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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Stix1776 (talk | contribs) at 08:35, 22 February 2024 (→‎Revisionist, again: Reply). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Misrepresentation of Furr's opinion

In Furr's works, he never claimed that the Holodomor (famine of 1932-33) was a "hoax". For example, in his book "Stalin, Waiting for the truth" he never claimed the famine didn't happen, but he did disprove the claim that it was a genocide. I can't accept this deliberate misrepresentation that the other user has given. TheVictoryOfTheProletariat (talk) 10:35, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for following the rules. I guess "the other user" is me, but actually I just restored a long-standing wording. This article has a long history of whitewashing, therefore we are cautious about it.
Indeed the word "hoax" is not in the sources given, as you say, and the wording may need improvement. But I just found a source where Furr calls the Holodomor "phony" [1], so "hoax" seems to be not far from his actual opinion. What do others think? --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:05, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your response. By "phony", he means the claim that the Holodomor was a genocide is phony, not that the famine didn't happen. In his works he does not deny that the famine occured, only disagrees witht the claim that it was a genocide and that Stalin was to blame for it. This can be seen in his book "Stalin, waiting for the truth." TheVictoryOfTheProletariat (talk) 11:10, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@TheVictoryOfTheProletariat is correct on the substance of the issue here. "Hoax," or even "phony," are too far from the actual position to be helpful characterizations. For example, in the article linked above where Furr uses the word "phony," the substance of his position is actually:
"Interestingly enough, official Soviet Ukrainian primary sources show that the 1928-29 famine, caused by natural disaster, mainly drought, was very serious, and Ukraine received more aid from the Soviet government, than the Kremlin sent to other parts of the USSR. This obviously disproves the false theory of the Ukrainian nationalists' "malicious" conspiracy against Ukrainian peasants in the Soviet Union, noted Grover Furr in his book "Blood Lies: The Evidence that Every Accusation Against Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands Is False."
In other words, Furr does not deny a famine occurred, instead arguing that it was not malicious or intentionally planned.
@TheVictoryOfTheProletariat, respectfully, I caution against discourse characterizations like "deliberate misrepresentation." That is not very helpful in working through the issues of substance. JArthur1984 (talk) 12:40, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your input. The reason why I say "deliberate misrepresenation" is because there is no evidence for the claim that Furr considered the Holodomor a "hoax", and the source given in this article disproves this notion. Therefore either the person who made this claim didn't read this source and was ignorantly making claims with no evidence, or was deliberately misrepresenting. I don't know for certain but I will refrain from making the claim that it was deliberately misrepresented. TheVictoryOfTheProletariat (talk) 12:50, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I ventured an edit just now using the existing sources in the body. See if that works for you both. JArthur1984 (talk) 12:47, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion on 29 August 2023

Hello! I am making this suggestion because I believe that there is loaded language in the article that harms the neutrality of the article. The sentence in question is this:

"Grover Carr Furr III (born April 3, 1944) is an American professor of Medieval English literature at Montclair State University who is best known for his revisionist views regarding the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin."

I believe it can be improved to read as this:

"Grover Carr Furr III (born April 3, 1944) is an American professor of Medieval English literature at Montclair State University who is best known for his counter-hegemonic views regarding the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin."

There are 2 reasons for this suggestion:

  1. Other editors have suggested removing the phrase "revisionism". This is my suggestion to resolve that problem.
  2. This change is to replace "revisionist" with "counter-hegemonic". This will improve the article because "revisionist" implies that the perspective is incorrect while "counter-hegemonic" implies only that it challenges the status quo's perspective. "counter-hegemonic does not say anything about whether Grover Furr's perspective are correct or incorrect which is very important to maintain a neutral point of view. Atinoua (talk) 22:55, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As the lead should reflect the body of the article, sources are necessary to support "counter-hegemonic." That seems to be the starting point. JArthur1984 (talk) 02:00, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. Thank you for correcting my mistake. Atinoua (talk) 03:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia. See WP:FRINGE and WP:YWAB. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:37, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To say that the term "revisionist" implies Furr's views are wrong is unfounded. As I've mentioned before, I support removing the term because it implies Furr is akin to Getty, Fitzpatrick, Lynne Viola, and other respected "revisionist" historians, which isn't the case. And if "revisionist" isn't neutral-sounding (even though it refers to a well-known school of historians of the USSR, whose leading lights seem to have accepted the label), I don't see how "counter-hegemonic" isn't biased in Furr's favor (not to mention it doesn't explain what "hegemony" Furr is supposedly countering, given the existence of different interpretations of the Stalin era held by historians whose views range from avowedly Marxist to conservative.) --Ismail (talk) 12:30, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that he is not like other revisionist historians (Getty, Fitzpatrick, etc.). He is a denialist, more exactly, a historical denialist because he denies well-know facts in this historical field. Saying that in the lead is not WP:SYN, just a fair summary of content currently on the page (i.e. 2nd phrase in the lead, etc.). My very best wishes (talk) 01:46, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 5 October 2023

