Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes

Khemer Rogue & Pol Pot said they were not communists, wanted Cambodia to belong "to the west"

There are so many things here that are just blatantly wrong, that this whole article should be deleted. But I'll start with the Khemer Rogue.

In the 1970s Leng Sary (the deputy prime minister / #2 guy to Pol Pot) said "We are not communists ... we are revolutionaries" who do not 'belong to the commonly accepted grouping of communist Indochina," as quoted by Vickery, Cambodia: 1978-1983, p. 288

Pol Pot himself said "When I die, my only wish is that Cambodia remain Cambodia and belong to the West. It is over for communism, and I want to stress that." (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/1997/11/the_new_pol_pot.html)

Basically, they were ex-communists who endorsed the people (the West) funding them. And they were fighting a war against real (self-described) communists.

In contrast, to explain this better, if a bunch of people joined "capitalist party of maine" & took it over, then became Marxists & argued that capitalism was dead & said "we are not capitalists", then they actually would not be capitalists. Pol Pot & his allies took over a formerly communist party & then became ex-communists fighting a war against actual (again self-described) communists.

ie, at the very least the Cambodian atrocities (which are arguably capitalist-funded atrocities, & could be on a page like "The Mass Killings Funded by Capitalists") should not be on this page. 174.97.165.159 (talk) 00:09, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Your problem here is that the reliable sources do not concur with your opinions. Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:18, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the absolute best source for whether a person practices a philosophy is their own words. Pol Pot & the guy behind him (essentially vice president) both said either they (the Khemer Rogue) were not communists / no longer communists. And again, they were funded by capitalists to fight communists. Frankly, your post is just baseless assertions, & it's not surprising specifically because (again) there is no greater sources than the #1 & #2 guys in the Khemer Rogue *both* saying they were no longer communists. HistoryAndVeggies (talk) 01:46, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Forget about just making things up from the Slate article

• "(In the 1970s Pot) was enthusiastic--too enthusiastic, he realizes now--to bring glorious Marxism to his suffering people, to free Cambodia from the yoke of Vietnamese invaders, to abolish the twin evils of Western materialism and class privilege."
• "Today (1997), the elder statesman (Pot) advises Cambodia's leaders to seek rapprochement with the West." This is from the part that the author calls "parody"

Folks have given all sorts of nonsense reasons for wanting to delete this article, but this one has to have the worst source ever. Parody does not make for an WP:RS Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:12, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

You must be having reading problems. First, it was the 1970s when the Khemer Rogue said they were not communists (via Leng Sary.) Next, I specifically said they were ex-communists, not never communists. Here's what that means: at one point they endorsed communist philosophy, but then they changed (and eg took money from US capitalists) to fight and kill actually communists. To make this clear: the atrocities committed by ex-communists (who took money from the US capitalists) should not be in this article. HistoryAndVeggies (talk) 02:47, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

HistoryAndVeggies, I don't think people are having trouble reading, they just don't trust your interpretation or your two sources, both of which have problems. Wikipedia relies on high quality secondary sources because it is easy for any one of us to misinterpret primary sources and essentially introduce our own original research into an article that way. In the Slate article you gave, most of the information is followed by "OK, OK, I give up. It won't work, not even as parody.", indicating that what was written prior cannot be taken literally. And the quotes are from 1997, long after the period in question here. But even if it could have been taken literally, a Slate article is not the highest quality of reliable sources. Specialist academic works from mainstream academic institutions are the gold standard here. The book by Michael Vickery, "Cambodia: 1978-1983", also has problems as a reliable source. I wish I could read the context of the quote you gave from page 288, but the googlebooks snippit preview cuts the sentence off.[19] According to its Wikipedia article, the publisher, South End Press, publishes books by "political activists". The publisher's tag line is "Read. Write. Revolt."[20] It does also publish books by academics such as Ward Churchill, Noam Chomsky, and Howard Zinn, but it is not an academic publisher. And the author, Michael Vickery, an associate professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia, does not appear to be in the academic mainstream on this topic. AmateurEditor (talk) 21:02, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

> And the quotes are from 1997, long after the period in question here.

Frankly, you are having the *exact* same reading problem, by ignoring that Leng Sary said "we are not communists" in the mid 70s. This (because of the year) is the most important quote, & Pol Pot's later quotes verify what Sary said.

> they just don't trust your interpretation or your two sources,

Actually, *zero* interpretation is needed. In their own words they said "we are not communists," "communism is dead," and that Cambodia should "belong to the West".

Please do not simply push the West's POV.

> it won't work

To be frank, you again seem to have misread again. This statement ("it won't work, not even as a parody") is not said by Pol Pot- it's just interpretation by a capitalist owned news website. That's 100% irrelevant.

What's relevant is what Pol Pot said himself.

> It does also publish books by academics such as Ward Churchill, Noam Chomsky, and Howard Zinn, but it is not an academic publisher.

