to the famine include the forced collectivization of agriculture as a part of the Soviet first five-year plan, forced grain procurement, combined with rapid industrialisation, a decreasing agricultural workforce, and several bad droughts. Some scholars have classified the famine in Ukraine and famine in Kazakhstan as genocide committed by Joseph Stalin's government, ..."). If you are saying that in the problem is that this article treats the famine as definitely a mass killing and the famine article treats it as maybe a mass killing, then I would refer you to the "Debate over famines" section to refute that this article does that.
4) "...this article includes all famine deaths into the combined "Communist death toll" and characterise that as mass killing." It is incorrect to refer to "the combined 'Communist death toll'" as if the article presents a synthesized single communist death toll. There are various communist death tolls reflecting the various published estimates by various authors and they are presented here in chronological order to be neutral between the various sources. I believe it is true that famine deaths are included in at least most of those estimates (Kotkin's is unclear on that from what I recall).
5) "That means it is a POV-fork, and it cannot be a summary style article for all those events. The problem is that we cannot exclude these events from the article, because the "Communist death toll" immediately drops more than two fold, and because the "aggregator sources" used in this article do not allow us to do that." This article is not simply a summary of other articles, it is a topic in its own right as demonstrated by the aggregator sources. I agree that we cannot exclude famine events from the article, as you seem to acknowledge when you say "the aggregator sources used in the article do not allow us to do that" (not because of the effect it would have on the death toll). We have to follow what the reliable sources do. If I am reading you correctly, you are saying that including the famines in the article at all is what makes the article a POV-fork (the POV being that the famines should be counted as killing by the regime) because the event-specific articles do not highlight that POV. However, that POV was highlighted in the Soviet famine article lede, as I quoted in point 3. It is not highlighted in the Great Chinese Famine article, but that may be a problem with that article not being updated. As I mentioned in point 1, Rummel did not consider the Great Chinese Famine an example of democide until reading fairly recent publications (in late 2005). According to WP:CONTENTFORKING, "A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid a neutral point of view (including undue weight), often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts." First of all, this refers to a non-neutral article about a neutral topic; it does not apply to a neutral article about a negative topic or a neutral article about a POV topic (as some have said this is). Second, this article was not forked from some other article to begin with. Presumably, you are saying that this article is a POV fork of some as-yet-uncreated article like "Excess deaths under communist regimes". Whether that is even a topic will depend on what sources can be found for it. It would not be enough to find a source on excess deaths under one communist regime (although that source could be used to contribute to this article in a supplementary capacity). I don't think I have ever seen a source that looks at "excess deaths" under communist regimes as a group, so there would be a synthesis concern with that topic/article (unless it could be established that it was an even more neutral alternate term for "mass killing" and the other various terms used to describe this article's topic).
6) "Therefore, we have just two options: convert this article to the article about some theory that links Communism and mass killing; delete this article as a POV-fork." It's not a POV fork unless you are saying that whether deliberate killing of noncombatants under communist regimes happened is a POV (putting aside the famines debate and the exact numbers disagreements, no source I have ever seen disputes that communist regimes have killed large numbers of non-combatants). It's not even a POV fork for just the famines issue, since we directly highlight that dispute in this article with a dedicated section. Converting the article to be "about some theory that links Communism and mass killing" would require sources about "some theory that links Communism and mass killing", not sources about communism and mass killing that each propose their own theories as to why. That is, we would need sources about the topic of the theory, not the topic of the killing as we have now. AmateurEditor (talk) 05:39, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
I have no time to respond to all of that, and I find some argument frivolous. Thus, #1 does not look a good faith argument, for everybody knoes that WWII victims are not included in the "Communist death toll". However, Courtois DID include Vientamese civil war death (from both sides) into Communist death toll.
However, this discussion convinsed me we are dealing with minority view narrative, not with mainstream view, and the reason is Rummel. As I already pointed elsewhere, Rummel's astronomic figures come from his lousy dataset (mostly, crude Cold War era estimates, including GULAG death estimates). I don't know if you bothered to check Rummel's sources, but I did that, and I found his data include very crude pre 1980 data for GULAG polulation and death statictics. Even the data collected by me in the GULAG article are more detailed and comprehensive. And he comcluded that several tens millions were killed in GULAG. These estimates are not recognised incorrect or obsolete. They are just ignored by an overwhelming majority of authors who write about USSR. They have much more reliable and modern data, they established the real figures, and even Conquest conceded the number of GULAG prisoners (who passed through GULAG) was 18 million. The number of deaths is less than 2 million. Why nobody bothered to write an article and criticize Rummel's estimates? To the best of my knowledge, only Dulic did that, and only for Yugoslavia. The answer is simple: no serious historian takes Rummel seriously. Real historians and Rummel are in "parallel universes".
I have one concrete question. We know Rummel's data for USSR are dramatically incorrect, but these blatanly wrong data are presented in the article as true facts (I mean the overall death toll, USSR figures are a part of). Have you ever thought that this fact alone means your definition of the topic, and your choice of "aggregate sources" is deeply flawed? Similarly, you present Courtois figures as if they were valid. However, it is well known that those figures were severely criticised. Why do you present them as facts, if you perfectly know they are wrong? Why you are misleading a reader?--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:02, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, you are under no obligation to respond to me, but if you just need more time, take it. I myself have not had the time to post here as often as I want to.
About #1 being not a good faith argument, you were the one who said "all human life losses", and I was taking what you said at face value. These arguments are difficult enough to parse already without being able to take what you say literally. I was surprised to hear you say that Courtois includes Vietnam civil war deaths in his total, so I checked the source and it does not appear to be true. That is, he does say that civil war deaths can be difficult to distinguish, but the context is that military deaths are not included. I added the paragraph preceding his figures to the excerpt in the article in which he explains what is included there, and it clearly emphasizes civilian deaths (he says: "Thus we have delimited crimes against civilians as the essence of the phenomenon of terror. These crimes tend to fit a recognizable pattern even if the practices vary to some extent by regime. The pattern includes execution by various means, such as firing squads, hanging, drowning, battering, and, in certain cases, gassing, poisoning, or 'car accidents'; destruction of the population by starvation, through man-made famine, the withholding of food, or both; deportation, through which death can occur in transit (either through physical exhaustion or through confinement in an enclosed space), at one's place of residence, or through forced labor (exhaustion, illness, hunger, cold). Periods described as times of 'civil war' are more complex - it is not always easy to distinguish between events caused by fighting between rulers and rebels and events that can be properly described only as a massacre of the civilian population. Nonetheless, we have to start somewhere. The following rough approximation, based on unofficial estimates, gives some sense of the scale and gravity of these crimes").
