Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mass killings under communist regimes (4th nomination)

Mass killings under Communist regimes

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Mass killings under Communist regimes
• Articles for deletion/Mass killings under Communist regimes (2nd nomination)
• Articles for deletion/Mass killings under Communist regimes (3rd nomination)

Mass killings under communist regimes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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And under its previous name:

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Communist genocide
• Articles for deletion/Communist genocide (2nd nomination)

Communist genocide (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log) (moved at start of process of second AfD to "Mass Killings")

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The article begins:

<!-- Introduction, criteria, and their criticism -->
Various authors have written about the events of 20th-century communist regimes, which have resulted in excess deaths, such as excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Some authors posit that there is a communist death toll, whose death estimates vary widely, depending on the definitions

… that is, the title is not in bold, it is explicated. The title is a synthesis, a pat answer to any tangentially relatable proposition. The proposal is that the page be deleted, with any verifiable facts that are not borrowed from the other articles be moved there. Some notes, more as I remember, but will argue they support deletion: the article has existed in one form or another for many years; a series of previous AfDs have been proposed [10+ years ago]; that article traffic is significant; there is currently another open dispute resolution underway; personally have every reason to despise Communist regimes {as I define them]. ~ cygnis insignis 14:22, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

• Delete as synthesis, and a violation of WP:NPOV policy. There is no doubt that 'communist regimes' as defined in the article have perpetrated many atrocities, but that isn't the issue. The question that needs to be asked is whether 'Mass killings under communist regimes' is a legitimate subject for an encyclopaedic article. And I would have to suggest that the article in question does little to justify that claim. A few writers have certainly seen it as a legitimate subject for discussion, but by and large, credible mainstream histography tends to neither lump all 'communist regimes' together as a subject for scrutiny when discussing 'mass killing' or to treat them as some sort of special case requiring unique analysis. Proper historiography discusses events in context, and without simplistic presuppositions that events are driven by any specific ideology. As the endless disputes on the article talk page make entirely clear, the article, and what exactly it is that it is supposed to be discussing, has long been a subject of contention amongst Wikipedia contributors. Rather than citing credible histographic sources on such subjects, the debate has instead revolved around exactly what constitutes a 'mass killing', or a 'communist regime'. Debate almost invariably focussed on contributors own arguments and opinions, since sources discussing this are sparse, and generally on the fringes of histography. It is absolutely imperative that Wikipedia covers mass killings, regardless of who perpetuates them and what their motivations were, or are, but this article, with its loaded title and its endless wars over what exactly Wikipedia contributors can or cannot include as a 'killing' is exactly the wrong way to go about it. What Wikipedia should be doing is covering, in relevant articles about specific subjects, such atrocities, sourced to mainstream academia, and written in a manner that does not spoon-feed readers over-generalising and ideologically-driven conclusions that the sources concerned do not themselves support. Let the facts about individual events speak for themselves, and let readers decide for themselves whether they wish to blame 'communist regimes' for such crimes, or to instead blame them on the broader fallibilities of a humanity that was perpetuating such atrocities long before 'communists' arrived, and may well, if a more enlightened discourse isn't available, be perpetuating similar atrocities long after such 'regimes' have gone. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:00, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Addendum to the above: a few hours ago, I wrote that "Rather than citing credible histographic sources on such subjects, the debate has instead revolved around exactly what constitutes a 'mass killing', or a 'communist regime'. Debate almost invariably focussed on contributors own arguments and opinions". For further evidence of how such endless going around in circles to arrive at a synthesised compromise can't work, one only need to look at this AfD discussion, and at how it is once again going over exactly the same ground, with the same mind-numbing consequences. I might dare to suggest that even if it were theoretically possible from Wikipedia to create a policy-compliant article on the subject matter (I still contend it isn't), per common sense, and possibly WP:IAR, we should give up trying, since in practice it is never going to happen. Or at lest, not until the last 'communist' and 'anti-communist' has been long dead, buried, and forgotten. There are plenty of other topics to write about, or even to waste time arguing over, and leaving this one for future generations might be best for all concerned. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:17, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• Delete in sum per WP:SYNTH, as explained in some great detail in the nom, the above !vote, the long talk page discussions, and the prior AFDs. I am looking for multiple RS that give significant coverage to (1) "mass killings" (and not "excess deaths" or anything else) under (2) "communist regimes" (and not "Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot"; not some communist regimes, not "totalitarian states", but "communist regimes"). I do no believe there is enough RS that exists that covers this topic. Rather, the article is based on sources that talk about death in communist regimes generally, or mass killings by specific regimes that called themselves communist (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot). But to combine it by ideology, without sources that explicitly do so, is SYNTH. At bottom, the view that the ideology of communism is somehow inherently violent is WP:FRINGE anti-communist POV pushing. Levivich 15:47, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Well, I think that there are some of these sources listed below in the discussion. I also don't think that materials which primarily focus on Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot as the largest mass killings under communist regimes are out of line; the Great Purge, Cultural Revolution, and Cambodian Genocide are probably the three largest examples of this phenomenon. Reasonable sources would probably put these in the forefront and the focus of the most of their discussion given that they are the largest in scope. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 23:43, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
    • Only Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's fit the most widely accepted definition of mass killing (50,000 killings within five years), so your arguments support a comparative analysis of those three regimes only, as is done by Karlsson 2008. Davide King (talk) 00:33, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
      • Are you telling me that North Korea is not somehow engaged in mass killings through starvation? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:47, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
        • Are you telling me there is consensus among scholars that man-made famines are mass killings? This is contradicted even by the long-standing version of the article having a section devoted to this. In Red Holocaust, Steven Rosefielde does discuss North Korea, alongside Vietnam and the Big Three, but he considers them to be excess or mass mortality events, not mass killings, compare "Premature Deaths: Russia's Radical Economic Transition in Soviet Perspective". Davide King (talk) 00:54, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
        • That North Korea is even 'communist' in any meaningful sense is a subject of frequent debate, given its deviation from orthodox Stalinism and towards a militarised ultranationalist quasi-religious ideology (Juche). They don't claim to be 'communist' any more, and Wikipedia certainly shouldn't simply take at face value assertions that they are. Not if the object of that exercise is to lump them together with other regimes just to add to the a total concocted according to arbitrary criteria by Wikipedia contributors. The crimes of the North Korean state need to be described in context, in appropriate articles, rather than thrown out of context into an article that refuses to acknowledge the complex issues and questionable premises it is built around. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:10, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• Keep, it is a notable topic and there are enough WP:RS sources out there written on the subject: most notable probably the books on the subject Red Holocaust (2009 book), The Black Book of Communism (published by Routledge and Harvard University Press respectively), and also Helen Fein's chapter on Soviet and Communist Genocides and Democide in Genocide: a sociological perspective ISBN 9780803988293, Communist mass killings by Benjamin A. Valentino, R. J. Rummel who has been using a term communist democide; not to mention "Communist genocide" alone gives 441 returns on google books and 75 on google scholar. Should be more than enough resources out there to write a good article about the subject that was titled "Mass killings under Communist regimes" as a compromise descriptive title derived via consensus, see Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes/FAQ —Nug (talk) 20:40, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

  Well, let's see.

