Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes

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RFC regarding primary topic

The current topic "Mass killing under Communist regimes" has several possible interpretations. Would "Non-combatant deaths attributed to communist regimes" reasonably reduce the number of interpretations? This would eliminate arguments as to causality, and intent, being critical to the general topic, as well as arguments as to the definition of "Communist" as a proper adjective. 00:21, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

• Oppose. This is not a good idea because these people did not just "die under", but were killed - according to RS currently used on the page. This also includes victims of Holodomor and other man-made hunger. Therefore, I think the title of the article could be actually renamed to something else, for example Democide by Communist governments or Mass killings by Communist governments. Simply telling "deaths under" is misleading because that would include deaths of natural causes, such as flu, which is not a subject of this page. I think the current "terminology" section serves well to properly define the scope. Anything about genocide, democide, politicide, mass murder, classicide, terror or crimes against humanity by communist governments would qualify for inclusion on this page. What is a "communist government"? This is something multiple reliable sources call a "communist government". What is democide? This is something multiple RS call a "democide". And so on. This should not be a problem. My very best wishes (talk) 01:26, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Such renaming would completely change the scope of the page. First, as noted by Vanamonde below, all communist countries would have to be included, because "deaths under" had happen in all of them. Secondly, there are sources which tell about the death from disease and other natural causes in communist countries. So that would also need to be included. Currently, it is not included. My very best wishes (talk) 21:43, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

I support the proposed change in title, as it serves to broaden the scope of the article. I've long thought that the page should be retitled to Mass deaths under Communist regimes or Mass mortality events under Communist regimes or the like, and the proposed title seems to suit the page very well. A change in title would also go a long way to solving the neutrality issue over famines, as famines would no longer be called mass killings, but would be rightly and accurately referred to as non-combatant deaths. I might even go farther and change attributed to to under in the proposed title to further "neutral-ize" it. schetm (talk) 15:09, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

schetm, I like your "attributed to" -> "under".--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:31, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

• So you guys do not support the title by Collect. This replacement of one word would completely changes the meaning. Everyone who died from the flu in communist countries would fall under this "refined" title. That is not what RS on this subject mean.My very best wishes (talk) 16:45, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I suggest that "attributed" would not cover the common cold, but deaths which were in some way said by reliable sources to be connected with the government. The other part is not using a capital letter for "communist" so that related governments, as named by reliable sources, would be included. Lastly, I suggest that we not make claims as specific claims of fact as to numbers because no one really knows if any given estimate is too high or too low. If we can keep petty argumentation (or argumentation at great length) out of this, we should be able to make a decent article here. We might even link the poor USSR agriculture experiments based on "deep plowing" etc. based on politics instead of actual science, if consensus so decides. Collect (talk) 01:24, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I think this should be simply by government - that is what sources tell or discuss. Providing range of numbers should be fine. The experiments with "deep plowing" in Kazakhstan are well known, but I do not think any sources connected this with killing by man-made hunger. My very best wishes (talk) 01:51, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

"Attributed to" has strengths and weaknesses. "Attributed" ... by whom? If we define article's scope in this way, the article's focus is opinia: which deaths are attributed? who attributes them, and who disagrees? Etc. In addition, by doing that, we automatically give greater weight to those who attribute, and those who does not become "revisionists". However, "attributed to" excludes, for example, a part of civil war deaths.

"Under" makes a focus on the events: we neutrally tell what happened, and then tell how different historians explain that, and who is responsible for that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:42, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I think you understand now why did I ask for clarification before voting: now your are arguing that my and schetm's "yes" meant "no". I think it would be fundamentally incorrect to imply that a good faith schetm's post significantly changed the meaning of Collect's proposal. That means, in our view, there is no significant difference between "attributed to" and "under", although "under" leaves less space for ambiguity.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:54, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

My very best wishes, I doubt that reliable sources would bear out routine deaths. They would not suddenly proliferate this page. schetm (talk) 18:17, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

• No, to the contrary, there are lots of sources about the "routine deaths". If we are going to accept your and Paul title ("Non-combatant deaths under communist regimes"), one can reasonably argue that information and sources about cancer epidemiology [20], infant mortality [21], and generally demographics of these countries must be included in this page. This will be a mess and an article on an entire different subject. My very best wishes (talk) 18:39, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Again, as I already noted, everything would be fine if we clarified all ambiguities in advance. That is why it is always important to agree about the exact formula before voting.

I prefer fair game, and obviously, under "non-combatant deaths under communist regimes" I mean the same as these sources mean, i.e. excessive deaths that normally are not supposed to occur. I believe schetm means the same.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:46, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I generally support Collect's good faith effort, although the wording seems a little bit unclear, and it was not properly explained upon a request. In connection to that, I think, schetm's amendment is an improvement, and I vote for:

Non-combatant deaths under communist regimes.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:10, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

• I support the version proposed by User:Paul Siebert above. A minor improvement, but an improvement nonetheless...--C.J. Griffin (talk) 21:26, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
• I would oppose any definition of the article scope that does not make it explicit that we are discussing mass deaths/mass killings/mass murder or whatever. Otherwise, literally every political killing be every communist government ever is going to come under the scope of this page, and it would lose coherence very quickly. (For instance, the Maoist government in Nepal has been accused of, and is likely guilty of, a few political killings; but no RS I am aware of describes those in the same breath as Stalin's or Mao's represssion). Vanamonde (talk) 06:37, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Vanamonde, actually, as soon as Cambodian genocide and Stalin's Great Purge are discussed in the same article, the article's coherence is already lost, because overwhelming majority of sources discuss the Great purge as a separate event, and the sources discussing Cambodian genocide either focus on this event only, or compare it with Rwandian or Indonesian genocides, or with other events.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:38, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Not again, Paul. I am evaluating the alternative against what's in the article; you are evaluating it against some ideal version in your head, and quite unsurprisingly, find it (and every other proposal) unsatisfactory. For the same reason, your proposals are getting nowhere. I would support an alternative title along the lines of what Collect has suggested if it addressed my concern above, because it would be an incremental improvement. I'm actually uninterested in perfectionism in an article such as this. Vanamonde (talk) 17:01, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I probably didn't understand what your concern is, but it seems there is some problem in what you say, because literally every political killing, and literally every premature death from any cause has been described as communist mass killing/genocide/democide etc by at least one source (although most sources may say otherwise), so formally it does come under the scope of this page. The problem is that the sources that say otherwise do not. To preserve neutrality, the article's scope may be either the facts (the neutral description of the events themselves) supplemented by a separate discussion of various general theories (e.g. Courtois views) at the end of the article, or the theories themselves (and the events they describe are presented mostly as links to main articles). I'll probably create a draft of the article as I see it to demonstrate my point and minimise misunderstanding, although it may take some time. Meanwhile, can you please comment on this text? It would be easier for me to understand you if I get your comments on this text.

Thanks, --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:31, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Section "Proposed causes" can indeed be moved back - agree. My very best wishes (talk) 17:39, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

• I support a rename and focus shift to non-combatant deaths under communist regimes, which feels like it would resolve most of the disputes over this article and which more accurately reflect many of the main sources the article uses. This would let us cover and discuss a wide variety of deaths from the perspectives different scholars bring to them without the title carrying an inherent implication that they are mass killings by their inclusion here (which, for some of the famines and other deaths we want to discuss, even the most aggressive sources do not unequivocally state.) I don't think that the concern of every flu getting included is valid - the "under communist regimes" part inherently makes the scope of the topic "what effect do Communist regimes have on deaths?", which the article could then break down into things like diseases and famines with appropriate sourcing and discussion of culpability, intent, and so on for each. (This assumes we are discussing an actual rename, of course. Obviously I could not support shifting the article's focus without changing its title.) --Aquillion (talk) 21:22, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Are you familiar with epidemiology? For example, three million people who died in Russia from typhus between 1917 and 1921 would have to be included after such renaming, etc. My very best wishes (talk) 21:55, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with that; it would provide useful context. If there are few sources relating these deaths to the fact that they were under Communism, they wouldn't need to be discussed extensively, but placing them within the timeline could be valuable. --Aquillion (talk) 22:03, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

I think we should simply follow the approach taken by most general sources on this subject, such as "Black Book" and others. They usually count only people who died as a result of violence by the state. For example, this not just any hunger. In the case of Holodomor people died because their food/grain was forcefully confiscated by the government and the people were prevented from moving to other areas by NKVD forces. Therefore, the Holodomor victims were counted, but simply victims of disease were not.My very best wishes (talk) 22:33, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion 2

I propose this as a means to more readily achieve consensus on issues regarding the scope of this article, and to avoid side discussions not directly related to the restated topic. Collect (talk) 00:24, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

The question is incorrectly stated. Is this article discussing attribution or the events themselves? Actually, both answers are ok, but not their mixture: People were killed in Stalin's USSR, but do we include in the article only the work that attribute these victims to communism, or to Stalinism? For example, one of the most important works on that account, Ellman's Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments. Europe-Asia Studies, 54:7, 1151-1172, DOI: 10.1080/0966813022000017177 [22], does not attribute those deaths to communism, it attributes it to Stalinism. Fein does not attribute Cambodian genocide to comminism. Should her opinion be included in the article?

By writing that, I do not argue that the article cannot exist. It can, but just as the list of the events that happened under regimes that can be considered (or are considered by someone) as communist. I already proposed this option before, but Collect opposed to that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:07, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

If there are multiple scholarly RS that attribute Cambodian genocide to "Communist" government of the country ("Communism" has multiple meanings), then we include it, with the references to these RS. Same about everything else. My very best wishes (talk) 01:43, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Well, does that means that the article's scope is any mass mortality event attributed to a government that has been described as communist at least by one source? For example, if a scholar A states North Korea government killed N people, and a scholar B call NK government communist, the facts presented in the work of the scholar A belong to this article?--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:16, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

That would be WP:SYN. You need same source telling that the executions or something else was committed by a "communist" government. My very best wishes (talk) 13:25, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Good. Then does that mean the article should include the views of only those authors who write about mass mortality in states they explicitly call communist, blame these governments in these deaths, and attribute these mass mortality events to communism?--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:03, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Obviously, any RS that explicitly discuss mass murder by "communist" governments can be used, even such RS that tell the murder did not happen or was overestimated. For example, some sources currently used in the "Discussion of famines" section ([23],[24]) can be used, assuming that they are fine in other regards. For example, we would like to avoid using "opinion pieces" and writings by revisionist historians, e.g. writings by Holocaust deniers would not be appropriate for sourcing page Holocaust. For the same reason we might wish to avoid using writings by J. Arch Getty and his followers on this page. But I am not saying their writings must be completely excluded from this page. This is a matter of balance. My very best wishes (talk) 14:49, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

My very best wishes did you just seriously compare a serious and respected scholar "and his followers" to a Holocaust denier?! -GPRamirez5 (talk) 20:15, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

You didn't answer my question: I was not asking about "mass murder committed by "communist" governments", I was asking about the authors who discuss some mass mortality event and do not attribute it explicitly to communist government (just to the government that happened to be described as "communist" by somebody else).--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

If the government is called "communist" by a reliable source, then that is sufficient to call it a "communist government" in this proposal. Than a government calls itself "something else" but is referred to as "communist" by reliable sources, then we can say it is called "communist" by "reliable sources." It is not up to us to second-guess what the reliable sources say. Thus, Pol Pot's government is commonly called "communist" by reliable sources. Really. That you prefer to think of Pol Pot as "not a communist at all" means you need reliable sources making that claim. Otherwise we would be engaging in "original research". Collect (talk) 15:07, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

