Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes

Mass killings under colonial regimes

Note this part of the article:

"Rosefielde also notes that "while it is fashionable to mitigate the Red Holocaust by observing that capitalism killed millions of colonials in the twentieth century, primarily through man-made famines, no inventory of such felonious negligent homicides comes close to the Red Holocaust total."

R J Rummel has recently revised his estimate for 20th Century colonial democide up from 870,000 to a minimum of 50 million. It was only recently that King Leopold's slaughter of Congolese (10 to 20 million victims) was brought to his attention.

Rummel compares the crimes of colonialism to the Gulags. He states "I’ve reevaluated the colonial toll. Where exploitation of a colony’s natural resources or portering was carried out by forced labor (in effect slavery of a modern kind), as it was in all the European and Asian colonies, then the forced labor system built in its own death toll from beatings, punishment, coercion, terror, and forced deprivation. There were differences in the brutality of the system, the British being the least brutal and Leopold and the French, Germans, and Portuguese the worst. We all know what the Soviet gulag was like. These colonizers turned Africa into one giant gulag, with each colony being like a separate camp." http://democraticpeace.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/exemplifying-the-horror-of-some-european-colonization%E2%80%94leopolds-congo/

Rummel's claim seems reasonable - this makes colonialism at least as murderous as communism. Note that part of the reason for communisms high absolute toll is the large populations of Russia and China. The proportion of the population killed should also be considered.

Some mention should be made of the murderous of colonial democide, to provide an alternative perspective from that of Rosefielde's.

Prairespark (talk) 13:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

This article is about mass killing under communist regimes, I don't think we should start coat racking off-topic material into this article, but by all means feel free to create an article Mass killings under colonial regimes, it seems to be a notable topic. --Martin (talk) 16:30, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Interesting comment, Martin. Prairiespark was questioning the accuracy of a statement in the article that the number of colonials killed by capitalism was far lower than the number killed by Communists. However, we should not use Rummel's blog or other writings that have not been published in the academic press. Note too that Rummel describes colonialism as a form of socialism, not capitalism. TFD (talk) 16:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if the presumption that colonialism is necessarily a capitalist phenomena is valid, there seems to be a lot of sources in regard to communist colonialism, perhaps there could be an article on Communist colonialism. The text that Prairespark refers to is attributed to Rosefielde, thus that is his viewpoint, we have no way of knowing if Rosefielde made his assertion in light of Rummel's figures or not, may be he has other information Rummel does not have access to, we just don't know. --Martin (talk) 20:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Rummel is clearly referring to 19th and early 20th century Western European colonialism and names the powers (UK, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, the US). He exludes earlier colonialism (e.g., the Conquistadors), European and Asian land empires, and later "imperialism" by Communist and Western nations. TFD (talk) 21:07, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Why would colonialism be a form of capitalism? A50000 (talk) 16:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The colonialism referred to was carried out by capitalist countries and the colonies were largely established as privately owned business enterprises. TFD (talk) 17:20, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Capitalism means private ownership of the means of production. Colonialism is always carried out by states. A50000 (talk) 19:01, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

In the case of Congo - the killings were done under feudal ownership by Leopold personally of the Congo - it was not even owned by Belgium. We should have an article Mass killings under feudal regimes to be sure. Collect (talk) 19:11, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The Virginia Company, the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Falkland Islands Company, the Dutch East India Company, etc., were all private corporations. Even where colonial administration was directly controlled by the colonial powers, as in Hawaii, effective economic control has usually given to private corporations. Collect's view of the Belgian Congo is pure OR - it was the private property run as a privately-owned business. As Collect points out, Leopold's role as Belgian head of state and owner of the Congo were distinct. It later became a colony of Belium and its economy was organized along capitalist lines, with private investment in mining and agriculture. TFD (talk) 19:30, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

British colonisation of Terra Australis was a government enterprise, being originally a penal colony for Britain's criminals. The primary destination for these convicts was New South Wales, but the worst those were re-transported to Van Diemen's Land. The attempted eradication of the Tasmanian Aborigines in the Black War was sanctioned by the governor who proclaimed martial law for the purpose. --Martin (talk) 10:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Transportation, indentured servitude and slavery were used as methods of supplying cheap labor to privately owned plantations in the colonies. Indigenous populations were enslaved, deported or exterminated in order to allow for economic development. In the U.S., where during colonial times most immigrants arrived as convicted criminals, indentured servants, or slaves, the process continued long after independence, with the exception of transportation from the British Empire. TFD (talk)

While these practices by colonial regimes ended by the mid 20th century, communist regimes continued to use internal transportation, indentured servitude, slavery and penal labour camp systems to provide cheap labour to the state, in the case of the Soviet Union this system was called GULAG. --Martin (talk) 19:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Rummel includes the 50 million colonial democide figure, not only in a blog, but on his webpage summarising 20th century democide. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

I do find it interesting that people emphasise the 100 million victims of communism, yet do not take into account that the USSR and China especially had very large populations. There were simply more people to kill - or ill-conceived policies would automatically cause large numbers of deaths. Surely what also needs to be taken into account is the proportion of the target population decimated.

If proportion of the population is taken into account then the crimes of King Leopold in the Congo would certainly exceed anything that Mao and Stalin got up to, as well as the American genocide of Phillipinos, with 600000 to a million civilian deaths - out of a population of about 7 million.

It should also be noted also that the excess deaths of the GLF famine were measured relative to very low mortality rates which the communists had achieved in the first decade of their rule (and for which they had drawn much praise). In fact the death rate of 25 to 30 per thousand during the worst year of the GLF (ie 1960) was not that much higher than the 24 per thousand mortality rate in India and other developing nations of the time, and was in fact less than the death rates of many of the years in China before 1949. But 25 deaths per thousand over the 11 deaths per thousand achieved in China previously did mean a lot of excess deaths. To provide context it should be mentioned that overally mortality did decline significantly during Maos rule (even during the period of the Cultural Revolution) and life expectancy doubled- in spite of the tragic setback of the GLF. The results of this are obvious. The increase in population under Mao (the most rapid population rise in Chinese history) was seven times the percentage increase of the 27 years leading up to 1949. Yet fertility declined under Mao -thus the only explanation for the doubling of the population under Mao, is dramatic declines in mortality.

Prairespark (talk) 18:37, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Well if you find a published reliable source that states just what you have postulated, then I'm sure it could be worked into the article with proper attribution, otherwise some editors here may deem it to be WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. --Martin (talk) 20:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

As I explained many times, Rummel's figures are questionable: he gives 40+ million Gulag death, whereas the amount of people passed through Gulag was 14 million (and the amount of documented deaths, estimated based on various independent data sets, was ca 2 million), he gives grossly exaggerated figures for Yugoslavia, for Russian civil war, etc. His approach has been criticised by many scholars and his numbers (especially the numbers taken from his web site) should not be used.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Rummel's numbers for the USSR are too high (especially Gulag fatalities). However, if his colonial democide estimates are added to the article, then his Communist democide estimates should be added as well (110,000,000 revised upward to 148,000,000).(http://democraticpeace.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/getting-my-reestimate-of-maos-democide-out/). And based on the name and the arguments put forth by "Prariespark," I'm suspecting this could be yet another Jacob Peters sock. One of his confirmed socks was Spark31.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:53, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, Rummel seems to be completely unreliable. For instance Jung Chang's biography of Mao has been roundly panned by China scholars, yet Jung Chang is the only reason why Rummel revises upwards China's democide total, based only on Chang's utterly dishonest arguments. Maybe we should consign all of Rummel's work to the proverbial dust bin.

There were no 30 or 40 million deaths from starvation in the GLF famine. There were about 25 million excess deaths, relative to the very low mortality rates that the communists had achieved in the first decade of rule. There was only one year where the mortality rate exceeded the level of 1940s China. And that was 1960 (mortality of 44 per thousand), a year of massive flooding and the most atrocious climatic conditions in a whole century. In the other years, Judith Banister (the doyen of China demographic studies) has found mortality rates (around 25 per thousand) at about the same level as those in India, Indonesia, and other developing countries of the time. Jung Chang to max out her excess deaths calculation assumed a 1% mortality rate (10 in 1000) for 1957. In fact this was the crude death rate of the US at the time - obviously a ridiculous figure for China. The actual number of GLF deaths that can be directly attributable to famine, if excess deaths are calculated relative to the levels to pre-revolutionary China, and India, Indonesia etc at the time is something of the order of 4 to 5 million.

There is convergence of evidence with other sources. Look at life expectancy trends for China, India, Egypt, South Africa, Indonesia, and South Korea from 1960 to today. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy+china#met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:CHN:IDN:IND

Two significant things from the trends. 1. The life expectancy of Chinese in 1960, the year of supposedly the worst famine in all of human history, was higher than that of India and Indonesia. Again the excess deaths were calculated relative to very low levels just prior to the leap. 2. The years of the Cultural Revolution saw perhaps the greatest jump in life expectancy in the history of the PRC. Fully a decade of life expectancy was added, ie a one year increment in life expectancy for each year of the Cultural Revolution. Far from a holocaust, the Cultural Revolution period was the most successful in all of Chinese history, in raising life expectancy and literacy, in spite of its may excesses which we all know of.

In fact far from being a murdering tyrant, Mao presided over the most rapid decrease in mortality, in consequentially the greatest rate of increase in life expectancy in all of documented history. This is the subject of an ongoing Stanford University study. http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/research/health_improvement_under_mao_and_its_implications_for_contemporary_aging_in_china/

And by the way I'm not Jacob Peters. Anyone with even a modicum of Chinese historical knowledge will be able to guess correctly the inspiration behind 'prairespark'.

Prairespark (talk) 04:12, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

It will take a year or two, but Dikotter's work will soon be going the way of Rummel's - to the dustbin (or at least it should). I have not the time nor space to go into all the things wrong with his work in any great detail, but just three points:

1. As with Jung Chang, Dikotter assumes an unbelievably low annual mortality leading up to the GLF of 1% (and unwittingly credits the communists with having reduced mortality even more than the communists credit theselves - Banister has a death rate of 3.8% in 1949), to max out his excess death count. Like I said previously 1% is completely unbelievable - it's about the same as the United States at that time and not that much higher than the US mortality rate of 0.84% today. The typical mortality rate in the developing world in the late 1950s was 2 to 3 per thousand.

2. Dikotter, from reviewing the archives of public security organs, that violence must have been widespread during the GLF. He offers absolutely no statistical calculation of this. One would suspect if one went to the police archives of any country in the world, one would naturally be faced with pages and pages of documented violence - its just common sense that this is so. However even Dikotter says this violence was not orchestrated from the top, rather violent excesses were in fact recorded by people at the bottom and these reports were passed to the top in an effort to keep the leadership apprised of what was going on. Some of the acts of violence, as well as famine deaths, were found out by investigatory teams sent out by Beijing to find out the true picture of what was going on. So obviously the violence (which was probably less than the violence in an average American city) was not ordered from the top. By recounting incidents of random violence, Dikotter conscripts the reader into his point of view - and by the final chapter when he presents his 'analysis' of the death toll, the reader will be loathe to challenge him on his 'facts.'

