Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes

Proposal concerning new sanctions

I have proposed new discretionary sanctions for this article at User talk:Sandstein#Mass killings sanction, to allow their discussion by editors currently banned from editing this page to comment on them. (Nonetheless, editors who are banned from any general topic covering this article should also stay out of that discussion.)  Sandstein  22:07, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Per discussion here, the old sanctions are replaced with the new sanctions.  Sandstein  20:25, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

from a low of 21 million

Why is Valentino the sole source for this number? Does it seem sketchy to anyone else to use this number and give the impression that Valentino is representing the lowest notable academic estimates for the USSR+China+Cambodia? This is especially so, when (IIRC) Valentino counts many deaths that other scholars do not believe are valid. BigK HeX (talk) 17:34, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Who else gives a low number? Personally I believe to much weight is being given to Valentino in this article, there are more than one source for such as the USSR Cambodia and China. Tentontunic (talk) 17:59, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I again strongly suggest you to read the talk page archives: it is simply non-polite to request others to repeat the same arguments simply because you are to lasy to read archives. I am explaining again, two types of mistakes are possible here: (i) infalted figures for death toll, and (ii) different interpretations of what is mass killings and waht is not. The high estimates of death toll come mostly from earlier writers (as Solzhenitsyn) or scholars (Rummel), and from those who reproduce these figures non-critically. In addition, whereas some scholars attribute most excess deaths under Communist regimes to mass killings, others prefer to discuss mass mortality, premature deaths, or speak about victims of Communist regimes. You must agree that "victim" is much more flexible, and do not necessarily implies "killing".

One more point. It is totally incorrect to combine almost fully non-contraversial categories (such as Kampuchean genocide, which was a pure example of mass murder) with much less clear cases, like Soviet famines.

Moreover, even the former case (KR genocide) is much more complex event than it is presented in the current article: the article implicitly assumes that these mass killings occurred predominantly due to the Communist ideology, whereas serious scholar outline at least two other causes, which are totally unrelated to Communism: desperate economic situation of Cambodian peasants (which lead to huge tensions between rural, Khmer, and urban, Chinese, Vietnamese, and other non-Khmer, population), and aincient Khmer traditions of revenge. In addition, the fact that the KR concept was seen as extremist even by Maoist Communists in China, and, therefore, was an example of ultra-extremist Communist doctrine (i.e. was a deviation from classical Communism) is also not reflected neither in the lede nor in the article. This, as well as other examples (which I can provide upon a request) demonstrate that both the lede and the article give a primitve and oversimplified picture which must be fixed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

New editing restrictions

I propose that all editors who work on this talk page need to elaborate common rules, accordingto which we will edit the article in future. It would be better if we do that by themselves, because in that case the rules are more likely to be genuinely observed. I propose the following simple rules:

"You can make any edit, however, if the text you added has not been approved during the talk page discussion (that means that there were no reasonable, or substantiated opposition during a reasonable time, e.g. few days), it can be reverted by anyone, and anyone can report you if you try to do re-insert the text that again. Polls are not allowed. Your support or oppose has zero weight unless you presented a fresh argument, desirably supported by a reliable source. If you have been repeatedly reverted for systematic re-addition of non-supported text, you will be topic banned permanently."

This rule will allow all users, including previously banned ones, to work on this article, because it leaves no space for classical edit warring. Accordingly, 1RR or 1RR per week should be abolished, because anyone should be able to revert any amount of undiscussed and unsupported edits.
In my opinion, it is very important that we elaborate and accept these rule by ourselves. We already have an good example of efficient usage of these rules, the WWII article.
What do you think about that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:36, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Polls generally have little weight (see WP:VOTE) -- so that is a tad irrelevant. And defining "reasonable opposition" may be a problem - I would suggest that any text which is objected to as a new addition (text not found as of 10 days ago, say) should be removable. Thus no edit war, as the material would not be reinserted. As for "zero weight" that is absurd - no argument which is properly founded in WP policy or guidelines should be ignored. Lastly I would suggest a 10 lines of talk page edits per day per person here. If an editor can not be cogent in 10 lines, it is unlikely 20 lines will improve the post. Collect (talk) 19:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Although explicit references to VOTE may be redundant, it is desirable to mention, because sometimes (unfortunately, very frequently) consensus building resembles a vote. With regard to the rest, I support.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:09, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Due to this [2] Seven days ago two editors expressed disagreement with this addition. I removed the disputed content and have since waited for a response, both editors have been active on this page in this time. I had also added new references to the lede for mass killings in for Vietnam and North Korea, they appear to have vanished into the ether. These were reliable sources, and absolutely no discussion has been taken on their removal. Your proposal will make this situation worse, the article owners will remove content as they see fit, and quite happily ignore those they disagree with on the talk page. Tentontunic (talk) 19:59, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I wrote, "It does not meet the criteria for the only source presented in the article that defines "mass killings under Communist regimes". You replied, "And which criteria would this be? A mass killing is a mass killing, why would a definition be required?" What type of answer were you looking for? TFD (talk) 20:07, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

