Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes

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Terminology section

It seems this discussion is becoming hard to follow. I prefer a stepwise approach, so I propose to resolve the "Terminology" issue first. AmateurEditor objects to removal of the "Terminology" section, because "it is well sourced, important to understanding the article topic, and follows the aggregator sources' example." Below, I demonstrate what is wrong with that rationale.

• The section "is well sourced" This argument cites WP:V, whereas the reasons for removal are violations of WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. In addition, the verifiability policy explicitly says that not all verifiable information deserves inclusion, and The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. Therefore, I expect you to prove the text you are advocating does meet NOR and NPOV criteria.
• The section important to understanding the article topic. I don't see how this section help a reader to understand the topic. I would say the opposite, the section is deeply misleading, because it creates an impression that some well developed terminology exists in this field. In reality, the section is the list of terms coined by a bunch of authors, who apply them to the same events, so the same mass killing is called "politicide" by one author and "classicide" by another. These new terms explain nothing, and that is why the overwhelming majority of experts in history of separate Communist states do not use these terms at all. If you want to prove I am wrong, try to propose an alternative explanation to these search results. I made a very neutral search, and it gives the following results:

• - democide (22400) +democide (833, mostly Rummel himself)
• -classicide (22700); + classicide (80)
• -politicide (22500); +politicide (1230)
• -"red Holocaust" (21800); +"Red Holocaust" (79)

I used "repressions", because it is a very specific term applied to Stalinist crimes, and it is really universally accepted'

All these search results are nearly the same, which means country experts, do not use this terminology. This terminology in totally useless, it has no explanatory power, it is ignored by experts in the field. If you believe something is wrong with my search or interpretation, please provide your own search and/or your own interpretation.

Therefore, "Terminology" by no means helps a reader to understand the topic, it mislead a reader, and it must be removed. With regard to "Red Holocaust", not only it is not the term, its usage is tantamount to the Holocaust trivialisation, and it must be removed, because it is a stain on Wikipedia.

"There are two exception. First, the term "genocide". It was introduced by Lemkin to describe Nazi crime and to prevent future crimes of that kind. It is a legal term, and its application to some events (by a court) may have some concrete legal consequences. It is quite necessary to explain what this term is, but this term was not proposed for Communist mass killings. It is much more general, and that is why I moved it to the Mass killing article. Interestingly. many experts in Soviet history argue that Soviet mass killings were, by and large, non-genocidal by their nature.

The second term is demo/politicide. This term is being used by so called "genocide scholars" in attempts to find some general dependencies between regime type and a probability of onset of mass killings. Again, this term does not explain "Communist mass killings", it is used to assemble a very crude and indiscriminate worldwide statistics of mass killings (Barbara Harff conceded that Rummel's statistics was very inaccurate, and it was never expected to be accurate, because the goal of his study was different). This terminology is relevant to the mass killing article, but it is absolutely not helpful for understanding this article's topic, and it is absolutely misleading.

Actually, what this section is doing is a pure cheating. It says: "the following terms were proposed to describe MKuCR", but that is a direct lie. These terms (with one exception, "classicide") were proposed for mass killings, not for MKuCR specifically.

Of course, it is possible to fix that by adding an explanation that majority of the terms in that section were proposed for mass killings in general, and they were applied, by some authors, to MKuCR. However, if we do that, and remove a total bullshit about Wheatcroft (who never proposed the term "repressions", that term was used by Khruschev after the XX congress of CPSU, and since those times was used in Soviet historiography), remove the Holocaust trivialization, etc., then the section will be converted to something reasonable. However, it would become nearly identical to the analogous text in the mass killing article. It would be ridiculous to have the text, which is only marginally relevant to the article's subject, and which can be easily accessible in one click (the link to mass killing is already provided in the article).

• The section "follows the aggregator sources" The aggregator source is adequate if it is in agreement with the opinia of major experts in the field. If Ellman writes that the very category "victims of Stalinism" is a matter of political judgement, his opinion is not in agreement with Valentino's attempt to lump all Soviet population losses into one category to advocate a very questionable idea (the idea, which is not universally accepted by "genocide scholars" themselves). My no means Valentino or similar authors are adequate and neutral "aggregator sources". They could be good aggregator sources if they provided a neutral summary of research in this field. In reality, each of them proposes some very concrete idea, and all these ideas are not universally accepted. Moreover, some of them sacrifice factual accuracy if it contradicts to their ideological constructs. Thus, Rummel refused to reconsider his estimates for the USSR despite the fact that numerous evidences became available in 1990s that the scale of GULAG mortality was by an order of magnitude lower that he predicted. I think it is a shame that we cite his outdated and, according to Harff, inaccurate estimates (but that is a different story).

Finally, I looked through the article, and I found virtually no mention of terms listed in this section, except "genocide" (which already has its own article, so a link would be sufficient). Other terms are either not used at all, or they are used just a couple of time. Do you really think that justifies an existence of such a misleading section?

In addition, this sentence in the lead "Terms used to define these killings include "mass killing", "democide", "politicide", "classicide" and a broad definition of "genocide"." is also is a disaster. Do we really think that is the most important thing that should be said about MKuCR? This sentence in the lead draws reader's attention to the worst and useless section in the article, which adds nothing to reader's understanding of communist crimes. It should be removed also.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:31, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, sorry about the delay in responding but it takes me a lot of time to thoughtfully respond to you and I think it is better to have a late and thoughtful response than a quick and faulty one. Thanks for starting a new section here on the talk page. I agree the previous discussions were getting hard to follow. If this discussion follows the pattern of our past discussions, it may branch so much that it could also become hard to follow, so I will number my responses to your points.

1) "The section "is well sourced"". By this I meant that it is not only verifiable, but appropriate for the article (that is, directly related to the article topic and not OR/SYNTH). Something can be "sourced" (that is, verifiable), but still not appropriate for an article. You cited WP:ONUS, which states "While information must be verifiable to be included in an article, not all verifiable information needs to be included in an article. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and that it should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." The consensus for the material in question was achieved 10 years ago, in my opinion, which is why it is in the article today. Of course, consensus can change, but since it is already in the stable version of the article, the onus now would be on those who want it changed. Per WP:NOCONSENSUS, "In discussions of proposals to add, modify or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit." This is consistent with Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, which favors the status quo before the proposed change, whether an addition or subtraction. Having said that, I am willing to discuss particular sentences and citations if you wish. I have tried to make it obvious with excerpts in the article itself that material in the terminology section is appropriate and not taken out of context. In order for me to "prove the text you are advocating does meet NOR and NPOV criteria", I would be basically pasting that here on the talk page for each citation in the section, which doesn't seem practical without some focus from you on what you object to in particular.

2)"important to understanding the article topic.". I agree with your sentence that the terminology section is a "list of terms coined by a bunch of authors, who apply them to the same events, so the same mass killing is called "politicide" by one author and "classicide" by another". I disagree that it is "deeply misleading, because it creates an impression that some well developed terminology exists in this field." The point of showing the variety of terms is to show that there is not "well-developed terminology" for this topic (and I would call this a "topic" only, not a separate "field" of study, but maybe I am being pedantic). The variety of terms is a sub-topic for this topic in the sources that justify this article. They are a significant part of this topic in reliable sources and that is why it is appropriate to include them. You say "These new terms explain nothing" and "are useless", but they do explain the perspectives of the authors that advocate for them. It is important to include the lack of consensus on terms among the sources. A term does not need to be a consensus term (or even a popular term) among the sources on a topic to be a part of the the body of reliable, published material on the topic, let alone be the consensus term among sources focused on a single country that do not address the wider cross-country topic in the first place. In the case of "Red Holocaust", it is a gross exaggeration to say that it is the same as ("tantamount to") Holocaust trivialization. Holocaust trivialization is when the term "holocaust" is applied to a relatively trivial thing, such as the defeat of a sports team. In this case, it is being used to describe the deaths of tens of millions of people. That is not trivialization. Having said that, it is true that the term is controversial, but the criticism is well represented for that term. In the case of "genocide", the article does not say that it was "proposed for Communist mass killings", it says that the term has been used for communist mass killings. Adding well-sourced sentences about the inappropriateness of the term for communist mass killing is fine with me. Likewise, in the case of demo/politicide, the helpfulness of this term here is that some sources use it for discussing communist mass killing. It does not have to "explain" communist mass killing to be be relevant to the topic as one of the terms used. You say "what this section is doing is a pure cheating. It says: "the following terms were proposed to describe MKuCR", but that is a direct lie." No, the section does not say "...the following terms were proposed to describe...", it instead says "The following terminology has been used...". The terms do not have to be specific to communist mass killing to be relevant to the topic, according to the reliable sources cited. You propose "adding an explanation that majority of the terms in that section were proposed for mass killings in general, and they were applied, by some authors, to MKuCR", but that is what the first two sentences of the section are already saying. If they need to be reworded to make them more clear, then let's do that. You say "remove a total bullshit about Wheatcroft (who never proposed the term "repressions"...", but again the section doesn't say that he proposed the term (I agree it would be incorrect to say he was the first to use the term).

3)"follows the aggregator sources". You say "The aggregator source is adequate if it is in agreement with the opinia of major experts in the field." I would say instead that aggregator sources are adequate for this purpose for the same reason that they are adequate for any use at all on wikipedia: if they meets the standard for reliable sources at WP:RS, then they can be used for wikipedia articles. The aggregator sources are the basis of the article/topic, so the article should be based on them primarily. If "major experts in the field" disagree with these sources, then that disagreement should, of course, be included. We can't, however, cite a source's silence on a topic as rejection of that topic because that would be original research on our part. Per WP:RS, articles should be "based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered". You seem to be saying instead that we should only be considering a (aggregator) source if it is in agreement with another (non-aggregator) source.

4)"virtually no mention of terms listed in this section". The article uses "mass killing" as the generic term. The terminology section is explaining the variety of terms used in the sources, rather than terms used throughout the article.

5)"Lede sentence". The sentence is "Terms used to define these killings include "mass killing", "democide", "politicide", "classicide" and a broad definition of "genocide". "I didn't write it, but calling it a "disaster" seems excessive. I think you are objecting more to the section of the article it is trying to concisely summarize, rather than the sentence itself as a sentence. I would not say that the sentence is, in your words, "the most important thing that should be said about MKuCR", but it is an important part of the topic and article. Per WP:LEAD, sentences in the lead are supposed to, among other things, "summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies". The variety of terms used is both an important point and controversial in some instances. According to the "This page in a nutshell" box at WP:LEAD, the lead is supposed to "identify the topic and summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight". The article has a section about terminology, so a sentence on terminology in the lead is not undue weight relative to the body of the article. AmateurEditor (talk) 05:32, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

No worry, take your time. I myself have an opportunity to respond just 1-2 times a week, so your "delayed" response is not delayed at all.

Right now there is a discussion at the policy page about WP:ONUS, and it seems that consensus is that there is no symmetry between removal and inclusion. There is not a big difference between re-addition and de novo addition of some material. I could delete the section, because I already explained why it should be deleted, but if I do that, that would be disrespectful to your work (which is technically very good). Therefore, I am trying to achieve consensus first, although that is not a strict requirement of our policy.

You are right, this text stays is here since 2010, but you forget that the article was frozen during several years, and after that it was under strict editing restrictions. Therefore, it would be incorrect to speak about any consensus in that situation. In addition, a significant part of the text was added later, and I never objected to that because I decided that would be a waste of time, but I never agreed with these additions. Therefore, it would be totally incorrect to say this version reflects consensus (neither past nor current).

In connection to that, I am expecting you to prove that each item in that list:

(i) is a term that was proposed specifically for MKuCR. Obviously, "Mass killing", "democide", "genocide", "politicide", and "crimes against humanity" were not proposed specifically for the MKuCR topic. Therefore, they belong to the mass killing article, not to this one. We do not explain the term DNA replication in the article about DNA polymerase gamma, and even in the DNA polymerase article: the link to the higher level article is quite sufficient. However, some of those terms were applied, by some authors to describe some mass killing events during communist rule. Let's take "mass killings" as one of the most extreme case: Valentino himself did not apply this term to Afghanistan (the Afghan case was not included into the Communist mass killing section of his book). Nevertheless, this article does include Afghanistan into the Communist mass killing category. Other terms, such as "genocide" were applied only to a very narrow category of cases. Therefore, it would be correct to move the discussion of applicability of those terms to the corresponding sections.

If some term was not proposed specifically for MKuCR, it may belong to the article (if it is mentioned in the article's body) but it must be excluded from the "Terminology" section. WP:NOR says that "analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources" is prohibited. By adding e.g. "genocide" to this section, we imply that that term was applied to MKuCR as whole (and the lead literally says that). That is misleading, and that is a piece of original research, which must be removed.

(ii) is a term. By that, I mean that we must discriminate terminology, which has some explanatory power and is helpful for understanding a subject, from just allegoric or emotional words, which do not explain anything. Thus, "Red Holocaust" is just another way to say that MKuCR were a very bad thing. Is it helpful for understanding the causes, mechanism or outcomes of MKuCR? Is it being used by anybody besides Rosenfielde and a couple of political journalists? No. It is not a term, and it is useless, misleading and not helpful

(iii) are used by country experts. So far, just "genocide" is used in the article. Other terms are just mentioned once, at best.

You write "The variety of terms is a sub-topic for this topic in the sources that justify this article." If that is the case, that justifies the article's deletion. In reality, your statement is not correct: the topic does exist, but a bunch of "genocide scholars", who are attempting to propose their own buzzwords, are a just marginal group of authors, who are being essentially ignored by real experts in Russian Civil war, Stalinist repressions, Chinese Cultural revolution, Cambodian genocide, etc (see gscholar results, which you ignored). Believe we, if we throw away all those "theorists" (or move them to a small section at the end of the article), it still would be possible to keep this article, for Communist mass killings really had something in common. There were significant differences between all these events, but that does not mean there were no commonalities. The main flaw of this article is obsession with commonalities and ignoring differences, as well as factors other than Communism.

Regarding Holocaust trivialization, any metaphorical usage of the term "Holocaust" is trivialization. You cite Wheatcroft, read his comparative analysis of Stalinist and Nazi mass killing, because I am 100% he would be totally dissatisfied by the use of his name in this section. There was a long academic dispute between Wheatcroft and Rosenfielde, both authors put forward strong and convincing argiments; the POV of the latter is overrepresented in this section, and Wheatcroft's views are selectively cited in such a way that his ideas were either ignored or distorted. That is a violation of NPOV, and it is not acceptable.

"The terminology section is explaining the variety of terms used in the sources rather than terms used throughout the article." We cannot, and should explain the terms that are used in cited sources if these terms are not used in the article. Wikipedia is an encyclopedic reference, not a textbook, and that is a policy.

Regarding "aggregator sources", you again refer to V when NPOV is violated. If an aggregator source advances some idea that contradicts to the idea or ideas of the sources that are being aggregated, it is not an aggregator source, but a separate source, which should be used in parallel to other sources. If an author X adequately summarized works written by authors A, B, and C, X is an aggregator source. However, if the authors A, B, and C propose one explanation/interpretation for the events described in their book, whereas the author X proposed some new theory that differs from what A, B, and C say, the article must present all these views fairly and proportionally. Currently, the article's structure follows the ideas expressed by a small group of political writers and genocide scholars, and the viewpoint of historians, especially, experts in history of some concrete country is provided mostly to support the ideas of "genocide scholars". That is a blatant violation of NPOV.

Regarding the lead, you write that "the variety of terms used is both an important point and controversial in some instances." That is not true. Majority of historians do not care about all that terminology. The only term that causes debates among historians is "genocide", and they organize separate conferences and devote whole journal issues to the question, e.g., whether Great Soviet famine was genocide. But that debates are local, they are devoted to some specific cases, and historians never discuss a possibility to apply some term to MKuCR as whole.

Meanwhile, a real controversy, which was a reason for serious debates is whether MKuCR should be presented as some single phenomenon, or that was a group of separate poorly connected events. The lead and the article essentially ignores this important question, and that is a serious NPOV problem. That is why the lead is a disaster.

Therefore, this section must be removed, because at least three policies are violated in it, and that is not fixable.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 08:44, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Regarding "Red Holocaust", a 30 second gscholar search gives a source that openly call "Red Holocaust" an example of the Holocaust trivialization. It says:

"Contrary to the hard-core version, soft-core denial is often not easily identifiable. Often it is tolerated, or even encouraged and reproduced in the mainstream, not only in Germany. Scholars have only recently begun to unravel this disturbing phenomenon. Manfred Gerstenfeld discusses Holocaust trivialization in an article published in 2008.7 In Germany in 2007 two scholars, Thorsten Eitz and Georg Stötzel, published a voluminous dictionary of German language and discourse regarding National Socialism and the Holocaust. It includes chapters on Holocaust trivialization and contrived comparisons, such as the infamous "atomic Holocaust", "Babycaust," "Holocaust of abortion", "red Holocaust" or "biological Holocaust.""

The reference is: Heni, Clemens.SECONDARY ANTI-SEMITISM: FROM HARD-CORE TO SOFT-CORE DENIAL OF THE SHOAH. Jewish Political Studies Review; Jerusalem Vol. 20, Iss. 3/4, (Fall 2008): 73-92, 218.

Note, Rosefielde did not propose "Red Holocaust" as a scholarly term, so the responsibility for addition of the Holocaust trivialization is on those who added this text to this article (I didn't check the history, and I don't know who added it).--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:02, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I apologize for posting a response later than I had promised on your talk page.

If the ongoing discussion at the WP:ONUS talk page results in a change to policy then we should follow the new policy, but until then we should follow it as currently written. When I say the material had achieved consensus years ago, I mean WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS. Although it is true that this article had editing restrictions in place for several years requiring talk page consensus to be established prior to edits to the article being made (apparently from March 5, 2011 to May 6, 2018), the section was in the article long before that. A "Terminology" section header was created (by me) on October 21, 2009 for material added earlier that mentioned "mass killing", "democide", "politicide", and "genocide". You were actively editing the section both before (example from 2010) and after (example from 2018) the editing restrictions were in effect, indicating implicit consensus on your part at those times (although I could be misremembering the state of things if we were having side discussions at the same time). Consensus can change, of course, but I don't think the onus is on me to justify this well-referenced and long-standing material. After the amount of time it has been there (outside of the editing restrictions), the onus is now on those who want to change it, per WP:BRD. Since you have already indicated that you want to make bold edits that would probably be reverted, we have skipped straight to the discuss stage, which is reasonable, but a lack of consensus in the discussion would result in the status quo, not deletion of the material. Otherwise, a disruptive editor could get any material in any article deleted simply by arguing about it. Having said that, I do still need to respond to your objections now. You are insisting on three criteria to be met for each term included in the section: that it is a term "proposed specifically for MKuCR", has "explanatory power", and is "used by country experts".

1) Where are these criteria coming from? They are not based on any policy that I am aware of. We need only follow the normal criteria for any material to be included in an article: Wikipedia:Core content policies. Restricting inclusion to terms with "explanatory power" or only those sources deemed by us to be "country experts" (which would mean ignoring, presumably, all the aggregator sources on which the article is based in the first place), is going way beyond those policies. If reliable sources include something in their discussion of the topic, it can be included in the article about that topic.

2) Your example of Valentino not using killing in Afghanistan in his chapter "Communist Mass Killings: The Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia", forgets that he did mention "Communist" as an "additional motive" for the killings in Afghanistan in his table on page 83.

3) You say that by including the term "genocide" in the section as it is "we imply that that term was applied to MKuCR as whole (and the lead literally says that). That is misleading, and that is a piece of original research". I object to the word "proposed", which your comments seem to be suggesting means "coined" or "invented" specifically for this article's topic. Both the lead and the second sentence in the section explicitly say the terms have been "used" ("The following terminology has been used by individual authors to describe mass killings of unarmed civilians by communist governments, individually or as a whole:"), which is accurate. I don't know why you think there is an implication that the terms were "proposed" specifically for Mkucr when there is an explicit statement clarifying what the list is. It could only be an implication if someone does not read the text, which means there is not such implication in the text. The "genocide" paragraph explains the UN definition and explains how the term has been applied to the events under specific communist regimes. Incidentally, a sourced sentence on the more general use of "communist genocide" ("According to Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, "historians and philosophers close to politically liberal groups" in Europe, especially in Romania, have made the term Communist Genocide part of today's vocabulary.") was removed by you on October 25, 2018, although I don't think that removal was justified. It is valuable to address each of these terms in the section so that readers understand how they relate to the article's topic. As you may recall, the article was originally titled "Communist genocide". No doubt there are readers out there looking for that information ("especially in Romania", apparently).

4) You say ""Red Holocaust" is just another way to say that MKuCR were a very bad thing." The word "holocaust" has been used about the topic and it is not our role to censor its use because of controversy. Instead, we should add sources that explain why there is controversy, as we have done. If you think that is insufficient, then add more.

5) You say "So far, just "genocide" is used in the article. Other terms are just mentioned once, at best." I have no problem with the terms being used throughout the article, as long as it doesn't make things confusing for the reader, but the terms are in the terminology section because they are in the sources, not because they are elsewhere in the article.

6) You say "the topic does exist, but a bunch of "genocide scholars", who are attempting to propose their own buzzwords, are a just marginal group of authors, who are being essentially ignored by real experts ". Wouldn't the "genocide scholars" be the "real experts" for this particular topic? The narrowly focused single-country authors would be "real experts" only in their individual fields of focus, not on this wider cross-country topic. I ignored your google searches because they are irrelevant to the topic existing and to the due weight considerations that apply only to the body of reliable sources who address the topic. Wikipedia has plenty of articles on very specialized topics with relatively small numbers of reliable sources. We need only to write the article to reflect what is in those reliable sources that address the topic. Per WP:PROPORTION, "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject."

7) You say "if we throw away all those "theorists" [...] it still would be possible to keep this article". I doubt it. Without the aggregator sources, the charges of synthesis would have a point.

8) You say "The main flaw of this article is obsession with commonalities and ignoring differences, as well as factors other than Communism". There is all the time in the world to improve the article. Adding well-sourced sentences about the differences and factors other than Communism can start immediately.

9) You say "any metaphorical usage of the term "Holocaust" is trivialization". You are entitled to your opinion on that. I would say that most metaphorical usage could be seen as trivialization, simply because there is very little that compares to the horror and scale of the Holocaust, and even less that might exceed it. The scale of this topic is one of the few where such a metaphor is actually reasonable, but there are other reasons one might not want to use the term. Our role as editors is just to make sure that we are accurately reflecting what reliable sources say and not imposing our own points of view. I think the criticism of the term's use is adequately represented in the article currently (it says the term might be " Holocaust obfuscation", rather than trivialization), but reasonable people can disagree. If you feel strongly about "trivialization" and have a source for it, then you should add something to that effect in the article, but it is not clear from the quote you provided whether "red Holocaust" was seen as a trivialization or as a "contrived comparison", which is not the same thing. Regardless, we are supposed to "describe disputes, but not engage in them", per WP:YESPOV. Removal would be engaging in the dispute.

10) You say the current use of Wheatcroft is "a violation of NPOV" because his "views are selectively cited in such a way that his ideas were either ignored or distorted". The solution to this is to add relevant material that is ignored and/or edit material that is distorted.

11) You say "Wikipedia is an encyclopedic reference, not a textbook, and that is a policy." You say this in reference to using terms in the terminology section that are not used in the rest of the article. Per WP:NOTTEXTBOOK, "Wikipedia is an encyclopedic reference, not a textbook. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to teach subject matter. Articles should not read like textbooks, with leading questions and systematic problem solutions as examples. These belong on our sister projects, such as Wikibooks, Wikisource, and Wikiversity. Some kinds of examples, specifically those intended to inform rather than to instruct, may be appropriate for inclusion in a Wikipedia article." The terminology section is clearly written to inform, not instruct as a textbook would.

12) You say "Currently, the article's structure follows the ideas expressed by a small group of political writers and genocide scholars, and the viewpoint of historians, especially, experts in history of some concrete country is provided mostly to support the ideas of "genocide scholars". That is a blatant violation of NPOV." The topic would be synthesis if not for the aggregator sources, so it is only reasonable that an article on a topic follow the sources that justify that article's existence (I call them "aggregator" sources because they aggregate multiple regimes in discussion of the communist mass killing topic, not because they aggregate multiple country-specific sources together as a tertiary source would. As I mentioned before, both the aggregator and single-country sources should be considered secondary sources of varying scopes). This is not a violation of NPOV policy. Per WP:YESPOV, "Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias. Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them. Editors, while naturally having their own points of view, should strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another. As such, the neutral point of view does not mean exclusion of certain points of view, but including all verifiable points of view which have sufficient due weight." The article does not exclude single-country points of view, it just cannot be based on them, due to synthesis policy.

13) You say "Regarding the lead, you write that "the variety of terms used is both an important point and controversial in some instances." That is not true. Majority of historians do not care about all that terminology. The only term that causes debates among historians is "genocide", ...". As you say, "genocide" is controversial. As you indicated above, the use of "Holocaust" is also controversial. Other terms are not controversial, but have sometimes subtly distinct definitions that are important to note if we are trying to present the information found in the aggregator sources fairly. I understand that you think we should minimize the use of the aggregator sources and emphasize the single-country sources, but I have significant synthesis concerns with that approach. It is also based a reading of the weight policy that is inaccurate: weight is based on the proportions found in the body of reliable sources on the topic and should not be based on the proportion of reliable sources that do not mention the topic (i.e. single country sources that do not mention this article's topic should not be counted for weight among the sources that do). They can still be used, as long as their use is not OR or SYNTH.

14) You say "... whether MKuCR should be presented as some single phenomenon, or that was a group of separate poorly connected events. The lead and the article essentially ignores this important question, and that is a serious NPOV problem." This material needs to be sourced before it can be included, otherwise we have an OR/SYNTH problem. If there are such sources, then there is no problem including this in the article. AmateurEditor (talk) 01:48, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

It would read better if we integrated the terminology into the article. So for example when we explain the different views we should also explain why the writers used their terminology. TFD (talk) 03:07, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Totally agree. The same idea came to my mind few hours ago. Indeed, "Terminology" section is needed only if these terms are being massively and frequently used in the article. If the term "classicide" is used by Mann only, we should introduce it during the discussion of Mann's views. The term "genocide" was never applied to MKuCR as whole, it is universally applied to Kampuchea, to some cases during Great Soviet famine, to some deportations, and it should be used there. Majority of terms and ("terms") are not used at all, and I see no need to keep them.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:01, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Agree too. "You say', if we throw away all those 'theorists' [...] it still would be possible to keep this article'. I doubt it. Without the aggregator sources, the charges of synthesis would have a point." That is exactly my point and perhaps my only disagreement with Paul Siebert. Of course, AmateurEditor is free to disagree on this, but that was an accurate summary. Regarding the point "[w]ouldn't the 'genocide scholars' be the 'real experts' for this particular topic? The narrowly focused single-country authors would be 'real experts' only in their individual fields of focus, not on this wider cross-country topic." I would still argue we would need at least a majority of Soviet and Communist studies scholars to agree. The truth is that genocide scholars and Soviet and Communist studies scholars disagree and is my point and reason why the article as currently structured should not exist, but it can fit well an article that scholarly discuss Communist regimes without limiting to mass killings; is really no one going to support this? Finally, as noted by Siebert above "[the term 'genocide' was never applied to MKuCR as whole, it is universally applied to Kampuchea, to some cases during Great Soviet famine, to some deportations, and it should be used there. Majority of terms and ("terms") are not used at all, and I see no need to keep them." Hence, those few genocide scholars are not enough in my view to support the topic as currently structured; however, they can be used to add a Communist genocide or Communist mass killing section at articles about genocides and mass killings. I have already added content from this article to other articles, where it would be more appropriate such as at Criticism of communist party rule (which may be copy edited and title-changed to add Analysis or Scholarly analysis in the title), Communist mass killing at Benjamin Valentino and democide, among others. Davide King (talk) 07:26, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

As I said in my number 5 comment above: "I have no problem with the terms being used throughout the article". I just don't think having a terminology section depends on that being done. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:49, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor I disagree. We can speak about a longstanding consensus version only when a consensus building process is normal. If the article is fully protected or it is under severe editing restrictions, it is more correct to speak about a "frozen accident" (using physicists jargon). With regard to the rest, I would prefer to respond to #1 only, otherwise our exchange will be impossible to read and understand.

re 1. About criteria. The rule that was violated is as follows Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. How it is applicable to the section? There are many examples. The name "Terminology" implies that terminology is used by scholars who works in that area. Although some reservations are made that explain that is not the case, a reader will be mislead.

Indeed, if some article has a "terminology" section, a reader interprets that as the section that introduces some terminology that is relevant to that article. That is what this section implies. And it is simply false.

Imagine some article with "Terminology" section that starts with the words: "no commonly accepted terminology exists". That immediately causes cognitive dissonance: if no commonly accepted terminology exists, what this section is about? Is it about some terms thatg are being occasionally used by some authors? If that is the case, why all of that is needed? In reality, even genocide scholars themselves devotes no space in their works to the discussion of terminology issue.

Secondly, this section implies that the "terms" are used by leading experts in the field. That is also false. No counytry experts use this terminology, the only real term is "genocide", which does not need a separate definition.

Third, the section makes unjustified generalizations. For example, "repressions": it is a specific term used mostly for Stalinism. And this example is a good demonstration that it is much better not to keep a single section, but discuss each term where it is being used (or not to discuss it at all, because these terms are self-evident).

I see only one way to preserve this section. To move it to the bottom, and to change the title to "Attempts of genocide scholars to develop common terminology for Communist mass killing". That would be something I supported, because it may be useful to demonstrate who and why tries to introduce a common terminology, and that would not be misleading, because a small fraction of authors do see a significant commonality between these events and try to find a common mechanism in each of them.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:01, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, sorry if I interject, I suppose Attempts of genocide scholars to develop common terminology for Communist mass killing would be an accurate title but then why not simply add a section about Communism at Genocide, Mass killing, etc.? Why there must be an article about it when it is just "attempts of genocide scholars to develop common terminology for Communist mass killing" rather than a clear, main topic. I still would like to hear your thoughts about my proposal of creating a single article discussing scholarly analysis of Communist regimes that includes background, context, the rising of living standards, modernisation, lives saved (as discussed by Ellman and others) and repression, mass killings and famines with context and relevant, expert scholarly views highlighted rather than having so many Communist-related coatrack articles? Davide King (talk) 07:32, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I can provide many reasons why any attempts to delete this article will be fruitless, but one reason is sufficient: that will never happen. a significant part of Wikipedia community will be against that, and they will present several sources, including Valentino, Rosefielde, Black Book to support their position. And that will be sufficient for any closing admin (or an ordinary user) to conclude: "No consensus to delete/rename".

Therefore, let's better focus on article's improvement. --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:35, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, this is interesting. Could you please clarify whether you think it should be deleted but you are for Keep only because a Delete "will never happen", or you are for Keep because you think a clear, main topic exists? I think a topic may exist, but it is no clear nor mainstream, so in my view it should not be a standalone article. Either way, I try not to be so pessimistic and I hope that if our reading of sources not supporting the main topic is indeed correct, then I would hope the admin will do the right thing and that those who are for Keep would not oppose deletion/merge, if our reading is indeed correct. I am working on a RfC about the main topic and I think it is more neutral than a RfD because many for Keep may be to keep the article, but they may disagree on the main topic, so it is a Keep for one topic and a Delete for another. If my reading of guidelines is correct, an article is supposed to have a clear, main topic; and that if there is no consensus for a clear, main topic, then delete/merge would be the obvious result. I would also argue that your reading of WP:ONUS is correct and that the status quo would be deletion/merge, considering the controversy of a sockpuppet creating the article in the first place. Finally, I believe my compromise of saving the actual content (I have already added most of it to more appropriate articles; it remains mainly the mass killings in the states that can be moved to each individual Communist country and event as part of an Estimates section) having a single Communist-related article about scholarly analysis not limited to mass killings and a Victims of Communism article structured as a popular fringe theory and something that "appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature" rather than an academic theory would be a fine compromise and may actually work. Is really no one going to support this? Aquillion, BeŻet, C.J. Griffin, The Four Deuces, Rick Norwood. Davide King (talk) 03:53, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I would object to deletion, because the topic really exists. The Black Book is one of the most influential books of late XX century, and one of the most controversial. My objections to this article is primarily its unencyclopaedic structure, a blatant lack of neutrality, and original research. The topic of this article is a discussion of the idea of "generic Communism", because this idea has many supporters and many opponents, and the discussion of the role of Communist ideology in mass killing. That would be the third part of the article. The first part should neutrally summarize the views of experts in history of each Communist states about the mechanism of mass killing onset in each particular case. For example, for Cambodia, experts see three important factors, and only one of them is the Maoist ideology. The second part of the article should provide a comparative analysis of separate mass killings events in communist states and other states. Thus, there are good studies that find commonalities and differences between mass killings in Cambodia and Indonesia, in Cambodia and Rwanda, etc. Taken together, that will allow us to paint a complex picture of events in Communist states, and to avoid both whitewashing Communist crimes and creating an image of Communism as the greatest evil of XX century.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:48, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, it would not be an actual deletion because I would propose this to be renamed as Victims of Communism, or something like, following the structure you outlined while making clear this is a more a popular theory and something that "appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature" rather than a widely accepted academic theory. I would definitely support the restructuring you suggested and outlined here, removal of all synthesis and original research. But until that actually happens, I will continue to propose a scholarly analysis article that includes background, context, the rising of living standards, modernisation, lives saved (as discussed by Ellman) and repression, mass killings and famines with context and relevant, expert scholarly views highlighted; and a Victims of Communism article about the popular theory and a merge of coatrack Communist-related articles such as Crimes against humanity under communist regimes, among others, here. Finally, which main topic do you actually support among those I listed here? You are free to add the one you propose, if I have not listed it there already. Davide King (talk) 05:06, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, about your comment "We can speak about a longstanding consensus version only when a consensus building process is normal. If the article is fully protected or it is under severe editing restrictions, it is more correct to speak about a "frozen accident" (using physicists jargon)". I linked to diffs to show that there was substantial time (about 16 months) when the terminology section existed prior the period of the editing restrictions on the article. You're under no obligation to respond to each point in my last post, but I would rather you would respond to the numbered points where you have a significant disagreement, rather than bringing it up again later on. I thought the numbers would help keep things straight. About your comment "The name "Terminology" implies that terminology is used by scholars who works in that area. Although some reservations are made that explain that is not the case, a reader will be mislead.", scholars do use this terminology: the aggregator source scholars. Multiple excerpts are included in the article already showing the terminology discussion for several of the terms. See excerpts "a" through "d". Are more examples required? About your comment "if no commonly accepted terminology exists, what this section is about?", the section is about the variety of terms used and to explain the specifics of there being no commonly accepted terminology. We are supposed to be presenting the topic as we find it in the sources, warts and all. About your comment "this section implies that the "terms" are used by leading experts in the field. That is also false. No counytry experts use this terminology", I see you are ignoring my number 6 comment above, when I asked you "Wouldn't the "genocide scholars" be the "real experts" for this particular topic? The narrowly focused single-country authors would be "real experts" only in their individual fields of focus, not on this wider cross-country topic." About your comment "For example, "repressions": it is a specific term used mostly for Stalinism." As can be seen the in the excerpts section, "repression" has also been used generally, as in the title of "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression" (and in excerpt "t") and by Krain 1997 (excerpt "ak"). If you insist on looking at just the single-country sources, you can find the term used by them for single countries as well. You seem to still be pushing the idea that the single-country sources are the sources we should be emphasizing, despite the obvious SYNTH problem that causes. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:49, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I skipped your #6. I looked through the excerpts "a - d", and my impression is that them, as well as the section as whole tells a story about a bunch of non-experts who are truing to propose various buzzwords to combine several tangentially related events into some single phenomenon.