3. Dikotter's fraudulent misuse of a picture of a begging child from a 1946 famine (not an 'official' famine) on the cover of his paperback edition, is not only an appalling act of intellectual dishonest, but also essentially racist. His attitude is 'any starving asian will do'. He has been taken to task by Adam Jones (the renowned Canadian genocide scholar) for this. Adam Jones says on his website "may I also suggest that the very extensive airbrushing, replacement/grafting of background, colourization and so on of the original image is curiously reminiscent of communist practice under Mao and Stalin?" http://jonestream.blogspot.com/2010/10/did-dikotter-misrepresent-famine-image.html

Dikotter's fraudalent use of this image and other famine images from pre-revolutionary China can be seen on videos he appears in to discuss the famine: http://web.mac.com/dikotter/Dikotter/Interviews.html

Dikotter elsewhere, and in fact in his book, says there are no non-propaganda images of the GLF, yet he fills his book cover and videos with famine images from old China. Again, just utterly dishonest.

Prairespark (talk) 04:34, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Certainly we should not be using books published outside the academic mainstream, even when written by scholars, because they do not have the same rigorous standards and or have the same intensive scrutiny that academic writing does. Jones, for example,says he has not read the book. Essentially we are relying on WP editors to do the fact-checking and decide the weight that should be accorded the conclusions in the book, even though no scholars have yet commented on them. Aside from the problem of the fake photo on the cover, and the fact that Dikotter has received funding from a KMT group, it seems bizarre that he claims he was given access to documents, yet none to photographs. TFD (talk) 05:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

There may be no photographs of outright starvation. For example my wife's grandfather died during the leap from illness - probably prematurely from malnutrition. That is altogether different from the whole place looking like Belsen or Auschwitz (although specific parts of China might well have). China at the height of the GLF would have looked little different to India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, or Egypt of the time. The only year in which conditions were truly exceptional was 1960, due to extensive flooding.

The image used on his book is no doubt fake, if you follow the link provided by Jones, and in Dikotter's book itself, on the first page of the photographs section, there is a note in small print saying that no non-propaganda images of the period have been found, at least by him to date. Dikotter again confirms this in this newsweek article. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/26/mao-s-great-famine.html

Therefore Dikotter must know full well that the images he uses for his book cover and videos are not from the GLF. But obviously he does not care. They have emotional impact and help him get his point across.

Again any intelligent person could not fail to note that the excess deaths are calculated against very low assumed initial rates of mortality. This maximizes the excess death count. But the most widely respected mortality rate for 1949 is 38/1000 by Judith Banister - a typical figure for developing nations of the time. Dikotter, and Chang by using a ridiculouse 1957 figure of 10/1000 unwittingly give credit to the communists for reducing death rates in less than ten years by 28 deaths per thousand! So surely Mao, if he is to be condemned for the credit of excess deaths during the GLF, to be fair he should be credited for the deficit in deaths from 1949 up to the GLF, which would surely outweigh even Dikotter's outlandish figure of 45 million (in fact a very rough calc puts the lives saved from 1949 to 1958 due to a reduction in the death rate to around 90 million).

The fact is Mao's overall record should be looked at. And it seems that all the data, the demographic data agree on one thing. China's population exploded (increasing at about 3 to 4 times the rate in Mao's time) of the 3 decades leading up to 1949. Why is this? All the evidence points to falling fertility during Mao's time. So the only possible reason for the doubling of population under Mao is a dramatic reduction in mortality. The fastest rate of increase in life expectancy happened under Mao and is currently the subject of an ongoing Yale University study. http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/research/health_improvement_under_mao_and_its_implications_for_contemporary_aging_in_china/

Other authors have estimated that had China had the mortality rates of India, Indonesia, or other developing countries of similar GDP during Mao's time, there would have been 100 million more excess deaths. These facts are easily verifiable, with the data that is readily at hand to Western researchers. Even the most anti-communist of scholars do not dispute the data.

But when it comes to communism, it seems rhetoric and emotion override any objective analysis of the actual data.

I'm sure if someone comes out tomorrow and says Mao killed 200 million, people would just swallow it as fact.

Prairespark (talk) 06:07, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

A simple analysis:

I am not the first to point this out. We use Judith Banister's CHINA'S CHANGING POPULATION, which is widely considered the most authoritative work on China's population. The figures presented below are adjusted from the official rates by Banister, to take into account underreporting of deaths.

Year Deaths per thousand among the population

1949 38

1950 35

1951 32

1952 29

1953 25.77

1954 24.20

1955 22.33

1956 20.11

1957 18.12

1958 20.65

1959 22.06

1960 44.60

1961 23.01

1962 14.02

1963 13.81

Note that the Famine years are considered to be 1958 to 1961. However it would be a mistake to say that the conditions of 1958,59, and 61, were famine years. If so why not the years 1949 to 1954 when mortality rates were actually higher than 1958, 59, and 61?

So you can see the famine, except for 1960, is a statistical construct.

Compare the death rates of the 1959 to 61 with the mortality rates of India at the same time (Fig 16.3): http://envfor.nic.in/divisions/ic/wssd/doc2/ch16.htm

You can see that in the late 1950s, India's mortality was about 22/1000. That is more or less the same mortality rate as Banister's figures for 1958, 59, and 61. The single outlier is of course 1960. Here is something else that is interesting. If India was at 22 deaths per thousand, yet not considered to be in famine, why not China?

Let's go back a bit further. Look at China in 1949. Banister puts mortality at 38 deaths per thousand. Yet 1949 is not considered as a famine year by any researcher, nor are any of the years of the late 1940s. So for our purposes lets consider 38/1000 as the norm for pre-revolutionary China (it was actually probably a lot higher).

If we then take 44.6 deaths - 38 = 6.6 excess deaths per thousand in China in 1960.

6.6 deaths per thousand * 650 million / 1000 = 4.29 million deaths.

Thus the actual famine deaths, taking 38 per thousand mortality as the threshold between famine and non-famine, would give 4.29 famine deaths in China associated with the GLF. Such a famine of course would be a typical size one in China, with 5 million deaths claimed for a 1930s famine in China. Of course proportionally it would have less impact because China's population in the 1930s was around 450 million, whereas by 1960 it was around 650 million.

That is the fair way to look at the figures. Far from the greatest famine in history, the GLF famine should perhaps be considered the greatest REVERSAL in history - because up to the GLF the communists were doing so well in reducing mortality. And they came back on track after the famine.

Prairespark (talk) 06:52, 31 December 2010 (UTC) --Prairespark (talk) 06:52, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

An incredible amount of OR does not really affect what RS sources state - which is what WP editors are required to use. As for assuming that a rate of 38/M is "normal - that is past credulity indeed. And if one wishes to do mortality comparisons, the ages of death are important considerations - there is no doubt, apparently, that the early years of PRC saw a very large number of deaths due to war/rebellion/political reasons, and that 1958 - 1961 saw large numbers of death officially attributed to famine (noting regions which were heavily affected, and deaths by age cohort). It is not up to us to do the calculations when RS sources have done so. We are not to know facts not easily determined in sources. Collect (talk) 07:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

"As for assuming that a rate of 38/M is "normal - that is past credulity indeed."

But 38/thousand would quite likely normal, especially when we consider that this was the average rate of mortality in India in the 1920s (not considered a famine period). And unlike India, China went through foreign invasion and political upheaval on a huge scale in the 1930s and 1940s - something that India escaped. The Chinese government also did not have effective control of the entire country for many decades. It was the unity that the communists gave China, that started to move the country ahead. Note also that pre WWI Russia had average mortality of around 33 per thousand.

In any case 38/1000 for 1949 is the best estimate by researchers to date. I think we have to accept the figure.

Anecdotally, my grandparents in southern China (a relatively rich area) were relatively well off. In the 1930s and 40s my father and his siblings were born. Of eight children born, 3 died in early childhood. This was for a relatively prosperous land-owning and educated family. One can only surmise the actual mortality rates for the entire country - they would have been absolutely horrendous - in fact probably at or even exceeding 1960 GLF proportions.

Interestingly Life magazine (where Dikotter stole the picture of the starving boy for his cover) clearly shows horrendous famine in nationalist China in 1946. The link is here. The title is 'Millions are starving in the once-rich rice bowl". http://books.google.com/books?id=81QEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=1946,+china,+famine,+child&source=bl&ots=PipWY2aPx-&sig=EaQQV01IVdN85DLlZ2yLdbGYQc0&hl=en&ei=HiyhTPq-BcvFswaM6p3wAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=1946%2C%20china%2C%20famine%2C%20child&f=false

Yet, incredibly no researcher considers 1946 a famine year!

The 38/1000 is all too believable.

In fact the reason why so few Chinese hold the GLF against Mao is probably because for them it was nothing unique. The conditions in prerevolutionary China were every bit as bad.

The important thing to note however that the GLF was the only famine to afflict New China. The overall record for Mao's time, is the most dramatic decline in mortality rates in history, saving tens of millions of lives, when compared to the performance of other developing countries.

As for an academic study addressing some of the points I have made above, I refer you to Utsa Patnaik: “On Famine and Measuring ‘Famine Deaths.’” Thinking Social Science in India: Essays in Honour of Alice Thorner. Ed. Sujata Patel, Jasodhara Bagchi, and Krishna Raj. New Delhi: Sage, 2002. Prairespark (talk) 07:39, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

"And if one wishes to do mortality comparisons, the ages of death are important considerations - there is no doubt, apparently, that the early years of PRC saw a very large number of deaths due to war/rebellion/political reasons, and that 1958 - 1961 saw large numbers of death officially attributed to famine"

That is true. And famine, according to many researchers, hits the very young and elderly the worst. But look at infant mortality for China in 1960 vs India. Both are at 150 / 1000. Yet China is in famine and India is not?

China infant mortality rate, 1960: http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?IndicatorID=25&Country=CN

India infant mortality rate, 1960: http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_imrt_in&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=infant+mortality+rates+china#met=sp_dyn_imrt_in&idim=country:CHN:IND

Prairespark (talk) 07:55, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

This incredible amount of highly dubious OR is not going to affect the article in any way, shape or form, so I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish here with your diarrhea of the mouth. You spend alot of time trashing Dikotter, yet there is not one review that I have seen which disputes any of the key points in Dikotter's book. Quite the opposite in fact. Regarding the blog by Adam Jones, he spends most of his time refuting the views of the individual who brought the alleged photo misrepresentation to his attention, which are very similar to yours interestingly enough. He also recently posted this to his blog under "China/Famine Crimes" which you might find interesting: Finding the Facts About Mao's Victims.

Anyway, we need to get back to the issue at hand, which is finding a consensus on how the lede is going to be written. Here is another attempt:

Mass killings under Communist regimes during the twentieth century resulted in the estimated deaths of between ?? million and 100 million people. The highest death tolls have been documented in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Estimates of the number of killings vary widely: for these three countries ranging from 21 million to 70 million. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions that took place during the mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, and land reforms but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach in calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. Some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide. (Insert citations where necessary)

--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

The question is whether we should use the analysis that is agreed to in academic writing or that of Dikotter's book, which was published outside the academic mainstream (this year) and has received good book reviews. Whether or not Dikotter's views will gain academic acceptance or even if they will gain any attention is something that we cannot know. I suspect that if another scholar comes up with a new book representing Prairespark's viewpoint, you would be the first to object. TFD (talk) 16:13, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

C.J. Griffin said: "so I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish here with your diarrhea of the mouth." Moderator - is this considered a civilised way to carry out a debate?