While I agree with you, I think we must absolutely avoid debating on this page if government X was a "communist" or not. That would be waste of time. To avoid WP:SYN we simply need same RS explicitly telling that the executions were committed/not committed/whatever by a "communist" government (see above). My very best wishes (talk) 15:35, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Well, for me, it will be easier to understand you if you explained me what is the difference between this your proposal and the subject #2 (all population losses under communist regimes), which I proposed before? I sincerely what to understand that, because before I vote I need clearly understand what I am voting for.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:26, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I do not need to explain differences here. This RFC stands on its own feet. If you can not understand the wording of this proposal, tell us what precisely is unclear in the wording, and why you think different wording will be better. I have repeatedly said we need RFCs on this, and finally decided to actually propose something. Collect (talk) 15:31, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Collect, listen, I need to know what I am voting for. You asked for comments, and I have a right to ask you for additional clarifications before I vote. Your proposal look very close to what I proposed before, and what you objected to, and that is why I respectfully asking about clarifications: do you imply that the article's scope is the neutral description of mass mortality events that occurred in some states that happened to be described as communist by at least one source?.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:37, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Kindly read my posts above. If you have a different proposal, start an RfC. Your posts appear to be a tad argumentative and not likely to result in your assent to the proposal at all, and it is not my task to persuade you to change your clear opinion. No one else seems to find this proposal unclear, as far as I can tell. Collect (talk) 15:47, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Collect, whether I have a different proposal or not, it does not matter. I am asking you about clarification of your position before I will vote. Depending on your answer, my vote may be "yes" or "no". I believe it is quite a legitimate and polite request, and I am a little bit disappointed with this your response. I am asking again: does my previous post contain a correct summary of your proposal, or you mean something else? If you means something else, please, explain what exactly I misinterpreted?

Regards, --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:55, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

My position is that I asked for discussion under RFC, which is precisely what I am supposed to do. I am not soliciting "votes" but seeking to find consensus wording which will reduce friction in the future. That is the purpose of this RFC. Now do you understand the purpose of the RFC? Collect (talk) 21:14, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thanks.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:37, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm not overly concerned with the general discussion about article title as I have trust in the engaged editors and their attention to consensus and policy, but would like to draw out a couple of points:

• IIRC this article's claimed Notability establishing reliable sources attribute a causative action to a class of agents, where the conflict based consensus of past editors described "Communist regimes" as the agent causative or negligent in relation to "mass killings." To produce a new consensus the appropriate place to look is the notability establishing weighty scholarly discourses for the claimed agent[s] and characterisation of action or neglect.
• As such, the article's title ought to reflect the commonality amongst such notability establishing reliable source (preferably from a "Review Article" type field review, all in one place and comparative) about what the categorisation of the agent[s] is/are
• As such, if the notability establishing scholarly consensus is around "Communist" regimes, or "communism" as set of philosophies or social movements, or "Stalinism," etc; for whatever that agent is in the scholarly consensus the article title ought to reflect that weighty consensus.
• Correspondingly with the typification of the action taken by the agent[s]: whatever the strongest scholarly consensus is in the discourse, this should be the origin of the claim regarding the action
• Minor consensuses of weight in the scholarly or reliable discourses ought to be relegated to appropriate sub-sections, for example in the scholarly case, "Scholarly criticism of the concept of "Communist regimes" in the context of mass killing" or "Scholarly criticisms of the concept of "mass killings" under Communist regimes" or "Scholarly criticisms of the concept of "mass killings under Communist regimes." Obviously where only of sufficient weight in the scholarly discourse to justify inclusion; and biased towards theoretical or conceptual criticism, or major in field contributions, rather than narrowly received one-off studies which produced their own theoretical categories.
• Even if the topic is narrowly received in the scholarship, if it exists as a notable scholarly discourse with sufficient weight, the article ought to exist. (If not, we should assemble a consensus RFD together.) Even if it is a narrowly received scholarly topic, criticised by wider scholarly discourses, the article therefore ought to reflect that narrow topic, and include the wider criticism drawing appropriately placed attention that it is a narrow scholarly conception.
• The narrower the scholarly agreement, the more the article ought to be focused on the scholarly discourse rather than the specifics of the claims made regarding historical processes: the topic grows more about the discourse the narrower the discourse is. Correspondingly with width.
• I don't mean to throw a bomb into the room with this—I trust all of you to work well on the title. Fifelfoo (talk) 09:17, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Fifelfoo, imo, the situation can be described as follows:

1. The topic "exists as a notable scholarly discourse with sufficient weight", but it "is narrowly received in the scholarship".
2. Since it is received narrowly, it is not criticised widely.

In this situation, the main part of the article should be a neutral description of the events without any generalisations, followed by a section that describes the attempts to make general claims (Courtois's, Malia's et al "generic Communism" as a main culprit; Valentino's "mass killings" as a tool for social transformations, etc), and the reception of these ideas.

In connection to that, the first two steps to do are: (i) deletion of the "Terminology" section, which is a pure synthesis; (ii) removal of the BB figures from the lead, because the usage of these figures in this context is being widely criticized.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:24, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

• Unarchived to request closure at WP:ANRFC. Cunard (talk) 23:32, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

RfC on figures presented by Courtois in the Black Book introduction

I am asking about the most neutral way to present the figures of "Communist death toll" presented by Courtois in the introduction to the Black Book of Communism (aka BB).

• In the introduction to the Black Book of Communism, the editor of this volume, Courtois, provides the figures of communist death toll. These figures, as well as the very idea to combine loosely connected events under a single category, has been severely criticized. The examples of criticism are provided here, and many critics blame Courtois in manipulation with figures and their deliberate inflation. In addition, the idea to connect the deaths with some "generic Communism" concept (defined down to the common denominator of party movements founded by intellectuals) has been criticised by other authors, who argues that a connection between, e.g., events in Pol Pot's Cambodia and Stalin's USSR is far from evident, and Pol Pot’s study of Marxism in Paris is insufficient for connecting radical Soviet industrialism and the Khmer Rouge’s murderous anti-urbanism under the same category. Furthermore, the figures produced by Courtois are always presented to advocate the idea that Communism was greater evil than Nazism. This idea has been criticized by many authors

Many critics also note that the Courtois's introduction to the BB is the most problematic part of this collective volume, and most criticism is focused on it. Even some contributors to the BB publicly disassociated themselves from the conclusions presented in the introduction (see the link to the talk page), and from the figures in particular. In connection to that, my concrete questions are:

1. Should we always discriminate between the introduction to the BB and the BB proper every time the introduction is cited?
2. Should we always explain that the introduction is "controversial" when the BB introduction is used as a source?
3. Should we always describe the controversy around the figures presented in the introduction when the introduction is being used as the source for these figures?
4. Should we explain the objections to the "generic Communism" concept every time the combined "Communist death toll" calculated in the BB introduction is being discussed in an article?

These questions are independent, and the answers can be, for example, "Yes - No - No - Yes".

--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:41, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion'

• I am currently a disengaged editor due to time (though if editors wish to contest this I will immediately acceede to them.
• The introduction (and conclusion) by Courtois have been received with such specific hostility that they ought to be referred to separately to the body of the text (regardless of the level of hostility to particular chapters, or the concept of the work).
• The introduction's theoretical category is so controversial ("non-Catholocism, as is non-adherence to the Church of Rome), the last time I read it in depth, that the introduction should not be used as a source for death totals (other than where, as a subject in itself, rather than a reference to external reality, the "Black Book" is relevant). Fifelfoo (talk) 11:20, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
• Any RfC is supposed to be written in absolutely neutral language. This RfC has a stated desired outcome, with which I demur actually and procedurally. Collect (talk) 12:23, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Collect, I described a controversy around this source and asked how this controversy should be presented. Which concrete statement (or question) looks non-neutral in your opinion? Can you propose a wording that described this controversy in a more neutral way?--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:42, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps: The (BB) is viewed by some as a controversial source on total deaths under communist regimes. Ought it be removed from the lead with regard to its estimates of total deaths? or something roughly akin. Short. Terse. Easy to follow. "Thousand word essays" (this is not a word count, but a figure of speech, so do not get upset) or the like tend to get glazed looks. Collect (talk) 15:43, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

First, I do not propose to discuss removal of BB from the lead. The question is "how this information should be presented". The answers to this question might range from, e.g., "just show the figure" to "remove the figures completely" with a mid opinion "show the figures, but explain they are highly controversial" (other variants are also possible). BTW, what is your own answer to this question?

Second, your version tells just a part of the story. The users should be informed about the essence of criticism: (i) that figures were artificially inflated, (ii) that this inflation served to convey some concrete idea,, (iii) that this idea seems highly questionable. I believe an uninvolved user should be informed about that. It is also necessary to note that the BB gets positive reviews due to contribution of the authors other than Courtois (and those authors disagree with his interpretation of their data), and most reviews say this collective volume is non-homogeneous: which means some parts are more credible than others.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:55, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Nope. The RfC should not present various arguments - that is for the "Discussion" on the RfC. And any work by multiple authors is ipso facto not "homogeneous" for that very reason. It is intrinsic that different authors do not create a homogeneous anything. Thus I think perhaps you should ask at the talk page for WP:RFC what the length and form of a good RfC is, if it is not clear. Further, arguing with other editors very rarely makes them think more highly of your position. The shorter the query is, and the less argumentative it is, the better the anticipated outcome. Any RfC which says "This source is really, really bad, and should be excised or have the 'really bad' epithet applied so readers will know how bad it is" is probably not going to get very far. I suggest you reread my RfC which was demolished by lengthy replies which were not exactly on topic. Collect (talk) 19:38, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

If you followed your own advise you gave me earlier (no mentoring), we would find consensus more quickly. I cannot ask a question without providing needed background. If my RfC looked like "This source is very, very bad", it was not my intention. My point was this source is very inhomogeneous, because it is a collective volume, not a single monograph. We are talking about the most disputable statement from the most controversial part of this volume. Many reviews say, e.g. Werth's chapter was excellent, and I myself do not find any reason to cast a doubt at this chapter (although it might me not the best source about the USSR, because more recent and more accurate studies are available). However, to claim that the whole BB, including the introduction is a good source because the Werth's chapter was highly commended is at least not completely honest, taking into account that Werth himself objected to Courtois claims.

Once again, my task was not easy: I had to ask people a very complicated question: how to deal with highly controversial statement taken from the source that is otherwise quite reliable? I had to explain that it was not me who find this statement controversial, and I had to explain why all these authors believe it is controversial.