Look, all of that seems to start from Rummel, who performed factor analysis of very crude (according to Harff) data for all state killings that he named "democide". He observed some significant correlation between totalitarianism and the number of victims. And, despite the fact that Correlation does not imply causation, that set a new paradigm, and some scholars continued to dig in that direction using either statistical approaches (such as Harff or Wayman&Tago), or speculations (like Valentino or Mann), or falsification (read the literature about a scandal around BB). Do they represent majority view of scholarly community? No.

In another, big world, there are experts in history of each separate country, and they use totally different approaches. They ignore writings of genocide scholars because they have little explanatory power. These country experts paint much more complex and accurate picture of the events that took place in Communist countries. And their views are dramatically underrepresented in this article, which provides a primitive and oversimplified picture of thoese very complex and conraversial events.

The only conclusion any attentive reader would draw from the "Terminology" section (including excerpts a-d) is "no terminology exists for MKuCR". However, if no "terminology" exists why this section is needed? That section is harmful, because, less attentive readers may get an impression that some well developed theory or theories exist for MKuCR, and that topic in a focus of modern scholarship. That is obviously not the case. Therefore, the section is harmful, misleading, and it wastes precious article's space, which could be used for much better purposes.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:16, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, regarding "[y]ou seem to still be pushing the idea that the single-country sources are the sources we should be emphasizing, despite the obvious SYNTH problem that causes", that is my point. We should only use the few sources that discuss all them together such as The Black Book of Communism and Red Holocaust. We should not use Conquest as a source for the Soviet Union because The Great Terror discussed the Soviet Union only; we may mention Conquest if The Black Book of Communism or Red Holocaust mentions or quotes him, but we should not directly use The Great Terror, or any other single-country book, as a source, so maybe we actually agree on this?

Of course, you believe The Black Book of Communism et al. are enough and support a standalone article. On the other hand, precisely because of the synthesis you highlighted, I believe the article as currently structured should not be a standalone article and it is not only unhelpful but it is actively harmful. I do no think the currently-structured article can be supported when scholars do not even agree on the terminology and there is no consensus among genocide scholars and Soviet and Communist studies scholars. The only Soviet and Communist studies scholar is Rosefielde, which is why I assume C.J. Griffin wrote "[n]ot only does this article present a fringe concept with scant coverage in academic sources, many of which are non-experts and politically biased (e.g., Rummel, Courtois) or simply not-notable (e.g., Valentino), with Rosefielde being perhaps the one exception."

The article, as currently structured, can never support NPOV when those are the main theorists and the only few scholarly sources supporting the topic. On the other hand, an article titled Victims of Communism, discussing both the popular theory that "appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature" and the theory supported by those scholars, with criticism and response, can be supported because it would not act like it is a mainstream, or widely accepted, concept in academia as the currently-structured article implies. In addition, if we are going to report the events, we can not do that without providing context, which brings me to the point those sources are problematic because they all represent one POV. Would it not be better to discuss repression, mass killings and famines as part of a Communist scholarly analysis article, rather than limiting to them only? This would avoid most NPOV and synthesis violations, including the issue of the main topic either not being clear or not being supported by scholarship as a standalone topic.
Davide King (talk) 07:49, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, if Conquest has information in his publications that are relevant to some part of this article, what is the problem with using him to include it? Wikipedia policy doesn't require, for example, every source that contributes to the George Washington article to be a full biography of George Washington. Supplemental sources can be used where helpful. The aggregator sources you have been citing are expert scholars in their fields of study, not "theorists". The topic of this article is not a theory, it is a set of events. The framing of those events is also not a theory, it is simply a topic. If you want to create another article about another topic ("a Communist scholarly analysis article"), then find sources to justify it and go do it. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:07, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, I do not think the George Washington example is a good one. They do not need to be a full biography of George Washington but they do need to be about George Washington. Conquest is about the Great Terror in the Soviet Union, not mass killings under Communist regimes. I believe that is also what The Four Deuces meant when making the example. Davide King (talk) 06:11, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

If you look at the "print sources" list at the George Washington article, three of the first four sources listed there are not about George Washington: "Benedict Arnold", "John Adams", and "Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766". The Benedict Arnold source is cited in the article for this sentence, among others: "During mid-1780, Arnold began supplying British spymaster John André with sensitive information intended to compromise Washington and capture West Point, a key American defensive position on the Hudson River." The sentence helps to provide useful information to the reader despite not being directly about George Washington. These three sources can be thought of a supplemental sources, and there is no problem with this article having such things also. In the case of Conquest being cited for info on the Great Terror, that actually seems more directly related to large-scale killing under a communist regime. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:41, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Are those sources actually used in the article? If they are, are they used to support controversial claims rather than non-controversial ones? One issue with citing Conquest, or really any other who does not discuss them together, is that it implies Conquest is a proponent of the concept. This goes back to our different views on what the main topic actually is. Mine and others' understanding is that the main topic is supposed to be a concept outlined by Valentino and others rather than a list or report of mass killings under Communist regimes. Your understanding has the problem outlined by The Four Deuces below, namely that "[w]as it a mass killing? Did it occur under a Communist regime? If the answer to both questions is yes, then add to article." But this is synthesis when sources discuss only one country, or do not follow the concept outlined by Valentino, Rummel and others. Davide King (talk) 08:49, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

"Are those sources actually used in the article?" I literally quoted the sentence used by the "Benedict Arnold" source in the George Washington article. Just having a non-aggregator source used in this article is not synthesis unless it is used "to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources", per WP:SYNTH. If the material a source is cited for in the article is accurate to the source being cited, it is not synthesis. If the only sources cited in this article were single-country sources, then the article as a whole would be synthesis, but I have repeatedly shown you the aggregator sources that justify the article, so that is not the case. Show me a sentence with synthesis in the article, citing Conquest or anyone else. If you find one, we'll delete it. AmateurEditor (talk) 07:29, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Paul Siebert for why they are synthesis. Another synthesis would be Valentino, who proposes Communist mass killing as a subtype of mass killing, not mass killings under Communist regimes. The ones who may propose mass killings under Communist regimes are Courtois, Rosefielde and Rummel. Yet, as noted by The Four Deuces, Courtois and Rummel are about "the evils of Communism in general" and "mass killings by governments in general", respectively. In addition, the introduction by Courtois, which is what caused most of the controversy, was not peer-reviewed and Rummel's work was published outside mainstream academic press. So we are left with Rosefield, the only one who is an actual Soviet and Communist studies scholar. We can not rely on a single source and this single source is problematic and controversial for trivalising the Holocaust and not being a mainstream view. The current article act like this is a mainstream view or, to quote Aquillion, the entire topic "is presented as an uncontroversial academic theory." Another synthesis issue, again as outlined by The Four Deuces, "[w]as it a mass killing? Did it occur under a Communist regime? If the answer to both questions is yes, then add to article", even though "the article is about a topic that does not exist in reliable sources, hence is synthesis." Finally, the current title and lead simply invites further synthesis in adding any mass killing under a Communist regime. Davide King (talk) 07:47, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Conquest is synthesis because the article is supposed to be about mass killing under Communist regimes as a general concept, not a list of any mass killing that happened under a Communist regime. Under the current article, single-country experts are actually synthesis for the aforementioned reason. You wrote it yourself that "[Paul Siebert] seem[s] to still be pushing the idea that the single-country sources are the sources we should be emphasizing, despite the obvious SYNTH problem that causes." This can be easily avoided by making the article about scholarly analysis of Communist regimes and not limitating it to mass killings. In this case, relying on single-country experts would not only be encouraged but it would avoid synthesis since the article would be about scholarly analysis. Please, think about my proposal. Davide King (talk) 07:54, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to Rick Norwood's analysis, I believe Mann is synthesis too. We write that "Mann has proposed the term classicide to mean the 'intended mass killing of entire social classes'" and that he "believe[s] that 'crime against humanity' is more appropriate than 'genocide' or 'politicide' when speaking of violence by communist regimes." While this is true and verified, this is synthesis precisely because Mann does not actually support the concept of mass killings under Communist regimes and he explictily says "[n]o Communist regime contemplated genocide." It is synthesis to imply that his terminology support the current article, or that his use of classicide or genocide is the same as mass killings under all or any Communist regimes as the article implies. This is further supported by the fact the book's title, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, Communist mass killing is not the main topic. Indeed, it says "[t]his comprehensive study of international ethnic cleansing provides in-depth coverage of its occurrences in Armenia, Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda, as well as cases of lesser violence in early modern Europe and in contemporary India and Indonesia. After presenting a general theory of why serious conflict emerges and how it escalates into mass murder, Michael Mann offers suggestions on how to avoid such escalation in the future." In other words, this is a useful source for Ethnic cleansing or/and Genocide, not for mass killings under Communist regimes. It is the very definition of synthesis to imply otherwise. Davide King (talk) 13:21, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

This talk page discussion is about some concrete section. I moved the posts that are not relevant to it to a separate section. Please, discuss only "Terminology" here.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:17, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

There is one more problem with that section, and that problem in not fixable. This section implies that MKuCR is some single phenomenon, so it needs, like Holocaust, some uniform terminology. That is an absolutely not true. Thus, "classicide" can be applied to dekulakizatioin, but can hardly be applied to the Great Purge (many workers and many Communists were killed as a result of it, so it was definitely not directed at some concrete class or social group). The same can be said about "genocide".

In contrast, the section implies scholars are trying to propose some single term for all deaths caused by Communist regime. Meanwhile, even Valentino didn't claim that. He applied "dispossessive mass killing" to some mass killings, whereas other cases were just ordinary mass killings, not related to Communism.

The only term that covers MKuCR as whole is "democide". However, when Rummel introduced his "democide", he defined it deliberately broadly, as any killing of people by its state. Therefore, "democide" is the umbrella term that has zero explanatory power, it by no means can help a reader to understand anything. The fact that it sounds very similar to "genocide" is also very misleading. "Democide" was introduced primarily for sake of facilitation of statistical analysis of deaths caused by government, and it is intrinsically unable to explain anything. Therefore, to claim that "Communist mass killings were a denmocide" is a pure tautology: yes, when some state kills its citizens, that is democide, so what? Killing of Chinese peasants by starvation in Great Leap Forward and killing of George Floyd in modern US are instances of democide. How calling something "democide" can explain anything?

My speciality is science, and I know that the more advanced and well developed some field of knowledge is, the less confusing terminology it uses. A misterious object with a singularity in the middle is called just a "black hole", the rate of a chemical reaction is called just "reaction rate". The principle that says that a coordinate of some object and its momentum cannot be know with absolute precision simultaneously is called just "uncertainty principle". All of that deals with a real science.

Do you really think by discussing the "terms" that explain nothing and mislead a reader we make the article more trustworthy and do not discredit Wikipedia? Do you really believe in that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:41, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Articles are supposed to be comprehensive of their topics and the different terms used about this topic simply are part of the topic that must be covered in some way. The current "Terminology" section does a decent job of that and I don't know what else to say about your "implies" points that I haven't already said. AmateurEditor (talk) 07:17, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Ironically, this article itself fails "to be comprehensive of their topics", especially with the lead which, as noted by The Four Deuces, fail to clarify the topic and summarise the body. It does not "identifies a notable topic" clearly and it does not "summarizes that topic comprehensively." Davide King (talk) 03:44, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Deletion/renaming

I favor deletion, with any sourced material here moved to a more appropriate article, such as the general history of communism or the biography of Mao Tse Tung. I expect most of the sourced material here is already there. I do not think changing the title to "Victims of Communism", as Davide King suggests, would be an improvement. As a general principle for any encyclopedia, articles should not have titles that take sides. For example, we would not have an article titled Victims of American Wars or Mass Killings by Napoleon. Rather, we have articles on America and Napoleon which cover history in context, rather than picking and choosing to make a point. This is the major difference between NPOV and propaganda. Propaganda only says bad things about the subject it is hostile to, not putting those events in context. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:55, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Non-neutral titles are allowed if they are commonly used, per Neutrality in article titles. Victims of Communism is the actual term used in anti-Communist literature. We have a precedent in Jewish Bolshevism, which is the theory that Communism is part of the international Jewish conspiracy. I don't see anyway that "Mass killings under communist regimes" is any less neutral. For one thing "communist regime" is an oxymoron: communism is a theoretical stage of development after the state has withered away. Communist should be capitalized. TFD (talk) 14:27, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Rick Norwood, I agree, but if this article must exist, it would be better the main topic is that and is re-structured to describe a popular but anti-communist and fringe theory in academia. As noted by The Four Deuces, non-neutral titles are allowed if they are commonly used and Victims of Communism is indeed "the actual term used in anti-Communist literature and I agree that the current title is any less neutral and Communist should be capitalised as is done in The Black Book of Communism, of all sources, to distinguish Communist party rule from small-c communism. Either way, would any of you support a scholarly analysis article of Communist regimes not limited to mass killing et al., rather than having so many coatrack and POV fork Communist-related articles? This article should be either merged or renamed Victims of Communism and restructured similar to Cultural Bolshevism or Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory to describe this popular but anti-communist and fringe theory amounting to double genocide theory rather than act like it is a mainstream or widely accepted view in academia as the current article implies. Davide King (talk) 15:08, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I would be in favor of renaming it for the reasons Davide King elaborated on above. This restructuring could possibly allow for an expansion of the article into new territory (with much discussion on talk for sure), such as discussions in some academic circles on the "victims of communism" narrative and "double genocide thesis" being ideological constructs and a pushback against the rising tide of anti-capitalist sentiment around the world to the precarity of the contemporary global capitalist system. Some sources on this are already present in the article in fact, such as Kristen Ghodsee's 2014 journal article on this very subject.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 16:16, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

C.J. Griffin, thanks! Does this mean you would support a single scholarly analysis about Communist regimes, including background, context, the rising of living standards, modernisation, lives saved (as discussed by Ellman et al.) and political repression, religious persecutions, mass killings and famines with context and scholarly debates, as discussed here, in a single article rather than having so many Communist-related coattracked articles, many of which would be merged there and only having their own article again if there are issues relating to size? And a Double genocide theory or Victims of Communism (the name is not so important as much as the outlining is, i.e. the theory itself; theory's acceptance, with support from various mass-media and popular literature as well as fringe media such as The Epoch Times and anti-communist organisations such as the Victims of Communist Memorial Foundation, and/but criticism from academia and most scholars in the field, with people like Courtois being the minority and revisionist; and its current status as a fringe yet popular especially in Eastern Europe view)? Davide King (talk) 01:24, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I would be open to the idea. On the one hand such an article would provide lay readers with a much broader and deeper analysis of a complex issue, but over time such an article could become a bloated mess, resulting in the restoration of the articles that were merged into it and deleted. Given that Double genocide theory is already its own article and the proposed title "Victims of Communism" is already hitting roadblocks, perhaps we could create the article you describe and move some material from this article to that one, and the rest could be moved over to Dgt. MKuCR could then be deleted.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:12, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Why "victims of Communism" is bad? Let me demonstrate that using two example. In this article, we can discuss Cambodian genocide pretty neutrally, and we can explain that the mass killings that happened in Cambodia were a result of at least three factors, and ultra-Maoism (which seems too Maoist even to Chinese) was just one of them. Therefore, we can explain that, contrary to common beliefs, Communism was not the only, and not the primary reason of that genocide. we can also explain that KR "Communism" had little in common with, e.g. Soviet Communism. We can also explain that KR genocide was stopped primarily due to Communist Vietnam intervention. Can we tell the same in the article "Victims of Communism"? I doubt.

Second example. Majority of sources describe the Great Purge not in a context of Communist ideology. It is seen as Stalin's attempt to get rid of those who were perceived dangerous to his personal rule. A significant part of them were Communists. Can we describe them as victims of Communism or victims of Stalin's authoritarian ambitions? Majority of sources prefer the second interpretation.

Finally, per Ellman, "repression victims" is a vague term that reflects political views of each particular author, "Victims of Communism" is even more vague. That would be a terrible title, please forget about it.

The current title allows us (at least theoretically) to separate real events (mass killings and mass mortality that really took place) from interpretations (to which extent Communist doctrine affected those events). That is why I propose you to stick with that title.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:28, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Victims of Communism isn't necessarily a vague term since it is used with a specific meaning by the anti-Communist community: "the historical truth of 100 million victims murdered at the hands of communist regimes over the past century." (Source: https://victimsofcommunism.org/) Wikipedia policy does allow articles about specific interpretations of history. For example the Great man theory is a theory that history can be explained by the actions of great men. The fact that other interpretations of history are possible or even preferred does not mean that we cannot explain this theory in its own article. TFD (talk) 20:05, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

TFD, you perfectly know the problem with that article: if Rummel says that 150+ millions were murdered by Communists (ca 100 million in USSR alone) we cannot say the overall figure is wrong using modern sources that present the numbers for USSR only. Per our policy, that would be synthesis, because no modern historian takes Rummel's estimates seriously, and they just ignore him. However since Rummel is the source that perfectly fits the topic, whereas Ellman, Maksudov, Zemskov or Erlichman are just country expects, the obsolete and incorrect Rummel's opinion is still here, and the opinia of modern experts play subordinated role.

The same problem will be with "Victims of communism": since most country experts prefer to use different terminology, and because they write about separate countries, their views will play a subordinated role. In addition, the article will become a collection of killings that were described as "victims of Communism" by at least one author. That will inevitably create a huge NPOV problem, because the views of anticommunists will be presented as mainstream, and views of their critics as revisionist.

In reality, such authors as Courtois are revisionists, because they challenge the old concept that Nazism was the greatest evil. Their views caused hot debates, and their POV has never been mainstream. Moreover, there is a direct connection between the attempts to present Communism as greater evil and Holocaust trivialisation (including resurrection of antisemitism), and whitewashing of former Nazi criminals. Therefore, is we decide to rename the article, the title should minimize a probability of further drifting of this article into that direction.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:56, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Re Great Man theory, the articles about some theory that is not universally accepted should always have at least three major components that allow a reader to get an impression on:

• The theory itself;
• Theory's acceptance (support and criticism);
• Its current status (is it a majority, minority, or fringe view).

I can see how it can be done under MKuCR title, but I absolutely do not see how the article named "Victims of Communism" do that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:35, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

It wouldn't be a collection of killings any more than the Great Man Theory is a collection of biographies of great men. In both cases we are interested in how the theory interprets the facts not the facts themselves. Note too in the Great Man Theory we don't pull out historians' writings on Cromwell, Edison, Churchill etc. and present their interpretations of their biographies in order to rebut the Great Man Theory. There are lots of articles about theories about history from mainstream to fringe. None of them assemble facts in order to prove the theory but explain the theories using reliable secondary sources. If people want to know about the lives of great men, they can read the articles about them. There's no need to cut and paste all of them into the Great Man Theory article.

Basically it would follow your outline. but it would use the name used by the proponents of the theory.

There's an article about the Captive Nations, which is how anti-Communists described non-Russian nations under Communism. Presumably Russia was the captor nation. Note that while it lists the captive nations, it doesn't try to prove they were captive nations by providing extensive details about their relationship to Russia or the USSR. And we don't call the article "Communists countries except Russia," which would be more neutral.

TFD (talk) 00:21, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, The Four Deuces is right, especially about the fact "it would follow your outline. but it would use the name used by the proponents of the theory." If we are going to report the events, which I do not think we should since they are or should be already widely discussed elsewhere, we can not follow your proposal of adding context and background, which I would support, because the only few sources on the topic all represent a POV; and it would be original research to add context and background from scholars who are either not responding to Courtois et al. or are not even discussing the topic because they do not believe in it.

I still believe the best solution would be to make a scholarly analysis article about Communist regimes not limited to mass killings but discussing the topic there and have an article here about the theory only, without devolving in the events which we would already describe at the scholarly analysis article. If you disagree with Victims of Communism, we may name it Double genocide theory and the topic as proposed by The Four Deuces and mine would essentially be the same, so think about it. It would also be more accurate since you note that Courtois is essentially proposing this. I also find it interesting it is the proponents of this theory that are revisionists, not the ones opposed to it; because I believe many who have argued for Keep probably believed the reverse was true. It is indeed true that they are revisionists in proposing the double genocide theory and that Communism and Nazism were equal. Davide King (talk) 01:11, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

If you believe it wouldn't be a collection, what exactly will prevent that scenario? Why the new name will prevent it to be a collection, and what is the problem with the current title that made the this article such a collection?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:23, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Regarding this, I would say we will deal with that the same way we deal with vandalism, i.e. reverting. The new name would prevent the current scenario because it would be clearly described as a theory in popular literature and outside scholarship and it would be outlined exactly as you described, without reporting the events of all Communist countries as the article currently does and which under my proposal would be done in a single article about scholarly analysis of Communist regimes. In this article, we would limit to describe the theory, its acceptance and current status; and if you have any doubt about the proposed Victims of Communism title, we could rename it Double genocide theory, which is essentially the same thing. Finally, the current article inherently leads to collection because it says Communist regimes and still implies that mass killings are inherent to communism. I will let The Four Deuces responds above, which is why I did not indent my comment, but I hope this was helpful. Davide King (talk) 04:15, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I recall, last time the implementation of that plan lead to multiple blocks and full protection of the article for several years. The fact that the users who disagree with any change of status quo are inactive now does not mean that they will not activate if you attempt to do some changes. The number of people who trust the Black Book (in reality, its infamous introduction) and do not want to go into details is much bogger than you think.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:08, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

The current problem is that the article is about a topic that does not exist in reliable sources, hence is synthesis. "Was it a mass killing? Did it occur under a Communist regime? If the answer to both questions is yes, then add to article." If the article was about VOC, then sources would have to be reliable and discuss VOC. A source that provides a template for an article is the beginning of the introduction of The Criminalisation of Communism in the European Political Space after the Cold War by Laure Neumeyer (Routledge 2018). TFD (talk) 05:41, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Being a "devil's advocate", I am arguing that Valentino, Rosefielde, Courtois and Rummel are sufficient to claim the topic does exist. And, we have Ellmann's opinion, who noted that "victims of Stalinism" is intrinsically vague topic, which is extremely politicized. Actually, about 30% of humankind may claim that they are, to some degree, victims of Communism. --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:30, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, arguing that "Valentino, Rosefielde, Courtois and Rummel are sufficient to claim the topic does exist" does not mean the article must exist. A topic existing does not mean it is notable or widely accepted in scholarship. They may be sufficient to discuss the topic, for example as a subsection, not as a standalone article. To exist, it would need to be notable or widely accepted, but this is not the case, as you yourself note that it is actually ignored, implying we should not have an article about it, when we can discuss their views at their own article, at Mass killing, or include their views as part of a scholarly analysis of Communist regimes article. Since for all your good efforts and intentions, the article is still the same, another attempt at deletion/merge may be worth trying. You wrote "there are experts in history of each separate country, and they use totally different approaches." I support this approach but I do not support it for this article because they are not actually discussing the main topic, i.e. mass killings under Communist regimes as a general concept, which either does not exist or is not notable for a standalone article as currently structured. I argue that your approach, which I support, can only be implemented in a broad article about scholarly analysis of Communist regimes which also discusses mass killings, otherwise it would be still be synthesis just like the current article is. This can not be done as the article maintains the current name, which is problematic as explained below by Buidhe and The Four Deuces, and this structure. Davide King (talk) 16:40, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, this is a very accurate and good summary, as always. This is exactly what I am talking about and referring too. That is why I believe Paul Siebert should reconsider this article existing because the main topic is synthesis and does not exist in reliable sources. Mass killings under Communist regimes is itself a synthesis topic and is not supported by reliable sources, for even The Black Book of Communism and Rummel's work do not support this, as they are about "the evils of Communism in general" and "mass killings by governments in general" rather than mass killings under Communist regimes, the supposed topic of this article, resulting in the synthesis highlighted by The Four Deuces. Davide King (talk) 05:54, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I agree but that is why I believe the implicit and systematic bias in favour of keeping the article, simply assuming sources support the main topic and having yet to rebuke or debunk all arguments against this, should be kept in mind by the closing admin and is also why I am preparing a RfC rather than a RfD. As for The Black Book of Communism, I believe a neutral discussion would result in the Introduction not being reliable or green but yellow at best. As noted by The Four Deuces, the introduction was not peer-reviewed. I also believe The Four Deuces gave a convincing argument that the book is about "the evils of Communism in general" rather than mass killings under Communist regimes; and even Rummel's work is about "mass killings by governments in general", not mass killings under Communist regimes. I assume you think this will not be enough to convince those "who disagree with any change of status quo" but I believe an attempt is worth making after all those years. Perhaps those obstructionists to any change or improvement to the article that you mentioned should be sanctioned for disrupting behavior. Davide King (talk) 05:48, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Rick Norwood, you say "As a general principle for any encyclopedia, articles should not have titles that take sides." How is "Mass killings under communist regimes" a title that is taking sides? How is it any different than these titles: History of slavery in Indiana, Piracy in Somalia, Ulysses S. Grant presidential administration scandals, Slavery in ancient Greece, War crimes committed by the United States, Nazi human experimentation, Forced settlements in the Soviet Union, Torture and the United States, Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, Christian terrorism? Just because a topic is unpleasant does not mean that it is taking a side. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:49, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

• Both "Mass killings under communist regimes" and "anti-communist mass killings" do take a side by implying that the killings are related to the regime being Communist or anti-communist, which is not supported by the bulk of scholarship. In contrast, for example, Indiana laws permitted slavery and Nazi regime deliberately practiced human experimentation as a matter of policy. The article title "human experimentation under fascist regimes" would not be allowed because there is no demonstrated connection between human experimentation and fascism in general. [ed. and if you can't see the bias in such article titles, just imagine "slavery under capitalism"!] (t · c) buidhe 14:55, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, and, what makes a situation even worse, the bulk of scholarship do not criticise these views, but essentially ignores them. Therefore, majority of criticism cannot be added because that would be OR per our policy. Thus, the only scholar who criticised Rummel approach in general was Dulic, who discussed his estimates for Yugoslavia. That criticism is equally applicable to Rummel in general, but no author bothered to do that. As a result, we have a paradoxical situation: we know that Rummel's data are obsolete, and his statistical approach is flawed, but we have to keep his data because his conclusions and estimates has not been debunked: they are just ignored by country experts.

There is a lot of theorizing in the article that discusses a linkage between Communism and mass killings, and emphasise commonalities between mass killing in different Communist states. However, I am not sure we can add articles that do not criticize these views, but just provide an alternative view: for exampole, see commonalities not between Cambodian genocide and Stalinist repressions, but commonalities between Communist and non-Communist genocides in East Asia.

However, I still cannot see how renaming this article to VOC can resolve a situation: I anticipate such sources as Rummel, Courtois, Valentino and Rosefielde still to form a core of the article, even if we change the title. How do you propose to change a situation?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:28, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe, ironically by searching "communist mass killings" at Google Scholar, I get more results discussing anti-communist mass killings than communist mass killings. This just goes to show this article is synthesis. Anti-communist mass killings may be simply renamed List of anti-communist mass killings. Only for Communism such blatant NPOV violation is allowed and that this article has been existing for this long and with this name, despite three out of five AfDs showing no consensus and the topic not being supported by the bulk of scholarship, is beyond me. Davide King (talk) 16:47, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Off topic but clicking through it appears most results are for the Indonesian anti-communist mass killings of 1965–66, regardless of quote marks[19] (t · c) buidhe 16:54, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe, if that is true, both should be deleted and merged, with useful content to be moved to relevant articles. The problem with this article is that most sources I find through Communist regime, Communist genocide, etc. on Google Scholar et al. discuss Communist genocide in Romania, Communist mass killings in Cambodia, Stalinist repression in the Soviet Union, etc.; they do not discuss it as a single thing, a general concept, or as mass killings under Communist regimes like the current article does in its synthetisation. The only few sources are Courtois, Rosefielde and Rummel, with only Rosefielde being a Soviet and Communist scholar but ending up promoting the double genocide theory or Holocaust trivalisation with Red Holocaust, and Courtois and Rummel being either non-experts, or too controversial or merely representing one POV rather than scholarship consensus. Valentino discusses a different topic, mass killing, with Communist mass killing as one subtype of mass killing; the other being ethnic mass killing and "mass killing as leaders acquire and repopulate land." Davide King (talk) 17:07, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

buidhe, you say "The article title "human experimentation under fascist regimes" would not be allowed..." but it absolutely would be allowed if there were reliable sources that discussed that topic sufficiently for a standalone article. That's what WP:GNG states, and that is the situation we have here. Whether we can have an article or not does not depend on our understanding of things, it depends on reliable sources and what they contain. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:54, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, in most of your examples there is a clear connection between the place and the problem. The Soviet Union had for example a policy of forced settlements for at least part of its history. The Soviet Union therefore was responsible for the policy. But "communist regimes" is not a place and therefore does not act like the government of ancient Greece, or the Roman Empire or Nazi Germany. China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea and Cuba are not an empire that follows a single government or version of an ideology.

Christian terrorist is of course a problematic term because it can imply that Christianity causes terrorism, which is why the Obama administration banned the use of the term Islamic terrorism. But we use these terms per "Non-neutral but common names" because "When the subject of an article is referred to mainly by a single common name, as evidenced through usage in a significant majority of English-language sources, Wikipedia generally follows the sources and uses that name as its article title.... Sometimes that common name includes non-neutral words that Wikipedia normally avoids (e.g. the Boston Massacre or the Teapot Dome scandal). In such cases, the prevalence of the name, or the fact that a given description has effectively become a proper noun (and that proper noun has become the usual term for the event), generally overrides concern that Wikipedia might appear as endorsing one side of an issue." But that exception does not apply here because the only two sources that use the term are Wikipedia and Metapedia, which copied the term from this article. Of course the editors of Metapedia believe that mass killing is part of communist ideology and communism operates as a world-wide conspiracy.

TFD (talk) 15:54, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

TFD, wikipedia policy doesn't say anything about a topic needing to be "a place" and, as you say, not all of the examples are, so I don't know what point you are trying to make there. If your point was that "communist regimes" are not a thing, then you should be trying to get the Communist state article deleted. It's not up to us what reliable sources decide they will cover or what words they choose, and there are reliable sources that cover "communist regimes". The exception for non-neutral common names is irrelevant here because WP:NPOVTITLE has two subsections, "Non-neutral but common names" and "Non-judgmental descriptive titles". "Mass killings under communist regimes" falls under the second one, "Non-judgmental descriptive titles". "Mass killing" is neutral, according to multiple reliable sources already included in the article. "Victims" would be much less neutral and also much broader as a topic. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:54, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, please read the link I provided which would provide a template for the article. It doesn't mention Rummel, Valentino and Rosefielde. It does provide discussion about Courtois, because the Black Book of Communism is a central text of the Victims of Communism theory. The book "contributed directly to the rise of the totalitarian paradigm. The best-selling publication was the subject of violent controversy among among historians specialising in communism, to the point that some of its co-authors distanced themselves from the introduction written by the French historian Stephane Courtois. Its detractors criticied its lack of methodological rigour, its conception of historical work as 'work of justice and memory' and the ideological dimension of its approach. In any event, by making criminality the very essence of communism, by explicitly equating the 'race genocide' of nazism with the 'class genocide' of Communism in connection with the Ukrainian Great Famine of 1932-1933, the Black Book of Communism contributed to legitimizing the equivalence of Nazi and Communist crimes.... [This anti-Communist narrative] is based on a series of categories and figures used to denounce Communist state violence (qualified as 'Communist crimes', 'red genocide' or 'classicide') and to honour persecuted individuals (presented alternatively as 'victims of Communism' and 'heroes of anti totalitarian resistance')." It's not as if the source merely repeats Courtois. Note too the sources we should use come from political science not genocide studies. If readers are interested in what the actual numbers are, they can read articles that discuss them. The focus of this article should be describing the political narrative. TFD (talk) 16:28, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

TFD, thank you for summarising the ideas I myself have been advocating at that talk page for years. I perfectly know all of that. My question is different: what will prevent some users from adding more and more sources (newspaper publications, popular books etc) telling about various victims of Communism and moving the scholarly publications similar to what you cite to some separate section at the very bottom of the article?

Let me remind you that this article started as the article about Cambodian genocide (which was a pretty legitimate topic), but it quickly became a collection of all events that were characterised as mass killing by at least one author. What will prevent the same scenario in the new article?

If we follow the ideas expressed in the source you cite, this article can be converted to something what I already proposed at that page:

• What happened in Communist states, and how various scholars explain mass killings in each concrete Communist country;
• Which books are attempting to find a common cause? What is their political motivation (if any)?
• Support/criticism of these theories.

If we cannot do that in this article, how can renaming help us?--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:48, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

There will always be editors who want to add information that doesn't belong. But that can be better handled by defining the topic and using an appropriate name. If you call the article MKuCR, then expect editors to add various incidents of mass killings. But VOC has a specific connotation.

I would not detail what happened in Communist countries because the article is about how it was interpreted not what happened. In my example, the Great Man Theory, we don't provide detail about the history of the world, then how historians interpret history and finally how the great man theory interprets it. We begin with the theory, what it argues, who supports it, then why some historians reject it. We don't even get into detailed examination of the alternative theories.

Another problem with detailing opposing views is that it presupposes that the explanation of the mass killings is the subject of scholarly debate. The VOC school attributes it to Communist ideology and conspiracy, while others attribute it to different causes, such as the political history and traditions of violence in which it occured. But scholars of mass killings who see no connection between mass killings in various Communist states don't specifically try to rebut the VOC narrative, just as historians of world history don't set out to rebut the great man theory. When they write for example that a war was caused by economic rivalry, they don't then explain why the personalities of the leaders was not the cause. It's just assumed.

TFD (talk) 22:38, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

VOC's connotation strongly depends on political views of each concrete author. Some authors claim all victims of Russian Civil war (from both sides) are victims of Communism, some authors disagree. In my opinion, VOC is worse, because it creates more opportunities for adding totally unrelated materials.