So instead of responding and asking for clarification you choose to ignore it? Thus proving my point. Tentontunic (talk) 20:19, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

You do not understand how it works. Let me explain. If someone removed your text, you have to place it on the talk page and to supplement with needed rationale and/or sources. If no criticism followed for reasonable time you may re add it. However, if some counter-arguments have been put forward, you must respond a criticism and provide counter-arguments, desirably supported by reliable sources. If a consensus has been achieved, you may add the text. Importantly, unsubstantiated objections should not be considered as a reasonable criticism.

In the case you referred to TFD ought to respond; at least, I do not interpret this situation that the discussion about your proposal has ended. I'll respond in few minutes to explain why this your change is not acceptable.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:09, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I do not see it as the role of other editors to point out to you what is in the article, when it is simple for you to find it on your own. Look under the terminology section. TFD (talk)

See the comments preceding my reply, "these do not fit the definiton for mass killing offered by Benjamin Valentino (see the related talk section Was the Hungarian Revolution a "communist mass killing"?)" And your response, "A massacre is a mass killing. Valentino is not the word of god." Were you unaware that Valentino's definition was in the article? TFD (talk) 23:01, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - This rule would effectively lock the page as it stands because there are folks who say such obnoxious things as "please don't mention the Black Book of Communism again," even though it has been taken several times to the WP:RSN and been cleared as a reliable source. It's obviously a reliable source having been published by Harvard University Press, but folks will object to it, making this the only article in Wikipedia where an obviously reliable source is not allowed. Unacceptable. Better to just ban those who put such arguments forward, time and time again. Smallbones (talk) 22:30, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Frankly speaking, I have no desire to argue with the users who do not bother to read my posts carefully (since the Nicolas Werth's chapter I am constantly referring to is a part of the BB, it is simply ridiculous to accuse me in an attempt to ignore the BB completely). However, if someone else will oppose to my suggestion (and will not put forward an alternative one), it will serve as an indication that some users working on this article are not mature enough, that they are unable to develop the rules for productive collaboration by themselves, and that they need in a supervisor. In other words, I will have to fully support the Sandstein's procedure (described on his talk page). --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:48, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

So we're only allowed to cite the one chapter of a reliable source that you approve of? Shame on you! Smallbones (talk) 02:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

• Support as a summation of BOLD, BRD, CONSENSUS, !VOTE, VERIFIABILITY, RELIABLE SOURCES, TENDENTIOUS / IDHT with a sanction applied for tendentious and idht which breaks the principles, policies, and guidelines outlined. Suggest that the text use links to principles, policies, guidelines. Also, Support as preferable to non-fine grain restrictions (such as restrictions on DIGWUREN/EEML/etc sanctioned editors who never had any problem in this area or have ceased having problems, or generalised 1RR/week). Support in comparison to User_talk:Sandstein#Mass_killings_sanction which only covers consensus, and which strongly resembles permalocked articles consensus requirements without actually locking the article. Strongly suggest this article be locked and thoroughly mediated over content issues for a two to six week period by a forceful Humanities and Social Sciences background editor up on wikipedia policy. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

• Martintg raised two issues at Sandstein's talk page here. Firstly, that this proposal does not require consent for deletion of content, an obvious gap. Secondly, that the current restriction means that editors restricted cannot discuss this proposal. I propose that this proposal be moved to Sandstein's talk page where the other proposal is under discussion for process reasons. I have contacted the proposer's talk page regarding this process issue. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:46, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realise the recent sanctions affected the talk page too. I've done what Fifelfoo asked me to do. Please, leave your further comments there.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:49, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Terminology section edits proposal

