Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes

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RfC: Change "communist" to "totalitarian" in title?

Should "communist" be changed to "totalitarian" in the title? soibangla (talk) 18:38, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

• Support: A good argument can be made that some/most/all of the regimes discussed in this article were totalitarian rather than communist. If some believe communism is synonymous with totalitarianism, they should have no objection to this proposed change. By contrast, others might argue communism and totalitarianism are not necessarily synonymous, or are even diametrical opposites, though the regimes were indisputably totalitarian, as they had omnipotent central governments whereas Marxism called for elimination of central government, notwithstanding how 20th century totalitarians may have misappropriated what Marx actually wrote in 1848 and branded themselves "communists." soibangla (talk) 18:38, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose: Per WP:COMMONNAME. The regimes were all generally known as "Communist". If we want a separate article about "Mass killings under totalitarian regimes", it could include Nazi Germany too, and that would be fine. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:07, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support. This is plainly a descriptive title and not a common name (since no one descriptor directly unites all the diverse underlying viewpoints covered here), and as such WP:NDESC applies. Totalitarianism is a more precise and neutral summary in that respect, and is broadly a more useful main topic, since most of the academic discourse on the subject focuses on totalitarianism as the unifying factor. --Aquillion (talk) 19:35, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Brought here by the bot [19]. This seems like an unnecessarily narrow article, however, based on the content of the article -- a list of peoples republics -- the current name is most appropriate per WP:NDESC. Renaming it "totalitarian" uses Wikipedia's voice to indict or castigate the governments of the states listed. "Totalitarian" is a loaded term that is implicitly negative, while "communist" is a descriptive term that is not values-laden. The fact that its use may be imperfect in this case would be better addressed through careful wording in the lead rather than retitling. Chetsford (talk) 20:20, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose It would make the article to broad. Right now the current title fits the content very well and is by far the most WP:COMMONNAME. If we expand it to totalitarian we would also have to include other groups such as Nazi's or Italian regime during WW2, plus a multitude of others. Which would start to get a little out of hand in scope and fail WP:NDESC. PackMecEng (talk) 20:28, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Sure, the regimes might not be "true" communists, but are commonly described as such. While totalitarianism was what ultimately made most or all of these killings possible, it is seen by most academics in the Proposed Causes section as mediating variable between communism and mass killings. 15 (talk) 20:37, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose: As the effect of the proposed renaming would be to completely change the content/scope of the article, which has survived numerous previous attempts at deletion based on arguments very similar to those presented by the supporters above. (As an aside, the suggestion that "totalitarianism" is a more narrow or better-understood concept, in the academic literature or otherwise, than 20th-century self-described communist regimes is laughable.)TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:40, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose: There's overlap between communism & totalitarianism but they are not synonymous. The ideology section specifically and exclusively talks about communism and its variants. Likewise, the entire 'States where mass killings have occurred' section includes only communist regimes. There's a reason why totalitarian regimes like Italy under Mussolini or Haiti under Duvalier are not mentioned at all in this article (i.e., they weren't communist). COMMONNAME applies, but so does WP:PRECISION. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:47, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose The current title fits the content of the article. If we're to change the name, we'd have to broaden the same. BristolTreeHouse (talk) 05:19, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• @Soibangla: This is not an RfC matter. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 06:51, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per the arguments above that changing the title would result in changing the scope of the article. 07:03, 11 July 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️
• Oppose Communism and Totalitarianism are not synonymous, the regimes are mostly referred to as Communist. Sea Ane (talk) 09:49, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose COMMONNAMEאברהסה בו (talk) 17:03, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - to change it to totalitarian would then require the inclusion of a litany of other regimes which have nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism, or any other attempt towards communism. --Cdjp1 (talk) 08:39, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support per Aquillion and Adoring nanny's proposal that we make an article about totalitarian regimes in general (I only disagree with Adoring nanny that it should be another article; I propose it to be this article, while another article is created about Communist death tolls and the narrative). This article should be expanded to be about totalitarian regimes in general, and not limited to Communist regimes. There is no scholarly literature that treats the topic as we do, and many of sources are misrepresented, even The Black Book of Communism (per historian Andrzej Paczkowski, who positively reviewed the work, the book is not "about communism as an ideology or even about communism as a state-building phenomenon") and Valentino, who is heavily relied on ("Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing"). On the other hand, there is plenty of literature about totalitarian regimes and genocide/mass killings, see Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide, Resisting Genocide: The Multiple Forms of Rescue, and Final Solutions. Neither of those works limit themselves to Communist regimes, so why should we, too? Another article, focused on Communist states and about death tolls and the victims of Communism narrative, can be written based on this lead. Davide King (talk) 21:59, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Main topic and primary sources

I took a break from this and I would have hoped that Aquillion, BeŻet, Buidhe, C.J. Griffin, The Four Deuces, Paul Siebert, Rick Norwood, and others (I also call on other users like GreenC, Mathglot, and MjolnirPants for further input and a source analysis to avoid any original research and synthesis violations) would have kept discussing and finding a consensus on the main topic; this was not the case and the template was removed. The article's main topic is still unclear; is it about the events, which are variously described as mass killings? Problem is scholars actually disagree on this and attempts to propose a common terminology (until recently, it was stated as fact that there was one) have repeatedly failed, and the current article's name is problematic because it presupposes there is consensus. Is it about an alleged link between communism and genocide/mass killing? Then the article should be changed to Communism and genocide or Communism and mass killing (other, more precise titles may include use of Communist states over Communism). This would be better but would still require a restructuring to make it more about scholarly analysis and less repeating the events themselves. Is it about Communist death toll? The title should be changed to Communism death toll, Death toll under Communist states, or Excess deaths under Communist states. It would, and it should, still require a restructuring.