About Rummel, Valentino cites him, as do other reliable sources. It is not our place as wikipedia editors to pass judgement on his statistics. Where there is dispute over anything in the article, not just Rummel, present the dispute based on other reliable sources so we are not engaging in original research. Rummel's overall estimate, like the Courtois estimate and all the estimates in that section, is explicitly presented as his estimate, not as a fact in wikipedia's voice, and it is included in a chronological list along with other estimates, so it is treated as a product of a certain time and the reader can see how later estimates by other authors compare. How the estimates have changed over time is itself significant information. It is not misleading the reader to document this. It is also the only way to avoid original research. Selecting which sources (that meet wikipedia's reliable source criteria) to use in the article is imposing our own biases and not adhering to NPOV policy. AmateurEditor (talk) 07:30, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
AmateurEditor, I've got an idea. What if we move our discussion back to my talk page and ask KIENGIR to be a mediator (or even an arbiter)? It is very inonvenient for me to conduct this discussion here, but I think we do need to resolve our dispite. That will not be just a continuation of our previous discussion, because I got some fresh arguments that I would like to share with you. Do you both agree?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:30, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, as I wrote here, I think an uninvolved user, or even admin, would be a better choice to mediate; in spite of their words ("I consider the best quality arguments overall yourss and Amateureditor's, if I take into account all methodologies."), unless I missed anything, KIENGIR have clearly shown they do not support your proposal, whereas I do, and that they agree with AmateurEditor, so I do not see the point, unless they actually say they either have not made their mind yet or are willing to change it. I suggest Czar (who could also write a RfC) or Doug Weller as better choices for mediation. Davide King (talk) 01:57, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, I'm willing to discuss things with you wherever you would like. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:01, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
Good. Let's wait for a response from KIENGIR.
David, I do not care if a user supports me or opposes. The main criterion is whether I am sure the user is intellectually honest.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:05, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul, I was delibaretaly waiting and thinking one day, which passed. Well, if not NP, at least EXPTIME :), seeing the number of comments cumulated such a short time and even a new section was opened... Before I would give a definite answer, I have to ask a few questions:
- it seems a non-binding, voluntary trial between you and AE, even it is arbitrated and both of you abiding the result, how the community would bend to it? Simple we would be forward as the result is given to the them so we are a step forward and everything continues? Or if it's a proposal which the community would also give consent, but what will do with the result? (execute it?) It would be like a DRN which is as well non-binding, but we are playing it in a more closed circle, as the two main waves are circling around you two...
(btw, I was thinking deeply further what rules we could assert to our arbitration/moderation as you mentioned, but I only enter to the details if you share further thought about my inquries above, thank you)(KIENGIR (talk) 00:48, 12 December 2020 (UTC))

TFD lead proposal

If we go that route, I suggest the following as a draft for the lede paragraph. I think it is a neutral and comprehensive summary of the topic.

Communist genocide, or Victims of Communism, is the narrative that famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause and that Communism represents the greatest threat to humanity. The narrative has its origins in Western European scholarship, in particular the Black Book of Communism (1997), and has become accepted scholarship in Eastern Europe and among anti-Communists in general. Typically, the number of victims, who are referred to as victims of Communism, is estimated to be over 100 million, which is considered to be in the high range by most genocide experts. The narrative has been criticized by some scholars as an oversimplification and politically motivated, and for equating the events with the Holocaust. Various museums and monuments have been constructed in remembrance of the victims of communism, with support of the European Union and various governments in Eastern Europe, the United States and Canada.

TFD (talk) 20:33, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I like it, but I would like to know what Nug, KIENGIR, and AmateurEditor think about that. --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:47, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
The Four Deuces, that seems to be a very good summary. Just one thing, why "some scholars"? If this is a minority view, it could be better reflected such as changing it to "most scholars" or stating "it represents a minority view within scholarship that has been criticized by (other) scholars". Other than that, it is fine by me and it greatly clarifies what the topic actually is. As I proposed several times, we may include both popular literature (Lost Literature of Socialism) and scholarly literature (Courtois et al.) and then include scholarly analysis and criticism of both the theory (i.e. the criticism of "famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause and that Communism represents the greatest threat to humanity") and the "victims of Communism" narrative, among other responses. Davide King (talk) 20:53, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
I am not sure I can get behind that rewrite. It paints to much as a conspiracy theory or something not backed by most RS. I have seen plenty of sources presented throughout this mess of a talk page that support the concept while noting basically none that refute it. PackMecEng (talk) 21:01, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
How would you change it to correct that impression? TFD (talk) 21:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
I think some of my issues stem from the framing used. Words like "narrative" are over used and hyperbolic parts like "and that communism represents the greatest threat to humanity." Add to that the labeling that it is mostly supported by "anti-communists". I could also see a little to much weight given to the rebuttals. PackMecEng (talk) 23:19, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
PackMecEng Marxist, perhaps you could find an alternative to the word narrative and list the words like it you object to. While you say that it is hyperbolic to use the expression "communism represents the greatest threat to humanity," I don't see it as that different from what the VOC Memorial Foundation says: "Marxist socialism is the deadliest ideology in history." I would be perfectly willing to use their phrasing. TFD (talk) 04:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
No, it does not look like a conspiracy theory. For example, it emphasized popularity of these views among EE public. Indeed, The Black Book of Communism is considered one of the most influential books (and one of the most controversial). It should be rescribed as a major controversy, when a significant part of public opinion, many political journalists and writers, and several scholars support that idea, but majority (but not an overwhelming majority) of schilars do not.
