Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes

When is this article going to be unprotected?

I would like to edit, but it's protected. I read it but I still don't know why it's protected? Anyway, can I nominate this article for deletion? --Hinata talk 02:14, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Um -- there have been a lot of AfDs on this - not one of them succeeded, and sometimes beating a dead horse does not work. Cheers. Collect (talk) 04:10, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

If you are really intended to seriously work on this article, I can briefly explain you the story of its protection. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:24, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Wasn't this article not deleted because there were some sources that were supposed to be found and added to improve it? Which hasn't happened? Correct me if I'm wrong-- it's been awhile since I glanced at the discussions. AnieHall (talk) 08:47, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Be sure to include your own edits saying that only a few million people actually were killed, Paul. Cheers. Collect (talk) 08:50, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Of course, if we are talking about mass killings of the same kind as mass executions perpetrated by Nazi, yes, the amount of people killed under Communist regimes was few million: ca 3 million in Kampuchea (although the linkage to Communism is not obvious here for many authors), 1.5 million in the USSR (excluding Civil war deaths), Cultural revolution victims in China, and much smaller incidents in some other countries. You are perfectly aware of that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:15, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

AnieHall, the article was not deleted because mass killings did occur under Communist regimes, the topic is notable, and some reliable sources exist that discuss it. However, the fact that the article was not and should not be deleted does not mean an endorsement to the present text.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:15, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Well said. AmateurEditor (talk) 22:12, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Well I would like to know the story on why it got protected. Anyway, the article is Negative POV and should be rename to a lesser POV. --Hinata talk 03:24, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Paul, Yes mass killings have occurred under communist regimes, but scholarship generally focuses on authoritarianism v. democracy. Rain also has occurred in communist regimes, but that doesn't mean that communism itself is necessarily to blame for that rain, and accepted scholarship on the cause of the mass killings being communism is not extensive, and is questionable. And, I did not say in my previous comment that mass killings have not occurred under communist governments. And, 2 articles on mass killings under capitalist regimes have been deleted, despite the fact that deaths also have occurred in, or "under", capitalist states, so the fact that mass killings/deaths have occurred in in communist states does not mean, necessarily, that this article should exist.

Anyways, the previous article deletion results do say: "The result was keep. Although there are likely many areas where the article could use improvement, rough consensus is that the concerns brought up do not make grounds for deletion. However, further discussion on the article's future (including the name choice, sythesis identification, rewriting, and/or merging) is strongly encouraged on the article's talk page" -- and I question how much has been improved. I imagine, some of you veterans here could fill us in on that, too. AnieHall (talk) 05:37, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

So all we need to do is agree on the topic and name of the article, then re-write it. The only thing stopping us is that since it is protected, the protest of any one editor can veto any changes. Incidentally the decision "keep" was perverse, because all the other decisions were "no consensus". TFD (talk) 07:28, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Dear Hinata, the story of article's protection is as follows (I reproduce it from memory, so if someone believes I missed something, feel free to correct me). The article became a subject of the edit war between two groups of editors. The first group wanted to write the article based on such sources as the Black Book of Communism. This type sources tend to combine all population losses under Communists into a category of "Mass killings". In my opinion, the ultimate goal of those users is to convey the idea that Communism was more deadly then Nazism. Another group of users argued that most BB type sources are very controversial, that most single society studies describe those events quite differently, and therefore by devoting undue weight to the BB type sources is against our NPOV policy. As a result of the edit war (where some currently banned users participated on the side of "the BB party"), the article was placed under the edit restrictions described on the top of the talk page. The article had already been under those restrictions when some user added the statement from the introduction of the Black Book into the first sentence of the lede, which was against NPOV ("avoid presenting seriously contested assertions as facts"). The conflict around this statement lead to AE request, which lead to full and indefinite article's protection, and the newly added statement remains in the article because several users exist who block any attempt to remove it. That is a brief description of the conflict as I see it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:27, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone know how long the article has been locked? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:37, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Since 9th of November 2011.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:23, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Anti-communism pure and simple

While I'm not denying many of the facts here are true, this should not be treated as the German-led holocaust... This is a much more controversial topic... Secondly, why is North Korea even listed here?? It has removed all references to communism, Marxism, and Marxism-Leninism, and the official, and only guiding of the party, according to the 4th Conference of the Workers Party of Korea (held in 2012) is Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. --TIAYN (talk) 18:31, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Re Holocaust, not only you are right, we have numerous reliable sources that support this thesis.