So what are primary sources in this case? They are certainly not the Communist state themselves but rather the authors who may propose the topic. Problem is that in this sense most sources are primary sources, and follows "he said, she said", in light of attributing minority views, especially about the Proposed causes section. But we should not be citing Conquest about what Conquest wrote, or Rummel about what Rummel wrote (in this sense, they are primary sources); we need to find and cite secondary sources, and not just any secondary source, but reliable secondary sources that clearly refer to the main topic. If one is quoting Conquest about Stalinism or the Stalinism era, it is not enough; it needs to be about excess deaths or mass killings in the broad context of Communist states. Problem is, very few, if any at all, do that. They do not discuss all Communist states as we do. If we cannot find such secondary sources to establish weight (e.g. Hicks and Watson, who are neither experts of genocide or historians of Communism), they are undue.

I understand that this can be a pain in the ass because one actually has to do research, read all the relevant books on the topic, distinguish between majority and minority, read reviews and secondary sources about them to establish what they actually say rather than our own POV and due weight. We are all guilty of boldly adding primary sources in that sense, but it is fine so that someone else who has more time and resources can do that for us and replace content with secondary sources. But our policies and guidelines are clear; we should report what secondary sources say about Conquest et al. when we are citing what they say and their views. This article even misrepresents scholars from the "orthodox" or "anti-communist" historiography POV, as Conquest does not support this alleged link and he mainly studied Stalin's Soviet Union. Even The Black Book of Communism, if one actually reads the review rather than make their own analysis, they find it does not support this topic (at best, only the intro does, and it is controversial and "historically revisionist" in equating Communism and Nazism); The Black Book of Communism is not "about communism as an ideology or even about communism as a state-building phenomenon." (Andrzej Paczkowski) For the umpteenth time, Valentino does not support Mass killings under communist regimes but Communist mass killing, which is a different thing, and clearly says that "Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing." (Valentino is an original research and synthesis violation, and contradicts the whole lead) Rummel is about totalitarian governments in general and democide, another topic.

If we follow this, you will see that, once the main topic is established, very few reliable, academic secondary sources are to be found that link all Communist states together as we do ("Mass killings under Communist regimes"). What we do have are actually secondary academic sources that supports the fact this article is original research and synthesis. Per Klas-Göran Karlsson and Michael Schoenhals, discussion of the number of victims of Communism, an more appropriate topic (except it is not a mainstream view among scholars and it is mainly associated with the European Union and Eastern European double genocide theory, and this would be clarified in the lead) has been "extremely extensive and ideologically biased." Per Anton Weiss-Wendt, "[t]here is barely any other field of study that enjoys so little consensus on defining principles such as definition of genocide, typology, application of a comparative method, and timeframe." Yet we are acting like there is consensus on this and selctively, cherry pick those who seem to support it and misrepresent others. So why do we base a whole article on this? Where we use any source that use any of that terminology to mean the same thing, as if they support this article? See "[w]hether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss", and criticism of "the idea to connect the deaths with some 'generic Communism' concept, defined down to the common denominator of party movements founded by intellectuals" and the "alleged connection between the events in Pol Pot's Cambodia and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union are far from evident and that Pol Pot's study of Marxism in Paris is insufficient for connecting radical Soviet industrialism and the Khmer Rouge's murderous anti-urbanism under the same category" (to paraphrase).

Those are not my opinions but of genocide scholars and historians of Communism, which are the only ones we should be using for this article. Problem is there is no consensus not only among them outside but even among them themselves in their respective fields. Those who disagree should actually engage us rather than dismiss and perpetuate their echo-chamber. TLDR, after reaching consensus on the main topic (if there is not a clear consensus on it, what are we even talking about and have this article for?), can you provide secondary sources for "he said, she said" to establish weight and whether they are due? Are there any academic Communist Genocide or Communist Mass Killings books, rather than just chapters about selective events under Communist regimes (which are then originally researched and synthesized to lump them all together as we still do)?

P.S. If Crimes against humanity under communist regimes and Mass killings under communist regimes are two separated main topics supported by reliable academic secondary sources and do not violate any of our policies and guidelines, they should be first mentioned or discussed at either Crimes against humanity, Genocide, and Mass killing. They are not, because they are likely content forks and do not warrant two separate main articles, and books about them do not discuss them all together as we do, implying a sort of link or common denominator, but only singular events and they do not just compare them to other events under Communist regimes (this is also why we do not have, and should not have, articles about genocide and mass killings under capitalist, Christians, fascist, Muslim, etc. regimes. All those can and must be discussed in the relevant articles (Genocide, History of genocide, and the like), not create more than one POV fork article to imply a sort of link which is not supported by reliable sources or scholarly consensus. See also my still current "Analysis of sources and main topic", which has never been really refuted or properly analyzed. Davide King (talk) 03:28, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Do you think you can condense this down to a few, specific questions? This is not a subject I'm very familiar with, and having specific points to look into would be helpful to me in formulating a response. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:20, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

MjolnirPants, first of all, thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, summarization is not my strength and I needed to summarize the last two to three archives for the previous discussions we had. The Four Deuces, could you please summarize my points, since you are very good at that and you can also summarize the many discussion we took part in the last two to three archives? By the way, I think my revised and expanded lead clarified many points and fixed some issues. Now we need to move it to something like Excess deaths under Communist states and Excess mortality under Communist states because, as we way, there is no consensus on the terminology, scholars actually disagree (see Valentino stating that most Communist states did not engage in mass killings), and excess deaths and mass mortality are more accurate and neutral, descriptive terms. Then we need to capitalize instances of communism when they are clearly referring to Communist states, both because many sources do that and treat it as a proper noun, and to clarify that those were not actual communist societies but rather constitutional socialist states, commonly known in the West as Communist states, with a ruling Communist party, usually following the ideology of Marxism–Leninism or a variant. Finally, we need to fix the body by using secondary reliable sources, preferably academic, and remove undue opinions by non-experts. Davide King (talk) 18:46, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I did try a TLDR, though seriously one needs to read it all once, please.

After reaching consensus on the main topic (if there is not a clear consensus on it, what are we even talking about and have this article for?), can you provide secondary sources for "he said, she said" to establish weight and whether they are due? Are there any academic Communist Genocide or Communist Mass Killings books, rather than just chapters about selective events under Communist regimes (which are then originally researched and synthesized to lump them all together as we still do)? See also my "Analysis of sources and main topic" for why most of sources given in response are problematic or even misrepresented.