When I wrote "I like it", I meant "I like it in general", but that does not mean it could not be improved further.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
PackMecEng, in other words, you just don't like it; and you have just shown a failure to understand the topic and the analysis and arguments made by Paul Siebert. You are essentially supporting the topic of the article to be a list of mass killings under Communist regimes but that ignores the original research and synthesis in doing so; the same thing could be done for capitalist regimes or any other regimes for which there are reliable sources but do not actually support the topic. So just stating there are sources for it misses the point they do not actually support the topic, neither a list of mass killings under Communist regimes, nor the currently-structured article. Here, I gave a summary of arguments and made an analysis of sources for why they do not support the currently-structured article but they can be used to support the topic outlined by Buidhe, The Four Deuces, Paul Siebert and I. The whole point is this article is synthesis and original research, so just saying there are sources does not actually answer any of the issues we raised for why they are used for synthesis and make original research. Even if there are sources, it does not mean much when they are used for original research and violates our policies and guidelines. That is why we are not advocating deletion. Davide King (talk) 21:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Did you also miss the part where it was admitted "All the sources used in the article are correctly treated as 'significant minority' views or weight purposes"? Yet this is not reflected in the lead or elsewhere and the article acts like these are universal mainstream or widely accepted views among scholars, essentially ignoring all academics and scholars who either criticised the concept or ignored it because it is not notable. The proposed lead would fix that. Davide King (talk) 22:03, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
It's often difficult to get the tone right on the first attempt. What may seem neutral to me may seem biased to someone else. So let's see if there are other ways to phrase it. TFD (talk) 21:54, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Support This is a great improvement over what we have now, and it supported by sources. It presents the connection as a theory or viewpoint with considerable support (especially in Eastern Europe), but far from universal acceptance—which is exactly what it is. (t · c) buidhe 21:34, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
This discussion needs a new talk, however I completely disagree with Davide King, his issue with this article seems to one of POV. We are not here to defend communism, nor are we here to try to whitewash attrocities. Davide King usually takes a position for leftist positions, such as Antifa (United states) an ideology I support. Wikipedia should only be a mirror for other sources, that's it as an example List of genocides by death toll is not a place for Wikipedians to agree on what is and isn't a genocide, it's a place for Wikipedia to put what is a genocide, you need to understand this. Opinions as to what is and isn't a genocide is irrelevant and it doesn't matter if the sources are anti communist the point is that they are considered reliable. We are not here to defend communism or leftism, as a leftist myself. Vallee01 (talk) 23:30, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
I notice that no one has grouped together the genocides that were carried out by Christian nations and said "Christians are responsible for most victims of the genocides in history including the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and the massacre of indigenous peoples. For balance, we could have an article about Muslim genocide. If you did, you would need a source that explained how genocide is a part of the Christian religion. It would meet your standard that no one could disagree over what was a genocide. TFD (talk) 23:56, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Vallee01, this completely misses mine and others' point. The problem is exactly that it is not supported universally or widely supported by sources as the currently-structured article implies. Read here my actual reasoning and analysis of sources. You really need to look at original research and synthesis; sources do not mean much if they are used for original research or synthesised to prove a point. There is not a single book whose main topic is mass killings under Communist regimes. The only ones close to that are The Black Book of Communism (but only the introduction, as the book itself only "presents a number of chapters on single country studies, it presents no cross-cultural comparison", there is no discussion of mass killing under Communism) and Red Holocaust. The problem is the current article use sources whose main topic is not this, but discuss only the Soviet Union or another country, or a few countries, not all ones; they do not treat this as a single event or phenomenon like the current article does. Some do not even compare Communist mass killings but Cambodian mass killing to non-Communist mass killings. Hence, they should be discussed at Genocide and/or Mass killing, they should not be discussed as this article does. Paul Siebert et al. provided a good compromise solution. I see no other solution than to take this at ArbCom since you have not reached out to us to fix any of the problems and you are essentially supporting violating policies and guidelines, which is also a conduct issue. Davide King (talk) 00:07, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
You keep saying that it is not widely supported by sources, please present those sources that don't support it. --Nug (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, the onus is on you to say they do. You are asking us to prove a negative. Again, if it is widely supported by sources, it should be very easy to prove. Davide King (talk) 00:25, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
The article already cites sources that that group a number of communist regimes that have perpetrated mass killings and discuss why the ideology has a propensity to mass killings. One source has over 897 cites. You are the one making the claim it is a minority view point, prove it. --Nug (talk) 00:33, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
The onus is on them to keep the long standing consensus? I think you have that the wrong way around. Statements keep getting thrown around on this talk page that the subject of this article is not a thing and we should disregard the RS that support it. All that while not really giving any RS that refute it besides personal opinions. PackMecEng (talk) 00:36, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, PackMecEng, I have already addressed here why the sources do not actually support the topic. Or perhaps it could be we are referring to different topics, or have different understanding of it, that causes issues on misunderstanding from both sides.
AmateurEditor themselves wrote "All the sources used in the article are correctly treated as 'significant minority' views or weight purposes", yet this is not actually stated and there is no criticism of the concept of linking all Communist regimes together. We cannot overemphasise their similarities when scholars do not see a connection between, say, the events in Pol Pot's Cambodia and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, which 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. As also noted by several other scholars, "[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 [of The Black Book of Communism] scarcely discuss." There is no long-standing consensus as this page was locked for like seven years and had three No consensus and two Keep in all the AfDs, so it is not so simple. Paul Siebert gave convincing arguments backed down by actual literature and guidelines and policies; you are free to disagree but so far they have not actually rebuked. Davide King (talk) 01:07, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Utterly reject, this text introduces POV into an otherwise neutral lead that discusses mass killings to the more contentious lead that discusses genocide. I've been around Wikipedia for a long time, back in the day some article opponents used introduce text that made the task of deleting an article easier, I'm not suggesting this is what is being attempted here, I'm sure all participants are working in good faith. --Nug (talk) 23:44, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
    What is the POV that it injects? TFD (talk) 00:04, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    That the fact of mass killings occurring under Communist regimes is just a narrative created by anti-Communists, that's POV. And since nobody has presented a RS that supports that POV, it is therefore fringe POV. --Nug (talk) 00:17, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, the lead is not supposed to tell that the fact of mass killing is some "narrative". Clearly, mass killings did occur. What should be presented as a "narrative" is the idea that (i) these events have a very clear and significant linkage to some generic Communism, (ii) these mass killings included tens of millions excess deaths that were a result of famine, civil wars etc., and (iii) all of that makes Communism a worst murdered of XX century. That is a narrative that is not shared by majority of scholars.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:19, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • The text says, "Typically, the number of victims, who are referred to as victims of Communism, is estimated to be over 100 million, which is considered to be in the high range by most genocide experts." Why do you read that as meaning mass killings occurring under Communist regimes is just a narrative created by anti-Communists?" TFD (talk) 00:21, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Nug, that is not the narrative. The narrative is that communism was the main culprit and that it was equal or worse than Nazism, or that there is a link between communism/the left/socialism and mass killing, when genocide scholars do not actually say that; Valentino does not see ideology as the main cause of it. Again, you seem to want this article to be a list of mass killings under Communist regimes but that is not what it is supposed to be. Davide King (talk) 00:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
