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David and Paul

Davide King Since September you have effectively taken over this article and turned it into your private playground, which is now quite evident with edits such as this one which is:

• biased and written from your personal point of view perspective, which ignores all the opposing views that were raised here before
• written entirely in WP:WEASEL language
• completely unsourced by any WP:RS

I found it impossible to have any reasonable fact-based debate with you and Paul Siebert since you're both not responding to any arguments, just flooding the discussion with largely unrelated opinions, as seen above. As result I have abandoned it and saw your outrageous edits only because someone had reverted it (and rightly so). I have therefore filed a dispute resolution process under Misplaced Pages:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes of which you will be surely notified individually. Cloud200 (talk) 16:16, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Cloud200, can you please explain again your arguments (for the beginning, present just one), and I will try to address it as briefly as possible, and will do my best to stay focused.

Meanwhile, can you please respond to one my argument, namely that the "Causes" section is awful, it is desperately biased, and it contains direct and obvious misinterpretation of sources, or say something the sources do not say. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:33, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

In addition, it looks like you accused me of article ownership. Such accusations require serious evidences, otherwise it may be considered a personal attack. I am not sure that approach is productive. However, I agree that David's language needs a significant improvement. It would be good if m=somebody joined this work. I am busy now, and I cannot do that alone, especially when I have a feeling my work may be contested/reverted. Therefore, I would prefer to achieve an agreement on the talk page first. In that situation, it would be highly desirable if you stopped throwing your (in my opinion, baseless) accusation and switched to a more productive regime. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:38, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

With regard to this, the statement " posit that most communist regimes did not engage in mass killings, and some in particular" was taken (to the best of my knowledge) from Valentino, so the only problem is that a citation is missing. Similarly, the second statement discusses a double genocide theory, which is considered to be linked with novel trends in Holocaust denial or trivialization. Thus, M Shafir (Revista de Istorie a Evreilor din Romania, 2020 - ceeol.com) discusses it in details, and, in particular, discusses Courtois introduction to the Black Book in that context (with references to Omer Bartov's opinion). Therefore, although the wording may be (and should be) improved, I see no significant factual problems with this text. Of course, I may be wrong, and if you find some concrete mistakes in this my post, I would be grateful. However, I respectfully request you to refrain from general accusations and personal attacks. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:57, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

This is absurd. You have just stopped discussing, and my new edits have been pretty stable since then; previous lead did not have any source either and it is not necessary if everything is already in the body, of which I simply tried to summarize and actually introduce the topic. I wished Paul Siebert and others could have helped me to improve the wording and all the other work there is to do but perhaps it is about time to take you, not us, to a dispute resolution for having supported such outrageous policy and guideline violations (NPOV, OR/SYNTH, WEIGHT), as Siebert once suggested. See also this comment by Ivanvector that accurately summarizes the topic, of which you and many others users have a complete lack of knowledge because you actually believe in it, when it is OR/SYNTH. Davide King (talk) 02:38, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

I would like to note the lead reflects the issues of this article; if there is no consensus among scholars on so many things like definitions, terminology, causes ... of course the lead is going to be like that; there would be no need for all that if the article was actually neutrally written and not synthetized. But the solution is not a return to the status quo ... As written by Siebert in their summary there, we either fix the article, or it should be deleted as a POV content fork, among many other issues, with NPOV being non-negotiable according to our policies and guidelines. Any attempts by Siebert and I have been disrupted, though my latest work has been mostly accepted, especially in the body, but it is not acknowledged by you. Davide King (talk) 04:42, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

In regards to , I do not know how exactly that would work. It may sound elitist, and I am personally not one, but I am wary about a RfC or AfD in this specific case because

• so many users have shown a lack of knowledge and understanding of both the topic and Siebert's rational arguments backed by sources and policies
• one needs to have the context for this whole diatribe
• the mere existence of this article for well over a decade by now, despite none of the raised issues (POV FORK, NPOV, OR/SYNTH, WEIGHT) being fixed in the meantime, may wrongly lead some users, without having the adeguate context, to think Siebert and I are fringe, or simply assume that RS actually support the article as currently structured
• this is clearly a controversial topic and article, probably the most controversial one, and it is political, so there are political biases but also geographical ones too (do I need to remind of the Easter Europe ban stuff?), as I have wrote at , especially in the notes
  • political because, whatever the reason, many users who took it to this article believe in an equivalency between Communism and Nazism, perhaps even the double genocide theory (this also reflects a geographical bias), and are legitimized by political institutions like the European Union (for the record, I am not anti-EU) through the controversial Prague Declaration and resolutions equating not just Stalinism with Nazism, which is still debated even among scholars, but communism and Nazism.
  • problem is that academic discourse does not support the above, and we have been dismissed by Cloud200 as Soviet and Stalin apologists
    • even though we are simply explaining the academic discourse, which is much more nuanced and actually does not support such equivalence
  • see The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914–1945 (2016), pp. 377–378
    • which is considered to be a revisionist view dating back to Nolte but has since been re-popularized by Courtois (who is controversial), and the double genocide theory being a fringe view but supported by state governments in Eastern Europe, amounting to Holocaust trivialization according to scholars