Change Tartars to Tatars In the first paragraph of the reception section Tatars is written as Tartars. Panglord (talk) 10:31, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The misspelling is in the original, and we are quoting the original text. I added the Template:Sic to help with this issue. Binksternet (talk) 16:20, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Characterizing the Holodomor

“Government-created” may be problematic because it started with a low 1932 harvest and the government used that to make the 1933 harvest a disaster and confiscated and blockaded to make it deadly in selected areas.

The Holodomor has traditionally been often described as a man-made famine, but a gender-neutral synonym is artificial or human-made (all have been used in the main article at times). But indeed the disaster was the result of deliberate acts by the Moscow government (it also stripped power from the Ukrainian SSR’s government in Kharkiv) and it would be good to express his without getting too wordy.  —Michael Z. 19:11, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My reaction is that we might avoid the complication by removing the clause "the 1932–33 government-created famine in Soviet Ukraine" and trust that the reader will follow the Wikilinked term or at least hover the cursor so that the article preview shows. That is also nice from the standpoint of concision. There are quite a lot of clauses in the sentence even without this phrase. JArthur1984 (talk) 19:44, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I always think the text should be able to stand alone, because it may be reused without links, popups, etcetera. A relatively obscure name like Holodomor should have at least a basic gloss. Because we’re talking about Furr’s denialism or historical negationism, the description should say something that makes that clear too, whether by saying so, or at least by making the nature of the denied crime against humanity or genocide clear. I’ll try to avoid the temptation to add much more than that.  —Michael Z. 21:06, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Unsource statements should not be left in Wikipedia.Stix1776 (talk) 14:12, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JArthur1984 @Mzajac, see my addition to the talk page at Holodomor. I'm not seeing a source that there's scientific consensus. Lots of the battles in the edits are based upon the assumption, but this doesn't look sourced to me.Stix1776 (talk) 07:39, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’m sorry, but I may have lost the thread of what’s being proposed. Is the suggestion to remove “man-made” from the sentence in the lead characterizing Furr’s view?
I’d like to remove “man-made”. It’s a confusing term that some readers will construe as necessarily meaning deliberate (too contended a position for Wikivoice) or necessarily meaning no natural factors (likewise).
The other editor is inactive now and unlikely to respond. JArthur1984 (talk) 12:57, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I support your viewpoint. I'd also like to remove "man-made", as there is some scholarly debate on whether it is man-made. See my talk page discussion in the Holodomor article.Stix1776 (talk) 16:26, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Revisionist, again

We have good sources for "revisionist" including the book In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage by John Earl Haynes and ‎Harvey Klehr. They give Furr as an example of a revisionist on page 27. It's on page 26 that they set up the example by writing, "While historians led the way, politically committed academics from other fields eagerly jumped onto the revisionist bandwagon." The authors proceed to list these revisionist academics.

Calling him revisionist is being kind. The term can refer to someone who has found a new trove of historical facts, and seeks to change the narrative of history based on those facts. That's not Furr at all. He's more of a denialist or negationist. A crank who makes up his own reality.

John O'Sullivan wrote in 2015 that Furr is a revisionist historian. Again, that's being kind to Furr. He's not a historian at all. Binksternet (talk) 07:02, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Binksternet, Haynes and Klehr did not call Furr a revisionist. Here's the text. This is a massive stretch to say that they're calling Furr revisionist.

While historians led the way, politically committed academics from other fields eagerly jumped onto the revisionist band-wagon. In the course of reviewing a book by two fellow leftist scholars, Barbara Foley, an English professor at Rutgers Univer-sity, objected to their critical stance toward “Stalinism,” writing that “the term ‘Stalinism’ perhaps needs deconstruction more than any other term in the contemporary political lexicon.” She went on to endorse Arch Getty’s revisionist account of the Soviet Union and labeled Robert Conquest an “offender against what I consider responsible scholarship.” In her own book, after some perfunctory acknowledgement that there was a dark side to Stal-inism, Foley enthusiastically praised its “tremendous achieve-ments . . . the involvement of millions of workers in socialist construction, the emancipation of women from feudalistic prac-tices, the struggle against racism and anti-Semitism, the foster-ing of previously suppressed minority cultures . . . the creation of a revolutionary proletarian culture, in both the USSR and other countries.” Grover Furr, an English professor at Montclair State University, lauded the creation of Communist regimes in an essay-review entitled “Using History to Fight Anti-Commu-nism: Anti-Stalinism Hurts Workers, Builds Fascism.” In Furr’s view, “billions of workers all over the world are exploited, mur-dered, tortured, oppressed by capitalism.

