Talk:Makhnovshchina

Disagreement with infobox removal

I strongly disagree with the removal of the “former country infobox” that used to be on this article. I have issues with the reasons given for such a removal:

1. The movement had no permanent borders This is not a requirement for a state to exist. Many states have existed with constantly fluctuating or unclear borders throughout history (look at the Turkic empires of central Asia for an example). And yes, I realize that the definition of a “state” is contentious, but in no definition I have seen are “permanent” borders part of it.

2. They were an anarchist movement, and anarchists are stateless Wow, quite a can of worms here. They were an anarchist movement, sure, but it doesn’t mean that they successfully established anarchism. In fact, this very article states that the purpose of Makhnovshchina was to create an anarchist society, not that it WAS one. And finally, this article also mentions military, economic, and governmental institutions that Makhnovshchina ran under; these are all hallmarks of a state system.

Now obviously, Makhnovshchina wasn’t the most centralized, stable, or “stately” state out there, but it was a state nonetheless. Therefore, I believe the removed infobox should be brought back. 296cherry (talk) 01:54, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Seeing as it's been about 4 days and no one has responded, I will boldly add the infobox to the page (with proper citations of course). Please respond here if you disagree with such an edit. 296cherry (talk) 15:16, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I still don't think this infobox is a good idea, but I'm too exhausted to contest it. Would like to know how you interpreted Skirda as having described it as an "anarchist commune under a free soviet direct democracy" though... Sources consistently describe the Makhnovshchina as a mass movement, not as a country or a state. -- Grnrchst (talk) 17:50, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

The government type definitely should be changed, you're right. The problem is that I can't find anything that states Makhnovshchina's government in a single phrase. There's lots of sources that state that "its government was run by a system of free soviets" or "the council was operated by a system of communes in a participatory democracy" etc etc... but I don't know how to put these into the infobox. The closest thing I could find was this quote from Skirda: "the free soviets became the grassroot organs of a direct democracy".

I've done a little more research while writing this reply. Malet writes extensivley about the civilian governance of Makhnovshchina: he calls it a "federation of free soviets". Would that be sufficient?

I haven't found anything that explicitly refers to Makhnovshchina as a "state", but I have seen it referred to as a "territory" or "region" extensively.

I have to go for now, hopefully we can work this out, 296cherry (talk) 19:45, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I also object to this infobox addition for reasons already covered in the last discussion. If you feel strongly in the other direction, please create a formal WP:RfC consensus. There has been robust discussion on how the Makhnovshchina was a movement and not a "former country". Perhaps the best reason is that nearly all fields that would be filled in this infobox do not apply to the Makhnovshchina's makeup. As it stands, it becomes a place to show a bunch of facts that reflect minor details of the Makhnovshchina and defeat the purpose of calling them out in an infobox. Ultimately, not everything needs an infobox. czar 22:19, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Seeing how places like Lokot Autonomy or Komańcza Republic get their own infoboxes, Anarchist Free Territory should get one as well. They had active and effective military, unconventional but stable government form, stable core territory, ideology and even their own songs. All that existed for more than 2 years during civil war era.

They did not limit their territorial claim to any particular borders, but areas close to Huliaipole were always in their hands.

Their actual government form was so called free soviets. That is the same form of government RSFSR and later USSR had until 30s. The only difference is that Free Territory soviets did not recognize any supreme soviets over them and RSFSR soviets agreed towards sending representatives to upper tier national soviets.

Thus "Makhnovia" has more reasons to be a state than many other entities. 211.30.177.133 (talk) 02:00, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

See previous discussion about how there is no such "Anarchist Free Territory". The topic is described in sources as a mass movement, not a state or territory. czar 11:24, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Aside from what Czar said, I think you might have to check your sources, because a lot of what you said here is inaccurate. The Makhnovshchina certainly did not have a "stable core territory", nor were areas around Huliaipole "always in their hands". In summer 1919, they were forced to retreat from Huliaipole to the west bank of the Dnipro; and for most of 1920 and 1921, they were effectively a guerrilla movement without any "stable territory". Huliaipole changed hands very often during the conflict. As for the free soviets, there was a lot more to it than that. --Grnrchst (talk) 12:22, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

@Anasaitis: As you just reverted the removal of the infobox, I thought it worth pinging you here. There still isn't consensus on infobox inclusion. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:33, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the fact that they had locations of power, such as Gulyai-Pole, as well as an organ of institutional force, even of the (relative) short time they were in operation, does show enough territorial-governing capabilities to warrant a wiki country info-box. And there are other historical precent movements that did not have stable territory, the Chinese Soviet Republic (1931-1937) being an example of that (and that article has a info-box). Remikipedia (talk) 18:47, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

As a compromise, I suggest the info-box need not be focal point of the article, instead pushed down to the politics/local self-government section. Remikipedia (talk) 18:48, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that's worth it. It's misleading to imply that it had any of the makeup of a country and adding the country infobox just creates a reason for other editors to edit war over infobox parameters that are inessential to the entity. czar 21:27, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