I've sourced that narrative of "that communism was the main culprit and that it was equal or worse than Nazism" to Shafir, and he has only 2 cites, and you want to make it the lead? --Nug (talk) 00:43, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, it is not Shafir saying that, it is the proponents of the concept, linking all Communist regimes together or communism and mass killing, saying that. This article is not supposed to be a list of Communist mass killings, for which we already have individual articles. Since we are lumping them together, we have to explain why, hence why it comes the theory and concept with it, of which The Four Deuces gave a nice summary of it. Davide King (talk) 01:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Wrong. We CAN have a list of Communist mass killings (such lists are allowed per our policy). However, only those items can be included there which are universally recognises as mass killing. Thus, Great Chinese famine cannot be included (just read the article about it).--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
To me it reads like absolute propaganda
"Communist genocide, or Victims of Communism, is the narrative (Oh my absolute god) that famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause and that Communism represents the greatest threat to humanity." "Narrative" it implies multiple things. It implies that there is some crackpot conspiracy that people stating communist massacres are pushing some sort of agenda, which is a complete fringe theory and shouldn't and isn't allowed on Wikipedia. Is Doctor Tobagan going to be used a source later? It also states that the very term "communist genocide" is someone some sort of agenda when it isn't. This is a list about massacres committed by communists that's absolutely it. What on absolute earth, if this is published Wikipedia's POV standards which is already getting lower and lower, would be seen as non-existent. This is POV text at it's finest. The mental gymnastics someone has to do to try to explain how this could be explained as unbiased is telling, it's clear as day. Vallee01 (talk) 00:38, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
The proposed lead begins, "Communist genocide, or Victims of Communism, is the narrative that famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause." The "narrative" refers to the explanation for the famine and mass killing, it does not say that the famine and mass killings were merely narratives. In fact the paragraphs also says that genocide experts confirm these events occurred. In any case, if the thing the phrasing implies that the mass killings were a mere narrative, can you express the phrasing better? TFD (talk) 00:48, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose What is the subject of the article? As of now, it's a not a "narrative that famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause..." It's literally and simply mass killings under communist regimes. Changing the lede without reworking the article would create a tremendous disconnect. The term "narrative" is not neutral, as it casts the connection between communist regimes and mass killings as some sort of conspiracy theory. The lede, as it stands, is neutral and a good summary of the article, albeit a short one. The lede currently stands at four sentences, none of which are factually inaccurate or violate our NPOV guidelines, and is a closer fit with MOS:LEAD than the proposal. I've been watching this talk page from afar for some time and, while it has made for a mirthful read, I will not be drawn into a drawn out WP:TLDR debate. schetm (talk) 00:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    Schetm, that is why I proposed a RfC about the main topic in the first place. What is the main topic? And why does not the current article mixes up different topics into one? Davide King (talk) 01:01, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Good question, schetm. We are trying to come to agreement about the article's subject during last 12 years. Briefly, if the subject is the events (actual human deaths), this article is supposed to be a summary style article for a number of already existing articles. That require that the rules of content forking are observed. Currently, they are blatantly violated, just compare this article with Great Chinese Famine, so the article must be deleted as a huge POV fork. (By the way, without any loss of information from Wikipedia, because all these sources and facts can be found in other articles).
If the subject is a narrative, then the article requires relatively minor changes. It seems newcomers do not understand that under "narrative" we do not mean that no human losses occurred, but we just want to emphasize that only a small group of authors claim all of them occurred due to some "generic Communism", and all of them were "mass killing/democide etc".
regarding TL/DR, this is a complicated subject, and to make an adequate judgement, one expect to familiarise themselves with the sources. Therefore, you are expected to show more respect to the users who invested their time end efforts into that matter.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
OK, but I was responding to the proposed lede. I oppose the proposed lede without a change to the article's subject. What say you to my oppose? Let's stay on point here. schetm (talk) 01:13, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
schetm, the problem is that the article's subject is not clear. It says about 100+ million killed by Communists, and majority of those "victims" were Chinese of Soviet peasants who died as a result of famines, which are not considered as mass killing by majority of authors. In that situation, what is the subject of the article? The narrative of real events?
Another example. The article emphasises Rummel's estimate of Communist democide. I don't know if anybody bothered to read Rummel, but I did. A significant part of Rummel's "Communist death toll" is GULAG deaths: several tens of millions. I checked his sources - these are totally obsolete Cold war era estimates. Since then, historian science made a huge step forward, a lot of new documents have been discovered, and even Conquest had to concede that the number of people passes through GULAG was 18 million. And we know the number of deaths was less than two million. Dis Rummel adjust his "estimates"? No. Do historians pay attention to Rummel's estimate? No, they ignore him totally. There are two parallel universes: in one universe, historians are studying Soviet history, in another universe, superficial "theorists" produce some "theories" that are based on oversimplified speculations and obsolete data. The article is leaning towards the latter group. Now, please, answer: what this article is about: a narrative or facts?.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:45, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Just saw where you spoke to the term "narrative." Good. We have something to work with here. We must assume that any Wikipedia reader is a "newcomer." If "newcomers" can't understand the terminology, of if such terminology is so easily misconstrued, perhaps said terminology shouldn't be employed? Remember, we're not writing for readers of this talk page, but for the general public. schetm (talk) 01:22, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Policy requires that articles be about topics that exist in reliable sources. We could not create an article for example about alcoholic beverages in Communist countries unless there was some literature that connected them and then we would have to base the article on those sources. Normally we would not group the rum in Cuba with the vodka in the former USSR, we would categorize them under rums and vodkas respectively. Having that article without any explanantion would imply that there was some similarity between Cuban rum and Russian vodka.
While the connection between mass killings and Communism may be obvious to you, we cannot assume that it is to all readers. In any case, we need to explain it. Most experts agree that at least some of these killings had no connection to Communist ideology but rather to the specific circumstances under which they occurred. For example, Helen Fein ascribed killings of ethnic minorities and foreigners in Kampuchea to xenophobic nationalism, rather than Communist ideology.
If you don't like the way I phrased the lede, perhaps you could provide an example of how you think it should be phrased. If you don't like the word narrative, then suggest another.
TFD (talk) 02:06, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Sure. Swapping out narrative for theory would be a good start. But, as it stands right now, the lede is totally neutral and based in objective fact, and appropriate, albeit too brief, for the article as it currently stands. From what I read above, the aim is to turn the article into some treatise on the theory, or "narrative" of the purported relationship between mass killings and communist regimes. Cool. That ain't happening. There isn't consensus for that. I think that would be fine for a new article, but not this one. So, go, start a new article! I might even !vote keep if it comes up at AfD. But this current article is not a POV fork. It's well sourced, meets the GNG, and is based in object fact. It ain't perfect (I think Davide King's proposal #4 would be ideal), but, if I'm reading the preceding wall of text, "that route" which you refer to will end up in talk page development hell just like this article.
Part of the problem might be that it's tough to envision an article with just the lede. In fact, it's generally a bad idea to write a lede before you write the rest of the article, especially with a subject such as this. Do you remember Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes/sandbox? It hasn't been substantially edited since 2013. Why not just write the article you want to write, throw it up in the air, and see if anyone hits it? schetm (talk) 08:08, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
If you read Nug's comments that I posted below, which are typical of comments made by the keep side at AfDs, the only reason the article survived AfD is that editors argued that scholars make a causal connection between Communist ideology and mass killings. Making a list of mass killings under Communist regimes implies a connection, which must be explained in order to have a neutral article. Arranging a series of facts does not mean the result is neutral. We must observe due weight and avoid implicit synthesis.