You say "the article is about how it was interpreted not what happened". In reality, this article is about "how many were killed, and how do various authors call that". Can you show me the mechanism that can prevent similar scenario for VOC article?--Paul Siebert (talk)

The source I provided says that the term VOC is used by anti-Communists to honor individuals persecuted by Communism. Of course the same term may mean different things. Mars for example can mean either a Roman god or a planet. But per disambiguation, we decide which topic the article is about and define it in the lead. The way you keep an article on topic is to provide a recognizable title and a clearly defined and sourced definition. VOC "is the term used by anti-Communists to explain mass killings and other crimes against humanity carried out by Communist-ruled states as being a result of Communist ideology or conspiracy." That type of phrasing rules out other things that might be called VOC. If you title the article MKuCR and begin, "Many mass killings occurred under 20th-century communist regimes," then expect a list of these killings and an assumption that they are connected in some way. TFD (talk) 23:50, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with TFD that VoC would be a better way to frame the article as a theory and avoid a ton of synth, OR, and coatracking. (t · c) buidhe 23:58, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Sure, there is a connection, and this connection is Communism. I see no problem with that, as soon as this connection is the main topic. Some authors argue the connection was strong, and Communism explains the mechanism of those deaths, some authors believe the connection is mostly just nominal. In addition, there is some connection between political views of some concrete author and the theory they advocate: as a rule, the proponents of "double genocide" theory are anti-Communists, some of them are neo-nationalists, some supporters of "generic Communism" theories are engaged in Holocaust trivialising, some are suffering from Vichy syndrome. Some authors are just superficial, and they prefer simple explanation of complex phenomenae. All of that can be explained in the MKuCR artilce, and I see no reason why the current title can prevent that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:28, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

If two things are connected then there is little reason to pay much attention to the connection in an article. Onion#Varieties for example describes various types of onions with no explanation of what connects them. They're all onions after all. Essentially if you believe they are connected, then there is nothing to complain about. TFD (talk) 03:27, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I think this discussion is becoming fruitless. Can you please explain why VOC may help us to remove all POV garbage from the article? That is a question number 1. The question number 0 is why do you believe an attempt to rename this article will be successful?--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:49, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

As I explained above, establishing a topic for this article that has been documented in reliable sources as opposed to one based on editors' synthesis is the only possibility of having a neutral article. Then we can rely on WP:BALASPS and WP:TERTIARY to determine the weight to provide various aspects of this topic. Right now we have no criteria for determining weight, which is why it is biased. TFD (talk) 05:06, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

TFD, weight is based on the sources that discuss the topic, per WP:BALASP: "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." Tertiary sources are not required, per WP:PSTS. We already have what we need for a neutral article. AmateurEditor (talk) 07:08, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Sorry but I don't understand your comment "We already have what we need for a neutral article." WP:BALASP is not about having what we need, but ensuring that (as you quoted) we do not "give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject." And you missed the relevant sentence in WP:PSTS: "Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight." Due weight does not mean putting in anything that can be sourced and that we find important but giving the same weight to information about a subject that one would find in reliable secondary and tertiary sources about the topic. What do you think these policies mean? TFD (talk) 14:35, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Amateur Editor caused me to stop and think for a few hours before responding. He asked (to summarize) why I object to "Mass Killing under communist regimes" and not to "War crimes committed by the United States". It is a hard question, and needed some serious thought. It seems to me that "Mass Killings under communist regimes" exists primarily to attack communism, is intellectually dishonest, and is written by people who want to destroy communism, while "War crimes committed by the United States" is written by people who are appalled that a country like the United States would commit War Crimes, and is trying to report this fact, rather than trying to destroy the United States. That, as I said, is how it seems to me. But Wikipedia requires evidence. And in the above, the only evidence is evidence of intellectual dishonesty, which I fight even if I agree with the cause. If I can't support my causes in an intellectually honest way, then I need new causes. Therefore, in the future, I'll try to focus on this question: is there any intellectually honest way to support this article? I have not seen it. But I'll try to be objective and honestly consider any connection between communism and mass killings, as contrasted with authoritarian dictatorships, whether on the Right or on the Left, and mass killings. If not, then the article should at the very least be broken up into several articles, "Mass killings under Stalin", "Mass killings under Mao Zedong", "Mass killings in Cambodia", and so on, along with "Mass killings in Chile", "Mass killings under Hitler" and so on.

I was interested to discover while researching my response that Mao Zedong is number one, with several times more than Stalin, who beats out Hitler by a hair. Rick Norwood (talk) 22:55, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Re Mao, the same approach would lead you to the conclusion Ford is a much more deadly car than Lamborgini, so the best way to prevent road accidents is to ban Ford and sell more Lamborgini instead. Mao was a ruler of a huge country with a population that was permanently living at the brink of famine. It is not a surprise that any political perturbations were leading to massive deaths. In relative numbers they were huge, but even the most deadly event, the Great Leap forward famine, was not the most deadly famine in Chinese history in relative numbers.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:19, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Rick Norwood, thank you for engaging in serious thought. The "intellectually honest way to support this article" is to look at the sourcing (see here for four of them) and compare that to the requirements of Wikipedia policy for an article, such as the general notability guideline. We do not have to individually believe that there is a "connection between communism and mass killings" to support the article's right to exist. We need only acknowledge that reliable sources sufficiently cover the topic of mass killings under communist regimes to support a standalone article. By the way, regarding ranking, sources usually say Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge was the worst because, per Paul Siebert's point, although the absolute number killed was smaller, the percentage killed was higher. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:23, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

The problem with this is that the article is not merely a report of events that did indeed happen. As noted by Buidhe, the title and topic imply they "take a side by implying that the killings are related to the regime being Communist or anti-communist, which is not supported by the bulk of scholarship." As argued by The Four Deuces, we should describe the theory or concept, "not detail[ing] what happened in Communist countries because the article is about how it was interpreted not what happened." The events are already discussed elsewhere and they should be discussed again only to provide a context and background for the scholarly analysis article, not limited to mass killings, that I propose. On this, I agree with Buidhe, The Four Deuces and Rick Norwood. Davide King (talk) 06:43, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

If this article is a kosher topic then we should also have slavery under capitalism and capitalist genocides, because there is a fringe position that such connections exist. But actually all of these are POV titles because they imply a connection that is not made by the majority of sources. (t · c) buidhe 06:47, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe, I agree. They should be discussed at Genocide and Slavery; similarly, this one should be discussed at Mass killing. That is why I propose a scholarly analysis of Communist regimes not limited to mass killings et al. In this article, we would actually report the bulk of scholarship of Communist regimes, without following this article's fringe theory. Davide King (talk) 06:53, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

buidhe, if you want other articles to exist, then identify reliable sources that justify them, per WP:GNG. AmateurEditor (talk) 07:01, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I think he meant that it would be tendentious to create articles about topics that don't exist in reliable sources, which we have done here. Creating these articles would be pointy: trying to prove that this article is tendentious by creating similar tendentious articles. TFD (talk) 14:51, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor seems to be the main person supporting the article, and he has, on his own Wikipedia page, provided four citations in support of keeping the article.

All four are equivocal at best. If there are unequivocal academic studies of "mass killings under communist regimes" it would be good to see them.

Here, briefly, are quotes from the books cited by AmateurEditor:

Valentino: "Communist regimes have been responsible for this century's most deadly episodes of mass killing." This is a strange quote. Almost everyone would include Hitler's anti-communist regime in a list of regimes responsible for this century's most deadly episodes of mass killing. We have already looked at Valentino's quote "most regimes that have described themselves as communist ... have not engaged in mass killings."

Mann: The title of his book, "The Dark Side of Democracy", suggests that communist killings are not the main topic. He says explicitly "No Communist regime contemplated genocide." (adding that the Khmer Rouge is a borderline case).

Sernetin: I do not have a copy of this book, but the sentence at the beginning of the quoted passage makes me curious about what the preceding sentence was. "also developed by communist regimes". It at least suggests that "mass killings under communist regimes" are not the books main focus.

Chirot: Here we have a more explicit statement that communism is not the book's main focus. He explicitly groups communist mass killings with killings by "the Community of God or the racially pure Volksgemeinshaft."

All of these examples are from brief quotes supplied in defense of the article. All suggest or state that the books are not explicitly linking mass killings with communism. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:40, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Here is a link to Mann's chapter "Communist Cleansing: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot." His thesis is that Stalin carried out mass killings (mostly by famine) in order to industrialize the Soviet Union, and the method was copied by Mao, Pol Pot and some other Communist leaders.

The reason I think that an article about Soviet mass killings would be neutral while one about communist mass killings is not is that the first type assigns responsiblity to a person or state, while the second type assigns collective responsibility. In a similar situtation, it would be neutral to speak about war crimes by Israel but not neutral to call them war crimes committed by the Jews and bundle them in with war crimes committed by Jewish leaders in other countries. While the state of Israel is reponsible for what it does, Jews do not bear collective responsibility for what every other Jewish person does.

TFD (talk) 19:14, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Either you incorrectly transmitted Mann's ideas, or he himself is not completely right, because many other authors point and a principal difference between Stalin's killing and KR: whereas the former were (partially) dictated by a desire to industrialise the country, the KR's strategy was a full de-urbanization and conversion of the country into a rural commune. In addition, KR killings had obvious ethnic components: ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese were targeted first.

I totally agree with what you say about Israel and Jews, and that is an additional argument for a global modification of this article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:32, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

According to Mann, the Khmer Rouge intended to triple agricultural output and export the surplus "to pay for the import of machinery, first for agriculture and light industry, later for heavy industry." (p.343) So it was a long term goal that was never realized. TFD (talk) 20:56, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

RfC about the main topic

What is, or should be, the main topic of this article?

1. Communist genocide/mass killing
2. Crimes against humanity/Mass killings under Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot
3. Double genocide theory
4. Excess deaths under Communist regimes
5. List of Communist mass killings
6. Mass killings under Communist regimes
7. Scholarly analysis of Communist regimes
8. Victims of Communism

What is the status of the current article's main topic?

1. The topic does exist and it is mainstream
2. The topic does exist, but it is a minority or fringe view.
3. The topic does not exist and the article should be deleted/merged, or a new, clearer main topic established.

You are free to add more main topic possibilities. Below, I will summarise how each main topic could be structured. Please, do not just state your support for a main topic or that it does exist, without providing an analysis of sources; same thing for those who do not think the topic exists. Davide King (talk) 06:46, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

You are free to express your lack of support if you do not support any of those topics as standalone articles and answer the second question only. However, it is important that if you support one or more topics, you clarify that and answer the second question as this will help us reach a consensus on how to structure the topic. In short, those supporting at least one topic should answer both questions while those not supporting any of those topics can answer the second question only. Davide King (talk) 12:33, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

• 7 and 8 as separate articles. Those are the only two clear and notable main topics. Structured as outlined below, those are the only two clear main topics that would respect NPOV as extensively discussed by me in above threads and at Discussion here. 7 would include and discuss 1, 2, 4 and 5 while this article would discuss 3 and 8 which are essentially the same thing. I argue that 1, 2, 4 and 6 should be discussed at 7 because they do no warrant a standalone article because they do not represent a consensus among scholars but only that a few authors have proposed the theory. As extensively discussed below, the author and source used to support those main topics as standalone article either fails or are problematic. Those authors are either non-notable (Valentino according to C.J. Griffin and Karlsson according to Paul Siebert here) or non-experts and too much politically biased (Courtois, Rummel et al.), with only Rosefield being perhaps the exception as he is the only Soviet and Communist studies scholar; yet, his Red Holocaust is controversial and represents historical revisionism in presenting Communism and Nazism as equal; so we are left with no scholarly sources for a standalone article.
• Since this theory has appeared very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature, many users, including me, have been guilty of assuming that the topic exists and it is supported by scholarship when that is not case. If this was not enough, I argue that keeping this article as it currently is, it is not only unhelpful but it is actively harmful and may be a cause of circular reporting or citogenisis since results on Google Scholar of "mass killings under communist regimes" result in reference to this article, which is violating original research, synthesis and NPOV as is extensively discussed in my reasoning below and by others on this talk page and its archives.
  • 3 and even if 2 was true, it would only warrant 3/8 or 7 as main topic, as outlined below, for an article about mass killings under Communist regimes. When scholars do not even agree on the terminology and there is no consensus among genocide scholars and Soviet and Communist studies scholars on it, this should not be a standalone article but it should be discussed in an article about scholarly analysis of Communist regimes, at each proponent's page (as I have done at Benjamin Valentino) or at Mass killing. Finally, I conclude an implicit, systematic bias may have been at play here that avoided the article not to be deleted/merged when it should have been deleted/merged, as I see no other reason how one, who makes an analysis of sources, can conclude it is a main topic widely accepted by mainstream scholarship when it is not the case at all.
  • My argument is that this article is a mix of all those topics I listed below. The article takes the Communist genocide/mass killing concept from Mann, Straus (who is merely reviewing rather than proposing the concept) and Valentino, even though the first is about Classicide, the second is about genocide and the third is a chapter about genocides and mass killings in the 20th century (with Communism simply being one type), then listing all mass killings under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pol, and adding all excess deaths under all Communist regimes, even as only few scholars and from one side list all non-combatant victims (famines, wars, etc.), to suggest all those are victims of Communism, its more accurate title that, however, does not really solve all those issues (undue weight, original research, synthesis, more than one topic, NPOV, etc.) I have highlighted. I support 7 as a separate article and 8 as a renaming and full, complete restructuring and rewriting of this article. Davide King (talk) 07:24, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Summary of main topics

Note that the names I give are simply an example and you can support a main topic as I summarised while opposing the name I used and vice versa. You are free to propose a name for the main topic as those are not definitive and are simply possible example for each main topic.

1. Communist genocide/mass killing – this main topic would mainly discusses Communism as a new category of genocide and/or mass killings as outlined by Benjamin Valentino in Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century ("Communist Mass Killing"). Scott Straus' "Second-Generation Comparative Research on Genocide" merely reviews Valentino's work.
2. Crimes against humanity/Mass killings under Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot – this main topic would mainly discusses crimes against humanity and mass killings under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot as outlined by Klas-Göran Karlsson et al. in Crimes Against Humanity under Communist Regimes and would likely be merged with Crimes against humanity under communist regimes.
3. Double genocide theory – the main topic would be the double genocide theory as outlined in "From 'Double Genocide' to 'the New Jews': Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence in Post-Communist Memorial Museums", The Holocaust/Genocide Template in Eastern Europe and "Holocaust Revisionism, Ultranationalism, and the Nazi/Soviet "Double Genocide" Debate in Eastern Europe".
4. Excess deaths under Communist regimes – the main topic would be about excess deaths under Communist regimes as outlined by Stéphane Courtois, Steven Rosefielde and Rudolph Rummel in The Black Book of Communism, Red Holocaust and Death by Government, respectively. I suppose the only difference with the topic of Communist mass killing(s) is that this one would include all famines, war deaths, etc.
5. List of Communist mass killings – the main topic would be a List article and structured as "a list, with links to main articles about the notable incidents, and links to similar lists about Capitalist genocides, US, British Empire, etc." as outlined here by Verbal.
6. Mass killings under Communist regimes – the current article which essentially includes and discusses all of the above, except the double genocide theory.
7. Scholarly analysis of Communist regimes – the main topic would be a scholarly analysis of Communist regimes, including background, context, the rising of living standards, modernisation, lives saved (as discussed by Michael Ellman et al.) and political repression, religious persecutions, mass killings and famines with context and scholarly debates, as discussed here, in a single article rather than having so many Communist-related coatracked articles.
8. Victims of Communism – the main topic would be the theory as outlined here and here by The Four Deuces. In my understanding, this theory appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature but a minority, if not fringe, among scholars. It would be described as a popular theory outside academia and scholarship, being pushed by the Prague Declaration, anti-communist organisations and fringe media such as The Epoch Times and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation which have recently added COVID-19 victims as victims of Communism. A good source for a start is the introduction of The Criminalisation of Communism in the European Political Space after the Cold War (2018) by Laure Neumeyer (Routledge).

You are free to add main topics you have individuated and to describe how you would structure the proposed article. You are free to add more research and analysis of sources. I believe it is about time we actually weight all our discussion and have a RfC about it because I agree with Paul Siebert that this is being fruitless, without a RfC.
Davide King (talk) 06:47, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

1. This should be covered at Benjamin Valentino, no need for a separate article.
2. What is the connection between Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot? They were often at odds. This has the same problem as the current article.
3. No, double genocide theory is considerably narrower. It only applies to the parts of Eastern Europe that were occupied by both Nazi and Soviet powers at some point.
4. I think that excess deaths should be addressed by country, such as Excess deaths in the Soviet Union, Excess deaths in the Khmer Rouge, etc. This does not meet the criteria in broad-concept article because to be an expert on deaths in one country does not indicate expertise in a different country.
5. Undecided on the merits of creating such a list.
6. Issues with the current article framing have been extensively discussed above. Lumping together various subjects into one is also not ideal.
7. I think it already exists, at Communism.
8. Moving the current article to this title would be an improvement, then we could rewrite from there. (t · c) buidhe 07:00, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

   Buidhe, thanks for your comments. As you can see from by vote above, I agree most of those topic are problematic but I have added them because this article actually discuss them together. As for 4, I am not sure that may warrant standalone-articles as they may be discussed in an Estimate section at each Communist country's history. As for 7, my proposal is to make it about scholarly analysis of Communist regimes, i.e. we would essentially report scholarly research and what is the consensus, the disputes, etc. in the scholarship field of Communist regimes. Communism is mainly about the philosophy and movement; and should not be limited to Communist regimes. It also does not include scholarly research the way I am intending and proposing for 7. Davide King (talk) 07:33, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Reasoning

Extended content

6 and 7 are the only two clear and notable main topics that would respect NPOV. All other main topics either do not exist or exist but are a minority view, so even if the latter was true, it would still not warrant a standalone article because its proponents, to quote Paul Siebert, are "a bunch of 'genocide scholars', who are attempting to propose their own buzzwords, are a just marginal group of authors, who are being essentially ignored by real experts in Russian Civil war, Stalinist repressions, Chinese Cultural revolution, Cambodian genocide, etc (see gscholar results, which you ignored)." They can be discussed as part of topic 6 and 7 but we can not base a main topic on them when they represent a minority. The current article and all other main topics are either non-notable (see Google Scholar et al. analysis below), filled up with original research, synthesis and NPOV violations by giving undue weight to the few authors or scholars who proposed the topic, even though they are not experts in Communist studies. If this was not enough, I would still argue that several of sources used to support the topic do not actually support it, certainly not as currently structured. As an example, we can not use Valentino to support the topic and talks about Afhganistan and other Communist regimes not mentioned nor discussed, or that Communism is to blame, when Valentino does not do either. Valentino does not discuss Afghanistan as Communist mass killing but as counter-guerilla mass killing, so we should not either, otherwise that is synthesis. Valentino does not assert that genocide is caused by any particular ideology but rather says that it occurs when power is in the hands of one person or a small number of people, so we should not have a POV-pushing about how some authors feel Communism is to blame when they are not discussing the same main topic. In other words, we should respect and follow the structure literature follows. I mentioned Valentino, but this goes for any source. We should not mix them up as the current article does. So if you are supporting one main topic citing Valentino as proof that the main topic exists and is notable, then you actually ought to follow Valentino analysis and not discuss or make conclusions Valentino never made or wrote about it, nor discuss Communist regimes not mentioned in the literature just because both were Communist regimes; that is original research and synthesis. As another example, if you vote for the main topic to be "The Big Three", then the article ought to discuss those three only as given sources to support the main topic do. As noted by Paul Siebert, Valentino did not lump all Communist regimes together; he did not write about Afghanistan as Communist mass killing, yet this article does so, even though Valentino and other scholars did not discuss it at all. There is also no agreement on the reading of Valentino. Those who support the topic argue that Valentino does support the topic too (he does support topic 1 but he is used to support topic 2, 4 and 5) but others and I disagree. As argued here by Rick Norwood, "[t]he [Valentino] chapter does not assert that genocide is caused by any particular id[e]ology but rather says that it occurs when power is in the hands of one person or a small number of people. A quote shows that the author's views are the opposite of the views given in this article, 'Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as communist or been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing.'" Here and here, C.J. Griffin and Rick Norwood, respectively, gave a perfectly good summary of what is wrong with those main topic I do not support 1–2, 4 and 6 as standalone articles. Here, Commodore Sloat went through the source and in my view gave a convincing argument for why they do not support the topic. As noted here by Fifelfoo, "the sources quoted are either FRINGE or don't actually theorise any cause, or explicitly claim the cause is greater than, or less than, communism." Even The Black Book of Communism only "presents a number of chapters on single country studies, it presents no cross-cultural comparison, there is no discussion of "Mass killing[/Any other bad thing] in Communism." As noted here by The Four Deuces, Valentino mentions that "other '[m]ass killings on a smaller scale also appear to have been carried out in other countries,' but this article uses a passing mention as a coatrack to provide extensive text on these other countries. As a result, the article does not follow the topic in the sources, doesn't explain what their authors concluded, but instead becomes a list article." Here, here and here, C.J. Griffin and Rick Norwood, respectively, gave a good summary of how many of the authors who may be used to support the topic are either non-expert, fringe, or non-notable. Here, The Four Deuces explains how George Watson, whose Lost Literature of Socialism we use in the article, who wrote that Adolf Hitler was a Marxist and argued that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were responsible for coming up with the idea of genocide, is fringe. Here, Aquillion came closest to the crux of the matter, namely that "several of the sources cited at length [...] are not as high-profile as we treat them here, which makes me think we might be giving that argument undue weight; and more generally the entire topic of the section is presented as an uncontroversial academic theory, which is certainly not a complete summary of it." As also noted here by BeŻet, the current article feels like "there is an attempt here to group all the mass killings together and just imply it is because of 'communism', while we are talking here about many different conflicts and historical events with wildly different historical backgrounds." The only sources that may support the current topic are Courtois, Rosefielde, Rummels and Valentino; and I just went through to explain why they are problematic but let us go deeper. Sources in the article gives a misleading look, as most of them are either about a singular country (it would be original research and synthesis to lump those with the main topic), are not about the main topic or are about a different topic (i.e. they should be discussed as part of Genocide and Mass killing articles, especially since many are not actually Communist studies scholar but genocide scholars. In addition, some sources only gives a passive mention about the estimates or are simply not discussing the main topic. As an example, we cite Matthew White, who is a popular historian writer and self-described anthropologist; yet, not only he is undue and non-expert on the topic but even ignoring this, he is only discussing the estimates in passive mentions and the book is titled Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History. This is not a book about Communist mass killings and many sources follow this same pattern. In conclusion, my argument is an article that respects NPOV can not be created with such sources. Those sources are the only few that may support the topic; and that is why I propose this, including a comparative analysis of Communist regimes such as under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, to be discussed in a single article about scholarly analysis of Communist regimes, respecting due weight; and only in the future, either to space issues or there is a scholar literature to support it, we may have separate articles. Until then, the best solution would be to have topic 6 and 7 as a separate articles; and that both articles would mention and discuss all those other topics, giving each due weight, so they would not be deleted or removed. In my view, this is a good solution and compromise, as it would solve most of the issue related to original research, synthesis and especially NPOV, while content would be moved and better discussed and contextualised in topics 6 and 7. The currently-structured article is more harmful than helpful and may be a cause of circular reporting or citogenisis as well as confrimation bias. Finally, I would note to be aware of ownership of content and that anti-communism, while not as widespread or relevant as in the Cold War, must be keep in mind since I have read many comments that were for Keep essentially being per sources or that Communist mass killings happened, which no one denies and both of which have missed the issue of the unclear main topic and other users' counterargument or analysis of sources. In other words, Communist mass killings appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature, so we are all influenced by the former, but scholarship is a different beast and is not one-sided as discussed popularly. This is not just my personal views but the views of several legitimate scholars as mentioned here by C.J. Griffin. That mass killings under Communist regimes did indeed happen does not justify we do not respect the guidelines about a clear, main topic; and that this does not change the fact a literature based on a main topic as currently structured in the article does not exist or is a minority at best.

This seems to be a good summary of main arguments against the currently-structured article. You are free to add those in favour of the currently-structured article.
Davide King (talk) 07:01, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Google Scholar et al. analysis of sources

1. "communist genocide" and "communist mass killing"
2. "crimes against humanity under communist regimes"
3. "double genocide theory"
4. "communist death toll", "communist death tolls" and "communist deaths"
5. "communist mass killings"
6. "mass killings under communism" and "mass killings under communist regimes"
7. "analysis of communism", "analysis of communist regimes" and "communist regimes"
8. "communist victims" and "victims of communism"

You are free to add more research and analysis of sources. Davide King (talk) 06:48, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Continuing from here, we are left only with Courtois (The Black Book of Communism), Rosefielde (Red Holocaust), Rummels (Death by Government), Straus ("Second-Generation Comparative Research on Genocide") and Valentino ("Communist Mass Killing" in Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century). However, the only books who may support the topic are really only The Black Book of Communism and Red Holocaust. Rummels' work is about democide, which is another topic and is not exclusive to Communist regimes. Both Straus and Valentino's wrork is about genocide, with Communist proposed as a new category. In addition, Straus is mainly reviewing Valentino and others' work rather than proposing the main topic as Valentino did. Those are not all the same thing.

So we are left only with Courtois and Rosefielde's work. The Black Book of Communism is controversial; this does not mean it is unreliable but that it presents one views of the events. In addition, several users, as discussed above, gave convincing arguments in my view for why even The Black Book of Communism does not actually support the topic, only its introduction does. However, as noted here by The Four Deuces, both the introduction to The Black Book of Communism and Rummel's Death by Government were published outside the academic mainstream and not subjected to peer-review; indeed, it is the introduction the major source of controversy. If this was not enough, The Four Deuces also gave a convincing argument for why neither source actually support the topic, namely that "the first one was about the evils of Communism in general, while the second was about mass killings by governments in general." This is a problem with many of the sources themselves, with fringe sources such as George Watson supporting the first topic and other being about genocide and mass killings in general, i.e. this should be discussed at Genocide and Mass killing articles.

In addition, even some of the authors of The Black Book of Communism dissociated themselves from it. This was not merely about the estimates but about how Communism was compared to Nazism and even argued it was actually worse because it killed more; and in general of linking all mass killings, famines and excess deaths to communism as ideology. Rummel was a political scientist, published several of his works such as the aforementioned Death by Government outside academic mainstream press and without peer-review, his estimates have been extensively criticised and in general he is not really relied on as a mainstream source on Communist regimes. In other words, those are not experts about Communist countries and some are not notable. According to C.J. Griffin, the only exception may be Rosefielde, yet Red Holocaust is problematic. In the article, we write:

According to Jörg Hackmann, this term is not popular among scholars in Germany or internationally.[i] Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine writes that usage of this term "allows the reality it describes to immediately attain, in the Western mind, a status equal to that of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazi regime."[k][12] Michael Shafir writes that the use of the term supports the "competitive martyrdom component of Double Genocide", a theory whose worst version is Holocaust obfuscation.[13] George Voicu states that Leon Volovici has "rightfully condemned the abusive use of this concept as an attempt to 'usurp' and undermine a symbol specific to the history of European Jews."

That this is Holocaust trivalisation is also supported by Heni, Clemens (Fall 2008). "Secondary Anti-Semitism: From Hard-Core to Soft-Core Denial of the Shoah". Jewish Political Studies Review. Jerusalem. 20 (3/4): 73–92, 218. An analysis of sources through Google Scholar et al. shows they do not actually support the topic; they certainly do not support the topic 6, i.e. the article as currently structured, which mixes all those topics together. In my view, sources only support the topics 7 and 8 as extensively outlined above.
Davide King (talk) 07:08, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Here, Rick Norwood gave a good and concise analysis for why sources used to support the current article do not actually support it. Some of those I already analysed here, but they discussed others as well. "All of these examples are from brief quotes supplied in defense of the article. All suggest or state that the books are not explicitly linking mass killings with communism." In addition, I would note that none of those are discussing mass killings under Communist regimes as the currently article does; or, in other words, Communism, Communist mass killing and mass killings under Communist regimes "[are] not the book[s'] main focus." Davide King (talk) 12:59, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

In this sense, the currently-structured article, apart from synthesis and other issues, also violates WP:RS/AC. Davide King (talk) 13:49, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Comments

I will support what @AmateurEditor:, will support. All section (including this) became so much flooded with information, comments, like an online blog or chatlist, 30 days would not even be enough to investigate or read fully. You should a little bit stop flooding, you expressed countless times your stance. More WP:WALLOFTEXT will likely to be ignored, don't expect anyone to be convinced just becuase they will be fed up being bombarded with lengthy long essays (upwards, down, Jesus, just this section has 3 flood subsections, practically you discuss with yourself...).(KIENGIR (talk) 01:36, 19 November 2020 (UTC))

This comment amounts to unsupported and unsubstantiated personal attacks. We have Aquillion, BeŻet, Buidhe, C.J. Griffin, The Four Deuces and Paul Siebert who all gave very convincing and reseanoble summaries of the problem of this article. You seem to assume that since mass killings indeed happened under Communist regimes, then there ought of be an article documenting them, but this completely misses the point of mine and all those users' arguments. Maybe it is not us the problem but those who essentially amount to ownership and a bias in favour of keeping this article, which showed when you argued for Communism to be a category at both Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism. So it is not me or all those users who are 'pro-Communism' or 'Communists'; it is those who are in favour of keeping this article exactly as it is that are the problem to any solution. Davide King (talk) 03:41, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

RfCs should be concise. Bear in mind that we are inviting editors who are not familiar with the article to comment. I would withdraw it until we can offer a concise question. TFD (talk) 04:18, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, this is a fair criticism I can agree with. However, since we have been discussing this at length, I supposed this could be helpful in helping us understand where we stand on the main topic and whether it does actually exist or not, and whether it is mainstream, fringe or something else. I agree that for those who have not actually followed the whole discussion is problematic but something must be done, as it is clear this article has problems and denying this will only take us farther apart from finding a solution. Davide King (talk) 04:32, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

No, it has not nothing to do with any "personal attack", just don't try again with this. Your answer is evading away of what I said, there was no no need for mass pinging or describe again what you think, and assuming content inssues. Also, I did not own any article, as well never supported any bias (just because you were not aware correctly about some procedures and guidelines), as well I did not say anything about your or other user's stance of "pro-Communism or Communists" or whatsoever, please avoid such speculations. Simply you have to see not the number of repeating arguments or the length will convince people, but possibly they will make them WP:TLDR.(KIENGIR (talk) 07:47, 19 November 2020 (UTC))

The reason why I started this RfC was exactly to avoid we continued to have long and fruitless discussion as above. We should discuss this one only now and decide one clear, main topic. So you would have a point if this was just another thread, but it is not; it is a RfC. Maybe The Four Deuces can help in make it more concise, but I tried to summarise all the arguments above exactly so that those who have not followed the discussion could understand it. Davide King (talk) 08:19, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Well, anyone who ended up here saw an RFC header, and after three subsections + 1 collapsible (!) section full with lengthy contemplations mostly from one user, so this is the point to stop and let others to have time and read, if they did not lost so far the incentive for it. In case the discussion will grow in a near exponential way/amount as well here, then regardless of any intended goal this "section" won't be different like the others.(KIENGIR (talk) 14:43, 19 November 2020 (UTC))

I agree with KIENGIR that that RfC is poorly formulated, and it will not lead to anything useful. There should be preferably a single question with a binary answer. Davide King, taking into account that RfC is supposed to be closed by an uninvolved user, I doubt they will be able to adequately summarize all responses to each question. Therefore, it is quite likely there will be no closure, and it will be archived. I propose you to withdraw it, to discuss that with other participants of the talk page discussion, and to reopen the RfC again when a better question has been proposed.

I disagree with KIENGIR's position: "I will support what @AmateurEditor:, will support." That is a partisan approach, and RfC is not a !vote. If you have no own ideas, voting means nothing. Remember, if an RfC was closed just by a vote count, its trustworthiness is low, and its results may be contested. By the way, walls of text are partially a result of the discussion between me and AmateurEditor, and its length is not only my fault. --Paul Siebert (talk) 16:20, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

• Why not a RM to Victims of Communism? (t · c) buidhe 19:10, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert:, I hope you noticed my "partisan position" is an irony to the situation described (TDLR/comment commando e.g.), you can be sure I know RFC rules etc., I would add I have my own ideas, and shared as well, and I don't think your discussion with Amateureditor would be the problem (if it would be like so, I would have told it).(KIENGIR (talk) 19:18, 19 November 2020 (UTC))

KIENGIR, actually, I was disappointed because I wanted to see you ideas, not whom you support.

buidhe, thanks to AmateurEditor, I've read more on that subject, and now I see the problem at somewhat different angle.

First, the "aggregator sources vs single country sources" is a false dichotomy. In reality, several groups of "aggregator sources" exist, and only one group combines Communist states together. Other groups combine together backward countries with resource economy and strong political tensions (obviously, China, Cambodia and Soviet Russia fit these criteria, but many non-Communist states fit too). Another group combines East Asian genocides (China, Cambodia, Indonesia), but excludes USSR. Some sources combine Cambodia, Rwanda and Yugoslavia. I haven't finished reading, but it seems other types of aggregator sources exist. Therefore, "MKuCR" is a poor choice of a topic, because it artificially leaves certain types of aggregator sources beyond the scope. That means, the article and its topic violates our neutrality policy.

Second, I found that the fraction of the authors who really cares about proper terminology is negligible. They freely use "political genocide", "mass killings" etc for the same event, so any discussion of terminology is a kind of original research.

Third, the group of sources that combines MKuCR in one category is doing that in a context of the total number of victims, and that is done to convey an idea that Communism was the greatest evil. Therefore, if we group mass killings that happened under Communist regimes, it is necessary to explain that that is just one approach, out of many, and that grouping is accompanied to convey some very concrete idea. It is also necessary to say that that approach, and that idea is advocated by a limited group of authors, who has some supporters and some opponents. It is also necessary to briefly outline the views of other schools on the same events.

Therefore, the article should be totally rewritten. Currently, it tells "How many people were killed, why Communism is a primary cause of that, and how concretely those killings took place". A new version of the article should say: "Why some authors combine mass killings in Communist states together, which events fall into that category according to them, which conclusions do they draw from that, how their theories are accepted by other scholars".

If you think renaming to "Victims of Communism" will better serve to that goal, please, explain me why. In my opinion, both titles are bad. I would prefer "Communism and mass killings", or something of that kind: that article should discuss a linkage between Communism and mass killing, according to some authors.

I do not insist on that title, if you can propose some better title, you are more than welcome to do that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:00, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I absolutely support that "the article should be totally rewritten" and I think we actually have a plurality of support for doing just that. However, I disagree with your name proposal. I do not see how Communism and mass killings is any better than the current article. I would say it is even worse because it gives an ever greater link between communism and mass killings, which is not supported by WP:RS/AC.

Even Communist regimes/states and mass killings would be problematic because there have been Communist regimes who did not engage in mass killings (I am sure those theorists would argue because they were short-lived but we can not use what if arguments to argue that communism is inherently linked to mass killings) and even Valentino and others said that not all Communist regimes did that, so it would be a misleading and problematic title.

Ironically, Victims of Communism would be the perfect title because that is exactly the narrative pushed by its proponents and is a term actually used, unlike mass killings under Communist regimes. I argue that in light of your correct analysis of the terminology section, we should be especially wary of using mass killings or any of that terminology for the article's title because "any attempts to develop a universally-accepted terminology describing mass killings of non-combatants was a complete failure."

I also agree with The Four Deuces that we should not repeat the events, we should only report the theory. Only a scholarly analysis of Communist regimes, not limited to mass killings, can support the context and background you propose and I support. We should simply report the estimates, link the various events but not going in detail as the current article does. If you want to do that, then we should have a Scholarly analysis of Communist regimes where we discuss background, context, the rising of living standards, modernisation, lives saved (as discussed by Michael Ellman et al.) and political repression, religious persecutions, mass killings and famines with context and scholarly debates, as discussed here, in a single article rather than having so many Communist-related coatracked articles. Davide King (talk) 05:48, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I can agree it was poorly formulated, but I believe the essential questions were correct. What is the actual, clear main topic? Does the topic exist? If yes, is it mainstream, or is it a minority or fringe view? If no, should the article be deleted/merged, or a new, clearer main topic established? I think the main issues were the overtly length but that was because I was trying to explain the issues and discussion to those who have not followed it and having to explain what each main topic would entail and be structured like. I think it would still be helpful if we could answer those questions and see where we stand. I do not think this is something that can be solved by univolved editors because one ought to follow our discussion to understand our arguments. Because so far, one just thinks of The Black Book of Communism and believes the topic does exist, ignoring our arguments that sources do not support the current article. Davide King (talk) 05:35, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, my ideas I won't repeat especially the reasons I draw the attention, so everything I stated on that section should be regarded especially inside its framework.

@Buidhe:, if we'd do the renaming you propose, would it end this issue completely? Will this stop the highly increasing comments and other issues regarding the article?(KIENGIR (talk) 17:25, 20 November 2020 (UTC))

The main problem with that article that it pretends it provides a summary of some well defined topic. That is not the case. The article creates a false impression that the linkage between Communism and mass killings was clearly established and acknowledged by a scholarly community, and the only remaining problems are how many victims were killed and what term describes this event better. That is not true, that is a minority POV, and that article is a stain on Wikipedia. Do we need this article? My answer is: definitely yes! However, its topic should be defined correctly. Below I explain why I believe "Communism and mass killing" may resolve the problem.

My rationale will be added here:

• Wall of text

A long text will be added here if my proposal will face an opposition.