  • We all can discriminate blue and black, and, since The Black Book of Communism in your post is blue, it already has its own article. What is a reason to have two articles on the same subject? Our policy allows only a very limited number of exceptions;
  • Similarly, Red Holocaust (2009 book) already has its own article. What is a reason to have another one? In addition, Rosefielde writes not about "Communist mass killings" as a separate topic, but mostly about three separate cases (Pol Pot, Stalin. Mao). We already have articles about each of those events, so this article provides no additional information, but contains a lot of synthesis.
  • Fein does not separate all mass killings in Communist states into one category. In addition, she does not include the most deadly events (famine) into the "Communust genocide" category. In other words, she is writing only about a small subset of events described in the article that we discuss. See Mass killing article for Fein's database of genopoliticides.
  • As I already explained, Valentino's core idea is that regime type is not a good predictor of mass killing's onset, so there is no significant linkage between mass killings and regime type. The full name of the chapter of his book is "Communist mass killings: The Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia" and it includes the analysis of just three cases. Valentino is not making generalizations that you ascribe to him. A note to the closing admin This information has already been explained to Nug previously, but he pretends he never heard it.
  • Instead of this search, which yields too many non-scholarly sources, you were supposed to do this search. The first reference is to the article by Dulic, which contains a severe criticism of Rummel's methodology.
  • What you forgot to do is this and that. It is easy to see that the search returns references mostly to Wikipedia mirrors or the article that cite Wikipedia. That means the current article has a great potential for citogenesis. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:06, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

  • Those sources aren't WP:SIGCOV of this topic, "mass killings under communist regimes", they are SIGCOV of different topics. Levivich 01:15, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
    • There's quite the possibility that Nug has heard it, hasn't found your arguments convincing (I surely don't), and is continuing to make their arguments in good faith because they don't accept the characterizations of the sources that you're putting forward. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 02:48, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I just wanted to comment that this is a very bad argument. Finding sources that use the phrase "[adjective] genocide", or similar terms, is extremely easy. Besides "Communist genocide", there are also hundreds of Google Books results for "Capitalist genocide" [1], "Conservative genocide" [2], "Liberal genocide" [3], "Republican genocide" [4], "Democratic genocide" [5], "Right-wing genocide" [6], "Left-wing genocide" [7], or even (to use a different kind of adjective) "European genocide" [8]. But Wikipedia doesn't have a page called Mass killings in Europe for example, despite the fact that mass killings certainly HAVE happened in Europe and there are even books about them. Like this one for instance: "The Holocaust and Genocides in Europe" [9] (a book grouping together the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, mass killings in the Soviet Union, and the genocides in the former Yugoslavia). You can find scholars grouping together genocides and mass killings in all sorts of ways: by ideology, by continent, by cultural area, by religion, by historical period, and so on. The fact that a few have grouped Communist mass killings together is as relevant as the fact that others have grouped European mass killings together. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1007:B10A:57E1:9F22:2779:2686:A340 (talk) 23:41, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

The first source you cite is a chapter of a book entitled 'Genocide: A Sociological Perspective', and as such rather illustrates my point regarding how mass killings are generally discussed in academia - mass killing as a general topic, rather than one partitioned by the ideology of the perpetrators. As for Valentino and Rummel, these are the same authors that have been repeatedly cited for many years in discussions over the disputed article, and the fact that they are being cited yet again surely illustrates just how isolated from mainstream historiography they have become. And as for what the article FAQ says, that isn't even remotely relevant to an AfD discussion, for far too many reasons to be worth explaining... AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:37, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

• Note to Admin: User:Levivich, who !voted to delete, appears to be blocking any attempts to improve the article[10]. It is entirely permissible for those who support keep to attempt to improve the article while it is under AfD. On the other hand, edits during an AfD by those who support deletion is disruptive as it can be construed as WP:GAME to make an article worse to facilitate deletion. --Nug (talk) 21:31, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Please don't disrupt this discussion with claims about other contributor's behaviour elsewhere. Raise it at ANI or whatever if you like, but not here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:41, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

It is a valid concern that is correctly called out here on what is and is not permissible. --Nug (talk) 21:54, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

If it is a 'valid concern', it would surely make more sense to raise it somewhere where an admin might see it in a timely fashion. Though before doing that, I'd recommend reading up on talk page procedure, and on who is or isn't permitted to edit articles being discussed at AfD. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:09, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Reverting to a lead from two months ago, which has serious VERIFY issues (stating all events were mass killings as fact, etc.), and has been acknowledged as problematic at WP:DRNMKUCR, are by no means an 'improvement.' Plus, the AfD is about this stable version, and it makes no sense whatsoever to edit while the AfD is ongoing. Davide King (talk) 22:12, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

The AfD isn't about any specific 'version'. It is about whether the topic (if there actually is one, outside of Wikipedia and a few marginal writers) should have an article at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree, but I wanted to point out that is the current version addressed in the AfD and we should not edit the article in the meantime, and is my view that you are correct and Nug did a wrong thing by doing that edit/revert, with the AfD ongoing. Davide King (talk) 22:20, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

 Comment: Not 'voting' yet, see my rebuke of Nug's here. Davide King (talk) 22:04, 22 November 2021 (UTC) One of the reasons why such an article has been kept for so long (three no consensus, two keep) is perhaps because "per source" arguments are taken too much at face value, and in my link I will show they do not support MKuCR and/or misread, failing basic VERIFY, which is even worse than NPOV. [Edited to add] Davide King (talk) 22:25, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Collapsed discussion about suspending AfD