Re North Korea, it is also correct. There is no mention of Communism in Korean official documents, and many authors agree that it drifts towards a purely Confucian society. I believe it is necessary to clarify in the article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:05, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

@TIAYN. It does not matter what Korean Workers Party tells. It only matters what reliable sources tell. My very best wishes (talk) 02:11, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

It does matter... Secondly, reliable sources call them fascists, xenophobic and extremely nationalistic.. --TIAYN (talk) 08:47, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

What "fascists, xenophobic and extremely nationalistic" are you talking about? This article is not about Nazi. My very best wishes (talk) 18:14, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

If credible analysts are describing North Korea as fascist, it is hardly appropriate to include the misdeeds of the NK state in "Mass killings under Communist regimes", self-evidently... AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:21, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Most sources still use "communist" -- the "fascist" is generally used in the common pejorative sense, it appears, and not due to any connection with historical fascism. One can find sources referring to the US as "fascist" but that does not make it a widely-held view. [1] os the NYT (RS) view. Collect (talk) 18:38, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Collect, have you read what Chrisopher Hitchens wrote regarding North Korea: [2]. 'The whole idea of communism is dead in North Korea, and its most recent "Constitution," "ratified" last April, has dropped all mention of the word. The analogies to Confucianism are glib, and such parallels with it as can be drawn are intended by the regime only for the consumption of outsiders. Myers makes a persuasive case that we should instead regard the Kim Jong-il system as a phenomenon of the very extreme and pathological right. It is based on totalitarian "military first" mobilization, is maintained by slave labor, and instills an ideology of the most unapologetic racism and xenophobia'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:49, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

That North Korea was never Communist is a credible theory. See for example Michael Breen's Kim Jong-Il, p. 95.[3] Even if most sources claim it was Communist, we cannot state that as a fact unless there is consensus in reliable sources. TFD (talk) 19:12, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

That's probably wrong, as there is no appropriate meaning of "consensus". And North Korea should be listed here if (and only if) some of the reliable sources used in the article include deaths they caused as "killings under Communist regimes". It's likely that none of the sources that refer to North Korea as not being Communist talk about "killings under Communist regimes". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:57, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Iterating from above, a source which seems to meet the criteria insisted upon: Rogue Regime: Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea By Jasper Becker, 325 pages, Oxford University Press, New York 2005. On page 266: Between them, Kim Il Sung and his son are responsible for the deaths of over seven million Koreans—three million civilians in the Korean War, and, by some estimates, three million in the famine and at least a million deaths of political prisoners during the last 50 years. North Korea viewed itself as more "communist" than China was - page 122 As the country feigned compliance with Deng’s wishes, North Korea’s internal propaganda reported that he had succumbed to the sugarcoated bullets of Capitalism and betrayed Communism. Indignant North Koreans spat at Chinese students and teachers and even assaulted them.. Kim Jong-Il presented himself as a communist (page 150) As Kim Jong Il pandered to his father’s vanity, he began to run afoul of both Moscow and Beijing, both of which looked askance at Kim Il Sung’s claims. The effort to project Kim as a world statesman who could replace Chairman Mao as the standard bearer of Asian Communism was provocative. Page 66 The activities of Kim Il Sung’s partisan followers became the only legitimate Korean Communist movement. Pahe 204 Kim can be heard threatening to deploy the military to smash any opposition.15 “Socialism failed in many countries because their parties degenerated and failed to control the army. For the Party to control the army, the Party’s leadership over the army should be guaranteed,” One can not read that particular reliable source and view it in any way as syaing North Korea is not "communist." It can not be dismissed as "cold war propaganda" as it was published in 2005 by Oxford University Press, which is generally considered a reliable source publisher. Proof enough? Collect (talk) 22:30, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

He also says Kim banned books by Marx and other Communists, and that his ideology was really a return to the third century (pp. 66, 74) and compares Juche with Moon's cult (p. 80). We do not choose one source over another because it reflects our belief system but follow neutrality. Arthur Rubin, "consensus" means that there are no significant disagreements in reliable sources. Unfortunately in social sciences, there are significant disagreements over a great number of issues, which is why for example when we write articles about economics we do not presume that any particular school was right or wrong. Also we do not have any sources that talk about "mass killings under Communists regimes" rather we have individual and comparitive studies and it is up to us to determine what is a Communist regime or a mass killing and synthesize the two. TFD (talk) 23:09, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

And synthesis is exactly what we are not supposed to do, but everything this article does is synthesis. One source says x killed a lot of people. Another source says that x is a communist. Therefor, a communist killed a lot of people. In the same way, we could construct Mass Killings by Vegetarians, Mass Killings by White People, and so on, a potentially infinite number of new articles. Rick Norwood (talk) 23:34, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Yup. The article is synthesis. It always has been, and it always will be... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:37, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Concur with Rick. Unless our sources refer to "mass killings under Communist regimes", this article violates WP:SYNTH. One of our sources, namely the Black Book, does refer to "killings under Communist regimes", but it's reliability is uncertain. Other sources disagree with specific claims in that source, but few (if any) other sources talk about the subject of this article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:45, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

And just how many of the sources have you looked at? AmateurEditor (talk) 01:21, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Every book on history of communist repressions and almost any book on history of communist countries tells about unlawful executions and other killings. There is no synthesis. The problem comes only with terminology: what is mass killing? Hence, my best suggestion would be to use more well defined term democide instead of "killings" (thanks to R.J. Rummel who introduced this term to describe the subject!). My very best wishes (talk) 01:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