Nonetheless, I am a pragmatist, and I am not sure that is going to solve anything, but I am open and willing about it. What would the topic of the RfCs be about exactly? I just would prefer a rational analysis of arguments and sources, e.g. is Siebert's analysis correct about the summary of topic and the article's issues? Are they correct about how sources are used and synthesized, even not reflecting what they actually say? Or are sources presented by Cloud200 and others in support of their favoured structure correct and good enough? Sources must be scrupulously scrutinized and analyzed, especially in regards to due and weight, and whether they are subject-matter experts or contradict country experts and scholars of Communism.

I have some reservations about a RfC for this controversial topic and article per the outlined issues I have raised in  • above, but I accept Robert McClenon's offer to mediate. I also have a few questions on whether they already have in mind what would be the questions for a RfC, and I express my belief that it should be based on an analysis of sources, our policies, and whose's side reading is 'correct' on the topic, and those involved should have a broad context and understanding of both sides, and a summary of the dispute, which users like Siebert can concisely do. Davide King (talk) 06:07, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

AFD it

If the last AFD was 11 years ago, it's time to review recent scholarship. I don't think it passes WP:N for largely the same reasons raised in the last AFD from 2010. I think it's a SYNTH POVFORK (same argument made in the AFDs), and I wonder if the community of today would look at it differently than the community did in 2010. Levivich 16:49, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard that some of the editors are participating in. An Articles for Deletion nomination takes precedence over other content dispute mechanisms. If this article is nominated for deletion, I will put the DRN on hold until the AFD is resolved. Obviously, if the conclusion is to delete the article, the DRN will be closed as resolved by deleting the article. Otherwise the DRN may or may not resume, depending on what is found by the closer. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:21, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

The material in here certainly needs to be covered but to me the compound qualifiers in the title looks a bit POV. But IMO this article certainly meets WP:Notability criteria. North8000 (talk) 18:41, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Certainly the material in here needs to be covered somewhere, but I'm not sure about it being covered on the same page like this. What are the WP:THREE that support the topic "Mass killing under communist regimes"? Valentino, Mann, and Chirot--mentioned in the most-recent AFD from July 2010--aren't about "communist regimes", but specifically about USSR, China, and Cambodia, which is a small subset of "communist regimes". "Mass killings by USSR, China, and Cambodia" seems like it should be three separate articles. Are there three good sources that talk about mass killings in "communist regimes" overall and together, beyond just USSR, China, and Cambodia? There are books about mass killings that mention some done by communist states, and books about communist states that mention some mass killings, and like maybe three or four works that talk about mass killings in three communist states together (USSR, China, Cambodia), but I'm not seeing SIGCOV of "mass killings by communist regimes" (as opposed to a topic like, war crimes by the soviet union, or by pol pot, etc.), and even the keep !voters seemed to acknowledge that in the last AFD (that "mass killings by communist regime" is not a phrase in use in the scholarship). It seems like for us to group mass killings by political ideology is WP:SYNTH. I'm not sure if this needs to be AFD'd so much as split/merged (so RFC, not AFD)., but then if this article becomes a redirect, what's the target? Levivich 19:33, 8 November 2021 (UTC) Update: just realized it could become a WP:DAB. Levivich 20:04, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Obviously this article fails notability because there is not a body of literature about the topic. All we have are studies of individual countries or time periods and a few sources that attempt to connect mass killings under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, who together account for the vast majority of numbers.Were it not for the topic, the article would have been deleted long ago.

Perhaps we could split the article in two: one about comparative studies of mass killings under Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, and one about the New Right project to prove that the Communists killed more people than the Nazis, both of which unlike this topic are documented in reliable sources.