I propose to suspend this discussion This article is a subject of DR. It seems we should respect the time and efforts of the DR discussion's participants. I already notified them, and proposed to develop a joint position about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:16, 22 November 2021 (UTC) Sorry, but is there anything in Wikipedia policy or practice that suggests that particular contributors can 'suspend' an AfD discussion while they debate things amongst themselves? If there is, I don't think I've ever come across it, and frankly, in this particular context - where the same going-around-in-circles debate has been going on for years and getting nowhere - would have to suggest that this would be entirely inappropriate. Let the broader community make a decision, as they do with every other deletion debate, and find another forum for arguing eternally amongst yourselves afterwards if that is what you really wish to do. Nobody owns this article, and nobody has the right to exclude outsiders from debate on this long-standing and contentious article, or any other. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:25, 22 November 2021 (UTC) (edit conflict)I am not "suspending" this AfD. My post is a friendly request to suspend it. There are two reasons for that. First, as a participant of the DR process, I am not in a position to express my opinion here. I think, that is the case for other DR participants too. Therefore, we all become removed from this AfD process, and we should either suspend the DR (and wait for this AfD's outcome), or vise versa. Second, my opinion strongly depends on the course of development of the DR discussion. Depending on that, I can present either strong arguments in support of deletion, or equally strong arguments in support of keeping this article. However, I cannot do that right now, because the DR process in in progress.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:17, 22 November 2021 (UTC) Collapsed not due to claims to authority but simple for readability purpose and to not ruin the AfD, which is indeed a possible and good solution. AfD is open, has never been put on hold, and this should not discourage other users; it is simply a discussion about how to act in light of the DRN. While I can understand and see AnyTheGrump's frustration, and they are right on this, Siebert is also right. We all may agree to put this on hold until the moderator's next comment — if they think Cloud200 and Nug have exhausted their arguments and did not persuade them that a rewrite is extreme, and AfD could be a solution, we may try and see if consensus finally changed towards deletion; or we may have a RfC about the topic first (we need to agree on the main topic; if we cannot agree, AfD is the natural next step); if consensus has really shifted towards deletion, then this AfD should probably go ahead to certify it. Davide King (talk) 19:11, 22 November 2021 (UTC) Edited to clarify. Davide King (talk) 20:33, 22 November 2021 (UTC) Siebert and I have been the biggest proponents of recognization of such issues (e.g. we were the main users who endless argued for such problems, which have now been recognized by the moderator and simply ignored by the other side), and have proposed deletion if such issues simply cannot be solved, so I think your comments apply more to those who stubbornly reject them and I am really tired of debating them. I can also see Siebert's argument for suspending this, perhaps waiting for the moderator's next comment; perhaps now there may be consensus for deletion, which does not preclude a NPOV rewrite with a better defined and clear topic, without OR/SYNTH; considering the other side has continued to reject that there are problems, which have been recognized by the moderator, there really cannot be any further rational discussion there; the next round should be how to fix the issues, and deletion can be a solution, since Siebert and I have been proponents of a rewrite — that can be achieved by either deleting the article first, or having the moderator give the green light for a rewrite or a RfC about a rewrite. Still, we (I mean all of us) may agree to put this in hold until the moderator's next round, especially if they find the other's side arguments not persuasive. Davide King (talk) 19:11, 22 November 2021 (UTC) Who exactly is 'we' , and on what authority can anyone 'put this on hold'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:16, 22 November 2021 (UTC) See my previous post Paul Siebert (talk) 19:17, 22 November 2021 (UTC) Yeah, well see mine, and take note that I consider this attempt to hijack an AfD by participants in a colossal time-sink to be improper, and that I also consider the use of fancy formatting and collapes text as a claim to authority to be even more so. Unless and until this AfD is closed according to accepted Wikipedia procedure, it will remain open, and any further attempts at out-of-process disruption are likely to be reported as such. Either participate in the AfD in the proper manner, or go away and argue amongst yourselves - we don't need further juvenile Wikilawyering time-sinks here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:25, 22 November 2021 (UTC) Who exactly is "we"? Paul Siebert (talk) 19:30, 22 November 2021 (UTC) And, there is a third reason to suspend it. I suspect many users may argue that the article may undergo a significant change as a result of the ongoing DR, and, before making a decision about deletion, it is desirable to see what exactly is proposed to delete. Therefore, if you don't want your AfD to be closed as premature, I suggest you to wait for the DR's outcome. If the DR will fail to find any common solution, that will be a strong argument in favour of deletion (for one interim conclusion of this DR is: all parties agree that the article has severe problems, and if the parties fail to come to any positive consensus, that means these problems are unlikely to be resolved). In contrast, if we appear to be capable of proposing some mutually acceptable solution, that will be a strong argument to keep the article. That is why it is important to wait for DR's outcome. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:28, 22 November 2021 (UTC) Please provide a link to any Wikipedia policy or guideline that states that an AfD can be suspended while a subset of contributors attempt (yet again, after over a decade) to come to a 'consensus' that the broader community is under no obligation to comply with anyway. And for the record, it isn't 'my' AfD. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:57, 22 November 2021 (UTC) I disagree about that. AFDs are decided by the notability of the topic, not the state of the article. The question is whether any article at the title "Mass killings under communist regimes" can be written, at all. My !voting delete means I don't think there is any article that should exist at that title (because no sources support that particular topic). Levivich 19:56, 22 November 2021 (UTC) Well said. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:02, 22 November 2021 (UTC) Since Nug !voted (I am not sure how correct that is, since the DRN is still ongoing, albeit it has been moved at WP:DRNMKUCR; it needs to be put on hold). I would ask if Robert McClenon, provided Cloud200 and Siebert also agree to put the DRN on hold and move forward with the AfD, could be the moderator/closure of this AfD, as they have come to know the article's issues and arguments from both sides; they may take a break from reading our stuff, and simply taking the time to summarize closure when everything is done. Davide King (talk) 20:57, 22 November 2021 (UTC) User:Paul Siebert - First, I have changed your heading Comments from second-level to fourth-level. The title of an AFD is itself a third-level heading in the list of AFDs, so that a second-level heading confuses the log. You were not expected to know that. Second, I wrote, about sixteen hours ago, "if they think that an AFD is in order at this time, they might as well initiate it now, and I will put this DRN on hold again." I was referring to a participant in the DRN, but my comment had to do with any nominator. I will suspend the DRN. An AFD takes precedence over all other forms of content dispute resolution. I have already said that the DRN may last a few months. The AFD will run for one to three weeks. The possibility of improving the article can and should be discussed in the AFD. I will suspend the DRN, which is more feasible than suspending the AFD for a few months. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:17, 22 November 2021 (UTC) User:Davide King - I will put the DRN on hold. I am not an administrator and will not close the AFD, but I will observe and comment in the AFD. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 22 November 2021 (UTC) That makes sense and I understand, thank you for all your effort. Davide King (talk) 21:27, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. I must say that the current version of the article appears to be in a rather sorry state, but the topic easily passes WP:GNG. This version of the article from January 2021 appears to be significantly better with the exception of the lead being rather short. In any case, the coverage in other sources contained in that January 2021 version is much more than enough for notability of the topic. And, since GNG is based on substantial coverage in multiple independent reliable sources. I'll give three:
  • Stéphane Courtois; Nicolas Werth; Jean-Louis Panné; Andrzej Paczkowski; Karel Bartošek; Jean-Louis Margolin (1999). Mark Kramer (ed.). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674076087.
  • Valentino, Benjamin A. (2013). "Communist Mass Killings: The Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia". Final Solutions. Cornell University Press. pp. 91–151.
  • Fein, Helen (1993). "Soviet and Communist Genocides and "Democide"". "Genocide: A Sociological Perspective". Sage Publications. pp. 75–78. ISBN 0803988303.

Many more sources are listed above, in the article currently, and are available more generally. Per WP:SOURCETYPES, [w]hen available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. I really am shocked at the lack of a WP:BEFORE on this; the topic clearly passes WP:GNG to the extent that a plenitude of high-quality academic works reference it. And, the fact that the article has been muddled up and its quality has been degraded over the past ten months or so isn't a valid deletion reason. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 23:33, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

• Please, see here for my analysis of sources as to how they do not, in fact, support the currently structure article. Take a look at possible topic's restructuring or rewrite, such as this one, or the possibility of turning this article into a broad and general analysis of mass killings in the 20th century, which is precisely what most genocide scholars do, rather than categorize it by political ideology, which is OR/SYNTH, and is not what sources do, other than Rummel. Davide King (talk) 23:58, 22 November 2021 (UTC) As noted by Levivich here, those sources are not WP:SIGCOV of MKuCR but of different topics. [Edited to add] Davide King (talk) 01:33, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

There are serious problems with your rationale.

First, Courtois views are already described in Black Book of Communism article. The policy requires us to have just one article on a given subject should.

Second. The chapter of the Valentino's book discuss not "Communist mass killings" as a separate category, but mass killings in Stalin's USSR, Pol Pol's Cambodia and Mao's China. The main conclusion of the author's analysis of mass killings (in general, not only of those three cases) is: regime type does not matter, the main reason of mass killing is leader's personality. In other words, the key author's point is that there is no intrinsically murderous regime types, and by eliminating certain leaders from power it is possible to convert a murderous regime into non-murderous without considerable changes in its political structure.

Third. I am familiar with some Fein's works, and never saw that she outlined Communist mass killings/democide as a separate category. Sometimes, she may group them together, but that does not imply much. I also saw many authors group all genocides in Asia (communist and non-communist), does it mean we have to have the article about that too? Paul Siebert (talk) 00:09, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Do you mean like Genocides in central Africa? I do think that if there's a broad set of scholars who are presenting a bunch of historical events together as a related group that our encyclopedia should reflect that group, and include relevant criticism of that grouping. Should we delete all articles because they involve grouping? The answer is yes if we're making the group ourselves, but we're simply not doing so here; the grouping of mass killings committed by communist regimes is indeed the subject of scholarly study and the subject of many lengthy works. If scholars debate the relationship between regime type and the propensity to commit mass killings, then that might well be worth including. However, we should not pretend that there aren't a substantial amount of scholars that group things this way. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:01, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I am curious about Siebert's response, and I prefer you discuss this with him, but if I understand you correctly — Genocides in central Africa is not a good example to bring in support of MKuCR (if that is what you meant to prove), considering the same tags since 2018. By giving undue WEIGHT to those scholars who do the grouping, even though has been criticized by other scholars, and recognized by Robert McClenon at WP:DRNMKUCR, we are ... well, giving undue weight to those who the grouping (Courtois, Rummel) as if it was a scholarly consensus. I support a grouping under this topic, which would keep the article but rewrite it and changing the name, e.g. Communist state and mass killing, discussing the link, not the events, which can simply be linked when mentioned. Davide King (talk) 01:15, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