C.J. Griffin said: "You spend alot of time trashing Dikotter, yet there is not one review that I have seen which disputes any of the key points in Dikotter's book."

True. They also praised Jung Chang's book to the skies when it first came out. Give it another year or two. By then those with a sincere interest in the topic will note its myriad misrepresentations. It certainly has a more scholarly veneer than the Jung Chang tome. But I confidently predict it will follow the latter work to literary and scholastic oblivion all the same.

How about the following -

Mass killings under Communist regimes during the twentieth century have been alleged to result in the estimated deaths of between ?? million and 100 million people. The highest alleged death tolls have been documented in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Estimates of the number of killings vary widely: for these three countries ranging from 21 million to 70 million. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions that took place during the mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, and land reforms but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach in calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. Some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide. However other scholars have cautioned against taking a one-sided approach to the issue, and to see the issue in a wider context. For example Gao (2007) suggested that the Great Leap Forward did in fact have its own logic and rationality, and that its terrible effects came not from malign intent on the part of the Chinese leadership at the time, but instead relate to the nature of rule at the time, and the vastness of China as a country. Gao says "..the terrible lesson learnt is that China is so huge and when it is uniformly ruled, follies or wrong policies will have grave implications of tremendous magnitude". Others have suggested that while China did undoubtedly experience large numbers of famine deaths in the years 1958 to 1961, this toll has to be evaluated in light of the otherwise overall impressive achievements of Maoist China in dramatically improving life expectancy. Gao (2008) also quotes estimates that the Maoist revolution gave an estimated net positive value of 35 billion extra years of life to the Chinese people. Li (2008) has produced data showing that even the peak death rates during the Great Leap Forward were in fact quite typical in pre-Communist China. Li (2008) argues that based even on the average death rate over the three years of the Great Leap Forward, there were several million fewer lives lost during this period than would have been the case under the normal mortality conditions of pre-revolutionary China. (Insert citations where necessary)

--

Look forward to everyone's comments.

Book references as follows:

http://www.amazon.com/China-Demise-Capitalist-World-Economy/dp/158367182X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293857013&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Gao-Village-Rural-Modern-China/dp/0824831926/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293857041&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Chinas-Past-Cultural-Revolution/dp/074532780X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293858302&sr=8-1

Prairespark (talk) 05:13, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid this isn't going to fly. First of all too much detail is given to events in the PRC. Secondly these sources are clearly WP:FRINGE and by placing them in the lede you are giving them WP:UNDUE weight--C.J. Griffin (talk) 05:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely ridiculous. Minqi Li, and Mobo Gao are not fringe academics at all. Left wing perhaps. But not fringe. In fact Dikotter is far more 'fringe'. Firstly he is bankrolled by the Chiang Chingkuo foundation (sort of like getting paid by Glen Beck to write a biography of Obama), has come out and said that there was nothing wrong with the British forcing opium onto the Chinese, and Japanese imperialism should not be condemned 'root and branch.' Talk about fringe!

Yet here we have Mobo Gao, an honest writer from rural China who actually lived through the Great Leap Forward, (and has conducted field studies on his village) and had siblings die in it, and Minqi Li, a former dissident and political prisoner in China - and their views, according to Griffin, are 'fringe'.

Yet Dikotter, who knows little about China outside a history textbook (he even gets the character for 'tomb' (mu) mixed up with 'wood' (also mu) - something an eight year old Chinese would not trip up on - refer article by Jonathan Mirsky), and yet because he is a Westerner, praised by other Westerners, his word on China counts for more than that of Minqi Li and Mobo Gao? What a transparent and disgusting display of academic imperialism by Griffin.

Westerners of course understand more about Chinese than the Chinese themselves! Yet, if we had a Chinese academic from say Gansu province, who learned english to a moderate level, resided in the USA for 10 years, and he wrote a biography of say, Andrew Jackson, how much respect do you think it would get from the academic community? Very little of course. Because people would rightly note that simply from 10 years in the country, that would still not be enough time to pick up the cultural context, nuances and subtleties, and understand the motives of Andrew Jackson.

Yet anytime a Westerner says anything about China, his word is taken as gospel over that of a Chinese. The hypocrisy, and yes borderline racism of Griffin is as despicable as it is transparent.

Prairespark (talk) 05:57, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

The publishers are Pluto Press and the University of Hawaii Press, which are clearly academic publishers and therefore reliable sources. Since most of the numbers relate to deaths in China, it makes sense that China should receive the majority of coverage in the article. TFD (talk) 06:00, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you TFD! :)

When are we going to get a decision on the lede - and implement?

Prairespark (talk) 06:04, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Minqi Li is a Marxist whose work was published by Monthly Review Press, a Marxist publisher. Mobo Gao's unrelenting pro-Mao polemic The Battle For China's Past is "about… 'strange concepts', so strange that they challenge the mainstream orthodox narrative; it questions many 'truths' told in memoirs, biographies and autobiographies, both in Chinese and English." And Pluto Press is a "radical" (i.e. Marxist) publisher ("Pluto Press has always had a radical political agenda") that has been accused of putting forth anti-semitic screeds. Yeah, I think "fringe" is the right way to describe them. And they do not belong in the lede of the article.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 06:26, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

"Yet anytime a Westerner says anything about China, his word is taken as gospel over that of a Chinese. The hypocrisy, and yes borderline racism of Griffin is as despicable as it is transparent." Apparently you failed to see that I cited Yang Jisheng several times on this very talk page, along with Chen Yizi and Jung Chang. I suggest you retract that ad hominem about my supposed "racism."--C.J. Griffin (talk) 06:36, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Radical? To who? Mobo Gao's work would in fact align with the views of most Chinese on Mao. Minqi Li is a well respected economist. If they are radicals or fringe, what in heaven's name is Dikotter - who praises drug use and colonialism?

Jung Chang's book has been thoroughly debunked by all serious China scholars - even you know that Mr Griffin. Chen Yizi has close ties with the Falun Gong movement (as flakey a group as you ever will find), and Yang Jisheng, if you read his other works, has a clear political agenda. His dad died during the GLF, as he keeps on going on about? Yeah - was it one of the 'excess' deaths? He never says so. Three of my aunts died in childhood in pre-revolutionary China under Chiang. Does that mean that I can write a biography damning Chiang Kaishek and have it free from criticism? Of course not.

In any case the article is already chock full of people of Mr Griffin's ideological disposition. Very well. Can we, in the interests of fairness, try and inject some balance by including Mobo Gao, and Minqi Li's work?

Or do all sources have to get with Mr Griffin's agenda?

Prairespark (talk) 06:49, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Pluto Press is considered an academic publisher and is distributed by Palgrave MacMillan. The view that only right-wing publications, even those published in the popular press, are reliable, while left-wing books published within the academic press are "fringe" is contrary to Wikipedia policy. Incidentally Furet wrote for Telos and Courtois was a Maoist. TFD (talk) 06:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. In fact if Griffin is still not happy, I can go to Maurice Meisner, Chris Bramall, Lei Feigon, as well as Banister, Eggleston, all Western writers who can substantiate what Li and Gao say. I thought it would be good to include a left-wing Chinese perspective. In fact there are also recent Yale and Harvard studies which back up what I have written (and Gao and Li's points) - especially the stuff about life expectancy and literacy.

Prairespark (talk) 06:58, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Basically the quotes of Li and Gao that I have included are not all that outlandish. Here are two recent studies - one by Yale University, the other a Harvard Study which more or less back up the stuff I have included in the lede:

An ongoing Stanford Universy study on Maoist China's phenomenal achievement in doubling life expectancy: http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/research/health_improvement_under_mao_and_its_implications_for_contemporary_aging_in_china/

Furthermore a group of Harvard researchers have made a compelling case that the reason for China economically outperforming India over the past three decades is related to the health achievements of modern China. An excerpt from the article:

"However, the authors note, China's economy has exploded, expanding by 8.1 percent per capita per year on average between 1980 and 2000, while in the same time period India saw a sustained growth rate in income per capita of 3.6 percent--a rate that, while rapid by the standards of most developing economies, is modest compared to China's. What accounts for the difference? Part of the answer, the HSPH team suggests, is that dramatic demographic changes in China began decades before those in India. After 1949, China's Maoist government invested heavily in basic health care, creating communal village and township clinics for its huge rural population. That system produced enormous improvements in health: From 1952 to 1982, infant mortality in China dropped from 200 to 34 deaths per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy rose from 35 years to 68. And under the government's family planning program, fertility rates dropped by half, from six births per woman in 1970 to three as of 1979." http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/review/rvw_summerfall06/rvwsf06_bloom.html

Is that good enough Mr Griffin?

And also - ff you want to, look up Judith Banister's work - 'Chinas Changing Population' - widely considered the most authoritative work in the West on China's population. Crunch through the numbers yourself - you will find what Li says about mortality is true.

Prairespark (talk) 07:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

"Yang Jisheng, if you read his other works, has a clear political agenda." I can't help but laugh at this. Certainly Mobo Gao and Minqi Li don't have a political agenda.. not at all....</sarcasm off> And Yang's authoritative work Tombstone (2008) has been praised almost across the board by China specialists, and, like Dikotter, he has had access to Chinese archival data on the tragedy. I doubt that Mr. Li or Mr. Gao could say the same thing.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 07:09, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

User:C.J. Griffin's user page says, "This user thinks Chairman Mao Zedong is the most evil person to have ever lived" and that "Communism killed 100,000,000 people...." I do not imagine that he is very flexible in his beliefs. TFD (talk) 07:14, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, both Dikotter and Yang have had access to the archives - does not stop them being charlatans - anyone who believes China had a 'normal' death rate of 1% in 1958 in order to max out the 'excess' death count (the same as the US and Canada at the time, while India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Vietnam, Kenya, etc had death rates 2to 2.5%) are either incredibly stupid, or agenda driven fanatics. Or are they secret admirers of Mao? Because if it was 3.8% in 1949 (as Banister has it, and the accepted level for pre-revolutionary China) then a drop to 1% by 1958 is an astounding achievement on the part of the Maoist government. So Mao and socialism should get credit for saving huge number of lives before 1958?

But never mind all this. By all means include Dikotter, Yang, Chen etc. But in the interests of fairness, I propose we also include Mobo Gao and Li Minqi.

Fair deal?

Prairespark (talk) 07:20, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

"This user thinks Chairman Mao Zedong is the most evil person to have ever lived"

I thought it would be perhaps King Leopold. He killed about 25% of the population of the Congo (Pol Pot killed 21%) and in absolute numbers killed almost twice as much as Pol Pot(4 million compared to 2.1 million for Pol Pot). Yet statues of him still abound in Belgium.

Also the Americans wiped out out about 1.4 million Phillipinos out of 9 million during the Phillipines American war. If Mao killed at that rate he would be responsible for close to 110 million deaths. So perhaps it should be McKinley or Ted Roosevelt or whoever it was in charge at the time who are the most evil men in history.