I have been working to flesh out the "Terminology" section of the article on a user subpage here. I don't think any of the additions or changes I have made are controversial (although I did remove a "not in citation given" tag on one sentence after rewording it). I am proposing to swap out the current article section with the version on the subpage. AmateurEditor (talk) 20:27, 26 February 2011 (UTC) UPDATE: I have added the material from my user subpage below with my proposed changes bolded and two minor deletions marked by "****". AmateurEditor (talk) 01:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposed "Terminology" section edits

Terminology Communist regimes Communist regimes refers to those countries who declared themselves to be socialist states under the Marxist-Leninist, Stalinist, or Maoist definition (in other words, communist states) at some point in their history. Scholars use several different terms to describe the intentional killing of large numbers of noncombatants. The following have been used to describe killing by Communist governments: Genocide Under the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide does not apply to the mass killing of political and social groups. Protection of political groups was eliminated from the UN resolution after a second vote, because many states, including Stalin's USSR, anticipated that clause to apply unneeded limitations to their right to suppress internal disturbances. However, as genocide studies developed and it became more apparent that political groups were being targeted, this restriction has been re-evaluated. Mass killing by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia has been labeled genocide or auto-genocide and, although it remains controversial, the deaths under Leninism and Stalinism in the USSR and Maoism in China have been investigated as possible cases. In particular, the famines in the USSR in the 1930s and during the Great Leap Forward in China have been increasingly "depicted as mass killing underpinned by genocidal intent." According to Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, "historians and philosophers close to politically liberal groups" in Europe, especially in Romania, have made the terms Red Holocaust and Communist Genocide part of today's vocabulary. Genocide is a popular term for mass political killing, which is studied academically as democide and politicide. Politicide The term politicide is used to describe the killing of *****groups that are not covered by the Genocide Convention. It includes the mass killing of political, economic, ethnic and cultural groups. Manus I. Midlarsky uses the term politicide to describe an arc of mass killings from the western parts of the Soviet Union to China and Cambodia. In his book The killing trap: genocide in the twentieth century Midlarsky raises similarities between the killings of Stalin and Pol Pot. Democide R. J. Rummel coined the term democide, which includes genocide, politicide, and mass murder. Unlike politicide, randomly conducted and non-targeted mass killing are included. Frank Wayman and Atsushi Tago have shown the significance of the differences between the democide and politicide data-sets in that statistical analyses based on them can produce very different results, including whether or not regime type is a significance variable. Helen Fein has termed the mass state killings in the Soviet Union and Cambodia as "genocide and democide." Crimes against humanity Klas-Göran Karlsson uses the term crimes against humanity, which includes "the direct mass killings of politically undesirable elements, as well as forced deportations and forced labour". He acknowledges that the term may be misleading in the sense that the regimes targeted groups of their own citizens, but considers it useful as a broad legal term which emphasizes attacks on civilian populations and because the offenses demean humanity as a whole. Jacques Semelin and Michael Mann believe that crime against humanity is more appropriate than genocide or politicide when speaking of violence by Communist regimes. Classicide Michael Mann has proposed the term classicide as the "intended mass killing of entire social classes". Repression Stephen Wheatcroft notes that, in the case of the Soviet Union, terms such as the terror, the purges, and repression are used to refer to the same events. *****He believes the most neutral terms are repression and mass killings, although in Russian the broad concept of repression is commonly held to include mass killings and is sometimes assumed to be synonymous with it, which is not the case in other languages. Mass killing Ervin Staub defined mass killing as "killing members of a group without the intention to eliminate the whole group or killing large numbers of people without a precise definition of group membership. In a mass killing the number of people killed is usually smaller than in genocide." Referencing earlier definitions, Joan Esteban, Massimo Morelli and Dominic Rohner have defined mass killings as "the killings of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military action against the military forces of an avowed enemy, under the conditions of the essential defenselessness and helplessness of the victims". The term has been defined quantitatively by Benjamin Valentino as "the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants", where a massive number is defined as at least 50,000 intentional deaths over the course of five years or less. This is the most accepted quantitative minimum threshold for the term. He applies this definition to the cases of Stalin's USSR, the PRC under Mao, and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, while admitting that mass killings on a smaller scale also appear to have been carried out by regimes in North Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, and Africa. Holocaust The United States Congress has referred in legislation to "an unprecedented imperial communist holocaust" and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation established as a result of that legislation refers to this subject as the "Communist holocaust". The term Red Holocaust has been used by German historian Horst Möller; American academic Steven Rosefielde has published a book on this subject titled Red Holocaust. According to Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, "historians and philosophers close to politically liberal groups" in Europe, especially in Romania, have made the terms Red Holocaust and Communist Genocide part of today's vocabulary. Notes and references Footnotes References