No, the sources are mostly about specific countries while a few combine studies of a few time periods in different countries, for example, Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and Pol Pot's Cambodia. Even then they are mostly about repression in general, rather than mass killings in particular. There are no sources for example that combine killing of non-combatants in Chechnya, shooting demonstrators in 1989 Romania, killing Nazi POWs in Yugoslavia, lethal terrorist attacks by the Shining Path and famine in Ukraine as a specific subject of study. TFD (talk) 02:07, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Partially concur with Rick, Andy and Arthur. If Nicolas Werth writes that 15 million were killed, or died prematurely under Communists, his works cannot be used as a support of the thesis about "Communist mass killings" (and he himself disagreed with such interpretation of his work). However, we have several scholars who write about "mass killings" under Communist regimes. They are Valentino, Rummel, Courtois, Goldhagen, and, probably, Rosefielde. Therefore, the article is not synthesis (i.e. it does not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources). Therefore, a solution would be:

1. Present the thesis about MKuCR as an opinion of several authors (see above).
2. Discuss their concepts (both support and criticism)
3. Put the described events in historical perspective (e.g. the role of land reform and WWI in the outbreak of violence in Communist Russia, as Werth did; the role of Confucian ideology and centuries long authoritarion traditions in China, the role of nationalism and socio-economic factors in Cambodia, etc).

--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:36, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

@Arthur. The Black Book does not refer to mass killings. Only its introduction does, and this introduction is a very disputable source (in contrast to many other parts of the BB). The BB is highly commended due to Werth's contribution (I saw no serious criticism of him), and it is severely criticised for its introduction. Therefore, when some users claim the BB is reliable, they forget (intentionally or unintentionally) that it is reliable due to Werth&Margolin, not due to Courtois. --Paul Siebert (talk) 02:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Biophys. "Democide" has its own article. If you have sources that discuss "Democide under Communist regimes", you may create such an article. However, keep in mind that modern authors that study Stalinist repressions (Conquest, Wheatcroft, Ellman, Werth, Maksudov, Graziosi, Davies, Getty, and, probably, Rosefielde) do not use the term "democide", so you cannot use them as a source in that your article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:50, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @TFD: "mostly about specific countries" you say. So you do concede that some are broader in scope. I am familiar with several. It is only the existence of those larger scope sources that is relevant to any discussion about whether this topic is a synthesis, rather than a notable topic in its own right. As for your specific examples of content items not found in the "combining" sources, they are irrelevant because "notability guidelines do not limit content within an article". AmateurEditor (talk) 02:45, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Delete the article and move what is salvageable of the contents to the article The Black Book of Communism. This needs a historiographical treatment which is more appropriate to a consideration of the book and its claims. FiachraByrne (talk) 02:52, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)AE, when Valentino writes about "dispossessive mass killings", we, of course, can use him as a source. However, we cannot use, e.g. Ellman's data to support Valentino's views, because Ellman's position is different.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Not all of Valentino's communist mass killings are "dispossessive". AmateurEditor (talk) 03:09, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that, according to Wayman and Tago (Op.cit), Valentino divides motive into the two categories of dispossessive mass killing (as in ethnic cleansing, colonial enlargement, or collectivization of agriculture) and coercive mass killing (as in counter-guerrilla, terrorist, and Axis imperialist conquests). "Communist mass killings" belong to the first category, according to him. If you read his book, you probably noticed that he discusses Afghanistan not in the "Communist mass killings" chapter.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:27, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but these are not hard and fast categories, just general classes. For example, some cases occur in both dispossessive and coercive classes. Afghanistan is one such example, as can be seen in Table 5 on page 83, where "Communist" is listed as an additional motive for several counterguerrilla mass killings. AmateurEditor (talk) 04:00, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

We face the same dilemma here: are we talking about "Communist mass killings" as about a separate category, or just as mass killings perpetrated by Communists? One can agree or disagree with Valentino's concept, but it is impossible to deny some logic behind it: "Communist mass killings", according to him, were a separate type of killings, both by tools used by perpetrators (dispossession), and by the aims (to achieve some social transformations). This is a logically consistent concept, and it should be presented as such. However, if we add all examples of mass killings to here, including the mass killings that were typical for all regimes, we will distort author's idea, which is hardly acceptable.

Similarly, if we take Courtois' concept, it is also quite clear: according to him, Communists killed more peoples then Nazi (he implicitly assume the nature of killings was the same), therefore, Communism was a greater evil then Nazism. We cannot and should not separate Courtois' estimates from the conclusion he draws.

Regarding Rummel, his concept is also crystal clear: the number of killed strongly correlates with the concentration of power in hands on the state leader: the more power the more killings. All his play with figures is devoted to demonstrate this idea.

Again, not only all these authors come out with some estimates, they draw some conclusions with such estimates, and we cannot separate the estimates from the conclusions, and from their criticism. We also need to clearly attribute these estimates and theories.