Was this not helpful enough? Davide King (talk) 18:51, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

An example of how this article should be restrutured is Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism, which actually has a proper scholarly literature. There is no scholarly literature that lumps all Communist states together and attributes them all as 'mass killing.' Valentino, who has been misrepresented to support this article, clearly stated that most Communist states did not engage in mass killings. There have been authors who have engaged in body counting (Courtois), who have spoken of a victims of communist narrative (Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation), or equated Communism with Nazism (double genocide) but they are revisionists and are not the mainstream or majority view in scholarship (the article's body and the previous lead all treated this as fact or as if there was some scholarly consensus); there is no scholarly literature the way we treat the article (I have shown that scholars actually disagree on lumping all Communist states together as did by Courtois), which is why the body is still synthesis and gives selective, undue weight to non-experts. Davide King (talk) 21:43, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

• In following this discussion for a few years now, I've distilled that there are two working theories about what the main topic should be. The first is that the main topic is the actual mass killings under communist regimes - in other words, names, dates, numbers, and the like - briefly the events. The second is that the main topic is the theory of "mass killings under communist regimes" - the scholarship of the names, dates, numbers, and the like - briefly, the narrative. Judging by the recent reworking of the lead by Davide King, and by our previous discussion, he seems to take the position that the narrative is the primary topic. Indeed, if that is the position, then his new lead is ideal.

However, that is not the position I take, nor has it been the position of the majority of editors who have contributed to this talk page discussion. As such, I propose restoring the lead to the way it was prior to 8/8. My rationale is unchanged from when this kind of lead was proposed in December of 2020. And, for the record, most editors involved in the discussion opposed the sort of lead Davide King has written. Now, I grant that the !votes in December 2020 were on a different lead, but the problems there are the same as the problems here. The thrust of the lead does not match the thrust of the article. The topic of this article is not that "Various authors have written about the events of 20th-century communist states." Further, the use of "some authors" verses "several authors" in paragraph 1 of the new lead is not neutral. Neither is the present undue weight to criticism of the narrative without there being a section on criticism of the narrative in the body of the article itself. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, the new lead fails to sufficiently introduce section 4, which is the backbone of the entire article.

Further, I oppose, on principal, any change to the lead without making prerequisite changes to the body. Changing the lede without reworking the article creates a disconnect. We have a dedicated sandbox, which has been unused since 2018, and it should be utilized to create a new body, then to create a lead that matches it - this new one does not.

I close with a paraphrase of what I wrote in December 2020: "The lead, as it stood, is neutral and a good summary of the article, albeit a short one. It is not factually inaccurate or violate our NPOV guidelines, and is a closer fit with MOS:LEAD than the new one. schetm (talk) 22:39, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

"The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents." The previous lead did not check this. It made no mention of criticism and memories studies, and acted like there is a consensus on terminology or on lumping Communist states together. It can be further improved but it is an improvement from the previous one, and of course the body must be worked too. Again, I take the quotes I provided to hold much more weight than the opinion of a Wikipedian user, no matter who or how many. They are not my opinion, unlike yours, but the summary of scholarly consensus, or in this case its lack thereof. Also Wikipedia is not about votes, and I always expressed the belief that one or more expert admins should actually analyze given sources, and clarify whose side's reading is correct. Because it all boil downs to "per sources" and "they do not actually support that." This article should actually be about the history of genocides and mass killings by given regimes, many of which have been described or categorized as 'totalitarian.' As I wrote in the RfC above, there is no scholarly literature the way we structure this article but there is plenty of literature about totalitarian regimes and genocide/mass killings, see Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide, Resisting Genocide: The Multiple Forms of Rescue, and Final Solutions. Neither of those works limit themselves to Communist regimes, so why should we, too? Another article, focused on Communist states and about death tolls and the victims of Communism narrative, can be written based on my lead. So this article should actually be expanded to be a history of genocides and mass killings, not limited to Communist states... because... guess what... that is what sources actually do; they do not limit themselves to Communist states and do not just make comparative analysis between Communist states but between wildly different regimes. Davide King (talk) 22:50, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I think the new lead strays a little to much away from an NPOV. Given the breath and depth of sourcing for this article starting with the definition of MOS:WEASEL is probably not great. Going on to try and cast doubt on if it happened and to what extent is also out of line with what the article talks about. Judging by the RFC just above I think you should revert your changes to the lead and try to get consensus for your changes. PackMecEng (talk) 00:10, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

I think the IP succinctly explained the problem, issue, and difference, except that scholars do not actually agree that "Mass killings took place in some/many communist states." (see Valentino). What they and we can all agree is that tragedies and awful events happened which have resulted in the deaths of many people. I think a solution to salvage this article and avoid any issue of original research and synthesis is to make it about the history of genocides and mass killings. Because most scholars do not find a link between capitalism, communism, or whatever and genocide and mass killings; the only exception may be fascism, and in that case mainly Nazism. There is no serious valid reason to refuse this, other than political bias, because scholars discuss wildly different regimes together; they do not discuss all Communist regimes together, only some of them, and they may compare them not to other Communist regimes, but to other regimes in general, such as Nazi Germany (in the case of the Cambodian genocide). Another article about the Communist death toll can be created to support the proposition B summarized by the IP. That is the only solution. We already have singular articles about each event and tragedies; there is no need to engage in original research and synthesis by positing there is a link with "Communism." Sources do not treat it as a separate subject. Davide King (talk) 02:20, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah but that is all just incorrect. Please see my previous comment that addresses the policy based issues with the lead change you made. Again please self revert pending consensus. PackMecEng (talk) 02:34, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

"Yeah but that is all just incorrect."

Per Anton Weiss-Wendt, "[t]here is barely any other field of study that enjoys so little consensus on defining principles such as definition of genocide, typology, application of a comparative method, and timeframe." Per Klas-Göran Karlsson and Michael Schoenhals, discussion of the number of victims of Communism has been "extremely extensive and ideologically biased."