This is irrelevant: if journalists interview people that's relevant. If a journalist, book writer, & interviewer does not claim to be an "academic" that does not mean you can ignore their reporting.

174.97.165.159 (talk) 22:24, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

All you have to do now is to convince an admin that yours is the consensus viewpoint. I doubt that will happen. The rest of us will likely just ignore you now. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:02, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll give it another shot:

1) When I said the quotes were from 1997, I was referring to the Pol Pot quotes in the 1997 Slate article, not the leng Sary quote from the 70's. The leng Sary quote came from the Vickery book, which I addressed later in my comment.

2) It is original research on your part to conclude that, because of what leng Sary said in that quote, the Khmer Rouge were not communists at the time. They are considered communists because our highest quality reliable sources consider them to be communist, even if less reliable sources disagree. If we have a high quality reliable source saying that the Khmer Rouge were not communists, then that can also be included in the article, but it doesn't cancel out the other sources that don't take that view. All the views of reliable secondary sources can be included here, but not every academic is mainstream. Fringe sources do not get equal weight.

3) I never said the "It won't work, not even as parody" quote was from Pol Pot. It wasn't. It was from the Slate writer, referring to his own writing and the interpretation of Pol Pot's statements in it. Taking Pol Pots statements at face value (or leng Sang's statements at face value) is original research on your part. It would be like using Nixon's statement "I am not a crook" to argue that he was uninvolved in Watergate. We would only include that interpretation in the article if it was made by reliable secondary sources. Coming to that conclusion on our own is not permitted because it is original research.

4) My comments on the publisher not being academic are about their reliability, not their relevance. Unreliable sources are ignored in Wikipedia. Fringe sources are downplayed. The publisher South End Press appears to be fringe. If Micheal Vickery's work is noted by more mainstream work in this area, then it can included with the appropriate weight. AmateurEditor (talk) 01:08, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

> Taking Pol Pots statements at face value (or leng Sang's statements at face value) is original research

It's **irrelevant** whether anyone believes them. No one's personal opinion changes the fact that they themselves (the best possible source) said they were not communists. As the best possible source, it fully outweighs the accusations (subjective opinion) of Western philosophers.

> It is original research on your part to conclude that, because of what leng Sary said in that quote, the Khmer Rouge were not communists at the time.

It's not original research- it's basic reading *without interpretation.* The two highest ranked KR leaders said "we are not communists," "communism is dead," and that Cambodia should "belong to the West".

> They are considered communists because our highest quality reliable sources consider them to be communist

Again- the highest quality reliable source is *their own words,* not the West's philosophers.

> [attacking a publisher of Howard Zinn, Chomsky, etc]

This is standard ad hominem. No matter how hard you try, you can not delete such statements- they are part of history.

> I was referring to the Pol Pot quotes

Your "point" here is simply not relevant. Pol Pot's later quote matches the 1970s quote.

For clarity, I am also "HistoryAndVeggies" & misplaced my password.

CarrotsAreHealthy (talk) 03:05, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

You might as well give it up. The purpose of this article is to say bad things about communists, and the people who control the article will get you banned from Wikipedia if you try to confuse the issue with facts. Rick Norwood (talk) 23:57, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

The article is under sanctions, it isn't being controlled by anyone; we must achieve broad consensus on any changes. I think we all find these restrictions frustrating. And who has been banned for trying to "confuse the issue with facts"? Do you really think that is a constructive comment? AmateurEditor (talk) 01:08, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your honesty. I strongly suspect you are correct that this article was just created as a political attack towards a philosophy. I believe this article was created by obvious POV-pushers, & that it's almost entirely made of misunderstandings & bad information. I hope if we simply tell the truth, that in time, wikipedia will follow.

CarrotsAreHealthy (talk) 03:10, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Alas -- what you "believe" is not how Wikipedia articles are edited. It has this horrid rule that articles use WP:RS reliable sources, and that is where your problem appears to lie. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:21, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Edit protect

Can a main link please be added in the section Cambodia (Democratic Kampuchea), to Cambodian genocide Darkness Shines (talk) 16:07, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Done. I made it the see also link. Ping me if anyone would like that editing at all. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 17:40, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 17 January 2014

Can you remove |small=yes from the lock template? The lock will therefore be visible. George Ho (talk) 04:02, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Not done: per my comment at Talk:Stephanie Adams#Protected edit request on 17 January 2014. I think there needs to be a wider discussion about making banner-style protection notices visible on indefinitely fully protected articles. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:59, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

edit request: harmonization of punctuation

Punctuation needs to be harmonized and sometimes corrected, as, among other things, em dashes for ranges ("1931—1933", "1891 — 1924") are clearly wrong according to WP:MoS > MoS:PUNCT > MoS:HYPHEN & MoS:DASH. I'd have done it myself, but can't due to the article's "locked" status. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 16:22, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

We really ought to just change the protection level of the article to allow for these kinds of minor edits, in line with the "discretionary sanctions" box at the top of the talk page. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:53, 23 January 2014 (UTC)