However, if we convert the article into a collection of various instances of mass killings under Communists, we thereby create a soup of figures which will be totally confusing, and where the theories of the authors will be separated from their data. That is a manipulation with sources, which is totally unacceptable.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:53, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I quite understand this distinction between "Communist mass killings " and "mass killings perpetuated by Communists", and I don't think it is made in any of our sources. Mass killings by Communists are discussed in these sources separately not because only Communists killed large numbers of people, but because the authors hold that these killings are best understood related to one another (and we cannot assume that authors which focus on a single country do so because they reject the idea that these can be grouped together). I am not in favor of distorting any author's idea. Neither do I think that this article must be restricted to those cases found in the most narrow source (due weight and the simple practicalities of a readable article, must, of course, be respected). I think it will work to incorporate the estimates into the terminology section , so that the particular definitions or approaches used will be linked to those numbers. I don't think the conclusions (or conclusions about causes. etc.) are so closely linked to the particular estimates given under particular terms/definitions. I don't think Coutois' conclusion about the morality of Communism or it's comparison to Nazism would change if his estimate was 70 million, rather than 100 million, for example. There is a lot of commonality between these sources and all their estimates are in the same order of magnitude (yes, the variances between the estimates is also large, but it seems to me that this is only partly due to their particular terms and mostly because of the quality of documentation - or lack thereof). I think all our sources agree that the numbers killed were in the tens of millions (rather than single millions or hundreds of millions). Editors' disagreement with the phrase "tens of millions" in the lead, as I recall, was simply an issue of some thinking that readers would be misled that "tens of millions" meant something like "10 or 20 million", which none of these sources claim as the global estimate, rather than a literal objection to the number. AmateurEditor (talk) 23:19, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Re "I don't think I quite understand..." Look as the Valentino's view of "dispossessive" and "coercive" mass killings.

Re "but because the authors hold that these killings are best understood related to one another" Correct. The authors you are talking about see significant commonality between those events and all of them (except Valentino) they insist that Communism was more deadly then Nazism. This point of view has been extensively criticized, so in we present this viewpoint we must duly present its criticism.

Re "I think it will work to incorporate the estimates into the terminology section " ABSOLUTELY correct!

Re "I don't think Coutois' conclusion about the morality of Communism or it's comparison to Nazism would change if his estimate was 70 million..." "Mortality of Communism" and "mass killings under Communist regimes" are two different categories. For example, to claim that Communists committed mass killings of 30+ million people during the GLF famine would be ridiculous, because China was always on a brink of major famine. It is misleading to claim that Communist policy caused all those deaths, simply because the GLF famine affected exactly the same provinces where famine was a usual event (btw, that is the difference with Ukraine, which had no famines before 1932). Similarly, inclusion of all Vietnam war deaths or Angola civil war death into the category of "mass killings" is ridiculous. And so on.

Re "There is a lot of commonality between these sources and all their estimates are in the same order of magnitude" All sources you are talking about are trying to convey the idea that some commonality exist between the events in the USSR, China, Cambodia, Africa etc. In contrast, good quality single society studies that do not try to draw any parallelisms emphasize uniqueness of each case. Since the authors of those studies seem to ignore the writings of Rummel, Courtois &Co, there is no direct dispute between them, so they exist in "parallel Universes". Nevertheless, some authors note that the idea to combine direct killings with indirect deaths (famine etc) is intrinsically flawed.

Re "Editors' disagreement with the phrase "tens of millions" in the lead, as I recall, was simply an issue of..." Again, the major implicit goal of those estimates is to convey the idea that Communists killed more people then Nazi. However, even if you look at Rummel's estimates of Nazi democide, you will see that they roughly correspond to the number of direct killings (execution, anti-partisan warfare, death camp victims an so on). If we take into account only similar killings under Communists, the number of the victims of such mass killings was 2-3 million in the USSR (collectivization, Great Purge, camp deaths); Cultural revolution mass killings - 2-3 million; Cambodian genocide 2-3 million. Africa, Vietnam etc hardly add much, because civil wars, or wars against foreign invasion can hardly be considered as communist mass killings. Of course, I take the recent results of the estimates made by reputable single society scholars. Totally, we get about 10 million.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:54, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

1.What do you want me to see there? I already demonstrated that, even though Valentino lists "Communist mass killing" as dispossessive, he is flexible about his classes. And Valentino doesn't make the distinction between "Communist mass killings" and "mass killings perpetuated by Communists" that you have. His Communist mass killings chapter begins, "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.¹ In this chapter I focus primarily on..." (By the way, if you look at his first endnote there, he is citing Courtois' and Rummel's democide estimates, among others', as "at the highest end of the plausible range of deaths attributable to communist regimes." and he doesn't let the differences in methodology concern him too much.)

2. I have no problem with also presenting the criticism.

3. We agree here.

4. (I hope you didn't think I meant to write "mortality", rather than "morality". There was no typo.) They can be differenct categories, if the sources want them to be. I think the mortality/excess death category is used for convenience, as there is no way to verify exactly how culpable the regime was for individual deaths when the numbers are in the millions and the influence is often indirect. But when estimates use one or the other, it should be made clear which is which.

5. Of course studies of individual events or countries emphasize the uniqueness of their case. Otherwise, what would be the point of the study? The authors who "note that the idea to combine direct killings with indirect deaths (famine etc) is intrinsically flawed" should be cited in the article.