I'm assuming that the section "Sources and excerpts" is for personal use, not for article insertion? (We are not a source book, and those slab quotes are way too long, we should produce an integrative analysis in prose). Given the article title you need to put mass killing up front, possibly even before Communist regimes. Feels like it needs a little more work at the moment, even as an interim before we get a prose-paragraph discussion of these issues up there. Good excerpt finds. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:06, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the userpage is where I store material and test edits relating to the article, so the "Sources and excerpts" section is for personal use and not part of my proposed edits. Only the "Terminology" section from the article is what I am proposing to change with the altered version of it on the userpage. The edit would not change the order of terms from their current configuration, so that concern with the article is unaffected. I think these edits are an incremental improvement on what is there already, even though much more needs to be done. Thanks for the compliment. AmateurEditor (talk) 21:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I object. The proposed text is a good starting point, however, this terminology deals with mass killing in general, therefore the section in its present form implies that all these terms were developed to describe Communist mass killings, which is simply wrong.

The term "Genocide" was invented by Lemkin to describe Nazi crimes, so initially it had no relation to Communism at all. KR genocide is among few examples of Communist mass killing that were officially recognised as genocide. In addition, "genocide" is a legal term, so it cannot be used arbitrarily.

"Democide" was invented by Rummel to describe the events that cannot be covered by the term "genocide". It also was not designed to describe specifically Communist mass killings.

The same is true for "Politicide" and "Crimes against humanity".

The term "classicide" is probably the most relevant to this article, because, by contrast to majority of other regimes Communist regimes attacked specific social (not ethnic) groups.

The Wheathcroft's "repressions" should be expanded, and it should be added that many (if not most) authors prefer to use specific terminology is every particular case, so the idea to use common terminology is not too popular. In addition, "repressions" refer not only to "killings" but to arrests, imprisonment, exile, deportations, etc.

Re "Red Holocaust", neutrality requires to add that this term was invented by a single scholar (Rosenfielde) and is questionable ("However horrendous the crimes of communism were, there never was a Red Holocaust" (Peter Paret. Central European History, Vol. 37, No. 2 (2004), pp. 304-306)).

Conclusion: This section should be expanded to explain why so many different terms have been proposed, and why no common terminology have been developed so far, and it should be moved to the Mass killing article, because it is more general than the article's subject.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:13, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Let me be clear that this edit is the first of many improvements on my part as time allows. It simply adds detail to what is there already and does not create a final version of that section. I agree with some of your complaints about the current state of the section, but only the specific changes I am proposing to make should be subject to objection. Would it help if I highlighted in bold the text in the userpage version which differs from what is currently in the article? AmateurEditor (talk) 21:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, this section in its present form should not be in this article, so I see no reason to waste your time for minor improvements. I suggest you to think about the following: let's take this section (your sandbox version), and add it to the Mass killing article mutatis mutandi (because it is quite relevant to that article). After that it will be much easier to see how the Terminology section of the the MKUCR article should look like.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:05, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