As WP:LEAD says, "It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." So the causal connection must be in the lead in order to ensure neutrality. Why do you think we should omit that information?
TFD (talk) 11:46, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't oppose that in principal, I just oppose the lede you propose for the reasons outlined above, which have to do with NPOV, the actual wording of the proposed lede, and the proposed lede being for a different article that you want to write on some "victims of communism narrative." Again, feel free to write that article. But what you propose isn't for the article we have right now. schetm (talk) 13:40, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Schetm, "[f]rom what I read above, the aim is to turn the article into some treatise on the theory, or "narrative" of the purported relationship between mass killings and communist regimes. Cool. That ain't happening. There isn't consensus for that." I say the contrary is true and there is no consensus for the current-structured article, or at least there is some weak consensus the article has problems as shown below. It is 6–8 (both you and Valee01 just entered the conversation, otherwise it would be 4–8, which has been the result throughout this long discussion that does back to Archive 43), if I include you, but I am not sure where I should include you because I would note my proposal 4 would actually still require a rewriting and restructuring since the article, to be turned from mass killing to excess deaths or mortality, is based on an universally-accepted terminology about mass killing that either does not exist or it is not actually universally-accepted. Davide King (talk) 13:44, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
I know. It's pesky to get wider input from the community. Prop 4 has my top choice, but I'd rather the status quo be maintained than the article go in the direction y'all want to take it. At any rate, per WP:NOCON, "In discussions of proposals to add, modify or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit." Again, we have the sandbox. Write the article you want to write and throw it at the community. schetm (talk) 13:52, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Schetm, if you don't oppose the proposed lead in principle but find the wording to be POV, could you please provide a version that you think would remove the POV. What I wrote was a first draft using what I considered to be neutral wording. But I accept that different people may interpret the wording differently and welcome your kind assistance in achieving the best wording. TFD (talk) 14:02, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
No. I oppose your proposed lead in principal because it's a lead for a different article. I don't oppose the fact that any lead should conform to MOS:LEAD. But I will go sentence by sentence:
1: What is the title of this hypothetical article? You'd need sources saying that this is the WP:COMMONNAME for your "narrative." I object to the word "narrative" and have proposed an alternative above You'll also need sourcing on the greatest threat to humanity bit.
2: Accepted scholarship by just them? Sources!
3: Include that range of estimates!
4: Again, that word narrative. Also, partisans support the "narrative" and scholars oppose it?
5: No objection to this sentence.
However, what you propose is for a different article, and it cannot be sanctioned for this article. Again, write the other article! We have the sandbox! schetm (talk) 14:13, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
schetm, actually, the proposed lead implied that the article must be re-written accordingly. That will convert is from a POV-frok to some normal text. Of course, what we discussing here is not the lead itself, but a new article's concept.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
As I said above, policy prevents us from having an article that lists what some editors consider to be related events without a source that explains how they are related. We can't for example have an article "Liquors distilled under communist regimes," because there is no obvious connection between Communist party rule and the type of liquors that they produced. Liquor preferences in Cuba for example have more in common with those in the rest of the Caribbean that they do with other Communist states. That is, they are attributable to the history, culture and geography of the region, rather than the type of government. Don't assume that readers know what the connection between Communist ideology and mass killings is and that the article does not need to explain it. TFD (talk) 14:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
TFD, c'mon man! You asked for a critique to your proposed lead, I provided a line by line critique, and then you don't once respond to any of the issues I raised? As you haven't countered any of my points, my oppose stands. schetm (talk) 20:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
schetm, if you don't mind, I'll respond on behalf of TFD.
re 1. The title is not that important. Even the current title is ok, at least, for a while.
re 2. That is the lead. We don't need to provide these details in the lead.. The name of authors is supposed to presented in the article.
re 3. Including the range creates a false impression of high importance of that subject. In reality, majority of serious scholars do not play these games, which is more pertinent to Guinness book. High estimates are usually belong to those authors who want to demonstrate that Communism (as a single phenomenon) was the worst thing in XX century. As a rule, this approach is seen as flawed by others, so they do not provide low estimates, they just reject or ignore that approach as whole. Anyway, this objection doesn't look serious.
re 4. The text doesn't say "partisans". The second sentence says that narrative originates from Western scholarship, so I don't see "partisans vs scholars" contraposition.
re 5. Good.
In summary, your criticism doesn't look too serious.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:33, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Schetm, as noted by here by The Four Deuces, problem is these are the same topic, except our would be neutral, not replicate things already written or addressed by other articles as argued here by Paul Siebert, and in general it would not violate our policies and guidelines of NPOV (the current article only represents the views of a minority and acts like these views are universally supported or are a majority view; it is essentially based on the works of a few authors such as Courtois, Rosefielde, Rummel and Vallentino, who are not representative of all scholars and are both a minority and revisionists in positing Communism as equal to Nazism, dating back to the revisionist Nolte), no original research and synthesis. Nug clearly believes sources support the link between communism and mass killing (i.e. that mass killings were caused by communist ideology or were the result of it; this is not the majority view; AmateurEditor wrote all these are minority views, albeit in their view these are "significant minority" ones, hence why they are all attributed, although I argue they are only attributed to its proponents, not that they represent a minority view among scholarly sources), hence it is synthesis to make this article about the events while pushing the view they were the result of ideology. Either we make an article about the events, simply listing and tell the events without pushing any narrative or why (I still think this would be synths and violates NPOV because scholars themselves disagree on lumping them together just because they called themselves Communist or Marxist and because they are already discussed in other articles and no information would be lost; if no new information is provided, it should not be a standalone article), or we make it only about the narrative as proposed and outlined by Buidhe, The Four Deuces and Paul Siebert. Davide King (talk) 17:08, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
The proposes rewrite may have the same title, but it's an entirely different topic. The bulk of the article, as it stands right now, enumerates mass killings and mass mortality events under communist regimes. What is proposed is an article discussing the theory or "narrative" of mass killings under communist regimes. Two very different articles. That's why I think the most productive way forward would be to draft a new article and then publish it. Unless, of course, you want to spend another decade on this talk page. schetm (talk) 20:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Schetm, the last AfD did not rule out "the name choice, sy[n]thesis identification, rewriting, and/or merging"), so what are you even talking about? You are simply assuming we agree on the main topic, when we do not. Even among these who are for keep, you do not support the same topic and this article discusses more than one topic at once. Finally, we do not want to delete this article but rewriting it about a topic that is actually supported by sources and scholarly literature. Davide King (talk) 21:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Schetm, this article was created by a banned user and since the first three discussions were No consensus, it should have actually been deleted the first time per G5 and only be re-created when there was clear consensus for it. The onus should have been on these who were for Keep, something which they failed to do in the first