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Main page: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mass killings under communist regimes (4th nomination)Must read (c. 1,000 words)
Comment (must read — short two paragraphs)
- From here. This was the version1 when the article was nominated for AfD. For a summary of both side's argument, this is a good one.
- Included are many links to comments from the discussion, among others, which may be helpful for the closure when they are reviwing it.
Delete per WP:ATD-E as content (POV) fork, as no other solution,8 after a decade of discussion, is possible to solve the NPOV, OR/SYNTH, WEIGHT, 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 mortality and mass death 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 full/future rewrite that is NPOV, in full respect of our policies and guidelines (NPOV is not negotiable), and a clearly agreed and defined topic, such as this one. Merely stating "per source(s)" does not mean anything, especially if you do not address our legitimate concerns and disagree about the topic's scope and structure, as can be seen in my in-depth analysis of so far cited sources below.
Just saying that there are no issues, or if they are, they can be easily fixed, without proposing any solution, ignoring that we have already discussed at length, and even had a DRN discussion about it — it does not help us. Davide King (talk) 00:19, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
- Examples of replicated content (deletion will not result in removal of any significant information from Misplaced Pages)
- Democide, Classicide, Criticism of communist party rule, Great Purge, Soviet famine of 1932–1933, Great Chinese Famine, Red Terror, and many, many others. See this.
† Majority sources are country experts and specialists, genocide scholars (core source of MKuCR) are minority sources — this is the the contradiction and NPOV/OR/SYNTH issue; see here (see diffs) how any academic criticism and mention of mainstream scholars who do not support a global Communist death toll. See also this.
Rationale (must read — short four paragraphs)
- See also this and this, and Paul Siebert's comments in general (they are better than I could), as best rationale in favour of deletion and rebuttal of 'Keep' arguments.
WP:ATD-E (If an article on a notable topic severely fails the verifiability or neutral point of view policies, it may be reduced to a stub, or completely deleted
) and POV fork (deliberately created to avoid a neutral point of view (including undue weight), often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts
). The article is a content POV fork and coat, as acknowledged and recognized by DRN moderator here (though they did not weight in on whether to 'Keep' or 'Delete'), which fails NPOV/WEIGHT and VERIFY, and is OR/SYNTH per AndyTheGrump, Levivich, and the nominator, including rebuttals here, here, and here, and because:
- "Generic Communist" grouping, as is applied in the article, is controversial (it was one of the much scholarly criticism of The Black Book of Communism, see Mecklenburg & Wolfgang Wippermann 1998, Dallin 2000, and David-Fox 2004).2
- Genocide scholars themselves do not find regime type to be significant in explaining mass killings, there are disagreement and a lack of consensus among genocide scholars, and all three approaches are flawed in terms of their predictive power and falsifiability (Straus 2007). See also this concise summary.
Here and here, C.J. Griffin and Paul Siebert (thought experiment) gave an accurate and valid summary of issues. AFDISNOTCLEANUP does not apply, since it has been over a decade that we have discussed this and tried to find a solution, or even a compromise, among us. Keeping it as it is, it is not only unhelpful but even actively harmful and a form of citogenesis (Google Scholar); Conservapedia, Metapedia, and Misplaced Pages are the only encyclopedias having such an article. 'Keep' voters have relied on Google Search (Google search results alone are not grounds for protecting an article from deletion
) rather than Google Scholar, the latter being a better way to look for scholarly literature or lack thereof.
The article takes a proposed Communist genocide/mass killing concept from — say — 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 (Courtois, Rummel) list all non-combatant victims (famines, wars-related, 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.
In academia and scholarly sources, mass killings are discussed as a general topic, hence this article acts as a coatrack content POV fork of that topic to push a Communist grouping, as if it was universally accepted and/or a special category that could explain the onset of mass killings — it does not and it is not a separate category and/or topic. As written here, other possibilities include a general article about mass killings, or during the 20th century, as a spin-off of Mass killing. I also accept those three proposals here as possible solutions other than deletion but only if the article is completely rewritten/restructured per WP:BLOWITUP (not a policy but an especially relevant essay for this article and its problems), e.g. if the closure give the green light to such rewrite, 'Keep' side must be collaborative and accept such possibility, as users showed here, here, and here.