TFD (talk) 19:41, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Do you think the intersection of "mass killings under Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot" is notable? I'm having a hard time with this, because yeah, there's WP:GNG sourcing for it, but here are two books about home runs by Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron: , but I'm not sure that means the topic, "Home runs by Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron" is notable, or at least should exist as an article. It's rare that something meets GNG and I think it's still not notable, but I guess this is what WP:PAGEDECIDE is all about. In any event, I would support splitting this article into two along the lines you suggest, my philosophizing about notability notwithstanding. Levivich 19:58, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

I think the question is somewhat different. There are actually at least three separate questions:

• Is the view that mass killing under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot form a separate topic more notable that the view that those three topics are separate? That can be checked by a simple comparative analysis of country specific vs group literature: how many notable authors published books/articles about, e.g. only Cambodia or Great Purge, how many sources emphasize commonality, and how many sources say focus on difference between them. In addition, comparative studies, such as Harff's comparative study of "communist" (Cambodian) and "anticommunist" (Indonesian} genocides should also be taken into account. My impression from what I've read is that an overwhelming majority of sources do not emphasize commonality at all.
• The views that all excess deaths under Communists were mass killings. That can be checked by a simple comparison of the most commonly accepted description of major Communist famines like Great Chinese famine. If majority of country experts or famine experts describe them as "mass killing/democide etc", then ok, all excess deaths should be described as such. But, to the best of my knowledge, an overwhelming majority of sources does not describe Great Chinese of Volga famine as mass killing.
• And, finally, the question is if this grouping (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot) is more frequent than others, e.g. genocides in Asia, comparison of Nazism and Stalinism (not "Communism"), etc. We cannot have separate articles about the same events if different sources group those events in a different way, that contradicts to WP:NPOV Paul Siebert (talk) 22:40, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) WP:Notability can be argued either way. Coverage doesn't need to be about the exact title of the article or grouping used to organized the material. But to me the two criteria title / grouping by the political system seems to be either the article trying to make a point (=POV) or about the real world process of people trying to make that point. My own opinion is that each mass killing of this scale should have it's own article rather than grouping them by political system. Conceivably there might be a field of study or movement regarding the proneness of communist regimes to do mass killings might get an article. But having the main coverage of these mass killings grouped by political system does not seem right. North8000 (talk) 20:14, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

North8000, each of those events already has their own articles, and, importantly, some of those articles says totally different things. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:45, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Noting there is also Crimes against humanity under communist regimes, which I think is duplicative of this article (and probably also should be split, like this article). Levivich 20:24, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Actually, those who, during the last AfD, argued that the topic is notable referred to the notability of each separate subtopics (e.g. Cambodian genocide or Great purge). That each subtopic is notable is an indisputable fact. The question is if the discussion and analysis of MKuCR as a single, well defined subject is a notable topic.

To answer this question, let's create a list of works that select MKuCR into a single topic.

• Courtois&Malia (but not other contributors to the Black Book) can be considered as the first source. The BB as whole cannot. The views of Malia/Courtois are described in details in The Black Book of Communism article, so the is no need to have this article for the same purpose..
• Benjamen Valentino is definitely not a source. Yes, one chapter of his book was devoted to "Communist mass killings", but his main idea was that mass killings, as he (and this article) define them, were not linked to some specific regime type. That is a core of his theory, so under "Communist mass killings" he meant "mass killings that happened in some communist regimes", and that are linked more to leader's personality than to regimes themselves. That is important, because the main practical conclusion of his theory is: mass killings can be prevented or stopped by eliminating concrete persons from power, without changing the regime type. That idea is carefully attenuated in this article.
• Steven Rosefielde is also not a source, because he wrote about the three concrete regimes (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot), and, being an expert in Soviet history, focused mostly on Stalinism. Therefore, his views are more relevant to the Red Holocaust article.
• Rudolph Rummel was mostly focused on linkage between totalitarianism and democide, not on Communism specifically (and it seems to be outdated in light of the works of "second generation genocide scholars"). In addition, his views are duly represented in the Democide article, so, similar to Courtois, there is no need to duplicate them here.

(this list can be continued, feel free to add new items above this line)

If we will be able to create a list of sources that seriously discuss all MKuCR as a single topic, and not just apply the word "mass killing"/"democide"/etc to some unspecified set of crimes committed by Communists, we can speak about keeping this article. However, so far, the article seems to directly misinterpret the view of even the author whose book chapter gave the name to this article.

I also propose to estimate how much of information will be lost from Misplaced Pages if the article will be deleted. It seems most of this information is already available in other articles, but we need to make sure that is really the case. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:11, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

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 (talk) 22:15, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Next Steps on Mass killings under communist regimes

I think that at this point there is a rough consensus that this article needs something drastic done to it, but there is disagreement as to what. I don't think that a decision can be made by discussion here as to what that action should be, so I don't think that protracted discussion here at this time will be helpful. I think that we need to resort to some community process with formal closure, and that we should decide relatively quickly what process to use. That may be:

• Articles for Deletion.
• Requested Move to change the title of the article.
• Request for Comments.