three discussions, hence the article should have been deleted/merged back then. Essentially, the AfDs have been falsified since it should have been deleted after the first three discussions, if not the first one itself; "[a]fter analyzing the agruments [sic] of both sides, I think there is no consensus to keep or delete this article", but the onus is on these who are for Keep to prove that case; and if there is No consensus but we are essentially Keep[ing] the article, that does not reflect the actual result; it should have been deleted and recreated when clear consensus for Keep was established. Paul Siebert, I would be curious to hear what you think too. This is yet another violation and conduct issue. Davide King (talk) 14:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. It wasn't speedied. Maybe it should've been, but it wasn't. Later consensus said to keep, so the point is moot. You could always nominate it again... schetm (talk) 20:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Schetm, the fact this article was created by a blocked user is relevant and that it was not deleted because of it shows this article bears ownership. In addition, later consensus was falsified by the fact, despite ruling No consensus for three times in a row, the article was kept, which legitimised it. So per sources arguments were taken at face value and ignored any counter-arguments that disputed not the sources themselves but whether they support the topic as currently outlined and structured. Even these who agree for keep actually disagree on the main topic. Nug supports the link between communism and mass killing/genocide whereas you support excess mortality; these are not the same thing, yet these are used to keep this mess of an article because both of you are for keep, even though you support different topics, or disagree on what the main topic actually is, or should be. That is why an AfD is useless unless we can actually agree on what the main topic actually is; and if we cannot disagree on such a simple thing as this, I do not see how this article can be kept. Davide King (talk) 21:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Support as this is backed by sources already cited in the article (Ghodsee, Getty et al) and emphasizes this narrative, while popular in some circles, is not one that is universally accepted by historians of communism. If this supplants the current lede, I would suggest updating the body to better reflect these sources, which are now largely concentrated in the "Debates over famines" section. Perhaps that section should be renamed and greatly expanded? I also think that maybe "genocide experts" should be replaced with something like "historians and scholars of communism", given this is a better description of those aforementioned scholars cited in the article. I might also suggest leaving out the part "and that Communism represents the greatest threat to humanity" as it seems rather excessive.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
It is still a mystery who are these "historians of communism" who don't accept the connection to mass killings. Apparently this is the majority viewpoint according to Davide King, I've asking him for cites but he hasn't delivered, perhaps you could assist supplying those cites? --Nug (talk) 00:32, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Nug, you are essentially asking us to prove a negative because, as demonstrated by Paul Siebert et al., the majority of historians of communism do not actually accept the connection to mass killings, or simply ignore or do not write about the topic, demonstrating it is not a widely-accepted concept. The criticism to The Black Book of Communism demonstrate this. Most of the praise came from publications and non-experts on the subject while the reviews among Soviet and Communist and historians of communism were much more mixed or critical. Indeed, the main criticism was that it lumped together Communist regimes without much merits or research; what made the radical Soviet industrialism similar to the anti-urbanism of Cambodia? What accomunated Afghanistan and Hungary? It is not clear, they write. Lumping together Communist regimes just because they called themselves communist or Marixts, as if they had a single essense, is not really addressed by the authors. Perhaps that is because only Courtois and Malia make this point in the introduction, the main issue of controversy. Davide King (talk) 05:16, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
C.J. Griffin, I agree in "updating the body to better reflect these sources" and with what you wrote. However, while it could be reworded, "Communism represents the greatest threat to humanity" is essentially what its advocate say, except this would be presented as their opinions rather than an established fact like the current article implies in that it was a fact communism caused the events. The VOC Memorial Foundation says: "Marxist socialism is the deadliest ideology in history." I find it absurd this is considered to violate neutrality, even though it would be clearly attributed to its proponents of the narrative, but the current article, which implies it was a fact there is a link between communism and mass killing, or they were the inevitable result of communism (according to Nug, "linking the genocides committed by various communist governments and attributing the phenomenon as a feature of Communist policy", as "[q]uite 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", which is either not what scholarly sources say, not what these same authors say, or these authors such as Gray et al. are non-expert on the subject) does not violate NPOV by pushing this minority view (according to AmateurEditor, all sources in the article are "significant minority" and attributed as such) as established fact and mainstream view among all scholars, especially genocide and Soviet and Communist studies scholars. Davide King (talk) 19:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
I think the opinion on Communism is essential to understanding the topic. the foreward to the Black Book says that it provides "a moral rather than a social, approach to Communism." That is key to the approach taken. TFD (talk) 22:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Oppose - this hyperbolic text doesn't look even remotely neutral and isn't really related to the article as it stands at all. I wouldn't necessarily rule out changes or even maybe even major restructuring (and then updating lead accordingly), but as such proposals have certain appearance of "we know we cant get it deleted in afd so lets try to nuke the content", I so far remain somewhat sceptical. --Staberinde (talk) 20:53, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Staberinde, but the current article apparently is? So far, these who support the article as it is have shown no willingness to any change or even that there are issues, something that the latest AfDs either emphasised or did not rule out. The main issue remains that the main topic is unclear and that many of these who are for keep actually support different topics. Nug supports the link between communism and mass killing/genocide whereas Schetm supports excess mortality; these are not the same thing. "We know we cannot avoid the obvious issues so let us try to nuke any change." Not much different from yours. Davide King (talk) 21:10, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Checking history, the article's content has actually changed quite a bit since last AfD, so changes do appear to be possible for me.--Staberinde (talk) 22:40, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
This also misses the point we are not even arguing for deletion but for a rewriting, which was not ruled out by the latest AfD, alongside a merge, about a topic that is actually supported by sources and scholarly literature. The current topic, it is not even clear what it is and even these who are for keep disagree among themselves. Davide King (talk) 21:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Staberinde, can you suggest how you would write the lead? TFD (talk) 22:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Writing lead for an article that doesn't exist is somewhat backwards approach. Is this narrative really about how "Communism represents the greatest threat to humanity"? Or maybe it is narrative about commemorating memory of the victims of communist regimes? Combination of both? Or something in between? I am not really sure and I don't think it is possible to be sure until one can see actually the main text for what one tries to write the lead.--Staberinde (talk) 22:40, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Staberinde, this article does exist and this is its talk page. Its lead is supposed to "identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." The article was saved from deletion because editors argued that there were reliable sources that linked the deaths to communist ideology. So, I will ask the question again, can you suggest how you would write the lead for Mass killings under communist regimes? TFD (talk) 01:39, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
For article as it stands, the current lead forms a decent basis which could be potentially somewhat expanded. For example, to reflect article's "proposed causes" section, something roughly along the lines "Among possible causes have been suggested communist regimes ideology, political system, and individual leaders." could work.--Staberinde (talk) 11:40, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