6. Let's not assume motivations for the sources. If there are sources which only count "direct" deaths and arrive at 10 million for those three countries (or whatever the particulars are), then they should be included and explained as well. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:31, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

1. Again, Valentino does not consider Afghanistan in the "Communist mass killings" chapter, that means he discriminates between "Communist mass killings" and "mass killings under Communists". If we exclude such "episodes" as GLF or Great Soviet famine, and Rummel's mythical 40 million Gulag deaths (which is not taken seriously by any specialist in Russian history), the figure of 110 million will dramatically collapse. Lion's share of the "episodes" considered by Valentino were not mass killings in commonsensual understanding of that term. And, do not forget that Valentino didn't work with primary sources to determine the scale of mass killings, he simply compiled the results of others, so he is a tertiary source for the figures.

2, 3. Great.

4. Sorry, I simply misread you. If you meant morality, you seem to misread Courtois. As Hiroaki Kuromiya (Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 191-201) says

"What is implied in The Black Book is that distinctions between direct and indirect killings are fine points of no consequence and that the crimes of communism are far graver at least numerically than those of another totalitarian regime in the twentieth century, nazism, whose casualties were a quarter those of communism. "

in other words, Courtois' conclusion, contrary to your assertion, is based exactly on the figures, and his "playing with figures" (Kuromiya's words) is aimed to confirm his point that Communism was much more horrible then Nazism. Therefore, all of that - (i)combining indirect and direct deaths; (ii) obtaining the figure of 70+ million killings; (iii) coming to conclusion that Communism was more horrible than Nazism; (iv) criticism of this idea - must be presented in the article in the same place and in a context of each other.

5. For example, whereas Courtois writes about "Communist genocide in Cambodia", many authors prefer to speak about national specifics and historical background of the genocide perpetrated by the adepts of weird agrarian Maoist ideology with strong smell of racism and fascism, and to show a dramatic difference between Khmer Gouge and, e.g. European or Soviet Communists. The problem is that such authors never tried to come out with any combined estimate of Communist death toll, simply because they see no much reason for that (no significant commonality between those events).

6. We have many sources that discuss motivation of the authors of the BB, and of Courtois in particular. My conclusion is based on that. Similarly, motivation of Rummel is dictated by his libertarian views (I don't remember where I read that, but I can try to find). BTW, the source that compare Nazi and Stalinist mass killings is Wheatcroft (Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 48, No. 8 (Dec., 1996), pp. 1319-1353). His conclusion is that "Hitler caused the murder of at least 5 million innocent people largely, it would appear, because he did not like Jews and communists. Stalin by contrast can be charged with causing the purposive death of something in the order of a million people. Furthermoret he purposive deaths caused by Hitler fit more closely into the category of 'murder', while those caused by Stalin fit more closely the category of 'execution'." --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:52, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

1. You still have not explained the difference between "Communist mass killing" and "mass killing by communists", a distinction that Valentino does not make because he cites others, such as Rummel, for the upper bound estimates on this topic and we know that Rummel does not make that distinction. Valentino does not consider Afghanistan in that dedicated chapter because he does not discuss most of the smaller cases, despite acknowledging their existence. He says that he "focuses" on the USSR, China, and Cambodia because they are the largest and best documented cases. It is a practical distinction, not an exclusion of Afghanistan or other cases from the topic. And we know this because he says so in his charts, which summarize his categorization and include "Communist" as an "Additional motive" for Afghanistan. You have yet to acknowledge this point. The chart is on page 83.

4. You had said that we cannot separate Courtois' conlusions from his numerical estimates. You have previously said that Courtois is unreliable for his numbers but that the other authors were high quality. Martin Malia, in his foreword, said that the range of estimates from all the authors in the book was 85 to 100 million. I was trying to make the point that Courtois' moral conclusions about communism would have stayed the same whether he had used 100 million or 85 million (or even 70 million). As I have already said, I have no problem also including criticism of the sources in the article.

5. If there are sources saying this, they can be included.

6. You don't need to convince me of Rummel's libertarian views. I would prefer we focus our efforts at finding sources critical of the substance of other sources, rather than speculating on their motivations, but if that is what we have, that is what we should reflect in the article (within reason). We have a lot of sourced sentences to be adding to the workpage, no? AmateurEditor (talk) 05:13, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

4. When I wrote that other contributors are reliable, I meant mostly two major contributors, Werth and Margolin. Malia's views are close to Courtois' one, and he was criticized equally. As I already wrote, I see more problem not with figures, but with interpretations. It is probably correct that ca 60-70 million died prematurely as a direct or indirect result of Communist activity, but it is incorrect to equate those deaths with Nazi killings. To demonstrate my thought, let me remind you that life expectancy in China in 1950s was about 30-35, and, taking into account its huge population, even small variations of live expectancy could produce astronomical figures of "mass killings". Similarly, Werth correctly concludes about 15 million population losses in Stalin's USSR, however, to characterise all of them as Communist killings is Courtois's own invention (with which Werth openly disagreed). That is what should be explained in the text.