For the closer (must read — three paragraphs)
- See also this for how we have been misread as though we are denying the events, which indeed happened — it is their grouping and connection that I and others dispute.10
Addendum — "per sources" arguments must not be taken at face value due to a sourcing problem as summarized here by Siebert (see also this and this) and the issue described here in the lack of agreement about the main topic. This is what they should answer and demonstrate to us and the closure, rather than like the articles existence or think the subject "deserves" an article
(as noted here). As was also noted here, it must be kept in mind:
- Many of 'Keep' voters did not participate at all in the extensive daily discussions about issues in the article, and as a result may be disingenuously dismissive of our arguments, issues, and rationale (canvassing also noted). 'Keep' voters who have been canvassed, are SPAs (example), or treat it as a ballot (as noted here and here and here by admins clpo13 and Ymblanter). WP:CHERRY PICKING, WP:GNUM, and WP:SCHOLARSHIP must also be kept in mind. As for WP:FIXIT, it has been a decade that we try.
- Possible geographical bias in light to the Eastern Europe case and discretionary sanctions, Warsaw concentration camp hoax (Haretz), and Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes recognizing that the article is controversial and in dispute (Template:Controversial), which the 'Keep' side must be aware of but seems to have ignored.
- Double genocide theory and Holocaust trivialization articles, and their politicization in Eastern Europe (Kühne 2012, Subotić 2020).
- Paul Siebert's research criteria and neutral search (e.g. Google Scholar) have been positively reviewed in "Debating reliable sources: writing the history of the Vietnam War on Misplaced Pages" in the academic peer-reviewed Journal of Documentation, which is published by Emerald Group Publishing.
- As noted here, the article's problem are well hidden by the number of sources and citogensis but a deep analysis would clearly reveal; whether they are serious enough to warrant a deletion/rewrite is what I hope that it can be determined. If I and users are indeed correct about the many issues of the article, and are too great to ignore, the respect of our policies and guidelines comes before of whatever right-wing media's reaction — nothing is actually going to be censured and removed, everything already has their own articles, and any new content can be incorporated for a NPOV rewrite without OR/SYNTH issues.
- Misplaced Pages is not a democracy and neither is consensus (
Decisions on Misplaced Pages are primarily made by consensus, which is accepted as the best method to achieve Misplaced Pages's goals, i.e., the five pillars. Consensus on Misplaced Pages does not mean unanimity (which is ideal but not always achievable), nor is it the result of a vote. Decision making and reaching consensus involve an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines
). Respect for our policies and guidelines is paramount. If policies and guidelines for this article are proved to have been indeed violated, and rewrite is agreed, there should be nothing the mob can do. - Insults, strawmanning, false accuses against us.
- Useful comments by DRN moderator, and the talk page.
Thanks to Hemiauchenia for pointing out here that Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence is a good precedent in that the same, if not very similar, rationale for 'Delete' applies here, and I hope the closer here will also not take "'keep' opinions merely reply 'but it's notable' , ..." at face value. This is not a 'voting', as Misplaced Pages is not a democracy, so rational arguments and their strength, backed by sources (e.g. as I did to show Communist grouping is controversial) should be seen as the most valuable, irregardless if it is to 'Keep' and/or 'Delete', in weighting it. As noted there, "he 'keep' side would instead have needed to show that the alleged quality problems either don't exist or can be relatively easily fixed by editing; and most of them did not attempt to make this argument." Very few of 'Keep' votes have showed and answered this, and I not think they have rebuked it.
Analysis of sources (c. 3,500 words — can be skipped if above is deemed sufficient enough rationale)
Introduction (must read — three short paragraphs, plus proposed real notable topic as full rewrite)
- Main article: Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for deletion/Mass killings under communist regimes (4th nomination). Paul Siebert's analysis.
- See also Google Scholar et al. analysis of sources and Analysis of main topics and sources for context and further information.
In response to this, see Paul Siebert's comment here and here for how an academic and Google Scholar research shows different results.
Among others, the 'Keep' side has failed to realize we understand the topic differently, as has been also noted by North8000 here, so saying the topic is notable is not helpful if those on the 'Keep' side do not provide a clearly defined topic; e.g. I would vote 'Keep', provided the article is rewritten on this topic as summarized by Siebert here:
"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."
Since the 'Keep' side has refused any attempts at rewrite, identify a topic, and even acknowledge any issue, I see the only solution as 'Delete', with no prejudice in a future rewrite that is NPOV, in respect of our policies, and a clearly defined topic. Now let us move on to the issue of sourcing.