• End of the wall of text

Conclusion

The title "Communism and mass killings" will allow us:

• to clearly explain that a limited number of authors argue that Communists killed more that all words wars, Nazi and anybody else, AND that means Communism was much greater evil that Nazism.
• to explain how they came to that conclusion, where they obtained the numbers, and how they interpreted them.
• to tell who supports this view, and how they interpret them.
• to explain what political movements use these ideas, and how they are used.
• Finally, we explain how a scholarly community accepts these views, and what other theories say about MKuCR.

That would be a good article that would cover an interesting and important topic (which is relevant to resurrection of antisemitism and nationalism in many modern countries.

The article should not tell about each separate mass killings, because each of them has its own article, so links should be sufficient. providing a summary is possible and desirable in such articles as World war II, which tells about some clearly defined topic. In contrast, MKuCR is NOT a clearly defined topic (I have already explained that briefly, but I can elaborate on that in my future WoT if I'll see that is necessary). Which topic is really clearly defined is the idea about the linkage between mass killings and Communism. This idea should be a subject of the article, and "Communism and mass killing" is the best title for such an article. Other titles, such as "Double genocide theory" may also serve that goal, however, the latter refers to some concrete term "Double genocide", which is not used by all authors whose views will be discussed in that article. In contrast "Communism and mass killing" (or vise versa) is an umbrella term that can cover all theories of that kind, including double genocide.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:11, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, do you think you can create a sandbox about your proposed article? We literally have Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes/sandbox for that. I think it would also be helpful if Buidhe and The Four Deuces did that, so we can see what are the differences, if there are any, or if we disagree only on the title. I could help with copy editing both sandboxes. Davide King (talk) 08:29, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. I think we need to come to some common vision of the article, and only after that an RfC can be initiated. Although @AmateurEditor: seems to have a different vision of the problem, I would be glad if they joined us too. Meanwhile, it would be good if you withdrawn your RfC as a proposer, because it is a little bit premature. IMO, other editors may feel uncomfortable if their input is too frequently requested, so their participation in the second (future) RfC will be lower that it is desirable.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:32, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, that makes sense. Buidhe already removed the RfC tag, so it is already withdrawn, although I think it would still be helpful if you and others could give a short summary of your thoughts on each listed main topic as Buidhe did here to get an idea on where we stand. Davide King (talk) 08:01, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I have not been reading the posts on this page for the last few days, but I am always willing to work with people on improving this article and I am interested to see what material will be included on the sandbox page, if that happens. AmateurEditor (talk) 08:03, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, I have a question. Which of the following more correctly summarises your view:

1. The article, in its current form, correctly reflects the current state of knowledge of the subject;

2. The article has to follow available aggregator sources, and, although there might me a contradiction between what sources say and what other authors claim, that contradiction cannot be fixed without doing OR.

Thanks. --Paul Siebert (talk) 19:18, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, neither is exactly how I would explain my view but, if I had to choose one of those two, I would say that 2 is closer to my view. I don't presume to know the full current state of knowledge of any topic and I would not trust any wikipedia editor who claimed to. This article exists to reflect the aggregated topic found in the aggregator sources and so it's organization/structure should be whatever allows us to most effectively cover all aspects of the topic found in those sources, following policy guidance. Single country/non-aggregator sources can still be used as supplemental sources for info related to the topic or sub-topics covered in the article but cannot serve as the basis for the article's existence or structure (articles on the single countries/event topics should be based on those single country/event sources). Where there is an unresolvable conflict/contradiction between sources of any kind (and it is not simply a mistake/error in the source, since no source is perfect) then we should present both sides fairly, following policy. We should not be "fixing" contradictions between sources. Choosing one side over another could be a NPOV violation. AmateurEditor (talk) 22:34, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Spurious tags

The section and heading tagging is getting a bit out of hand and should be removed. PackMecEng (talk) 04:57, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

There would be no need for it if this article actually followed guidelines. We are discussing all this and there is a RfC, so they should stay until the matters are actually solved. I may remove the two about the section and leave just the two at the top. Davide King (talk) 05:11, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

While I appreciate you bringing up issues, at great length, on the talk page overly tagging an article can start to be disruptive. Especially when they all essentially repeat the same thing. PackMecEng (talk) 05:14, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

I did this. I hope this is a good compromise that avoids overtagging. Davide King (talk) 05:18, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Yup, fine by me I suppose. I saw it after my previous post, sorry about that. PackMecEng (talk) 05:19, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Related discussion

Please see related discussion at Talk:List of genocides by death toll (t · c) buidhe 19:23, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi Buidhe. If you're going to ping or canvass or notify or whatever discussions that I am involved in to other wikipedia discussion pages (whether talk or board) I would appreciate it if you pinged me and let me know. Volunteer Marek 19:57, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

And now the list inclusion criteria is challenged: Talk:List_of_genocides_by_death_toll#List_inclusion_criteria (t · c) buidhe 03:26, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Please, more input is needed at this discussion. (t · c) buidhe 00:10, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM

Why this page exists This page exists because millions of human beings were exterminated to satisfy the ideology of Communism. As a matter of philosophy, Communism extends no empathy to the bourgeois human beings, showing a sociopathic tendency common to genocidal regimes. It is vital that current and future generations learn from this experience and most importantly to learn to identify such sociopathic idiologies that could lead the the slaughter of millions of lives.— Preceding unsigned comment added by [[Special:Contributions/ 2601:644:680:6D80:6438:BD29:EBF3:8F30| 2601:644:680:6D80:6438:BD29:EBF3:8F30]] ([[User talk: 2601:644:680:6D80:6438:BD29:EBF3:8F30#top|talk]]) 01:56, 24 November 2020 (UTC) I'm sorry, IP contributor, but Wikipedia is not a memorial, nor is it a venue for moral education. Our mission does not include preventing human rights abuses. (t · c) buidhe 05:50, 24 November 2020 (UTC) The actual reason this page exists can be seen at the top of this talk page, under "Frequently asked questions". AmateurEditor (talk) 07:20, 24 November 2020 (UTC) The purpose of an encyclopedia is to educate and inform, in this case it is the MOST important education and information, that concerning the danger of genocide, or in this case, the euphemism "mass killing". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:644:680:6D80:857F:326D:6582:97DD (talk) 20:43, 25 November 2020 (UTC) Just to be very clear, that is not what Wikipedia is about and following NPOV prohibits us from pushing the fringe view that "mass murder is a key feature of [communism, socialism, the left, or whatever one wants to call it] found in its earliest documents. Hence all socialists (which the Right defines very broadly to include such people as Joe Biden) have the potential to eliminate their populations and replace them." Wikipedia is "an online free-content encyclopedia project helping to create a world in which everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." Now, please, do not post this same thing again, or it will de deleted or reverted per FORUM. Davide King (talk) 22:44, 25 November 2020 (UTC) The importance of remembrance to prevent future atrocities Mass killings must be remembered in complete detail because future generations must learn not to commit these crimes again. Wikipedia is part of this collective memory. Any regime that slaughters millions is criminal, whether it is Khmer Rouge or the Nazis. Wikipedia must testify to these crimes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:644:680:6D80:6438:BD29:EBF3:8F30 (talk) 00:37, 25 November 2020 (UTC) As noted by Buidhe above, Wikipedia is not a memorial and I suggest you to stop opening new threads repeating the same thing again; Wikipedia is not a forum and we are actually trying to improve the article. This article exists because "a rough consensus of Wikipedia editors" a decade ago established "the topic is found in high quality secondary sources and meets Wikipedia policy requirements." Consensus can change, especially when so-called "high quality secondary sources" do not actually support the topic or meet "Wikipedia policy requirements" for a standalone article, when they are based on original research or synthesis. Davide King (talk) 01:05, 25 November 2020 (UTC) There is a question about how much the mass killings owed to Communist ideology and how much to the histories of the countries in which they occurred. By comparison the Clinton administration was responsible for 500,000 deaths in Iraq, while the Bush administration killed 1,000,000 people. But is the difference due to where the two presidents fell along the left-right spectrum or because of the circumstances at the time? TFD (talk) 03:43, 25 November 2020 (UTC) Agree with Davide, this thread should be closed, we have enough, btw., these examples by TFD are not of the same weight, but let's not start an n+1 thread/discussion.(KIENGIR (talk) 08:05, 25 November 2020 (UTC)) Quibling about sources is what Holocaust deniers are famous for. I know you are upset that communist genocide has ruined the reputation of communism, but you know what? The reputation of communism is well earned by their sociopathic policies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:644:680:6D80:857F:326D:6582:97DD (talk) 22:29, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Fein 1993 wording

Davide King and TFD, given the 1RR rule, I think we should discuss the recent edits to the Cambodia section here because I think there is a subtlety being lost with the changes. The sentence was "Helen Fein, a genocide scholar, states that the xenophobic ideology of the Khmer Rouge regime bears a stronger resemblance to a phenomenon of national socialism, or fascism rather than communism.[184]" (in which "national socialism" had a wikilink to Nazism). Davide King changed it to "Helen Fein, a genocide scholar, states that the xenophobic ideology of the Khmer Rouge regime bears a stronger resemblance to a phenomenon of Nazism, or fascism rather than communism.[184]" in order to delete the duplicated wikilink to Nazism. However, the edit also changed the wording from "national socialism" to "Nazism", which changed the meaning from the source slightly, so I changed it back. Davide King reverted my revert, saying "the common name is Nazism, which is obviously what they are referring to, not Left-wing nationalism, and we say "or fascism"; so why not simply use common name and link to the main article". TFD then removed "or fascism" from the sentence, saying "the author attributes Nazism or "national socialism" rather than fascism", so that the sentence is now "Helen Fein, a genocide scholar, states that the xenophobic ideology of the Khmer Rouge regime bears a stronger resemblance to a phenomenon of Nazism rather than communism.[184]". Checking the source, found here, the reference is to page 819 and this is the relevant paragraph (I added bold for discussion purposes):

Communism, the leading ideology since 1945 until the present, promised social change even as it authorized killing on the basis of class and politics, identifying dissidents as "enemies of the people." But upon closer examination, the xenophobic ideology of the KR regime resembles more an almost forgotten phenomenon of national socialism, which Becker (1986) calls fascism. Such regimes themselves evoke the threats that demand purges, promoting paranoid myths of persecution or anticipated persecution as a means of inciting solidarity (Fein 1991).

Fein is clearly referring to a generic "national socialism" and not to the specific Nazi party, based on three things:

1) xenophobic ideology is not "an almost forgotten phenomenon" of Nazism. It's one of the things they are most remembered for;

2) "Nazism" refers to a single regime, but Fein is talking about multiple regimes ("Such regimes...") that fall under a category that Becker calls "fascism" and she calls "national socialism";

3) Fein mentions "Nazi" elsewhere in her article, so it is a deliberate choice that she did not use that term here.

We should use the words she chose and not substitute our own preferences. Some people don't actually think the Nazis were socialists. The closest we can get to a source is a quotation, so I propose this (without any wikilink on "national socialism"): "Helen Fein, a genocide scholar, states that the xenophobic ideology of the Khmer Rouge regime bears a stronger resemblance to "an almost forgotten phenomenon of national socialism", or fascism, rather than communism.[184]" AmateurEditor (talk) 05:22, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I see no distinction between Nazism the ideology of the Nazi Party of Germany and generic national socialism. In any event, we could make Nazism generic by not capitalizing it, and vice versa for national socialism.

The "almost forgotten phenomenon" to which Fein is referring is xenophobia, which is why phenomenon has an indefinite article ("an"). IOW she is saying that xenophobia is an almost forgotten phenomenon of Nazism as practiced in Nazi Germany. It literally means dislike of people from other countries.

Her source uses the term xenophobia once in the 1998 version of her book: "The records show the constant xenophobia of the Khmer Rouge who routinely killed foreigners discovered in the country." (Becker, p.267)[20] While we are all aware that Nazis hated people of most other races, their view of foreigners in general is largely forgotten. In the Malmedy massacre for example, American soldiers were murdered not because of their race, but because they were foreigners.

My concern is that we use terminology that is clearly understood by readers. If we use term national socialism, then we need to explain what it is.

TFD (talk) 15:16, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, I agree. If we use national socialism, it is not clear whether it means Nazism or Left-wing nationalism and I too see no distinction between Nazism as teh ideology of the Nazi Party and generic national socialism. By the way, who is Steve Heder and is he notable? We use him to state that "the example of such racialist thought as it is applied in relation to the minority Cham people echoed 'Marx's definition of a historyless people doomed to extinction in the name of progress' and it was therefore a part of general concepts of class and class struggle." This seems to be the same fringe view echoed by Watson that Marx and Engels came up with the idea of genocide. I see that we use many people who do not seem to be notable enough to even have their own article, hence why this article does not represents scholarly consensus and we are representing minority views, or simply the views of some academics from one side of historiography, as facts and mainstream theory. Davide King (talk) 16:02, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Heder is an expert, but I don't know what weight his theories have. That's the another major problem with this article. Opinions are presented without explaining their relative weight in the literature, which is required by policy. I am aware of the view that opinions should be provided equal weight. But in reality, most readers want to know which views prevail. Unless one really cares about a topic, one is most likely to accept the highest weighted opinions as most likely to be true. TFD (talk) 18:29, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

TFD, WP:WEIGHT defines just three categories of sources for weight concerns: "majority", "significant minority", and "extremely small minority" (or fringe). All the sources used in the article are correctly treated as "significant minority" views or weight purposes. The subsection WP:FALSEBALANCE applies to fringe or out-of-mainstream sources, none of which are included in the article now. AmateurEditor (talk) 19:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Do you not think that there are degrees of weight? For example, don't you draw any distinction between the consensus of expert opinion or a view held by 51% of experts (the "majority" category) or between "alternative theoretical formulations" published in peer reviewed journals and absolutely ridiculous views such as lizard people (the "fringe" category)? Do you not think there is no difference between a view held by a 49% minority and one held by a 10% minority?Notice that weight refers to "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Do you think that implies that there are only three possible weights? Opinions are not like toothpaste that comes in only three sizes. TFD (talk) 20:41, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

TFD, I do agree in the abstract that there are degrees of weights beyond those three categories, but practically-speaking we cannot know them at the one-percentage-point level of granularity you are suggesting (or even a ten-percent-level of granularity). The WP:WEIGHT policy mentions just the three large groups and all our sources for this article fall in the second group at the moment (none are fringe and none are claimed to be the majority opinion). In terms of weight within that second group, there is no policy guidance to follow that I am aware of. The only practical method is to assign the weight of a source as only the individual opinion of the individual author, using in-line attribution, rather than writing anything in Wikipedia's voice. In this way, as more sources are added, the proportions of viewpoints in the article will ever more closely approach the proportions in the body of published reliable sources as a whole. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I think this is the issue, that we are just using a bunch of opinions, which I find interesting but are not encyclopedic and which are admittedly a minority, although I would argue some of those, such as Watson, are fringe or borderline fringe, and many others are not that significant; we also do not give the proper weight to scholars such as Ellman, Getty, Ghodsee and others who disagree with the whole concept of counting the body and blaming it alone on ideology, or that communism, and by extension socialism and the left, is prone to mass killings. This is still presented as an uncontroversial academic fact or theory, when admittedly all of those are at best "significant minority views."

If the whole article is based on minority views, even significant ones, then what is the point? If there is no consensus or a mainstream view among genocide scholars and Soviet and Communist studies scholars, what is the point of this article other than showing how bad Communism was and that it is prone to mass killings, even though that is not what the sources says and Valentino says "most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing" and that he is mainly discussing what he terms "radical communist regimes", which I am assuming he is referring to "the Big Three."

That is why the article should not be deleted (I have already moved most of the content to other relevant articles, so nothing is going lost; and this goes back to the beginning where I stated I find the article and the opinion "interesting" but not encyclopedic) but completely rewritten and restructured to be about the theory or narrative, rather than the events which indeed took place but are besides the point since the main topic should be about the victims of Communism narrative. Buidhe, The Four Deuces, Paul Siebert, do you already have in mind a draft or sandbox on how such a restructuring and rewrite may look like? Davide King (talk) 15:33, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

The point of the article is to describe the topic as found in reliable sources as Wikipedia defines them. If there is material in Ellman, Getty, Ghodsee, etc. that is missing, then we should add it. If you want greater/less weight for a source, then we need to have justification for that based on Wikipedia policies. I thought I had provided evidence earlier that Ellman and Getty may not be considered "mainstream" (although I agree they also fall under the "significant minority" bucket with the other sources used so far and should not be given less weight for that reason). AmateurEditor (talk) 02:44, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, if something is not clear in the source, changing it to make it clear in the article is original research on our part. It may be that Fein intended to include left-wing nationalism when using the generic term "national socialism". FYI, notability is a policy that relates to topics only, for sources we follow WP:RS, which says to include "all majority and significant minority views" and does not define "significant minority". WP:WEIGHT includes three categories of source, one of which is "significant minority", and gives the following test: "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents". To err on the side of caution, we are treating all sources in the article as "significant minority" views, rather than majority views, and including in-line citations for all the sources in the article. AmateurEditor (talk) 19:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, and "[i]t may be that Fein intended to include left-wing nationalism when using the generic term 'national socialism'" is original research on your part, so which is which? This is a problem with other sources in the article, where we seem to have a different reading of what given ref is actually saying and whether it supports the topic, on which we either disagree or have a different understanding of it. You wrote "'Nazism' refers to a single regime, but Fein is talking about multiple regimes ('Such regimes...') that fall under a category that Becker calls 'fascism' and she calls 'national socialism.'" Does Fein actually clarify who are those "[s]uch regimes"? That would be helpful in clarify what she meant. Either way, I think the best solution would be, as you proposed, to not link anything and use her own words. "We should use the words she chose and not substitute our own preferences", that is fair, but then you wrote "[s]ome people don't actually think the Nazis were socialists." It is not "[s]ome people", it is the mainstream view that the Nazis were not socialists and it is the fringe view, pushed by some right-wing authors, especially in the United States, that the Nazis were socialists or left-wing. Davide King (talk) 19:37, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, it is not original research on my part retain the source's use of "national socialism", which is all I am proposing. About other such regimes, Fein says her use of "national socialism" is synonymous with Becker's use of "fascism". I think we agree with using the direct quote and not linking anything, but if you do want to investigate the source itself further, it can be found here. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, I was not referring to that as "original research" but to your comment that "[i]t may be that Fein intended to include left-wing nationalism when using the generic term 'national socialism.'" If I was doing original research for reading it as no difference with Nazism, which is boosted by the fact she says national socialism is synonymous with Becker's use of fascism, then so were you by stating she may have well referred to left-wing nationalism, which is not the case as she was clearly referring to fascism. Either way, it is not a big issue and I am fine with using the direct quoation and the exact wording you suggested, which is what I did here. Davide King (talk) 15:16, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

TFD, replacing a generic term from a source with a specific term for the article is original research on our part, as is replacing a generic term with a different generic term. If we need to explain generic "national socialism" to the reader without inserting original research into the sentence, then we could include a link to National Socialism (disambiguation). AmateurEditor (talk) 19:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

We should never insert a link when a term is ambiguous, we should explain it in the article, per technical language. And "Rewriting source material in your own words, while substantially retaining the meaning of the references, is not considered to be original research." In any case, per Use common sense, if you don't understand what the author means, you shouldn't add her material to the article. And since you introduced the theory, could you please provide a reliable source that distinguishes Nazism and generic national socialism? TFD (talk) 20:54, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

TFD, the point is that we are not "substantially retaining the meaning" from the source by replacing a generic "national socialism" with the specific "Nazism". I think using a disambiguation link would be common sense in this situation (the National Socialism (disambiguation) link begins with an explanation of most common use but includes other uses), but I am fine with leaving "national socialism" unlinked. There is no justification for assigning a more specific meaning to the source's words than what is in the source itself. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Can you find a source that defines "generic national socialism." Most of the disambiguation page refers to parties outside Germany that adhered to the ideology of the Nazi Party of Germany. The rest are parties that have no connection with fascism, which rules them out. TFD (talk) 03:35, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

We don't need to have a definition of generic "national socialism" to recognize that the term is being used that way by Fein (and that our changing it to be a reference to Nazism alone is incorrect to the source). If you don't think anything other than the Nazism can be referred to as "national socialism", then you should try to get the National Socialism (disambiguation) page changed to be a simple redirect to Nazism. AmateurEditor (talk) 05:48, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I also agree with direct quoting, it should not be manipulated what the author stated.(KIENGIR (talk) 06:32, 1 December 2020 (UTC)).

Why would we provide a direct quote when we don't understand what an author said? AmateurEditor, so you don't know what generic national socialism is, but you know that is what Fein meant? That would make a great introduction to a textbook: "The authors don't understand the subject, but decided to write the book anyway." TFD (talk) 17:03, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

We use a direct quote to avoid changing the intended meaning of the author and introducing original research on our part. Better safe than sorry as far as OR is concerned. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:29, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Usage of a direct quote just creates a visibility of lack of manipulation. If I remember that article correctly (I read it about 10 years ago), Fein does not use the concept "Communist mass killing". Instead, it compares a "revolutionary genocide" (Cambodian) with "counterrevolutionary genocide" (in Indonesia). Therefore, even direct quoting leads to misinterpretation: we imply the author accepts the "Communist mass killing" concept, which does not follows from what the source says. That raises an interesting question. As AmateurEditor correctly noted, to avoid a sine of original research, it is desirable to write the article based on some set of aggregator sources. However, to avoid a sine of POV-pushing, it is desirable to make sure the set of aggregator sources the article is based upon describe the subject fairly and without a bias. I am not talking about each single aggregator source, but the set of them must be neutral. Since Fein presents a comparative analysis of two different mass killings, that source should also be considered an aggregator source. However, the viewpoint of the author is underrepresented in the article, and even direct quotes do not fix that.

In connection to that, I propose to examine the choice of aggregator sources the article is based upon. Since that is a more general topic, I propose to move in to a separate section.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I agree and I thank you for expressing more concisely something I thought. I believe most sources currently used in the article are like Fein, in that they do not even use the concept of "Communist mass killing" and make more of a comparative genocide analysis, even between Communist and non-Communist regimes, which is not the main topic of this article, hence it is synthesis or original research. The problem is that the aggregator itself is synthesis and original research, as shown by the fact Fein does not use the concept of "Communist mass killing." Davide King (talk) 05:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, thank you for creating a separate section for the new discussion. About Fein using the "concept" of communist mass killing (I dislike the word "concept" as if this is a strange idea; it is not a "concept" so much as it is a "topic": the large-scale killing of non-combatants by communist regimes), Fein mentions it in the first sentence of the paragraph I quoted above: "Communism, the leading ideology since 1945 until the present, promised social change even as it authorized killing on the basis of class and politics, identifying dissidents as "enemies of the people."" AmateurEditor (talk) 06:27, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Do you agree with my definition of what can be called an aggregator source for that topic?--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I will respond in the next section below. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Aggregator sources selection criteria

As AmateurEditor correctly noted, to avoid a sine of original research, it is desirable to write the article based on some set of aggregator sources. However, to avoid a sine of POV-pushing, it is desirable to make sure the set of aggregator sources the article is based upon describe the subject fairly and without a bias. I am not talking about each single aggregator source, but the set of them must adequately reflect the current state of knowledge. I have serious reasons to suspect the current set of aggregator sources is not doing that job well, and I propose to think about a better set of sources. First, let's agree on what an aggregator source is. I propose the following definition (for that topic).

"An aggregator source is any article of book that provides a summary or a comparative analysis of more than one mass killing event in at least two different states, and at least one of those mass killings took place in some Communist state"

Do you agree with that definition? (I would appreciate if every participant of that discussion voiced their opinion explicitly).--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:19, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I think in order to be useful, "An aggregator source is any article of book that discusses more than one mass killing event in at least two different states defined by the author as 'Communist'". If the source is comparing, eg. mass killings under Stalinism and Nazism, it is relevant to comparison of Stalinism and Nazism but not this article. (t · c) buidhe 04:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC) OK, Siebert makes some good points below. Well, if it were up to me we'd just delete the damn thing since it seems virtually impossible to cover it in an encyclopedic way. (t · c) buidhe 05:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, do I understand you correct that if the source discusses Cambodia, Indonesia and China, it is not an aggregator source for that article, but if it discusses just Cambodia and China, it is an aggregator source?

If your answer is "yes" that means we artificially separate those authors who believe there were more commonality between Cambodia and, e.g. USSR from the authors who believe that Cambodian genocide had more common traits with Indonesia than with USSR. In my opinion, that would be a direct violation of neutrality policy.

The same can be said as follows:

• If the article's topic is a MKuCR concept, then the definition of an aggregator source is close to what you propose. However, that means the focus of this article should be the MKuCR theories, including their acceptance and criticism. The events themselves should not be discusses in details, and all facts and figures should be provided with attribution and commentaries.
• If the article's subject are the events (mass killings A, B, C, D, E, F...), then the aggregator source is any article that performs a comparative analysis of more than one of mass killing events. In that case, it does not matter if all of them took place in some Communist state: any comparative analysis that involves at least one event from that list can be considered an aggregator source.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I support the view "the article's topic is a MKuCR concept, then the definition of an aggregator source is close to what you propose. However, that means the focus of this article should be the MKuCR theories, including their acceptance and criticism. The events themselves should not be discusse[d] in details, and all facts and figures should be provided with attribution and commentaries." However, I propose the article to be called Victims of Communism, which is the term actually used to describe this topic, as there is no agreed terminology among genocide and other scholars. The article would describe the MKuCR topic which appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature, where it is called "victims of Communism", and the concept or theory of MKuCR proposed by some authors and scholars, structured exactly as you proposed in the first example. We could divide this into Popular and Scholarly literature sections, would you agree?

Buidhe, I agree "if it were up to me we'd just delete the damn thing since it seems virtually impossible to cover it in an encyclopedic way" but that is simply not going to happen because the theory, which is not widely accepted among scholars and is a minority, if not outright fringe view, at least as currently structured and reported in this article, is held as mainstream among our imagination and is legitimised by the Prague Declaration, meaning anyone who disagree that Communism and Nazism were equal is an apologist for genocide and mass killing, even though the equivalency thing was first proposed by revisionist right-wing historians such as Courtois, Furet, Nolte and others; and it amounts to Holocaust trivialisation and overlaps with the double genocide theory, both of which are widely popular and promoted in anti-communist, right-wing and far-right circles, and is hardly 'centrist.' However, a restructuring and whole rewriting, with a renaming, could work, that is why it would be helpful if we start a draft or sandbox to start this. Davide King (talk) 05:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

See the next section

IMO, "Victims of Communism" implies the article's subject is the victims themselves, not some theory, so I am afraid other users wil start to add more and more facts about real of perceived victims of Communism to the article, and it will become a collection of various facts. If other participants of this discussion agree that the article's topic is some theory that links Communism and mass killings, the title should be different. We can either keep the current title of change it to "Communism and mass killing" to emphasize that the article's focus is a link (or a lack thereof) between Communism and mass killing.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC) We have had long, long discussion over the title and the current one Mass killings under communist regimes was the best compromise in the end. Are we going to start repeating all the archived arguments on why the name should be changed? We agreed long ago that use of small c "communist regime" was preferable to using big C "Communism" because the mass killing were primarily due to the implementation of what the regimes viewed to be Communism rather than due to the Communist ideology directly, that why the proposed titles Victims of Communism and Communism and mass killings don't make sense. --Nug (talk) 16:22, 2 December 2020 (UTC) Nug, actually it should be capitalised because the capitalisation refers to the Communist party regime, not to communism. Of all sources, The Black Book of Communism makes this distinction and capitalises Communism, so we should do the same for Communist-related articles. Finally, I would like to note that consensus can change, I was not involved in this article until recently and that the arguments by Siebert et al. for why the article is problematic, synthesis and violates NPOV are still valid and should not be dismissed but taken seriously. Davide King (talk) 19:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC) Nug, another possibility could be Communist death toll but I believe Victims of Communism is more accurate because that is the narrative used in popular literature and by some scholarly sources, albeit minority views, that it was "Communism" to blame, hence those are "victims of Communism." The topic should not be about the events themselves, which we already discuss in detail at the relevant articles, but about "a linkage between mass killings in Communist states and Communism", i.e. as a theory or concept that is very popular in mass media and popular literature but it is a minority views in academia, hence why my proposal to divide it into Popular and Scholarly literature. Davide King (talk) 19:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC) Paul Siebert, editors could only interpret VOC that way if they used the etymological fallacy: that the present-day meaning of a phrase should be similar to its historical meaning. For example, Semites includes Arabs and Jews, but anti-Semitism refers only to prejudice against Jews. Some editors disingenuously argue that Arab nationalists cannot be anti-Semitic because they are pro-Arab. In the case of VOC, we would follow the definition used in reliable sources and in the literature of the proponents of the concept, which is that the Communists murdered 100 million people for ideological reasons. That's why in fact I supported keeping the original name of the article, Communist genocide. Both those titles are more common than MKuCR, which is the title of only two articles, this one and the one in Metapedia. TFD (talk) 17:57, 2 December 2020 (UTC) The Four Deuces, I agree. Victims of Communism is the actual name for this topic and concept. Paul Siebert, I believe The Four Deuces gave a very valid explanation for why your concerns are overblown and that we should start focusing on the restructuring, which will show that Victims of Communism is the accurate name for the theory and concept. Davide King (talk) 19:13, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, TFD and Nug, please, stay focused. The current section is about the criteria for the aggregate source selection to make the topic coverage more comprehensive and neutral. That is NOT something that can be found in archives, that is a totally new question. Again, that section is NOT about the article's name, and NOT about the article's topic. If you want to discuss these two questions (or other questions), please, do that eslewhere. I would be grateful if you all clearly answered the following questions (I reproduce them below for your convenience): Do you agree with the following?

• If the topic of the current article is a linkage between mass killings in Communist states and Communism (in other words, the idea that mass killings in Communist states had some essential common traits, and therefore, they should be discussed as some single phenomenon; I denote that topic as "A"), then an aggregator source that can be used for this article is ""any article or book that discusses more than one mass killing event in at least two different states defined by the author as "Communist"." (a definition "X"). However, that means the focus of this article should be the MKuCR theories, including their acceptance and criticism. The events themselves should not be discusses in details, and all facts and figures should be provided with attribution and commentaries.
• If the article's subject is the discussion of the mass killing events that took place in Communist states, so the primary topic is theh killings that happened in Communist states (the topic "B"), then the aggregator source is "any article or book that performs a comparative analysis of more than one mass killing events, and at least one of those mass killings took place in some Communist state". (a definition "Y") In that case, the article's topic is not supposed to change, but the set of aggregator sources must be significantly expanded to achieve neutrality.

In this talk page section, I don't want to discuss what should be the article's topic. I want clear answers to a simple question: "do you agree that if the article's topic is "A", the aggregators sources are defined as "X", and if the topic is "B", the aggregator sources are "Y""? If you don't, how would you define what should be considered an aggregator source for this article? Thank you in advance for your cooperation and you short and clear answers. --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, as I stated above, I agree the article's topic should be A. While I am not yet sure on the aggregator criteria, I suppose it is fine, but I think it would be helpful to start a draft and sandbox to see how it may look like with different source aggregators and choose which one is the more appropriate. Davide King (talk) 19:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, if the article topic was A ("a linkage between mass killings in Communist states and Communism"), then an aggregator source (that is, a source upon which the existence of the article was justified) would be one in which that article topic was discussed as a distinct topic for multiple Communist states. An aggregator source would not be X ("any article or book that discusses more than one mass killing event in at least two different states defined by the author as "Communist"") because such a source may discuss those mass killing events in a way that has nothing to do with the states being communist. That is, a source may discuss mass killing in two communist states among several other non-communist states as part of a discussion of a different topic altogether, such as "mass killing in Europe". If the topic in the source is not about "communist states", then it does not act as a justification of the topic A article's existence. It may still be used as a supplemental source for relevant details (assuming there are other sources that do discuss the article topic distinctly and justify the article's existence).

If the article topic was B ("the mass killing events that took place in Communist states"), then an aggregator source is one in which mass killing in multiple Communist states is discussed as a distinct topic. Definition Y ("any article or book that performs a comparative analysis of more than one mass killing events, and at least one of those mass killings took place in some Communist state.") is incorrect because again there might be a source that discusses multiple mass killing events in communist and non-communist states together without making the communist state killings a distinct topic of its own.

There are an almost infinite number of topics found in reliable sources (more than six million of which have articles in the English wikipedia, currently). A single source can have any number of topics discussed within it, limited only by the length of the source. In order to justify a wikipedia article, there really just has to be sufficient material found in reliable sources to support an article without any original research/synthesis by wikipedia editors being required. But the sources that justify the article's existence do have to discuss the topic of the article as a distinct topic. One important point to remember: sources do not have to be unbiased. WP:NPOV is a requirement for wikipedia editors to present sources fairly, not for sources to be free of bias or opinion. AmateurEditor (talk) 07:42, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree. (what a surprise :-) ). Jesus, since I last time read the things here, again exponentially roboust talk page material has been generated, will need time to read carefully the next section, and I think I am not alone....(KIENGIR (talk) 10:20, 3 December 2020 (UTC))

AmateurEditor&KIENGIR, it seems there is some logic problem with what you say. The topic "A" is not mass killings per se, but some set of theories that link mass killings with Communism. In that case, the aggregator sources you are talking about are the objects of discussion, the article cannot and should not be written from their perspective.

With regard to the topic "B", it is not some theory(s), but the events (human deaths and the events that lead to them). Per our policy, All facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article except in the case of a spinoff sub-article. Therefore, if the Great Chinese famine is discussed in some source in a context of Bengal famine, that source MUST be presented in this article. If some source discusses Cambodian genocide in a context of Indonesian genocide, it MUST be presented in that article. And the Great Purge must be discusses in the same terms, and using the same approach and sources both here and in the Great Purge article. If some source links mass killing with low political culture, backward economy, or sees more common features in Asian genocides than in Communism linked genocide, that viewpoint MUST be duly represented in that article.

In contrast, if we select only those sources that discuss mass killings primarily in a context of Communism, and group them together according to that trait, we artificially narrow the range of sources that tell about that subject. I respect your opinion, but we have the policy, and what you propose directly contradicts to that.

If we chose the option "B", this article must be fully consistent with specialized articles (Great Purge, etc), which means it must use the same sources (or the most essential subset thereof), and it cannot describe these events from different perspective, and it cannot made generalizations that are not universally supported by main authors who write about each specific event or each specific country. And, importantly, it must include all comparative general theories related to these events: if Cabmodian genocide is compared with Indonesia, Bosnia or Rwanda, that discussion MUST be presented here, because that is required by our policy ("All facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article ...", and, since the subject of the article are mass killings, not some theory, then all significant points of view of Cambodian genocide must be presented).

To avoid duplication of the text, I suggest User:Nug to consider that a response to his post below.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:00, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, for an article about topic A ("some set of theories that link mass killings with Communism"), we would need sources that specifically contain topic A. That is, we would need sources that discuss a set of theories/multiple theories that link mass killings with Communism. It would not be enough to just have one source that discusses one theory and another source that discusses a different theory with neither of them referencing the other. Creating an article about the set of theories based on those two sources would be a form of original research because the topic of the set of theories does not exist in either source. It would fail the general notability guideline for topics, which says a topic must have "received significant coverage in reliable sources" (""Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content."). In this case, topic A does not exist in either source and is only emergent when wikipedia editors group different sources together.