Do you have any idea how could that task be solved?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:53, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

1. "Should we always discriminate between" Chapter #1 of an RS (this is chapter 1, not an editorial) and the rest of the book. No because this is the same RS.
2. "Should we always" provide a qualifier "controversial" for something we have a WP page about and provide a link? No because we must avoid POV qualifiers, and the reader can follow the link.
3. "Should we always describe the controversy". No, because we should avoid POV-frks.
4. Should we explain the objections to the "generic Communism"? No because there is no such commonly used terminology as "generic Communism" and because this page is not about Communism as a concept. My very best wishes (talk) 18:32, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

The explanation of "generic Communism" can be found in the Malia or David-Fox articles. Please, read. I do not discuss a concrete wording. I discuss the general approach to presentation of the figures calculated by Courtois.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:42, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Re: "The page is not about Communism as a concept" It is an interesting topic for the next RfC. Collect, do you agree that this article makes no connection between communism and mass killing?--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:58, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Nope. This article is about reliable sources stating that non-combatants died and that their deaths were attributed by those sources to "communist regimes". It is not up to us to make a connection or deny a connection. It is up to us to deal with what major sources state, and to make no deductions otherwise on our own. Collect (talk) 19:42, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Good. That means this article does not discuss communism in general? If that is the case, then the "Proposed causes" section should be removed, as well as "terminology", because we must avoid unneeded generalisations (we are not speaking about Communism, aren't we?). Taking into account that Kiernan provides a very specific explanation for Cambodia (Khmer's nationalism etc), Werth connects Red terror with inconclusive land reform and WWI, O'Grada sees Great Chinese famine as the last one in the series of historical famines, etc. Do you agree with that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:00, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

You seem to misapprehend my comments. This article is not what draws a connection nor needs to give a reason for any connection. If a reliable source makes a connection either explicitly or implicitly, we write that this is what the source says. The article is not about communism itself as the topic, but it is about connections between deaths and communist regimes made by reliable sources. Where "causes" are set forth in reliable sources, then we report what the sources say, and do not draw conclusions ourselves. Is that clear? Collect (talk) 21:51, 5 June 2018 (UTC) \

You are right. Now explain me how should we represent a situation when (i) a source A says Communism killed 100 millions, and more than 20 million out of these 100 were killed in the USSR, so Communism is more criminal than Nazism, (ii) a source B says the source A lies, and the number of victims in the USSR was smaller, (iii) the source C says it is incorrect to speak about Communism as whole, because there is virtually no connection between Cambodia and USSR, Afghanistan and Hungary, (iv) a source D says it is incorrect to claim Communism was more criminal than Nazism, as the source A says, (v) and a source E describes a significant number of mass deaths in China in totally different terms than "mass killings" and without any connection to communism? Which of that belongs to this article, which of that is not relevant?--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:06, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

The actual decision is made by consensus through any RfC, so I am writing as a hypothetical issue here.

The "Xism is more Evil than Yism" is not a "fact", but an opinion, which would generally be given and attributed as an opinion no matter what else is there.

A source B which says "source A lies" is also an opinion, and such opinions are generally discouraged - we are not here to provide fodder for source fights between authors, but to provide information of factual events, and the opinions which reliable sources present, sourced and attributed as opinions.

In the topic at hand, the claim that "countries A, B and C are different" is pretty much useless - the topic of this article is about any nation with a "communist regime" and does not require such regimes to be identical at all.

In short, other than the initial estimates of deaths attributed to the sources making such estimates, pretty much all your hypothets are of no value in this article. In my opinion.

The goal is to give readers factual estimates from reliable sources as to deaths occurring which were attributed to communist regimes by WP:RS sources. All else is argumentative fluff at this point. Collect (talk) 23:41, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Collect, I see some logical inconsistencies in what you write.

1. "Xism vs Yism" is irrelevant, what is relevant is that the number X is tightly connected with the "Xism vs Yism" theory, and it is produced to support it. If you don't want to engage in cherry picking, let's tell a full story.

2. According to you, if a source X says: "Xism killed 100 million", it is a fact, but when a source Y says "X is wrong" it is opinion. It directly contradicts to the scientific community rules: if a scientist A publishes the results of, e.g., speed of light measurements, and a scientist B writes that these results are unreliable, because there was a flaw in the experimental method A used, we do not present the result obtained by A as a fact and the observation made by B as an opinion. They both are treated with equal respect, and, until B's concern has not been properly addressed, A's measurements cannot be considered as a fact.

3. Regarding estimates, how do you propose to deal with conflicting estimates? Rummel says Communism killed 140 million, including 60 million in the USSR, Snyder says 9 million were killed in the USSR, Harff says Rummel is not a specialist in each particular country, his figures are not supposed to be accurate, and they are just an average of lowest and highest estimates. Is it ok to give Rummel's figures simply because he collected (very inaccurately) poor quality data for all countries? Are you comfortable with the fact that these Rummel's data include the USSR data that are about 40 million less, according to fresh sources?--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:21, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

First of all, I noted that we were dealing with hypotheticals. Secondly, the name of the article delimits its content, and the discussion of "what is and what is not communism" is irrelevant as long as the countries have been identified by the reliable source as "communist" and the source states as fact that deaths occurred under that regime.

If George Gnarph says "I estimate that the elephant weighs 3800 pounds" the statement "George Gnarph says the elephant weighed 3800 pounds" is a fact. If Ralph Rarph says "George Gnarph lied" then that is clearly personal opinion, and can only be used and cited as opinion. Is this finally clear?

I note that the article is only about death in "regimes", and does not say "specific attributes of communism which are common to the definition of 'communism' are the cause of these deaths." Thus that hypothetical is not really germane here.

It is unclear whether the claim "Rummel says Communism killed 100 million people" is correct, or whether Rummel attributes the deaths to the regime, or to a general definition of "communism." I believe he attributed the deaths to the regime and not to the ideology of communism per se. To that extent, I fear I doubt this specific hypothetical has much validity.

And it is not up to us to assert that "Rummel acted very inaccurately" or the like, but any such statement is quite clearly an opinion, which must be ascribed to the person holding that opinion in a reliable source, and cited as such under Wikipedia policy. Again, we are dealing with hypotheticals, but some of the ones you suggest clearly run afoul of Wikipedia policy which is that we rely solely on reliable sources, and do not use our own personal knowledge to make statements about such sources.

See WP:V, the pertinent policy. Collect (talk) 00:55, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

No, the question about Rummel is not an opinion. Harff does not express an opinion about a procedure Rummel uses. She describes a procedure, and conclude the error is quite likely. She admits country specialists are more accurate in figures, whereas genocide scholars may be more accurate in estimates of global trends (not numerical). The strong side of Rummel's study is the discovery of a correlation between totalitarianism and mass killing (it is just a correlation, modern scholars found other correlations, but it is a important discovery anyway), and Rummel's conclusions are not affected significantly if Stalinn killed not 60 but 9 million. In contrast, the scholars who study some single country do not make generalisations, but they know everything about their area of interest. They know figures better that Rummel and few other genocide scholars who are doing global estimates.

Have you ever read studies of genocide scholars? It is usually a pure math, Bayesian analysis, singular value decomposition, and other statistics. They are working with intrinsically noisy data to predict which regime is more likely to cause genocide in future, and they have no capabilities to provide accurate estimates, because even 100-200% error does not affect their conclusions significantly.

What is happening here is directly opposite: you are pushing Rummel's figures and ignoring the figures provided by real specialists. Wheatcroft does not use Rummel's data for USSR, because he is doing his own archival research, but Rummel uses Wheatcroft's data, and he is not doing archival research. Who should be trusted more?

If George Gnarph says: "I estimate the elephant weight is 3800 pounds" but Ralph Granph says: "George Gnarph's measurement procedure has a serious flaw that underestimates elephant's weight", I am not sure we have a "fact vs opinion" collision. By the way, if we present George Gnarph's data and ignore Ralph Granph's notion, we mislead a reader, because actual weight of Asian elephant is around 6000 lbs, and African elephant is even heavier, which means George Gnarph's notion was quite justified, whereas George Gnarph's data are wrong.

Re: "I note that the article is only about death in "regimes"". I recall I proposed to make this article purely descriptive, and that would resolve many problem. If you agree, let's discuss it in a separate section.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:15, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

As I used the word "hypothetical" a few times, a cavil about African elephants v. Asian elephants reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and how much weight a sparrow could carry. Really, asides of that type are not very helpful at all. Collect (talk) 01:29, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I hate to derail this further into policy / process stuff, but since this keeps happening with WP:RFCs here... the purpose of an RFC is to attract outside opinions when we've already failed to reach a consensus ourselves. Having them all devolve into the same three or four people arguing the same things over and over defeats the point (that's exactly the thing we recourse to an RFC to end.) Everyone, if you feel the need to have a huge discussion mid-RFC, please create another section for it? Usually I would pull them out into a threaded discussion subsection, but these are all lengthy reply topics to individual comments and can't be easily moved around. Any outside editor who came across this wall of convoluted discussion in a request for comment could be reasonably excused for deciding to just nope out. --Aquillion (talk) 01:46, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

The discussion on my part is and has been absolutely an attempt to get a well-defined, neutrally worded RfC. Non-neutral epics do not get outside opinions as a rule. The RfC here presented is the War and Peace style. Collect (talk) 10:48, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I favor number 2. The specific controversy on the introduction needn't be discussed more than once or twice. GPRamirez5 (talk) 17:24, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually, these were four independent questions. For example, if the answers are No - Yes - No - No, then we do not discriminate between the intro and the BB as whole, and write "controversial BB" without further details. If the answers are Yes - No - Yes - No, we write "the BB introduction provides the figures that have been widely criticized because ..." Etc. Should I add these clarifications to the body of the RfC?--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:37, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, yes, yes, yes, but my opinion is that we shouldn't be citing the introduction at all in the first place, or should cite it as little as possible and never in a position of prominence (which makes all of these questions moot.) Beyond the fact that the lead to that book is extremely controversial, as mentioned above, and beyond the fact that it's disputed by even some of the book's own contributors (rendering it a bit WP:FRINGE), the really big problem is that it's essentially an opinion piece by one person - it doesn't have the fact-checking or research that went into the rest of the book. This makes it an extremely poor thing to cite for statements of fact. We could cite it for Courtois' personal opinions, with an in-line citation making it clear that this is just Courtois' opinion, but placing it in the lead or mentioning it more than once or twice strikes me as clearly WP:UNDUE. If there's something vital in the book, it should be possible to cite it to the actual text inside rather than Courtois' more controversial, more opinionated, and less scholarly summary. And I would be opposed to relying too heavily on the black book in general - if this is such a major, noteworthy topic, it should be easy to find additional sources rather than placing such a heavy weight on just one. --Aquillion (talk) 01:39, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Forgive me for not grasping Wikipedia legalese but I came upon this page by accident and found it interesting. Is the ultimate intention of the editor who created this request to supplant references to Rummel, Courtois, etc. with e.g. Wheatcroft as mentioned? I might be getting way ahead of the argument but it seems ultimately this is a way of cutting the numbers down so to speak. Thanks for listening. Passingobserver (talk) 10:46, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

• Comment. This RfC is related mostly to the Black Book of Communism. This is not surprising because the book is probably the best and the most detailed general source about communist repressions in various countries, which is the subject of this page. One could even argue this WP page should be made as a WP:list, unless we had the "Black Book" and books by Rummel, Malia and a couple of others. In terms of our policies, the most relevant question is weather this book (and more specifically its first chapter by Courtois) should be regarded as an academic RS (the 1st chapter is basically a review and uses a lot of references to other sources). That has been already discussed on RSNB in most detail here and most recently here. What was the outcome of these RSNB discussions? This is hard to say, but the book certainly was NOT disregarded as an unreliable source. This was most neutrally summarized by user DGG (first link) "The numbers given in the BB are not outside the range of possibility, and can be included as one of several estimates--and indeed should be, to show the range of variation.". So, unless there is any new consensus, I would regard that comment as an excellent recommendation we all should follow. Yes, the numbers should be explicitly attributed to Courtois because two other co-authors had happen to disagree. But this is not an opinion, but results of research by a notable mainstream scientist who works in this area. My very best wishes (talk) 19:12, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
• Delete Article - Is there any possibility we can just delete this page? There are so many things wrong with this article, it seems pointless to have content RfC's like this. I'm guessing there won't be much appetite for deletion, given pages like this tend to attact "special interest" editors who imagine and synthesize notability for subject like this; that said, perhaps now that the Cold War is long enough over we can have enough detachment to recognize what a ridiculous SOAPBOX this entire article is? NickCT (talk) 14:52, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Nope. There have been a bunch of RfDs in the past, and you have certainly opined in the past. The goal is to define and structure the article as best we can, not to delete it. Meanwhile, I think you might wish to nominate Anti-communist mass killings which is in far worse shape. Collect (talk) 15:00, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Collect, whereas I am not a fan of that article (I even don't remember if I ever edited it), I think the subject of that article is quite clear: killings of communists by anti-communists. Anticommunism is a well defined topic, and those killings are attributed not to regimes, but to any anticommunists. I am neutral regarding that article, but I suspect it was created as a balance MKuCR. Its title is awkward and ambiguous (who are killers and who was being killed?), it looks like a list article, but it avoids any generalisations and theorising, so it does not violate our policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:49, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@Collect: - When you say "a bunch" you mean two, right? Two close AfD's for keep is a bunch? Ever think there may be so many deletion discussions b/c the article should really be deleted?