@Czar: I just removed the GA nomination for this article, as unfortunately I think the edit-warring over the infobox has sufficiently prevented it from meeting GA criteria for stability. It's a shame, but we'll need to form a clearer consensus on this before I can consider nominating again. For the record, I'm still against an infobox. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:38, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the talk page consensus is clear enough but do you want to open an RfC so it's crystal clear? (Also, in my opinion, an editor attempting to add an infobox once or twice a year without consulting the talk page doesn't qualify as a stability issue for the GA criteria.) czar 12:55, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the fact that this discussion is still unresolved after a year (I see 3 editors for inclusion and 3 against), and the issue is still open enough that people keep adding the infobox back in, I'd personally consider that unstable enough to preclude passing GAC. If you think an RfC would help solidify consensus on this, I'd be happy to open one. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:43, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I think this is only unresolved in that the conversation hasn't been archived or formally closed. A brief RfC lets there be a formal discussion with a definitive close, resolving any perception of a stability issue for GA. czar 17:39, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@296cherry, Czar, Remikipedia, Nikkimaria, and FeRDNYC: Courtesy ping to participants in past discussions about infobox inclusion, a Request for Comment on the issue has been opened in the talk page below. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:02, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I concur with Czar. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:56, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

The article does not mention the word Free Territory a single time, because we made it up. shouldnt we include that fact tho?

Term "Free Territory" was invented by sock puppet wikipedian almost 20 years ago (https://www.thecommoner.org.uk/we-carry-a-free-territory-in-our-hearts/), and was used as a result by multiple sources and is widely used by people on social media. i think it would be justified to make a short mention of this name and its origin? Zuzu8691 (talk) 13:50, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Tricky. First question is: Can you locate any reliable sources to base such a mention on? Meaning, sources that have written about the fact that Wikipedia's former "Free Territory" article was the genesis of the term as it was later used in other works?

This was discussed in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anarchism/Archive 6#Free Territory ➤ Makhnovshchina — at one point Grnrchst mentions adding "Free Territory" to the Wikipedia:List of citogenesis incidents, and czar jokingly replies, After you write our first secondary source about the incident ;). The article you linked to is effectively exactly that, as it's written by Grnrchst. And therein lies the rub.

Wikipedia can't ever be a source for Wikipedia, and an external article written by a wikipedian who's also heavily involved in editing this article really can't be considered a reliable source either. (If anyone were to make that mistake, they'd immediately be throwing Grnrchst into a retroactive conflict of interest situation that I certainly wouldn't envy.)

As things currently stand, the "Free Territory" situation isn't even listed on Wikipedia:List of citogenesis incidents, because there's also a lack of documented citogenesis — the evidence for citogenesis is largely (or entirely?) circumstantial. Sources post-2006 that use the term don't directly cite it to Wikipedia, they just don't provide any other citations either, and the term is conspicuously absent from all literature prior to 2006. So it appears they picked it up directly or indirectly from this article's original title. But "appears" isn't enough to earn a spot at Wikipedia:List of citogenesis incidents, and it's even less sufficient for mention in this article.

(There's also the danger that, if the term does make a return to the article, it will be cited here uncritically by especially lazy researchers. Sometimes, the best way to mitigate the spread of false information is to simply eliminate it, as even acknowledging it (in any context) may serve only to perpetuate the error.) FeRDNYC (talk) 03:06, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

For the record, I'll be recusing myself from this discussion due to the above-mentioned conflict of interest. --Grnrchst (talk) 08:50, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

@Grnrchst: I mean... absolutely, do as you think best, but FWIW I don't think it's really possible to have a disqualifying conflict-of-interest in a talk page discussion. After all, aren't genuine COI editors (which so far you're not, anyway, as your external work isn't used as any of the article sources) instructed to redirect their editing to discussions and requests on the relevant talk page(s), instead? 🤔 FeRDNYC (talk) 14:02, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the reply, I'm very incompetent at procedure on that so don't assume anything I write comes from consideration of it. (I didn't know it existed there!)

That said, shouldn't the fact that we can't trace the origin of the name Free Territory anywhere but to wikipedia be sufficient? because even if these sources don't cite Wikipedia, we can reasonably expect their usage to trace back to it?

Tho I see your point that it would be improper for Wikipedia to cite a Wikipedian, but I have to say I have a strong conviction situations like these should be an exception, because words circulating in the internet arent still that likely to be picked up by reliable source.

Last point, do we consider Free Territory a misinfo? I don't see any substantive difference between the translation of the historically accurate term (liberated zone I think?), so why would we say its misinformation? Zuzu8691 (talk) 03:07, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The ideal source would be a source secondary to us editors who affirms what Grnrchst wrote, such as citing his post in an academic journal article or a book or another non-self-published publication. In the meantime, I wager it's best to not mention Free Territory at all since it's not like there is a robust discussion of this term's usage in which The Commoner (as a primary source) is needed to correct that record—it's an absence of discussion altogether. czar 13:58, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Zuzu8691 I just wanted to note one thing, you write: I don't see any substantive difference between the translation of the historically accurate term (liberated zone I think?) — if we're talking about the term "Makhnovshchina" I'm not sure of the exact literal translation (and frustratingly, Google Translate translates it to English as "Makhnovshchina" #HELPFUL), but the wiktionary entry for Makhnovshchina gives its etymology, fuzzily, as "the thing relating to Makhno" (meaning Nestor Makhno, for whom the movement is named).