Staberinde, problem is the proposed causes are cherrypicked and do not represent scholarly consensus. It cites George Watson, who holds fringe views such as socialism promoting genocide and Hitler being a Marxist. It also quotes quite a few authors who are neither genocide scholars nor historians of Communism, and the ones who are cited comes from one side of historiography. As I show here, sources do not actually see a link between communism and genocide/mass killing, which this article implies. Hence, it needs to be rewritten to present this link as a theory rather than a fact. All these authors may still be cited but the article should not present this link as a fact in the lead. We also already have individual articles for all the events, so the main topic should be about this proposed link between communism and genocide/mass killing as a concept or theory, which is used as a narrative to presents all excess deaths as victims of communism. Davide King (talk) 12:31, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
I didn't suggest stating it "as a fact" in the lead.--Staberinde (talk) 18:51, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
Where does the article state that all of these killings were due to communist ideology? Liberty5000 (talk) 14:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
It is implicit in the title of the article. As you posted elsewhere, "How are these events unconnected when they were all committed by communist regimes?" 15:34, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
But it doesn´t explicitly state that. In fact, quite the opposite. To me, this article is what Wikipedia should be about. Simply stating the facts, and letting the reader decide what to make of them. Liberty5000 (talk) 19:08, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
Obviously if something is implicit it isn't explicit. Simply stating the facts and letting the reader decide goes against weight because facts can be selected to present different narratives, which is implicit synthesis. You can arrange facts to support all kinds of theories. Compare the following true sentences: 1. "The Soviet Union killed many noncombatants during WW2." 2. "The Sovier Union and its allies, including the UK and U.S., together killed far fewer noncombatants than Nazi Germany." Notice that the two sentences imply very different things, without being explicit. TFD (talk) 20:33, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
It´s not like this article, simply by existing, is somehow minimizing the Holocaust. Everyone knows about the Holocaust anyway. Liberty5000 (talk) 09:52, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
Oppose, per Staberinde.(KIENGIR (talk) 18:35, 10 December 2020 (UTC))
  • Support – while it can be improved and I agree the body will need to reflect this, this vote has more to do with my support for the topic (which is not a different topic but nothing other than the same topic written in neutral tone, reflecting sources and not violating our policies and guidelines about original research, synthesis, etc.). As shown by my extensive analysis of main topics and sources, the current article utterly fails in actually reflecting sources and cherry-picking the ones which are claimed to support the topic, even though in most cases they either do not support (the link) it or support different topics (only events). I suggest The Four Deuces et al. to work on a draft for the main body too, since the proposed lead has been either misunderstood or the topic itself has not been understood. The body would clarify that. Davide King (talk) 03:39, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose already mad my point clear, words such as "narrative" implies some sort of deep conspiracy that even mentioning atrocities is some sort of conspiracy. Vallee01 (talk) 06:04, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
    The topic is not clear and is not about the events and the atrocities. It is about mass killings under communist regimes and that these were the results of communism, so the narrative is already there but it is presented as fact rather than as a narrative. The article is not a list of mass killings under communist regimes but about mass killing and that communism, not Marxism–Leninism, is to blame, or that communism, not just Marxism–Leninism, must always and inevitably result in genocide or mass killing. Do you even agree with this? You just want this article to be about the atrocities but the article is about the link between them. The reason why we do not have Mass killing under capitalist regimes or Mass killings under fascist regimes is because no scholarly sources link them together; as I have shown below, no scholarly source link mass killings under communist regimes to communism either. You seem to support all these three articles but they all violates our guidelines (synthesis) because scholarly sources do not say there is a link that tie all capitalist or fascist atrocities together. Davide King (talk) 06:11, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Vallee01, my proposed lead says CG "is the narrative that famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause." It's clear to me that narrative refers to the attribution of the famine and mass killings to a single cause, rather than whether or not they happened. Can you think of a better way to phrase it?
Compare my wording with the lead of Hitler's Willing Executioners: "[it] is a 1996 book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen, in which he argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were "willing executioners" in the Holocaust...." Do you think that the word argues implies some sort of deep conspiracy that even mentioning the Holocaust is some sort of conspiracy?
TFD (talk) 12:22, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
TFD, all the opposes object to your use of the term narrative. Perhaps this indicates that you might get closer to consensus if you amend that wording. schetm (talk) 18:51, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
{u|schetm}}, can you think of a better word to use? Explanation, theory, hypothesis, view, position, account? Or perhaps you could suggest how to rephrase the sentence. TFD (talk) 19:50, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
TFD, you've asked that before, and I've answered twice before. Theory would be a better word. I've also given a line by line critique of your lead above. I get that this talk page is a mess, but I have answered these points. schetm (talk) 20:12, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
Come to think of it, "historical school of thought" might even be a better term. The goal should be to avoid any appearance of casting it as a fringe theory. schetm (talk) 20:15, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I find it hard to find discussions over so many threads.

1. Title is MKuCR, Communist genocide or Victims of Communism. 2. It is accepted scholarship by a minority. Will provide sources. 3. My memory from previous discussion is that 100 million was at the high end of the range. Paul Siebert has discussed the estimates and might know better. If you remember, the main contributor to the Black Book, Werth, said that the books totals were excessive. 4. Willing to say theory or any other term.

It is not my intention to denigrate the viewpoint and in my edit history I have never done that even with extremely unpopular views. I think it is important to explain views, rather than rebut them. It's up to readers to decide what to believe. On the other hand, it is important to distinguish between views that have consensus support in scholarship and ones that don't.

TFD (talk) 22:44, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

TFD, thanks. Your #2 response is a sticking point for me. What sources specifically say that this accepted scholarship by a minority? Without those sources that specifically say that, we're approaching WP:SYNTH territory. At any rate, writing a lead before an article is backward. MOS:LEAD says that the "lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents." The problem with writing it first is that it summarizes nothing. That's why I'm a strong advocate of getting a new article drafted - one can't summarize something that doesn't exist. schetm (talk) 04:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
TFD, I already answered to schetm, but he seems to ignore my answer. The main problem with estimates is as follows: those authors who believe "Communist mass killing" is a separate topic use, as a rule, exaggerated or outdated figures, or both, to demonstrate that Communism was the worst XX century killer. Experts in each country's history provide more accurate figures, but they never propose their own estimates of some "global Communist death toll", simply because they do not believe in that concept.
There is one more group of authors, so called "genocide scholars". They, for example, Valentino, are not experts in each country's history, and they do not pretend to be experts. They are more interested in understanding some general dependencies between "-cides" and specific features of regimes, and they do not care about accuracy of figures.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:46, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, true, I tend to ignore people who call what I say "not too serious." But, I'll bite.
1:The title kinda is important. If we're drafting the lead, word by word scrutiny is important, because every word is important.