Per Benjamin Valentino, "Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing." Per Jens Mecklenburg and Wolfgang Wippermannm, "[w]hether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss."

Per Michael David-Fox, the idea to connect the deaths with some 'generic Communism' concept, defined down to the common denominator of party movements founded by intellectuals and the alleged connection between the events in Pol Pot's Cambodia and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union are far from evident and that Pol Pot's study of Marxism in Paris is insufficient for connecting radical Soviet industrialism and the Khmer Rouge's murderous anti-urbanism under the same category (to paraphrase).

Per Andrzej Paczkowski, only Courtois made the comparison between Communism and Nazism, while the other sections of the book "are, in effect, narrowly focused monographs, which do not pretend to offer overarching explanations." While a good question [comparison between Communism and Nazism], it is hardly new and inappropriate because The Black Book of Communism is not "about communism as an ideology or even about communism as a state-building phenomenon."

But sure, my analysis must be "all just incorrect." Davide King (talk) 03:05, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

You didn't respond to any of the issues I raised or sources I provided. You have now reverted my lead, even though I would have been curious about what others users had to say. Can you provide a source for "There were many mass killings under communist regimes of the 20th century" rather than "Awful things and tragedies did indeed happen and many people have lost their lives" (which we all agree with)? That statement is contradicted by Valentino and other scholars, per sources I have provided. Davide King (talk) 11:46, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Even The Black Book of Communism doesn't really discuss mass killings other than passing mentions and very specific events, most of which happened in Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, and Pol Pot's Cambodia. We can make this article about a scholarly comparative analysis between those three regimes, but the title is misleading because most Communist states didn't engage in mass killings. Davide King (talk) 11:49, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

This has been discussed numerous times over the life of this article. With no new arguments or new information there is no reason to go against previous consensus. It is well documented that the majority of major communist states did, in fact, engage in mass killings of their own citizens. That is not really up for debate. If you think that another article should be created documenting your personal point of view you are free to do so. This article however is not for that. PackMecEng (talk) 12:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Claiming "consensus" or saying that this "has been discussed numerous times over the life of this article" doesn't mean anything, if sources don't support it. It is well documented that the majority of major communist states did, in fact, engage in mass killings of their own citizens." Again, Benjamin Valentino disagrees. "That is not really up for debate." No, what's really not up for debate is that tragedies and awful events happened, which have resulted in the deaths of many people. What is debatable is whether all these events can be categorized as mass killings and whether Communism was the link. Again, I provided sources that reject this article and the lumping all Communist states. All you have is your personal opinion. I have provided over ten sources, you have provided none. Davide King (talk) 14:14, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

I've been away for a week and at the risk of re-starting a thread that seems to have died: No, Davide King, Benjamin Valentino does not agree. Valentino is talking specifically about his own definition of mass killing (50,000 killed within 5 years or less) when he says "Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing. In addition to shedding light on why some communist states have been among the most violent regimes in history, therefore, I also seek to explain why other communist countries have avoided this level of violence." It is important to understand that mass killing in English is also a generic term for large-scale killing, and Valentino does acknowledge that mass killing in this generic sense did occur in other communist states that he chooses not to focus on ("Communist regimes have been responsible for this century's most deadly episodes of mass killing. Estimates of the total number of people killed by communist regimes range as high as 110 million. In this chapter I focus primarily on mass killings in the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia - history's most murderous communist states. Communist violence in these three states alone may account for between 21 million and 70 million deaths. Mass killings on a smaller scale also appear to have been carried out by communist regimes in North Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, and Africa."). AmateurEditor (talk) 02:49, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, I would like to say I appreciate your work and for taking our concerns seriously, even if we disagree. As you said, we discussed this many times, so I hope Paul Siebert can more specifically answer, if they did not do this already; but Valentino's interpretation needs to be sourced to secondary sources; we need a secondary source that explicitily support what you summarized. I still think the title is one of the issues because it implies a link that is not supported by scholarly sources; it would be the same thing like Mass killings under capitalist, fascism, Muslim, etc. regimes, as if ideology alone was the sole culprit, which is not the case according to genocide scholars, including Valentino. Excess deaths, excess mortality, or mass deaths would be more neutral and accurate terms, especially because mass killing is problematic due to not having clear, or using different, criteria, and scholars themselves disagreeing on terminology. Davide King (talk) 06:52, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I think this is an issue of primary source because one can cherry pick quotes; however, secondary sources do not support Valentino as a proponent of mass killings under Communist regimes but rather as a proponent of Communist mass killing, which is a different thing, a subcategory of dispossessive mass killing vis-a-vis coercive mass killing. I believe this is also what Paul Siebert said to such objections. Davide King (talk) 11:38, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, Davide King, but I'm not going to be able to read this entire thread, previous threads and familiarize myself with the sources in time to provide any meaningful commentary. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:26, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

  This really sucks and is a serious problem. The article should have been deleted with the first AfD (K) 22–27 (D) due to being created by an indefinitely banned user. Because it was kept, despite three consecutive no consensus results (if there is no consensus to keep, the solution is not to keep it; the onus is on those to make the positive charge of keep to gain consensus to keep the article in the first place), which gave strength to those who were fine with the article and had no incentive in fixing the problems. Keeping the article in that AfD just give more strength to those in favor of Keep because, by the mere fact the article exists, it is assumed there is no original research and synthesis violations to warrant deletion, or anything other than the article's structure as it has existed for so long. Can you at least check the sources that I cited? Davide King (talk) 03:30, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

  Davide King, you write "if there is no consensus to keep, the solution is not to keep it" — that is a fundamental misunderstanding of how AfD works. In AfD, the proposed question is whether or not an article should be deleted. If there is a no consensus close, then there is simply no consensus to delete, per WP:NOCON. And, as to the trope that this was G5 eligible, by the time the creator was identified as a sock there were substantial edits made by other users, making it explicitly not eligible for speedy deletion. I also find it interesting that you brought up the vote total of the first AfD when you yourself said to me just yesterday that "Wikipedia is not about votes." I would challenge you (as I have others) to put the thing up for deletion if you think it should be deleted. Heck, if it gets deleted, you'd be saving everyone a lot of time! I'd do it myself, while paradoxically !voting keep, but that would likely be a WP:POINT violation.