I was working in the dispute resolution noticeboard case with some of the editors to develop one or more RFCs. As discussion progressed, the question of what type of sources to use affected how the article should be organized. The next step in DRN would have been, and still may be, an RFC on the organization of the article. A deletion discussion takes priority over other dispute resolution vehicles. I intend to remain as neutral as possible so as to be able to resume mediation if appropriate. I don't think that a lengthy pre-AFD discussion is necessary. I think that a formal process, either AFD or RFC, is in order as soon as possible. Either nominate the article for deletion, and any alternatives to deletion can be considered in the AFD, or don't nominate the article for deletion. If the article is nominated for deletion, I will put the DRN on hold. I don't see the need to put the DRN on hold while there is a lengthy pre-discussion of whether to have a deletion discussion. If the article is nominated for deletion, and is Kept, DRN will be resumed, and should then proceed to an RFC on the structure of the article.

That is my opinion, anyway. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:53, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

• I have long argued for an AFD to break the logjam on this page. I would have nominated it myself, but, as I would have been *voting keep, that would be inappropriately WP:POINTy. That was also before the wholesale changes to this article in the past few months, which have shifted the tone from being primarily about events (i.e. the facts about mass mortality in the USSR, PRC, Cambodia, etc) to that of an analysis of a "theory of mass killings under communist regimes", the tone of which is rather dismissive and non-neutral. There have been numerous RFC's before, very few of which have resulted in anything substantive. I'm not sure if it was a formal RFC, but the last proposal on this talk page regarding the lead showed consensus to leave the lead largely as it was before this edit, which began the wholesale changes to this page.

As such, if this goes to AFD, I think we need to figure out what goes to AFD. Is it the article as it stands now, or the article as it stood before the undiscussed changes on August 8 of this year? I think each article would get different results were it to go to AFD. As for an RFC, I think one phrased as "Is there consensus to support the recent changes to this article?" would be the most definitive, with some discussion needed to determine which revision should be considered as the last "stable" one before the wholesale changes. The above linked revision, I think, serves as a broad starting point. And changes in title have been frequently polled and frequently shot down - I don't see an RFC on the title being at all helpful until we know what the article is about. schetm (talk) 03:21, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, the difference between the current and Aug 8 versions is minor, and, although the current version is an improvement, it is still awful. It managed to twist the main idea of even the author whose work gave the article its name (I mean B. Valentino).

Nevertheless, I am almost 100% sure AFD will be unsuccessful. The reason is simple: the statement "Communism killed 100 million people" (and variations thereof) can be frequently found in popular literature, various web sites and magazines. Although professional historians use different approaches and interpretations, that argument is sufficient to say the topic is notable.

Therefore, the realistic scenario is not AFD, but a complete rewrite. The current structure makes this article a single huge POV fork full of synthesis and direct misinterpretation of sources. However, it is possible to fix it by changing its structure and scope. THAT should be the subject of the discussion. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:46, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

I would suggest that we first agree on which sources are appropriate, so as to avoid "per source" arguments, when they may still fail SYNTH/OR and WEIGHT. As for my recent edits, it is in line with WP:LEAD (It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies.), as the previous failed this, especially the last point, and stated it as fact that all those events were mass killings, when that is a matter of disagreements. The new tone is in fact reflective of the cautious and controversial nature of the topic; there is no consensus on terminology, estimates, or even causes, and genocide scholars, apart from Rummel, actually say the cause was the leaders, not the ideology (Valentino). Despite it not being perfect, as noted by Siebert, it is factual.

In light of such misunderstanding about the topic (e.g. Schetm want it to be events-focused, even though we already have articles about each event, and the summaries do not reflect scholarly consensus, hence SYNTH and Siebert's proposal to rely on country experts and specialists to address NPOV), this should be clarified. Of the users who took it to this discussion, it appears to be that only Schetm want the article to be events-focused, while everyone else (excluding deletion) would prefer it to be theory-based (e.g. this, or comparative analysis and New Right project, which in my view would still fit the theory proposal), which is the direction I took. Davide King (talk) 04:36, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