Prairespark (talk) 09:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Yang Jisheng is a journalist whose recent book has not been translated into English and has received no attention from the academic community. The description "groundbreaking" is from a former WSJ reporter in a book review/interview. The western scholars who lauded the book is only one scholar, Dali Yang, and we only have a snippet of his commentary made to a reporter. TFD (talk) 09:22, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

"But never mind all this. By all means include Dikotter, Yang, Chen etc. But in the interests of fairness, I propose we also include Mobo Gao and Li Minqi. Fair deal?" Polemical Marxist sources specific to one regime (PRC) are not going to find their way into the lede of this article, period. You'll also notice that Dikotter is cited in the article, but not in the lede.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:26, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

"This user thinks Chairman Mao Zedong is the most evil person to have ever lived" This from Jonathan Fenby, taken from the Penguin History of Modern China (2008, p. 351): “Mao’s responsibility for the extinction of anywhere from 40 to 70 million lives brands him as a mass killer greater than Hitler or Stalin, his indifference to the suffering and the loss of humans breathtaking. People were fodder for his increasingly irrational dreams. So what if nuclear war killed half the earth’s inhabitants, he once remarked; it would bring the destruction of imperialism, and the world would become socialist.” This from Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, taken from Mao's Last Revolution (2006, p. 471) "Together with Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, Mao appears destined to go down in history as one of the great tyrants of the twentieth century."--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:26, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Well who cares what a couple of Englishmen who can't even speak chinese properly think. Just like you call Stalin a tyrant - yet over 50% of Russians don't think badly of him. And most Chinese revere Mao. That is what is important.

And yes Mao did make the point about nuclear war. And most here agree with him. Just like you would fight to the death for your country England or whatever, I believe Mao was correct in saying what he said. What was he going to do? Just roll over and say yes Sir to the United States - we will do you what you want because you have the bomb? Of course not. Chinese are proud of Mao for sticking up to the Americans.

Killing 40 to 70 million ---what a joke ---then other developing countries like India killed over 100 million. You check the mortality rates year by year. Or perhaps you are innumarate and lack the capability to do the figures. Check out all the demographic profiles the life expectancy stats. Chairman Mao was in fact the greatest humanitarian in history.

Yet all Griffin comes up with is some argument from authority --two Western sources say Mao is the world's most evil man, so he must be. Never mind the CHinese peasants who build shrines to him, hang his portraits etc -- their opinions count for nothing.

Now Griffin. Why is Mao the most evil man over say, King Leopold? If it because Mao is chinese, and it gives your tiny mind full of orientalist prejudice a little thrill?

And if anti-communist polemics go into the lede, Gao and Li should also. The points they make are reasonable, and backed up even by research at Stanford and Harvard. Period.

Prairespark (talk) 18:56, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Please read the appropriate WP policy pages. This talk page is not to be used for saying what you know on a topic - it is for discussions about improving the article using statements made by reliable sources. Whether 500 million people revere Mao has absolutely nothing to do with this article at all. Collect (talk) 19:56, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Re: "Moderator - is this considered a civilised way to carry out a debate?" Wikipedia has no moderators, however, you may go to WP:CIVIL to read how to deal with uncivil editors (these User:C.J. Griffin's words are definitely highly uncivil).

Re User:C.J. Griffin's proposed lead: I repeated many times that "mass killings under Communist regimes" ≠ "mass deaths under Communist regimes" (more precisely, only few scholars equate these two categories). Therefore, any attempt to add the phrase like "Mass killings under Communist regimes during the twentieth century resulted in the estimated deaths of between ?? million and 100 million people" into the lede will be reverted per WP:NPOV. In addition, I doubt we have a sufficient ground to have "Mass killings under Communist regimes" in bold in the lede, because that is not a separate concept, not a separate type of mass killings, and many editors even claim that the article draws no connections between mass killings and Communism.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:02, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

C.J. Griffin Collect is right about the talk page not being a general forum to discuss the topic and should only be used to discuss changes to the article. I would also ask that editors please try to be as concise as possible here to allow editors without a lot of time - like me - to keep abreast of things.

Paul, I agree that mass killing is not mass death. I don't agree that including a range of estimates for the (intended) killing given by reliable sources introduces bias. I agree that bolding the phrase "Mass killings under Communist regimes" is probably not justified since it is a descriptive term rather than a quoted term used verbatim in the sources. I disagree that it is not a separate concept, in the sense of a separate or distinct topic (I'm not quite sure if I'm reading you correctly on this issue, however). As for the issue of "many editors" claiming the article draws no connection between mass killing and Communism, is anyone other than TFD pushing that line of argument? It is based upon a misunderstanding: the article is about the "connection" (that seems like a weasel word; "association" may be better) reliable sources have made between mass killing (however termed) and "Communist regimes" (which may or may not have actually practiced ideological communism as defined by any particular Wikipedia editor). AmateurEditor (talk) 03:45, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

C.J. Griffin, Mao's last revolution says that during the Cultural revolution, Mao "abandon[ed] Maoist utopianism in favor of building.... So "practice," not ideology--not Marxism-Leninism, not Mao Zedong Thought--became the "sole criterion of truth." If it worked, it would be done." (pp. 1-2) What does that have to do with the connection between mass killings and Communism? TFD (talk) 21:25, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't you mean "the connection between mass killing and Communist regimes"? AmateurEditor (talk) 03:45, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Either the article is about related events, in which case it should be explained or it is about unrelated events, in which case it should be deleted. Either way is fine, but right now it reads like Cold War propaganda from the 1950s, not like a serious encyclopedia article. TFD (talk) 04:13, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

The article is about a topic found in reliable sources. You are perfectly free to believe what you like about the topic, but - according to those reliable sources - what relates these events is the type of government instigating them. That is evident in the article from the title alone. That type of government is conventionally called "Communist" (including in the reliable sources) but, again, you don't have to agree that that is the best or even an accurate label. You do, however, have to accept that Wikipedia is essentially supposed to be a reflection of reliable sources and it is not POV for the article to reflect those sources. If there are other perspectives from reliable sources you feel should also be included, please add them in the body of the article. We don't need to be constantly arguing about this on the talk page. AmateurEditor (talk) 05:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Dear AmateurEditor,

1. We both agree that mass killing is not mass death.
2. We both know that the number of premature deaths during the Communist rule in some Communist states is estimated to range from 20+ to 100+ million.
3. We both agree that these deaths include both the victims of mass killings (in its commonsensual definition they include Kampuchean genocide, Stalin's Great Purge, etc) and the victims of diseases, famines, prisoners and deportees mortality, etc.
4. We both agree that, although the events belonging to the later category are not considered as mass killing by majority scholars, some scholars do describe them as mass killings (Valentino), democide (Rummel), Red Holocaust (Rosenfielde).

Based on all said above we cannot give estimates of the number of victims of mass deaths under Communist regimes in the article about mass killings, unless Valentino's "mass killing" theory, Rummel's "Democide" and some other theories are explicitly named in the lede. In other words, if we want to give these estimates, we should turn this article into the article about these theories, not the events themselves.

Alternatively, we can focus on the events that are considered as mass killings by majority scholars (KR genocide, Stalin's purges, Mao's Cultural revolution), and then add a reservation that some scholars extend this list to other events, including famines, etc. Remember, initially this article was devoted to the KR genocide, and had no POV or SYNTH issues. However, when more and more tangentially related materials started to be being added to the article it started to drift to the wrong direction. --Paul Siebert (talk) 05:37, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

1. Yes, I agree.

2,3. These estimates (of 21-70 million in the big three by Valentino, and I assume of 100 million in all communist countries by the Black Book) are not estimates of "premature deaths". In both cases the estimates are of killing for which the regimes are culpable (whether or not we would agree with the sources various judgments in the cases of famine, deportation, etc. - I believe one source distinguishes between "mass murder" and "mass manslaughter" regarding famine deaths, for instance., but both involve regime culpability). I don't know of any source used which includes "excess deaths", which I would not even accept as something that could be estimated.

4. I agree we should not give estimates of "mass deaths" in the lead as if they are really "mass killings" when they are not. I don't agree that that is what these two estimates are. I do think it is very important to include with mention of the range of estimates that, in addition to dispute about the estimated numbers involved, there is also dispute among the estimators about what types of events should be included to begin with.

5. Your "alternatively" suggestion seems to me to be exactly what has been done. Where certain events are disputed as intentional killing, they are segregated in a "Controversies" section. (However, this article did not begin as an article about the Khmer Rouge Genocide, which already had an article. As you can see from the first edit which created the article, here, it was about all of the Communist states from the very beginning.) AmateurEditor (talk) 00:27, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the article was created by Joklolk, a sockpuppet of the troll User:ViperNerd, who claimed that "a low barrier of entry leads to crap".[1] TFD (talk) 00:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Re: "In both cases the estimates are of killing for which the regimes are culpable". The problem is that the term "killing" has a different meaning in these books (at least in the first one). Valentino defined so called "Dispossessive mass killings" (famines, deportations, etc.) that are not generally considered as mass killings by others, and after that he combined these "dispossessive mass killings" with "mass killings" proper into the same category. Therefore, the mass killing defined in such are way are not always indistinguishable from "mass mortality", or "mass premature" deaths, the terms used by other scholars.

Re 4. You are probably right, however, everything depends on concrete wording.

Re 5. No. Although famines etc have been separated from the mass killings proper, the estimates of the number of victims haven't. Therefore, the number of 21-70 million will be understood as it it referred to the number of killed (not of killed + died deportees + famine victims + camp mortality + disease deaths, etc).--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:16, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Although I do not know that the famines are not considered intentional killing "by majority of scholars", as you say, it seems that our disagreements boil down to one issue, Valentino's "dispossessive mass killing", because you say that it does not represent "mass killing" as it is conventionally understood and its inclusion in Valentino's estimates distorts them. I want to make a couple points here:

1. On page 69 of his book, Valentino describes "dispossessive mass killing" as a subclass of "mass killing", along with "coercive mass killing". That is, he characterizes things as follows: He defines "mass killing";he divides that "mass killing" into two general classes/categories: "dispossessive" and "coercive"; these two categories he further divides (with some overlap and exceptions) into six types, one of which is "Communist mass killing". (This can be seen as Table 1 on page 70.) So "dispossessive mass killing" is completely a subdivision of Valentino's "mass killing" definition, although "Communist mass killing" is only generally a subdivision of "dispossessive mass killing". Now, Valentino defines mass killing as: "the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants", arbitrarily limited to 50,000 within 5 years.(my GoogleBooks preview excludes the specific page where he defines the term in his book, but he also does so in a paper he co-authored which can be read here.) The only difference I see between Valentino's "mass killing" and the conventionally understood "mass killing/mass murder" is the numerical cut-off. He does not include at all people were killed unintentionally under "mass killing" or therefore under "dispossessive mass killing" or "Communist mass killing". So there is no inclusion of "mass mortality"/"mass premature deaths" in Valentino's definition.