All of the terms in the Terminology section, which my proposed edit would not add to or subtract from, are terms used by sources to characterize these events, which the citations verify. I have no problem working on a Mass killing article with you - in fact I thought we had agreed to do that a while ago - but there isn't one right now and the contents of the terminology section here already exist. My proposed edit should be evaluated based upon what it changes, not on what it doesn't change. To make it clearer precisely what that is, I have bolded the added text in the sandbox version and added "*****" in two instances where I deleted text without adding.AmateurEditor (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Do you want me to comment on these changes here, on in your sandbox?--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:24, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Whichever you prefer. AmateurEditor (talk) 01:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Other than the term mass killings, I do not see why we need a terminology section. BTW, you should avoid saying that Valentino "admit[s]", which has negative connotations. Also, the term "holocaust" in this context is controversial, which should be explained. TFD (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I am not proposing to change whether or not there is a terminology section. I also have not added the word "admit" regarding Valentino which you object to: it's already in the article. I agree that the term "holocaust" is controversial and that should be explained, but that is not currently done in the article and my edit doesn't affect that issue. I am sure that will be handled in a subsequent edit. AmateurEditor (talk) 21:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I commented both on your and the current versions: the "Terminology" section, by and large, discussed the term "mass killing", not "mass killings under Communists". It simply belongs to another article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:51, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

The same "mass killing" term applies to communists and to others. There is no separate "mass killings under Communists" term. That's a description of the topic, not a term. The topic clearly has many terms, such as "genocide" and "politicide", which are essentially specialized variations of the term "mass killing". That's why we have a terminology section to begin with. All of the terms described there have been used to label mass killings under Communist regimes. And all this is unaffected by my proposed edit.AmateurEditor (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

The fact that the same "mass killing" term applies to communists and to others is correct. And that is why the discussion of the term "mass killings" belongs to the "mass killing" article, not to this one. This article should have only a reference to this discussion. The present situation resembles a (hypothetical) situation when taxonomy of Canidae is being discussed in the gray wolf article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:24, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Even if there were a "mass killing" article (it is currently a disambiguation page), there would still need to be discussion in this article of the various terms used. There isn't a single "correct" or scientific term for mass killings of civilians. Multiple terms are used by scholars discussing this topic and the differences between them aren't insignificant. This article has to acknowledge that to avoid misleading the reader. But, again, I am not proposing to add a terminology section. One has long existed in the article and I think rightly so. The "mass killing" portion of the terminology section will not be so large after this addition to yet justify a separate article, but I think it is important to demonstrate in this article that "mass killing" as a term does not begin and end with Valentino. AmateurEditor (talk) 01:26, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

AmateurEditor could you please put your proposed edit here? I do this on the Communist terrorism and find it an easy way to gauge consensus for a particular edit. Such an approach may work on this article also. Tentontunic (talk) 23:14, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I copied over the version from my userpage with the proposed changes in bold and deletions marked with "*****" at the top in a collapse box. AmateurEditor (talk) 01:26, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Comments