Re your other points, I understood them, and I'll respond later. Probably it is a time to add material to the draft (I hope I'll start in few days).--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:32, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

(od) The fundamental point is that there is no generally-agreed consensus amongst historians etc as to what 'mass killings' consists of, and neither is there an agreed definition as to what constitutes a 'communist regime' (see i.e. the debate above over North Korea - the majority may possibly say that it is 'communist', but there are still significant reliable sources that question this, on what seem on the surface to be legitimate grounds) - and yet contributors to this discussion have been arguing for years over how many 'mass killings' there have been. This is not only an attempt to arrive at a result by synthesis, it is a complete fabrication. If historians don't agree over such issues, it is a falsification to pretend that they do. Maybe an article entitled Debates over mass killings under communist regimes might be justified, though even that inserts the preferred terminology of some into the topic in a questionable manner. Wikipedia should be capable of doing better than this - and if we can't, maybe we should leave such subjects to those that can. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:28, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

So you would also want to see the Communist state article deleted? Andy, if this is synthesis, then you must show where that has occurred. You don't get to just assert it without demonstration. We have sources which explicitly use "Communist mass killing", for pete's sake.AmateurEditor (talk) 03:35, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

"We have sources which explicitly use "Communist mass killing", for pete's sake". Possibly. Do they all agree on what the term means, and is this the general academic consensus? If it isn't we shouldn't be pretending that it is. Just how difficult is the concept that 'not everyone agrees over this' for you to understand? AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:54, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

We aren't pretending that "mass killing" is the consensus term, as is made clear by the terminology section. The title is simply a descriptive title arrived at by the earlier consensus of Wikipedia editors, per WP:NDESC. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:43, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

A substantial number of books meeting RS do, indeed, connect "communist" with "democide" (Questia finda a group thereof). As "democide" specifically includes "mass killing" oit is clear the claim of "SYNTH" is inapt. Using established synonyms is not SYNTH at all, and the number of sources is substantial, and not just "cold war propaganda" stuff. Further, it is not "SYNTH" to tak of saying that killings numbering in the hundreds of thousands of people somehow is not a "mass killing" - Wikipedia can use the "laugh test" for that sort of cavil. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:00, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

"As "democide" specifically includes "mass killing" oit is clear the claim of "SYNTH" is inapt". What? 'X includes cases of Y' does not equate to 'all cases of X are Y' in any system of logic that I'm aware of... AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:24, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

If some famine killed 100,000 people, we cannot automatically claim that mass killings occurred. At least, we do not do that in case of Bengal or Irish famines, despite the fact that the regimes were responsible for the deaths. See Ellman for details.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:27, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Your claim pushes the laugh envelope -- if a country takes 2/3 of a harvest from an area and the people in that area die, the regime damn well was complicit in the deaths. Which is what the reliable sources state clearly. That you can say that it was "only a famine" flies in the face of the multiple reputable reliable sources I just gave above which you dismissed as a "wall of text." And since this article is not about the absolutely horrid British behaviour during the Potato Blight, affecting some of my own relatives, that aside is simply irrelevant here. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:32, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if you mean Holodomor, some authors agree with that. However, others disagree. Regarding other Soviet famines (Volga famine, war, and post-war famines) most authors agree that the authorities had no intention to starve people, and that they provided some help (and asked for foreign help). Therefore, I do not understand how can we include all famine victims into the "mass killing" category.

If you are talking about China, many single society neutral and serious scholars outline several factors that caused the GLF famine: (i) China was a very poor country, famine were a routine event there, so any significant economic transformation could trigger it; (ii) Mao broke old system that monitored grain production level, so he simply was not aware of actual situation; (iii) China was in economical and political isolation, so it was physically unable to obtain foreign help; (iv) bad weather; (v) believe you or not, some authors seriously discuss communal dining rooms as the factor that significantly contributed to the famine. This, along with Mao's stubbornness, lead to the famine that had no precedent in Chinese history in absolute numbers (although was less severe then some XIX centuries famine in relative figures).--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:49, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Re irrelevance of Irish famine, it is relevant. Ellman writes: "This distinction between famines and political persecution corresponds to normal historical practice." (Michael Ellman. Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 54, No. 7 (Nov., 2002), pp. 1151-1172) This is a general statement that is not Ellman's opinion, but reflects majority viewpoint. Therefore, we must clearly show this distinction in this article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:58, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

PS. To summarise, it is correct that in some cases some Communist regimes are responsible for starving people to death, and in some cases they did that consciously. However, it is absolutely incorrect to claim that all famine victims under Communists were "mass killings" victims. That may be true for Holodomor (partially), but not for the Soviet famine of 1932-33 as whole, and not for Volga famine and other famines. It seems to be untrue for Chinese GLF famine (especially is we ignore the fact that famine was a quite common event in China).--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:16, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