Helen Fein (short two paragraphs)
Nug cite Helen Fein but they fail to realize and do not point out something that is even in the article itself (as you can see here), e.g. the xenophobic ideology of the Khmer Rouge regime bears a stronger resemblance to "an almost forgotten phenomenon of national socialism", or fascism, rather than communism
, therefore the Khmer Rouge regime should not be discussed per Fein because she does not necessarily agree with categorizing as Communist; other scholars also categorize it as totalitarian (within the context of "xenophobic European nationalism", not Marxism) rather than Communist, e.g. Ben Kiernan and Michael Vickery (see here, sourced to Karlsson 2008, pp. 96–98)
We must not cherry pick authors and act as though they are proposing MKuCR when they are discussing genocide and/or mass killing in general; as noted by Nug themselves, that is chapter but the book is about genocide and/mass killings in general, so I do not see how that justifies MKuCR rather than a general article about mass killings during the 20th century, irrespective of regime type, which remains a possibility and alternative to both 'Keep' and 'Delete' options.
Adam Jones (single sentence)
Adam Jones also separates Stalin and Mao, who are discussed together, from Pol Pot, as you can see here.
Benjamin Valentino and other genocide scholars (four paragraphs, two of which are quotes from user Paul Siebert)
Valentino is the core source but his actually main idea is, to quote Siebert from WP:DRNMKUCR, that the regime type is not a good predictor for mass killings onset. He came to that conclusion by having analyzed similar type regimes, and he found that one of them committed mass killings, whereas another one didn't. His main conclusion is that leader's personality is the main factor responsible for mass killing, and a practical conclusion is: if we remove some concrete group from power, we may eliminate a risk of mass killings even without making serious transformation of the state's political system. It is ironical that the work of the researcher who wanted to demonstrate that some limited number of persons are real culprits became a core of the article that puts responsibility for mass killings on Communist ideology as whole. ...
Valentino demonstrated that by the fact that many (majority) of Communist regimes had not been engaged in mass killings (his own words), and the core of his methodology was a comparison of similar regimes, one of which committed mass killings, whereas another didn't. That means the article twisted the idea of the main source it is based upon. A title that correctly transmits Valentino's views would be "Mass killings under some Communist regimes", but I am not proposing it, for that would be non-encyclopaedic, and because the views of genocide scholars are not fully in agreement with views of historians.
While Misplaced Pages articles are not reliable in themselves, their sources there certainly are and all this can be verified at Benjamin Valentino, Genocide studies, and Mass killing. Nug have argued that all those articles have problems because they do not reflect what is said at MKuCR but these remain unproven allegations, as is showed by the fact that there has been no serious discussion in support of Nug's allegations and at Talk:Mass killing they have been rejected by at least two other users, meaning that if Nug refuse to engage with us at Mass killing and do not gain consensus, they must concede that their allegations are wrong, and stop using this as an argument.
Genocide scholars,3 such as Valentino and many others, are a minority, lack consensus among themselves, and have not achieved mainstream status in political science (Weiss-Anton 2008 and Verdeja 2012), which is further proved by the fact they are not relied by scholars of Communism and many events discussed at MKuCR are not described as mass killings et similia by historians and country experts/specialists. As has been noted by Barbara Harff, a disciple of Rudolph Rummel, genocide scholars are mainly concerned in establishing patterns and not data accuracy, for which they must rely on country experts and specialists (Harff 2017), who do not necessarily reach their same conclusion.
Rudolph Rummel (single paragraph)
- See also this comment by Paul Siebert about how Rummel is not relied on by country experts and specialists.
From Crimes against humanity under communist regimes – Research review, which is a tertiary source and a core source of both MKuCR and Crimes against humanity under Communist regimes (CaHuCR),4 Rummel is considered to be controversial ("they are hardly an example of a serious and empirically-based writing of history"), and is only mentioned "on the basis of the interest in him in the blogosphere." In addition, Rummel has been discussed at WP:RSN (1, 2). Harff herself, a disciple of Rummel, has acknowledged it (Harff 2017), there is no point in denying this any longer. Rummel's category is not Communism but "authoritarian and totalitarian", which discusses together Communism and fascist/far-right/other regimes (Rummel 1994, Tago & Wayman 2010, p. 5: "Disagreeing with Rummel's finding that authoritarian and totalitarian government explains mass murder, Valentino (2004) argues that regime type does not matter; ... .")