Both this page and Anti-communist mass killings ought to be deleted. Clear and petty ideological warring. NickCT (talk) 17:48, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

NickCT, I think, the article can be improved, although it requires a major rewrite (I am currently discussing that with one user, hope to present this plan to wider audience after the preliminary consensus is acheived). Its deletion will not resolve the problem, and, formally speaking, it is not possible, because the topic does exist.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:58, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert: - Deletion would solve the problem quite nicely. And I contest that the topic exists. Can you point to more than one or two publications whose main topic is "Killings under Communist regimes"? What you've done here is to take a bunch of facts from different RS's and you've strung them together to try to synthesize a subject and its notability, which really only exists in your and few other editors' heads. NickCT (talk) 17:52, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually, even a single source is sufficient for prevention of article's deletion, and I know at least two. However, I agree that this article is currently terrible and needs a major rewrite. If we will not achieve a consensus about that, I have one idea that may resolve the problem. However, that may require time and efforts.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:59, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert: - . A single source does not notability make. NickCT (talk) 23:20, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Re "in your and few other editors' heads" I am the one who is deeply dissatisfied with the way this article is written. My primary concern is that the article is obsesses with figures, and is disinterested in placement of these events into a historical context (most historians explain these events not is a context of communism). The problem is that the idea of "communist mass killings" is not a fringe view, but it is not a significant majority view, so majority of experts simply ignore it, and they do not dispute this theory, hence we have little criticism in scholarly sources. In contrast, many journalists and popular writers push this idea. To resolve this problem, we need a collaborative efforts of all users, however, some of them prefer an edit war.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:35, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not arguing about whether or not the article is terribly written (it is). I'm arguing the subject is non-notable synthesis and that the article is unencylopedic. NickCT (talk) 23:20, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

The article in its present form is not encyclopedic, I agree. I cannot agree that the subject is non-notable, taking into account a storm over the Black Book. And, yes, there is a lot of synthesis in the article. I think, you will not be able to delete the article, because there will be not enough arguments for that. However, it is possible to improve it, get rid of all synthesis, and make encyclopedic.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:13, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert: - The Black Book is a perfect example of the synthesized notability this page uses. The subject of the Black Book was "Naughty Things the Commies Have Done". The sub-topic was "Mass Killings under Communist Regimes". The Black Book gives notability to former subject, but here folks are arguing that it gives notability to the latter. It does not.

We've strung together a bunch of sources that treat "Mass Killings" as a sub-topic and used them infer notability on the issue as a stand alone topic. It's classic SYNTH. NickCT (talk) 12:45, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

If you look at the talk page you can see that it is exactly what I say. However, my conclusion is: the article should be rewritten in a totally descriptive manner, and all theorisings should be moved to the bottem and represented as a minority (and contested) views.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:05, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

• No, Yes, No, No As was mentioned, the intro is part of the book; it's not a separate document. I think a footnote linking to the article about BB is sufficient to qualify that there's some disagreement. If number 2 is yes, then number three isn't necessary. As far as complaints about general communism: you can't claim that correlation does not equal causation when the same thing happens in almost every communist regime; that'd be a hell of a coincidence. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:44, 22 June 2018 (UTC) (Summoned by bot)

Chris Troutman, when the same thing happens in almost every communist regime, you definitely can't claim that correlation does not equal causation. The problem is, however, that the things that were happening were quite different. There was no ethnosocial antiurbanist genocides in the USSR, the Soviet society was not strictly separated on social groups like in North Korea, etc. Only few authors see significant commonality between these events.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:17, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes. Add #4: Just the term "Communist death toll" is controversial in itself. Many of the killings weren't done by communists at all and almost none of them is linked to communist ideology, they happened because of civil wars, infrastructure breakdowns and ordinary power struggles. And what does it even mean? It could mean how many communists died. The very concept of diving homo sapiens into the categories of Communists and Normal People is insane. Communism is a political ideology, not a special breed of the human race. The whole concept behind this article is based on an idea that communist ideology is deadly and all the deaths are presented as a result of communist ideology. This idea and basic assumption isn't explained nor tackled anywhere, it is just tacitly assumed. Can the prejudice be more ridiculous and expressed with more bigotry? RhinoMind (talk) 10:50, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
• No, No, No, and No. Specifically, when presenting data from the most important text on the issue, there is no need to qualify it at each citation; clearly WP:NPOV is introduced by introducing fear, uncertainty and doubt about this foundational book. One single explanation somewhere in the article for any such qualification suffices. And when someone asks if the time Pol Pot spent in Paris qualifies him as a Commie, I am reminded of this Wikipedia article. XavierItzm (talk) 16:02, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

A note to those who will be closing this RfC. Taking into account that my own answers to these questions are Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, as well as the arguments presented by Fifelfoo (that the intro should not be used as a source at all), it seems the community's answer to the question #2 is Yes (5 + Fifelfoo vs 2), and the other answers are "inconclusive" (3 vs 3). If someone believes I made a mistake during calculations, please, correct me.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:04, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Wait, so now !votes are actual votes? If 3 say that 10,000 can dance on the head of a pin, and 3 say that the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (i.e., Pol Pot) was not a communist, then that makes it so? XavierItzm (talk) 20:01, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct. Not only the number of votes, but the argument's strength matter. However, if we summarize the RfC in this way, the arguments presented here in favor of "Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes" are definitely stronger. In addition, you seem to misinterpret the main point: the question is not if Pol Pot was communist, but if there is a consensus among historians on the "generic Communism" as a primary cause of mass killings in Cambodia and USSR. Most specialists is Cambodian and Soviet histories consider these two cases separate from each other, and they see more commonalities between Cambodia and, e.g. Rwanda (where the genocide was democreatic per Semelin) than between Cambodia and the USSR. Only very few authors combine these two mass killings in one category, and many others openly disagree.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:28, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

A distinction without a difference. This article is about mass killings under communist regimes. Cambodia's was and the USSR's was. XavierItzm (talk) 03:22, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

It seems you fundamentally misunderstand our core content policy: a lot of sources (if not an overwhelming majority of them) do see a difference, which means the article about mass killings under different communist regimes must explain that difference.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:08, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

It's all right if you are confused. What's important is that we continue to go by the most representative WP:RS. In this case, evidently, Courtois et al. XavierItzm (talk) 10:12, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Four fundamental error in such a short post! (i) "we continue to go by the most representative WP:RS" - a reference to RS in a discussion about NPOV is explicitly prohibited by our policy, which says "Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts." (ii) "the most representative" - according to whom? Outstanding claims require outstanding evidences, but you provided no evidences at all. In addition, even if we agree that Courtois is the most representative source, Wikipedia must present all significant majority views, not a single one. (iii) "Courtois et al" - we are not talking about the whole book, the discussion is about the introduction, "et al", including Werths, who is the main contributor to this collective volume, openly disagree with Courtois. (iv) "evidently" implies some evidences, but no evidences have been provided by you. In contrast, the evidence of the opposite (that Courtois has been severely criticised, and his conclusions are highly controversial) have been provided on this talk page. Please, read recent archives before continuing the discussion.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:28, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Were Curtois et al. not the referential point, critiques wouldn't orbit precisely about Curtois et al. Besides, funnily enough, the Wikipedia entry for Curtois reads as follows: "The Black Book of Communism, a book edited by Courtois, has been translated into numerous languages, sold million of copies, and is considered a standard work on communist repressions" [emphasis added]. Imagine that. XavierItzm (talk) 18:30, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Good point, I brought the article about Courtois in accordance with the BB article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:57, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Excellent work, thank you. The point is now further reinforced: "The Black Book may be the single most influential text on the Soviet Union and other state socialist regimes and movements published since The Gulag Archipelago."

You are missing the point: the author compares it with Archipelago, which is, without any doubt, the most influential book about Stalin's crimes. However, Archipelago is not considered a reliable source by historians who write about, for example, statistics of Gulag population. Currently, GULAG article cites Archipelago mostly in a historical context and as the book that was among the first books that vividly described prisoners' suffering. It was, and in some aspects remains one of the most influential books on this subject, but the figure of 50 million passed through the GULAG system is considered highly inflated now. Even Robert Conquest concedes that the figure of 14 million (plus ca 4 million in colonies) is a consensus figure. And, in general, Archipelago is rarely cited as a source about Stelinist repressions.