IMO this article is likely to survive an AFD. I think that any forward path forward needs to start by acknowledging / deciding what the topic of this article is. After taking only a slight deeper look and also learning from what was said on this talk page, it's become clear that this article isn't (the) coverage of those killings, and that those are covered elsewhere. It's really about things related to the juxtaposition of those two things. With perhaps that main question being whether or not communist regimes are more causal or prone to mass killings, and if / when so, why? (Not having taken a deep look here)if this article takes the normal track of a political where two sides from real-world contest (of ideas or..) are present as editors, even if they are polite and Wikipedian, you are doomed to an endless contest of each side working towards working to put in / maximize whatever best favors their side, and reduce keep out / minimize whatever does the opposite. And policies and guidelines are not (alone) going to provide a roadmap to a resolution. For your own sanity and enjoyment my advice would be for the editors to acknowledge what the actual topic is, pick sources that provide the most expert and informative analysis/ coverage of it and build a short article which covers what they say. And make making an informative article your only mission., I only plan to watch this for a few days.....after that please ping me if desired. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:07, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

North8000 I took the challenge of summarizing the purpose of this article in the ongoing Dispute Resolution comment here: "The title of Mass killings under communist regimes is very straightforward: it describes events when large groups of people have been killed ("mass killing") in countries that described themselves as communist ("communist regimes"). The article is not called "genocide under..." or "politicide under...". It uses the most basic and widely understood term of "mass killing", and I don't think any of the parties disputes these killings actually happening." Alternative subtitles could be possibly "Marxism and violence" or "Mass killing as result of an actual Marxian class war" or "Literally interpreted eradication of bourgeois class" but the existing title is just as well as the others. Cloud200 (talk)

User:Cloud200 - As I said in the DRN, I disagree that the title of "mass killings" is straightforward. The examples given of mass killing include famines in the Soviet Union between 1931 and 1934, and in China between 1959 and 1962. There is controversy among scholars as to the extent to which starvation was an instrument of policy or the result of policy failure. We agree that most scholars agree that the deaths from starvation in Ukraine were mostly the result of a genocidal policy by Stalin, but that there is less support for the idea that the famine elsewhere in the Soviet Union was planned, or that the Chinese famine was planned. The number of deaths by country and year is a matter of more agreement than whether the deaths were mass killing, or policy failure. So there isn't a simple answer. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:57, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

So what are the three best sources for this topic? Levivich 19:48, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

There would be no problem to find a half dozen of sources, because, obviously mass killings did occur under Communist regimes, and some authors do such a generalisation. However, each of those sources defines "mass killings" differently, and includes a different set of events in that category, and the linkage (or the lack thereof) between those mass killings and Communism is described totally differently (sometimes, in a mutually contradicting way).

In that situation, how can these mutually contradicting narratives be combined together? Should we use logical AND, or logical OR? In other words, should we define a topic as "all excess/premature deaths under Communist regimes that were called "mass killing" by at least one source", or "all mass deaths that are described as "mass killing" (and similar terms) by all sources"?

The latter approach would be in agreement with our policy, but that limits the article's scope with Cambodian genocide, Stalin's purges/deportations/camps deaths, and Chinese "counterrevolutionary suppression campaign/Cultural revolution". Such an article would hardly be really valuable, because Misplaced Pages already has this information. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:20, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

@Cloud200: Not saying it is / I am right or wrong but that infers something very different from what my post observed / suggested. Your definition infers that this article does and should be coverage of the killings themselves. My post posits and suggests an actual current main and future topic of any relationship between having a communist regime and having mass killings. North8000 (talk) 21:51, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Responding to all the above - it's not Boolean logic, it's a spectrum of events and spectrum of views, and yes, often contradictory, as we saw in coverage of Holodomor by Walter Duranty versus by Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge. The most fair way of describing them is to describe events ("per source X, 2 million people died in Y in 19NN, per source Z it was 5 million people" etc) and describe attribution ("execution order X signed by Y in order to achieve Z", "grain requisition order X signed by Y", "reports by residents who described practice X applied during enforcement of law Y", "Duranty said it's all OK"), possibly ordered by the level of consensus, from events where there's least doubt about their course and attribution, to poorly sourced events with contradictory reports even as to the number of victims (e.g. Khaibakh massacre). In this model there is a place for both respectful presentation of the views of witnesses of these events, and also all kind of dissenting opinions who disagree with numbers and/or causes. As to the "relationship between having a communist regime and having mass killings" topic, it is already part of the article Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#Proposed_causes, and I think it's an important part of the article as it demonstrates how majority of the political movements that explicitly called for "violent revolution" and "class war" ended up doing exactly that. Cloud200 (talk) 09:35, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Updates and paths forward

The "topic of any relationship between having a communist regime and having mass killings" would still be theory-based because it would discuss the interpretations and theories of such killings, not the events themselves, for which we already have all relevant articles, and not treating them all as mass killings and such link as fact. I think we should try to have an AfD and a RfC about the topic, which in my view should be the one proposed by Siebert, which is also what The Four Deuces and I meant by victims of communism narrative.