For an article about topic B, "the events (human deaths and the events that lead to them)" that took place in communist states, the key words in the WP:NPOVFACT sentence are "on a given subject" ("All facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article except in the case of a spinoff sub-article."). If an event or communist regime is included in a source about a different subject, then it should be included in the article about that other subject (such as an article about the comparison of the Cambodia Genocide with the Indonesia killing). If the source that discusses a comparison between the Cambodia Genocide and the Indonesia killing contains relevant material to the article on topic B, then it can still be used there in a supplemental capacity. If there is a source that discusses mass killing generally without mention of topic B, it should only be used in the topic B article in a supplementary capacity if it has relevant material. You probably aren't suggesting this, but to be clear: we cannot use a source that does not mention topic B to imply that topic B is not accepted as a topic by that source, because that would be synthesis. Based on past discussions with you, I believe you are saying that we must include sources with other explanations of communist killing events that do not relate to communism as the cause and I agree those sources can be included as supplemental sources but they cannot serve as the basis for the article.

About Mkucr (which is about the set of mass killings under communist regimes, not about a set of theories), it would not be enough that one communist regime killing was discussed in one source and another communist regime killing was discussed in another source. To justify Mkucr as an article, we must have sources that discuss mass killing under multiple communist regimes (and we do). Single regime/single event sources can still contribute to the article in a supplementary capacity. But if all we had were the single regime/event sources, the topic would fail WP:GNG. AmateurEditor (talk) 05:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I am sorry, AmateurEditor, but all of that is not important now, because I recently realised the article has much more serious problem: it tells about the same events as a number of other articles, and it discusses several theories that have already been discussed in other articles, which means it is a huge POV fork. Our policy does not allow that, especially, taking into account that this article describes the facts from a totally different perspective than other articles do. We either fix that, or the article will be deletd. I would be grateful if you commented on how my proposal to fix it and to save from deletion. Therefore, the only option is "A" (the theories and generalization). This topic is definitely notable (The BB is considered one of the most notable books, although one of the most controversial), and discussion of all controvesies surrounding the theories that links Communism and mass killings would be a very interesting and useful story. --Paul Siebert (talk) 06:07, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree this discussion, while interesting, is not going anywhere. I suggest we take a break, The Four Deuces and Paul Siebert to work together on a draft for a rewriting and discuss all this again only after that is done to hear what everyone else think of it and whether it should be implemented. Davide King (talk) 15:51, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't want to waste my time for draft preparation until the major disagreement has been resolved. However, I propose to look at that at a different angle (see below).--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:52, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

None of this explains why Metapedia is the only other 'encyclopedia' doing this and having this article. What should be done, if it must be discussed, is to have an article about, e.g. Soviet genocide (Soviet genocide), where we discuss events that have been described or called as genocide, explain why and present what is the consensus among scholars. Same thing for Colonial genocide (colonial genocide), Nazi genocide (Nazi genocide), etc. None of those should be redirects because they redirect to a description of the events whereas those articles should be about discussing which events were genocides, why they were and what is the consensus among scholars; and Nazi genocide is not certainly limited to the Holocaust, that was not the only event for which they have been guilty of genocide. There are sources that discuss both of those, yet we only discuss Communist genocide as a stand-alone article; this show there is an implicit anti-communist bias. This article should present the theory that link all those events together and explain why those authors link them and present the opposing views. Capitalism and genocide (capitalist genocide) should present the views of the authors who see a link between the two, not detailing the events which we already discuss elsewhere.

Do you even disagree with any of this? What you actually propose should be incorporated at Genocide, Mass killing, etc., where we create a section specifically discussing Communist genocides and mass killings; after all, Valentino's book is not about communism but about genocides and mass killings in the 20th century, hence it should be discussed in those articles. This article should merely presents the theory, narrative of "victims of Communism" and explain the views of the authors who see a link between Communist regimes and those opposing it, as proposed by Buidhe, The Four Deuces, Paul Siebert and I. This is not a deletion and in my view it is a fine compromise, so what is the issue? Davide King (talk) 15:40, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, wikipedia operates under its own policies, not what some other website/encyclopedia chooses to do or not do. Metapedia is irrelevant to this discussion. If you are concerned that this article exists but other articles do not, then find sources justifying those other articles and go create them. The existence of one wikipedia article does not depend on the existence of other wikipedia articles. Having this article is not "anti-communist bias" on the part of wikipedia. Remember, WP:NPOV applies within articles, not between articles. "Victims of Communism" as a topic is not neutral, so I don't see how it is better than what we have now. AmateurEditor (talk) 05:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, does not the fact Metapedia as the only other encyclopedia to have this article raise alarms? How is "Victims of Communism", an actual topic as noted by The Four Deuces ("The only narrative that makes the claim that all these deaths are related and provides a tally is that of the Victims of Communism/Communist Genocide, originally expressed in the Introduction to the Black Book. It is covered extensively in reliable secondary sources independent of the proponents. Therefore it is possible to write a neutral article without synthesis."), not neutral but the currently-structured article is? The article is titled Mass killings under communist regimes but it should be titled Victims of Communism because essentially it is that what is saying, except this is presented as an uncontroversial fact and mainstream view, rather than a narrative and at best significant minority view.

This is justified because the events did indeed happen but ignores the fact that the link between communism and mass killing, and the link all communist regimes as a single phenomenon, is a theory and narrative proposed by some authors, journalists and a few scholars. This also misses the point that, as explained by Paul Siebert, if the main topic is the set of events themselves, it is (1) a POV fork because all these events already have their own articles; and it is (2) synthesis because it "combine[s] material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources."

You are essentially supporting a POV fork and you admitted it yourself, albeit you do not think it is, by writing this "is about the set of mass killings under communist regimes, not about a set of theories", but we already have articles about them and it is synthesis to mix them all together just because they happened under a Communist regime. This can be easily solved by following the proposal suggested by Paul Siebert which would keep the article rather than delete it. You are essentially proposing the events themselves as the main topic whereas Paul Siebert et al. are proposing the theory that link them all together.

As also noted by Buidhe, your topic, which is the current one, violates our guidelines. In our view, it lumps different topics together, taking the Communist mass killing concept from Valentino, even though Valentino was not about "the set of mass killings under communist regimes" but "Communist mass killing" as a subcategory of mass killinɡ; similarly, Courtois was about the evils of Communism in general and Rummel about mass killings by governments in general; in other words, all three's main topic was not about the events as you propose but as the theory or concept, hence the proposal of Communist mass killing as subcategory of mass killing, Communism as evil and worse than Nazism, and how government is the biggest killer but democratic governments are the least likely to kill. In other words, the sources themselves actually support the topic summarised by Siebert (i.e. the theory) rather than yours (i.e. the events).

So these three authors are mixed up together to list all mass killings under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pol, and add all excess deaths under all Communist regimes, even as only few scholars and from one side list all non-combatant victims (famines, wars, etc.), to suggest all these were "victims of Communism", its more accurate title that, however, does not really solve all those issues (undue weight, original research, synthesis, more than one topic, NPOV, etc.). Davide King (talk) 06:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Again, what metapedia does or does not do has no bearing on what wikipedia does. I don't pay attention to metapedia and I suggest you don't either. Besides the fact that wikipedia articles must be judged on their own merits according to wikipedia policies, there are millions of articles in wikipedia that exist nowhere else (assuming we are not counting the thousands of mirror sites), so having an article topic appear somewhere else is not a problem. If you are suggesting that metapedia's having an article means the topic itself is inherently biased because metapedia is inherently biased, then I think you haven't thought that through: I'm sure there are any number of articles there with counterparts here that you would not object to. I also suggest you verify other editor's points yourself before repeating them. People are often incorrect; in this case, a quick search of this article's archives for "metapedia" will show you that not only is metapedia not the only other encyclopedia with an article on this topic, but TFD acknowledged that it wasn't back in 2015. Having said that, again, metapedia makes no difference to us here. The word "victim" is non-neutral because it assumes regime culpability for those killed. Some sources excuse famine deaths in particular as inadvertent. Because there is no consensus name for the topic of those killed by communist regimes, we are required to follow WP:NDESC and make a "non-judgemental descriptive title". That there were large numbers of non-combatants killed by communist regimes is indeed an uncontested fact (it's the details that are contested). I will address Paul Siebert's POVFork argument in that section below, but you are incorrect about this article being synthesis. And if you believe the topic to be synthesis, then changing the name wouldn't change that, so you appear to be contradicting yourself there. If you are saying that the "victim of communism" topic is a different topic, then it's irrelevant to this article. Similar but distinct topics can both exist as separate articles. It's the same topic in different articles that poses a problem. And remember, a topic may exist in a source even if it is not the main topic of the source. Per WP:GNG: "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material." I'm reluctant to respond to your repetition of Buidhe's point because something may have been lost in translation, but "Communist mass killing" and "the set of mass killings under communist regimes" are the same thing. AmateurEditor (talk) 04:01, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Note that The Four Deuces' other encyclopedia is Conservapedia. Ah well, we are good when the only other two 'encyclopedias' are Conservapedia and Metapedia! While I agree "[W]ikipedia articles must be judged on their own merits according to [W]ikipedia policies", you missed the point it is still alarming these are the only two 'encyclopedias' to cover the topic; if the topic, as currently-structured, was a notable and as widespread as you claim it is, we would see it appear in other, actual and proper encyclopedias. "If you are suggesting that metapedia's having an article means the topic itself is inherently biased because metapedia is inherently biased, then I think you haven't thought that through [...]" Again, you are just assuming things. What are these articles you are referring to? Anti-communist mass killings should be similarly deleted, so your point, "I'm sure there are any number of articles there with counterparts here that you would not object to", is moot.

You write "[t]he word 'victim' is non-neutral because it assumes regime culpability for those killed" but we already do so! The current article and sources used already treat these as victims of communism and that government and the ideology were to blame. In addition, I would like to see these "sources [that] excuse famine deaths in particular as inadvertent" because that is not what we say; all the estimates used include these famines. They consider the Great Chinese Famine and the Holdomor as part of the Communist death toll and, as noted by Getty and Paul Siebert, over half of the 100 million deaths which are attributed to communism were due to famines; so if, as you say, "[s]ome sources excuse famine deaths in particular as inadvertent", the proponents of the concept (Courtois, Rummel, et al.) certainly do not; and these who do, like Getty and others, do not accept or support the concept.

I also take it as an insult you wrote "I also suggest you verify other editor's points yourself before repeating them", like I cannot think for myself and I have not already analyised both your and their points! I am actually willing to change my mind in light of evidence, but neither your nor Nug, nor others, have been willing to do the same. That you think "[I am] incorrect about this article being synthesis" is your word against ours, so just repeating this will not change anything; I believe Paul Siebert et al. gave enough convincing evidence and reasoning arguments. "And if you believe the topic to be synthesis, then changing the name wouldn't change that, so you appear to be contradicting yourself there." This misses the point we are not proposing a name change; Paul Siebert is more concerned about the structure and they, Buidhe, The Four Deuces and I are supporting a rewriting and restructuring, not just changing the name. Again, Buidhe and The Four Deuces have shown how Victims of Communism is actually discussed in secondary, independent reliable sources and it does not violate POV title because it is the common name, there are exceptions and this fullfills it. You are supporting a topic about the events that is already discussed elsewhere and that this article should be about the theory or concept that links all these events into a single phenomenon. You want that we do both, that we report the events, of which we already write in other articles, and the theory or concept supported by some authors that links communism and mass killings as a single event and phenomenon. That you think "'Communist mass killing' and 'the set of mass killings under communist regimes' are the same thing" is part of the problem. Davide King (talk) 04:37, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

If you agree that "[W]ikipedia articles must be judged on their own merits according to [W]ikipedia policies", then we no longer need to continue discussing other encyclopedias/websites and what they do or don't do. Per policy WP:NDESC, the descriptive title should "reflect a neutral point of view" and avoid "judgmental and non-neutral words". Per guideline WP:BIASEDSOURCES, "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective." About the disagreement over famine deaths, we have a whole section on that in the article called "Debate over famines". If you want me to change my mind about something, prove that I am incorrect by citing both the specific policy language being violated and also the specific article language that shows this violation (not your paraphrasing of it). This is not really a matter of opinion. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:32, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, none of this really addresses my points, so it is a waste of time and I expected more from a good user like you. Paul Siebert et al. clearly explained the policy and guidelines' violations. The problem is not biased sources, but that they are cherrypicked and synthesised with Courtois et al. and presented as an universally-accepted terminology and view. Attribution does not mean much when these are minority opinions and come only from one side, and do not even treat this as a single event or phenomena. You essentially want this article to be about the events, but we already have articles for all of them, so this article should only be about the scholarly theory and narrative that Communism killed 100 millions and was worse than Nazism (Courtois), that it was a "Red Holocaust" (Rosefielde) and the biggest killer of the 20th century (Rummel). Davide King (talk) 08:34, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul, thanks for the notification, but indeed I was curious as well about this thread...here I mainly agree with Amateureditor, and yes, it's irrelevant what would be on Metapedia or other encyclopedias, the former anyway copy-paste many articles and content from Wikipedia, etc. Will check as well the ongoing thread down.(KIENGIR (talk) 11:17, 8 December 2020 (UTC))

KIENGIR, you probably noticed that I myself never use references to Metapedia or other encyclopaedias, because I also believe that type arguments are not working (imo, the argument was not that the same topic is found in Metapedia, but that it is found nowhere else but Metapedia). Anyway, I started this thread to resolve the problem with "aggregator sources" selection criteria. My point is that the current selection resembles circular reasoning, which is usually typical for non-neutral editorial style:

1. The editor finds some topic (for example "mass killings under Communist regimes"), but performs no check to verify if it is mainstream.

2. The editor selects only those sources that describe that concept.

3. Other sources are either ignored or moved to "Debates over..." section"

4. Bingo! You got a perfectly non-neutral article!

In contrast, a neutral way would be the following:

1. Make a list of all major events (no matter how they are called in literature). In our case, these events are all mass mortality events in Communist states.

2. Summarise all significant opinia about those events (for each event taken separately or grouped according some criterion: if O'Grada writes about Chinese famine and Irish famine, his opinion still must be taken into consideration. If Fein writes about Cambodia and Indonesia, tis article should also be included).

3. Demonstrate that most sources describe those events as "mass killing", "democide", "classicide", "politicide", and that they agree that there were more commonality between them than with other events.

4. If they do, then the article's concept is valid, and aggregator sources are selected correctly.

I did, partially, that work, and I found that mainstream scholarship do not describe these events as such. I also found that some scholars group Cambodia with Indonesia, or Stalinism with Nazism. I also found that Valentino, which is considered THE aggregator source, is also misused in this article, because he did not include Afghanistan, and he wrote majority Communist regimes did not commit mass killings. He also set a strict criterion (no less than 50,000 killed in no more that 5 years), and many events listed here do not pass this criterion. That means Valentino included only a part of the described events, and I don't see why Valentino, who excluded Afghanistan, is considered an aggregator sources, but other authors who excluded USSR are not considered aggregator sources.

Anyway, the problems with policy violation are even more serious, so I suggest you not to waste your time with that thread.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I know you directed this comment to KIENGIR, but I want to make three points. 1) This topic is mainstream as far as I can tell. The four aggregator sources I normally point to are all top tier (mainstream) academic publishers: Cornell University Press, Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, and Princeton University Press. When asked to present sources saying this in not mainstream, you have tended to resort to what other sources do not say, which is very weak evidence. 2) Valentino is considered an aggregator source for this topic because he discusses mass killing under communist regimes as a group. Another source that does not discuss mass killing by communist regimes as a group (but happens to include a communist regime in some other group of regimes/mass killings) is not an aggregator source for this topic but would be an aggregator source for whatever topic they are discussing. That second source could still contribute to this article as a supplemental source if it has something relevant to say (so that the points it makes are not being unfairly excluded), but it cannot serve as the basis for the article's existence or structure because it does not contain the article topic of mass killings under communist regimes as a group. 3) Valentino uses "mass killing" in two different senses, which can be confusing. One is the generic sense that other sources use when defining the various -cide terms (and as is used in this article title to cover all the various terms that mean killing on a large scale) but he also assigns a very specific definition to "mass killing" in his book (with a definition of "at least fifty thousand intentional deaths over the course of five or fewer years" that other sources do not seem to use except when citing him). In his book, when he says most communist regimes have avoided this level of mass killing ("Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing. In addition to shedding light on why some communist states have been among the most violent regimes in history, therefore, I also seek to explain why other communist countries have avoided this level of violence.") the "level" must be read as the "50,000 killed within 5 years or less" level of mass killing, not generic mass killing. It is only this very high level that he is saying most communist regimes have avoided. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:26, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, your logic is deeply flawed. You implicitly assume that mass killing by communist regimes as a group is a mainstream topic, and, based on that poorly substantiated assumption, you select only those sources that define this topic as such. That is cherry-picking in a chemically pure form, and typical circular reasoning.

You failed to demonstrate that that approach (a description of mass killing by communist regimes as a group) is universally accepted by historians, you just declare it is. You totally ignore alternative explanations and alternative theories. And you totally ignore the fact that most sources you base the article upon are either outdated (Rummel), incorrect (Rummel), severely criticized (Courtois and Rosefielde), or are just tangentially relevant (Valentino).--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:01, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

KIENGIR, the point is the fact only 'encyclopedias' such as Conservapedia and Metapedia discuss the topic shows that it is not a notable topic and not as widespread and accepted as you guys imply but the fact is "mainstream scholarship do not describe these events as such"; again, if it was, it should be very easy to demonstrate that. So yes, Paul Siebert, "the argument was not that the same topic is found in [Conservpedia or] Metapedia, but that it is found nowhere else but [Conservapedia and] Metapedia." I believe this is also what The Four Deuces meant when they made the example. Anyway, as you yourself suggested, the topic should be about mass or excess mortality, not mass killings, although I still agree with The Four Deuces that "[the] approach I think is that the article should [not] address the question, 'How many people did the Communists kill and why did they do it?'" That is synthesis.

As noted and succinctly explained by The Four Deuces, "the only way to do that is through synthesis because only VOC advocates actually answer the questions. No serious scholarship exists that studies all the killings and compares them." I believe the article should simply describe the theory and narrative of the 100 millions "victims of Communism", with a popular and scholarly section, since these who propose the narrative rely on the literature of Courtois, Rummel et al., so we should present both, as I wrote here:

[These opposed to any change] essentially want this article to be about the events [and mass killings, even though there is not an universally-accepted terminology or scholarly literature that link them together like we do, as explained again and again by Paul Siebert et al.], but we already have articles for all of them, so this article should only be about the scholarly theory and [popular] narrative that Communism killed 100 millions and was worse than Nazism (Courtois), that it was a "Red Holocaust" (Rosefielde) and the biggest killer of the 20th century (Rummel); and the popular narrative described by The Four Deuces that essentially amounts to either double genocide theory or Holocaust trivialisation and obfuscation, namely that the Allies and the West made the wrong choice by allying with the Soviet Union and how it is used to discredit the left in Europe and rehabilitate Nazi collaborators, who chose the lesser of two evils; and against any allegedly left-leaning policy such as universal health care, or any government control of something [or even that Communist, Nazi and Burmese mass killings are grouped together, with their connection being socialism, pushing the fringe view the Nazis were socialists, while sometimes they see Nazi mass killings as self-protection against Communism. Hence they can put the blame on Communism], that will inevitably result in the Soviet Union et al. Because the introduction to The Black Book of Communism and other scholarly work[s] such as Rosefielde and Rummel [are] used and justified by authors, politicians and others to push the aforementioned described popular narrative, hence why we need to describe both; the scholarly analysis, which is more nuanced, albeit still a minority view; and the non-scholarly, popular but fringe view present in popular literature and promoted by some right-wing politicians and anti-communist organisations.

— Davide King (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, notability has a specific meaning in wikipedia based on reliable sources. As I said, most wikipedia articles have no counterparts in any other encyclopedia and this is not a problem as far as wikipedia's notability policy is concerned. I don't see what other points you were trying to make other than repeating/paraphrasing other editors. If you have reliable sources that you think the article should be based on, then present them. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:26, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, Notability actually says "[i]nformation on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable, independent sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article." Courtois, Rosefielde, Rummel and Valentino are primary sources, i.e. they are the proponents of the link between Communism and mass killings, hence primary sources for the topic; that you think primary sources would be Communist governments rather than the proponents of the topic is part of the problem. All we have are sources from the proponents of the concept or theory; that is what the article should be about, which is actually supported by independent secondary sources, if it is rewritten; the events topic is not, because these are all minority views that make the link. Why do you ignore the fact scholars argue that a connection between the events in Pol Pot's Cambodia and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union are far from evident and that 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, or that questioned "[w]hether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss" and which is also what we do here? And honestly, I am tired of you asking me to do the job for you; you are the one who want to keep this article as it is, so why do you not try to add criticism of the concept or that these are all "significant minorities" rather than mainstream, majority or widespread? I would not know how to do that because I think the article needs to be rewritten but perhaps you do. Davide King (talk) 13:37, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

VOC, Communist genocide, etc

If you don't mind, I'll collapse the part of the previous section that is totally unrelated to the topic. Regarding etymological fallacies, Wikipedia is being edited mostly by amateurs, so if something can be misinterpreted, it will be misinterpreted. If you want, you may waste your time explaining to each newcomers what etymological fallacies are, but I am not sure you will be able to persuade everybody, and, sooner or later some RfC will legalise a totally distorted, fallacious interpretation of that term.

Regarding "Communist genocide", yes, that article had that name originally. However, there were two huge problems there: (i) It pretended that "Communist genocide" was some single event, or a single phenomenon (similar to the Holocaust), which obviously contradicts to what an overwhelming number of scholar think on that account. (ii) An overwhelming majority of mass deaths under Communists were not genocidal deaths, and many authors stress that Communism is an intrinsically non-genocidal doctrine. Read just one source Mao’s China: The WorstNon-Genocidal Regime? by Jean-Louis Margolin, who is incidentally one of two major contributors of the Black Book, and whose opinion, in contrast to the opinion of the author of the worst part of the book, is significantly underrepresented in this article. Incidentally, since Chinese mass killing constitute more than a half of all VOC, that means China was supposed to be excluded from the "Communist genocide" article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

That is why precisely I oppose using Communist genocide or Communism and mass killings, or using any other terminology on which there is no agreement among scholars themselves. They are not supported by the literature. Another possibility could be Communist death toll but I believe Victims of Communism is more accurate because that is the narrative used in popular literature and by some scholarly sources, albeit minority views, that it was "Communism" to blame, hence those are "victims of Communism." Outlining the "victims of Communism" is exactly what Courtois and Malia tried to do in their infamous introduction. The topic should not be about the events themselves, which we already discuss in detail at the relevant articles, but about a linkage between all excess deaths under Communist states and communism, i.e. as a theory or concept that is very popular in mass media and popular literature ("since the MKuCR topic appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature") but it is a minority views in academia, hence why my proposal to divide it into Popular and Scholarly literature, with criticism of both. Davide King (talk) 20:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

No. "Communism and mass killings" is perfectly supported. Some authors (Courtois, Malia, Rosenfielde et al) claim Communism is a primary driver of mass killings, and some of them pile together all premature deaths under Communist regimes to come to a conclusion that Communism was the worst killer in XX century, AND that Communism was much worse than Nazism. Other authors directly criticize these theories, or, importantly provide different explanations. Thus, Valentino totally reject a linkage between mass killings and ideology, and his main idea is that leader's personality played much more important role. I can continue further, but I prefer to do that later, after we resolved the main question.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether the title accurately reflects the topic, but what the topic is called in mainstream sources. For example, the Boston Massacre, which is mentioned in Non-neutral but common names, was not a massacre, but was inaccurately described as one by partisans for propaganda purposes. The word massacre is even used in the title of articles about events where no one was killed, such as the Saturday Night Massacre, where three high ranking U.S. officials were either dismissed or resigned, but faced no other consequences. MKuCR OTOH is a descriptive title: "if the article topic has no name, it may be a description of the topic." Using that title then allows anything that is a mass killing that occurred in a Communist country to be included. It doesn't matter that the consensus in reliable sources is that the Khmer Rouge murders of ethnic minorities were carried out for nationalist rather than Communist motivations, they were still mass killings under Communist regimes. Therefore all that is required for inclusion is that the source describes a mass killing that occurred under any regime that happened to be Communist. There's no need to explain how these murders are connected. Onion#Varieties by comparison lists various types of onions, but does not explain why scientists consider all of them to be onions. That's because there is scientific consensus that they are all onions. TFD (talk) 20:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

No.

Your arguments work only for the well defined topics for which some universally agreed terminology exists. In our case, a situation is totally different. One category of sources (category "A") says some specific Communist mass killings took place, AND they share some significant common traits, AND they include famine deaths into the total death toll, which is huge. Another category of sources ("B") explicitly criticize say the sources "A". The third category ("C") does not apply the term "Communist mass killing/Red Holocaust, VoC etc" to those events, they either group these events totally differently (for example, all genocides, Communist/non-communist, in Asia, or all mass killings in Eastern Europe, both by Hitler and Stalin, Chinese famine vs Bengal famine etc), or they discuss single countries. The category "C" sources use totally different terminology (thus, most famine experts do not use the words "mass killing/genocide/democide etc.", and prefer some neutral terminology, such as "entitlement famine"; experts in Stalinism speak about collectivisation/repression, but they do not use words like "Communist mass killing" at all; some authors openly say that "victims of Stalinism is a politically loaded and vague term, and so on, and so forth). However, it is the category "C" which is the most numerous and highest quality sources that describe mass killing events in Communist states. However, the category "C" plays a subordinated role in MKuCR/CG/VoC articles, because the topic is defined based on the terminology picked from minority sourses (sources "A").

Some topic is well defined if the google search results are not significantly dependent on subtle key word variations. Meanwhile, if you compare this, this, this, this, this. and that, you get totally different sources and totally different authors writing about essentially same set of events. In other words, by using VoC out of many "parallel Universes" only one is selected, and it is represented as a majority view.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

But there are universally accepted definitions for VOC and CG. They are narratives that ascribe the murder of 100 million people to the Communist movement and ideology. Whether or not their narrative is correct does not mean it is not a narrative. Consider for example the article, "Advocating for the cause of the "victims of Communism" in the European political space: memory entrepreneurs in interstitial fields" It seems like a well-defined topic for the author.

Your approach I think is that the article should address the question, "How many people did the Communists kill and why did they do it?" But the only way to do that is through synthesis because only VOC advocates actually answer the questions. No serious scholarship exists that studies all the killings and compares them. The closest we get is the introduction to the Black Book. Instead, we have numerous articles in reliable sources written by political scientists, not genocide experts, that write about the VOC/CG narrative. They provide a description of what the theory is, who advocates it, why they advocate it, what influence it has, etc. While they may question some of the numbers used, that is not central to their writing.

This reminds me of the long discussion we had on Jewish Bolshevism a long time ago. You thought that article should explain in depth the number of Jews who were Communists. I said that was irrelevant. In the end, my view won out and another editor created an article "Jews and Communism." I complained at articles for deletion that although there were books about Jewish involvement in Communism in various countries that there was no global study. The article was deleted when it was found that the article was based on a study published in an anti-Semitic journal.

TFD (talk) 22:25, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I believe The Four Deuces hit the nail in the coffin when they wrote "the only way to do that is through synthesis because only VOC advocates actually answer the questions. No serious scholarship exists that studies all the killings and compares them." Hence why no actual topic as you describe exist and this article should be deleted. On the other hand, there is a clear topic about the "victims of Communism" narrative correctly summarised by The Four Deuces, which should be the topic of this article. Again, it seems that while we agree the currently-structured article is problematic, we have different views on the solution. To solve this, it would be good to have a draft or sandbox where we can compare both versions.

My view is that Victims of Communism should be presented as a narrative, structured similarly to Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory and Jewish Bolshevism, where we explain the narrative that "ascribe the murder of 100 million people to the Communist movement and ideology", perhaps adding a section about the "authors (Courtois, Malia, Rosenfielde et al) [who] claim Communism is a primary driver of mass killings, and some of them pile together all premature deaths under Communist regimes to come to a conclusion that Communism was the worst killer in XX century, AND that Communism was much worse than Nazism." Those authors are essentially proposing the same thing, exactly as you quoted them, although they may disagree on some of the estimates and details which we may explain. The narrative is essentially the same and it would not be presented as a majority view.

Then we add a Scholarly analysis section where we mention the criticism, that this is a popular view among the public and anti-communists but fringe or minority view in academia and that most scholars not only disagree with the estimates used by the narrative but they also disagree that communism was the main culprit or that communism, socialism and by extension the left must inevitably end in genocide and mass killings. How would this be any different from your proposal, especially in explaining the theory and narrative rather than the events as in topic A? The Black Book of Communism is the book that popularised the narrative. It would not be presented as a majority view; on the other hand, I think giving a main article to your proposed topic would imply it is a majority view and is widely accepted.

This seems to be the only clear topic that would be encyclopedic and not devolve into original research or synthesis. The problem of your proposed topic is that it is essentially a minority view and cannot be separated from its narrative of Communist victims. If scholars disagree about terminology, that means the topic as you propose does not exist and can only be incorporated as part of the narrative. Do you really disagree with the structure I proposed or just with the name? You seem to be proposing a comparative analysis of mass killings under Communist regimes but I think the main topic should be the narrative, or perhaps these should be separate articles like Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism, or Comparison of Communist regimes in these case, or Comparison of mass killings under Communist regimes, if you want to focus on mass killings. Then again, why not start a section about it at Mass killing and if it grows big, then it can be a main article? Davide King (talk) 23:14, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

It has been 10 years since the fifth attempt to delete the article, time for another AfD? --Nug (talk) 23:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, that would make sense. As written by Aquillion, "[t]here would be no harm in putting this article up for AFD - the last AFD was ten years ago, and the article actually spent an absurd six of those years fully-protected (!), part of the reason its quality is still so low. I'm dubious a consensus could actually be found to delete it at this point, but it's somewhat silly to place too much stock in a ten-year-old RFC one way or the other; Wikipedia has changed substantially since then. At least a new AFD would give us a better sense of where things stand."

I just doubt anything good is going to come out from it because we actually disagree on the main topic and users are going to be for Keep that since the events indeed happened, which no ones denies, how dare you proposing it to delete it? This completely misses the point and does not address any arguments we extensively gave for why there is no serious scholar literature for the topic as currently-structured and that an analysis of sources show they do not actually support it (see my analysis here).

Most sources, and the topic itself, are taken for granted because it appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature; indeed, that Communism and Nazism were equal is taken for granted as a mainstream view, in light of the Prague Declaration (a political decision rather than a reflection of scholarly consensus), when it is actually a revisionist and minority view among scholars. As I argued here, this results in confirmation, implicit and systematic bias.

Admittedly, "[a]ll the sources used in the article are correctly treated as 'significant minority' views or weight purposes." If they are all minority views, what is the point? And how are they significant? If they are all minority views, why should it be a standalone article? Especially when it is presented as an uncontroversial academic theory and there is no consensus on the terminology.

So I believe we should at least try to reach a consensus on the main topic before an AfD because many may be for Keep but actually advocate different topics (see how many are mixed up here) and that should be actually taken as Delete since the article is supposed to have only one clear main topic. Davide King (talk) 00:29, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The problem with this terminology argument Paul presents is that "mass killing" is a core characteristic of "democide", "politicide", "classicide" and "genocide", not just another term. Democide, politicide, classicide and genocide are all mass killings with differing characteristics, but a particular mass killing isn't necessarily one or any of the 'cides, it could be famine too, exacerbated on by Communist regime criminality/incompetence. Just as poodles, greyhounds and bulldogs are all dogs with differing characteristics, yet are all dogs never the less, but a particular dog isn't necessarily a poodle. --Nug (talk) 23:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

That puddles and greyhounds are dogs is an objective and independently verifiable fact, which is universally recognized. In contrast, various "-cides" are (with one exception) just occasional intellectual exercises of a small group of authors. It is not a surprise that the attempts to develop such a "terminology" were a complete failure.

Your analogy with dogs works if we speak about something what is really objective, e.g. human deaths. We know that more than one hundred million non-combatant were killed in XX century, and a significant part of them in Communist states. How do different sources discuss them? Some sources discuss Great Leap famine in a context of Bengal and Irish famine, and they provide a very detailed and professional analysis without resorting to usage of various "-cides" and other buzzwords. These articles are authored by real experts, they cover a half of all deaths ascribed to Communism by other authors, and the viewpoint of these scholars is dramatically underrepresented in this article. Another group of sources discusses mass killings in underdeveloped countries with rudimentary political culture and low respect to human life. As a coincidence, significant part of those countries were under Communist rule during a part of its XX century history. They also do not link mass killings exclusively to Communism. And so on, and so forth.

I am expecting some more deep arguments from you.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Putting aside for one moment the connection with mass killing or genocide with communist regimes, we can objectively agree that a genocide is a mass killing, but a mass killing isn't necessarily a genocide? --Nug (talk) 23:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Not exactly. Forced assimilation of children was recognized, is some cases, as an act of genocide. Some deportations too. Therefore, some non-lethal events can be an act of genocide.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:52, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, you write "[s]ome sources discuss Great Leap famine in a context of Bengal and Irish famine, and they provide a very detailed and professional analysis without resorting to usage of various "-cides" and other buzzwords." Perhaps this should be discussed at the Great Chinese Famine and Great Leap Forward? There is simply no serious scholarship that "address the question, How many people did the Communists kill and why did they do it?' But the only way to do that is through synthesis because only VOC advocates actually answer the questions." The only one that does a comparative analysis is Crimes Against Humanity under Communist Regimes by Klas-Göran Karlsson, whose notability you disputed. It is a little too little.

I think for what you propose, we need two articles. One about the scholarly analysis of Communist regimes, which includes the events, with both more nuanced and more critical analyses, i.e. it does include mass killings but that its not its sole focus and also includes the proper context and the rising from backward agrarian countries to more advanced industrial ones, without blaming it on "Communism" or saying communism, socialism and by extension the left are prone to mass killings and genocide, hence any proposed radical change is going to result in new "victims of Communism." The other article would be this and be exclusively about the narrative, including both the popular literature (the topic "appears very frequently in various mass-media and popular literature") and the analysis of authors such as Courtois, Malia, Rosefielde et al. Davide King (talk) 00:08, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Re " Perhaps this should be discussed at the Great Chinese Famine and Great Leap Forward?", all facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article except in the case of a spinoff sub-article. That is our policy, and it is not negotiable.

Re "There is simply no serious scholarship that address the question, How many people did the Communists kill and why did they do it?'" What do you mean? There is a lot of scholarship about various deaths in Cambodia, China, USSR, as well as other countries. Yes, there is almost no serious scholarship that combine all deaths in Communist states into one category. The reason is obvious: serious authors do not consider them a single event. Indeed, the causes of Great Purge and Cambodian genocide are totally different, and there were probably more common features between Cambodia and Indonesia than between Cambodia and USSR (remember, Cambodian genocide was provoked by American bombing, Khmer Rouge were supported by the US, and the genocide stopped due to the Soviet supported Vietnamese intervention).--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:24, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that there should be no spinoff sub-article, as explained by The Four Deuces below. "[T]here is almost no serious scholarship that combine all deaths in Communist states into one category." That is exactly what I was referring to, when I wrote that, so perhaps we have a different understanding and we are referring to different things? You are proposing a comparative analysis, The Four Deuces and I are proposing the narrative that combine "all deaths in Communist states into one category." If they do not consider a single event, then we should not have a single article either. At best we may have an article comparing, what it was?, with the Indonesian mass killings. The only sources that make a comparative analysis of Communist regimes is Crimes against Humanity under Communist Regimes by Karllson. If all the other sources make a comparative analysis of only two Communist regimes, then either are not notable for a main article or they should not be mixed up and synthesis, i.e. if a source makes a comparative analysis of the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia, the article will be Comparative analysis of the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia, we do not mix up all Communist regimes together or use titles implying that, such as Communism and mass killings or Mass killings under Communist regimes. Davide King (talk) 00:42, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, while your examples (cultural Marxism, Jewish Bolshevism) are fringe theories, the same applies for mainstream majority and minority views. Unless a theory represents consensus mainstream thought (e.g., evolution or climate change), we don't present it as a given. In social sciences of course, there are far fewer theories that enjoy consensus support than in natural sciences.