"Liberated zone" is I think how some other wikis translated "Free Territory" in their own article titles, so it was just as made-up a term as "Free Territory". The term "Makhnovshchina" itself has nothing to do with territories, zones, states, or any other synonym, it just means "Makhno's thing" Ah, in fact, the Nestor Makhno page's lead says that "Makhnovshchina" is loosely translated as "Makhno movement". FeRDNYC (talk) 20:43, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

interesting, thank you! Zuzu8691 (talk) 21:13, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

RfC on infobox inclusion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should this article include an infobox? --Grnrchst (talk) 12:58, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

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Context? Examples? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:35, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29: Sorry, the RfC instructions said to keep the request short. I'll try to keep this explanation as neutral as possible. I first raised concerns with the inclusion of a country infobox providing a reductive or inaccurate impression of the Makhnovshchina a couple years ago. I ended up removing the infobox,[1] as I was concerned that it was painting the picture of the Makhnovshchina being a "country" rather than a mass movement, per reliable sources on the subject. The removal was reverted last year by 296cherry,[2] whose objections can be read above. There was then a back-and-forth about the issue of infobox inclusion, with a couple reversions and re-reversions to the article, but the discussion never formed a clear consensus. Recently the infobox was restored to the article a couple times,[3][4] both of which were reverted. As consensus on inclusion still hasn't been achieved, per Czar's prompting, I opened an RfC on the matter. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:17, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

You are allowed to comment yourself with your personal reasoning on the matter. Normally, anyone who doesn't really know what's going on can grasp the discussion quicker. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:21, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The part before the first timestamp is the RfC statement, and should be neutral and brief. After that first timestamp, you can be as biased and as lengthy as you feel you can reasonably get away with. But sometimes the lengthy part falls into WP:TLDR territory, as with this ongoing RfC. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:33, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@Grnrchst, could you supply in this discussion the infobox that was previously used? It would probably help if we could get a look at it. -- asilvering (talk) 20:37, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering: Grnrchst already did that, in their post of 14:17, 16 October 2024 (UTC) above. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:58, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I foolishly assumed that was the most excessive version, not the one we'd be using if this RFC decided on an infobox. -- asilvering (talk) 22:16, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Going back through the version history, it seems like the first version of the infobox (added on 25 November 2008 by an Estonian IP editor) was removed by Mzajac and Galassi, who drew attention to is misleading and inaccurate statements. Another version was later added by SeNeKa (added on 21 February 2009) but this version wasn't removed and ended up staying in the article until last year. This version became the skeleton for the current version, which morphed and changed over time. Interestingly, the "government" parameter was the most volatile, changing from "Anarchy" to "libertarian socialist" to "Anarchic democracy" to "Anarchist communism" to "N/A" (lmao) to "None" to "Anarcho-communist quasi-stratocracy" to "Anarchist quasi-stratocracy" to "Autonomous anarchist confederation" to "Anarchist republic" to "Anarchist commune" to finally "Anarchist commune under a free soviet direct democracy", all of which were based either on dubious sources or an apparent misreading of reliable sources. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:39, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, 296cherry's version isn't any more excessive than any of the others; even the most stripped-back versions paint a misleading picture of the Makhnovshchina. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:40, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose use of country infobox. It's bad enough that the widely-used term involves an individual's name (regardless of whether you like or hate him, as an anarchist he would be appalled) for a movement which sometimes had a territory. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:22, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Orangemike: I'm not sure where you're getting the assumption that "as an anarchist he would be appalled" by the name Makhnovshchina, considering he referenced it frequently in his own works (see The Russian Revolution in Ukraine and The Struggle Against the State). --Grnrchst (talk) 16:38, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  Mike indirectly makes a good point, though, in terms of the RFC question. It's difficult to answer "should this article include an infobox?" as a yes/no question. An extremely relevant followup question is, "Which infobox?" I agree the one that was previously used — {{Infobox former country}}, I believe? — is a poor fit and should not be used. But if there's a different one that makes sense, then maybe? FeRDNYC (talk) 18:19, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

• I'm really not sure I care at all, anymore. But I have added the appropriate contentious topics notice for this subject, below the RFC template. The community has collectively decided that none of us can conduct ourselves properly when debating infobox inclusion in the article space, so Admins are authorized to have zero chill regarding conduct in such discussions. Enjoy! FeRDNYC (talk) 18:12, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per discussion above. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:38, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

• No. Amply covered in the talk page archive that this entity was a movement and not a "former country" or even a defined territory. Per the last discussion above, nearly all fields that would be filled in this infobox do not apply to the Makhnovshchina's makeup and become a magnet for trivia that make minor details about the movement appear more official than they were. No infobox is needed here as there are no fast facts that warrant the infobox callout. czar 01:34, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
• No per above. Mellk (talk) 10:08, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
• No. Goodness no. minor details about the movement appear more official than they were is right. -- asilvering (talk) 22:17, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.