"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."

I support the solutions proposed by McClenon, e.g. AfD, RfC, and name change/move. We should agree on which order, how to word it, and which topics and sources are to be accepted as possibile solutions. Because if we cannot find a solution, if we cannot write an encyclopedic article — the status quo is not keeping such a problematic article, which has been in fact more harmful than helpful and a source of citogenesis, but it not existing until such an encyclopedic article, in full respect of our policies and guidelines (NPOV is not negotiable), can be properly written. The only notable topic and solution to avoid this appears to be that individuated by Siebert. Davide King (talk) 06:34, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I agree that having various articles (mass killings in Asia, MKuCR, etc.), that contain the same material would be wrong. That's why, as I have always said, this article should not be a cut and paste of other article but should outline theories about how Stalin's firing squads, Mao's famine and Pol Pot's Killing Fields are connected. And if they are, what relevance do they have to Communism/communism. So far no editors have shown that this topic is notable. TFD (talk) 14:29, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

User:Davide King wrote, in the visible header of a collapsed statement: "AfD may still be worthwhile—if limited to us and those who know about it, and the mediator is willing to scrutinize and verify each argument and source". No. Neither AFD nor RFC can be limited to a particular group of editors, and both AFD and RFC provide notice to all in the English Misplaced Pages. I am not sure what Davide King intends, but neither AFD nor RFC can be limited to any particular subgroup of editors. In fact, inviting other editors is one of the two advantages of a formal community process. (Formal closure is the other.) I submit that we should use a formal community process sooner rather than later, but I may be in a minority, because maybe other editors would prefer to try to "win" the dispute by talking at greater length. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:30, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Considering the canvassing that was done at DRN and the controversial nature of the article, forgive me if I am sceptical or 'elitist' about it and thinking it should be required to have a minimum of competence about the topic (e.g. events or theories question, and a set of sources agreed among us, as suggested here, which is something that events-based supporters have yet to address), and avoid personal insults and false accuses. If it can be guaranteed there will not be any such canvassing, that it will not be a vote, and instead be based on rational arguments in line with our policies and guidelines (NPOV is not negotiable) — that is what I meant.

But before of any of this, we actually have to agree on a set of topics and sources. Can you summarize that for us? — which was the purpose of this new section. Siebert already proposed one topic and analyzed several sources, to which no response has been given that addressed them, and Levivich's question about sources for the events-focused topic has not been answered. Davide King (talk) 17:21, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

IMO you are headed into endless hopelessness with this article not because of editor issues, but because you have an article with a title that could cover so many different things and an article with no defined topic which is about many different topics, some of them being ethereal or subjective areas of opinion or study. It would probably survive AFD. So IMO your only hope is to clearly decide what the topic of the article is to be, then change the title (if necessary) to align with that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:59, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Why not a dab page ("Mass killings under communist regimes may refer to:") with a list of the various topics (New Right, killing fields, great famine, etc.)? Levivich 17:01, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Which is why I was concerned — it should not survive an AfD because of the many issues raised but it likely will anyway. As for the topic, it should be this, which also fits what you proposed, e.g. the relationship between the regimes and mass killings. I would just delete the MKuCR naming because it is only used here, and Communist mass killing(s) would be preferable as a DAB linking to Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's mass killing events; it is the term used by Valentino (it is a subcategory of dispossessive mass killing, not MKuCR, in relation to Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, as explained here by Siebert). Davide King (talk) 17:21, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Well, to sort it out, there are two really core topic possibilities here:

1. Is having a communist regime a causal or key enabling factor for mass killings? I think that this part is inevitably a topic of this artice.
2. Some type of summary / condensed coverage of mass killings under communist regimes. (knowing that this is covered in a split up / more detailed fashion elsewhere). IMO whether or not to include this is a big decision you should make.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:54, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Brief answers to your questions are:

1. The claim that some communist regime was a causal or key enabling factor for mass killings is somewhat ambiguous. Thus, when some article claims that Stalin's regime was a cause of death of millions of people, that article may link the deaths to Stalin's personality, and that also may be interpreted as an accusation of that communist regime. However, if such an article makes a stress on the word "regime", not on the word "Communist", that source draws not more linkage between mass killings and Communism than, e.g. the articles about Bengal famine or Congo genocide draw a linkage between mass killings and capitalism/democracy. In both cases it would be original research to claim that type sources draw/discuss such linkages. IMO, all relevant sources about mass killings/mass mirtality in Communist countries may be subdivided on the following subcategories:

• The sources that directly link Communism and mass killings. Examples: Courtois, Malia.
• The sources that directly criticize that approach. Examples: a significant part of reviews on the BB (I discussed them previously on this talk page)
• The sources that discuss mass killings in Communist states (or in a subset thereof), but that discussion is general, and not directly linked to Communism. Examples: B. Valentino, whose main conclusion is that not the regime type, but leaders personality is a primary cause of mass killings, so by removal those leaders from power it is possible to prevent mass killings even without significant transformations of the regime type.
• The sources that discuss a single Communist state. Examples, the works by Wheatcroft, Ellman, Getty etc. They perform the analysis of historical realities that lead to mass killings, and usually Communism is beyond the scope of that analysis.
• The sources that perform a comparative analysis of mass killings in several states, some of them may be Communist. No specific attention to Communism is usually paid in those sources. Example: Barbara Harff: "Revolutionary and antiterrevolutionary genocides.

I think this (by no means a comprehensive) list demonstrates that if we will focus on the question about the linkage between Communism and mass killings, that will create a totally false impression that that topic is a focus of scholarly debates. However, similar to the question if intelligence is linked with one's skin colour, this issue is not the main topic of interest of majority historians.

2. Condensed figures are produced by a small group of authors who are, like Courtois, interested to demonstrate that Communism was a greater murdered than Nazism. Usually, they use obsolete data (like Rummel, who included a fantastic 60+ million number for the USSR, which blatantly contradicts to ALL modern data), and/or they include famine and disease deaths into that figure. Overwhelming majority of country experts (e.g. Ellman, Wheatcroft, Davis, Getty, Maksudov etc for USSR) or famine experts (O'Grada) produce more accurate and realistic figures, but, they do that for each country (or even for each event) separately, and they are absolutely disinterested in producing a "global Communist death toll" figures. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that, as Ellman correctly noted, the estimates of the number of victims depends on which category is considered as victims, and that decision is strongly politically motivated. Usually, famine is not considered as mass killing/genocide/politicide etc. by overwhelming majority of historians. However, since the former group is essentially ignored by mainstream historians, there is no direct discussion between the former and the latter, so I have no idea how the correct information can be presented without OR. I know no country expert or famine expert who openly criticized the claim that Communism killed 100+ million by means of deliberate starvation, shooting and death camps, and more than a half of those death were famine deaths. This view is not criticized by experts simply because it seems to be completely ignored. It is very hard to adequately describe all of that within the frames of WP:NOR. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:49, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

My point was that you need to start by deciding on the topic/scope of the article, and to make an attempt simplify the choice/ decision.North8000 (talk) 20:37, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

If you look through the talk page history, you will see that I and other users repeatedly raised that question, and the answer was: "The topic is mass killings in Communist states, and the article describes it quite adequately, so no significant changes are needed." Paul Siebert (talk) 20:44, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

@North8000: Take a look at this title: "Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin". The title is perfectly neutral, and it covers everything. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:38, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Looks good to me. But how that relate to here? North8000 (talk) 20:41, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

The relation is quite direct: the Coirtois' "Communism death toll" is what country-specific sources call "excess mortality" (of scourse, such eventgs as Cambodian genocide or Great Purge are called differently, but their scale was small as compared with other cases). The number of excess deaths in Communist states is pretty well known from country-specific sources. The problem is that only in Cambodia they were a result of direct genocide. In other countries, an overwhelming majority of them were famine death. If we describe all of that, and explain that, some deaths were a result of shooting, camp mortality and deportation deaths, that would be absolutely neutral. At the end, we may add a chapter where we give an attributed opinion that all premature deaths under Communists are considered mass killings, and, based on that, some authors claim that, since Communism killed up to 85 million people, it should be considered more murderous than Nazism. We will also supplement that with due analysis and criticism, and all of that will be perfectly neutral. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:52, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

"Excess mortality" is really a different topic, as it can include the total population deficit as a result of anticipated births forestalled by the harsh conditions of the times. "Mass killings", on the other hand, implies a narrower more deliberative process. Otherwise, given what some people believe about the origins of Covid-19, do we really want to pin excess mortality during the Coronavirus pandemic on the Chinese communist regime? --Nug (talk) 06:17, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

No. Total population deficit (including the deficit due to unborn infants and emigration) is called "population losses". Excess mortality is more narrow category, which includes only real deaths that would not normally happen.