Paul Siebert, if the Great Leap Forward famine was similar in cause to the Irish famine, why would we include it in this article? We don't have an article "Accidental automobile deaths under Communist regimes" because there is no obvious connection between automobile deaths in various Communist countries. We could of course find sources for automobile deaths in each Communist country and create n article similar to this one.

Nug, I agree that under most definitions, genocide is form of mass killing. Forced assimilation is sometimes called genocide because it had the same objective - the destruction of a race - and was often used in tandem with mass killings.

TFD (talk) 00:20, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

We include it because some authors (Courtois, Rosefielde, Rummel) describe that famine as mass killing and add all victims to the total "Communism death toll", which perfectly supports their theory about Communism as the worst murderer.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:27, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, I do not disagree with anything you wrote. I think you are referring to the fact many users feel we should say why a theory is correct or wrong, when only "a theory represent[ing] consensus mainstream thought (e.g., evolution or climate change)" can be "present[ed] as given." As I wrote, I agree that we would simply describe the narrative. Or were you referring to my Scholarly analysis (response or whatever one wants to call it; we may have no section of it and simply incorporate in the body, which would be better) section proposal, which you would oppose for the reasons you just enounced?

Paul Siebert, the problem is that "add[ing] all victims to the total 'Communism death toll', which perfectly supports their theory about Communism as the worst murderer", is exactly what the narrative is about, so I still fail to see on what we actually disagree, other than you feeling Victims of Communism is a POV title or that it implies it is a majority view; it does not, as explained by The Four Deuces. The authors you listed are espousing the same "victims of Communism" narrative The Four Deuces and I propose to be the main topic. As I wrote above, this does not preclude us from presenting those authors' views and their interpretation. Davide King (talk) 00:52, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@TFD's "Your approach I think is that the article should address the question, "How many people did the Communists kill and why did they do it?"" No. I thought I already explained that, but let me do that again. There are some objective and universally recognized facts about mass deaths under Communist regimes. We know that nearly 50 million died as a result of famine, diseases and war. Some other events were war crimes, repressions, deportations etc. All of that are facts. These facts have already been carefully analyzed in specialized scholarly publications, and some common causes were identified for some of those cases, whereas others are explained separately from other events. All of that is perfectly known, and we even have separate WP articles for almost every event, starting from Katyn massacre to Great Chinese Famine. We don't need, and we cannot discuss all of that again, because our policy does not allow us to do so. What we can and should do is the following. Some, relatively small, group of authors argue that all those deaths were mass killings (democide, genocide, Red Hololcaust etc), and all of them were a direct consequence of Communism, and they claim that that makes Communism the worst XX century killer. Some authors add explicitly that it was far worse than Nazism. These theories have a significant support among some journalists and general public, especially in Central Europe. This article should discuss these theories, their strengths and weaknesses, their support and criticism. That would be a quite legitimate topic.. This time, have I been clear enough?--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I do not see how that is any different from what The Four Deuces and I are actually proposing, that is the narrative of "victims of Communism" proposed by those authors which has "significant support among some journalists and general public, especially in Central Europe." Nor I see how "[s]ome, relatively small, group of authors argue that all those deaths were mass killings (democide, genocide, Red Hololcaust etc), and all of them were a direct consequence of Communism, and they claim that that makes Communism the worst XX century killer" is precluted from what The Four Deuces and I are proposing or an article called Victims of Communism. Those victims, according to the narrative, include all those events, but we should not describe them; we should simply report their interpretation of them they use to support the narrative. It seems we only disagree on the name. But I will let them speak themselves if they disagree. Please, The Four Deuces and Paul Siebert work together to make a draft or sandbox, so we can compare them. I believe they would be discussing the same topic, structured very similar and prove the main issue to be about the name. Davide King (talk) 01:07, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I agree with your topic proposal. However the current title does not address it. Instead, it implies that the events were connected and therefore there is no reason to explain the connection and we can just get on with enumerating the death toll. We have no more than a few sentences in any reliable sources saying that all these deaths were connected and nothing saying they weren't. All we have in reputable is analyses of individual countries or comparisons of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. TFD (talk) 01:29, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the title is a really big problem. The time and efforts that will be needed to change it do not commensurate with possible benefits from renaming. In addition, the title is not that bad: everybody agree that some mass killings did occur under Communist regimes, therefore, the discussion of the views of some authors who connect them together and do some very strong generalizations can perfectly fit the current title. The title is by no means the worst article's problem.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:53, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't see the same arguments about lack contentedness of all the deaths to Colonisation regarding the article Mass killings under colonial regimes. I don't think Greek colonisation caused any mass killings. --Nug (talk) 01:50, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

...and that is why I will enthusiastically support a careful examination of that article for possible synthesis. And if the analysis will show the article violates NOR, I will gladly support its deletion.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:55, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Well let's identify what that synthesis is here, given the article has recently been tagged. With over 40 pages of archived talk pages any synthesis has long been eradicated a long time ago in my view. --Nug (talk) 02:04, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, the article is Genocide of indigenous peoples, with Mass killings under colonial regimes being a redirect. I would not oppose a retargeting to Mass killing#Colonialism where we actually discuss it in a paragraph, since Valentino includes in the second category of mass killings (coercive mass killing) the colonial expansion. Yet, this article actually implies that communism caused mass killings; this is stated as fact, when all we have are the opinions of those supporting this view, rather than stated as part of the theory and narrative. I see no similar thing for the linked article, whose name is actually Genocide of indigenous peoples, with no mention of ideology or system. Regarding synthesis, the problem is precisely that is not been eradicated at all. Anti-communist mass killings should similarly be deleted for synthesis because the topic in literature does not exist. Both of those articles are synthesis and problematic, so I believe to be pretty consistent.

The Four Deuces and Paul Siebert, since we actually agree on the main topic, I believe we should seriously start working on it and only discuss the name when the dust settles and the rewriting is complete. I still support Victims of Communism because that is the common name for the narrative and because they make no distinction between direct killings and civil war, famines, wars and any other excess death; there is no agreement among sources on the terminology but there is agreement that, according to this narrative, all of these were "victims of Communism." But I agree we should really focus on how to fix the article and we can worry about the name later. Davide King (talk) 02:25, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

You appear to be jumping straight into the solution (a total rewrite) without actually identifying what the synthesis is beyond claiming that it exists. What's the evidence? I don't think the article implies that communism caused mass killings, just that mass killings occurfed under Communist regimes. Opinions as to the connection to the ideology of a particular regime is reliably sourced. And in any case, in the view of Communist regimes, most Victims of Communism were fascists, reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, etc, etc, right? --Nug (talk) 02:31, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

That you write "[I] appear to be jumping straight into the solution (a total rewrite) without actually identifying what the synthesis is beyond claiming that it exists" can only be explained by you not having read or closely followed the whole discussion ("The article is intrinsically biased because the very topic is beyond the scope of the scholarly community. The very concept 'Communist mass killing' is not a universally accepted concept, so the authors who are not writing in that paradigm (i.e. an overwhelming majority of historians who specialise in history of some particular country) are beyond the scope of this article, and their views are either ignored or distorted in this article.").

Paul Siebert and others repeatedly explained and showed the issues, in particular the section about terminology. The problem is that this article's main topic should not be about all mass killings that occurred under Communist regimes, and which no one is denying they did not happen, because "[w]e don't need, and we cannot discuss all of that again, because our policy does not allow us to do so." The main topic is supposed to be about the popular and scholarly minority interpretation of the events as "all those deaths [include deaths from famines and wars] [being] mass killings (democide, genocide, Red Hololcaust etc), and all of them [being] a direct consequence of Communism, and they claim that that makes Communism the worst XX century killer", with the claim that "Communism is a primary driver of mass killings, and some of them pile together all premature deaths under Communist regimes to come to a conclusion that Communism was the worst killer in XX century, AND that Communism was much worse than Nazism." This is supposed to be the main topic, not the actual events which we already describe in detail at the relevant articles. It is supposed to be presented as a controversial but popular theory and narrative but reading the article gives a misleading impression this is a mainstream, uncontroversial theory, rather than minority opinions.

As written by Siebert, "[t]echnically, the article is in good shape, mostly thanks to AmateurEditor. Unfortunately, that makes it especially harmful to Wikipedia's reputation, because it visually a good quality and well sourced article that provides a very one sided and biased picture." The article meets the definition, as given at Wikipedia:Citation overkill, of "[a] well-meaning editor [who] may attempt to make a subject which does not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines appear to be notable [or supported by scholarly literature, as in this case] through quantity of sources." Most of sources used and listed are not even about comparative analysis, or where Communist regimes are discussed together as a single thing, which is what we currently do. We cite Conquest about the Soviet Union, even though he "did not write about mass killings under Communist regimes, he wrote about the Red terror, the Holodomor and the Great purge in the Soviet Union. He treated these as separate subjects and did not develop a theory of mass killings under Communist regimes. We should not put together a group of events and create an article when no one else has."

Thanks again to The Four Deuces for expression this more concisely here and here; I wrote all of these before their response. I may also add the scholars noted how Cambodia reflected more fascism than communism and one critique of lumping all Communist regimes together is that "a connection between the events in Pol Pot's Cambodia and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union are far from evident and that 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" and that "[w]hether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss." Davide King (talk) 03:37, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

It is implicit synthesis. It implies there is a connection without explicitly saying there is. It's like saying, "Jim has red hair and he's a criminal, Sam also has red hair and he's a criminal. Then there's Sally, who has red hair and is a criminal. I think I'll create an article about red-headed criminals. No I don't think that red hair has anything to do with them being criminals. No of course I don't like people with red hair, that has nothing to do with it and if you try to delete this article you must have red hair yourself because who else would defend red-headed people."

Also, the statement that in the view of Communist regimes most VOC were fascist etc. is incorrect. The mass killings by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were all condemned by the Communist leaders who replaced them. TFD (talk) 03:31, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Seeing "implicit synthesis" may be more a function of ones personal POV? Norman Naimark devotes a whole chapter called Communist genocides in his book Genocide A World History, published by Oxford University Press. Benjamin Valentino also has a chapter called Communist mass killings in his book Final Solutions Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, published by Cornell University Press. Both discuss the communist systems of Cambodia, Soviet Union and China, both Naimark and Valentino are scholars, their works published by reputable university presses. So there is no synthesis here in grouping the communist regimes of Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#Cambodia, Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#Soviet_Union and Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#China together in this article. At least two independent scholarly sources have already made that connection. --Nug (talk) 06:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, all of that have already been addressed very recently. Just read the talk page. By the way, can you tell me how exactly does Valentino explain linkage between Communism and mass killings?--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:42, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, I said there was implicit synthesis in the article because it implies there is a connection between mass killings and Communist regimes without explicitly saying there is. You say I am wrong because the connection is explained in reliable sources. So what is that connection? TFD (talk) 07:12, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

All has been addressed before in the talk page, that is why I am perplexed all these old arguments for a wholesale rewrite are being recycled again. User:Davide King writes above "scholars noted how Cambodia reflected more fascism than communism", but actually only one author, Helen Fein, wrote that back in 1993, decades before Valentino's and Naimark's more up to date research. You can read for yourself Valentino's linkage as written in the Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#Ideology section of the article:

Benjamin Valentino writes that mass killings strategies are chosen by communists to economically dispossess large numbers of people, arguing as such: "Social transformations of this speed and magnitude have been associated with mass killing for two primary reasons. First, the massive social dislocations produced by such changes have often led to economic collapse, epidemics, and, most important, widespread famines. [...] The second reason that communist regimes bent on the radical transformation of society have been linked to mass killing is that the revolutionary changes they have pursued have clashed inexorably with the fundamental interests of large segments of their populations. Few people have proved willing to accept such far-reaching sacrifices without intense levels of coercion".

—Nug (talk)

References

It's not clear what the reason for the economic dispossession is. Certainly killing people dispossesses them of their property, but why do they do this? TFD (talk) 11:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually, the opinion of Valentino is quite clear: "I content mass killing occurs when powerful groups come to believe it is the best available means to accomplish certain radical goals, counter specific types of threats, or solve difficult military problem" (p. 66). Per Straus (World Politics, Apr., 2007, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Apr., 2007), pp. 476-501), Valentino claims ideology alone is an insufficient explanation, and the leader's short time goals and leader's personality explain mass killings better.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:27, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, this is another problem I noted, namely that the article even misrepresents the views of its proponents. Is "mass killings strategies are chosen by communists to economically dispossess large numbers" even an accurate summary of what he wrote? Valentino does not seem to say Communists 'chose' those strategies but that they were the results of their policies of radical transformation, which is very different. Nug, the first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. If these seems to be a repetition of what has been said in the past, perhaps that is because none of the issues have been actually solved, rather than "synthesis [being] eradicated a long time ago in my view" as you claimed. Davide King (talk) 15:47, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug didn't tell us what the connection was but provided quotes for us to figure out. I hope that he can explain it concisely in his own words. Then we can find who actually articulated that view, so that we can define the topic. At that point we can determine what the topic is normally called, whether it is notable, who its supporters are and what degree of acceptance it has. TFD (talk) 22:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

?? If you are unable to comprehend Valentino's own words, why would it be any more likely you would comprehend my words? Davide King, I think the real problem here is that some people haven't taken the time to read the underlying sources. Rather than read the Valentino book directly for the wider context of the cites given, we have Paul Siebert citing Straus' interpretation of Valentino, while The Four Deuces asks for my interpretation. If we can't rely on a direct reading of Valentino, why would a direct reading of Straus' interpretation of Valentino be any more reliable? Just seems all a bit odd. --Nug (talk) 05:53, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, surely our own reading of Valentino does not hold the same weight of an academic such as Strauss? Is not that exactly why we should use secondary sources for analysis rather than primary ones which are going to reflect the editor's POV? Davide King (talk) 06:03, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I certainly am able to understand Valentino's own words and two other editors have been helpful in explaining them. None of us can see what the connection is and that's why I asked you to explain it. Anyway I am sure you are capable of explaining the concept in your own words, which we need to establish the topic. if you can't explain it, then perhaps you can find another source. TFD (talk) 07:20, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I propose to look at that from a little bit different perspective. When you look at this article, its main focus is

• How should we call MKuCR?

• How many victims?

• What are common causes of those killings?

• Some concrete details about separate countries/events.

The total death toll plays an important role in this article. Actually, it is implicitly assumed that only the sources that provide some figure (total number of victims) can be considered real aggregator sources. In connection to that, Great Chinese Famine plays an essential role in this article: if we exclude this and other famines, the "Communist death toll" becomes much less impressive.

In connection to that, it would be logical to consider the current article a summary artcile, and the Great Chinese Famine, Holodomor etc articles are child articles. Per our policy, we are not allowed to have more than one article about the same event, and the "summary article - daughter article" is the only option that may allow us to preserve both articles. However, a comparison of those article with the current article shows they are written from a totally different perspectives. That is a violation of our core content policy, which is not negotiable. I am expecting those users who oppose to significant modification of this article to explain how that violation (which is obvious) can be fixed. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:12, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

In this section I would say I mainly agreed with Paul, especially about "Communism and mass killings" is perfectly supported, etc. About the above section where he pinged me in, will react later, due to the enormous amount of material hard to read through so quickly (the latter I won't allude anymore, take it permanent in such conditions).(KIENGIR (talk) 10:13, 5 December 2020 (UTC))

KIENGIR, to save your time, just read the section below, because it describes the most important problem.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:56, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

This article has a fundamental problem

Upon reflection, I came to a conclusion that this article cannot be a summary style article for a large group of events in Communist states. The reason is simple: this article and its "daughter articles" discuss the events from totally different perspectives, and it is not fixable. The problem is that it describes all human life losses under Communists as "mass killing" or something like that. That means it is intrinsically incapable of serving as a platform for providing a neutral and comprehensive review af all points of view.

Thus, this article claims Soviet famine was a mass killing, and the main problem is if it was a "mass killing", "democide", "politicide", "classicide", of a broadly defined "genocide" (that is what the lead says). In contrast, the Soviet Famine article says it was "a major famine that killed millions of people", and "major contributing factors to the famine include the forced collectivization of agriculture as a part of the Soviet first five-year plan, forced grain procurement, combined with rapid industrialisation, a decreasing agricultural workforce, and several bad droughts. " Moreover, the fact that we have a separate Holodomor genocide question article demonstrates the question whether that famine was a mass killing is still open. The same problem is with Chinese famine.

In contrast, this article includes all famine deaths into the combined "Communist death toll" and characterise that as mass killing. That means it is a POV-fork, and it cannot be a summary style article for all those events. The problem is that we cannot exclude these events from the article, because the "Communist death toll" immediately drops more than two fold, and because the "aggregator sources" used in this article do not allow us to do that.

Therefore, we have just two options:

• convert this article to the article about some theory that links Communism and mass killing;
• delete this article as a POV-fork.

Everything else would be a violation of our policy. I think RfCs or similar procedures will not help. Taking into account that the conflict around that article is more than 10 years old, it may be a good time to resort to arbitration (if the participants of that discussion will not propose some compromise solution that is consistent with our policy). --Paul Siebert (talk) 02:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually, the situation is even worse: this article is a two-layer fork. It is based on several works by few authors (Courtois, Rummel, Rosefielde, Valentino). Other authors do not cover that topic in full (even Valentino doesn't, because he claims that majority of Communist regimes were not engaged in mass killings, contrary to what this article implies). Anyway, these are the authors whose works create a framework of this article. However, we already have separate articles about the views expressed by these authors: Rummel's Democide, Benjamin Valentino, The Black Book of Communism, and Red Holocaust do exist in Wikipedia. We also have a Mass killing article, where all general theorisings about the nature of mass killing and the terminology is presented. In other words, that is also a violation of our policy, because we have several articles about the same subject. In addition, that means if this article will be deleted, no essential information will be lost from Wikipedia, because it is already present in other articles.

The only way to save this article is to convert in to the article about the group of theories that link Communism and mass killings.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:05, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Your reasoning doesn't really follow. Calling some event a genocide can certainly be controversial, as the article Holodomor genocide question shows, however as you point out, millions of people were killed in that Soviet famine, hence masses of people were killed, i.e. it was a mass killing. The term "mass killing" is absolutely neutral, it makes no inference as to whether it was a genocide, democide, politicide or classicide. Hence it cannot be construed as a POV fork because it expresses a factual concept, not some POV. --Nug (talk) 06:12, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, that is what I noted too and why I opened the thread about the main topic in the first place. Here and elsewhere, I analysed these authors and they are not actually discussing the same topic; as you correctly noted, even Valentino does not. I also proposed to move these at the relevant articles, which is something I have already done for Democide, Mass killing, Rudolph Rummel and Benjamin Valentino, so it is indeed true "no essential information will be lost from Wikipedia, because it is already present in other articles." Davide King (talk) 06:23, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, it seems you don't understand it: the discussion has moved to another level: we are not discussing what genocide is, and if Stalinism perpetrated mass killings (surely, it did). The problem is much more severe and much more simple: "we have several articles about the same subject that describe it from different perspectives: different core sources, different wording, different authors". That will be obvious to any uninvolved admin/arbitrator. If I bring that to an attention of ArbCom or AE, the violation will become apparent to any user with no previous knowledge of the subject, because it is a formal violation of NPOV. That violation must must be fixed,and I propose a way to do that. Let me say that again: we are not having a content dispute anymore, we are talking about a formal violation of our core content policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:18, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul, NPOV is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies, as you say yourself. You and I have been around long enough to know that ArbCom or AE rule on conduct, not content issues, but if you think differently, then be my guest and raise it with ArbCom or AE. --Nug (talk) 02:55, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, systematic introduction of the content that violates NPOV is a conduct issue, so it is perfectly in the ArbCom's/AE scope. See Guidance_for_editors for more details.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:35, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

• I think the article is fine as is. PackMecEng (talk) 06:09, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

That is not the question of what you think: I pointed at multiple violations of our policy. If you can prove there is no violation, feel free to present your arguments. However, please, keep in mind that we are talking about violations of our core content policy, which is non-negotiable and cannot be overruled by a local consensus. Therefore, this discussion is not just a content dispute. Violation of NPOV are potentiall sanctionable per DS, and the sanctions may be severe.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:13, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't see your arguments holding much weight, which is why the article is fine as is. No policy violations that I can see. PackMecEng (talk) 16:53, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

It would be more constructive if you could explain why you don't think those arguments hold weight. TFD (talk) 17:05, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, if one editor says "This text violates some policy because the article A says X and cites the source Y, whereas the article B says Z and cites the course ZZ", that is a verifiable claim that can be easily checked by any uninvolved user/admin. If another user says "No, there is no policy violation here" and provides no arguments, that situation is not a content dispute. It is a conduct issue, and that type problems should be resolved using different tools. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:14, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug explained it well here and in the above section. Basically you are claiming things that are not supported by sources, but they actually are. It is going into original research territory. This is a long running issue on this talk page. Honestly look at the wall after wall of text. At this point it is looking like a forum rather than an article talk page. As I and others have said repeatedly at this point, start an RFC, AFD, request merge, or something. PackMecEng (talk) 17:41, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, please, re-read this section only, and show me where did I write that something is not supported by sources. As I already explained, the discussion has elevated to the next level: from that moment on, I am NOT going to focus on what various sources say. Instead, I am focusing on the fact that different WP articles say different things about the same subject, and they use different core sources written by different authors. That is directly prohibited by NPOV.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

It seems some my colleagues do not understand one important thing. My original post on the top of this section describes a serious policy violation. This description is not just my opinion, it is verifiable (and falsifiable), and that can be done by any uninvolved admin who has no preliminary knowledge. Therefore, the editors who reject this arguments without pointing at logical inconsistencies in what I wrote are endorsing the policy violation described by me. That is a conduct issue, not a content dispute. Let me remind you that this topic is under ARBEE. I can post a DS warning template at talk pages of every participant of this discussion, which means both I and you would be duly warned, so we all may be subjected to AE sanctions for policy violations (including NPOV violation). However, I would like not to do that, because that by no means is helpful for creating collaborative atmosphere. Therefore, I am asking:

• If you see formal logical flaws in my description of the major NPOV issue, please, do me a favor, point at them. Otherwise, let's think how can this problem be fixed. I already proposed two solutions, both of them comply with our policies.

Cheers. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:33, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with your summary of the problem. Note also that Valentino says that not all of the deaths could be attributed to Communist ideology. He saw Soviet mass killings in Afghanistan as having the same motivation as mass killings by American clients in Guatemala and called these "Counterguerilla mass killings." Some writers see the mass killings of ethnic minorities in Cambodia as motivated by xenophobic nationalism, rather than Communist ideology. Unfortunately, no one has compared and contrasted all the different theories. Hence no topic exists in reliable sources and the article is synthesis.

The only narrative that makes the claim that all these deaths are related and provides a tally is that of the Victims of Communism/Communist Genocide, originally expressed in the Introduction to the Black Book. It is covered extensively in reliable secondary sources independent of the proponents. Therefore it is possible to write a neutral article without synthesis.

TFD (talk) 22:12, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

TFD, you have been involved in this article for over ten years now, and during that time have advocated unsuccessfully for deletion in five AfD discussions, and you even initiated one as well. One AfD attempted a POV fork argument too, but that resulted in a "KEEP". Now after ten years maybe you believe Paul may have finally hit upon a winning permutation of the POV fork/synthesis argument, so please, raise another AfD. --Nug (talk) 02:41, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

As you say, AfD may be difficult. OTOH, ten years is a long time. People who formed their opinions during the Cold War who remember duck and cover die out and new generations were no longer formed by the Cold War mentality of the 1950s. We can write honest articles about water fluoridation, that might have been more difficult during the Cold War. Most Baltic people, Poles and Ukrainians are more concerned about building their nations than re-fighting WW2. OTOH, irrational hatred of Russia remains a problem. In a perfect world, editors would view these subjects objectively. But as you point out, that doesn't always happen with controversial topics.

Anyway, I have never been a supporter of Stalinism. My interest in this article has been that it represents a right-wing perspective, which I am interested in. Interacting with editors who support this article has given me an insight I would not have found just by reading books and articles. Even if I disagree with you, I am very interested in what you have to say, what you believe and how you defend those views. TFD (talk) 03:01, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't see it as an anti-Russian thing at all, they were after all the first victims of a Communist regime. Nor do I see it as left/right thing either, since there were many similarities between the extreme left and right, but see it more as a human-rights issue. I fully support government funded public education and universal health care, fwiw. --Nug (talk) 03:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Nmm, I checked archives, and I found that

• I hadn't participated in the first AfD
• I hadn't participated in the second AfD
• I found no my posts in the 3rd AfD
• I found no my posts in the 4th AfD
• During the last AfD, I wrote the following

"The article can be kept, provided, but only provided, that all SYNTH and OR are removed from there. However, based on previous AfD discussion I conclude that most opponents of the article's deletion simultaneously oppose to removal of synthesis and OR from there.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:34, 13 July 2010 (UTC)", and later I proposed several improvements to prevent possible future AfD nominations.

In connection to that, first since I never voted for deletion, you Nug owe me an apology. I request for explicit and formal apology.

Second, more that 10 years have passed since the last AfD, so the references to them seem irrelevant.

Third, I am not going to initiate a new AfD. The fact that this article is being viewed very frequently, that it contains blatant violations of NPOV, and the very size of its talk page archives seem to be sufficient to aderess directly to ArbCom. This article has been a focus of arguably the longest sluggish edit war in the history of Wikipedia, and I am sure arbitrators will take this case.

Fourth, I expect you Nug to provide some logical counterarguments to my fresh arguments presented above. If you will continue arguing in the current style, that will be tantamount to resisting to removal of NPOV policy violations from the article, which is a sanctionable misbehaviour.

We either fix the article and resolve NPOV issues, or I address to ArbCom directly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:33, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

this is insufficient.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:36, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I also checked and amended my comment above appropriately. Go for it Paul, make your address to ArbCom if you feel the need. --Nug (talk) 03:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

So far, I don't feel such a need. I believe you realize that if I go to ArbCom, I will request the article to be deleted and salted. I am still preferring to keep this article, I have always believed the article should be kept, I was just advocating removal of NPOV violations. However, if I'll see that the number of users who refuse to respect our policy is too big, I will have no choice but to go to ArbCom. You alone are not a significant factor, the problem with your refusal to respect our policy can be solved individually. Do you have a fresh DS warning on your talk page, or I have to refresh it?--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:00, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I doubt ArbCom will delete and salt this article. DS applies equally to you too Paul, and anyone else editing this page, read the talk page banner above. Since AfD seems out of the question for the moment, the other alternative you suggested was converting this article to an article about some theory that links Communism and mass killing. Given the potential opposition that this change could entail, and the fact that this article is under DS, I would suggest you draft this change in Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes/sandbox, so that we all can better understand what you are proposing. --Nug (talk) 04:17, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I know DS warning works in both side. With regard to ArbCom, I am going to present the following arguments:

• The article described facts and events that have been already described in other WP articles (a long list will follow);
• The article describes them from a totally different perspective, using different core sources authored by different scholars. Both these facts are easily verifiable, and I will provide a brief and formal analysis, which will make that blatant NPOV violation apparent to all ArbCom members;
• The article is a focus of a 12 years long incessant conflict, and it probably has one of the longest talk page in Wikipedia. that will be an evidence that all possible means to resolve the conflict have been exhausted;
• I will present a list of users who resists to NPOV problem fixing. The goal is not to inflict sanctions of them, but to demonstrate that standard means for achieving consensus will not work.
• I will also explain that I myself is a proponent of keeping that article, but the supporters of NPOV violation leave me no choice but to request for deletion.
• Finally, I will persuasively demonstrate that no important information will be removed from Wikipedia after deletion of that article, because all facts and opinia presented here are already presented in other articles (I will provide a long comperensive list).

If you want the events to develop according to that scenario, please continue in the same vein. If you want to fix NPOV problems, let's discuss. I believe the problem cannot be resolved without your active participation (under "resolved" I don't mean deletion, because that is an outcome I myself want to avoid).--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:32, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Sure Paul, and I will show that significant improvement occurred in the last three years without conflict. And you yourself was the third highest contributor to this alleged POV fork in that period. --Nug (talk) 05:01, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

...and I will easily demonstrate that there was a constant drift from neutrality, and majority of my edits were reverted. Please, be serious. So far, you provided ZERO counter-arguments.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:51, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, as I wrote below, we are no longer proposing deletion but a rewriting and restructuring. However, I agree that a sandbox would be helpful and is what I suggested too. Davide King (talk) 04:21, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

David, sandbox would be a waste of time if some user assume a self-appointed position of reviewers/approvers. --Paul Siebert (talk) 05:51, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I agree, but I am positive the article will get rewritten according to your proposal, so we might start somewhere. Davide King (talk) 06:55, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, the reason why I supported deletion (which would not be a deletion in the truest since "no essential information will be lost from Wikipedia, because it is already present in other articles"), even though I did not partecipate at any AfD and entered the discussion only recently, was because I did not think the issues you so nicely described could be solved; they have not been solved despite all the years passed and these in favour of keep have shown a zealous amount to ownership in not only rejecting any solution to the NPOV et al. issues but even denying they are real in the first place. However, an article about the narrative, and the theory as described and structured by you, Buidhe and The Four Deuces, would solve the issues and avoid deletion; the only disagreement between us seem to be about the name because, more or less, we agree on the main topic to discuss and its structure. Since keepers have rejected any compromise and cooperation in improving the article by removing these issues, perhaps ArbCom must really be addressed. I believe Buidhe, The Four Deuces, Paul Siebert and I found a clear main topic that is supported by reliable sources and has a clear literature while others are uncritically supporting the unclear, mixing-up topic that violates NPOV et al. Perhaps the ArbCom could determinate which side is 'correct' and whether guidelines are indeed violated as Paul Siebert et al. argue. That seems to be the only solution since your comment "[t]he article can be kept, provided, but only provided, that all SYNTH and OR are removed from there. However, based on previous AfD discussion I conclude that most opponents of the article's deletion simultaneously oppose to removal of synthesis and OR from there" is still very accurate. Long discussions have not resulted in any improvement, so I see no other solution. Davide King (talk) 04:19, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

As a newcomer you probably don't know that since the last AfD in 2010 where article kept, "provided, but only provided, that all SYNTH and OR are removed from there", significant effort has been made to improve the article in last last three years. Ironically Paul himself was the third highest contributor to this alleged POV fork. --Nug (talk) 04:43, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

{Comment removed.) TFD (talk) 04:34, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Your allegation "Of course you hate anyone who has ever led Russia and it blurs Russophobia and anti-Communism." is just plain BS. You ought to delete your comment as it could well be construed as a personal attack by some patrolling admin. --Nug (talk) 04:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

TFD, I am not sure commenting on what Nug thinks and what he loves/hates is a good idea. Let's be more formal: there is a clear NPOV violation in this article (since Nug proposed no counter-arguments, that means he implicitly agrees with that). We all want to keep this article, because several authors have argued Communism (as some single phenomenon) was the worst killer in XX century. This view is influential among some journalists and it is advocated by several scholars. It is not a majority view (otherwise other WP articles about USSR of Chinese history were saying the same, but they don't). However, it is a significant minority view. Therefore, by fixing the NPOV problem we can keep this article. We all are interested in that, that mean we all (including Nug) can collaborate.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:44, 5 December 2020 (UT

No, I don't implicitly agree with your contention, I suggested you draft something in the sandbox so that everyone has a clear view what you are proposing. --Nug (talk) 04:46, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Before I do that, I need to know what exactly is wrong with my arguments. If you think they are logically or factually incorrect, please tell that now. If you just disagree that there is a NPOV violation in the article, but provide no arguments, that means you support policy violation. That is a serious misbehaviour.

To make your life easier, I can briefly explain how the article can be fixed.

• In the lead, all statements of fact must be replaced with attributed opinia (several authors believe that mass mortality and killings in Communist states are linked primarily with Communism etc...)
• Terminology section is removed (majority of those terms were proposed not for MKuCR, but for mass killings in general, and all essential information is in the parent article)
• The death toll is discussed in a proper context: who made an estimate, how it was made, which numbers were included, how these numbers were interpreted, and what conclusions were drawn, who supports this interpretation and who criticize, and why)
• Who links the mass killings with Communism and why (that will include a double genocide theory, Courtois, "generic communism" etc). How this theorising is accepted by scholarly community.
• The country-specific sections should discuss not how many were killed, but focus on historical context (in accordance with what specialised articles say).

If a significant number of users, including Nug and AmateurEditor, agree, in general, with that plan, we can start writing some draft, otherwise I see no reason to waste my time. If somebody propose another plan, let's discuss it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:03, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Okay, regarding the argument that this article is a POV fork, note that Staub defines "mass killing" as "killing members of a group without the intention to eliminate the whole group". The article's reliably sourced claim that the Soviet famine was a mass killing is not inconsistent with Soviet Famine article, because due to the contributions of government policy of forced collectivization of agriculture, forced grain procurement and a decreasing agricultural workforce due to rapid industrialisation, millions of people were, at the very minimum, unintentionally killed by government policy. Holodomor genocide question is about whether that mass killing was in fact intentionally targeting specific groups and therefore a genocide. So on that basis, this article isn't a POV fork. Ofcourse, if this article was called Genocide under communist rule I would agree with you. --Nug (talk) 09:31, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly how I myself saw that until recently. However, if you take a look at what policy say, you will see that "All facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article except in the case of a spinoff sub-article". Taking your example, either this article is supposed to be a spinoff article of or the Soviet famine article, or vise versa. The policy gives an example of how that should be organized, and the current situation with that article does not fit these criteria. A good example is Holodomor - Holodomor genocide question. The parent article says the event was "famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians", which leaves a space for describing all important views on that event. The spinoff article discusses if it was mass killing/genocide. That is perfectly ok. In contrast, this article says that all described events were mass killings/democide/genocide/etc, and it implies they all were linked to Communism. In contrast "spinoff articles" discuss them in a totally different way, and they provide a large number of country-specific factors and sources, which are totally ignored in this article. Just compare the lead section in each of those "spinoff articles" with what this article says about the same event.

Therefore, in the article's hierarchy, this article, which provide a very specific view that is different from a majority viewpoint, can be only a spinoff article of country-specific articles (Great Chinese Famine etc). However, I don't see how can that be organized. I would say, a natural hierarchy, theoretically, is as follows

• Top level: Mass killing (discusses what mass killing is, and what are main instances thereof)
• Second level: this article (discusses Communist states specifically)
• Third level A: Great Purge, Great Chinese Famine etc (discuss each event specifically)
• Third level B: The Black Book of Communism, Red Holocaust (discusses specific theories separately)

However, that organization required that all important views on the events in each concrete country are presented here. That can be done only if we re-write the article completely and rename it into something like "Population losses and mass mortality events in Communist states". After that, we should write that several events lead to mass mortality in Communist states, including civil war, repressions, deportations, war, famine and disease. Then we provide a neutral description of historical background, describe why and how all of that happened, and later we add that some authors characterise all of that as mass killing/democide/ genocide etc. That would be a good summary of how the scholarly community sees it, because such authors as Valentino or Rummel may be popular, but their views are not shared by majority of country experts.

Another, way to fix the article is the way I already proposed: to describe only the views of Courtois (which are different from his co-authors say), Rosefielde and few other authors, and explain that that is just one group of theories explaining the events in Communist states. In that case, a hierarchy is simple: this article has just the "Third level B" spinoff articles.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:52, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I realised that the above hierarchy is not completely correct. If the current article is made a spinoff of Mass killing, that narrows the space for presenting all existing views on, for example, Chinese famine, which was clearly man made, but it was a combination of natural factors, poor management and the lack of adequate statistical information about the harvest. Majority of authors do not describe it as mass killing at all, so the article telling about that event cannot be a spinoff article of any "Mass killing ...." article.

