Talk:Revolutionary terror

Duplicate Parts

In "The Soviet Union", the sentence starting with "Many later marxists, in particular Karl Kautsky..." is almost exactly the same as the one above in "Revolutionary terror and Marxism" which starts with "Many later Marxist-Leninists, in particular Karl Kautsky...". The same goes for the sentence about Stalin and his nota bene, which stands redundantly and completely out of context in the section "Soviet Union". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.47.103.60 (talk) 03:17, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Merge discussion

I suggest merge most of Communist terrorism dealing with state terror tactics leading to or in aftermath of revolutions here, such as reign of terror, red terror, and white terror. That is needed to fix multiple issued in Communist terrorism, including syth and coattrack. I am not sure that lumping up the rest of the article is even justified by reliable sources, but if so the terrorist organizations/groups adhering to some form of communism should aggregated in a separate article named terrorist groups adhering to Communism or some such. Also the terror plans of Soviet Union at the peak of the Cold war should be moved to a section or an appropriate subarticle of the Cold War. (Igny (talk) 00:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC))

• I would tend to oppose such a merger. I think they are separate but related subjects. One reason form my opposition is that communist terrorism, it seems, unlike revolutionary terror, would include terror by a long established communist state. Hence, merging the two would exclude from the scope of the merged article subject matter which appropriately belongs in this article. Mamalujo (talk) 00:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  • I would like to point out that there is an article on mass killings under Communist regimes, where the terror by a long established communist state are discussed in detail. What we are dealing with is lumping the red terror, white terror together with cold war terror plans together with various terrorist organizations adhering to some form of ideology loosely connected to communism. There is no RS to justify lumping these things together, and I merely propose to split the article in parts. Some part of it dealing with red terror and the like should go here. (Igny (talk) 00:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC))
  • Mamalujo, I suspect your vote is based on your thought that a complete merge was suggested. If I am right, can you reconsider? Please see my remarks below - Altenmann >t 01:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Overseas activities of KGB described in communist terorism have nothing to do with revolutionary terror. However I would strongly oppose to merging any unreferenced text and undue lengthy descriptions of various militant communist bodies: they belong to the articles about these bodies, and their list (referenced) in a section titles "list of..." would be sufficient. Also there is no need to duplicate of the content of Red Terror yet again. There is a nice guideline for such overlapping cases: wikipedia:Summary style. - Altenmann >t 01:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Comment I have removed KGB activities at peak of the Cold war from the article in its entirety as highly speculative and largely irrelevant. (Igny (talk) 02:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC))

• Comment After I heavily trimmed the article, there is only one section which can be moved here from Communist terrorist (the connections to Marxism). The rest of the article will be a list. Can I withdraw the merge request?

• Withdraw the merge request. The rest of the article is not connected to the revolutionary terror. (Igny (talk) 03:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC))

Merge (2)

I have tagged the article with a {{Merge-from}} tag as it duplicates content from Communist terrorism. This does not seem to be a WP:POVFORK as the content is or was the same. What we should in fact have is articles on Marxism and revolutionary violence and a List of left wing terrorist organizations. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 17:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

And as i said to you, you can`t have a merger tag on just the one article, you really need to wait till the other is unlocked so it can be done properly mark nutley (talk) 08:32, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Original research

There are no secondary sources for this article, just a collection of primary sources and therefore it is original research. TFD (talk) 22:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I fail to see the logic. I am not particularly referring to this article, but what is wrong in using primary sources for definition of a concept? Also, "primary sources", what the heck is this? As I understand, the wikipedia article about Das Kapital cannot be based soley on Das Kapital. But an article about, say, surplus value, written from das kapital may be a good starting point. Of course, it will lack modern views, criticism, etc., but it will be a valid version of an article. Lovok Sovok (talk) 01:24, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Re:it will be a valid version of an article. No, it won't, unless you are ok with a random wikipedian with an unspecified agenda drawing original conclusions from his interpretation of Das Kapital. (Igny (talk) 02:05, 5 November 2010 (UTC))

WP:RS requires articles to be based mostly on secondary sources and WP:NPOV requires that the views in secondary sources are presented according to their prevalence in the sources. WP:NOR prevents us from providing our own interpretations. Without these policies and guidelines preparing an article would be difficult because we would be arguing about what Marx actually meant, instead of reporting what mainstream writers think he meant. Look at the discussion pages of Communist terrorism to see what happens when editors insist on interpreting primary sources. TFD (talk) 02:20, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I am afraid you are making two locical errors here. First, when I cite or paraphrase Marx, I am not interpreting "what Marx actually meant", I am directly conveying his writing. If I am doing it erroneously, this is fixable by citing closer to the origin, rather than saying "Marx meant not what he wrote". Which leads to your second logical error, of double standard: if you don't trust me to correctly convey the words of Marx, hen how you can trust me to correctly convey the words of a scholar who writes about what Marx wrote? Chinese whispers, you know.