In other words, influential does not necessarily mean reliable. The BB, and especially the introduction, caused a storm of discussions, it got a widespread support and equally widespread criticism. You can find a lot of sources cited on this talk page that support this my conclusion (look through archives). Even Suny, who considers the BB influential, sees a lot of problems in what Courtois writes: just read this article in full. That means, it is hardly the most representative and reliable source about Communism.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:27, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Sure, Archipelago is not to be used as a statistical source. Writing under Socialist repression and being a gulag victim himself was not quite conducive for Solzhenitsyn to access official records, it seems. An excellent point that has no bearing on Black Book, the preeminent book on the subject matter. XavierItzm (talk) 03:24, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

You again are milling the point: the figures per se are not so important. What is important is an idea that some book may be influential (Archipelago remains very influential), but not reliable.::::::::::::In addition, you, probably forgot one important thing: the rock the whole BB rests upon is the Werth's chapter. It is due to this chapter the BB is considered one of the most important sources about communism. In contrast, the introduction written by Courtois is considered the most controversial part of the book, and Werth publicly dissociated himself from what Courtois writes. However, you are prefer to cherry-pick the most weakest part of the book and to take the most controversial statement from this part and to ignore the opinion of the author of the best part.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:57, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

• My nuanced answers to the four questions:
  1. Absolutely yes, since they have different authorship (the intro was authored by Courtois, and reflects his (challenged) opinion; it is a primary source while the rest of the book was authored by many and edited by him; that work appears to be a tertiary source in parts and a secondary one in others, probably mostly secondary. They are different actual works under the same cover, and the one is controversial while the other is not. Otherwise it's a grossly misleading source falsification, trying to hide a controversial source behind the name of a well-accepted one. We need not dwell on this in encyclopedic prose; just introduce the distinction at first occurrence, and use separate citations throughout. The cite template has a |chapter= parameter, which can be used thus: {{cite book|chapter=Introduction|last1=Courtois ...|editor1-last=Kramer ...}}; for some other chapter, do {{cite book|chapter=Chapter_title_here|last1=Chapter_author_surname ...|editor-last=Kramer ...}}, or if it's just an all-authors-commingled encyclopedic work and the chapter names don't matter, {{cite book|last1=Panné ...|last2=Paczkowski ...|last3=Bartosek ...|last4=Margolin ...|last5=Werth ...|last6=Courtois ...|editor-last=Kramer ...}}. Give page numbers in all cases (and complete names, etc., of course)
  2. Not quite. Rather, we should explain this on first occurrence and include specific attribution, and balance it with other sources, per WP:UNDUE. Thereafter do not cite it without attribution and balancing, but we need not repeat the explanation. If it can't be balanced, then don't cite it, per WP:NPOV and WP:PSTS.
  3. Not quite. Same answer as for no. 2. And we should not just use the intro as the source for figure in Wikipedia's own voice. It simply not permissible to do that with a primary source. They have to be Courtois's figures, balanced with counter claims. However, it would be permissible to do something like "lowest_RS_figure_here to largest_RS_figure_here deaths" and cite two sources in a row, without attribution, since that's a balanced range of expert-offered figures.
  4. Not quite. Explain it concisely the first time. Explain it in detail on second occurrence (first in the body), thereafter either don't use it or use it with a clear identifier referring to previous explanation. I'd don't repeat the whole explanation.
  5. Special consideration: The above should only apply to the lead and main prose. If Courtois's intro figures are used in any of the geographical sections, then it all needs to be explained, concisely, all over again, since the no. 1 use of this article is going to be to load this page then use the ToC to get directly to a specific place's section. This is basically a reference article, an extended list, and comparatively few readers are literally going to read it from top to bottom.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:12, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually, I realises that my questions #2-4 were not precisely formulated: I obviously meant "explain this on first occurrence in each article". --Paul Siebert (talk) 02:01, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

No, this was not obvious at all. Besides, an RFC designed to cover multiple articles requires notices at each article. Suggest you withdraw the defective+vitiated RFC and re-start from scratch.XavierItzm (talk) 02:58, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

References

RfC: Should we remove the "85 and 100 million" number from the lead?

Should we remove the "85 and 100 million" number, cited to the introduction to The Black Book of Communism, from the lead? --Aquillion (talk) 06:15, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Many of the recent disputes have been over the use of The Black Book of Communism (especially a number from its introduction) in the lead; yet we haven't run an RFC focused on this specific question, which I feel is at the heart of a lot of disputes here. Currently, the Black Book of Communism is used to cite this sentence in the lead: The estimates by Stéphane Courtois's introduction[1] to the Black Book of Communism and by Martin Malia suggested a total death toll of between 85 and 100 million people. The dispute over that is complicated, but some of the controversy over it (and that number, in particular) can be found on our article for The Black Book of Communism.

As aside, please do not respond to !votes in the survey section. Use the threaded discussion section for that. We've had problems with every RFC on this page devolving into arguments from longstanding editors; remember, an WP:RFC's purpose is to attract outside opinions. --Aquillion (talk) 06:15, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• Support as proposer. Given the coverage that estimate received (even if largely negative), that number might be worth discussing in the body of the article (where we can give it appropriate depth and context), but it is a particularly controversial part of a highly-controversial book, so it's WP:UNDUE for the lead. Even two of the contributors to the book, Werth and Margolin, said that Courtois was "obsessed" with arriving at a total of 100 million and that he engaged in "sloppy and biased scholarship" to reach it. You can see how controversial and unreliable that number is from the controversy section in our own article on the book - there are two full, well-cited paragraphs of criticism for that one sentence, while the praise section does not mention that sentence at all. It's absurd for us to make that sentence part of the lead of the article or to make it the primary takeaway from that book. Putting it in the lead grants it an authority and reputation that it simply does not have; at a bare minimum, it absolutely cannot be mentioned without also mentioning, explicitly, that two of the book's contributors (which, as the introduction, it purports to summarize) have denounced it and covering the general controversy behind the methodology by which Courtois reached that number. --Aquillion (talk) 06:15, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support The source is controversial and there is no scholarly consensus for such an estimate.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 11:13, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support removal. Figures can be included in the lead if it is written, for example, as proposed in the the specific version + comments section.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:43, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. I think the quotation is fine as the most frequently cited numbers of the victims of communist repression. For example, these numbers were cited in book by Richard Pipes "Communism," p. 158. They were also frequently cited in more popular discourse sources like here. The discussions on this talk page above also show that the "Black Book" was frequently cited, even though the citation was one-sided. One could argue the numbers are important part of this page (we have a section about it and we also have numbers in sections about specific countries), so the numbers should also appear in the lead. A possible alternative would be to provide a range of numbers per "Estimates" section, i.e. from 60 to 148 million. It does not matter if participants like or do not like certain sources. As long as something has been reliably published by widely recognized mainstream scientists such as Stéphane Courtois, it should be included per WP:NPOV. My very best wishes (talk) 15:13, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Keep this ridiculous claim of 100 million since it is widely cited in the right wing media [25]. Then briefly cite reliable academic sources that dispute this claim, ie. Wheatcroft. In a nutshell the higher figures are derived using hypothetical population models that low ball the number of natural deaths and puff up the number of births since there are no are reliable vital statistics, births and natural deaths are estimates. I recommend this article published on the Russian Website Demoscope by the Russian academics Evgeny Andreev and Tatiana Kharkova [26] Don't be intimidated by the fact that it is in Russian, Google translate does a decent job. The figure of 100 million includes about 70 million in China, the issue there were the 1959-62 famine deaths deliberate, that is disputed.--Woogie10w (talk) 15:58, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
• SupportI changed my mind because there is a range of figures in published sources. Courtois should not be in the lede which should just mention the uncertainty regarding the total. A new section, not too long and complicated, should explain how the academic sources compute these numbers. Throwing numbers at people is widely practiced by historians and here on Wikipedia. We need to explain how the academic wonks derive their numbers. Thank you User:K.e.coffman, you made me give this matter some additonal thought --Woogie10w (talk) 23:46, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose The lead should consist of a summary of the entire article - and removing that estimate basically ignores a quite large portion of the entire article - the assignment of estimated death tolls. The issue of "scholarly consensus" does not appluy to summaries of what is already in the article. Collect (talk) 20:13, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose This is one of the most common estimates. Pedro8790 (talk) 17:06, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support It might be a commonly cited number, but that doesn't make it neither right nor accurate. If anyone (with mathematical insight) cares to investigate how many of the death tolls were arrived at, many surprises are in store. It is a general problem unfortunately: When it comes to numbers and amounts, they often enters an echo chamber and gets continually cited again and again without any thought about how the numbers were arrived at in the first place. And then the meta-scientists comes along and do all kinds of statistical gymnastics with these already misused numbers and pulls out whatever they want. It can be quite shocking to look into how statistics are misused even in academic circles. Anyway, after this rant, the 100 million stems from a singular and controversial book and might belong at the BBoC page, but not here. Also, the quality of the whole article and subject would be improved if each individual section were treated with care and skill and presented with explanations, proper sourcing and wiki-links. This is much, much more important than stating some kind of "total sum" which can only be inaccurate because of the nature of the subject. RhinoMind (talk) 10:59, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
• Disinterested work on the bloody body text. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:16, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
• Disinterested-me tooYes,work on the Fu-en body text--Woogie10w (talk) 17:48, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support remove. By citing only one source, it implies that those estimates are the most commonly accepted, which they are not. Furthermore, the totals contain a significant mathematical error, which was pointed out by contributors to the book. TFD (talk) 16:33, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Remove the lead and the whole article. Black Book is a discredited work and this article is a derivated work from the same idea. emijrp (talk) 21:15, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose and expand the lead to include lower range estimates. schetm (talk) 16:20, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose the Black Book of Communism is the most comprehensive source on this subject and while there are other sources that cite similar estimates, this is the most well known and reputable. JamesBay (talk) 21:51, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose inasmuch as the lead must summarize the body, and this content will remain an important part of the body, but expand with a broader range of estimates (e.g., Valentino's 21–70 million and Rosefielde's "approximately 60 million").TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:32, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support removal, as currently written:

The estimates by Stéphane Courtois's introduction[1] to The Black Book of Communism and by Martin Malia suggested a total death toll of between 85 and 100 million people.[2][nb 1][nb 2]

With respect to Keep this ridiculous claim of 100 million since it is widely cited in the right wing media ..., there's nothing in the current text to suggest this interpretation. Hence my support for the proposal. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:42, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose removal, keep the Courtois figures and if there are alternative figures from WP:RS of comparable quality and prominence, cite as well, as needed (including any relevant qualifications). XavierItzm (talk) 16:17, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
• Depends. It cannot be given in Wikipedia's own voice. It could be retained in the lead if attributed per WP:PSTS and if balanced by contrary RS, per WP:DUE. (It is Courtois's controversial opinion, essentially an op-ed tacked onto the front of an edited volume; it is thus a primary source). This did not need to be an RfC question; it's a matter of standard operating procedure at all articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:14, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

@MVBW. 60 million is not the lowest estimate, it is an estimate made by genocide scholars who are not accurate (see Harff). Inclusion of this figure would require explanations and comments that clarify an origin of errors in this estimate.

The argument that the Courtois figures are widely cited is quite valid. However, that is only a part of truth (telling only a part of truth is one of the most standard form of lie). The full truth is that these figures are frequently cited and equally frequently criticised. That means we either show both figures and criticism (as I proposed earlier on this talk page) or we remove figures at all, and discuss them in the article. However, the idea to tell full truth was rejected by few users who think telling only a part of truth (i.e. to lie) is perfectly ok in Wikipedia. These users are persistently removing any mention of criticism, and are trying to hide it under a link (which directly contradicts to neutrality policy). In connection to that, full removal of BB from the lead seems the most simple way to eliminate a lie (a.k.a partial truth) from the article. Another option would be to incorporate both Courtois figures and criticism. However, that would require us to devote more space in the article to the description of this controvercy. The attempts to explain this controversy in more details were reverted, which means if we include Courtois+criticism in the lead, it would not be an adequate summary of the article in its current state.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:36, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Preface to the book by Rosenfelde tells "Twentieth and twenty-first century communism is a failed experiment in social engineering that needlessly killed approximately 60 million people and perhaps tens of millions more". If so, author clearly implies that the number could be significantly greater - yes, one can not just say "60 million", this should be carefully phrased. Which lower total numbers of victims in all communist countries were provided by Harff or Wheatcroft? I do not see them. My very best wishes (talk) 16:02, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Rosefielde is an expert in Soviet Russia, however his estimates are higher than the estimates of other experts (i.e. Wheatcroft). He is not an expert in other countries, so it is quite likely his estimates are not "lowest"--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:06, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

You did not answer my question: Which lower total numbers of victims in all communist countries were provided by Harff or Wheatcroft? If they were "lower", by how much? If it was a number about USSR, it should be included in the section about USSR. My very best wishes (talk) 16:10, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I answered your question many times: they do not provide low estimates, because they do not think these events are too connected to discuss them together.