@Mikehawk10:, that is a reasonable argument. To decide if it is strong, we need to figure out the following: (i) check how many good sources discuss, e.g. genocides in Africa as a separate category, (ii) check how many sources discuss separate African genocides in a context of different events, (iii) check how many sources discuss each genocide separately, without references to the group (i) sources. If the group iii sources are majority, there is no reason for discussing genocides in Africa as a single group. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:26, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Also, the notion that WP:NPOVFACT somehow precludes The Black Book of Communism from being cited elsewhere on Wikipedia for use for facts is rather strange. That book's article isn't a splinter of an article regarding mass killings under communist regimes, but instead is an article on a notable book. We don't have to describe literally every point of the book in detail, but the argument that you're making in that respect would seem to indicate that books that have their own articles should be extremely sparingly used for facts elsewhere; I see no basis in policy for that sort of claim. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:06, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that work is not even about MKuCR. According to historian Andrzej Paczkowski [who gave a positive review], only Courtois made the comparison between Communism and Nazism, while the other sections of the book "are, in effect, narrowly focused monographs, which do not pretend to offer overarching explanations." Paczkowski wonders whether it can be applied "the same standard of judgment to, on the one hand, an ideology that was destructive at its core, that openly planned genocide, and that had an agenda of aggression against all neighboring (and not just neighboring) states, and, on the other hand, an ideology that seemed clearly the opposite, that was based on the secular desire of humanity to achieve equality and social justice, and that promised a great leap of forward into freedom", and states that while a good question, it is hardly new and inappropriate because The Black Book of Communism is not "about communism as an ideology or even about communism as a state-building phenomenon." (Paczkowski 2001) Davide King (talk) 01:20, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

WP:NPOVFACT does not preclude citing. The Black book article reproduces main points of Courtois' introduction. I see no problem to use that book as a source in Wikipedia, but it must be done in accordance with NPOV. Concretely, the very controversial nature of this source must be clear from the context. Currently, it is not. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:35, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

And, please, keep in mind that your arguments refer to WP:V, whereas the main reasons for deletion is NPOV/NOR violations. I suspect the closing admin will ignore your vote. Paul Siebert (talk) 00:19, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I suspect the closing admin will realize that my explicit references to WP:GNG are indeed references to WP:GNG, which requires non-trivial coverage in multiple independent RS. My point in bringing up the the RS guideline is perfectly in line with the GNG claim. What are you talking about, Paul Siebert, when you say the closing admin will ignore this argument? Are they supposed to ignore GNG-based arguments? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:55, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I am talking about the following: if the article is nominated for deletion because it has severe NPOV/NOR problems, voting to "keep" because the topic is notable is neither productive nor correct.

With regard to general notability, take a look at this and that. Yes, some (most) events described in this article are quite notable. However, they already have their own WP articles. Therefore, the question is how notable is the narrative that links ALL those events together under a category "Communist mass killings" or variations thereof? The answer is: not at all. There are few books (most of them already have their own WP articles) and several newspaper/magazine articles. Besides that, various authors do comparative analysis of Stalinism and Nazism, Stalinism and Maoism, Cambodian and Rwandian genocides, and so on, but virtually nobody combines all mass mortality events (including war, famine and disease deaths) in all Communist states in a single category and provide universal explanations. Even worse, attempts to propose such a concept face severe criticism, which is really notable. The fact that the article says almost nothing about that is an additional proof of its non-neutrality. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:18, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

With due respect, my argument is that the narrative that links those events together under the category of communist mass killings is exactly what I think these sources say. You're wholly ignoring that claim; I'm saying that this is not WP:OR because there are indeed scholarly works that link them together and provide that historiography. In other words, the topic is notable owing to significant coverage from multiple reliable independent sources. It's not Wikipedia making the topic up in this article. Please read my argument before dismissing it all as me confusing core Wikipedia policies that I have the competence to understand the difference between. My response to the NOR arguments is to bring up sources that do exactly the sort of thing that this article sets out to do. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:24, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Your argument is mostly wrong. Actually, virtually no sources say that. They make partial claims, and the article combines them in such a way that an impression is created that its content is well sourced. Thus:

Valentino does not link Communism and mass killings; moreover, he concludes that majority of Communist regimes were not engaged in mass killings;

Fein does not include the most deadly events in the "mass killing" category, and she makes no strong link between Communism and mass killing;

Rosefielde focuses on three regimes only. He makes no generalization (and he is an expert in Russia mostly);

If you analyse other authors, you will come to similar conclusions: each of them discuss either a broader or more narrow category, but virtually none of them speaks about "Communist mass killings" as a separate topic. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:45, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

The narrative is, in fact, the "victims of communism" narrative, which is another topic and is a NPOV version (although the name may appear to be POV, it is a COMMON NAME) of MKuCR (Ghodsee 2014, Neumayer 2017, Neumayer 2020, Dujisin 2021). Davide King (talk) 01:38, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert and Davide King: I guess we just read the literature differently. It seems like there's a real grouping that's relatively mainstream where the mass killings committed by Communist states is discussed together. There are chapters of recently published books dedicated to Communist atrocities during the cold war, which would be even more expansive than the current title of this article would have us include. And, it's not the true usefulness of a characterization that makes an article worthwhile, it's that a topic has drawn enough coverage as a topic (this is why we have articles like race and intelligence that have each repeatedly survived deletion efforts). Anyhow, I don't see any real way to read the literature except to say that this grouping is a real thing that's covered in great depth by multiple reliable independent academic sources. Unless there is some construction of the phrase "mass killings under Communist regimes" that doesn't say that the topic is "the group of mass killings that were committed by a communist regime"—which would be the natural reading of the descriptive title—I don't see any way to go with any option but keep. If there are specific content issues regarding scope, then we should recall deletion is not cleanup and it shouldn't be used to wage content disputes.— Mikehawk10 (talk) 02:42, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I obviously disagree but I think Siebert can explain this better than I could, and I try to move on from conflict to compromise. Can you at least even consider as a possibility a rewrite/restructing under this topic as summarized by Siebert? Because it is not as easy as 'Keep'–'Delete' — the article could be easily kept if such issues were addressed. As long as Mass killing, and other articles, and MKuCR contradict each other, such issues will not be solved, and MKuCR will remain a giant NPOV/OR/SYNTH mess in light of such contradictions. Davide King (talk) 02:50, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

@Mikehawk10: Yes, I am reading literature more attentively. Look, your source (Bellamy) says: " A conservative estimate would put the number of civilians deliberately killed by communist regimes after the Second World War between 6.7 million and 15.5 million, with the real figure probably much higher." Obviously, since no large scale mass killing (>50,000) took place in USSR during Cold war (and no mass killings after 1953), this figure includes Cambodian genocide, Chinese civil war (including Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries), Chinese Cultural revolution, Afghan war, and few other events. Obviously, Great Chinese famine is not included, otherwise the figure would be >50 million.

That is close to what I say: Bellamy says quite non-contraversial things, namely, that there were mass killings in Communist states. However, teh claim he is making is much less expansive then the claim made in the article that we are discussing.