"How can we include all famine victims into the mass killing category"? No, we do not include anything anywhere. If victims of the Great Chinese famine were listed as people killed by Communist policies in reliable sources (as they were), this can be cited in the article. My very best wishes (talk) 16:16, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the fact that Valentino or Rummel listed all GLF famine victims as people killed by Communist policies, we have to include their opinion, along with the opinion that famines should be separated from political repressions, with the opinion of the authors who do not list them as victims of "mass killings", and, last but not list, the opinion that by adding non-coercive mass deaths to the total Communist death toll some authors are trying to convey the idea that Communism was more deadly then Nazism, and that Communist mass killings dwarfed the Holocaust. A criticism of the latter idea (which is Holocaust trivialisation), and is not mainstream) should also be added. However, this article does do that, so it fails NPOV.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:46, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

The sources I found inresponse to your request do not appear to enggage in any Holocaust denial or trivialization - so I think your desire to attribute that as their rationale is not only errant but abhorrent, as is the apparent claim that the scholars published by Oxford etc. do so out of pure anti-Communism. There comes a time when you well ought to simply accept that some things in history do not comport with your comfort level. Collect (talk) 14:16, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I wrote nothing about the Holocaust denial, so this your trick is hardly honest. Regarding my desires, please, stop discussing them, let's focus on the sources. Obviously, I meant not your sources, but the ideas expressed in some of them. This idea was expressed in the BB's introduction, and here is its criticism:

"Courtois' attempt to present communism as a greater evil than nazism by playing a numbers game is a pity because it threatens to dilute the horror of actual killings." (Kuromiya, Op. cit.)

--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:52, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Your exact quote: A criticism of the latter idea (which is Holocaust trivialisation), +

My sources are still on this talk page -- which of the sources I gave are guilty of "Holocaust trivialisation" please? You assert "some" so I am sure you will oblige us with the sources I presented and explain in what way they seek to trivialise or deny the Holocaust? In short -- give your examples or step away from your claims. As for your blatant accusation of dishonesty -- I would suggest that others reading here will examine your soo-to-be-given list of the sources which you make this claim about and determnine ckearklyt where the hosnesty is. Collect (talk) 21:56, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Paul Siebert never mentioned holocaust denial. You have been provided many sources about holocaust trivialization and how it relates to this topic, and if you have not read or understood them, then this conversation is pointless. However, I have always thought that you were concerned about how the holocaust is perceived and am surprised that you have not taken the time to explore this subject. TFD (talk) 22:18, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Can you indicate where I said Paul referred to "Holocaust denial" in any quote? If you do not understand what quotation marks indicate, then I agree your participation is pointless here. The issue is that Paul made an assertion about the sources I gave - and unless he wishes to back up his assertion that they refer in any way at all in a trivialising manner about the Holovcaust, then his claims fail like a lead balloon. I trust the mphasis is clear on this. Collect (talk) 22:32, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

See above, "The sources I found inresponse to your request do not appear to enggage in any Holocaust denial or trivialization" (14:16, 6 December 2012). Since Paul Siebert did not refer to holocaust denial, it is unclear why you brought it up. TFD (talk) 22:47, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you TFD, your explanation is quite correct.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:25, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Anti-communism is so 20th century

I recently asked my students, college Juniors and Seniors, the following questions:
Question 2. After World War II, the two dominant world powers were ____________ and ______________ .
About a third of the students answered US and China.
Question 5. What organization's charter promises "to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and for those ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors."
About a third of the students answered either "communism" or "socialism".
There is nothing so ancient as modern history.

An interesting observation, Rick. And a very sad one...--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:46, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Communism is an unspeakable horror. It killed millions of times more people than the Nazis. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 11:20, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

You allow your passion for anti-communism to run away with you. Certainly the Nazis killed at least a million people. A million times a million is a trillion, and there aren't that many people on earth. But the real point is that the battle against communism is won. You're fighting last century's war. Rick Norwood (talk) 21:31, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

And considering that the Nazis actually killed more than 30 million humans (with 20 million being evil godless commie pinkos), communism would have killed, using Mr. Norwood's calculus, some 30 trillion. Of course the real laugh is the idea that an economic model, one that has never actaully been implemented by any government at any time (i.e., ever), can kill people. True horror is not perpetrated by concepts, it is perpetrated by men. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 06:52, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually - the article says it is under "regimes" - which is entirely reasonable as an article basis. Collect (talk) 13:27, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Communism and Nazism are basically the same thing because Nazism is basically a nationalist form of socialism. Both ideologies serve Satan. If you're still not convinced, I recommend this book. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 14:59, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Move the article to "Mass deaths under Communist regimes"

Its a much less neutral title, and, this would stop the evident mix-up in this article between mass death and mass murder perpetrated by communist regimes... Any of you with me? --TIAYN (talk) 11:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

One of the problems with the current title is that the term "mass killings" does not capture all the killings. So the murder of Trotsky for example while included in the body count can hardly be described as a mass killing. So I think the word "mass" should go. Deaths is too general. The word "regime" is also either redundant or POV, and does not include killings by Communist insurgents. Even the term "killings" is problematic because we do not include enemy combatants killed in wars, yet do include deaths in famine that are not always considered to be killings and even lower birth rates. I would suggest "Victims of Communism". While that too is POV (Canadian authorities for example will not allow a statue to carry that name), and could be interpreted as including non-lethal victims, it has become the common term used by people who take an interest in the subject. TFD (talk) 17:04, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Am I reading this right that both of you would prefer a less neutral title? AmateurEditor (talk) 18:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