I am also asking you a question: do you agree that a partial truth is tantamount to a lie?--Paul Siebert (talk)

Woogie10w, I would be interested to see your opinion on the RfC I started earlier (see the "RfC on figures presented by Courtois in the Black Book introduction"). It specifically discusses how exactly these figures should be presented. Please, keep in mind that there are four independent questions there, so the answer should be in a format, e.g. "Yes - Yes -Yes -Yes". By the way, the Russian source you cite tells about excess deaths, not mass killings. This is not necessarily the same. Since you mentioned Wheatcroft, did you see this? It is interesting reading. --Paul Siebert (talk) 16:06, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Paul Siebert I have read and own both Courtois and Rosefield. The Courtois figure I believe comes from Robert Conquest. You wrote Rosefielde is an expert in Soviet Russia Rosefielde created his own population model for the USSR, his figures for unnatural deaths is far higher than those published in Russia in 1993 by Andreev, Darski and Kharkova. According to Rosefielde the natural growth in population (births less natural deaths) from 1927-49 was 56.8 million, according to Andreev, Darski and Kharkova the growth was 37.7 million. The difference of 19 million are victims of Communism. Rosefielde made up his own numbers for population growth and iced the cake with strident anti-communist propaganda. Rosefield believes that the 1990's Glasnost data is a forgery.--Woogie10w (talk) 16:43, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

(I slightly formatted you, hope you don't mind :-)). Woogie10w, that is exactly how I see it. The general issue is that people like Rosefielde or Courtois, who attribute deaths to Communism (a.k.a. "generic Communism"), compile the data of other authors to obtain a cumulative "communist death toll", and they frequently use figures that are skewed to high values. Other authors, such as Wheatcroft, who see this problem differently, provide lower figures, but, being narrow specialists, they do not bother to compile the figure for all "communist countries". That is why the figure of "global Communist death toll" is intrinsically ideologically charged, and we must explain that every time when this figure is cited. Do you agree with that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:02, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Rosefielde makes up his own numbers using an analysis of the population. The book is tedious and poorly organized. I suspect that the editors here have not bothered to read Rosefielde, except for snippets in Google books. But from a Wikipedian perspective he is a reliable academic source. His analysis should be mentioned. There are other reliable sources, the best analysis in Russian is Naselenie Rossii v XX veke in 3 Vols. I have copied the sections relating to Soviet repression. I own the books by Otto Pohl The Stalinist penal system and Ethnic cleansing in the USSR. As well as A century of state murder? by Michael Haynes. Anyway I have other fish to fry.--Woogie10w (talk) 18:44, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. To that, I would add that population losses and mass killings are two different things. Thus, Rosefielde concludes premature deaths in democratic Russia (the deaths he attributes to Yeltsin) were up to 6 million [27]. Does it mean there was a "democratic mass killing" in Russia in 1990s?

Anyway, I would be grateful if you shared with us your ideas on how all these complicated things should be presented in this article. I would beb grateful if you respond above the horizontal line, because the thread becomes complicated.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:59, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

___________________________________________________________________________(MVBW, I anticipate to get a responce from Woogie, so please, do not remove this line that makes our discussion with Woogie easily seen by others.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:01, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

The big difference in Rosefield's figures is the period 1939-49. He puts the total excess deaths at 36.5 million vs. the 26.6 million in the 1993 Russian statistics of Andreev, in 2001 Andreev bumped the number up to 29 million excess deaths. Both sources estimate total births and natural deaths because the records are incomplete. --Woogie10w (talk) 19:14, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Also Rosefield's figures for 1941-45 indicate a natural growth in the population of 9.4 million vs 1.8 million in Andreev. Rosefield plugged in these absurd figures to arrive at his higher total. His Red Holocaust is a sham.--Woogie10w (talk) 19:40, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

"we must explain every time" - what exactly? Can you briefly write down what exactly "we must explain every time"? My very best wishes (talk) 17:49, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Since I already answered you many times, I am not sure is this is a good faith question. However, I explain that again. The statement should convey three separate ideas: "(i) Courtois combine deaths from different causes in a single category "Communist death toll", (ii) Courtois estimates this "Communist death toll" was in between 85 and 100 million, (iii) this approach is widely criticised, and the figures are considered inflated and misleading." Taking (ii) out of this context means telling a partial truth, which is tantamount to lying. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:57, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

(i) and (ii) should be simply mentioned in "Estimates" section (probably already mentioned). (iii) is incorrect summary of "majority" view on this subject. But the question was about the "communist death toll" in all sources, not specifically by Courtois. Should we always tell "intrinsically ideologically charged" about all these numbers? No, because it is widely accepted in the literature which countries belonged to the communist states. My very best wishes (talk) 18:09, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

If it is incorrect, please, prove it. Several users provided a large number of sources that contains criticism. Several of those sources say this particular figure and the very idea to combine all deaths in one category is widely criticised. That means this summary reflects majority views, and it is correct.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:18, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I am sorry, but you did not suggest any specific text that "we must" include "every time". There is nothing to discuss. My very best wishes (talk) 18:35, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

That statement is not true, because not only I proposed the new version of the lead on this talk page, but you commented on it, which means you are quite familiar with that text. --Paul Siebert (talk) 19:25, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

This edit is unacceptable taking into account that two RfCs are still open. Many users disagree with that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:33, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Which RfC do you mean? My edit was not about "Black Book". My very best wishes (talk) 18:44, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

My very best wishes|My very best wishes, the figure of 100 million is a catch all that includes all the folks that fell through the cracks. In his memoir Crusade in Europe Ike mentioned that the Russians used infantry to clear minefields, I read this to my father in 1967, he was shocked. He said show me the book I want to see that, he then said Ike made it a point that the men in his unit would take good care of their feet.--Woogie10w (talk) 18:54, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I can't tell about other countries, but the number for the USSR in "Black book" (~20 million) appears also in others sources, and not the largest number. And yes, I think the "documents" fed by the KGB to Zemskov and others were almost certainly a forgery or at least extremely incomplete, exactly as Steven Rosefielde, Anton Antonov-Ovseenko and some others claimed. My very best wishes (talk) 19:12, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

My very best wishes I see that you read Russian and have made a good point, a very good point. Zemskov came up with his 1.1 million Gulag deaths in 1991, the Cognoscenti in west were pleased with his definitive research. Zemskov a party member was given a culled file in order to discredit Antonov-Ovseyenko who annoyed comrade Gorbachov. Nine years later Kokurin came up with an additional 700,000 dead in labor colonies and prisons. To Ice our cake Popov in 1992 came up with exactly 779,142 persons who were executed. Oh sorry folks but that does not include the Poles at Katyan or military executions. In the Stalin era vital statistics were incomplete, the figures of Krivosheev are not taken seriously. No doubt the number of “free”people who were worked to death were never recorded. Ann Applebaum in her Gulag was skeptical of these Gulag stats, she lists them “reluctantly” --Woogie10w (talk) 20:33, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Hmm... you know this subject much better than me. Nice talking to you. Yes, I noticed this in the book by Applebaum. My very best wishes (talk) 20:46, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

On page 126 Rosefield breaks out a summary listing 12.4 to 26.6 million repression deaths in the USSR and China at 72.3 million. China is the big number that needs to analyzed here. Rosefield puts the Great Chinese Famine toll at 48.7 million, bingo there is 1/2 of our total. --Woogie10w (talk) 20:35, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

(ec)Woogie10w, I am a little bit confused. As you probably noticed, noone here claims Zemskov's figures are correct. We use Ellman's data, who summarised Weathcroft vs Rosefielde dispute and proposed a figure that takes into account a possibility of various falsifications. Scholars correctly argued that is it quite possible to forge a single archive, but it is not possible to forge a whole archival data. Anyway, since we do not speak about Zemskov here, I do not understand what relation does this your comment has to this discussion.Paul Siebert (talk) 20:48, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

The official data is listed in Naselenie Rossii v XX veke, which Applebaum and Haynes summarize. Rosefielde has a different approach, his figures are derived from an a hypothetical population model. Are the official figures complete? were all the deaths recorded? based on our knowledge of Stalin era statistics, a dose of healthy skepticism is in order here. In any case the real problem here is that I seem to be the only editor who has a hard copy oy Rosefielde.--Woogie10w (talk) 21:26, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Usually, the book like Red Holocaust combine several articles the author published earlier. I have all Rosefielde's articles, so I have an impression of what he says, and of his methodological approach. Anyway, that is absolutely not a problem that only you have an access to this book, because we trust you. The question is different: what Rosefielde calls Red Holocaust means "population losses", and he had a dispute with Wheatcroft, and both sides were making valid points. How do you propose to present all of that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:38, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for trusting me, send me an email at berndd1122@gmail.com and I will sent a jpg of Rosefielde's summary on page 125. Again he crunched his own numbers. BTW Maksudov is a skeptic, he does not endorse the official repression figures. In his recent article he points out in the 1940s Но как ни невиданно огромны полученные цифры, сверх 10 млн бойцов и 7–9 млн мирных граждан, остаются еще потери в 6–8 млн, приходящиеся на те же годы, но не связанные прямо с фашистским нападением[87]. Это потери от сталинских репрессий. Их изучение является одной из важнейших задач, стоящих перед нашей наукой и публицистикой. [28] --Woogie10w (talk) 22:02, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

In the same document, I read a fresh (2018) note, explaining these 7-9 million (+ google translation):

" Примечание 2018 года. Сегодня мне кажется важным разъяснить из чего складываются эти 8 миллионов потерь за которые отвечает главным образом преимущественно сталинское руководство. Это повышенная убыль заключенных, депортированных народов и спецпоселенцев 1,6 млн. Расстрелянные за дезертирство и другие военные преступления – 300 тыс. Погибшие при подавлении антисоветской партизанской борьбы 200 тыс.. Не вернувшиеся в СССР из оказавшихся на западе - 600 тыс. Повышенная смертность населения на неоккупированных территориях – 5,3 млн. человек"

"Note 2018. Today it seems important to explain what these 8 million losses are for which mainly the predominantly Stalinist leadership is responsible. This is an increased loss of prisoners, deported peoples and special settlers 1.6 million. Those killed for desertion and other war crimes are 300,000. The 200,000 people killed in the suppression of anti-Soviet guerrilla warfare. 600,000 people who did not return to the USSR from those in the west were 600,000. The increased death rate of the population in unoccupied territories - 5.3 million people."

That roughly corresponds to Zemskov's data on Gulag mortality (corrected by Wheatcroft, Ellman and others, because there were attempts to conceal mortality) + official statistics of war time executions + statistics of deportation deaths + increased mortality due to food and medical help shortage (at least two of my direct relatives fall into the later category). Was Stalinism responsible for that? Without any doubts. Was it a "mass killing"? Definitely, no.

That roughly corresponds to Zemskov's data on Gulag mortality (corrected by Wheatcroft, Ellman and others Do you have a source for that statement?--Woogie10w (talk) 01:42, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I cannot name the source right now, but that is my impression that I got from the articles (Wheatcroft, Conquest, Rosefielde and others) that discussed the GRZ article. They concluded that a significant part of those who were released from Gulag in 1941-43 died soon after that, which gives about 0.5 to 1 million. If we add deportation victims, 1.6 million are not look unrealistic. At least, I am not surprised.