Atsushi Tago and Frank Wayman (single paragraph)
Tago & Wayman 2010, who do not discuss of MKuCR but of mass killings in general (even Rummel's categorization is described as "authoritarian and totalitarian government" at p. 5 vis-à-vis Valentino's disagreement, so that is an argument to rewrite MKuCR as mass killings under any regime type but why should we give so much WEIGHT to Rummel when, as I am going to show next, scholars disagree on regime type?), show that there is a disagreement among scholars, and the solution is certainly not to give too much weight to Rummel by following his categorization, which are criticized by other scholars by Valentino, who is not the only one. When scholars disagree, the solution is not following categorization by a relevant but undue (in light of disagreement and criticism) scholars like Rummel. That we must give WEIGHT and priority to Rummel by having a MKuCR (full Communist-devoted article despite scholars either disagreeing or rejecting ideology and regime type links) is absurd, false balance, does not follow, and is quite frankly beyond me. I cannot possibly be the only one to think this — I am well open to the idea of being proven wrong but I just do not see any sufficient rationale that would justify this.
Stéphane Courtois (two very short sentences, plus one quote from Karlsson and two by users Fifelfoo and TFD)
Stéphane Courtois is as controversial as Rummel, again see Karlsson 2008, pp. 53–54.
Bearing in mind the charged nature of the subject, it is polemically effective to make such comparisons, but it does not seem particularly fruitful, neither morally nor scientifically, to judge the regimes on the basis of their 'dangerousness' or to assess the relationship between communism and Nazism on the basis of what the international academic community calls their 'atrocities toll' or 'body count'. In that case, should the crimes of all communist regimes, in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and other countries where communism is or has been the dominant party, be compared to the Nazi regime's massacre of six million Jews? Should the Nazi death toll also include the tens of millions of people who the German Nazi armies and their supporting troops killed during the Second World War? Not even Courtois' analytical qualification, that ranking the two regimes the same is based on the idea that the 'weapon of hunger' was used systematically by both the Nazi regime and a number of communist regimes, makes this more reasonable, since this 'weapon' on the whole played a very limited role in the Nazi genocide in relation to other types of methods of mass destruction, and in relation to how it was used by communist regimes.
Keep in mind this is one of MKuCR's core sources and has dismissed, or otherwise criticized, two claimed sources in support of MKuCR as either controversal or not mainstream. Courtois' participation to The Black Book of the French Revolution was also revisionist and similarly controversial (Le Figaro 2012).
The Black Book on Communism only conducts a multi-societal analysis of genocide in its deeply flawed foreword and introduction, where it claims Communism is Criminal and Not Christian (hard to believe, but true). This does not meet the academic standards of comparative sociology. ... While the Black Book presents a number of chapters on single country studies, it presents no cross-cultural comparison, there is no discussion of "Mass killing in Communism."—User Fifelfoo
Conquest did not write about mass killings under Communist regimes, he wrote about the Red terror, the Holodomor and the Great purge in the Soviet Union. He treated these as separate subjects and did not develop a theory of mass killings under Communist regimes. We should not put together a group of events and create an article when no one else has.—User The Four Deuces
Steven Rosefielde (one sentence, plus one helpful quote by Siebert)
What is ignored is that Steven Rosefielde says Communism is less genocidal than Nazism, and he is specifically about excess deaths and mass mortality rather than mass killings, which contrary to the 'Keep' side is not the same thing. To quote Siebert from WP:DRNMKUCR:
As I already explained, the question is not only the figures themselves, but in their interpretation. As Rosefielde pointed out (Premature Deaths: Russia's Radical Economic Transition in Soviet Perspective Author(s): Steven Rosefielde Source: Europe-Asia Studies , Dec., 2001, Vol. 53, No. 8 (Dec., 2001), pp. 1159-1176) 3.4 million of Russians died prematurely in 1990s, after fall of Communism. If we consider all "premature deaths" as mass killings, should we speak about "democratic mass killings" in that case? It seems Rosefielde does not consider premature deaths in neither post-Communist Russia not in Communist USSR as "mass killings". The problem is not only in Rummel's figures, but in his interpretation of those figures.