The more obvious choice would be "Democides associated with Communist regimes" as far as I can tell. YMMV. Collect (talk) 18:57, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Neutrality in article titles says, "Conflicts often arise over whether an article title complies with Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy. Resolving such debates depends on whether the article title is a name derived from reliable sources or a descriptive title created by Wikipedia editors." I did in fact vote to keep "Communist genocide" as the title. The problem with the current name is that it makes the article a coatrack. With "Victims of Communism" we have a body of literature so the article itself could be neutral. Collect, that is an interesting suggestion. What about "Communism and democide"? TFD (talk) 23:04, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I rather think it is far simpler to note that democides have occurred asscoiated with "Communist regimes" - your title would seem to require an assertion that Communism is the "culprit" and not the "Communist regime" which is the culprit. No one seriously can doubt that such democides have existed, and most especially denying Stalin's acts and Mao's acts would be ludicrous. The term "genocide" was debated and discarded because of its intrinsic requirement that the group killed be a "gens" (a race or nation - though strictly seaking it refers to patrilineal descent). Collect (talk) 01:26, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem with "Mass deaths under Communist regimes" is that it seems to say "A lot of people died for some unknown reason". But most of the sources make it clear that they were killed, and there was some level of intention in causing their deaths by the Communist regimes. So "Mass killings by Communist regimes" would be better. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:23, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

That's a problem with the article, not with the title. Some of the sources seem to include all "mass deaths" which occur under a regime with the regime, without credible evidence that the regime caused or could have prevented the deaths. Even we could restrict the article to "democide", then changing the title should be automatic. But, under the present editing restrictions, that's not going to happen. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:07, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Smallbones and Arthur. Mass deaths under Communist regimes is not a separate topic. The authors who study mass mortality in some Communist societies do not make any generalisations: they place them in the historical context of the given society, and they very rarely make an emphasis on Communism as a primary cause of mass deaths.

However, some authors place some (or most) of mass deaths, both coercive and dispossessive, into a category of "mass killings" (democide, politicide, etc), and draw significant connections between them and Communism. The subject of this article are the works of those authors (Courtois, Rummel, Valentino, Goldhagen et al). Therefore, the title is quite correct, however, we need modify the article. Concretely, we don't need to tell about the events as if we are talking about established facts. Instead of that, need:

• to describe the concepts of each author, and to attribute them to those authors explicitly. Thus, cannot write "Mass killimgs occurred in Communist states, and 80 million were killed", but "according to Courtois, Communism caused deaths of up to 100 million people, a small part of those deaths were a result of coercive killings (murders, executions etc), whereas most of them were caused by deterioration of living conditions (which resulted in major famine). Courtois combine all those death together and concludes that Communism was more deadly political system then Nazism."
• to explain how did the authors came to their conclusions, and what information were their conclusiona based on. For example, during the discussion of Goldhagen's views we should explain that most figures he took from early Rummel's works.
• to add due criticism of their works. For example, regarding Courtois' views, we should add that the idea to combine direct and indirect deaths has been videly criticised by such authors as Aronson, Kuromiya, Werth et al, and to trace the origin of the BB introduction to the post-Vichy syndrom of French leftist intellectuals.
• to provide a description of the discussed events in each separate country based on the works of single society scholars. Thus, regarding the Chinese famine we can extensively use the works of such reputable scholar as O'Grada.

All of that requires unprotection of the article, and we need to discuss this possibility with Arbcom. We have serious reasons for that, because the situation has considerably changed since the moment of article's protection: a disruptive sock Tentontunic (one of the sources of the conflict) has been blocked indefinitely, and some sober and intelligent editors as AmateurEditor, Arthur Rubin, Amerul, Annie Hall, Zloyvolsheb, and some others seem to express serious desire to contribute. I think it is a guaranty that old conflicts will not be resumed after article's deprotection.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:31, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

It's still POV ether way. Both names are negative and should be changed to an entirely new name that is much less POV then this articles current name. --Hinata talk 19:51, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I rather think any topic relating to deaths at all would be considered "negative" by someone - the question only is "would such a title be as NPOV as is reasonably possible" and titles which refer in no way to deaths at all are likely not to be rational titles for any article on Wikipedia here. Collect (talk) 23:12, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

The "regimes" is the part I have a problem with. --Hinata talk 19:37, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

How about "Democides occurring under goverments identified as Marxist or Communist"? Collect (talk) 21:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Identified by whom? AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:32, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

By reliable sources so denoting them. Same as Wikipedia does for any claims on any topic. Collect (talk) 23:30, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Anybody who is having problems putting the words killing and Communist in the same sentence or title is just denying reality, as documented in reliable sources. When folks start arguing that they can't be reliable sources because they put killing and Communist in the same sentence, it time that they just leave this article alone. Accept reality and reliable sources, or just go bother somebody else. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:16, 22 December 2012 (UTC)