If you looked at the last AfD, which was in 2010, you may notice that I raised several concerns and proposed a plan to fix those problems. I didn't vote for deletion 11 years ago. And what happened during those 11 years? The situation became worse. That is why I am coming to a conclusion that any attempts to fix problems face efficient opposition, and it is quite possible that deletion may be a solution. I haven't voted yet, but I am becoming more and more convinced that deletion may be the only possible solution. Paul Siebert (talk) 03:13, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Come on Paul, you have dominated the talk page discussion in the last 11 years, the state of the article is in large measure due to your guidance over the years. --Nug (talk) 04:18, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Those sources also aren't WP:SIGCOV of this topic, "mass killings under communist regimes", they are SIGCOV of different topics. "Keep" voters in this and prior AFDs are pointing to sources about other things and suggesting they are about "mass killings under communist regimes". I'm asking for page citations where someone uses the phrase "mass killings" and "communist regimes" and devotes significant coverage to the connection between the two. Things like, for example, Soviet+genocide or China+famine are not the same as mass killings+communist regimes. Levivich 01:23, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Are you arguing that sources that provide WP:SIGCOV of genocide committed by communist regimes as a group are not actually providing significant coverage of mass killings? I'm a bit confused here. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:36, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

@Mikehawk10: Sources that provide SIGCOV of a genocide committed by a government that called itself communist is not the same thing as sources providing SIGCOV of mass killings under communist regimes. Same with sources that provide SIGCOV of three such governments. The key words in the title, and thus the scope, are "mass killing" and "communist regime". A comparison of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot is not the same thing as "communist regime". Famine caused by poor policies is not the same as "mass killing". Etc. Levivich 03:29, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, they are not, two out of those sources are providing a coverage of a few Communist regimes out of dozens and dozens. The other, The Black Book of Communism, is not about MKuCR. Davide King (talk) 01:48, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

• Keep Again? We've been through this several times already. Well sourced, notable etc etc etc. Volunteer Marek 23:35, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

  You are too experienced user to pretend you don't understand that. Conflating WP:V with WP:NPOV/NOR is unacceptable. And, by the way, the article managed to completely distort even the core source it is based upon (Valentino's "Final solutions"), so there are severe problems with WP:V too. Paul Siebert (talk) 00:22, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

• Delete The problem with this article is that it's entirely indiscriminate, the holodomor, Tiananman square, the killing Fields, and 5,000 deaths in Cuba over twenty years are not all the same. Separately the death toll got East German is 80k-100k, unless you read the second paragraph where it could just be 40k. A symptom of this having become a giant coatrack. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 23:45, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

  Wouldn't the solution to it being that the article be written in summary style and only lump in the mass killings referred to in reliable sources as part of the group? I don't think that improving the article's content as an alternative to deletion would be better if the topic itself is notable. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 23:48, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

  That is one possibility that were discussing during the suspended DR. The problem is that some users claim that the article is already a summary style article, and no serious changes are necessary. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:54, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

 Comment: I briefly looked through the previous AfD discussion, and, a comparison of the quality of arguments shows that the current discussion is very superficial. Maybe, it makes sense to summarize the arguments of the previous AfD and check how the situation has changed during last 10 years? If the situation improved, this AfD should be speedy closed. In contrast, if it has worsened, and the problems outlined 11 years ago became even more severe, we should seriously think about the deletion. If you agree, I can summarize this section and add the analysis of the article's current state. Keeping in mind that the closing admin acknowledged serious problems with the article (it its 2010 version), we cannot just say "The article survived three AfDs, so there is nothing here to discuss." That is not correct. If people do not mind, I can perform the analysis of the last AfD discussion and outline fresh facts, sources and changes that may serve as pro et contra for deletion. It may take several days. If somebody wants to join me, please, let me know.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:53, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

• Delete as no other solution, after two-year-long discussions, is possible to solve the NPOV, OR/SYNTH, and even VERIFY issues (e.g. contradiction with Mass killing and all individual events that are not described as mass killings by majority sources, excess deaths and mass mortality events conflated as mass killings, etc.), since the 'Keep' side has refused attempts at rewrite, lack of consensus around the topic, and some even refusing to acknowledge any issue despite recognition from the moderator at WP:DRNMKUCR.

I have no prejudice in a future rewrite that is NPOV, in full respect of our policies and guidelines (NPOV is not negotioable), and a clearly agreed and defined topic, such as this one. Merely stating "per source" does not mean anything, especially if you do not address our legitimate concerns, as can be seen in my in-depth of so far cited sources here.

The article is a content POV fork and coat, which fails NPOV and VERIFY, and is OR/SYNTH per AndyTheGrump, Levivich, and the nominator, and because Communist grouping is controversial (it was one scholarly criticism of The Black Book of Communism, see Mecklenburg & Wolfgang Wippermann 1998, Dallin 2000, and David-Fox 2004), and genocide scholars themselves do not find regime type to be significant in explaining mass killings (Straus 2007).

The article takes an alleged 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 in general, and the third is a chapter about genocides and mass killings in the 20th century, then listing all mass killings under Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pol, 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 mass killings and/or victims of communism (the main culprit, which is contrary to Valentino's view of leaders, not regime type, being the main culprit), its more accurate title that, however, does not really solve all those issues I have highlighted.

Other possibilities include a general article about mass killings, or during the 20th century, as a spin-off of Mass killing. Davide King (talk) 00:19, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

delsort notifications

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Afghanistan-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Cambodia-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Korea-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Laos-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mongolia-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Vietnam-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Central Asia-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Kazakhstan-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Kyrgyzstan-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Tajikistan-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Turkmenistan-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Uzbekistan-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Armenia-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Austria-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Azerbaijan-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Belarus-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Bulgaria-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Czech Republic-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Estonia-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Georgia (country)-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Hungary-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Latvia-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lithuania-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Poland-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Russia-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Slovakia-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ukraine-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC) Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Yugoslavia-related deletion discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

• Keep per Nug, Mikehawk10 and Volunteer Marek. This article which, as of this writing, consists of 313,629 bytes, is as strongly sourced as any English Wikipedia article can possibly be. In comparison with the much-shorter related article, Crimes against humanity under communist regimes, which has 33 inline cites and a 9-entry bibliography, this article boasts 302 inline cites based on a bibliography of at least 280 individual titles, most of which are books, plus 25 additional titles under "Further reading". The amount of effort invested in producing such output was enormous and cannot be replaced with any other Wikipedia entry. It provides a treasure trove of research for those engaged in academic study of this subject and its deletion would constitute an irreplaceable loss of historical knowledge presented in one compressed outline. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 02:19, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

  Again, you are using references to WP:V to justify NOR/NPOV violations.

  And, please, take a time and read a discussion of usage of some of those 302 sources: many key sources have been blatantly misused or directly misinterpreted in this article. Paul Siebert (talk) 02:29, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

  None of this address our arguments for why, despite this, the article is so problematic to warrant such a strong solution; WP:VERIFY is but one policy, WP:NPOV is another, and so on. It shows how problematic and grave the situation is that so many sources are misunderstood, including core sources like Valentino, who gave this article the name. The article is an example of WP:REFBOMBING, which gives a misleading picture, as if there is a whole scholarly literature about it, when situation is much different — Siebert and I have proposed time and time again a rewrite, rather than deletion, but the other side did not even attempt at coming close to us.

  "Not only does citation overkill impact the readability of an article, it can call the notability of the subject into question by editors. A well-meaning editor may attempt to make a subject which does not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines appear to be notable through quantity of sources. Ironically, this serves as a red flag to experienced editors that the article needs scrutiny and that each citation needs to be verified carefully to ensure that it was really used to contribute to the article." [empashis mine]

  Davide King (talk) 02:30, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

  Again, we have a user making an argument that the topic itself is covered by multiple independent reliable sources. The pointing to sourcing is clearly a WP:GNG arguments made in light of WP:N, which is the relevant policy if we're discussing deletion. Deletion is not cleanup and attempts to delete the article because one views the article to be non-neutral or contain material not core to the original topic are not warranted. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 02:45, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

  I do not necessarily disagree that it is not notable, we disagree about the topic, and if we cannot agree on the topic and article's structure, how can we improve the article, reach a consensus, and solve such NPOV and related issues? The only notable topic, which can respect NPOV, is this one and the perfectly summarized structure. Davide King (talk) 02:53, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

  @Roman Spinner:, take a look at this. I picked one subsection, and I found that, out of 8 or 9 sources cited in that text, just one barely supports the claims. Thus, the source for Goldhagen's views is the article that was published several years before that author started to publish his works. That means the source technically incapable to support the ostensibly "well sourced" claim. Other sources (e.g. Valentino) appeared to be directly misinterpreted. Some sources do not discuss the topic at all. It seems sources were picked randomly in attempts to create an impression of a "well written" article. I realize you couldn't know that when you were !voting. However, now you have been duly informed about that problem. Paul Siebert (talk) 02:49, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

  How exactly is Valentino being misinterpreted? He defines a Topology of Mass Killing, listing six types: Communist, Ethnic, Territorial, Counterguerilla, Terrorist and Imperialist on page 70.