Klas-Göran Karlsson and Michael Schoenhals (three paragraphs, one which is quote from source itself)
This is not the best source because, as noted here by The Four Deuces, because it was written at the request of Sweden's conservative government with the objective of "elucidating and informing on communism's crimes against humanity", which ironically proves the lack of scholarly research of a generalized grouping as is done in the article. Yet, it describes 'Keep' side's core MKuCR's sources (Courtois and Rummel) as either controversial or not mainstream, and acknowledges as follows:
This research review does not claim to list all research on the communist regimes' crimes against humanity. Bearing in mind the large number of books written on Soviet communism in particular, and on the terror of the last decade in the West and in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, this would be an impossible task. ... There is, therefore, a great need for Swedish research on communist regimes' crimes against humanity, and a great need to create the right conditions for this research. This research would benefit from taking a comparative approach, either focusing on comparing these criminal histories with each other, or with crimes against humanity perpetrated by other regimes in modern history. ... Despite commendable research initiatives in recent years, this area of research is still in its infancy.
The bolded part is one more reason why the currently structured article should be deleted — it simply is an impossible task. MKuCR article does not reflect this source because it says (1) the topic does not exist in scholarly sources, and even if it does, it would be limited to three Communist leaders (Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot),6 not even Communist regimes, as the review is limited to three very specific periods of three different Communist regimes (Fein and Jones separate Pol Pot from Stalin and Mao) out of dozens and dozens of other Communist regimes, which did not engage in mass killings;7 (2) the article must be restructured to limit the scope to them, e.g. removing discussion about causes, since the killings were the result not of communism per se, as Karlsson 2008 says they were carried out as part of a policy of an unbalanced modernization process of rapid industrialization (Karlsson 2008, p. 8); and (3) it is not discussed in a vacuum but is compared with non-Communist regimes, which MKuCR fails to address.
University syllabus (example of citogensis)
This single university syllabus does not debunk SYNTH claims and is also just further proof of citogenesis in actions, as shown by T-shirts and citogenesis/republishing itself on Amazon. In addition, as noted here by Siebert, the author is an expert in Putin's Russia, and she has authored no publications on Communism.
Main topic (can be skipped but is useful for context)
I think that if we truly want to move forward, we need to identify the main topic of this article. If we cannot agree on what the main topic is, and is to be structured, it should be both AfD and RfC — because it is not sufficient that AfD results in Keep or No consensus, if we, in fact, do not agree on what the main topic is, hence RfC will be necessary.
- Main topics
- Mass killings under Communist states1 (previous version) — it essentially discusses and merge all the topics below,2 treats any death as a mass killing, and treats it as scholarly discourse (as if they are all discussed together) and consensus; it is both theory-based and events-focused
- Mass killings under Communist states (current version) — it has the same problems as the previous version but at least it aknowledges the controversy and the lack of consensus, and recognizes that while there were many killings under Communist states, only Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes can be categorized as having engaged in mass killing as proposed by genocide scholars, the core sources
- Excess mortality under Communist states, Mass deaths under Communist states – one of Siebert's proposal for rewrite; it would be the neutral version of topic No. 1, and my understanding is that it would remain both theory-based and events-focused, which may fix NPOV and be a compromise between the two sides but not fix OR/SYNTH because country experts and specialists, which this article would rely much more, do not make such Communist grouping, hence we may mislead users in acting as though those scholars are part of the scholarly discourse of topic No. 1
- Communist state(s) and mass killing(s),3 Victims of communism – Siebert's and TFD's, plus me, proposed topic and really the only notable one, see summary here4 Karlsson 2008, p. 8 identifies the topic for us — discussion of the number of victims of communist regimes has been "extremely extensive and ideologically biased."