2. When Valentino estimates 21 - 70 million deaths for the big three regimes (on page 91 of his book, along with an estimate of "up to 110 million" killed by all Communist regimes), he appears to be citing others anyway, so these estimates would not be based on his definition of "mass killing". My GoogleBooks preview does not let me see who the references are. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Rather than ask us'all to figure this out, can you please provide a source that explains it. TFD (talk) 03:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

"Although I do not know that the famines are not considered intentional killing "by majority of scholars", as you say" I dispute this as well. No doubt some scholars dismiss the notion that famine deaths constitute intentional mass killings (i.e. Wheatcroft, Getty, etc. - usually those of the "revisionist" school), but can we really say that a "majority" do? I know of several reputable scholars who consider such deaths as intentional killings, and have cited them here on this talk page. Recently I've been reading Timothy Snyder's book Bloodlands and he also concurs that the famine deaths in Ukraine constitute deliberate mass killing, and goes into great detail on why this is so. I added his comment to the relevant section of the article.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

We need a source that says what most scholars believe this or that. It is not something that we can determine ourselves. TFD (talk) 16:40, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Re "can we really say that a "majority" do?" Majority scholars (including such rightist writers as Conquest) prefer to speak about the victims of Communist regimes, or about those whose death was caused by one or another action of these regimes. Intentionality is frequently left beyond the scope. By contrast, "mass killing" is usually associated with mass intentional homicide, i.e. the actions having a primary purpose to kill people. Therefore, it is impossible and incorrect to equate, e.g. the Soviet great famine with the Khmer Rouge genocide: the former was no more mass killing than Bengal Famine (both of them were a result of Stalin's or, accordingly, Churchill's actions, although their intentionality is disputable), whereas the latter (as well as Stalin's Great purge, etc) was a purely intentional mass homicide (and was designed as such).

@ AmateurEditor's "When Valentino estimates 21 - 70 million deaths for the big three regimes (...) he appears to be citing others anyway." Correct, but uses the works of others as a source of figures, whereas the interpretation belongs to him. Generally speaking, the figures do not seem to be too inflated (most sources agree the number of excess premature deaths caused by Stalin's regime in the USSR was ca 20 million, which include famines, diseases, non-combat war time death, etc; Since China had much greater population, and because social transformations were even more brutal and radical there, it is highly plausible that the number of deaths was much greater, the Kampuchean case is quite obvious: it was a pure genocide, although its connection with Communism is not as obvious as someone wants to present, so the total number of death may amount 70+ million), however, the idea that all those deaths were a result of mass killings belongs to Valentino, and it is shared by only a part of scholars. Other scholars express quite different ideas and use quite different terminology. Therefore, any figures may be added to the lede only along with direct reference to the specific theories the article is based on.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Paul, you may be right about the position most scholars take on victims vs. killed, I don't know one way or the other. TFD is right that we would need to source any statement in the article that states what most scholars believe. Since it appears that neither of us is proposing adding such a statement to the article, I'd rather drop the issue for now. As for the issue of mentioning the range of estimates in the lede, I don't think we need to be too specific as to which estimates include which criteria/assumptions/methods as long as we do state that the differences exist and account for the wide ranges. The details of the differences should be found in the body of the article. AmateurEditor (talk) 01:54, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

It seems many of the issues some editors had with the lede article have been remedied. No more estimates in lede, brief discussion of mass killings vs untimely deaths and that higher estimates tend to include lives lost to war, famine and disease, removal of cannibalism cases from Cultural Revolution, etc. Is this enough to remove the POV tag?--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:04, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Since it has been more than two weeks without a response or further discussion, it appears that POV issues are no longer in contention. I posted notices on TFD's and Paul Siebert's talk pages informing them that I will remove the POV tag one day from now if they have no further issues to raise. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:56, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you AmateurEditor for posting the reminder on my talk page. Although I agree that significant steps have been done towards a consensus, I still believe that the article needs in some work. In this my posts I focus only on the lede. In my opinion, the lede of the article devoted to such a sensitive topic should contain only indisputable facts and no assertions (which belong to the main article). Concretely, the fact that must be reflected are:

1. In XX century (we discuss mostly XX century, aren't we?) mass mortality events (mass murders, genocides, mass executions, famines, diseases, wars, etc) occurred throughout the world.
2. A considerable part of those events occurred in the states that have declared adherence to some form of Communist doctrine, and, according to various estimates, tens of millions, lost their lives prematurely under Communist regimes. (the fact that people were dying from hunger or as a result of deportations is indisputable, and the total number of those died in such a way was not "millions", but "tens of millions" (in the USSR + China))
3. Part of those mass deaths (e.g. mass executions of political opponents or representatives of some particular social groups) is directly attributed to the deliberate activity of the Communist regimes (no mainstream scholars reject the fact that the KR genocide, or Great Purge, or Cultural Revolution had a primary aim to physically eliminate some categories of peoples)
4. Other, the major part of those deaths is a subject of debates (and we have already discussed these debates a countless number of times).
   The lede written based on this scheme would adequately reflect what mainstream reliable sources say (and would adequately reflect the article). By contrast, the current lead mixes two categories of mass deaths, so the reader cannot understand if we are talking about mass killings defined commonsensually, or we use the Valentino's definition that included "dispossessive mass killings", thereby the exaggerated attention is devoted to the theories of few scholars, which is definitely non-neural.
   By using the scheme proposed by me we would be able to get rid of toothless " millions, perhaps tens of millions", because, again, the fact that "tens of millions, not millions" died prematurely is indisputable (the only question is if all those death were a result of mass killings or not). In addition, I don't know if in the sentence "The validity of such an approach in calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others" it is fully correct to put "elsewhere", because no sources have been cited in this article that question this "elsewhere". At least, there is a consensus that KR mass killing was a classical genocide, and noone dispute that. I also disagree with the usage of the word "Russia" in the lede: the name of the state where the discussed events occurred was the USSR.
   Regards, --Paul Siebert (talk) 02:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I know how easy it can be to overlook a comment on a talk page when you are involved in other things, so you're welcome. I don't see anything to disagree with in your suggestions. I still disagree with your characterization of "dispossessive mass killing" as something other than a subcategory of the commonsense definition (Valentino only narrowed the definition of mass killing with his specifications on both intent and scale in his working definition, and "dispossessive" was a subcategory of this narrowed definition), but I don't know what else I can do to convince you of this. I also still disagree that stating the range of total numerical estimates in the lede is not appropriate. However, we can argue about these things when we have resolved everything else. AmateurEditor (talk) 15:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

If we accept the scheme proposed by me, I see no problem to include the range of total numerical estimates of those who died prematurely under Communist rule. It would not be a POV to say so, because the population losses are not a subject of serious debates. However, since only a part of scholars attribute all those losses to mass killings, we should discuss this issue after the estimates are presented. In other words, the facts should be presented as: "(i) A large amount of people were killed, executed, murdered, and much greater amount died as a result of war, famine and diseases; (ii) the estimates of total amount of premature death range from 20 to 70, sometimes to 100 million; (iii) some authors describe those deaths as mass killings and attribute all of them to deliberate policy of the Communist authorities, whereas others prefer to use a different terminology and provide different explanation of those events". (the concrete wording may be different)--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Article is one sided

I fail to see why this article became an condemnation of Communist regimes instead of one that simply explores the various incidences of mass killings. It contains a large amounts of speculation, and cherry-picked opinions and quotes of selected academics that provides an incomplete picture. For example, both the articles on the Holodomor and the Great Chinese Famine gave perspectives of scholars that contested the notion that these are deliberate killings, and yet their views are not covered here at all. These incidences are quite different from cases such as the Cambodian Genocide, which was found by a court of law to be deliberate genocide. In contrast, the article on Anti-communist mass killings simply lists the various incidences without any commentary.

In consideration, I think the article could need a rewrite, include the perspectives of the authors who contest the mass killings labels, minimize the quotes and commentaries, and focus on factual evidence such as the death numbers, media reports etc. I also believe that some of the material, especially third party, commentary would find a better home at Criticisms of communist party rule.60.242.159.224 (talk) 10:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the previous contributor. I believe this article should be junked - I mean its just ridiculous - are we going to have an article on say, Buddhist mass killings, Catholic mass killings, Capitalist mass killings, Feudal mass killings etc. It's just completely absurd that this article should exist at all - unless one is an anti-communist agenda driven fanatic, like Mr Griffin.

If the article must exist, perspectives must be provided from all sides of the issue, not just those who pass muster with Mr Griffin.

Prairespark (talk) 15:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Praire, I am always glad to see new people edit wp. you have shed some light on the practices of other editors here, specifically those who agree with your ideology. they often claim to be objective, yet when someone with a different view as you, breaks as many rules as you have, they try to have the editor banned. yet your violations have gone on without incident. i will not report your edits, and encourage you to continue to contribute to this and other articles. Darkstar1st (talk) 17:18, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Your comments are offensive, you have refused to retract them and I have started a discussion thread at ANI.[2] TFD (talk) 07:03, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Your link points to the ani you started on: 30 December 2010, is there a new ani as well? prairie re-inserted the same material for the 4th time again yesterday, and no action is taken against him, yet i point out his error, and i get the ani? Darkstar1st (talk) 16:51, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Prairespark has been confirmed as a vandal and sock-puppeteer. I recommend all his "contributions" to this talk page be removed, especially his personal attacks against me.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 21:25, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Prairespark has not been confirmed as a vandal. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 18:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough Petri, what is the word for someone who keeps resubmitting the same material without consensus on the talk page, and breaking the 1 rr? Darkstar1st (talk) 18:26, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Tendentious editor. Since Prairespark was blocked after the postings, they should not be deleted but may be hidden, since no one is discussing them. TFD (talk) 18:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand, I've seen very little evidence of anyone really discussing much on this talk page recently: merely the endless repetition of the same old tired points. If the article was actually about a real subject, as opposed to a dubious POV synthesis, one would expect new sources and outside input to be arriving. They aren't. Somebody wrote a book. Right-wingers (or at least some of them) agreed with it, because it supposedly showed they were right. Left-wingers (or at least some of them) disagreed with it, because it couldn't be correct, because then they'd be wrong. Nobody seems to care much about the victims of alleged 'mass killings' anyway, unless they can be used to score points. No discussion of real people, or real events. No attempt to go beyond the 'reliable sources' one prefers. No sense of history. Regardless of exactly how many people died, and for what reasons, they deserve better than this. Either accept that cold-war posturing is a little past its sell-by date, or actually try to look at events without resorting to vacuous stereotypes. Somewhere in this 'article' is a real one trying to get out, but the simplistic binary good/evil approach adopted by too many obscures more than it explains. Try to move on. Or if you can't do this, then do the decent thing, and let the victims rest in peace. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:44, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The aricle connects the Russian civil war and Pol Pot's genocide in order to support the position of American isolationism and European collabortion. TFD (talk) 03:48, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of whether Prairespark is a sockpuppet or not, he has made some excellent points. I think his edits some justification and in fact improve the article because they show both sides of the debate. Wikipedia is not a place for C. J. Griffin to simply push his own ideological agenda. An encyclopedia article simply serves to point out the facts and then present the different interpretations of those facts which are out there. It is not a place for cold war pamphleteers like C. J. Griffin.

I do think the cannibalism part of the article under Cultural Revolution should be taken out - as this was an extremely rare event, (out of a population of 800 million, and was not condoned by the Central authorities, less alone ordered by them. Furthermore it is well known that the vast majority of the deaths in the Cultural Revolution came about through factional infighting, the casualties were basically battle casaulties, not victims of mass execution. Hence I do not believe that reference to the Cultural Revolution belongs in the article at all. The Great Leap Forward also does not need mentioning. The famine was unintended, and if one considers it to be a communist 'mass killing', then using the same standard Churchill is a mass killer because of the Bengal famine, and Nehru is a mass killer because of the millions of Indians who died of hunger and disease under him, over and above in numbers those who died under the socialist system in China.