The adequate hierarchy should be:

• Level one: A This article (Mass mortality/population losses in Communist states); B Mass killing
• Level two, I: Great Purge, Great Chinese Famine, Cambodian genocide, etc. They are spinoff articles of either A (that include Chinese famine and some others) or both A and B (Cambodian genocide)
• Level two, II: Some article that links Communism and mass killing (not written yet, let's call it "Generic Communism theory"; that is just a working title), it will be a spinoff of both A and B;
• Level three: The Black Book of Communism, Red Holocaust (spinoff articles of the "Generic Communism") --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:35, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

  Paul Siebert, one question. What would be the difference between Mass mortality/population losses in Communist states and the currently structured article? And what would be the difference between Mass mortality/population losses in Communist states and Generic Communism theory? Davide King (talk) 00:42, 6 December 2020 (UTC) The Four Deuces preceded me, as I asked this question before reading their comment below and essentially I asked it because I wondered the same thing and I agree with their explanation below, so it should be clarified. Davide King (talk) 00:46, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

As I explained below, if we define the topic as mass mortality, that will be an objective definition, which will allow us to include all major views and opinia. Currently, majority of authors are not included because they either do not write about Communist mass killing as whole or do not call these events mass millings. You must admit that is ridiculous.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:49, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

The article mass killing defines it to exclude genocide, which it defines as killings targeting ethnic groups. It's a different definition from the one used in this article, because some of the events in this article were genocide (Cambodia) or have been described as such (Ukraine). I don't see why this should be a spinoff of any similar article because that implies that it is a type of mass murder when only the Courtois and the VOC Foundation say that.

As I said before, if we want to put all the Communist killings in one article, then we need to focus on the literature that does that. We can't use scholars who provide different explanations for different countries unless they address the category as a whole. Except for Werth, the only scholars who write about the VOC narrative are experts on right wing politics, not genocide scholars, and they base their criticisms of the VOC numbers by relying on the writings of genocide scholars, rather than their own expertise. And their main focus is not whether the numbers are right or wrong or whether Communism was the cause of all these deaths, but the implications of the narrative for modern politics. They argue for example that it is misleading to compare the numbers of people killed by Nazi Germany over 12 years with the number of people killed over 100 years in multiple countries covering as much as a third of the world's population. They also mention how the narrative is used to discredit the left in Europe and rehabilitate Nazi collaborators who chose the lesser of two evils. It is not that important to them to determine whether the Communists killed 85 million people or 100 million. What matters is that the VOC narrative choses that number, which is in the range of possibility, because it is exactly double the number of people killed by the Nazis. Similarly, they chose the number 10 million for the number of Holodomor deaths because it greatly exceeds the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis. But they don't actually try to determine the actual number of victims, they just rely on what genocide scholars say because that is not the focus of their enquiry. If you are looking for a genocide scholar who challenges the numbers, you won't find one, except for Werth. TFD (talk) 00:41, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

The current article includes Cambodia, China and the Soviet Union, but perhaps we could rename the article Mass killings under totalitarian regimes, then we could add Nazi Germany to the article. Would that work for you? --Nug (talk) 11:34, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

The person who linked totalitarianism and state killing was Rummel, and per our policy such an article should be a section if the Democide article. However, you must keep in mind that "second generation genocide scholars" do not share Rummel's views, so I see some problems with your proposal. It does not mean it doesn't deserve a discussion, but I am afraid it there may be some problems with its implementation.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:40, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

No. Barbara Harff, a renown genocide scholar, says Rummel's data are inaccurate, but she sees no problem with that, because Rummel's main conclusions are not affected by data inaccuracy. However, that is not the main argument.

If some claim is not challenged, that may mean that it is universally recognized or it is universally ignored. You can hardly find any serious astronomy paper that challenges the claim that the Moon is made of cheese.

We can take some unchallenged claim seriously if this claim is reproduced by majority sources. How frequently Valentino's theoretical conclusions are cited by experts in Soviet history? His article was cited 81 times, but there are just 7 references, mostly master thesis that cite him in a context of the Great Purge. That means Great Purge experts ignore Valentino.

With regard to Courtois, I saw several reviews (I presented them in talk page archives) that say numbers are unreliable, and, importantly meaningless. I see no reason to ignore them under a pretext that these reviews come not from genocide scholars. By the way, Werth is not a genocide scholar either, he is a historian. "Genocide studies" is some self-proclaimed discipline that is trying to find some general laws that would allow us to predict future genocides. So far, there is no evidences that it is not a pseudoscience. Therefore, I have no reason to claim the opinion of genocide scholars weighs more that the opinion of some expert in one country's history. I would say the opposite: so far, country experts seem to be more knowledgeable about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:08, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that if we want to fully and neutrally cover the topic, we need a complete set of the literature that presents all important facts and opinia on the subject. That works if the object is objectively defined. The problem with that topic is that different sources define the object differently. The only non-subjective descriptor is the number of human losses. However, different sources describe those deaths using different terminology, group them according to different traits, or do not group them at all. Therefore, if we select only those sources that write about "Communist mass killing" then our narrative will be inevitably skewed to the views of such authors as Valentino, whereas such experts as Wheatcroft, O'Grada or Ellman will be in a subordinated position, which is unacceptable.

Therefore, if we want this article to be a parent article for a number of specialized articles (as described above), it must be the article about excess mortality (mass killings is just a minor subset thereof, according to majority of sources).

However, that would be a tremendous work, so it would be easier just to convert this article into the article about the "generic Communism" concept (obviously, that is just a working title).--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:49, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

When you say that different sources define the topic differently, you mean that different sources describe different topics. If you want to compare and contrast them, then you should write an article for an academic journal. We cannot do that in this article. Each article can only describe one topic. TFD (talk) 04:16, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

No. When Erlichman says about population losses in USSR, he is discussing the same deaths as Valentino. However, since Erlichman does not operate with the "Communist mass killing" concept, some users conclude his works have no relation to the topic. When Rummel provide his "estimates" for "Communist democide" which include dramatically inflated and outdated figures for USSR, he is writing about the alleged deaths that never occurred according to Erlichmah (who gives more modest figures). However, since Rummel includes his "estimates" into the "Communist democide death toll" we assume his works are relevant to this topic. However, Erlichman's data (which are a subset of Rummel's data, except they do not include figures for other countries and they exclude the alleged deaths that never occurred, according to moderns study) are excluded, because they do not relate to the total communist death toll, and are not called "Communist mass killings" by the author (Erlichman).

If two sources write about the same event (e.g. GULAG deaths, collectivisation deaths, repression deaths), but call them differently, they do describe the same topic. If we claim one of those sources do not describe that topic, that means the topic was poorly defined. I already proposed how to fix that, I don't understand why you cannot understand it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:44, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul, Barbara Harff in The Comparative Analysis of Mass Atrocities and Genocide defines the conceptual relationship between "mass killings", "genocide", "democide" and "politicide" when she writes: "In short, conceptually democide includes all the mass killings associated with genocide and politicide". In other words, mass killing is associated with genocide, mass killing is also associated with politicide, while democide includes all the mass killings of both genocide and politicide. So mass killing is the super set of democide, genocide and politicide. Democide, genocide or politicide is essentially a classification of a mass killing. Is that not the case? --Nug (talk) 11:00, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

A more general answer

:Not exactly. This terminology is used mostly by "genocide scholars", i.e. a group of non-experts in each country's history, who are trying to identify some general rules that explain mechanisms of mass killings in general. The goal is to predict future genocides (which may allow their prevention). To the best of my knowledge, the pioneer was Rummel, whose main approach is "combine all available data on all non-natural deaths caused, directly or indirectly, by governments, make the most plausible estimates of deaths in each state, and, using the factor analysis, find corellation between these numbers and each regime's type". He made some estimate (the approach was criticized by Dulic) and found some correlation, the primary correlation was with totalitarianism. However, first, correlation does not mean causation, second, his figures are dramatically unreliable for the USSR, and, third, he is working with numbers only, and ignores historical context (if you want, I can elaborate on that later). That is why Rummel's explanations (which are not explanations in reality) are not satisfactory, and second generation genocide scholars (Valentino, Mann, Wayman&Tago etc) continue digging. However, their study an emerging scholarly topic, and these theories still have little predictive and explanatory power. It is not a surprise that true historians essentially ignore the theories of those authors. They exist in "parallel universes", and country experts do not cite, as a rule, the books or articles authored by "genocide scholars". Therefore, if we want to write the article about the events (actual deaths that occurred in Communist states), we must write in from the perspective of true historians (actually, that has already been done in such articles as the Great Purge or Great Chinese famine), and than add a chapter that described the views of genocide scholars. The way this information is presented in the current version of the article would be quite acceptable if the theory of "genocide scholars" (Valentino) and anti-Communists (Courtois) were universally accepted by historians. However, that is by no means the case, so this article dramatically violated NPOV.

Regarding "mass killing is the super set of democide, genocide and politicide", no, that is not true. "Democide" was actually a technical term that was proposed by Rummel to include all deaths caused by some state. For example, George Floyd's death should be considered an act of democide. Therefore, a correct answer to your question is: "democide" is a superset of mass killings, and all -cides. Thus,

• "Mass killing" = "democide" - all events where less than 50,000 were killed (per Valentino, although he was not the first person who defined this term);
• "Genocide" = "democide" - any killings that were not aimed to destroy some group (fully or partially) - killing of the members of some political group;
• "politicide" = "democide" - killing of anybody but members of some political group;

etc. In reality, even "genocide scholars" do not use all that "terminology". Some authors use "geno-politicide", some use "genocide", some call it "democide", and they apply these terms to essentially the same event. The fact that most of those terms are used interchangeably means all of them are worthless, and that no such a discipline and "genocide study" exists yet (it would be more correct to call it an emerging discipline, but it has not be universally recognised as such yet).

However, although "democide" sounds similarly to "genocide", it is a totally different category. It is neither a crime nor a some concrete type of events. It is just a statistical category used by Rummel to collect statistical data. Therefore, it has no explanatory power per se. If we say "this event was an act of democide" that sounds scary, but that means just one thing: some state killed some person or persons, and we even do not need to know if it was in accordance with some legal procedure (capital punishment) or it was a criminal act.

"Democide" includes all death caused, directly or indirectly, by some state. If it will be recognized that COVID-19 deaths were caused by strategic blunders of trump's administration, they should be considered as democide deaths. "Democide" is a super-category, and that makes it essentially useless. And, taking into account that it sounds similar to "genocide", this term is deeply misleading.

Had I answered your question?--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I accept that different writers may use different terms to refer to the same thing, or the same terms to refer to different things.

If Ehrlichman does not write about Communist mass killings, then his writing is off topic.

In an article for example about Pol Pot's mass killings, it would be entirely acceptable to use sources that describe only killings in one part of the country or one segment of time. That's because the connection between Pol Pot and his mass killings is a fact.

In this article there is no agreed connection between communist ideology and mass killings carried out under countries governed by communists. In Vietnam for example since both sides carried out mass killings, it's not clear whether the mass killings carried out by the North were a result of their ideology or instead the nature of the war in which they were involved. Few writers attribute all mass killings by Communist states to their ideology.

Synthesis of published material says, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." If Erlichmann doesn't mention communist ideology as a factor in the deaths, then it is synthesis to say that he accepts or rejects it. He might for example attribute mass killings to government objectives. We would then have to determine whether those objectives were driven by communist ideology or were an exception.

I think your view is that this article should address to what extent the mass killings were attributable to Communism. The problem is that no reliable sources discuss that in any depth. All we have is the VOC/CG narrative that has been reported on extensively in reliable sources. But those sources do not seek to prove or disprove their conclusions but to explain their significance to current political debates. In France for example the non-Gaullist Right who had collaborated with the Nazis used the Black Book to defend their record and to villainize the Left, who had worked with the Soviet Union. Americans use the theory as an argument against universal health care.

TFD (talk) 12:27, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

TFD, don't you see a dramatic logical contradiction between your first and second sentence?

Pol Pot is not the best example, because it was a single event, for which the number of victims was reliably determined, and there is no significant disagreement about the mechanism of that mass killing, with one exception: true historians, such as Kiernan, put this event into a proper historical context, and explain it by a number of factors (ultra-Maoism is just one of them, and not the most important), whereas some genocide scholars provide a superficial explanation that links it mostly to some generic Communism. I emphasized "some", because other genocide scholars group that genocide into a different categories, and do not link it directly to Communism. Therefore, event such a relatively simple case as Cambodian genocide is described in this article in a totally biased way, which emphasizes the view of just a fraction of genocide schilars, whereas the views of other genocide scholars and of historians are essentially ignored.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

In fact it wasn't a single event but many events which are considered to be connected to such a degree that we see it as a single event. Anti-Communists see CG as exactly the same thing: a deliberate effort by the Communist movement to kill people. Both cases require synthesis to connect the events. The difference is that in the first case the synthesis is carried out by scholars and in the second case by Wikipedia editors. TFD (talk) 16:47, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

It was more a single event than any other "Communist mass killings". I do not mean it was really a single event, but it is one of the simplest cases.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:01, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

You mean the connection in the first case is obvious and I agree. Nonetheless, we have to have sources that treat it as a single event before we can do that. TFD (talk) 17:10, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Regarding Nug's proposal (Mass killings under totalitarian regimes), it obviously should be either a subsection of Democide or it spinoff article. It should say the following:

• Rummel assembled Cold war era data on all deaths caused, directly or indirectly, by each state (a.k.a. democide) and, using a factor analysis, found a statistically significant correlation between totalitarianism and the scale of democide. Bases on that, he concluded that totalitarian regimes, mostly USSR, China, Nazi Germany, and Kampuchea (in that order) were the worst XX century murderers.
• The methodology of Rummel's statistical data was criticized (ref Dulic), and his conclusions were challenged by second generation genocide scholars.
• More detailed description of the events in each country can be found in specialized articles (links)

I think that is all what we can say, if we don't want to violate NPOV policy. Actually, the links to specialized articles and the summary is all what a reader needs, because the rest is already present in other Wikipedia articles, and we are not allowed to duplicate that content without a serious reason. So far, no such reason have been provided.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:04, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Your argument boils down to WP:I don't like it. Well, I do, and I think the article gets the reader into the subject well and true. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 20:10, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

My arguments point at clear and unequivocal policy violations: we have more than one article that say different things about the same events. In contrast, your post "boils down to "I don't like your arguments". Actually, it seems you even haven't bothered to read my arguments before commenting: I never advocated this article's deletion, and I am discussing various ways to save it. Therefore, posting a link to the essay about a deletion discussion is a kind of disrespect. And nobody cares if you like this article or not: if it violates our policy, it should be either deleted or fixed (the later is preferable, and that is what I am trying to do).--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:20, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Your argument boils down to "I like it" and amounts to ownership, where it is simply assumed to be impossible the article is currently violating our policies and guidelines, some of which are non-negotiable. Davide King (talk) 04:54, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, I don't think that totalitarian mass killings has adequate notability. It's just on Rummel's website. Note he defines totalitarianism as government with absolute power which he believes is the cause of mass killings. While anti-Communists sometimes group Communist, Nazi and Burmese mass killings together, they see the connection as socialism. But sometimes they see Nazi mass killings as self-protection against Communism. Hence they can put the blame on Communism. TFD (talk) 21:00, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

So essentially you are arguing that some kind of right-wing anti-Communist conspiracy is at play to besmirch the good reputation of Communism, and this article is a manifestation of that insidious slander, is that correct? --Nug (talk) 22:03, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, your explanation is muddled and confused. Your assertion that "democide" is a superset of mass killings is demonstrably false. There is general consensus that mass killing is the act of intentionally killing a number of non-combatants (see p55 in Handbook on the Economics of Conflict by Keith Hartley). Democide is defined as the intentional killing of non-combatants by the state. However, mass killings can also be perpetrated by non-state actors, between 1945 and 2000 out of the 42 episodes of mass killings, only 30 were perpetrated by the state (see p52 of the Hartley source). Therefore since mass killing contain both state and non-state killings, it follows that it is a super set of democide, which only includes state sponsored killings. So, to summarise in simple terms:

• Mass killing - intentionally killing of a number of non-combatants
• Democide - intentionally killing of a number of non-combatants by the state
• Genocide - intentionally killing of a number of non-combatants on the basis of ethnicity, race, nationality or religion - by either state or non-state actors
• Politicide - intentionally killing of a number of non-combatants on the basis of political affiliation - by either state or non-state actors

--Nug (talk) 22:03, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• Nug, not everyone who doesn't agree with you is a Communist. In any case, it's an ad hominem argument. TFD (talk 22:28, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Nug, my explanation is crystal clear, if it is not taken out of context. We are speaking about Mass killings under Communist regimes, right? Obviously, this article described killings by Communist regimes, not the killings that just happened under Communist rule. At least, that conclusion will be made by most readers. Therefore, as soon as we discuss the deaths inflicted (intentionally or non-intentionally) by Communist regimes the differences between "democide" and "mass killing" (as defined by Valentino) is as follows:

(i) democide has no low threshold, whereas "mass killing" is killing of at least 50,000 intentional deaths over the course of five years or less; and

(ii) democide does not imply intentionality (intent is discovered through looking at outcomes), whereas "mass killing" does imply intentionality. Therefore, "democide" is definitely broader. (Or course, in a context of Communism inflicted deaths).--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:41, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

You are right, mass killing does imply a threshold, for which there is no current consensus as it ranges anywhere from 4 to 50,000 depending upon the author. However Staub also defines "mass killing" as "killing members of a group without the intention to eliminate the whole group", so taken together with Hartley, mass killing includes both intentional and unintentional killings of non-combatants by state and non-state actors. --Nug (talk) 23:20, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, the problem is that all those terms, except "genocide" are being used by a relatively small group of scholars, they are not used by true historians (country experts) and are unknown to public. "Mass killing" is especially misleading, because a layman may easily associated with "mass murder". Anyway, take a look at my example below (the Holodomor round table articles).--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:22, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug&TFD, let's forget for a while that "anti-Communist" vs "pro-Communist" argumentation. We have a crystal clear and totally formal violation of the policy: the article discusses the same events that have already been discussed in other articles, and essential views are either ignored or underrepresented in that article. That is an NPOV violation, which, obviously, must be fixed. Anybody who argue against that is neither anti-Communist nor pro-Communist, but a violator of WP policy. How do you propose to fix the problem?--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:05, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree, let's keep the "anti-Communist" vs "pro-Communist" argumentation out, it doesn't add any value to the already complex discussion on the degree of any policy violation that may (or may not) exist. I do think there is some merit in a hierarchical structure of articles, but the question is which one is the right one. --Nug (talk) 23:20, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

The right hierarchy is the one where the higher level articles are in accordance with lower level articles, and the events are described in spinoff articles in the same way, and all essential facts and opinia described in spinoff articles are in agreement with their summary (in the higher level articles). The hierarchy proposed by me comply with the principles that were described in our policy and further elaborated in guidelines. So far, just that hierarchy has been proposed, so you should either agree with it, or propose your own hierarchy, and demonstrate that it complies with the policy. Or at least point at logical problem with already proposed hierarchy. That will help me to understand you better.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:35, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

When a hierarchy is correct, a higher level article always operates with the most general terms and categories, and a spinoff article is more specific. Your example with Holodomor->Holodomor genocide question is very good: the main article briefly outline the subject of the dispute, and the spinoff article analyses it in details. The main article does not claim "Holodomor was a mass killing", it uses more balanced terminology However, all of that does not work here. Let's take the most extreme example, Great Chinese famine. I call it the most extreme, because, first, if we exclude it, the "Communism death toll" immediately falls almost twofold, and, second, because the "spinoff" article tells a totally different story than this article tells. Therefore, to include GCF, this article must operate with such terms as "excess mortality" (which is consistent with what all sources used in the GCF article say, and does not contradict to what Valentino or Rummel say, for "mass killing" or "democide" are a subset of excess mortality, but nor vise versa). I see no possibility to make this article a spinoff article of GLF, so the only possible hierarcy is "this article" -> "GLF article". However, that hierarchy requires a complete rewrite of this article (with possible renaming). --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:17, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

I'll have a think about the structure over night. However I don't think this article is inconsistant with the Holodomor, because we have established that a mass killing doesn't necessarily have to be intentional per Staub, the only threshold being the number. Furthermore, the Holodomor genocide question is about whether there was an intention to target ethnic Ukrsinians, but it seems there is no dispute that there was an element of politicide involved and certainly democide, since we have also established that democide doesn't necessarily need to be intentional either, neglect and bad government policy is a sufficient condition. --Nug (talk) 01:15, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

It seems you don't fully understand me. Regarding Holodomor, I was discussing it as a parent article for its spinoff article, and I found that pair complies with our policy. With regard to this article as a parent article for Holodomor, the situation is less obvious. For these two articles to be a true pair of parent-daughter article, the latter is supposed to start with something like that: "Holodomor was a mass killing in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, when millions of Ukrainians were killed by hunger." Instead, the actual wording is different (check it by yourself). Your reference to Staub is not working, because the special terminology that is being used by genocide scholars is not accepted by general historians and country experts, and sounds somewhat misleading to a general reader (thus, Valentino's "mass killing" is not exactly the same as a commonsensual mass killing, and if we do not explain the difference, we mislead a reader). In that respect, the optimal wording would be the one that satisfied simultaneously Kutchitsky, Maksudov, Ellman, Wheatcroft, Conquest, Rosefielde, Erlichman, and other experts (and that is achieved in Holodomor). Staub's opinion is much less important: he is not an expert neither in Soviet/Ukrainian history (like the above mentioned scholars), nor in famine (Wheatcroft, for example, is an expert in grain harvest statistics). Staub is just a general theorist, and he provides some general explanations that might be right or wrong, but they have not been universally accepted so far.

By the way, as regards to " there was an element of politicide involved and certainly democide", if you check the sources you will find that most sources in the Holodomor genocide question article do not use the term "democide" (and derivatives thereof) at all. At least, I found no such terms in the article, as well as in the articles authored by Kulchitsky, Ellman and Wheatcroft. (It is used by Rosefielde, but, keeping in mind his unresolved dispute with Wheatcroft, it is by no means a demonstration of universal acceptance of that terminology). Which is a demonstration that the "genocide scholarly terminology" is not used by mainstream authors.

I wish you have a fruitful night :)--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, to demonstrate how marginal all those "-cide" are, take a look at the materials of Ukrainian famine round table.

The following authors, Getty, Etkind, Cameron, Graziosi, Penter, Suny, Naimark, Pianciola, and Wheatcroft discuss various aspects of Holodomor, but I found not a single word "democide" or "politicide" in their articles. They do not use that terminology at all!--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:13, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

That you point out that they do not use that terminology at all is an Argument from silence. --Nug (talk) 12:34, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

But if "-cide" is a majority view (as you are arguing), you would expect it to be used by the majority of sources. If it's not, you have to show it's the majority view in some other way, such as finding a reliable source saying, "Most scholars consider the Holodomor a form of mass killing". (t · c) buidhe 13:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Argument_from_silence#Author's_interest could apply, what may be relevant to a genocide scholar may not be relevant to a country scholar. --Nug (talk) 13:19, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Again, since you're the one making this argument, the burden of proof/WP:ONUS is clearly on you to show that this is the majority view. (t · c) buidhe 13:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Argument from silence do not apply here. I clearly demonstrated that the terminology used by country experts is totally different, so we need to use universally accepted terminilogy unless we agree the MCuCR is describes just a minority POV (that is acceptable, but we can clearly explain it in the article).--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I would argue Mass killings under totalitarian regimes implies that totalitarianism is an established and widespread fact, rather than a useful concept. As noted by The Four Deuces, Communists, Nazis and others are grouped together because they see them all as socialists. Indeed, Rummel is an American libertarian, so one can see why he proposed the democide concept, and I would not be surprised if Rummel thought the Nazis were 'socialists' rather than 'fascists', or that there is no real difference between 'socialism' or 'fascism'. Rummel also thought Obama and the Democrats were allegedly destroying liberal democracy and set to establish a one-party state; he also did not hold mainstream views on climate change. All of this must be kept in mind because Rummel cannot be seen as mainstream and Courtois, Rosefielde and Rummel's views that either Communism and Nazism were equal, or Communism was even worse than Nazism, are not mainstream but revisionist, going back to Nolte, who saw the Holocaust as a reaction to Communism, and the Historikerstreit. Courtois, Rosefielde, Rummel and Valentino are either revisionists, non-mainstream, or non-notable, in that they are not really relied on by actual country experts, as demonstrated by Paul Siebert. Davide King (talk) 04:51, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Did Rummel also beat his wife? Certainly his alleged non-mainstream view on climate change is compellingly relevant to this article. Thank you. --Nug (talk) 12:45, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

The main issue is that many of Rummel's figures for deaths just don't line up with those used by the scholars who study the various events in depth. If the underlying assumptions are wrong, it's quite likely that the conclusion is also wrong. And Davide King is correct that "totalitarianism" is also a disputed concept. (t · c) buidhe 13:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

As Paul Siebert above notes: "Barbara Harff, a renown genocide scholar, says Rummel's data are inaccurate, but she sees no problem with that, because Rummel's main conclusions are not affected by data inaccuracy." --Nug (talk) 13:11, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

But you forgot to explain what main Rummel's conclusions were. His main conclusion was "democratic peace", and at that level his "estimates" work quite well. However, they by no means should be trusted as an source of accurate figures.

Frankly, I am somewhat disappointed. I expected to see Nug's thoughts about possible hierarchy of articles, and I prepatred for a serious discussion. Instead, I see some totally frivolous and superficial argumenst. I am really disappointed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, none of this addresses my main point, namely that the concept is not the majority view and its main proponents are either revisionists or not mainstream in the field of Soviet and Communist studies and are not even the majority view among genocide studies. A rewriting and restructuring as suggested by Buidhe, The Four Deuces and Paul Siebert should be followed to account for this and not act like the link between communist ideology and mass killings (i.e. a deliberate effort by the Communist movement to kill people, that Communism was worse than Nazism) is the mainstream, even widely accepted in academia, view among scholars the current article implies, whether directly or indirectly. Attribution does not mean much when these are minority opinions and comes only from one side, and do not even treat this as a single event or phenomena. You essentially want this article to be about the events, but we already have articles for all of them, so this article should only be about the scholarly theory and narrative that Communism killed 100 millions and was worse than Nazism (Courtois), that it was a "Red Holocaust" (Rosefielde) and the biggest killer of the 20th century (Rummel); and the popular narrative described by The Four Deuces that essentially amounts to either double genocide theory or Holocaust trivialisation and obfuscation, namely that the Allies and the West made the wrong choice by allying with the Soviet Union and how it is used to discredit the left in Europe and rehabilitate Nazi collaborators, who chose the lesser of two evils; and against any allegedly left-leaning policy such as universal health care, or any government control of something, that will inevitably result in the Soviet Union et al. Because the introduction to The Black Book of Communism and other scholarly work such as Rosefielde and Rummel is used and justified by authors, politicians and others to push the aforementioned described popular narrative, hence why we need to describe both; the scholarly analysis, which is more nuanced, albeit still a minority view; and the non-scholarly, popular but fringe view present in popular literature and promoted by some right-wing politicians and anti-communist organisations. Davide King (talk) 14:10, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't see it as a a spin-off article of genocide, but as a spin-off of anti-Communism. If there is a spinoff, it would be Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. In the same sense, intelligent design (ID) is not a spin-off of evolution, although it provides an alternative explanation of it. Like ID, this topic is more about the poltics of the theory, than its underlying science. TFD (talk) 13:58, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, I agree. The problem is that these who do not see any problem with the current article seem to see it as merely describing the events, or they have a misguided view of scholarly literature thinking this is a mainstream and widely accepted thing; this is in part legitimised by things like the Prague Declaration or the Victims of Communism Memorial, which are considered as 'centrist', rather than as Holocaust trivialisation, double genocide theory, and other unsupported, non-mainstream views by academia, i.e. fringe or at best minority views, as the majority view; both of these were more of political decision rather than reflecting scholarly consensus or literature. And they ask us to prove they are not; the onus is on them to show they are. If this is so self-evident and widespread as they claim or think it is, it should be very easy for them to prove. As I wrote above, this article should not be a list of mass killings under Communist regimes but rather a scholarly analysis that links them as a single event or phenomena, or at least that links communism and mass killings, with the latter being caused by the former, both of which are not widely supported, if at all. The article is justified by the fact the events happened (but this ignores we already discuss them and it is a content fork, which is used to push a POV and hence violates NPOV) and that it is claimed to be supported by scholarly literature as an established fact and widely accepted thing, rather than a popular but minority theory and narrative. Davide King (talk) 14:20, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Both the Prague Declaration and the VOC were initiated by the right half and received challenges from the left half of the poltical spectrum. Note that the VOC monument in Ottawa, Canada attracted a lot of controversy over the years and very little public support,[21][22] while the Washington, D.C. memorial seems to have attracted opposition from mostly Russia and China. I haven't read about any attempts to build similar monuments in Western Europe, which unlike the U.S. has social democratic parties. But the degree of support for such monuments seems to vary according to position along the left-right spectrum, unlike Holocaust memorials, where only neo-nazis such as James von Brunn would have objections. TFD (talk) 15:05, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Beating this to death with acres of text is getting nowhere. And to say that Lenin and the Communists (inclduing followers in other countries) killed off lots of suspected 'enemies of the resolution' is not anticommunist. It is simple historical fact. Anne Applebaum asserts that "without exception, the Leninist belief in the one-party state was and is characteristic of every communist regime" and "the Bolshevik use of violence was repeated in every communist revolution". Phrases said by Vladimir Lenin and Cheka founder Felix Dzerzhinsky were deployed all over the world. She notes that as late as 1976 Mengistu Haile Mariam unleashed a Red Terror in Ethiopia. Said Lenin to his colleagues in the Bolshevik government: "If we are not ready to shoot a saboteur and White Guardist, what sort of revolution is that?" 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:01, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

References

(Not to quibble, but Ethiopia was not a one party state.) The issue is not whether Communist states killed people, but its connection to Communist ideology. Incidentally, most revolutions are violent, even the American Revolution. But you would probably find it biased to have an article that grouped the U.S. Revolution, the bombing of Hiroshima and the My Lai massacre together, without some explanation as to what the connection was other than that they were carried out by the U.S. government or its agents. TFD (talk) 16:30, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Points well taken. If there are WP:RS maybe we should draw them together. You forgot Abu Ghraib, Nicauraugua, Rendition, and Guantanamo, to name a few more, which are not a pretty picture. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:36, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

No. That would be a bad idea. That may work only if that will be presented as some minority view, because I have no evidences that mainstream scholarship link there events togenter.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:28, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

7&6=thirteen, there are some universally accepted views and minority views. It is quite ok to write about mass killings in Cambodia as an act of genocide, and about killing of "enemies of the people" by Stalinism as a mass killing. That would be a non-controversial and universally accepted description of these events (and we already have artilces in Wikipedia about that). Howeveer, to write that Cambodiam genoscide+Katyn massacre+Great Chinese Famine+Dekulakization+The Greeat Purge etc were a manifectation of a single phenomenon and all those events were Communist mass killings when 100+ million were killed - that is a minority POV, which is presented in this article as a universally accepted view. That is a violation of our policy. Actually, the very fact that more than one article writes about the same event is inconsistent with our policy (each time when the content is split among more than one article, it should be done in accordance with strict rules, which are described in the policy and further explained in guidelines), and I persualively demonstrated that these rules are violated in this article. That is not a question of someone alleged anti-Communist, pro-Communist, leftist, or rightist agenda etc. That is just a claim that our policy is violatred/ I expect you to demonstrate why, in your oponion, this my claim is wrong. If you can prove my claim is wrong, plese, do that, otherwise, it would be fair if you stopped arguing and joined our discussion, which is aimed to fix these violations.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

User:Paul Siebert That's my opinion, based on what I have read in the article and above. Demand what you want. Pound sand and see how that goes. Done feeding you. Have a happy holiday and be careful out there. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:43, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

7&6=thirteen, do you realize you called me a troll? Although I am not going to pay too much attention to that, I cannot understand your logic. I described, totally neutrally, a number of serious NPOV violations and proposed two ways to fix it. You claimed (without providing ANY arguments) that and I was a troll. Do you sincerely believe that behaviour is acceptable?--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually, if you present some arguments (not your opinion, but your agruments, with references to some policy) that may demonstrate some logical flaws or factual errors in my arguments, I will consider the incident resolved.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:59, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

This discussion is so extended and bloviated that it has become irresolvable. If you are not persuaded already, nothing I can say will change that. WP:Duck. I have already said what I thought was constructive. We will have to agree to disagree. I WP:AGF, but I observe imperviousness to persuasion. Carry on. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Per Aumann agreement theorem, two logically thinking persons cannot agree to disagree about the subject that belongs to their common knowledge domain. That is not an assertion, that is a mathematically proven fact. In the walls of text above, I made good faith efforts to put all facts I am operating with into the common knowledge domain, so I left virtually no space for disagreement. So far, I saw no logical arguments from your side, which means you have nothing to add to our common knowledge. That means, the only way you can prove I am not right is to show some inconsistencies in my logic. Instead, what you say more resemble a !vote, but Wikipedia is not a democracy. Therefore, your apologies (if you wanted to apologise for calling me a troll) are not accepted. You should either stop disrupting a consensus building process, or leave a discussion.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:36, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

So you are unable to accept that you are wrong on this? PackMecEng (talk) 15:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, so far, one user called me a troll, and provided no other argumemts. Another user (you) told me I am wrong, but provided no arguments. I am still waiting for a response from three other users (Nug, KIENGIR, and AmateurEditor, who expressed a desire to discuss that matter, but whose arguemts I haven't got yet). And there are several users who generally agree with me. Do you think your question is legitimate? Maybe it is you who must accepoyt you ae wrong? If you are not ready to accept this, please, explain me why my arguments about policy violation are wrong. So far, I got no logical counter-arguments.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:48, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, you wrote, "to write that Cambodiam genoscide+Katyn massacre+Great Chinese Famine+Dekulakization+The Great Purge etc were a manifectation of a single phenomenon and all those events were Communist mass killings when 100+ million were killed - that is a minority POV, which is presented in this article as a universally accepted view." But there is nothing wrong with having articles about minority points of view. Why not just accept that as the topic of the article and ensure that it does not claim it is a universally accepted view? TFD (talk) 18:20, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

TFD, that is one of possible solutions, and I myself proposed it many years ago. However, I anticipate some edit war may start if we attempt to do that, so I would like to det a preliminary agreement on the talk page.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, thank you for a good faith effort to advance the conversation here. I apologize that it has taken me so long to respond to this section, but I have other time commitments (and there has been so much activity on this page recently that it can be hard to keep up with everything).

1) "The problem is that it describes all human life losses under Communists as "mass killing" or something like that." Not true. The sources (and the topic) exclude the human life losses from war, for example. Some exclude certain famines (for example, Rummel's 110 million figure excluded the Great Chinese Famine due to the deaths being unintentional until he changed his mind in the light of new evidence of Mao's knowledge of what was happening). I believe every source cited restricts their death tolls specifically to intentionally killed non-combatants (although the famines are a gray area, since the deaths were indirect and sources speak to regime culpability for the deaths). If a source is in there that includes war deaths, it is by mistake and should be removed. There are disputes between sources on the totals and also on the intentionality for certain events (particularly the famines). The topic is about mass killing, so we would expect that all the loses of human life described in it were mass killing or something like that.

2) "That means it is intrinsically incapable of serving as a platform for providing a neutral and comprehensive review af all points of view." No, it means that it is limited to just the specific topic of "mass killings under communist regimes". It is not about the wider topic of "all human life losses under Communists". Keep in mind that WP:NPOV is about wikipedia being neutral between various reliable sources, not about the reliable sources being neutral or un-opinionated about a topic ("All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.").