2:We need more detail than we've got. And, as I said to TFD, we're drafting the thing backwards by doing the lead first. So having no sources here is a sticking point. If we're going to call this a minority view, we need sources specifically saying this is a minority view. Otherwise, we're approaching WP:SYNTH.
3:Slapping an extreme number in the lead paragraph runs the risk of making the school of thought discussed look extreme. An inclusion of this number needs to be thought through.
4:True, but the tone seems to read "anti-communists support this theory; scholars don't." We can do better.
5:Sweet. schetm (talk) 04:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
schetm, unfortunately, people who are not to serious frequently assume the positions of self-appointed critics, who have a right of veto, and avoid answering clear questions when they don't know what to say but still don't want to agree.
Wheres I think writing a new lead without changing the article is not a good idea, I think some major points makes sense to discuss.
1. Again, article's renaming is even more premature than rewriting the lead, so you contradict to yourself. The more correct way would be to come to consensus about the position of this article in the hierarchy of other Communism related articles (I am totally neutral about that, but I want everybody to clearly understand that after defining the exact position we will have to modify it to make it consistent with NPOV)
2. No, historians do not care about Wikipedia and our policy, and they never use such definitions as minority or majority view. That is our own terminology, and the burden of proof is on those who wants to add this information. If these views are represented as majority views, it is necessary do demonstrate that by providing a reference to commonly accepted reference texts. In that case, any good quality source saying otherwise makes that view a significant minority view. For example, I provided tons of publications saying that Courtois introduction is a very controversial document. If the article is based on him, it is definitely a significant minority view.
3. By providing both low and high margin, we imply that there are mainstream schools that seriously discuss "Communist death toll". That is not the case. There are several scholars who claim that "commies killed xxx zillion people", and other scholars who just write history articles about separate countries, because they believe commonalities between different regimes are not too important. Two examples: (i) The Black Book was highly commended for the chapter written by Werth, and highly criticised for the inytroduction written by Courtois. Werth publicly criticised Courtois, and he publicly disassociated himself from what Courtois wrote. However, this article present mostly the view advocated by Courtois, not Werth, primarily because Werth didn't write about Communism in general. (ii) Two experts in Soviet history, Wheatcroft and Rosefielde, have had a major disagreement about some figures and historical interpretations, and that dispute lasts more than 10 years. Rosefielde's views of Communism are more radical, and he summarised them by combining his previous scholarly article and adding materials about other Communist states. This monograph was published under the name "Red Holocaust". He writes about Communism in general, but he, as well as Wheatcroft, is an expert in Soviet history. However, his opinion is represented in this article, whereas Wheatcroft's views are not (actually, his views are represented, but they are ghettoised in the USSR related section, which is against our rules).
4. That is true. Majority of authors, such as Rummel, Rosefielde or Courtois are anti-Communists. Valentino is not, but his actual opinion is significantly misinterpreted in this article. Valentino never paid any significant attention to ideology, and, importantly, he wrote that majority of Communist regimes were not engaged in mass killing.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:10, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, do you think I am serious or not? schetm (talk) 08:05, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
schetm, frankly, I don't know. Sometimes I think that I look "not too serious" because I am seriously answering to people who are not serious enough. If your answers will look serious, I will assume you are serious. So far, they are not completely serious.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:31, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
Paul Siebert, I assure you that I am, and my arguments are. I'm just a backwoods hick. I don't have a PhD. But I do want to see this encyclopedia made a better place. It's important that I know that you're assuming good faith before I spend my time responding. Denigrating my arguments doesn't necessarily give me confidence that you are. I have a response to make to what you said. Can you assume that I am acting seriously and in good faith? schetm (talk) 01:22, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
When I wrote "I don't know if you are serious", I sincerely didn't understand that. Now I do. Unfortunately, in close future I will be busy with my dispute with AmateurEditor (see below), so I will not be able to respond to others, but after that I will gladly address your arguments (and I can assure you I will take them seriously, but will do my best to be as brief as possible).--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:42, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Will you make an article about mass killings for every other regime too?

Because unless you do, this is obviously a biased article. I'm only guessing, but is it possible the editors of this article are US citizens, perhaps on the right side of the political isle? Cause this reaks of lingering McCarthyism. Just to be clear, atrocities have been perpetratedn by fascists, liberals, socialists, capitalists,... that has nothing to do with the economic system they live in, but by the imbalance of their situation. In short this article dies not belong on Wikipedia in this way. Thanks for your time. Trwnbt (talk) 07:39, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

If we have sources that discuss "Mass killing under communist regimes", and they are focused on mass killings committed by Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot; and another group of sources that discusses "Mass killings under Eurasian totalitarian regimes in countries with underdeveloped economy" and they both discuss essentially the same leaders and events but from different perspectives (i.e. POVs), then in terms of article name WP:COMMONNAME would come into play, since "communist regimes" would be the more common term for "Eurasian totalitarian regimes in countries with underdeveloped economy", and the two sets of sources would be represented in that same article. --Nug (talk) 22:25, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be synthesis? TFD (talk) 13:09, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
The Four Deuces, exactly. In addition, totalitarianism is more of a concept than a fact and it is not accepted by all academics. Indeed, it has been used during the Cold War to convert pre-war anti-fascism into post-war anti-communism. It is more useful, or descriptive, than factual or analytical. Davide King (talk) 14:06, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't think that follows at all. Interpreting "Eurasian totalitarian regimes in countries with underdeveloped economy" as "Communist regimes" (for the second group, the authors who didn't make that connection) is plainly WP:OR / WP:SYNTH in this context, since it's drawing a connection between the countries they're covering that those particular authors did not, in a way that clearly leads the reader towards a particular conclusion. --Aquillion (talk) 07:34, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I do not really get or see how Paul Siebert's approach, which has been well reviewed or validated in at least one double-blind peer-reviewed academic journal is original research but apparently the currently-structured article, or the synthesised sources whose main topic is not the same or genocide and mass killing in general, some of which do not even really discuss Communist regimes and may do in passing, is not. The only reason I can find for such a claim is simply not liking their approach because it proves this article is indeed original research and/or synthesis, hence in desperate need of a rewriting and restructuring, as they proposed and suggested. What we have is a reading by a few random Wikipedian users supporting this article because and the reading of someone who holds a PhD, has published peer-reviewed articles in academic journals, has been reviewed well in a peer-review journal and also happen to be a Wikipedian. With all due respect to anyone involved, I trust their judgment more. That two very neutral and respected Wikipedians such as Buidhe and The Four Deuces, among others, also came to the same conclusion as Paul Siebert is telling. It is not at all very surprising for me to also reach the same conclusion when their expertness, knowledge and neutrality showed, beyond doubt, all the problems the currently-structured article has. Davide King (talk) 02:33, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

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