1. The name of the section ("Terminology") is not completely correct, because it implies the existence of some concrete and commonly accepted terminology. It would be more correct to name the section "Attempts to apply different terminology to the mass killings under Communist regimes".
2. "The following have been used to describe killing by Communist governments:" Incorrect. Only part of scholars characterise these mass deaths under Communists as "killings". Change to "mass mortality".
3. Genocide: Re " because many states, including Stalin's USSR" Why the USSR is mentioned explicitly? Either the list of these states should be provided or the mention of the USSR should be removed.
   Re "However, as genocide studies developed and it became more apparent that political groups were being targeted, this restriction has been re-evaluated." Not correct. Lemkin tried to expand the definition of genocide, which made it not an outstanding event, so too many actions, including those committed by democratic government fit this loose definition. Since Lemkin was critisices for that, it would be hardly correct that the need in a loose definition of genocide "became more apparent".
   Re "Mass killing by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia has been labeled "genocide" or "auto-genocide"" If I am not wrong, these actions were found to be genocide by a tribunal, so the wording could be less vague.
   Re: "and, although it remains controversial, the deaths under Leninism and Stalinism in the USSR and Maoism in China have been investigated as possible cases." By whom? I am not aware of any serious attempts to investigate them according any established legal procedure.
   Re "In particular, the famines in the USSR in the 1930s and during the Great Leap Forward in China have been increasingly "depicted as mass killing underpinned by genocidal intent"." By scholars, not by legal investigators. These events may fit a loose definition of genocide, according to which genocide is not too outstanding phenomenon.
4. Politicide: since it is not a commonly accepted term, which, in addition, has three different meanings, it is not correct to write that the term "is used to describe the killing ..." without attribution. Probably "has been used by Midlarsky ..."
5. Democide: We have to say that Rummel invented the term "democide", which he subsequently applied to mass killings under totalitarian regimes, which, according to him included the cases of mass mortality as a result of wars (non-combat deaths), famines and diseases. I see no reason to mention Wayman and Tago: these two scholars discuss various mathematical models, leaving the essence of the described events beyond the scope. The reference to Fein is also hardly relevant to this section.
6. Classicide This term is the most relevant to the article, because it refers to killings for belonging to particular social group (which was characteristic to Communist mass killings)
7. Repressions It is not the Wheatcroft's term, it is used by most scholars dealing with Stalinism. However, I would separate country-specific terms to the separate section.
8. Mass killing We use the Valentino's definition. The difference between the Valentino's definition and others is that other scholars do not include "dispossessive mass killings" into this category. Do you propose to re-define this term? If no, the difference between these definitions should be better articulated: not only Valentino proposed a numerical threshold, he re-defined the term by adding "dispossessive mass killings". We need to discuss it in more details (although in another article, because this term was not designed specifically for Communist mass killings).
9. Holocaust: this is not serious. Few scholars (in their non-peer-reviewed books) and one governmental organisation have used this term several times. That approach directly contradicts to what other sources say (e.g Racial Politics without the Concept of Race: Reevaluating Soviet Ethnic and National Purges Author(s): Eric D. Weitz Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring, 2002), pp. 1-29: "Despite hyperbolic and politicized comments about "Red Holocausts" and a "Ukrainian genocide," the Soviet system was never geared toward the complete physical annihilation of a defined population group. The term class genocide is a travesty that serves political purposes but obfuscates far more than it explains.") In my opinion, "Red Holocaust" and similar exotic terms like "politicide" should be mentioned only with attribution, and the sources stating the opposite ("there was no Red Holocaust", "Stalinist regime was not genocidal by its nature", etc) should be cited also, and due weight should be given to them.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:21, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

1 and 2 are not about my proposed edit. Please address your evaluation only to what I proposed to add or change, not to what I have not proposed to change. I highlighted the text that I changed or added in bold to clarify this (the terms themselves, of course, were already in bold when introduced). If you wish to change something else, you should make a separate edit proposal in a separate talk page section so that a separate discussion can be had about that specific proposal. Otherwise, this will become completely unworkable.

3a."because many states, including Stalin's USSR." This is not part of my proposed edit.

3b."However, as genocide studies developed and it became more apparent that political groups were being targeted, this restriction has been re-evaluated." & "Mass killing by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia has been labeled "genocide" or "auto-genocide." & "and, although it remains controversial, the deaths under Leninism and Stalinism in the USSR and Maoism in China have been investigated as possible cases." & "In particular, the famines in the USSR in the 1930s and during the Great Leap Forward in China have been increasingly "depicted as mass killing underpinned by genocidal intent." Wikipedia is based upon verifiability, not truth. I have been very careful to adhere to only what I can attribute to reliable sources with this proposed edit, being under these new restrictions. All of these sentences are verifiable to the source cited. The relevant passage can be read on page 190 of the source, found here.

4."is used to describe the killing ..." This text is already in the article and is not part of my proposed changes.

5.My proposed edit changes the wording of the Wayman and Tago sentence to bring it in line with the source and remove the "not in citation given" tag, but they are used already in the current article, as is the Fein reference. If you prefer the current wording of the section to my proposed change in this instance, that is one thing, but the choice is between the current wording and my proposed change, which I think is an improvement. A subsequent edit can improve things further.

6. I proposed no changes here with this edit.

7. These comments are not about my proposed edit and can be addressed with a later proposal.

8. We use what reliable sources use. Valentino's definition of "mass killing" is "the most accepted" quantitative minimum, according to the source I cited. His definition is not the only one, however, as these sourced additions demonstrate. I think that is an important point. Valentino did not redefine the term by adding "dispossessive mass killing". This is simply an adjective in front of his definition of mass killing which which distinguishes the motivation from "coercive mass killing". Not all killing by communist regimes has the motive of dispossession, according to him, although a lot of it does.