However for the time being I will just remove the Cultural Revolution section, and replace the lede with what prairespark proposed above.

Whether or not the Great Leap Forward remains in the article can be determined by further debate.

Paramanami (talk) 09:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Starvation before communism, by way of contrast. In 1920 more than 15 million Chinese died of starvation. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:23, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality

This article infers a connection between Communist regimes and mass killings, which is not explained. There is no discussion of who has made the connection, what connection they have made, or the level of acceptance of their views. /Accordingly it reads like cold war propaganda and is an embarrassment and a disservice to readers. Also, most of the sources do not directly address the subject but are written about events in individual countries. Much of the literature is taken from books that are either published outside the mainstream academic press or comparatively recent. Accordingly we cannot discern what level of acceptance they have in mainstream writing - in fact they probably have none. TFD (talk) 03:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

As I recall you argued there were no sources for "communist genocide", that it was a synthesis, etc. when there are hundreds of books on the topic—the preponderance being genocide by (self-declared) "communists" but also genocide committed against the same. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 05:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The name of that article was changed precisely because of synthesis problems. By the way, if you wish to explain the horrors of Communism to people, they have been well-documented in reliable sources. You should allow this article to be written in a neutral tone and allow the readers to form their own opinions. Intelligent readers are able to discern bias and distortions and may question why the article is written in a biased manner, and may even come away with a more positive view of Communism, if only because they develop a negative view of anti-Communists. TFD (talk) 05:47, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

@TFD rsp to mine, what you call "synthesis problems" were arguing over the lead, quoting the U.N. genocide resolution and a whole pile of additional WP:OR arguing over what the article was about, forcing the discussion toward the need to agree on the article lead. No one (well, at least one camp of editors, by appearances) was interested in representing what scholarly sources refer to when discussing "communist genocide" (for example, whether genocide by or of communists or both) as that meant having the words "Communist genocide" appearing as a Wikipedia article title. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 17:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

We don't have articles such as breeds of chicken raised under Communist regimes or mass killings in Protestant nations. Why? Because no one can see any connection between them. You obviously draw a connection in your mind, but you need to be explicit about what the connection is in the article. The is for example a website called Republican Sex Offenders, which basically lists republican sex offenders. However, if you want to create such an article here, then you need reliable sources that draw a connection between republicans and sex crimes. TFD (talk) 17:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

1. You are going to have to explain what you mean by "infer a connection between Communist regimes and mass killings", because it make little sense to me as a criticism. I understood your prior point that the article should not take a side on a connection between communist ideology and mass killings, but the connection between the regimes and the killings is both uncontroversial and explicitly made: many of these regimes engaged in mass killing. Does the Slavery in ancient Greece article infer a connection between ancient Greece and slavery? How can an article "infer a connection" on what are essentially facts? There is disagreement in sources on numerical estimates for events and on intentionality for a few events, but no disagreement on the validity of the topic itself, which even the sources you have presented to criticize the topic have acknowledged. The scholars are in fact named in the article. Their "levels of acceptance" are not because it would be original research for us add that on our own. Therefore, the only "level of acceptance" that is relevant here is whether or not a source meets Wikipedia's standard for reliable sources. All the sources used here do.

2. That many or even most sources used in the article focus on a single event is irrelevant to the POV tag. They are only used to describe the event they document. That is a neutral use for them. The sources which discuss multiple regime discuss these events, so it is appropriate that this article also does.

3. "...it reads like cold war propaganda..." Please be specific. According to the WP:NPOVD, you must address "specific issues that are actionable" because "Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag." AmateurEditor (talk) 01:18, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

1. The article "Slavery in ancient Greece says "Slavery was common practice and an integral component of ancient Greece.... Most ancient writers considered slavery not only natural but necessary.... The study of slavery in ancient Greece poses a number of significant methodological problems. Documentation is disjointed and very fragmented, focusing on the city of Athens." This article does not say for example: "Mass killings were common practice and an integral component of Communist states.... Most Communists considered mass killings not only natural but necessary.... The study of mass killings under Communist regimes poses a number of significant methodological problems. Documentation is disjointed and very fragmented, focusing on the the Soviet Union."

2. No idea what you are talking about.

3. If you have to misrepresent the facts in order to present your views, then readers will distrust you. Ironically your approach will create sympathy for Communism. Having watched the Manchurian Candidate, I believe that some extreme anti-communists may be secret Communists, trying to discredit democracy by appearing to be extreme.

TFD (talk) 04:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

1. I did not bring up the Slavery in ancient Greece article as a cookie-cutter imitation of this one. Every topic is unique and must be treated on its own terms. I brought it up to debunk your argument about an inferred connection being made by the existence of this article between mass killing and Communist regimes. Just as slavery was not unique to ancient Greece and an article on that topic does not infer that there was a special connection between the two beyond the fact that it occurred, so mass killing was not unique to Communist regimes and this article does not infer a connection beyond the facts of what occurred. There were, however, in both cases, unique circumstances and characteristics that have been examined in reliable sources and so articles in Wikipedia are justified.

2. If you explain why you don't understand, then I can try to clarify things.

3. Having reread the previous posts, I see now that you were referring to propaganda due to the three specific omissions from the article you mentioned in your second sentence: who has made the connection, what connection they have made, and the level of acceptance of their views. I tend to think of propaganda as the presence of deliberate untruth or inaccuracy, rather than the absence of anything, so that word confused me. As I mentioned previously, the scholars are in fact named in the article, along with their views, in the "Proposed causes" section of the article. The "levels of acceptance" are not because it would be OR without sourcing. AmateurEditor (talk) 14:34, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

There was in fact a connection between slavery and ancient Greece, it was part of the economic and social system, incorporated into law and defended by political leaders of the time. Furthermore, Greece is a country. However, we do not have an article called "slavery in ancient Greece, Peru and the Confederate States, because someone believes we should group these countries together. TFD (talk) 15:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

This is (appears to be typical here), dispute "A" by raising "we don't have 'B'". Let's stick to the topic. This article is not about genocide by democracies, slavery in ancient Greece, or anything else that is being raised here that has no bearing on the topic. All appearing to be the exact indulgence in WP:OR and WP:SYNTHESIS that editors and then turn around and accuse the article of. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 16:00, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Vecrumba, the analogy is far from perfect but it can be useful. TFD, yes, there was a "connection" between ancient Greece and slavery. No, ancient Greece was not a state, it was a collection of city states which often differed (and went to war with each other). These city states are grouped together in the article because that is how reliable sources characterize the topic. Similarly in this article, there is a connection between Communist regimes and mass killing found in reliable sources and "communist regimes" is the characterization found those sources.[3] AmateurEditor (talk) 16:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, please do not put words in my mouth. I never said ancient Greece was a state. However the individual states were connected by contiguousness, ethnicity, language, religion and customs. They self-identified as a people, identifying non-Greeks as "barbarians" and cooperated among themselves in various areas including the Olympics and the Trojan and the Greco-Persian wars. Please give me credit that I advanced far enough in my education to study classical history. TFD (talk) 16:48, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Since we weren't talking about modern Greece, I assumed a typo. But all that matters here is how reliable sources characterize a topic, TFD. In this case, they use "communist regimes". It is not a violation of NPOV policy. AmateurEditor (talk) 16:53, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Notice there is no Mass killings under ancient Greek regimes article, even though mass killings occured in Sparta and perhaps other Greek states. In order to write such an article you would have to explain why mass killings was an aspect of Greek, rather than specifically Spartan, culture. TFD (talk) 17:00, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

That article probably doesn't exist because there are no reliable sources for it, unlike this one. AmateurEditor (talk) 17:06, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

There certainly are.[4] There just are not many editors hostile toward ancient Greece. TFD (talk) 17:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

No, that source does not mention "Greek regimes" or speak of mass killings in ancient greece more generally, so while it could be used to add facts to a Mass killings under ancient Greek regimes article, it cannot be used to justify the existence of such an article or the title of an article. The sources I excerpted here[5] for this article, however, do justify this one. AmateurEditor (talk) 17:56, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)AmateurEditor, TFD didn't write Greece was a single state, he wrote it was a country, and that is true. It was a single nation united by common national economy, religion, language, culture and the Olympic games. The Greeks saw themselves as the single entity, by contrast to the barbarians from the West and the North and to the ancient peoples from the East. Therefore, it is correct to speak about them as about the single country divided onto many city-states.

The TFD's point seems to be correct, because we cannot group different categories arbitrarily, or based on the viewpoint shared by only a part of scholars. For instance, although we can list "slavery in ancient Greece, Peru and the Confederate States", because nominally the economy of those country was based on slave labour, however, it would be incorrect to group these countries separately from, e.g. Rome, Hellinistic states of Asia Minor, etc. Moreover, if we need to group any slave countries, we have to discuss slavery of Antique times together, because that phenomenon was different from the slavery during, e.g. Ancient Egypt, Central and Southern American civilisations and American slavery.

Similarly, many authors prefer to group mass killings committed by authoritarian regimes, others focus on totalitarian regimes only; some authors discuss mass killings in Asia, others discuss counter-guerilla mass killings; other authors discuss authoritarian or genocidal traditions in some particular Asiatic or European country; only small part of authors discuss mass killing in connection to Communism.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Paul, I was addressing the point TFD seemed to be making, rather than what he literally said, because it seemed to be the more generous thing to do. It doesn't help us achieve consensus to nitpick, and I wasn't interested in going off on a tangent. This article does not "group different categories arbitrarily". The example of "slavery in ancient Greece, Peru and the Confederate States" is not something we can justify as a Wikipedia article because it is not a distinct topic found in reliable sources. It is also in no way comparable to this one, which groups things based on how reliable sources have grouped them. If other reliable sources have grouped things differently, then they can be used to justify other articles (or even changes to this article, depending on the circumstances). AmateurEditor (talk) 17:56, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Exactly, whereas some scholars group these events in such a way, and call them "mass killings", others group them differently, and sometimes use different terminology. Therefore, the article cannot present the current content as the mainstream views.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Grouping the Communist regimes together is not at all controversial. The topic of mass killings as a topic is not controversial. The subtopic of mass killings under Communist regimes should also not be controversial. I know of no evidence that the topic of this article is at all controversial as a topic of study. I think you and I agree on this, although TFD does not (please correct me if I am wrong, either of you). There is definitely controversy between scholars within this subject, but it seems to be limited to three things: the best terminology to use for the topic as a whole, the regime intent behind a few events, and numerical estimates for events. I am not aware of any other controversies. Currently, each source's views are being presented as the views of that source alone. If you think a view presented in the article is being presented as the mainstream view while actually being outside the mainstream, then please make your case. AmateurEditor (talk) 20:48, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I have been unable to find a single book about mass killings under Communist regimes. If some writers do group them together, then we owe to readers to say who they are, why they group them together, and provide commentary from reliable sources on their scholarship. Otherwise, this article is synthesis. TFD (talk) 21:08, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Here's a single book: Red Holocaust (2009 book). The article does say who the writers are. You can add the rest if you want and can source it. TFD, you started this talk page section to talk about "Neutrality". I answered your concerns and you ignore me ("...we owe to readers to say who they are..."). Why should I not ignore you in return? AmateurEditor (talk) 21:29, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

That is a start. We can look for sources that discuss the views presented in the book, and see how widely held they are, and develop a proper neutral lead. TFD (talk) 21:38, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

That book is mentioned in the very article we are discussing. An article you have apparently not familiarized yourself with, despite your prominence criticizing it on this talk page. And you still haven't acknowledged that the article does in fact mention the writers as you just demanded it do. Please stop what you are doing right now and take the time to read (or re-read) the Wikipedia article before continuing with your criticism of it. AmateurEditor (talk) 21:48, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

(out) My apologies, we did discuss this book before but I forgot about it because it is obscure. This book is a reliable source for facts, including what other academics say. He says, "Western public culture is profoundly uncomfortable with the Red Holocaust. It is inclined toward denial because a communist state policy of mass civilian slaughter impugns the west's faith in reason, progress, harmony and justice.... For the same reason, it is prone to excuse the mote, and when all else fails, to sermonize. Many however, resist believing that this dismal outcome was fated, or that communists employed massive violence to build and spread their systems. This treatise challenges the notion that communist economy was ever sound...."