I do want to address an earlier point you made. You wrote, in response to me, "Another article, focused on Communist states and about death tolls and the victims of Communism narrative, can be written based on my lead." Dude, we already have that article, and it's this one! Write your own article if you want an expanded look at totalitarianism and mass killings. And, if you don't like this article, put it up for deletion. But what you propose is deletion by stealth, and there is, thus far, no consensus for you to do that. I echo the call for you to self revert. schetm (talk) 07:00, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

That is a problem of consensus itself, which is misinterpreted, as was also reflected by Paul Siebert here and here but that is beside the point; the damage has already been done. "I also find it interesting that you brought up the vote total of the first AfD when you yourself said to me just yesterday that 'Wikipedia is not about votes.'" I brought it up because even by that standard, there are problems; you also ignored that I specified that the arguments were largely the same. It is unclear why there was a double standard in the AfDs. By the way, considering the controversy, it would not have been a bad idea to delete the article while improvements to the articles could have been done in a draft and/or sandbox, and then reach consensus on whether the improvements are now enough to warrant the article.

You call that "deletion by stealth", I call that writing a proper article that does not violate any policy and that actually follows the scholarly literature. I propose this article to be about the history and analysis of genocide and mass killings (an actual topic and literature), rather than writing a new one myself, simply because it already includes Communist states; we just need to add other types of regimes discusses, dude! Either way, you are deflecting and have not properly responded to any of the issues I raised. Why should we not follow actual sources, such as Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide, Resisting Genocide: The Multiple Forms of Rescue, and Final Solutions? They do not limit themselves to Communist states, so why should we do the same and imply mass killings are only something Communist states do or did? Why does only Communist regimes, of all regimes under which many people have lost their lives, warrant an article of its own rather than a large section about my proposed-expanded article?

Even though actual, scholarly sources do not limit to them. Valentino and other scholars clearly disprove the theory that mass killings took place in some/many communist states; they agree on the tragic events and that many people died but they do not describe them as mass killings, and Valentino say that most Communist states did not engage in mass killings. Who holds more weight? You, or what those scholars actually say? So the topics supported by sources are:

Proposition A: Many tragic events happened under Communist states and many, many people lost their lives. Many tragic events also happened under wildly different regimes and many, many people lost their lives. Why is that? And what can we learn from them to avoid happening it in the future?

Proposition B: These events are connected to each other, and/or to the ideology of communism, through the victims of communism narrative, and several authors have engaged in estimates of death tolls. It is a controversial theory, it has been compared to the double genocide theory, many estimates have been criticized, and is not supported by most scholars but it is relevant and notable.

Finally, can you, any of you, answer to this?

After reaching consensus on the main topic [we disagree, as summarized by the IP below, you are for A, I am for B, and I am also for A if it is about analysis of genocide and mass killings in general, not limited to Communist states], can you provide secondary sources for "he said, she said" to establish weight and whether they are due? [I am referring mainly at the Proposed causes section, where we are like "he said, she said" but rather than use secondary sources that analyze what they actually say, we cite the authors themselves]

Are there any academic Communist Genocide or Communist Mass Killings books [which actually support that mass killings took place in some/many communist states as scholarly consensus rather than a few authors' view], rather than just chapters about selective events under Communist regimes [I have shown that there is no consensus among scholars, who disagree in lumping all Communist states together as if they are a monolithic block, that they disagree about describing the events as mass killings, that only a few events, such as the Cambodian genocide, are commonly described in scholarly literature as genocide, and there is no consensus on the terminology; many of this, we already say it in the body. If the main topic is not about mass killings but excess deaths and mortality, that is a different thing and would still require a rewrite]. Be my guest. Davide King (talk) 08:03, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

"They do not limit themselves to Communist states, so why should we do the same" — we shouldn't, but this article is about mass killings under communist regimes. This article is not about mass killings under totalitarian regimes. To push that point is to deny the clear consensus in the RFC above. I think that sums up my criticism of the IP's Prop A well. As to Prop B, I'd need sourcing that specifically says it "is not supported by most scholars". The existence of sources that criticize the theory is not evidence of that particular point, and a SYNTH violation is committed by adding up sources on either side and coming to that conclusion. schetm (talk) 15:04, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

As I expected, you keep deflecting and didn't answer most of points I raised, including sources. As noted by The Four Deuces below, and as stated by Valentino, most Communist states didn't engage in mass killings, so the only fact is that many peoples have died under Communist states and those were tragic events; this is the fact. What is not a fact is that all those events were either a genocide or mass killings because scholars are still debating them, and most Communist states did not engage in either genocide or mass killing. Communists in Nepal democratically shared the power with Social Democrats and others. The whole mass killing category has definitional problems because it may mean any deaths over 5 and anything over 50,000. This is why scholars don't describe those events as mass killing, and this is where original research come in. Valentino says that ideology doesn't explain genocide or mass killing.

"... but this article is about mass killings under communist regimes." It shouldn't be because this is synthesis per above ("Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing"), and because it implies Communism, rather than any other factor, was the main cause. Again, scholars and sources do not treat it it as a separate subject (Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide, Resisting Genocide: The Multiple Forms of Rescue, and Final Solutions). It shouldn't be about totalitarian regimes either because it would be committing the same synthesis by claiming that totalitarianism is the cause of genocide and mass killing, when that is not supported by scholars, is not even what sources say, and totalitarianism is also a debated concept among scholars.

The only solution is to make this article about an history and analysis of genocide and mass killing, including Communist regimes and many others wildly different regimes. You are the one supporting the article as it is, so the onus is on you; I have yet to see any source that says the article as it currently is reflects sources and "is ... supported by most scholars." You are the one who is making positive claims, and any positive claim I have actually made was backed up by sources, which you ignored.