On page 71, he felt the need to explicitly note the role of Ideology in Dispossessive Mass Killings:

Several of the cases categorised in this book as dispossessive mass killings have been described as ideological mass killings/genocides by other authors. Indeed, few scholars who have studied genocide and mass killings have failed to comment on the central role that ideology has played in some of the twentieth century’s bloodiest mass killings. In particular, the ideology of the ruling elites played a central role in the mass killings of communist states such as the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia and of explicitly racist states such as Nazi Germany.

In describing Communist type mass killings, he further writes:

The most deadly mass killings in history have resulted from the effort to transform society according to communist ideology. Radical communist regimes have proven so exceptionally violent because the changes they have sought to bring about have resulted in the nearly complete material dispossession of vast numbers of people.

--Nug (talk) 02:53, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

This is cherry picking from a a primary source. Reviews at Benjamin Valentino and Mass killing clearly disagree, and you have failed to gain consensus for your proposed changes, therefore yours remain allegations. Even if you were right, Valentino's Communist mass killing category is applied only to three out of dozens Communist regimes, therefore the scope of this article must be significantly reduced. Davide King (talk) 02:57, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

How is Valentino a primary source in that context? If that's his own analysis, then surely it would render it to be a secondary source for the topic as a whole. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 02:59, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Valentino is a secondary source. Primary sources are things like death certificates and census data. Valentino applies it to eight Communist regimes, including Bulgaria, East Germany, Romania, North Korea and North Vietnam. --Nug (talk) 03:06, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Obviously, you did not get my point. This is yet another problem of the article, namely than rather than use secondary/tertiary sources to summarize for us what those authors think and posit, we cite it with few exceptions (e.g. Rummel), to the authors themselves ("he sad, she said"), which has caused their views to not be fairly and properly represented, e.g. Valentino does not propose MKuCR but Communist mass killing, which is not the same thing. As showed by WP:PRIMARY and WP:SECONDARY, Valentino is a secondary source about the events and a tertiary source about estimates but a primary source in regards to his own views (e.g. causes) about the events, is this more clear? Davide King (talk) 03:09, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

"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." (Valentino 2013, p. 91.) The bolded parts are obviously missing and not reflected in either Nug's cherry picking and MKuCR. Davide King (talk) 03:14, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Much to the contrary, it actually provides a differential analysis of Communist regimes with respect to mass killings. This seems to support that he was indeed talking about the group of mass killings performed by Communist regimes as a real phenomenon that deserved an explanation. There seems to be an underlying assumption in arguments made by several delete !voters that this should be deleted if there isn't a causal relationship between Communism and mass killings. I don't think that's in line with our practice of keeping race and intelligence or vaccines and autism as articles. If the complaint is that the information on the difference between Communist regimes that engage in mass killings and those that don't is not in the article, WP:SOFIXIT would apply. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:26, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

A link is necessary because it is not sufficient that some events under Communist regimes were mass killings, there needs to be a clearer link than the regimes being nominally Communist. Are you aware that despite my 'Delete' vote, I have actually proposed a 'Keep' by rewriting MKuCR precisely on such articles, e.g. discussing the link between Communist states and mass killings, which would be the article's title? If the 'Keep' side agree with this, we may call it quits and work together. Davide King (talk) 03:32, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I mean, I don't quite understand what you mean by we may call it quits and work together, inasmuch as I'm not involved in the content dispute that apparently is a chief force in the AfD. I don't think that the article should be limited to an analysis on the causality—it's important, but it's not the whole thing. The whole topic, in my view, is the group of killings that has been discussed in multiple reliable sources as communist mass killings. In my view, a summary style article would include the noteworthy mass killings discussed in reliable sources, as well as academic reactions to the grouping of them as a phenomenon. The genocide-related article I'm most familiar with is Uyghur genocide; for a very long time (from its inception as a class project until a few months ago), the classification section was relatively high up in the article. Truth be told, it was because my classmates and I were struggling in Fall 2019 with figuring out whether to call it an ethnocide or cultural genocide, or plain genocide, and we decided to list all the noteworthy opinions. My understanding is that that same basic thing is what WP:NPOV calls us to do here. A summary style article that describes the various abuses noted to be in the category of communist mass killings by multiple reliable sources, complete with a section discussing the various views that academics and other RS have about the category as a whole, seems to be a perfectly reasonable topic. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:46, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I meant that if we can agree for a rewrite/restructuring, deletion can be avoided. The problem of summary style is that MKuCR does not summarize the events in NPOV, e.g. not all views are provided (maisntream country experts who completely ignore genocide scholars are not used to summarize their views of the events). Siebert and I have have repeatedly proposed to keep the article, while restructuring it to add country specialists — but one user (AmateurEditor) dismissed relying on country specialists as SYNTH, and attempts at rewrite/restructing to incorporate this have been rejected by other side, even though it was a compromise on our part. Siebert can better explain you this, e.g. majority sources (country specialists) who do not describe many of those events as mass killings (again, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot fit, not all Communist regimes, so under Communist regimes is misleading, since it does not even discuss majority of them). Another issue is that most of those events are discussed individually, or separatively by majority scholarly sources, so why whould we give minority (genocide scholars) the controversial grouping WEIGHT? Keep in mind that AmateurEditor, strong 'Keep' defender acknowledged that such sources were a minority but qualified them as significant, and as long as they are attributed, they are fine. It still fails NPOV and WEIGHT for not providing majority sources (country specialists) the much greater WEIGHT they warrant. Davide King (talk) 04:03, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Again, a rewrite is probably needed if we're going to make the article better along the lines that I lay out above. But, that's totally aside from the question of whether or not this is a notable topic. Per WP:N, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article. Notability is presumed when

1. A topic passes its relevant notability guideline (WP:GNG or an WP:SNG); and
2. A topic is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy.

Notability is not dependent on the current state of the article's sourcing, but instead dependent on the fact that the sources exist. And, if we're willing to entertain that the sources exist but are simply being misued in a manner that's generating issues with WP:NPOV, then that's separate; the topic of "mass killings under communist regimes" is not made non-notable owing to the present state of its article. While I'm totally on board modifying the manner in which the article describes the characterizations of the usefulness of the grouping, it would a mismatch to say that the current state of the article in some way has a bearing on whether or not this topic fails to deserve its own article or should be deleted. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 04:44, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

As if it is not clear enough, if some quotes from Valentino may appear that he supports ideology as a link with mass killing, it is made irrelevant by the fact academic reviews of his work say ideology and regime type is not as important, and Valentino's emphasis is on the leaders and their motives, which are not necessarily ideological. Davide King (talk) 03:18, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Nug, cherry-picking from a source is dangerous. You picked one quote, and DK picked another, both quotes from the same source. Do you sincerely believe we have no access to that source?

Let's rely on interpretations made by professionals.