In other words, Rosefielde acknowledges that he is presenting a minority view. His book False Science: Underestimating the Soviet Arms Buildup. An Appraisal of the CIA's Direct Costing Effort, 1960-1985, for example, was standard neo-conservative fare, arguing about the imminent danger of the Soviet Union months before its collapse.

We cannot present minority views as consensus views. We cannot use the existence of minority views as a hook for a coatrack, which is what this article does.

What we should do is explain Rosefielde's views and the degree of acceptance they have received.

TFD (talk) 02:46, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is a link to Rosefielde's 1988 book False Science, published by Transaction Publishers where he outlines the "Team B" conspiracy theory about how the Soviet Union has surpassed the U.S. in military ability and the CIA is hiding the fact from the American people. Months later the Soviet Union collapsed. TFD (talk) 03:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Apparently the Soviet Union collapsed because its economy could not sustain the massive arms build up. --Martin (talk) 06:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

There were several reasons for collapse of the USSR, and the massive arms build up was just one of them.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:23, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Another major factor was the inability of a Soviet "planned economy" to actually find increases in productivity - the Chinese current system, by substituting the ability for rapid decision making for the inflexible "5 year plans" of the Soviets, and by allowing strong rewards for innovation and productivity, appears to be avoiding some of the worst problems of the Soviets and of the Mao-period China. No matter what the economic system, people work harder and smarter when they see rewards for doing so. (preceding is personal opinion based upon course work in economics, etc., and is not presented as an "Article edit") Collect (talk) 12:45, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Michael Harrington's analysis - "socialism" in the Soviet Union, China, and other countries was a method for rapid industrialization. It was not a step from feudalism toward communism but toward capitalism and has been successful, especially in China. TFD (talk) 14:56, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

External link to the Global Museum on Communism

The external link to the Global Museum on Communism[6] should be removed from this article because it fails external links. See Links normally to be avoided:

Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject, one should generally avoid:

• 2.Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting.
• 13.Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article. A general site that has information about a variety of subjects should usually not be linked to from an article on a more specific subject. Similarly, a website on a specific subject should usually not be linked from an article about a general subject. If a section of a general website is devoted to the subject of the article, and meets the other criteria for linking, then that part of the site could be deep linked.
• 19.Links to websites of organizations mentioned in an article – unless they otherwise qualify as something that should be linked or considered.

The most obvious reason not to include is (19) - the site has its own article and the link should be there. (2) applies because the site is not scholarly or neutral. (13) applies because the site is not directly about mass killings under Communist regimes.

The issue was brought to the EL noticeboard before.[7] The editor who restored the deletion of this link stated that it "seems a proper external link - does not fail WP:EL for sure".[8] He appears to have forgotten the previous discussion.

TFD (talk) 02:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Try citing the EL standards: Is the site content accessible to the reader? Is the site content proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.)? Is the link functional and likely to remain functional? To which the answers are all "yes." The site is not commercial, not a "fan site", and in fact represents an organization chartered by Act of Congress, presenting factual material to readers. Further, this has been discussed many times now, and the result has been the same every single time. The site is not only government sanctioned, it has information relevant to the article. Which, oddly enough, is the primary criterion for an external site! Unless, of course, you assert that an organization charted by the Congress is offering intentionally misleading material? But that was already dismissed in the past - so there is no leg to stand on there. The Global Museum on Communism is a project of the non-profit, non-partisan Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, established by an Act of Congress on December 17, 1993 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. seems fairly reputable, I would say. Collect (talk) 02:47, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

This very obviously fails WP:ELNO because it is "only indirectly related to the article's subject". Since the article has no other external links, it is also fails WP:ELPOV. Typical of Collect to get appears to have amnesia about a recently established consensus. --FormerIP (talk) 03:11, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Aha -- so references to "millions of victims" clearly have no relationship to Communist excess deaths? Interesting take, that! BTW, your personal asides do not belong on any talk page on Wikipedia. I ask you redact such. Thank you most kindly. Collect (talk) 03:18, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

My pleasure. --FormerIP (talk) 03:35, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Apparently this material:

The breakdown of the number of deaths is as follows:

65 million in the People's Republic of China

20 million in the Soviet Union

2 million in Cambodia

2 million in North Korea

1.7 million in Africa

1.5 million in Afghanistan

1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe

1 million in Vietnam

150,000 in Latin America

10,000 deaths resulting from actions of the international communist movement and communist parties not in power.

Has nothing to do with this article. Nor does this:

The VOCMF has a three-phase mission:

The 1st phase of the mission, to memorialize the victims of communism, was realized with the dedication of the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, DC on June 12, 2007.

The 2nd phase of the mission, to educate the public, has been initiated with the launch of the Global Museum on Communism on June 16th 2009.

The 3rd phase of the mission, to document the evidence, is to be realized with the eventual construction of a permanent self-standing 'bricks and mortar' museum in Washington DC.

Nor does this:

Welcome to The Global Museum on Communism, an international portal created to honor the more than 100 million victims of communist tyranny and educate future generations about past and present communist atrocities.

None of this has any relevance to this article. Eh? Collect (talk) 03:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

(ec, a few now) I really fail to see how it fails. As an obvious parallel, the U.S. Holocaust Museum was also established by an act of Congress, no one has a problem citing it as a source on victims of Nazism. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 03:30, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

And I don't remember any consensus about non-inclusion, only editors advocating there was a consensus who wished to (my perception) suppress it as a source. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 03:32, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

There's a consensus in that multiple editors were against it and one editor was in favour. Of course, consensus can change, but ignoring the discussion and reverting anyway is not good form. --FormerIP (talk) 03:37, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

"Any relevance" is not the criterion. The content of the site is "only indirectly related" to the alleged academic discourse that is the subject of this article (i.e. it is not a site about "mass killings"). In any event, it also fails WP:ELPOV, as stated above. --FormerIP (talk) 03:35, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The link is entirely relevant to this article and as such I have restored it. Tentontunic (talk) 08:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

RfC: External link to the Global Museum on Communism

Should the article Mass killings under Communist regimes contain an external link to the Global Museum on Communism website? TFD (talk) 23:19, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

• No. Inclusion of the link is a violation of external links. The specific problems are (1) we should not have links to sites where there is already an article about the organization, (2) the external site is not about "mass killings under communist regimes". but about the horrors of Communism in general, and (3) the site presents a specific non-mainstream point of view, viz., it presents as fact that Communism killed over 100 million people, while this article presents that number as an extreme upward estimate dismissed by mainstream writers, and the organization is run by Lee Edwards, the self-desribed historian of the American Right (who does not write for an academic audience) and has been involved in a number of extreme anti-Communist organizations. The relevant section of WP:EL says:

Links normally to be avoided:

Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject, one should generally avoid:

• 2.Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting.
• 13.Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article. A general site that has information about a variety of subjects should usually not be linked to from an article on a more specific subject. Similarly, a website on a specific subject should usually not be linked from an article about a general subject. If a section of a general website is devoted to the subject of the article, and meets the other criteria for linking, then that part of the site could be deep linked.
• 19.Links to websites of organizations mentioned in an article – unless they otherwise qualify as something that should be linked or considered.

TFD (talk) 23:19, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

• Yes Non-commercial site with official Congressional charter with material relating to deaths under Communist regimes. I would also support a link to a non-commerical site saying no deaths occurred, as long as readers were helped. The purpose of any EL is to help readers, period. As for making judgements on who the director is (clearly anyone with an opinion on one side is OK, but people with the "wrong" opinion become grounds for rejection of a site? I did not find that in the policies or guidelines, so that issue is not even valid to raise here. And I would ask that you not issue judgements about anyone at all being a member of an "extreme anti-Communist organization" without strong WP:BLP level sourcing. Collect (talk) 23:32, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

The main "extreme anti-Communist organization" was the World Anti-Communist League, "founded in 1966... under the initiative of Chiang Kai-shek. [The U.S. chapter]... was placed under watch by the Anti-Defamation League, which said that the organization had increasingly become "a point of contact for extremists, racists, and anti-Semites"." TFD (talk) 00:25, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Eh? The ADL did not say "everyone in that organization is a racist, extremist, anti-semite" at all. Yet you think that is sufficient for labelling a person as "involved with extreme anti-communist organizations"? Sorry - it fails the smell test for WP:BLP Collect (talk) 01:26, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Note further that the ADL has cleared that organization. One ought not elide that fact. Collect (talk) 01:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

• No. The link would clearly violate WP:EL, as already noted. To give any prominence to a site pushing such a fringe outlook would also violate WP:NPOV. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
• fringe? President George W. Bush addresses his remarks Tuesday, June 12, 2007, at the dedication ceremony for the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C Darkstar1st (talk) 01:07, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Whether it is fringe or not as a source is not the point. --FormerIP (talk) 01:33, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

• No. As discussed above, it isn't in line with WP:EL and particularly WP:ELPOV. --FormerIP (talk) 01:33, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
  • • Just provide a link with another POV - where only one link is provided, it is pretty clear that this is not a veto power because the other side chooses to keep all links out. Collect (talk) 01:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Who's choosing to keep all links out? If you can find a balanced selection of links for inclusion, that might change the whole situation. --FormerIP (talk) 01:40, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I have repeatedly asked for other links. If only one link is provided by anyone, then using it is not violating any policies. Just add one with a distinctly different POV if you feel this particular link has an evil POV. But attacking the people running the site is silly. Collect (talk) 01:46, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the guideline really cares who finds balancing links just so long as they are found. I'm pretty sure it doesn't cease to apply just because you have asked other editors to deal with the problem for you, though.