"To push that point is to deny the clear consensus in the RFC above." That is to be established by the closer, and you may have the numbers, but they shouldn't matter; I believe the other side gave the strongest argument, while you keep reducing yourself to "per source" arguments, when they don't actually support what they claim to do. Davide King (talk) 09:24, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

A compromise solution is to make this article about what TFD described. "Some writers have connected mass killings in Stalin's USSR, Mao's China and Pol Pot's Cambodia. The thinking is that Stalin influenced Mao, who influenced Pol Pot. In all cases, mass killings were carried out as part of a policy of rapid industrialization." After all, those are the three states where most things happened, and as noted by Valentino most Communist regimes didn't engage in mass killing, and democratic Communists in the post-war period, or democratic Nepal, didn't engage in genocide or mass killing. Davide King (talk) 11:51, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Davide King, if you look at the definitions of the other terms in the terminology section, and the excerpts supporting them, all of them use the generic mass killing explicitly in their definitions (or some equivalent phrase like "large-scale killing" or "mass murder"). Valentino's non-generic definition of mass killing should not be confused with the generic term. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:07, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

But do they specifically discuss Communist states or are they talking in general? Why not turn this article into a scholarly analysis of genocide and mass killing, which would include Communist states and many other and wildly different regimes? An article more focused on Communism (the narrative, excess deaths and mortality, and only scholarly estimates) can be created but this one, since it already discuss Communist regimes, it can be expanded to support my Proposition A (Many tragic events happened under Communist states and many, many people lost their lives. Many tragic events also happened under wildly different regimes and many, many people lost their lives. Why is that? And what can we learn from them to avoid happening it in the future?), which is what genocide scholars actually do. Davide King (talk) 06:46, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

The sources cited for those terms have specifically applied them to communist states. Please read the excerpts cited in that section if you don't want to take my word for it. That's why the excerpts are there. There is plenty of room in Wikipedia for this article as well as other more general articles. Those things aren't mutually exclusive. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:27, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

The terminology section provides a range of definitions from one death per year to 50,000 over five years, caused by any government action, deliberate or accidental. Some editors say lets use that definition and enumerate every case in Communist countries. But WP:SYN says, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." Per policy, we need a defined topic that includes events that reliable sources place within the topic. This article would be an embarrassment to the World Anti-Communist League. But note that the sanctions for this article aren't even about ideology, they're about an ethic-nationalist dispute between Russia and Eastern European states in the Baltics, Poland and Ukraine. Somehow Pol Pot's massacres in Kampuchea have relevance to the Russian annexation of Crimea. TFD (talk) 02:34, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

You said: "Some editors say lets use that definition and enumerate every case in Communist countries". No, editors do not say that and the article does not do that. The article title/topic does not refer to that specific definition, it refers to generic "mass killing" as it is used in just about every source cited in the article. "Generic "mass killing" is most appropriate because it is generic. Please see the excerpts. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:27, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

So you are saying that as long as a source uses the expression mass killing we can put it in even if the sources define mass killings differently. To add to the confusion, we are assuming that other expressions be considered to be synonyms. TFD (talk) 04:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Possible summary

I hope it's ok for a non-wikipedian to comment here. I read the article and came here to post about it, then I saw the thread above. I'm thinking that my post could perhaps serve as a summary of the same issues detailed above, since it seems that a summary is needed.

Anyway, here is what I wanted to say. Consider the following two propositions:

Proposition A: Mass killings took place in some/many communist states.

Proposition B: These mass killings are connected to each other, and/or to the ideology of communism.

Proposition A is a fact. Proposition B is an opinion shared by some historians. The problem with this article is that it conflates A and B as if they were the same thing, and implies that everyone who agrees with A also agrees with B. That is not true.

As far as I can tell, the discussion above is basically about this, and about whether the article should be about A or B or both. Right now it seems to be about both, but without distinguishing them (in other words, it does not explain that "mass killings took place" and "all these mass killings are connected and happened for the same reasons" are two different ideas with very different levels of academic support; one is simply a fact, the other is a highly controversial opinion). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1009:b029:2a63:d2c6:63f4:9b4:635c (talk • contribs) 01:50, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

That is a very good and fairly accurate summary. The only problem is that scholars do not actually agree that "Mass killings took place in some/many communist states." (see Valentino), which makes this article remaining as it is even worse, because it clearly does not reflect what scholarly sources say and even misrepresent them. Like us, they only agree that awful things and tragedies did indeed happen and many people have lost their lives. Instead, Proposition B is a perfect summary. What I propose is to have a single article about history of genocide and mass killings, where we discuss the views of scholars of why they happened, what can we do to avoid them happening again, etc. but without using any single label or category, whether capitalism, Communism, totalitarian, etc.

Because by using a label or category, we are indirectly implying that is the link why they happened, which is not what scholarly sources say. Even totalitarianism is not a full-agreed concept among scholars and there is no consensus that totalitarianism is the sole reason why such events and tragedies happened. Indeed, Valentino actually says that ideology alone, or even ideology in general, does not fully explain why genocide and mass killings happened.

To sign your comment, use ~~~~ Davide King (talk) 02:28, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

MjolnirPants, as I stated above, this a good summary by the IP. I hope it can help you, so that you can make your contribute. Davide King (talk) 03:54, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