- Alternatives (disambiguations) — it does not preclude having No. 3 or 4, and one of those
- Communist mass killing – the name given by core source Valentino and applied only to Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes
- List of article – it would only include events which are universally described as mass killings in scholarly sources (again, mostly Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes)
Collapsed notes |
---|
1. I never understood why this article uses communist regimes, as if Communist states were small-c communist societies; our main article is Communist state, not communist regime (redirect), and scholars do make a distinction between small-c communism and capital-c Communism, the latter being a state led by a nominal Communist party. 2. "The article takes the Communist genocide/mass killing concept from Mann, Straus (who is merely reviewing rather than proposing the concept) and Valentino, even though the first is about Classicide, the second is about genocide, and the third is a chapter about general genocides and mass killings in the 20th century (with Communism simply being one type), then listing all mass killings under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pol, and adding all excess deaths under all Communist regimes, even as only few scholars and from one side list all non-combatant victims (famines, wars, etc.), to suggest all those are victims of Communism, its more accurate title that, however, does not really solve all those issues (undue weight, original research, synthesis, more than one topic, NPOV, etc.)" — Archive 44 3. I use Communist state rather than Communism because the article, like all other topics, will be focused on Communist states, it will be a subarticle of Communist state (e.g. a summary of the article should not go at Communism, where we may have a short sentence about some scholars saying Communist states faithfully put in practice communism, and many other scholars disagreeing, but at Communist state), and nothing would preclude a subsection about communism in general and the discussion of links with it, e.g. Siebert's and TFD's, plus me, proposed topic would fit well with North8000's suggestion that such an article would be about links between the two, rather than categorize the article by political system, which we do only for Communism — any attempts at creation of other article were dismissed as OR/SYNTH, which is a clear double standard, since it would applies to topic No. 1, 2, and likely 3 as well. 4. Such article may also substitute Crimes against humanity under communist regimes and have other articles, e.g. Communist states and human rights, which would discuss not the events, which can simply be linked rather than coatracked as we do here, but a link between the two. Problem is that while I am sure sources could be found for such an article, I am not sure there is, in fact, a scholarly literature that supports it as a separate article. The link is also much less stronger5 than one may think because it would be about communism in general (e.g. it would make no sense to have one limited to Communist states and/or Marxism–Leninism, since that is the example or link that is attempted to prove) but unlike, say, fascism — and despite what horseshoe theory may lead some to believe — communism is much more broad and divided (e.g. many communists condemned and criticized Communist states, indeed some of them were the first to criticize the October Revolution as a betrayal, dictatorship of the party, state capitalism, etc. already in late 1917, not in the 1920s and 1930s, or when they saw things going bad), and there are, in fact, democratic and libertarian communists. It is tragic but ironic that both anti-communists and tankies ignore how many victims were themselves communists. 5. While atrocities and killings indeed continued after Stalin and Mao (e.g. 1989 in China), they did not fit the mass killing category, and Communist leaders have criticized or rejected, both in practice and theoretically — some of them in full, and many others at least in part in regards to their excesses, Stalin and Mao (as was noted by Valentino himself, most Communist regimes, and Communist leaders I may had, did not engage in mass killings), and Cambodian genocide was stopped by Communist Vietnam. The Soviet Union also helped stop the Holocaust and defeat fascism. In short, while one can much more clearly see that fascism results in genocide and politicide, it is not clear for communism, and communists themselves have been victims of genocide and politicide — by both far-right and military regimes, and nominally Communist regimes themselves. |
Davide King (talk) 12:21, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Conclusion (in 457 words, excluding links and wikitext)
The article is a POV content fork and coatrack, which fails NPOV and VERIFY, and is OR/SYNTH per AndyTheGrump, Levivich, and the nominator, and because (1) 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 (2) genocide scholars themselves do not find regime type to be significant in explaining mass killings (Straus 2007).
Notes (short enough and useful)
1. Is not only editing — but making those edits (see diffs) — while the AfD is ongoing not only to be avoided but disrupting? Additionally, the article itself was created by a banned user to troll (first AfD) and there were two further consecutive No consensus results (second AfD and third AfD) — it should have been deleted back then, with a RfC about its future recreation; after all, if it the topic is so notable and clear-cut as the 'Keep' side maintains, it should have been easy and perhaps the article would be in much better state by now. Instead, the fourth AfD included editorializing (This is a well sourced article, not OR, worthy of the encyclopedia
) and the fifth AfD acknowledged we needed to fix such issues. They have not been resolved, as showed by the many discussion at Archives, and deletion with eventual rewrite seems to be the only solution8 to fix it once and for all.
2. Here is a relevant quote provided by Siebert from David-Fox 2004. Dallin 2000 says: "Whether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss."
3. All those authors cited are genocide scholars, while Rummel is best known for his democratic peace theory, a different topic, in which he is mainstream. See also this.
4. Karlsson 2008 is completely misunderstood at CaHuCR because Karlsson says to prefer crimes against humanity over mass killings and discusses MKuCR but limits himself only to Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes, not to any Communist regime5 — in those cases, killings were carried out as part of a policy of an unbalanced modernization process of rapid industrialization (Karlsson 2008, p. 8).
5. Such an article would not be encyclopedic, as we already have articles for each event, and the review discuss them individually.
6. "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 MKuCR.
7. The most accepted definition of mass killing is 50,000 killed within five years, and that applies to Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes, and the Red Terror, which must be seen within the context of the Russian Civil War and the White Terror, not as it is described at MKuCR.
Davide King (talk) 22:00, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
Davide King (talk) 19:03, 29 November 2021 (UTC)