In any event, as you can see from the above, ELPOV isn't the only issue, even though it might be the most significant one. --FormerIP (talk) 02:02, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Yep - the fact that a person is somehow an "extreme racist fascist" seems key here :). I did not provide this link, but I dang sure feel deleting it because those who dislike it will not provide another link is quite against WP principles. Collect (talk) 02:10, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I think the key WP principle here is WP:BATTLEGROUND. It isn't up to other editors to parry your assault. What matters is the resulting content conforms to policy. A single EL with a clear POV doesn't do that, so find some others that could go with it. --FormerIP (talk) 02:23, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

• Comment This seems like a pretty trivial issue for an RfC....? In reviewing WP:ELPOV, it does seem to bear on this question. BigK HeX (talk) 02:39, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
• Yes. As much as I dislike adding yet more non-outside editor opinion to a RfC which is supposed to solicit input from uninvolved editors, there are a few points I think need to be made. Some objections to the use of this site an an external link in this article are not actual violations of WP:EL:

1) "we should not have links to sites where there is already an article about the organization". This reason is not even one of the items on the WP:ELNO list and seems to refer instead to the irrelevant issue of whether to use an external link or a wikilink for a term in the body of an article.

2) "the site presents a specific non-mainstream point of view". Even if this characterization were accurate, which it is not, it would qualify the link as one "to be considered" and therefore does not justify removal.

The possible actual violations of External links to avoid so far raised are the following:

1) Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting. This has not been shown to apply. The onus is on the accuser to show that this is the case. The site has contributions from many reliable academics and scholars:[9][10][11][12].

2) Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article. A general site that has information about a variety of subjects should usually not be linked to from an article on a more specific subject. The link is directly related to the article's subject but the information is organized by country. The site as a whole, however, is about those killed under Communism as a whole, which is why linking to the main page, rather than to the individual country pages, is most appropriate.

3) On articles with multiple points of view, avoid providing links too great in number or weight to one point of view, or that give undue weight to minority views. Add comments to these links informing the reader of their point of view. A single link is not a case of "too great a number of links". This justification, then, argues not for removing the link but for altering its presentation. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:16, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

• No It seems like the discussion is tending toward including the link in the context of other external links, which I would support. TimidGuy (talk) 12:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
• Yes The link to the Global Museum on Communism is entirely within the article scope. Tentontunic (talk) 12:06, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
• Yes Obviously related. Please remember "Wikipedia is not censored." Just because people dislike what a mainstream source says doesn't mean that it is "fringe" or can be removed. Smallbones (talk) 13:51, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
• Yes. It seems like a reasonable link. I am aware of WP:EL, but we can be a little bit flexible when it comes to external links. All we are saying to the reader is "Here is a link. It has something to say about the general subject. We don't certify that anything there is correct. All we are certifying is that its something that reasonable people might find interesting". Herostratus (talk) 17:50, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
• No. In addition to the WP:EL points raised by TFD, I would also like to add WP:ELPOV. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 22:06, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Was the Hungarian Revolution a "communist mass killing"?

I am unaware of any scholars calling the 1956 Hungarian Revolution a communist mass killing. But Darkstar1st is asserting that it was.

Were the Hungarian killed in the Soviet response to Hungary's violent revolution victims of a mass killing?

At Mass killing, I'm only finding a bunch of links to Genocide, Mass destruction, and Mass murder. How are mass killings defined? Was the Hungarian Revolution a mass killing? (If so, was the counter-revolutionary Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War yet another episode of mass killing?) Zloyvolsheb (talk) 03:09, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Do we have a source that calls it a Communist mass killing? It seems to be more an act of war or counter-insurgency, and the scale was too small. TFD (talk) 03:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

"Scale was too small"? [13] and Hungary is not a huge nation. And calling the legal government of Hungary "insurgent" is absurd. Nagy invaded no one. Overthrew no one. But one can call it a "counter insurgency"? Only if one calls the Soviet troops the lawful government :) Collect (talk) 09:16, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

here is a photo of the pre-teen "insurgents" http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Budapest-Boys-from-Twelve-to-Late-Teens-Carrying-Rifles-Fighting-During-Hungarian-Revolution-Posters_i4921483_.htm?aid=95620932&DestType=7&Referrer=http://hungarian-revolution.purzuit.com/ Darkstar1st (talk) 09:46, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

To suggest that the Soviet military intervention in Hungary was 'counter-insurgency' is absurd. That anyone should advance such arguments seems to me to demonstrate just how ridiculous this debate has become. Rather than discussing the supposed article topic, people are now looking for ways to add or subtract 'killings' to support their POV. This is propaganda, plain and simple - as indeed is the entire article topic. The idea that whole swathes of history (and the lives of millions) can be reduced to a 'scorecard', and then used to 'demonstrate' the evils of a supposed political program (never explicitly discussed in the article, which almost implies that the objective of 'communism' was mass murder), is not only absurd, but offensive. Likewise, to try to portray the overthrow by Soviet military force of the legitimate government of Hungary as some sort of police action is also ridiculous. This whole 'good' vs 'evil' comic-book analysis of history should have no place in a legitimate encyclopaedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:30, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Andy. While all of the information belongs in the individual country or system articles, the rationale for this article would also support "scorecard" articles for "Capitalism and mass killings" (we could even work the U.S. Civil War into this one), "Catholicism and mass killings" (remember St. Bartholemew!) and "Insert ethnic group, religion or political system of your choice here and mass killings".Jonathanwallace (talk) 12:09, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Valentino, who is the only writer to use the term "Communist mass killings" distinguishes between them and "Counterguerilla mass killings" ("The effort to defeat guerilla insurgencies").[14] He puts the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan into the latter group. It seems to me that the Soviet invasion of Hungary had greater similarity to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan than it does to actions of Soviet governments against its own people. The invasion of foreign states is not unique to Communism. In fact some non-Communist states have also invaded foreign countries. TFD (talk) 14:45, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Piled higher and deeper? So you would assert that the Soviet Union was the rightful government of Hungary, and Nagy was an "insurgent"? (noting you have not withdrawn the assertion that Hungarian deaths were due to "counter-insurgency"). Collect (talk) 15:01, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Trying to step back from the increasingly heated discussion. The fact this comes up at all indicates how woolly and poorly thought out this article is. "Mass killing" is such a large, ill-defined category, it can arguably include killings of soldiers during wartime (which do or do not violate Geneva conventions), killing of civilians in your own country, and of civilians in other people's countries (in peace or in wartime). The most narrow useful definition for this article would probably be "killing of civilians in your own country" and would cover the allegations about the USSR, China, Cambodia, etc. Hungary (forgetting the not very useful "insurgency" concept) is an example of "killing civilians in someone else's country during a military invasion". If we keep the field this broad, then "Democracy and mass killing" would also include discussions of the bombings of Hiroshima and Dresden, use of pilotless drones, cluster bombs and huge munitions in Iraq and Afghanistan today and all that good stuff. In cases like this, the broader the article, the less useful it is. Such topics are probably better discussed in narrower articles. Genocides in history has problems of its own, but at least is not titled "Mass killings by governments".Jonathanwallace (talk) 17:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Collect, I think you have got ahold of the wrong end of the stick. Deaths that resulted from the Soviet invasion of Hungary should be considered deaths that resulted from the Soviet invasion of Hungary because Hungary was not part of the Soviet Union. TFD (talk) 22:26, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

"Nexus article" requires re-work and sourcing

This is effectively a "nexus" article about the connection between Communism and murder, yet (as Andy points out in the previous section) skips any discussion of the actual connection, assuming we all understand it. A "nexus" article should illustrate that the connection itself is notable. That is why we don't have "Mass killings on Tuesdays". (See also the very funny Judaism and bus stops deletion discussion.) As it happens, the Communism/Mass killing nexus is notable, but the article never bothers to establish notability. It would become encyclopedic if recast as an article on the work of notable historians, sociologists etc. who have examined the Communism/mass killing nexus. Specific country examples would then come in through their work. There is no lack of such sources on many of the examples mentioned. FWIW, articles on "capitalism and mass killing", "democracy and mass killing" and so forth could be similarly sourced. History is "indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. " Gibbon. Jonathanwallace (talk) 13:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Note Anti-communist mass killings and its edit history, especially those adding material to that article. Collect (talk) 13:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll take a look. BTW, I note your interest in WP:ADVOCACY articles from your talk page. I think this one fits the bill, because of its failure to focus on the work of notable historians and sociologists. in other words, instead of properly reporting on advocacy, it skips that step and becomes the advocacy itself.Jonathanwallace (talk) 13:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

(Collect--I segregated this as a new section and made some hopefully nonsubstantive changes to my first comment to clarify that. Since you had already replied, I'm mentioning it because such edits are disfavored if they undermine the sense of the replies. I think I avoided that here.) Also wanted to mention that the article lede, "Study has been made of states that have declared adherence to some form of Communist doctrine, and have killed significant numbers of people or facilitated their deaths" is a perfect example of weasel words. Jonathanwallace (talk) 13:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The prior lede was not weaselly - this one was produced by [15], [16], [17] (sock edit), and such edits as [18], [19], [20] and especially such edits as [21]. There have been eight AfDs on the article (under two names) so that part is pretty much settled as a non-starter (last one was a very strong "keep" result). Collect (talk) 14:11, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, not really arguing it should be AFD'd, just intelligently fixed. Anyway, this has all inspired me to try writing an essay on "notability in nexus articles" where a preposition connects two concepts. Jonathanwallace (talk) 17:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

@ Collect: If the only lede that is acceptable to contributors is one that suggests that an article is promoting a minority viewpoint based on a dubious synthesis, shouldn't we take this as a sign that it actually is one?

@ Jonathanwallace. That sounds like a very useful essay: let me know if you want my input. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:28, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Andy--yes, I will let you know as soon as I have a draft in userspace.Jonathanwallace (talk) 17:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

This is not paraphrasing

I strongly object to this revert by Tentontunic [22].

Valentino does not state "some Eastern European and African countries". He writes that mass killings by communists occured "Eastern Europe and Africa." It's common knowledge that there were mass killings in the USSR (which can be taken to include various of Eastern European countries) and in Ethiopia, but nobody has been able to point out where else they occured. The article does not discuss any mass killings in Africa outside of Ethiopia; it's likely that Mengistu's Red Terror is the only example of mass killing under a communist regime in Africa.

But the word "some" is synonymous with "a few" and therefore strongly implies something to the effect that mutliple African regimes carried out mass killings. That isn't claimed by Valentino, and Tentontunic's (and AmteurEditor's) edits cannot perforce be regarded as a valid paraphrase. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 21:48, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Fixed, which is really what you ought to have done. Tentontunic (talk) 22:11, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for being a gentleman and fixing that ever-so-politely. You, know it is rather hard to fix things yourself when people revert you while the article is on 1RR. Meanwhile, please list the Eastern European countries where scholars say communist mass killings occured. Otherwise, we should revert back to my version. As I originally pointed out, saying "Eastern European countries" and "Africa" is helplessly vague, Since "Eastern European countries" may well mean the USSR. And since the only African state where there was an African Red Terror was Ethiopia, we can refer to Mengistu's Ethiopia in place of "Africa". Zloyvolsheb (talk) 22:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

However Mengistu's Red Terror is the only example of mass killing Then this means there are two? Thus the original statement would have been correct, we ought to in fact add Mengistu's Red Terror to the article? Is this what you are in fact stating? Tentontunic (talk) 22:15, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're talking about. What do you refer to by "two"? You do realize that Ethiopia is in Africa, right? Zloyvolsheb (talk) 22:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)