A would be synthesis. It would be like mass killings in English speaking countries. Some connection between speaking English and mass killing would have to be made. There are I think two versions of B: (i) Some writers have connected mass killings in Stalin's USSR, Mao's China and Pol Pot's Cambodia. The thinking is that Stalin influenced Mao, who influenced Pol Pot. In all cases, mass killings were carried out as part of a policy of rapid industrialization. (ii) The other version is that mass killings were dictated in otherwise forgotten works of Karl Marx. Under this view, COVID-19 can be seen as the latest attempt by the Communists to wipe out the world population. Anyone who argues for A probably believes B (ii). TFD (talk) 14:20, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, this is correct. "Some writers have connected mass killings in Stalin's USSR, Mao's China and Pol Pot's Cambodia. The thinking is that Stalin influenced Mao, who influenced Pol Pot. In all cases, mass killings were carried out as part of a policy of rapid industrialization." Is this not exactly what Crimes against humanity under communist regimes. Research review? Can you summarize what this source is arguing? My understanding is that it is B (i). Davide King (talk) 10:22, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it is arguing anything, since it is a review study summarizing what others have argued. It does however confirm what I said. The "geographical scope" is the USSR, China and Cambodia. The reason for the mass killings was rapid industrialization: "what marked the beginning of the unbalanced Russian modernisation process that was to have such terrible consequences?" It mentions that some writers see the origins of mass killings in Marx's writings. Unfortunately, there is very little literature that compares mass killings under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot and the literature that does exist mostly enumerates mass killings rather than explain their ideological reasons. TFD (talk) 14:02, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, I agree, especially that the reason was not necessarily ideology but rapid industrialization. Do you agree, then, that this source may be used for B (ii)? We could use it to summarize what they have argued within the narrative of Victims of Communism article. The problem of this article is that it uses too many primary sources (perhaps because secondary sources that support don't actually exists...), especially for the Proposed causes section about "he said, she said." Rather than using a secondary or tertiary source like this one, they use a primary source of the authors themselves. When you cite the author to say what the author say, it's a use of a primary source, right? Davide King (talk) 14:20, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

If you use a source for the opinion of its author, it is a primary source. While allowed, I would avoid this because it requires us to interpret the passage and determine its degree of acceptance. The only exception would be direct quotes that had been reported in secondary sources. So for example in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is useful to cite the text of the amendment. TFD (talk) 16:59, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, so are those tags accurate? I just tagged the obvious one, but essentially the whole body is like this, with just a few exceptions. Davide King (talk) 23:49, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Davide King, those are not primary sources. See WP:PRIMARY, which says "Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on." ... "A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources." ... "Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize primary and secondary sources. Wikipedia is considered to be a tertiary source.[h] Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources." A primary source for this article would be something like original documents from the USSR with lists of people to be executed without trial. The sources used in this article use in-sentence attribution because we are trying to follow WP:RS/AC, which says "A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view. Otherwise, individual opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources." AmateurEditor (talk) 03:20, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

They are primary sources in the sense that any interpretation requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation, as we do for Rummel with Jacobs and Totten. Either way, we should not be citing the authors themselves to say what they think; we need secondary sources; if we cannot find secondary sources, and they need to be specifically about the topic and not passing mentions, it means they are undue. For example, we should not be citing Conquest for In the 2007 revision of his book The Great Terror, Robert Conquest estimates that while exact numbers will never be certain, the communist leaders of the Soviet Union were responsible for no fewer than 15 million deaths. We could be citing Wheatcroft, Stephen G. (1999), who says The arguments about excess mortality are far more complex than normally believed. R. Conquest, The Great Terror: A Re-assessment (London, 1992) does not really get to grips with the new data and continues to present an exaggerated picture of the repression. The view of the 'revisionists' has been largely substantiated (J. Arch Getty & R. T. Manning (eds), Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives (Cambridge, 1993)). The popular press, even TLS and The Independent, have contained erroneous journalistic articles that should not be cited in respectable academic articles. Too bad he is writing about "victims of Stalinism", which are "a matter of political judgement" (Ellman 2002), and like Conquest, they did not write about mass killing or lumped all Communist states together as we do, but that at least would be a secondary source for what Conquest said. See? Davide King (talk) 06:36, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Davide King, these are not primary sources for the topic of mass killings under communist regimes. I linked you to the policy/guideline pages and quoted directly from them: we are supposed to identify the various opinions as the opinions of the particular authors, per WP:RS/AC. Finding a source that criticizes another source means you include both, it doesn't mean that one cancels out the other. Redefining the secondary sources as primary sources and then arguing that we need "secondary sources" for the analyses is nonsense. If you read what I posted before (and bolded for you), analysis and opinion is one of the characteristics of a secondary source. Primary sources are documents of the base facts and secondary sources are authors' "analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts", which is what we have here. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Original interpretations or opinions are primary sources. Secondary sources report those opinions. As a tertiary source, Wikipedia articles must rely primarily on secondary sources. What confuses some editors is that the same source may contain all three types of source at one time. It would be helpful if we had secondary sources that compared and contrasted various studies on mass killings under communist regimes. Unfortunately none exist since there is no reliable literature about the topic of this article. Instead this article combines material to create a novel synthesis. TFD (talk) 03:25, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

You say "Original interpretations or opinions are primary sources." No, they aren't. Original interpretations or opinions about the facts are what secondary sources do. See WP:PRIMARY, which says "Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on." ... "A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources." AmateurEditor (talk) 03:36, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

As I said, some source may contain all three types of sources at one time. If it expresses a novel theory about the information it analyzes, it becomes a primary source for that theory. A biographer of Caesar for example will use all available sources to write about his life, which is a secondary source. But when he starts talking about his own theories, it becomes a primary source for those theories. Note that we attach the description reliable to secondary sources. Reliability relates to facts, i.e., the facts established by the author. But opinions are not facts and we don't require reliable secondary sources for them, since opinions expressed are primary sources. Alex Jones' website for example is just as reliable a source for what he says as is a peer-reviewed article for what its author says. The difference is that one is a reliable secondary source for the facts while the other is not. I guess the confusion is that secondary sources analyze primary sources to determine facts, but they also use those facts to determine opinions. Facts and oipnions are different things. While our main concern about facts is their accuracy, our main concern about opinions is their degree of acceptance. TFD (talk) 04:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I will give you an example. There are no reliable primary sources for the life of Caesar and no primary sources that say he was assassinated in 44 B.C., since that dating system had not been developed. It requires "evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources" to determine that date. TFD (talk) 04:53, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I cannot actively participate in this discussion right now, but, Since David pinged me, let me explain my position again.