As I see it, there are primary sources and there are primary sources, as my Jewish friend from Odessa would say. It is one thing that when a Medieval monk writes that he "fought with devils" in his solitary cell, I deduce that in Middle Ages devils roamed the Earth freely (rather, I would rely on a word of a modern scholar that "fighting with devils" was a common expression for "fighting with temptations of flesh"). It is totally another thing to cite a scientific opinion of a near-contemporary author on a subject of their invention.

...And being carried away by the discussion I nearly missed the third logical blunder in it ("red herring"). The original issue at hand (viz. section header) is "original research". To put forth this accusation you have to demonstrate that the article has original conclusions, rather than deduce "since it has close to none refences, it must be personal babble original OR". In other words, the proper tag would be "citations missing", and if you question some statements as ungrounded, please do so directly. Lovok Sovok (talk) 20:40, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

You may have valid arguments but it does not override Wikipedia rules. "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This means that we only publish the opinions of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves."[1] It may be that the article represents scholarly consensus, only it is lacking citations, and is therefore not original research, but I doubt it. TFD (talk) 20:50, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I am certainly not going to override wikipedia rules. I am challenging your interpretation thereof. I could have pointed out a couple logical errors in your latest response as well, but since we both agree that the article sucks, further discussion would be but an exercise in debating. May be next time; when the issue will be more critical (I mean I will be suckered into :-). Cheers. Lovok Sovok (talk) 21:17, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

"This means that we only publish the opinions of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves"

(1) In that case you would need to show that authors like Marx, Engels, Lenin are not reliable.

(2) Giving a quotation from Marx cannot be construed as "interpretation" or "original research" since neither are involved any more than they are in your own quotation of Wikipedia rules. Justus Maximus (talk) 15:48, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

In fact the writings of Marx and Lenin are not reliable sources, except for their opinions. But if you want to add their opinions to this article you will have to show that their opinions are generally accepted by modern scholars. You will probably find resistance to re-writing Wikipedia to represent a Marxist-Leninist point of view. TFD (talk) 16:12, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

"In fact the writings of Marx and Lenin are not reliable sources" -- I am afraid you are thoroughly mistaken. "have to show that their opinions" -- So you are denying opinions of Marx in articles about Marxist concepts. I think many, including wikipedia policies, will disagree with you here. "re-writing Wikipedia to represent a Marxist-Leninist point of view." -- please don't exaggerrate. Lovok Sovok (talk) 18:08, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

If you have original interpretations of Karl Marx, Jesus, the Founding Fathers or whoever, then you are in the wrong place. TFD (talk) 00:35, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Merging and copyright

The implications of WP:CC-BY-SA and WP:GFDL on merging and splitting content are also discussed here: Talk:Left-wing terrorism#Moving a part of Communist terrorism to this article -- Petri Krohn (talk) 16:22, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

The copyright issue is non-existent. That argument was a mere pretext used by Collect (e.g., here) to undo a well justified edit. It was a very silly argument, I could only presume that he might have thought to scare his opponent away by rising some legal implications. It could have worked on a less knowledgeable editor, and if he continues to push this idea, I'd consider to bring this matter at WP:ANI. So I'd suggest to drop that discussion as off-topic. (Igny (talk) 00:02, 7 November 2010 (UTC))

1. Try WP:NPA. Your personal attack is not only false, it verges on disruption entirely. Collect (talk) 19:16, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Precision leads to inaccuracy and misrepresentation

The content regarding "revolutionary terror" proper, i.e., the French revolution, is basically non-existant and the entire rest of the article is Communist terrorism re-branded to create a POV:FORK (actually, more of a POV:DISSECT) of content which belongs elsewhere. Content should be moved to its appropriate destination and this, at most, should become a dismabiguation page to the French Revolution and to Communist terrorism. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 14:05, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Coverage

The article mentions China in a couple places, and Cambodia in the lead, but does not treat them with any depth. How was terrorism used in these countries? How did it differ from the Soviet Union? Who were the key actors? Boneyard90 (talk) 18:42, 13 February 2013 (UTC)