3) "Thus, this article claims Soviet famine was a mass killing, [...] the fact that we have a separate Holodomor genocide question article demonstrates the question whether that famine was a mass killing is still open. The same problem is with Chinese famine." Yes, and this article acknowledges that open debate as well, in the "Debate over famines" section. The very next sentence after your excerpts from the Soviet famine article lead, states that it is a possible genocide, so I am not seeing the problem with inconsistency here ("Major contributing factors to the famine include the forced collectivization of agriculture as a part of the Soviet first five-year plan, forced grain procurement, combined with rapid industrialisation, a decreasing agricultural workforce, and several bad droughts. Some scholars have classified the famine in Ukraine and famine in Kazakhstan as genocide committed by Joseph Stalin's government, ..."). If you are saying that in the problem is that this article treats the famine as definitely a mass killing and the famine article treats it as maybe a mass killing, then I would refer you to the "Debate over famines" section to refute that this article does that.

4) "...this article includes all famine deaths into the combined "Communist death toll" and characterise that as mass killing." It is incorrect to refer to "the combined 'Communist death toll'" as if the article presents a synthesized single communist death toll. There are various communist death tolls reflecting the various published estimates by various authors and they are presented here in chronological order to be neutral between the various sources. I believe it is true that famine deaths are included in at least most of those estimates (Kotkin's is unclear on that from what I recall).

5) "That means it is a POV-fork, and it cannot be a summary style article for all those events. The problem is that we cannot exclude these events from the article, because the "Communist death toll" immediately drops more than two fold, and because the "aggregator sources" used in this article do not allow us to do that." This article is not simply a summary of other articles, it is a topic in its own right as demonstrated by the aggregator sources. I agree that we cannot exclude famine events from the article, as you seem to acknowledge when you say "the aggregator sources used in the article do not allow us to do that" (not because of the effect it would have on the death toll). We have to follow what the reliable sources do. If I am reading you correctly, you are saying that including the famines in the article at all is what makes the article a POV-fork (the POV being that the famines should be counted as killing by the regime) because the event-specific articles do not highlight that POV. However, that POV was highlighted in the Soviet famine article lede, as I quoted in point 3. It is not highlighted in the Great Chinese Famine article, but that may be a problem with that article not being updated. As I mentioned in point 1, Rummel did not consider the Great Chinese Famine an example of democide until reading fairly recent publications (in late 2005). According to WP:CONTENTFORKING, "A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid a neutral point of view (including undue weight), often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts." First of all, this refers to a non-neutral article about a neutral topic; it does not apply to a neutral article about a negative topic or a neutral article about a POV topic (as some have said this is). Second, this article was not forked from some other article to begin with. Presumably, you are saying that this article is a POV fork of some as-yet-uncreated article like "Excess deaths under communist regimes". Whether that is even a topic will depend on what sources can be found for it. It would not be enough to find a source on excess deaths under one communist regime (although that source could be used to contribute to this article in a supplementary capacity). I don't think I have ever seen a source that looks at "excess deaths" under communist regimes as a group, so there would be a synthesis concern with that topic/article (unless it could be established that it was an even more neutral alternate term for "mass killing" and the other various terms used to describe this article's topic).

6) "Therefore, we have just two options: convert this article to the article about some theory that links Communism and mass killing; delete this article as a POV-fork." It's not a POV fork unless you are saying that whether deliberate killing of noncombatants under communist regimes happened is a POV (putting aside the famines debate and the exact numbers disagreements, no source I have ever seen disputes that communist regimes have killed large numbers of non-combatants). It's not even a POV fork for just the famines issue, since we directly highlight that dispute in this article with a dedicated section. Converting the article to be "about some theory that links Communism and mass killing" would require sources about "some theory that links Communism and mass killing", not sources about communism and mass killing that each propose their own theories as to why. That is, we would need sources about the topic of the theory, not the topic of the killing as we have now. AmateurEditor (talk) 05:39, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I have no time to respond to all of that, and I find some argument frivolous. Thus, #1 does not look a good faith argument, for everybody knoes that WWII victims are not included in the "Communist death toll". However, Courtois DID include Vientamese civil war death (from both sides) into Communist death toll.

However, this discussion convinsed me we are dealing with minority view narrative, not with mainstream view, and the reason is Rummel. As I already pointed elsewhere, Rummel's astronomic figures come from his lousy dataset (mostly, crude Cold War era estimates, including GULAG death estimates). I don't know if you bothered to check Rummel's sources, but I did that, and I found his data include very crude pre 1980 data for GULAG polulation and death statictics. Even the data collected by me in the GULAG article are more detailed and comprehensive. And he comcluded that several tens millions were killed in GULAG. These estimates are not recognised incorrect or obsolete. They are just ignored by an overwhelming majority of authors who write about USSR. They have much more reliable and modern data, they established the real figures, and even Conquest conceded the number of GULAG prisoners (who passed through GULAG) was 18 million. The number of deaths is less than 2 million. Why nobody bothered to write an article and criticize Rummel's estimates? To the best of my knowledge, only Dulic did that, and only for Yugoslavia. The answer is simple: no serious historian takes Rummel seriously. Real historians and Rummel are in "parallel universes".

I have one concrete question. We know Rummel's data for USSR are dramatically incorrect, but these blatanly wrong data are presented in the article as true facts (I mean the overall death toll, USSR figures are a part of). Have you ever thought that this fact alone means your definition of the topic, and your choice of "aggregate sources" is deeply flawed? Similarly, you present Courtois figures as if they were valid. However, it is well known that those figures were severely criticised. Why do you present them as facts, if you perfectly know they are wrong? Why you are misleading a reader?--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:02, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

TFD lead proposal

If we go that route, I suggest the following as a draft for the lede paragraph. I think it is a neutral and comprehensive summary of the topic.

Communist genocide, or Victims of Communism, is the narrative that famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause and that Communism represents the greatest threat to humanity. The narrative has its origins in Western European scholarship, in particular the Black Book of Communism (1997), and has become accepted scholarship in Eastern Europe and among anti-Communists in general. Typically, the number of victims, who are referred to as victims of Communism, is estimated to be over 100 million, which is considered to be in the high range by most genocide experts. The narrative has been criticized by some scholars as an oversimplification and politically motivated, and for equating the events with the Holocaust. Various museums and monuments have been constructed in remembrance of the victims of communism, with support of the European Union and various governments in Eastern Europe, the United States and Canada.

TFD (talk) 20:33, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I like it, but I would like to know what Nug, KIENGIR, and AmateurEditor think about that. --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:47, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, that seems to be a very good summary. Just one thing, why "some scholars"? If this is a minority view, it could be better reflected such as changing it to "most scholars" or stating "it represents a minority view within scholarship that has been criticized by (other) scholars". Other than that, it is fine by me and it greatly clarifies what the topic actually is. As I proposed several times, we may include both popular literature (Lost Literature of Socialism) and scholarly literature (Courtois et al.) and then include scholarly analysis and criticism of both the theory (i.e. the criticism of "famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause and that Communism represents the greatest threat to humanity") and the "victims of Communism" narrative, among other responses. Davide King (talk) 20:53, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure I can get behind that rewrite. It paints to much as a conspiracy theory or something not backed by most RS. I have seen plenty of sources presented throughout this mess of a talk page that support the concept while noting basically none that refute it. PackMecEng (talk) 21:01, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

How would you change it to correct that impression? TFD (talk) 21:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I think some of my issues stem from the framing used. Words like "narrative" are over used and hyperbolic parts like "and that communism represents the greatest threat to humanity." Add to that the labeling that it is mostly supported by "anti-communists". I could also see a little to much weight given to the rebuttals. PackMecEng (talk) 23:19, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng Marxist, perhaps you could find an alternative to the word narrative and list the words like it you object to. While you say that it is hyperbolic to use the expression "communism represents the greatest threat to humanity," I don't see it as that different from what the VOC Memorial Foundation says: "Marxist socialism is the deadliest ideology in history." I would be perfectly willing to use their phrasing. TFD (talk) 04:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

No, it does not look like a conspiracy theory. For example, it emphasized popularity of these views among EE public. Indeed, The Black Book of Communism is considered one of the most influential books (and one of the most controversial). It should be rescribed as a major controversy, when a significant part of public opinion, many political journalists and writers, and several scholars support that idea, but majority (but not an overwhelming majority) of schilars do not.

When I wrote "I like it", I meant "I like it in general", but that does not mean it could not be improved further.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, in other words, you just don't like it; and you have just shown a failure to understand the topic and the analysis and arguments made by Paul Siebert. You are essentially supporting the topic of the article to be a list of mass killings under Communist regimes but that ignores the original research and synthesis in doing so; the same thing could be done for capitalist regimes or any other regimes for which there are reliable sources but do not actually support the topic. So just stating there are sources for it misses the point they do not actually support the topic, neither a list of mass killings under Communist regimes, nor the currently-structured article. Here, I gave a summary of arguments and made an analysis of sources for why they do not support the currently-structured article but they can be used to support the topic outlined by Buidhe, The Four Deuces, Paul Siebert and I. The whole point is this article is synthesis and original research, so just saying there are sources does not actually answer any of the issues we raised for why they are used for synthesis and make original research. Even if there are sources, it does not mean much when they are used for original research and violates our policies and guidelines. That is why we are not advocating deletion. Davide King (talk) 21:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Did you also miss the part where it was admitted "All the sources used in the article are correctly treated as 'significant minority' views or weight purposes"? Yet this is not reflected in the lead or elsewhere and the article acts like these are universal mainstream or widely accepted views among scholars, essentially ignoring all academics and scholars who either criticised the concept or ignored it because it is not notable. The proposed lead would fix that. Davide King (talk) 22:03, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

It's often difficult to get the tone right on the first attempt. What may seem neutral to me may seem biased to someone else. So let's see if there are other ways to phrase it. TFD (talk) 21:54, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

• Support This is a great improvement over what we have now, and it supported by sources. It presents the connection as a theory or viewpoint with considerable support (especially in Eastern Europe), but far from universal acceptance—which is exactly what it is. (t · c) buidhe 21:34, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

This discussion needs a new talk, however I completely disagree with Davide King, his issue with this article seems to one of POV. We are not here to defend communism, nor are we here to try to whitewash attrocities. Davide King usually takes a position for leftist positions, such as Antifa (United states) an ideology I support. Wikipedia should only be a mirror for other sources, that's it as an example List of genocides by death toll is not a place for Wikipedians to agree on what is and isn't a genocide, it's a place for Wikipedia to put what is a genocide, you need to understand this. Opinions as to what is and isn't a genocide is irrelevant and it doesn't matter if the sources are anti communist the point is that they are considered reliable. We are not here to defend communism or leftism, as a leftist myself. Vallee01 (talk) 23:30, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I notice that no one has grouped together the genocides that were carried out by Christian nations and said "Christians are responsible for most victims of the genocides in history including the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and the massacre of indigenous peoples. For balance, we could have an article about Muslim genocide. If you did, you would need a source that explained how genocide is a part of the Christian religion. It would meet your standard that no one could disagree over what was a genocide. TFD (talk) 23:56, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Vallee01, this completely misses mine and others' point. The problem is exactly that it is not supported universally or widely supported by sources as the currently-structured article implies. Read here my actual reasoning and analysis of sources. You really need to look at original research and synthesis; sources do not mean much if they are used for original research or synthesised to prove a point. There is not a single book whose main topic is mass killings under Communist regimes. The only ones close to that are The Black Book of Communism (but only the introduction, as the book itself only "presents a number of chapters on single country studies, it presents no cross-cultural comparison", there is no discussion of mass killing under Communism) and Red Holocaust. The problem is the current article use sources whose main topic is not this, but discuss only the Soviet Union or another country, or a few countries, not all ones; they do not treat this as a single event or phenomenon like the current article does. Some do not even compare Communist mass killings but Cambodian mass killing to non-Communist mass killings. Hence, they should be discussed at Genocide and/or Mass killing, they should not be discussed as this article does. Paul Siebert et al. provided a good compromise solution. I see no other solution than to take this at ArbCom since you have not reached out to us to fix any of the problems and you are essentially supporting violating policies and guidelines, which is also a conduct issue. Davide King (talk) 00:07, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

You keep saying that it is not widely supported by sources, please present those sources that don't support it. --Nug (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, the onus is on you to say they do. You are asking us to prove a negative. Again, if it is widely supported by sources, it should be very easy to prove. Davide King (talk) 00:25, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

The article already cites sources that that group a number of communist regimes that have perpetrated mass killings and discuss why the ideology has a propensity to mass killings. One source has over 897 cites. You are the one making the claim it is a minority view point, prove it. --Nug (talk) 00:33, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

The onus is on them to keep the long standing consensus? I think you have that the wrong way around. Statements keep getting thrown around on this talk page that the subject of this article is not a thing and we should disregard the RS that support it. All that while not really giving any RS that refute it besides personal opinions. PackMecEng (talk) 00:36, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, PackMecEng, I have already addressed here why the sources do not actually support the topic. Or perhaps it could be we are referring to different topics, or have different understanding of it, that causes issues on misunderstanding from both sides.

AmateurEditor themselves wrote "All the sources used in the article are correctly treated as 'significant minority' views or weight purposes", yet this is not actually stated and there is no criticism of the concept of linking all Communist regimes together. We cannot overemphasise their similarities when scholars do not see a connection between, say, the events in Pol Pot's Cambodia and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, which are far from evident, and that 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. As also noted by several other scholars, "[w]hether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors [of The Black Book of Communism] scarcely discuss." There is no long-standing consensus as this page was locked for like seven years and had three No consensus and two Keep in all the AfDs, so it is not so simple. Paul Siebert gave convincing arguments backed down by actual literature and guidelines and policies; you are free to disagree but so far they have not actually rebuked. Davide King (talk) 01:07, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

• Utterly reject, this text introduces POV into an otherwise neutral lead that discusses mass killings to the more contentious lead that discusses genocide. I've been around Wikipedia for a long time, back in the day some article opponents used introduce text that made the task of deleting an article easier, I'm not suggesting this is what is being attempted here, I'm sure all participants are working in good faith. --Nug (talk) 23:44, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

  What is the POV that it injects? TFD (talk) 00:04, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

  That the fact of mass killings occurring under Communist regimes is just a narrative created by anti-Communists, that's POV. And since nobody has presented a RS that supports that POV, it is therefore fringe POV. --Nug (talk) 00:17, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, the lead is not supposed to tell that the fact of mass killing is some "narrative". Clearly, mass killings did occur. What should be presented as a "narrative" is the idea that (i) these events have a very clear and significant linkage to some generic Communism, (ii) these mass killings included tens of millions excess deaths that were a result of famine, civil wars etc., and (iii) all of that makes Communism a worst murdered of XX century. That is a narrative that is not shared by majority of scholars.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:19, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

• The text says, "Typically, the number of victims, who are referred to as victims of Communism, is estimated to be over 100 million, which is considered to be in the high range by most genocide experts." Why do you read that as meaning mass killings occurring under Communist regimes is just a narrative created by anti-Communists?" TFD (talk) 00:21, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

  Nug, that is not the narrative. The narrative is that communism was the main culprit and that it was equal or worse than Nazism, or that there is a link between communism/the left/socialism and mass killing, when genocide scholars do not actually say that; Valentino does not see ideology as the main cause of it. Again, you seem to want this article to be a list of mass killings under Communist regimes but that is not what it is supposed to be. Davide King (talk) 00:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I've sourced that narrative of "that communism was the main culprit and that it was equal or worse than Nazism" to Shafir, and he has only 2 cites, and you want to make it the lead? --Nug (talk) 00:43, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Nug, it is not Shafir saying that, it is the proponents of the concept, linking all Communist regimes together or communism and mass killing, saying that. This article is not supposed to be a list of Communist mass killings, for which we already have individual articles. Since we are lumping them together, we have to explain why, hence why it comes the theory and concept with it, of which The Four Deuces gave a nice summary of it. Davide King (talk) 01:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Wrong. We CAN have a list of Communist mass killings (such lists are allowed per our policy). However, only those items can be included there which are universally recognises as mass killing. Thus, Great Chinese famine cannot be included (just read the article about it).--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

To me it reads like absolute propaganda

"Communist genocide, or Victims of Communism, is the narrative (Oh my absolute god) that famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause and that Communism represents the greatest threat to humanity." "Narrative" it implies multiple things. It implies that there is some crackpot conspiracy that people stating communist massacres are pushing some sort of agenda, which is a complete fringe theory and shouldn't and isn't allowed on Wikipedia. Is Doctor Tobagan going to be used a source later? It also states that the very term "communist genocide" is someone some sort of agenda when it isn't. This is a list about massacres committed by communists that's absolutely it. What on absolute earth, if this is published Wikipedia's POV standards which is already getting lower and lower, would be seen as non-existent. This is POV text at it's finest. The mental gymnastics someone has to do to try to explain how this could be explained as unbiased is telling, it's clear as day. Vallee01 (talk) 00:38, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

The proposed lead begins, "Communist genocide, or Victims of Communism, is the narrative that famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause." The "narrative" refers to the explanation for the famine and mass killing, it does not say that the famine and mass killings were merely narratives. In fact the paragraphs also says that genocide experts confirm these events occurred. In any case, if the thing the phrasing implies that the mass killings were a mere narrative, can you express the phrasing better? TFD (talk) 00:48, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose What is the subject of the article? As of now, it's a not a "narrative that famine and mass killings in Communist states can be attributed to a single cause..." It's literally and simply mass killings under communist regimes. Changing the lede without reworking the article would create a tremendous disconnect. The term "narrative" is not neutral, as it casts the connection between communist regimes and mass killings as some sort of conspiracy theory. The lede, as it stands, is neutral and a good summary of the article, albeit a short one. The lede currently stands at four sentences, none of which are factually inaccurate or violate our NPOV guidelines, and is a closer fit with MOS:LEAD than the proposal. I've been watching this talk page from afar for some time and, while it has made for a mirthful read, I will not be drawn into a drawn out WP:TLDR debate. schetm (talk) 00:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

  Schetm, that is why I proposed a RfC about the main topic in the first place. What is the main topic? And why does not the current article mixes up different topics into one? Davide King (talk) 01:01, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Good question, schetm. We are trying to come to agreement about the article's subject during last 12 years. Briefly, if the subject is the events (actual human deaths), this article is supposed to be a summary style article for a number of already existing articles. That require that the rules of content forking are observed. Currently, they are blatantly violated, just compare this article with Great Chinese Famine, so the article must be deleted as a huge POV fork. (By the way, without any loss of information from Wikipedia, because all these sources and facts can be found in other articles).

If the subject is a narrative, then the article requires relatively minor changes. It seems newcomers do not understand that under "narrative" we do not mean that no human losses occurred, but we just want to emphasize that only a small group of authors claim all of them occurred due to some "generic Communism", and all of them were "mass killing/democide etc".

regarding TL/DR, this is a complicated subject, and to make an adequate judgement, one expect to familiarise themselves with the sources. Therefore, you are expected to show more respect to the users who invested their time end efforts into that matter.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

OK, but I was responding to the proposed lede. I oppose the proposed lede without a change to the article's subject. What say you to my oppose? Let's stay on point here. schetm (talk) 01:13, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

schetm, the problem is that the article's subject is not clear. It says about 100+ million killed by Communists, and majority of those "victims" were Chinese of Soviet peasants who died as a result of famines, which are not considered as mass killing by majority of authors. In that situation, what is the subject of the article? The narrative of real events?

Another example. The article emphasises Rummel's estimate of Communist democide. I don't know if anybody bothered to read Rummel, but I did. A significant part of Rummel's "Communist death toll" is GULAG deaths: several tens of millions. I checked his sources - these are totally obsolete Cold war era estimates. Since then, historian science made a huge step forward, a lot of new documents have been discovered, and even Conquest had to concede that the number of people passes through GULAG was 18 million. And we know the number of deaths was less than two million. Dis Rummel adjust his "estimates"? No. Do historians pay attention to Rummel's estimate? No, they ignore him totally. There are two parallel universes: in one universe, historians are studying Soviet history, in another universe, superficial "theorists" produce some "theories" that are based on oversimplified speculations and obsolete data. The article is leaning towards the latter group. Now, please, answer: what this article is about: a narrative or facts?.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:45, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Just saw where you spoke to the term "narrative." Good. We have something to work with here. We must assume that any Wikipedia reader is a "newcomer." If "newcomers" can't understand the terminology, of if such terminology is so easily misconstrued, perhaps said terminology shouldn't be employed? Remember, we're not writing for readers of this talk page, but for the general public. schetm (talk) 01:22, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Policy requires that articles be about topics that exist in reliable sources. We could not create an article for example about alcoholic beverages in Communist countries unless there was some literature that connected them and then we would have to base the article on those sources. Normally we would not group the rum in Cuba with the vodka in the former USSR, we would categorize them under rums and vodkas respectively. Having that article without any explanantion would imply that there was some similarity between Cuban rum and Russian vodka.

While the connection between mass killings and Communism may be obvious to you, we cannot assume that it is to all readers. In any case, we need to explain it. Most experts agree that at least some of these killings had no connection to Communist ideology but rather to the specific circumstances under which they occurred. For example, Helen Fein ascribed killings of ethnic minorities and foreigners in Kampuchea to xenophobic nationalism, rather than Communist ideology.

If you don't like the way I phrased the lede, perhaps you could provide an example of how you think it should be phrased. If you don't like the word narrative, then suggest another.

TFD (talk) 02:06, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Sure. Swapping out narrative for theory would be a good start. But, as it stands right now, the lede is totally neutral and based in objective fact, and appropriate, albeit too brief, for the article as it currently stands. From what I read above, the aim is to turn the article into some treatise on the theory, or "narrative" of the purported relationship between mass killings and communist regimes. Cool. That ain't happening. There isn't consensus for that. I think that would be fine for a new article, but not this one. So, go, start a new article! I might even !vote keep if it comes up at AfD. But this current article is not a POV fork. It's well sourced, meets the GNG, and is based in object fact. It ain't perfect (I think Davide King's proposal #4 would be ideal), but, if I'm reading the preceding wall of text, "that route" which you refer to will end up in talk page development hell just like this article.

Part of the problem might be that it's tough to envision an article with just the lede. In fact, it's generally a bad idea to write a lede before you write the rest of the article, especially with a subject such as this. Do you remember Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes/sandbox? It hasn't been substantially edited since 2013. Why not just write the article you want to write, throw it up in the air, and see if anyone hits it? schetm (talk) 08:08, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

If you read Nug's comments that I posted below, which are typical of comments made by the keep side at AfDs, the only reason the article survived AfD is that editors argued that scholars make a causal connection between Communist ideology and mass killings. Making a list of mass killings under Communist regimes implies a connection, which must be explained in order to have a neutral article. Arranging a series of facts does not mean the result is neutral. We must observe due weight and avoid implicit synthesis.

As WP:LEAD says, "It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." So the causal connection must be in the lead in order to ensure neutrality. Why do you think we should omit that information?

TFD (talk) 11:46, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't oppose that in principal, I just oppose the lede you propose for the reasons outlined above, which have to do with NPOV, the actual wording of the proposed lede, and the proposed lede being for a different article that you want to write on some "victims of communism narrative." Again, feel free to write that article. But what you propose isn't for the article we have right now. schetm (talk) 13:40, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm, "[f]rom what I read above, the aim is to turn the article into some treatise on the theory, or "narrative" of the purported relationship between mass killings and communist regimes. Cool. That ain't happening. There isn't consensus for that." I say the contrary is true and there is no consensus for the current-structured article, or at least there is some weak consensus the article has problems as shown below. It is 6–8 (both you and Valee01 just entered the conversation, otherwise it would be 4–8, which has been the result throughout this long discussion that does back to Archive 43), if I include you, but I am not sure where I should include you because I would note my proposal 4 would actually still require a rewriting and restructuring since the article, to be turned from mass killing to excess deaths or mortality, is based on an universally-accepted terminology about mass killing that either does not exist or it is not actually universally-accepted. Davide King (talk) 13:44, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I know. It's pesky to get wider input from the community. Prop 4 has my top choice, but I'd rather the status quo be maintained than the article go in the direction y'all want to take it. At any rate, per WP:NOCON, "In discussions of proposals to add, modify or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit." Again, we have the sandbox. Write the article you want to write and throw it at the community. schetm (talk) 13:52, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm, if you don't oppose the proposed lead in principle but find the wording to be POV, could you please provide a version that you think would remove the POV. What I wrote was a first draft using what I considered to be neutral wording. But I accept that different people may interpret the wording differently and welcome your kind assistance in achieving the best wording. TFD (talk) 14:02, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

No. I oppose your proposed lead in principal because it's a lead for a different article. I don't oppose the fact that any lead should conform to MOS:LEAD. But I will go sentence by sentence:

1: What is the title of this hypothetical article? You'd need sources saying that this is the WP:COMMONNAME for your "narrative." I object to the word "narrative" and have proposed an alternative above You'll also need sourcing on the greatest threat to humanity bit.

2: Accepted scholarship by just them? Sources!

3: Include that range of estimates!

4: Again, that word narrative. Also, partisans support the "narrative" and scholars oppose it?

5: No objection to this sentence.

However, what you propose is for a different article, and it cannot be sanctioned for this article. Again, write the other article! We have the sandbox! schetm (talk) 14:13, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

schetm, actually, the proposed lead implied that the article must be re-written accordingly. That will convert is from a POV-frok to some normal text. Of course, what we discussing here is not the lead itself, but a new article's concept.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

As I said above, policy prevents us from having an article that lists what some editors consider to be related events without a source that explains how they are related. We can't for example have an article "Liquors distilled under communist regimes," because there is no obvious connection between Communist party rule and the type of liquors that they produced. Liquor preferences in Cuba for example have more in common with those in the rest of the Caribbean that they do with other Communist states. That is, they are attributable to the history, culture and geography of the region, rather than the type of government. Don't assume that readers know what the connection between Communist ideology and mass killings is and that the article does not need to explain it. TFD (talk) 14:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm, this article was created by a banned user and since the first three discussions were No consensus, it should have actually been deleted the first time per G5 and only be re-created when there was clear consensus for it. The onus should have been on these who were for Keep, something which they failed to do in the first three discussions, hence the article should have been deleted/merged back then. Essentially, the AfDs have been falsified since it should have been deleted after the first three discussions, if not the first one itself; "[a]fter analyzing the agruments [sic] of both sides, I think there is no consensus to keep or delete this article", but the onus is on these who are for Keep to prove that case; and if there is No consensus but we are essentially Keep[ing] the article, that does not reflect the actual result; it should have been deleted and recreated when clear consensus for Keep was established. Paul Siebert, I would be curious to hear what you think too. This is yet another violation and conduct issue. Davide King (talk) 14:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Support as this is backed by sources already cited in the article (Ghodsee, Getty et al) and emphasizes this narrative, while popular in some circles, is not one that is universally accepted by historians of communism. If this supplants the current lede, I would suggest updating the body to better reflect these sources, which are now largely concentrated in the "Debates over famines" section. Perhaps that section should be renamed and greatly expanded? I also think that maybe "genocide experts" should be replaced with something like "historians and scholars of communism", given this is a better description of those aforementioned scholars cited in the article. I might also suggest leaving out the part "and that Communism represents the greatest threat to humanity" as it seems rather excessive.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Where we stand on the main topic

I count, as either supporting the current article or supporting the main topic to be about the events, the following users:

1. AmateurEditor
2. KIENGIR
3. Nug
4. PackMecEng
5. Vallee01

I count, as either opposing the current article or supporting the main topic to be about the concept, narrative, or theory (proposed by Paul Siebert et al.), the following users:

1. Aquillion
2. BeŻet
3. Buidhe
4. C.J. Griffin
5. Davide King (myself)
6. The Four Deuces
7. Paul Siebert
8. Rick Norwood

Wikipedia is not a democracy or a vote, but I suggest these supporting the current article to not act like there is no issue or there is consensus for the current article; and stop from not assuming good faith or not showing some decency to all the users who invested their time and efforts into this matter. Davide King (talk) 01:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

This doesn't seem right Schetm and other editors have stated they don't support the addition. Davide King also there are currently only one person who stated they support your change. The actual list looks something like this:

Davide King are you trying to get around consensus? Only one other editor stated they support changing the lead. Vallee01 (talk) 01:45, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Have you even read the part where it is clearly stated the list of users who either support the current article or the main topic to be about the events, and the list of users who either oppose the current article and support another main topic? Since you have not even participated to this discussion, which goes back to the archives, you should actually read it or inform yourself before making such false accusations. This is not about the proposed lead but about the main topic, on which there is disagreement. Davide King (talk) 01:48, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I thing counting votes is a very bad idea. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and the strength of arguments plays much more important role.

i think we need to finish the process of placement of this article into the general hierarchy of Communism related article. When we determine which articles are its parent article, and which article are its spinoff articles, the question about the topic will be naturally resolved. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm only opposed "the proposed lede without a change to the article's subject" and I added you, even though you only got recently involved while all the others either were here from the start or have contributed to the discussion; and it would still be 6–8. Davide King (talk) 01:42, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I mean, since y'all asked, I'd support #4 in your RFC, but not strongly. I'd be OK with that or the status quo. But the lede should not be changed if the status quo is maintained. Honestly, it's been a decade, and someone should have the cojones to throw this thing at AfD to see what the community says. schetm (talk) 02:06, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm, I agree that "the lede should not be changed if the status quo is maintained", that is why I have not voted. As for the AfD, the reason why I have not done that yet is that these who are for Keep may actually support a different topic (one may support 2, another may support 4, another may support 5 and so on; these are not all the same thing; Valentino proposes Communist mass killing as a subcategory of dispossessive mass killing, which is different from Mass killings under Communist regimes), making it worthless because the article is supposed to have only one, clear main topic; or even if there is consensus for Keep, it does not mean there is consensus for the main topic; and if there is no consensus for the main topic, it should be either rewritten (as we propose) or merged, and only recreated when consensus on a clear, main topic can be established. Davide King (talk) 02:18, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Schetm, if all editors at AfD relied on policy-based decision-making, then this article would have been deleted long ago. However if you add together editors who think the article is biased but could be reformed, editors who will vote to keep the article for ideological reasons and a large group of editors who will vote to keep any article regardless of what it is about, that may be difficult. Unfortunately, the lead I proposed could be used as evidence to keep and rewrite the article. Then it would be kept but not re-written. Nug for example wrote at the first AfD,Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Communist genocide:

• "communist genocide" is a specific concept, for example Rebecca Knuth treats it as such in the chapter Understanding Genocide: Beyond Remembrance or Denial.
• Quite a number of authors such as Stéphane Courtois, Benjamin Valentino, John Gray, Eric Weitz, Ronit Lenṭin and Rebecca Knuth have made the connection between mass killing in a number of communist regimes, the connection being that communist ideology was used as the justification for the killing.
• See the works by Stéphane Courtois, Benjamin Valentino, John Gray, Eric Weitz, Ronit Lenṭin and Rebecca Knuth.
• Not abductive synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray actually discusses the concept of "Communist genocide" here.
• Actually the concept is not synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray published the concept of "Communist genocide" here.
• The concept of "Communist genocide", linking the genocides committed by various communist governments and attributing the phenomenon as a feature of Communist policy is published here.
• Many books do make a link between communist ideology and genocide, see Eric D. Weitz's book A century of genocide for example.
• Either way, ideology is a factor, the question is to what degree. Communist ideology promotes the destruction of national groups, no question about that, and destruction of national groups is genocide according to Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
• It is well known that Karl Marx was a racist.
• Ellen Frankel Paul in the book Totalitarianism at the crossroads discusses the general concept of "communist genocide."
• How can you say it is synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray discusses the concept of "Communist genocide" here, linking the genocides committed by communist governments and attributing the phenomenon to Communist policy.
• Never the less, the notion of "Communist genocide" being a specific feature of Communist policy common across many Communist regimes has be published.
• Genocides have particular characteristics, Nazi genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for Jewish people, while Communist genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for any small, "backward" and reactionary peoples.
• The line "Communist genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for any small, "backward" and reactionary peoples" is from a published source.
• this article does the opposite and aggregates a number of genocides into one article, an aggregation that is supported in the literature because of its particular features related to Communist ideology that makes it stand apart from regular genocide.
• Plenty of published sources associate mass killings with Communism
• Some seem to hold the view that there is no causal link between communist ideology and mass killings. The view seems to be that the mass killings in the former USSR, the Democratic Kampuchea, in the People's Republic of China and Ethiopia were all independent events where the ideology of government was just co-incidental, not a root cause.
• There is no escaping the fact that there is a significant body of literature that does discus and make the link between mass killing and the implementation of communist ideology.
• care to post these sources that claim that Communist ideology was not a factor in mass killing in these regimes?
• “Communism” is a reasonably well defined term, referring to a collectivist, egalitarian economic order, and these mass killings were effected as an avowed part of an avowed attempt to bring about or to maintain such an order.

All I am asking is that if we keep this article we should put in the lead the points that Nug raised as well as expert commentary on their degree of acceptance in reliable sources. Note that there was no discussion about whether these killings actually occurred, but how they should be interpreted.

TFD (talk) 02:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I think I have made it clear that I think this article should be merged into individual articles on the mass killings in question, since the evidence for grouping them under this general heading has been doubtful at best and has, in several cases, misrepresented what the sources actually said.Rick Norwood (talk) 12:57, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Rick Norwood, I agree; problem is that is not going to happen. These for Keep are just going to argue per sources, even though I believe we have demonstrated they do not actually support what they think they do or are misrepresented; perhaps we may have to ask actual scholars what they think. Even making individual articles about mass killings by country would be problematic and still be a fork or synthesis because they are not really discussed together or as having a common cause or link; that is the problem and that is what we do here. The only solution would be to turn this article from the events, which we already describe in individual articles, to the concept, narrative, or theory, where it would be described and presented as a minority view among scholars but very popular, especially among Canada, Eastern Europe, the European Union and the United States. Davide King (talk) 13:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Different article

I agree with schetm that the proposed lead is the lead of a different article. I supported the TFD's lead because I saw it as a tentative lead of that new article. However, I think it makes no sense to start working on a new draft if we still have a disagreement about the article's scope. In connection to that, I want all of you to answer the following question:

• What NEW information the current version of the article conveys?

Under "new" I mean the information that cannot be found in other Wikipedia articles. Currently, we have three groups of articles related to this topic.

(i) General articles about Mass killings, including Democide, Politicide, Classicide, etc. They provide an overview of theories of genocide scholars, needed definitions etc.

(ii) The articles about each mass mortality events in Communist states, starting from Cambodian genocide (a pure mass murder), and edning with Great Chinese Famine, which is not considered a mass killing by overwhelming majority of authors. These articles provide a detailed description of those events, including historical background, causes, and the number of victims;

(iii) The articles about some specific books, such as The Black Book of Communism, Red Holocaust and several others, where their authors make some general claims that link Communism with mass killing.

Therefore, it is not clear for me what new information is presented in this article. In a hypothetical case if this article will be deleted, no information, facts or sources will disappear from Wikipedia, because all information about the deaths that are linked to Communism by at least one author will stay in other Wikipedia articles.

Please, give me you answer to this question.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:37, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

It's not a different topic, it's the same topic written in neutral tone. At present, the article presents the POV of the CG/VOC interpretation that MKuCR occurred as a direct result of communist ideology. We could have an article called mass killings under fascist regimes and include the Holocaust, Ethiopia, Spain and Argentina. The reason I would not create one is not that I am pro-fascist, but I would need a source that linked them to fascist ideology. Arguments such as we have to tell people how horrible fascists aren't part of policy and all the events in such article already are described in other articles. TFD (talk) 16:34, 9 December 2020 (UTC)