Stix1776 (talk) 14:13, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In that batch of text, the authors call Foley and Furr "politically committed academics from other fields [who] eagerly jumped into the revisionist bandwagon." They are being called revisionists. Binksternet (talk) 14:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's simple reading comprehension. Binksternet (talk) 14:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure you would want to direct readers who might look at the references to learn more to Haynes and Klehr for their concept of "revisionist"? Consider:

In fact, nowhere in In Denial do Klehr and Haynes actually demonstrate that these and other new historians of American Communism have ever apologized for mass murder in the Soviet Union: the names they cite as examples of such apologists—and I don’t know whether or to what extent they do so justly—include Jerry F. Hough, Robert Thurston, J. Arch Getty, Alfred Rieber, Theodore von Laue, Barbara Foley, and Grover Furr—not one of whom, to my knowledge, has written a history of American Communism. The use of the catch-all category “revisionists” in this way allows Klehr and Haynes to conduct a bait-and-switch indictment in their opening chapter, in which the revisionist misdeeds of some academics, who may have downplayed the numbers of Russians killed in the Stalinist purges, are by inference laid at the feet of the revisionist historians of American Communism, who have done no such thing.

Isserman, Maurice (August 8, 2006). "Open Archives and Open Minds: "Traditionalists" versus "Revisionists" after Venona". American Communist History. Now that is not a good independent review and not quite on point, but "bait-and-switch indictment" was my impression on reading the chapter and we might be able to find more. fiveby(zero) 14:38, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Klehr and Haynes don't have to lay out a solid argument against Furr to have a voice on Wikipedia. It would be nice but it's not required. Their conclusion is the point. Neither does Isserman conduct a review of Furr's work to see whether he is a revisionist. Isserman says that he does not know whether Furr has written a history of American Communism, which is not relevant to the question of Furr's Stalinist and communist apologia based on obfuscation. Isserman is concerned about something else entirely. Binksternet (talk) 00:59, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are we not going to ignore that "revisionist" and "Furr" are multiple sentences away. And that you removing a tag to protect your edit is very edit warry. If the source didn't say that "Furr is revisionist", it shouldn't be in the article.Stix1776 (talk) 14:11, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Fiveby, forgive me if I'm just tired, but I don't fully understand what you're proposing.. Do you have a suggestion for how this article should change?Stix1776 (talk) 14:21, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Multiple sentences away" might make it difficult for new readers to understand but not intelligent adults. The authors very clearly set up a sequence in which they discuss two academics who step out of their areas of expertise to jump on the revisionist bandwagon. Binksternet (talk) 17:31, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not really, no. Not much interested in trots and tankies arguing with each other. Just asked that editors reconsider the facile use of a citation for labeling purposes; a citation to a work that lumps Sheila Fitzpatrick in with Furr as "revisionist". fiveby(zero) 14:02, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Fiveby Sorry to tag you. Would it be fair to say that you're not OK with the current citation?Stix1776 (talk) 06:55, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Binksternet, not only Fiveby by also the other editor at the BLP Noticeboard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Grover_Furr) prefers not to use your source. It's not 3 against 1. Can I please remove your citation?Stix1776 (talk) 16:14, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I commented on the noticeboard as well. Revisionist is sourced, but it would be good to avoid it in the lead if we could. Given multiple connotations (challenging historical consensus generally, "revisionist schools" for example of Soviet studies, or in the context of Marxist thinking) there's a risk of confusion to a non-specialist reader. JArthur1984 (talk) 16:29, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No. At BLPN, Schazjmd did not deny that Haynes and Klehr called Furr a revisionist, which is the whole point. Schazjmd said at least one of these authors was biased against Furr, but Wikipedia does not dismiss biased sources; see WP:BIASEDSOURCES. Schazjmd also said the construction "best known" should not be used, but that construction is an accurate summary of Furr's output. Per WP:LEAD, we summarize the topic at the top of the article, taking the whole topic as a mass. Just about nobody discusses Furr with regard to his actual area of expertise: Medieval English. Rather, they respond in droves to his Stalinist writings. Even sources friendly to Furr acknowledge that his Soviet writings are why he is "well-known". If he stuck to medieval English he would not be known at all. Binksternet (talk) 16:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See Schazjmd's talk page edit here [2]

My suggestion at RSN was :::::::::Grover Carr Furr III (born April 3, 1944) is an American professor of Medieval English literature at Montclair State University. Furr has written books, papers, and articles about Soviet history,...

Stix1776 (talk) 08:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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