9. The term is included in the current article, so my proposed edit does not change that. What my edit adds is verifiably attributed to a reliable source (as are the current sentences). A subsequent edit can add more from another source, as you suggest. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:34, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I must say that the reactions here are not what I expected (that is, I did expect criticism, but of the edits and not of the section in general). Perhaps I should have gone about this differently. For one, the first edit proposal under these new sanctions probably should have been much smaller. For another, I should not have implied that I was endorsing the entire post-edit terminology section by suggesting that it be "swapped out" for the version on my user page. I meant that merely as a practical method to implement all the changes I had made in one edit, not that I intended never to change those things which were kept the same. However, in retrospect, that phrase, combined with my oversight in not highlighting where the specific changes were (in contrast to what I was not proposing to change), caused confusion.

Since so much of the criticism here was unrelated to what I was actually proposing to change, I considered going to a community forum to get an outside perspective on whether or not these criticisms were on legitimate grounds, but I have decided against that. I think it would only serve to further irritate the disagreements between editors here and there is no pressing need for these changes at this time which would justify that. Of course, I stand by my specific responses above and I still don't think it is reasonable to object to an edit based upon what it does not change, but I think that part of the blame for this disagreement may be on the way I introduced the changes.

With that in mind, I invite interested editors to edit the version currently on my userpage here with cited material they feel is lacking or more appropriate. AmateurEditor (talk) 00:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I see no reason for that your reaction. You suggested some changes, however, I also see some problems with this section. Therefore, I proposed additional changes to be made to this section (in addition to the comment on your edits proper). In this situation, we simply have to think how to combine together your changes and my criticism. Let's think about that, because this is a normal practice. At least that is what we usually do with the WWII article: someone propose a piece of text on the talk page, others comment on it, change it further, and, when everybody is satisfied, this text is added to the main article. Why cannot we do the same here?--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

But I am agreeing with you. Wouldn't the easiest way to combine my changes and your criticism be for you to adjust or add to what is written on my userpage? AmateurEditor (talk) 22:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Which version do you propose to take as a starting point?--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I would rather we start with the version here. AmateurEditor (talk) 00:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality

Although an editor recently removed the neutrality tag, this article still suffers from neutrality issues. It infers a connection between Communist regimes and mass killings, which is not explained. There is no discussion of who has made the connection, what connection they have made, or the level of acceptance of their views. Also, most of the sources do not directly address the subject but are written about events in individual countries. Much of the literature is taken from books that are either published outside the mainstream academic press or comparatively recent. Accordingly we cannot discern what level of acceptance they have. These issues need to be addressed and in the meantime the POV tag restored. TFD (talk) 11:58, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

There are 2 parts of the lede which seem to go along with what you are saying, but which are unreferenced and unsupported by the article.

"Scholarship focuses on the causes of mass killings in single societies, ..." and

"... many tens of millions; however, the validity of this approach is questioned by other scholars."

Can you supply references for this supposed focus and supposed questioning? We cannot build an article based on these assertions without references. Smallbones (talk) 13:19, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

TFD, none of the issues you raised are examples of non-neutrality. And some, such as "There is no discussion of who has made the connection", are simply wrong. But if you have specific edits in mind to improve the article, propose them so they can be discussed. AmateurEditor (talk) 22:24, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

We discussed this before, but I will refresh your memory and post my comments for new readers. The lead " It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies". The lead in fact does not do this and does not explain what connection scholars supposedly have made between mass killings and Communist regimes.

I have looked at the sources provided and find that they are all mostly about events in individual countries that happened to be Communist. The sources that discuss Communism in general are mostly about oppression by those regimes without a specific focus on mass killings. The term itself is from a book that groups mass killings in three Communist countries in a chapter but does not categorize them. The most relevant material I could find discusses the advances in scholarship on mass killings in Eastern Europe under Communism. Some of these sources are critical of the approach taken by Nolte, Furet, Courtois, Rummel, etc., both for their exaggeration and the polemical nature of some of their writing.

My suggest would be to use source such as "Anti-Semitism in Europe, 1914 - 2004" (2006) by Jan Herman Brinks.[3] We need to explain who makes a connection between Communism and mass killings, explain the connection they make and explain the degree of acceptance their theories have. Merely listing a number of events where there is an intersection between mass killings and Communism is just original research and POV.

TFD (talk) 03:44, 16 March 2011 (UTC)