Surely, mass deaths took place in the countries ruled by Communist regimes, and that is an objective fact. This fact is undeniable, but the interpretation provided in this article is one-sided and distorted. As an example, let's take a look at and the main mass mortality event the Great Chinese famine. This event alone is responsible for about 50% of what is called by some authors "Communist death toll". Therefore, if this event, along with other mass mortality events is a topic of this article, the Great Chinese famine is expected to be described as "Communist mass killing", "democide", "politicide" or other "-cide" in majority of sources writing about it. However, if that is not the case, then by using this terminology we are leaving a significant amount of sources beyond the scope. In other words, if the search phrase great chinese famine and "mass killing" great chinese famine yields the same sources, the topic was defined correctly. However, if these two search produce totally different sets of sources, then the topic was defined incorrectly. As you can see, the first scenario takes place: by using "mass killing" or "democide" or other "-cides" during a search, we artificially narrow the range of sources telling about "Great Chinese famine". Thus O'Grada, a renown famine expert, never uses the term "mass killing" in his article about the Great Chinese famine. Therefore, is we use, for example, Valentino, to define a topic and then add the O'Grada article to provide additional information, we thereby imply that O'Grada shares Valentino's views, although there is no evidences that that is the case. In other words, by doing that, we are engaged in original research, which is not allowed per our policy.

If we take a look at the whole body of sources telling about mass mortality events in Communist states, we will see that few of them (e.g. Cambodian genocide) are universally seen as genocide, whereas others are described otherwise. Only few sources describe all mass mortality events in Communist states as genocide or politicide or mass killing etc. Moreover, even genocide scholars themselves, such as Harff, do not consider the most deadly events such as Great Chinese famine as mass killing a.k.a demo/politicide (it is not listed in the mass killing database). That means the article is dramatically non-neutral, and it is a piece of original research. The article must be totally rewritten, and it must tell about theories by Valentino or few other scholars, and about claims made by some authors, such as Courtois, and explain who support them (they do have a significant support), and who cricitise them (there is a lot of criticism). And, the description of the events themselves must be removed from this article, because it is written from the the point of view of the scholars who share the "mass killing" concept and ignores the views of majority of authors.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:45, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, this, this, this. Why can't such defenders of the article understand this? The fact Crimes against humanity, Genocide, and Mass killing do not really discuss Communist states as a monolithic, if they do at all, apart a few cases, is proof that Crimes against humanity under communist regimes and Mass killings under communist regimes, apart from being original research and synthesis per reasons outlined by Siebert, are content POV forks. Of course, Wikipedia is not a reliable source in itself and there is WP:OTHER, but assuming good faith, if Communist states are such notable cases of crimes against humanity, genocide, and mass killing, surely they would be at least discussed in such articles in the first place? I noticed only now but the fact there is an actual database of mass killing, operated by a respected genocide scholar, who we misrepresent, among others, in this article, and it doesn't include mass killings by Communist states (apart the few exceptions also mentioned by Siebert, e.g. Cambodian genocide), it is an indictment against this own article and 'proof' that it is original research. It essentially contradicts the whole By state section, for any relevant scholar (not any author), who describes the event as something (in contrast to scholars who do not describe it as mass killing), it belongs to that article if a significant minority view, not here. The fact this article is admittedly based on minority views is the problem. When there is no consensus among genocide scholars and scholars of Communism, and among themselves in their own respective fields, original research, synthesis, and other serious policy and guidelines violations are only natural; they shouldn't be though, they are serious violations. Davide King (talk) 08:51, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I have boldly tagged the section for such reasoning. In short, this whole article, as currently structured, can only be supported if there is consensus among scholars (especially genocides scholars and scholars of Communism); if all we have are minority views, of which we give undue weight to authors and non-experts over scholars and specialists, this article as currently structured cannot exist, and needs to be rewritten per above. If that is the standard, similar articles about capitalist, Christian, colonial, fascist, Muslim, and the like can be easily created because there are similar minority views; of course, I hope this is not the standard because it would be original research and synthesis but then this article exists and seems to be the only one where our policies and guidelines do not apply. Davide King (talk) 12:05, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Davide King, please read WP:RS/AC. It does not support what you say about there needing to be a consensus among scholars. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:02, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, you should not be adding tags to the article that you do not have time to discuss on the talk page (the template usage notes state: "Drive-by tagging is strongly discouraged. The editor who adds the tag should discuss concerns on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies. In the absence of such a discussion, or where it remains unclear what the NPOV violation is, the tag may be removed by any editor."). Such tags were removed in the past because the discussion had ended, which is one of the triggers also in the "Learn how and when to remove these template messages" link in the template itself. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:12, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert has been editing this article long enough not to be considered a drive-by editor. This approaches a personal attack which is not conducive to our long term goal of producing a good article. TFD (talk) 03:27, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I didn't call Paul a drive-by editor. He stated "Unfortunately, I cannot actively participate in this discussion right now..." Adding tags that require active discussion on the talk page with no intention of discussing them afterward is called "drive-by tagging" in the template usage notes and it is inappropriate. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:33, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Manual of Style italics for terms

I think most of the italics recently added to terms in the article are incorrect, per MOS:WORDSASWORDS. We should only italicize mass killing, for example, if it is being referenced as a word/term, rather than being used normally. In other words, if you can insert "the term" in front of mass killing, genocide, etc. without it changing the meaning of the sentence, then mass killing, genocide, etc. should be italicized. If inserting "the term" changes the meaning of the sentence, then mass killing, genocide, etc. should not be italicized. For example, the sentence "Wheatcroft excludes all famine deaths as "purposive deaths" and claims those that do qualify fit more closely the category of execution rather than murder." has inappropriate use of italics, because inserting "the term" in front of "execution" and in front of "murder" changes the meaning of the sentence. The sentence is clearly using those terms in the normal way and not referring to the words as words. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:34, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I think I have fixed that specific case you mentioned; if you have other examples, let me know. Thank you. Davide King (talk) 12:20, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Davide King, the other examples are almost all of the italics you added since August 8th. Will you please go through the article and revise the use of italics to be in accordance with MOS:WORDSASWORDS? AmateurEditor (talk) 02:42, 18 August 2021 (UTC)