"Disagreeing with Rummel’s finding that authoritarian and totalitarian government explains mass murder, Valentino (2004) argues that regime type does not matter; to Valentino the crucial thing is the motive for mass killing (Valentino, 2004: 70). He divides motive into the two categories of dispossessive mass killing (as in ethnic cleansing, colonial enlargement, or collectivization of agriculture) and coercive mass killing (as in counter-guerrilla, terrorist, and Axis imperialist conquests). A complication in his work is that one of Valentino’s three main categories of killing is ‘communist’ mass killing (Valentino, 2004: 70), so he brings in regime type, after all, and so ends up a bit closer to Rummel than one would have expected at the outset of the book." (Wayman&Tago)

"a bit closer" is not even "close". From your previous comments I conclude that you are perfectly familiar with that source. Paul Siebert (talk) 03:24, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Isn't the statement that one of Valentino’s three main categories of killing is ‘communist’ mass killing proving Nug's point? Surely this is evidence that the categorization is actually undertaken by academics, even if they don't embrace ideology as the causal factor. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:28, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

But Valentino concludes that only Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes fit the Communist mass killing category, while Bulgaria and other case studies do not, yet the article's structure treats it as if the latter fit the category too. Davide King (talk) 03:38, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

First, we are talking about a different point: the MKuCR article claims Valentino believes that ideology plays a significant role. In reality, he does not.

Second, with regard to a separate category ("Communist mass killings"), yes, he grouped three regimes together, and that is natural, because they all were implementing deep social transformations. If I were writing that book, I would combine them together too, because they had more in common with each other than with, e.g. Guatemala or Afghanistan. However, the main Valentino's theoretical conclusion is that leader's personality is a key factor in mass killings, and the regimes, including Communist regimes that have no such leaders do not commit mass killings. And from that, he makes " an extremely useful conclusion: The best strategy for prevention is to remove those leaders likely to commit mass murder." (Gregory H. Stanton, Source: The Wilson Quarterly (1976-), Autumn, 2004, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 116-117).

Again, the author who claims that several Communist leaders were primary culprits and cause of mass killings in some Communist states is not a good source for generalizations made in this article. Paul Siebert (talk) 03:46, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That is also just one review about Valentino's work, other academic reviews emphasize his lack of focus in regards to regime types, e.g. Ikenberry 2004 ("In this astute and provocative study, Valentino argues instead that leaders, not societies, are to blame. In most cases, he finds that powerful leaders use mass killing to advance their own interests or indulge their own hatreds, rather than to carry out the desires of their constituencies. This 'strategic' view emerges from a review of mass killing in the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia; ethnic killing in Turkish Armenia, Nazi Germany, and Rwanda; and counter-guerrilla killing in Guatemala and Afghanistan.") Davide King (talk) 03:52, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

And, yes, that type categorisation is made in several sources, but the question is how strong it is? How frequently and how extensively "communist mass killings" (I mean not just a subset thereof, but a whole set, starting from Cuba and ending with North Korea) are being discussed as some common phenomenon, and how frequently those events are grouped in different ways? What is more frequent: discussion of Cambodia in context of Communist mass killing or in a context of Asian genocides? And how many sources emphasize country-specific aspects? That is a question we should answer to start speaking seriously. Paul Siebert (talk) 03:53, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Valentino says available evidence suggests these other communist states fit the Communist mass killing category too, but there is insufficient documentation to make a definitive judgement. Wayman&Tago states that Harff's database shows mass killings occurred in a quarter of communist regimes, while Rummel's database shows that mass killings occur in three-quarters of communist regimes. Wayman&Tago then did a comparative analysis of the two databases and concluded that Rummel's database is entirely consistent with Harff's, with Harff being essentially a subset of Rummel's. The authors find that important regime effects either appear or disappear depending on the dataset used, with regime generally having a significant effect on onset of democide, but not having a significant effect on onset of geno-politicide. --Nug (talk) 04:04, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I will just say you have tried to push this at Mass killing (you were reverted and did not discuss it further) but have failed to gain consensus for this view so far. It is pointless to further discuss this, let's all leave some space for other users to express their views in regards to 'Keep', 'Delete', 'Whatever.' Davide King (talk) 04:32, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Mikehawk10, Nug, and Paul Siebert

Rather than engage in an endless dispute about sources, should we not perhaps take Valentino at WP:NORN/WP:RSN and ask whose 'reading' is 'correct'? I am pretty confident in Siebert to prove that we are right on this. The same can be done for other sources. If they are found not to be related to the topic or misread by MKuCR (e.g. Levivich's and others' point), they should not be used in support for 'Keep'; vice versa, I will stop using this argument for 'Deletion.' This seems to be the only solution to move forward.

Davide King (talk) 04:19, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I mean, wouldn't that just be outsourcing this discussion to another board? I don't see how WP:RSN is going to be helpful in this case; I don't think anybody is questioning the reliability of the author or publisher. And, if the purpose of going to WP:NORN is more or less to evaluate a source with respect to its usefulness in a deletion discussion, I don't think that's really the purpose of the board. If it's the case that different editors are reading the same exact source differently as it pertains to the source's relevance to the topic's notability, then I don't see why the other boards would help in this case. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 04:22, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Then whoever is going to close this AfD must scrutinize sources, and each argument in regards, and not take them at face value. In addition, if you think this, it is pointless to further discuss this — I agree with AndyTheGrump's comment here, which the closer should seriously consider as an argument in favour of deletion — I hope the closer will be able to analyze sources and find what rational argument is more persuasive and better reflect what sources say. Davide King (talk) 04:28, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

WP:IAR thus delete is not a very... sound way to approach deletion. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 04:44, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

@Mikehawk10: Do you realize we were in the middle of WP:DR discussion when this AfD has been opened? Among other things, we were discussing the article's topic. It could be either "summary style" article about the events, or it could be a discussion of views that links Communism with mass killings. Currently, it is a weird hybrid of both: it pretends to be a summary style article, but it is written from the perspective of predominantly those sources that link Communism and mass killings. Even worse, it used the works of some country experts, but it is doing that is such a way that a totally false impression is created that those author share the views that some generic Communism was a primary cause of each of those events. It is not a good place to reproduce the whole dispute, just go to the DR page and read it. Paul Siebert (talk) 04:53, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I am aware of that. I'm not really sure what the bearing is upon the notability of this topic; that seems to be separate from how to weight the sources in making the article. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:07, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

• Delete I must say that the current version of the article appears to be in a rather sorry state Well, if it's not going to get fixed after ten years then we might as well blow it up per WP:TNT, the current topic is unworkable as WP:SYNTH, as has been demonstrated by numerous talk page discussions. It is better that the article does not exist at all than it does in this state. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:53, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
  • My pointing to it being in a better state was earlier this year... — Mikehawk10 (talk) 04:56, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
    • Ironically the lede mentioned by the nominator[11] was actually inserted by one of the participants !voting for delete [12]. In fact the current state of the article is largely due to his efforts since August. —Nug (talk) 05:14, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
      • Of course, this lead, which makes no mention of controversy, criticism, does not address which those Communist states are, etc., is much better (sarcasm). If they think I did it on purpose to make the article worse, they are nuts and I take it as a personal attack — I have simply tried to better contextualize what sources say, e.g. Valentino, and finally have a bloody topic sentence and attempting a summary of the body. Davide King (talk) 05:34, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• Keep, a notable topic with a myriad of reliable sources to show both context and notability. A previous version of the article was more refined, before large editorializations and undue weight -- mainly by the pro-deletion editors here -- imbalanced the content. Certainly some of the caveats and controversies need mention as many of them already were mentioned. One important point: The article isn't titled "Mass killings under communism". It's titled "Mass killings under communist regimes". The pro-deletion participants keep reiterating on this page that it is 'not fair to communism' to group all communist leaders together because they were not 'true communism'. Whether this the case, that is the function of the key word 'regimes', all of them are grouped by their official, formal and historically attested declaration of themselves as communist, they are referred to by their regimes specifically, and many of these regimes historically known to have performed mass acts of state violence, as recognized by historians on all sides of the political spectrum, as cited in this article and others. Rauisuchian (talk) 05:28, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