Woogie, I know that you are primarily more interested in numbers (because you maintain the WWII casualties article, however, the primary subject of this RfC is not only the figure itself, but the claim that all these deaths were result of mass killings. I am still waiting for your opinion on how this problem should be resolved. --Paul Siebert (talk) 02:09, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

In addition, Maksudov writes about 6-8 million deaths during the war, that were not connected with Nazi directly. However, a peak of Gulag mortality in 1942-43 (which is seen even in Zemskov's data) was directly connected with the desperate food shortage in the country. Stalin was responsible for not releasing majority of those prisoners, however, it would be incorrect to blame only Soviet regime in those deaths (and Maksudov is not doing that). The same can be said about other deaths.

More importantly, this does not explain us what should we do with the Black Book figures. Can you please explain us more clearly, what do you propose?--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:20, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Regarding Antonov-Ovseenko, as far as I remember, many factual and methodological errors were identified in his works (although I have to refresh my memory about that; will return to that later). In connection to that, Maksudov (who is a good mathematician and demorgaph, and a son of a communist who protested against Stalin's repressions and was executed) seems to be more reliable. BTW, he works in collaboration with Ellman.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:48, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Antonov-Ovseenko was given an incomplete file from the 1937 census and jumped to the conclusion that 14 million died in the famine. Maksudov has a new and informative article on Demoscope [29] This information belongs on Wikipedia, we have editors who read Russian, lets go for it.--Woogie10w (talk) 21:15, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Woogie, let's separate two things, because we are talking about two separate things in parallel. The first thing is the actual figure of excess deaths. In regard to that, Maksudov doesn't say anything new (around 10 million during a Civil war period, 7.5 million during Stalin's repressions and collectivisation, and other losses are WWII related deaths). Maksudov&Ellman generally support official death estimates during the WWII, although they add some civilian deaths to the military death category (you know that better than I do). In summary, all what Maksudov writes is consistent with Snyder's summary (already presented in the article), and, probably, is even lower. That means this source reflects a consensus that exists among western scholars on that account (although Rosefielde maintains the figures were higher).

However, that is only a part of the story, because Maksudov's figures tell about "excess deaths", whereas this article tells about "mass killings". Obviously, these two categories do not necessarily coincide, so Courtois is being criticised both for inaccuracy and for the claim all "excess deaths" were a result of Communist mass killings. How do you propose to resolve this problem?--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:31, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

The numbers by Courtois do not include "excess deaths". Maksudov (yes, good source for the USSR! - it can be used here) tells about them, but separates such numbers from others. My very best wishes (talk) 02:55, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

It is not clear what Courtois numbers include at all, and Suny says:

"Admirably, Werth gives figures for the victims of the various forms of repression based on the archives opened in the 1990s that are significantly lower than those of Robert Conquest and other historians who did not have the benefit of the archives. They are also lower than those in Courtois’s introduction, which would certainly have benefited from a closer reading of Werth." (RONALD GRIGOR SUNY, Russian Terror/ism and Revisionist Historiography. Australian Journal of Politics and History: Volume 53, Number 1, 2007, pp. 5-19. 2007 School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.)

Taking into account that the Werth's chapter is a “rock on which the rest of the book stands” (ibid), it seems Courtois simply forged his figures. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:16, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Your problem us that Courtois was published by a reliable source. Asserting that a reliable source uses "forged figures" is something which means we are asserting that we, personally, are a better source. Which is contrary to Wikipedia's Five Pillars. Collect (talk) 11:20, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Your problem is that my "assertion" about forgery is actually not my assertion, but a statement made by several reliable sources. Taking into account that (and that is, again, not my assertion, but a statement found in many reliable sources) the BB as whole is considered a serious book due to the chapter written by Werth, and not due to the introduction written by Courtois, it is strange that you are persistently pushing a POV advocated by Courtois and pretend that Werth's words are my personal POV.

In connection to that, I am wondering why are you so persistently defending the most controversial statement in the most frequently criticised part of this collective volume and persistently ignoring the opinion of the author who made the most valuable contribution to this book, and whose opinion is being criticised much less frequently? What do 5 pillars say about this behaviour?

The BB is considered a good source because of Werth and is being criticised because of Courtois, but you prefer to cherry-pick what Courtois says and ignore Werth's opinion. And after that you dare me to teach what 5 pillars say...--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:00, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Um ---- Please try not to attack other editors personally Secondly, Wikipedia does not allow us to "cherry-pick" the truth" from "reliable sources." In fact, it encourages us to include disparate opinions from sources, not to delete the ones we do not like as being "forged." Collect (talk) 14:42, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Re: "Please try not to attack other editors personally" - you commented on my problem (as you see it), I commented on your problem (as I understand it). If you think you can express your opinion on my problems (real or perceived), why cannot I do the same? (BTW, I don't see any problem neither in your nor in mine post)

Re "cherry-picking", that is good that you understand that. The problem is that two different ways to "to include disparate opinions from sources" exist in that case: we can either (i) keep Courtois in the lead and include detailed criticism (because criticism of Courtois is at least as prominent as Courtois himself), of (ii) remove Courtois from the lead, but leave it in the main text along with criticism. Note, the question is not in removal of Courtois's figures from the article, but its removal from the lead only. You must agree that the fact that Courtois is a reliable source per WP:V does not warrant presenting of this particular view in the lead. You also must concede that widespread criticism of Courtois does not make it non-reliable, but it does make it controversial, which means it cannot be used as a source that even remotely represents scholarly consensus. That means it should be in the article, but it should not be in the lead. --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:03, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

This whole thread is real sad, nobody is discussing the sources,Courtois & Rosefielde, I suspect because they have never read them. This thread is nothing but a POV storm.--Woogie10w (talk) 16:30, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Woogie10w, I respectfully disagree. This thread is not discussing what the sources say because it was not the main issue this thread was created for. The main question is not "what exactly Courtois or Rosefielde say, and how all of that should be reflected in the article?", but "whether Courtois's figures should be presented in the lead?" One option is (as you yourself formulated it) to present the figures and supplement them with criticism. Another option is to remove it from the lead and keep in the article, where the figure will be placed in a proper context. Indeed, when I looked at recent Maksudov's writings (by the way, thank you for pointing at Demoscope, it seems it is a source published by the best academic institution in Russia, and it contains a lot of fresh and interesting data), not only Rosefielde, but Maksudov too speak about mass excess death in 1990s. He is even more categorical, he says about the "forth demographic catastrophe" (along with Civil war, collectivisation and WWII) that killed 6 million people. However, nobody speaks about "democratic genocide" in Russia (by the way, there should be a catastrophe of a similar scale in other post-Soviet states, but I am not aware of any sources on that account, so the total death toll is even greater than 6 million). Meanwhile, a total figure is quite impressive, and if we do not speak about "democratic genocide" or "democratic mass killings" in this case, there is a logical reason to consider more seriously those sources that do not describe all excess deaths during a communist period as "mass killing" deaths.

In other words, the Courtois's figures should be discussed in two independent contexts: (i) how reliable the figures are (some sources say they are not), and (ii) what exactly do these figures mean (because they include those who were executed, deliberately starved to deaths, as well as those who died due to malnutrition, war time overwork, or lack of medication, and this category deaths do not differ significantly from the 6 million deaths during the democratic rule of Yeltsyn in 1990s.

In connection to that, I have a question: does Rosefielde discuss post Communist mass deaths in Russia in his "Red Holocaust", and if he does, does he use the same terminology or he makes some difference? I am asking because Maksudov calls them "killings".--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:53, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

The big enchilada here is Asia with 70+ million deaths in China that are estimated by analysing the population balance. As for the USSR Courtois, Rosefielde as well as Conquest estimate excess deaths based on a hypothetical population balance since vital statistics are lacking. This is criticized by Getty,Wheatcroft and Haynes who consider the Gulag statistics published in the 1990's as being a realistic view of Stalinist repression. This whole issue was drawn out in Soviet Studies(I have hard copies of these dreary arguments). What is the the big deal? Just mention Courtois, Rosefielde and Conquest(BTW they are reliable sources) then contrast that with the criticism of Getty,Wheatcroft and Haynes(BTW they are reliable sources). ADK and Maksudov (BTW they are reliable sources) in Russia should also be mentioned because they present detailed population balance to support their arguments. China is your real problem, I cannot comment because my only source is R. J. Rummel, China's Bloody Century. I need to have a better understanding of the 1959-61 famine. I should order those books on the China famine and avoid Wikipedia, its a waste of time.--Woogie10w (talk) 17:19, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Woogie10w, first, the question is: "do we mention all of that in the lead, or in the main article only?" I personally think there in not enough space in the lead for that. Second, it is always better to make a difference between old and new estimates: for example, Conquest reconsidered his earlier estimates after new evidences had been found. It is not a good style to present old and new data as alternative and independent estimates in a situation when old data are obsolete.

And the last and very important question is (you probably missed that in my previous post): is it correct to call everybody who died prematurely as a direct or indirect result of government policy "mass killing victims"? Many sources disagree with that, and we should explain this disagreement. We just have no space in the lead for that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:31, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Regarding China, can you open this link ?. If yes, I can drop you several other links from this database. Many authors believe it was a partially natural disaster and partially man made famine. All authors agreed it affected the same area that were traditionally being hit by historical famines, so it was not something that Mao created purely artificially. The question of intentionality is also a subject of serious debates.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:44, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Woogie10w, Pedro8790, RhinoMind, schetm, JamesBay, TheTimesAreAChanging, K.e.coffman and other users who voted here. Can you please voice your opinion regarding the way the figures from the Courtois's introduction should be presented the in the lead (and elsewhere). I asked four questions in the previous RfC ("RfC on figures presented by Courtois in the Black Book introduction"), and I would like to see your answer in a "(Yes/No)-(Yes/No)-(Yes/No)-(Yes/No)" format. Thank you in advance. --Paul Siebert (talk) 21:07, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

We really need to explain how the these figures are derived. Back in the 1970s Dyadkin, Iosif G. published UNNATURAL DEATHS IN THE USSR, 1928-1954. He estimated the number of births and deaths due to natural causes (old age, childhood disease ect.) He estimated that roughly 40 million people died of unnatural cases 20 million in WW2 and c.20 million due to Soviet government policy. Soviet policies would include deliberate killings and economic mismanagement of the command economy. Historians in the west, Conquest and Rosefielde, used this figure of c.20 million deaths due to Soviet government policy. Courtois more than likely is using this figure also derived from a population balance. The plot gets the plot gets thicker with R. J. Rummel, he consulted numerous sources. We have to give him credit for publishing literally hundreds of estimates in scholarly sources estimating unnatural deaths. Rummel believed that Soviet population figures were forged and worked up his own estimates based on the cold war era sources. During the cold war there were exaggerated estimates of unnatural deaths in the USSR, for example Solzhenitsyn 66 million and Antonov-Ovseyenko 30-40 million.

Readers of the article need to be informed of the methodology of how the numbers are derived. The sources pro and con need to be presented in a clear and concise manner, the long winded 1990's debate in Soviet Studies detail the arguments.

In a nutshell I am saying is that we should explain how the numbers are derived rather than just throwing an number at readers. Above all our POV and opinions should not be mentioned at all on this page, only reliable sources.--Woogie10w (talk) 21:52, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Woogie10w, all what you say is correct, but the problem is that it is only a part of truth. First, many (if not majority) of scholars do not equate "mass killings", "unnatural deaths" and "population losses". Only very few people (including Courtois) say that all unnatural deaths were the result of mass killing.