"Excess mortality" is by no means a different topic: more than a half of "Communism death toll" is actually famine and disease deaths (Great Chinese famine, Volga famine, 1932-33 famine, WWII famine, post-WWII famine). Virtually ALL famine experts and historians who study those events do not apply the terms "genocide", "mass killings" etc (Holodomor is arguably the only exception), and they usually apply the terms "excess deaths" or "premature deaths" to those events. These works are underrepresented or misused in this article, despite the fact that they represent a majority viewpoint. Paul Siebert (talk) 06:52, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

I've checked myself, and you can do that too. I typed this, and took first three article relevant to the topic (Justin Yifu Lin and Dennis Tao Yang, "FOOD AVAILABILITY, ENTITLEMENTS AND THE CHINESE FAMINE OF 1959-61", The Economic Journal, 110(January), 136-158; Gene Hsin Chang and Guanzhong James Wen, "Communal Dining and the Chinese Famine of 1958–1961", Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 46, No. 1 (October 1997), pp. 1-34, and James Kai‐sing Kung and Justin Yifu Lin, "The Causes of China’s Great Leap Famine, 1959–1961", Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 52, No. 1 (October 2003), pp. 51-73; all works published by The University of Chicago Press). None of them contains the words "genocide", "democide" or "mass killing", but all of them use the term "excess deaths".

If you want, you may examine other works in that list, but I am sure the result will not be significantly different. Paul Siebert (talk) 07:07, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

You may argue those sources are Chinese. I have no idea why Google Scholar put those sources on the top, I just tried to be totally neutral. When I scrolled a little bit down, the next relevant work is this (not Chinese at all). However, the overall language and terminology is the same, and it is totally different from the language of the sources that serve as a core sources in that article. The primary reason why the marginal POV is overrepresented in the article is a blatantly non-neutral title. Paul Siebert (talk) 07:17, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

As noted by Siebert, "excess mortality" and this summary is simply the same topic as this but neutral. To not violate our policies, there must be a clear link (it is not sufficient that the regime was nominally Communist, because that can be done for every other regime type; as noted by Siebert, scholarly sources about Stalinist period refer to the regime, thus attributing events at the leader's personality, which is also the conclusion of Valentino, the main source for this article and the most misunderstood, not communism) — because you have such low standards that we could do this for every regime, and if it is enough to have a source, we may as well write an article about the 4 million excess deaths in 1990s Russia and capitalist regimes (10 million lives could be saved each year) because Rosefielde, the same scholar who wrote about excess death under Communism, also did the same for Russia.

Of course, I would not want to have such articles — I want higher standards which are in line with our policies but it just shows how much OR and SYNTH you are willing to go to defend such an article. As for COVID-19, none of them actually mention communism, and China is capitalist (economic growth) and Communist (human rights abuses) depending on what is more useful, and it would still be OR/SYNTH unless a majority of respected scholars in the field actually reach those same conclusions — unlike Siebert, who is backing their statement by neutral research and the best sources, all you are doing is your own OR. So far, that is done by the Victims of Communist Memorial Foundation and The Epoch Times — try again. Note that they would be attributed to the CCP, which again would be in line with Valentino's views of leadership, not ideology (ideology can be used to justify them, not to cause them), explaining the onset of mass killings.

Can anyone actually respond to Siebert's well-raised points? Do you understand that all those deaths simply cannot be categorized as mass killings (only Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's can)? If you cannot do that or understand this, you are just wasting our time to find a solution in line with our policies and guidelines. Davide King (talk) 09:21, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll

Just a note for those who may be interested. I was just fixing some citation errors at List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, and edits made there may relate to the discussion going on here. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 13:30, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

"Who killed more: fascism or communism?" is like when people argue about whether Superman or Batman would win in a fight. (Obviously Batman. And fascism.) Levivich 03:26, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

It actually has major consequences for political debates in modern Europe. If Nazism was the lesser evil, then collaborators were the true heroes of WWII, while the Resistance were traitors. The modern Left and even centrists and the moderate Right that opposed Nazism (such as Gaullists) can no longer claim the moral high ground. The Left must also bear responsibility for the crimes of Nazism, since they were necessary to fight the greater evil of Communism. Additionally, some on the Right argue that Hitler was actually a socialist (which both makes the Nazis less evil and allocates their crimes to the Left) or even that the Jews (since Communism was a Jewish project), were responsible for the Holocaust, which was necessary to stop Jewish Bolshevism.

That's why numbers become the only matter of importance. The 100 million victims of Communism is twice the 50 million victims of Nazism. The 10 million victims of the Ukrainian genocide (called the Holodomor for its similarity to the word Holocaust) is far greater than the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis.

In the U.S., it proves a cautionary tale for the dangers of universal health care, gun control, vaccine mandates or whatever else is the issue of the day. The fact that the Nazis did not actually introduce any of those things and actually opposed vaccine mandates is ignored.

That explains the impasse to progress in these discussions.

TFD (talk) 12:25, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

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