This is clearly a strawman — none of us is resorting to such 'no true communism' nonsense. Check The Black Book of Communism for scholarly criticism of such "generic Communism" grouping (Mecklenburg & Wolfgang Wippermann 1998, Dallin 2000, David-Fox 2004), which has been acknowledged as controversial, and certainly not as straightforward as the 'Keep' side may claim, by DRN moderator Robert McClenon here. Davide King (talk) 05:40, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I am seeing some book reviews that criticize The Black Book of Communism for overly focusing on the death count, but even this review would indicate that The Black Book of Communism does indeed talk about mass killings under Communist regimes as its main lens. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 06:02, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Is the death count really relevant beyond a section discussing estimates? Whether it is 100 million, 10 million or even 1 million, it's still a mass killing by Valentino's accepted criteria of 50,000 over 5 years. --Nug (talk) 06:08, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

This review is also saying that The Black Book of Communism revealed the unprecedented cruelty and scale of communist genocide and that, according to Aron, communism was responsible for numerous cases of mass genocide. Seems pretty clear to me that this book is actually talking about mass killings under Communist regimes as a group. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 06:14, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

And, this review states that regardless of their noble claims and pretenses, communist regimes in Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, North Korea, postwar Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Africa, and Latin America engaged in systematic mass murder. The authors of this book argue that murder was inherent in communist attempts to mold society, as was their dehumanization of enemies and their refusal to accept the legitimacy of civil society-especially in war-torn nations bereft of democratic traditions and institutions. Once again, it seems awfully like The Black Book of Communism is indeed talking about mass killings under Communist regimes as if it were a group. I don't really see where the arguments are that this book would not contribute towards the notability of this topic. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 06:17, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I cannot access to the first one but one of them is a conservative magazine (The National Interest), and that does not change the fact majority of academic reviews I have read say it is more about Communism and criminality than Mass killing or MKuCR as put in this article, or even more about a Communist death toll, which includes many events that are not proper mass killings and famines, than anything. The Black Book of Communism is clearly valuable as is controversial (unlike notability,1. NPOV is not negotiable), and one of my arguments for deletion is that all NPOV, OR/SYNTH, and related issues, after well over a deacade by now, simply cannot be solved, keeping the article as it is may act as citogenesis and be more harmful than helpful (Conservapedia and Metapedia are appears to be the two other 'encyclopedias' to discuss MKuCR as we do(2.) — so citing a controversial work, including its controversial grouping, when scholars disagree, to imply it is a scholarly consensus (scholars disagree) is not helpful, is misleading (e.g. many of those sources used do not write within the context of Communist grouping but within that of individual states, and Jones 2011 separates Stalin and Mao from Pol Pot; have you checked Siebert about type sources (1).

Notes

1. "This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page." — WP:N
Hence, Levivich's and other users' argument is still valid and sound, otherwise it would have been a snowclose; Siebert and I agree it is a notable topic but exactly what topic? Not MkCUR and its NPOV, OR/SYNTH issues, among others, but the view that Communism was the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century.

"In my opinion, the really notable topic is the discussion of the view that Communism was the greatest mass murderer in XX century. Who said that? Why? What was the main purpose for putting forward this idea? How this idea was accepted? Who supports that? Who criticise it and what the criticism consists in? How this idea is linked to recent trends in Holocaust obfuscation? And so on, and so forth. This would be a really notable topic, and that can save the article from deletion. However, that will require almost complete rewrite of the article." — Paul Siebert

2. I am not opposed to an article that focuses mainly on theory rather than discussing the events, which can simply be linked either when mentioned or through See also. Changing MKuCR to Communist state(s) and mass killing(s) would be a better way to put it. Davide King (talk) 10:41, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

@Davide King Not intended to be a strawman. The "not true communism" argument has also been made by, for example, historians criticizing historical communist regimes as part of a thesis of totalitarianism. Separately, even if the argument of "incomparable communisms" is made, which is one view and not common, the grouping of regime is still valid, in terms of a categorizational role. The point is if the historical regime called itself communist, had a Communist Party, and historians generally refer to it as that then it is of relevance. I would echo Cloud200's point here in the same thread. The extensive excerpts and notes section has been criticized as part of this discussion (the quotes are probably too long), but plainly illustrates the variety, notability, and non-dogmatic nature of grouping this topic given the diversity of the scholars cited. Yes, the caveats and controversies need mention, however that is not a full deletion reason, that is a revise parts of the article reason. Rauisuchian (talk) 07:40, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

See above comment. You say "however that is not a full deletion reason, that is a revise parts of the article reason", yet all attempts at compromise by us at such revision have been ignored — NPOV is not negotiable, and if we cannot have a NPOV article (it has been well over a decade, that is more than enough time), it should be deleted and we may start over. Siebert and I have identified a notable topic that, if properly written and structured, can be in full respect of NPOV and NO OR. Davide King (talk) 10:55, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

• Delete - Excellent points by Levivich and AndyTheGrump. Better to cover individual events in appropriate context. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:50, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• Keep - The article is certainly not a POV-fork, because it discusses an unique topic of the link between communist ideology and mass-scale extermination of people in order to achieve the objectives of the ideology with examples and comprehensive academic and political discussion. Arguments that "other syrestems also killed people" are non sequitur and whataboutism for the purpose of this discussion. The link between Marxism-Leninism and violence is WP:NOTABLE and well documented in the article using numerous W:RS, beginning from the concepts of dictatorship of the proletariat, class war and "violent revolution". The rest of the article describes cases when the theory has been applied in practice, leading to extremination of thousands of people in the name of collectivization, "eradication of bourgeoisie as a class", central planning or simply suppressing resistance against communism. Some authors disagree with that link, and these views are also prominently displayed in the article, using other WP:RS, preserving WP:NPOV. Also, as explained in the DRN discussion, there is no single "majority" view on these topics as view from US or Western Europe are very different from views in Eastern Europe or Asia, even though they are all based on pretty the same sources and facts, but interepret them differently - but once again, this diversity of views is well represented in the article. Ultimately, if there's someone out there wondering if an ideology that obsessively pivots around "violent revolution" could possibly have any impact on human lives or not, this article provides a pretty objective, well-documented and quantified answer. Cloud200 (talk) 10:38, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

  While comparisons with other systems may have been an argument on the talk page, it has not been cited here as the reason for 'Delete.' It would be helpful if the 'Keep' side at least understood our arguments and reasoning, as I do understand and can respect theirs, even if I disagree and feel that is not sufficient for writing a NPOV article, which is not negotiable. Davide King (talk) 10:44, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

  You are countering every single Keep vote here with lengthy tirades, countering any arguments provided by the people voting to keep the article, and simply flooding the discussion in a Gish gallop style, which you have also done with Siebert for years in the article's talk page, in the DRN and in individual editors' talk page. Your name in this discussion already appears 33 times, but regardless on how much text you write, this won't make the victims of Marxism-Leninism mass killings magically go away, disappear or get forgotten. Cloud200 (talk) 10:54, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

  Not my fault you do not understand our reasoning. Your emotional appeals will not make NPOV, OR/SYNTH issues, recognized by the moderator at DRN, magically go away, either. As you can see here, Siebert and I have actually identified and proposed a similar topic that may fix such issues and that the 'Keep' side has completely ignored, and clearly shows we are no hardliners. Davide King (talk) 11:04, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

  I would note that Mikehawk10 told me the article is not about any link (in contrast to what Cloud200 cited above as reasons for 'Keep'), so how can the 'Keep' side be taken seriously when even they disagree about the main topic and its structure? That is not counting also our own disagreement. When it has been over a decade we disagree on what exactly the main topic is (mass killings vs. mass mortality), whether it is about a link or the events themselves, can the 'Keep' side explain this? That would require a RfC about it, and if we cannot reach a consensus there, we are back to this here. Davide King (talk) 11:13, 23 November 2021 (UTC)