Second, we must separate old and new data.

I already explained at this talk page the methodology that was Rummel used to obtain his estimates: he collected all sources that contained some figures and calculated "low" and "high" estimate. After that, he converted it to some median figure. This procedure, as Dulic demonstrated, and Harff confirmed, has a very strong bias to highest values. In addition, Rummel refuses to reconsider his early estimates, even in light of fresh evidences.

Third, as Maksudov and Wheatcroft noted, in XX century there was almost 2-fold growth of life expectancy in Russia/USSR. In that sence, it is not completely clear what is seen under "unnatural deaths": the death from the lack of medication in mid XX century may be considered unnatural, whereas the death from the same cause in the beginning of XX century was seen as a natural. In any event, I cannot understand how these two things (40+ million unnatural deaths and 1.8 fold life expectancy growth) can be compatible.

One way or the another, the question is not in what the real figures were. The fact is that Courtois' figures are being widely criticized, and we need to decide how these highly disputable figures should be presented in this article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:11, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Courtois' figures are being widely criticized, by whom? how do we explain this to readers who watch Fox News? it is not completely clear what is seen under "unnatural deaths" readers need to know that there is wiggle room that gives us a range of unnatural deaths in published sources, not a correct absolute figure. --Woogie10w (talk) 23:28, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

This talk page cites at least 10 reliable sources that say that Courtois's figures are exaggerated, or Courtois plays with definitions, or that Courtois combines apples and oranges. For example, many authors argue that it is fundamentally incorrect to combine Stalinist repressions and Cambodian genocides in a single category, because Stalinism directed its represssionan against peasant to create an industrial and urbanistic society, whereas Khmer Rouge eradicated urban population in attempts to turn the country into a rural commune, and one important factor in the KR genocide was racism (which played no role in Stalinist society). In addition, the genocide in Cambodia was stopped due to military invasion of ... Communist Vietnam (a Soviet client), and it was a Communist propaganda who initially provided an exaggerated figures of 3 million deaths. How all of that can be combined in one category? --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:15, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

A Communist regime's justification for its murders are irrelevant: some Communists may ostensibly wanted to create a rural utopia and some Communists may ostensibly wanted to create an industrial utopia. Their ostensible or real motives are beside the point: the only issue topical to this article is that they killed a lot of people in their totalitarian pursuit of power over their fellow man.XavierItzm (talk) 20:32, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

You are wrong again. Khmer Rouge killed people not because "their totalitarian pursuit of power over their fellow man": the genocide had started after they came to power and there were almost no opposition. The mechanism of genocide was analysed by Kiernan, and he outlined three factors that caused it, most of them have to relation to Marxist doctrine. This genocide had more common traits with other mass killings in this region that with Stalin's purges. The most devastating event described in this article, the Great Chinese famine, was also not dictated by Mao's pursuit of power: he a;ready suppressed all opposition by that time, and the reason of that famine was totally different. Your view is too teleological and superficial.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:21, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Again, a distinction w/o a difference. These were mass killings under communist regimes and therefore must be grouped in this article. Perfection with regard to Marxist doctrine is irrelevant. Will you next argue that oh, "genuine Socialism hasn't yet been tried!"? XavierItzm (talk) 02:49, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Frankly, I am not sure I want to reproduce the same arguments (and sources) I already presented on this talk page a couple of months ago. Briefly, only few historians group all genocidal events or mass killings that occurred in communist states together. Majority of them put each of those events in its own historical context. Indeed, almost no books exist that propose a concept of "democratic mass killings", because it is senseless: each "democratic genocide" had its own historical roots. The same approach is used by overwhelming majority of historians who study communist states, and only few of them (including Courtois, but not Werth or Margolin) see significant commonality between mass killings in each communist country. Please, familirise yourself with recent talk page archives to avoid long discussions.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:44, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

No valid consensus found on TP Arch. for deletion of Courtois from lead para. Courtois remains "most influential" and as such ought to be mentioned on lead. XavierItzm (talk) 13:18, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Also the title is tacky and ridiculous, POV Communism is real bad folks, we have the dirt for you here--Woogie10w (talk) 23:31, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

"Communist" should be capitalized again

This does not violate MOS:ISMCAPS, lowercase refers to a political thought, uppercase refers to a specific party, but the same rule can be applied to regimes, we are talking about specific regimes, not systems of political thought. -- Pedro8790 (talk) 22:29, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

The larger issue is that the post-hoc justification RFC failed. Ask the original mover to revert himself? Fifelfoo (talk) 04:18, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

I doubt he will reverse it, perhaps another person should step in and revert it, since there was no discussion to change it, I don't see why a discussion is necessary to revert it. -- Pedro8790 (talk) 06:22, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

No, it should not. See the entire huge discussion above. All our guidelines are against this, and those in favor of it have jack but a bunch of WP:ILIKEIT handwaving and already-refuted arguments.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:01, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Would you please bother to make the case for why it shouldn't be capitalized? On that discussion, the only arguments I saw was that Communism is not uniform and a bunch of legalese. No offense, but it seems to me that you just throw a bunch of legalese instead of actually making a case for decpaitalizing in order to shut down discussion and impose your edit, either make a case for changing it and for why regimes should be treated differently than parties or somebody should step in and revert it. -- Pedro8790 (talk) 17:11, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

I and others already have. See discussion above. Cf. also WP:JUSTREAD.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:19, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

The rules of capitalization are not that hard to understand. Capitalize proper nouns: Communist Party. Do not capitalize common nouns: the Slobovian party has communist beliefs. As for the title of this article, do the creators want to limit it to mass killings under parties named Communist Party, or extend it to mass killings by the Slobovian party which has communist beliefs? Rick Norwood (talk) 20:39, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Correct. But this article has several editors who seem to post at length even when the guidelines and policies are clear. The clear history of the article makes quite clear that it is the self-ascribed beliefs which count, whether or not it is officially the "Communist Party of Slobovia" at issue. Collect (talk) 20:49, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Communism is a proper noun when it refers to the distinct and finite set of parties and governments that developed out of Marxism-Leninism following the Russian Revolution, initially joined in the Communist International. Many reliable sources capitalize the word in order to distinguish it from the broader ideology, many of whose adherents opposed Communist parties. It avoids issues such as were they really communists (or state capitalists or whatever) and the fact that none of the regimes were communist by any definition. A communist system would not actually have a government or political parties. And of course Communist includes some parties that went by different names, such as Socialist Unity in the former GDR and the Workers Party in North Korea. TFD (talk) 22:56, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

No, it is not. The entire reason we have an whole section called MOS:ISMCAPS is to make sure that editors understand that this is not a proper-noun usage. I believe you (like many others) are confusing the concept of proper noun (a.k.a. proper name (linguistics) with the concept of proper name (philosophy) which has nothing whatsoever to do with capitalization.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:29, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Not just me, but half the scholars writing about Communism, including Stéphane Courtois, the editor of the Black Book of Communism and the New York Times. As Alan M. Wald explains, "In order to tackle complex and often misunderstood political-literary relationships, I have adopted methods of capitalization in this book that may deviate from editorial norms practiced at certain journals and publishing houses. In particular, I capitalize "Communist" and "Communism" when referring to official parties of the Third International, but not when pertaining to other adherents of Bolshevism or revolutionary Marxism (which encompasses small-"c" communists such as Trotskyists, Bukharinists, council communists, and so forth)."[30] TFD (talk) 10:56, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

A RFC advertised at other pages failed to endorse a drive by bold act. Whether this is a walled garden or not; that bold change ought to be undone. If this is a walled garden, then that issue of improper localised consensus should be raised for itself—not over the issue of a bold edit that failed to achieve consensus.

As far as the content issue, can I suggest reviewing the RFC's arguments before further posts? Fifelfoo (talk) 04:08, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

The only arguments I saw there was that Communism is somehow not a uniform movement, and a bunch of legalese, one of example of regimes being referred with uppercase is on the Spanish Civil War article, notice how the Spanish government is referred to as the "Republican government", with uppercase, this completely goes against SMcCandlish's claim that uppercase "Communist" violates MOS:ISMCAPS. -- Pedro8790 (talk) 17:12, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

In the case of Spain, the term "Republican" is used because of the proper name of that government (Spanish Republic / República Española) - it is therefore a proper noun. Proper nouns get capitalized. Collect (talk) 21:05, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Yep. Pedro8790, you either simply do not understand, or you are pretending not to in an attempt to WP:WIN; either way it is a WP:NOTGETTINGIT matter. This has all been explained in great detail already. No one else at any other similar page is having any similar inability to understand the difference.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:29, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree "Rebublican" should be capitalesed when it refers to some concrete party, and the same works for any concrete communist party, which means that "communist" should be decapitalised when this word describes all parties that consider themselves communist or are described as communist by somebody else. I think Rick Norwood, Collect, SMcCandlish and other users who support this idea are right. However, I think we have to respect the results of this RfC, which, as far as I understand did not support decapitalisation. If nobody else will not do that in close future, I will have to do that, although that contradicts to my own point of view.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:11, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

The closer didn't say that, and did not move the article. Given that the lower-case side is unmistakably backed by MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS, and by mixed usage in reliable sources (WP uses a capital letter only when RS do so with overwhelming consistency with regard to the exact same usage in question), while the capitalizers have nothing but WP:ILIKEIT and a bunch of confused handwaving, this was clearly intentional. The closer's suggestion means that if you want to re-capitalize it, you need to open another RM. And we all know how that one would end. Given that we know this, and that upper-casing it again would simply be reverted back to lower-case by yet another RM, the demand to go back to upper-case now would amount to WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY failure.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:29, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Taking into account that the discussion was orbiting mostly around C vs c, "the result of the move request was: no consensus, page remain as it is" should be understood as the title returns to its original state before you renamed it. However, "As regards the upper/lower case (c), please open a new RM" slightly puzzles me, because that was exactly what this RM was about.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:54, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

@Fifelfoo, the original RM was about moving "Mass killings under communist regimes" → "Mass killings under communist governments", there was no consensus for that. The Upper/lower case (c) discussion was tangential to that, for which the RM closer correctly said a new RM should be opened. --Nug (talk) 22:15, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Good, if others will not object to this your interpretation, there is no need in re-capitalisation. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:56, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

References transition is completed

The references have now been converted over to a consistent system that moves most of the reference text from the body of the article to the bottom of the article in edit view. I think most people will be able to follow the pattern when adding new references, but please be aware of two things:

1) that the nested references within the "Excerpts and notes" section use "{{harvnb", rather than "{{sfn" or "{{efn", because of a bug that produces errors otherwise;

2) that in-line citations use the last name(s) and publication year only, so for authors with multiple works published in the same year, add a letter after the year in both the full reference and the in-line citation to make it unique to that publication.

I kept my own editing of the existing references to a minimum during the conversion, so there is still work to be done in completing some of the parameters for many of the references, or in correcting things I converted incorrectly. For reference, the full list of Template:Citation parameters can be found here, along with descriptions for each of them. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:09, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Crimes against humanity under Communist regimes

The article duplicates the Mass killings under communist regimes article. It is apparent that both articles relating to the same subject. Lord Mota (talk) 01:36, 5 August 2018 (UTC)