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Article milestones Date Process Result August 10, 2009 Articles for deletion No consensus September 1, 2009 Peer review Reviewed October 2, 2009 Articles for deletion No consensus November 15, 2009 Articles for deletion No consensus April 22, 2010 Articles for deletion Kept July 19, 2010 Articles for deletion Kept April 1, 2018 Peer review Reviewed

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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)

Cloud200 I can't help but agree, Without naming individuals I find it extremely troubling that it is the same users attempting to AstroTurf left wing atrocities that are also the ones so concerned with maintaining similar pages for the right. It speaks to a coordinated if unconscious effort to apply bias with a broad-stroke brush. Until I came to Misplaced Pages for instance there was no redirect for extreme left-wing politics like there was for extreme far-right politics. Additionally far-left politics pales in comparison to the analogous page for the right and I specifically recall a user mentioned here attempting to unravel a lot of what I attempted to add to make the pages more symmetrical. Davidgarcia84 (talk) 17:21, 24 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)

It's "controversial" only because so many Misplaced Pages editors are at least Communist-adjacent. Nobody seriously debates the correlation between Naziism and the Holocaust. Caldodge (talk) 18:15, 24 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)

AfD is a good place to discuss merge or redirect, but the page title itself is questionable. ~ cygnis insignis 13:06, 17 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)

Paul is incorrect, unborn children are absolutely included in "excess mortality". Steven Rosefielde explicitly includes unborn children in "excess mortality" figures:

"Western scholars have long known that the Soviet Union experienced an extraordinarily large number of excess deaths during the early phase of forced industrialisation. Excess mortality between the census dates 17 December 1926 and 17 January 1939 has been variously estimated to have been as few as 5.5 million and as many as 20.6 million people. The lower figure was thought to represent excess adult deaths, principally peasants who died as a result of the famine brought on by Stalin's collectivisation policies; the higher figure the total population deficit including anticipated births forestalled by the harsh conditions of the times."

Rosefielde concludes:

"The forced industrialisation program adopted by Stalin culminated a demographic disaster of major proportions for the Soviet population. Collectivisation, Gulag forced labour and the terror apparatus that sustained the Stalinist system appear to have claimed the lives of 21.4 to 24.4 million adults and 7.2 to 8.0 million children. An additional 14.4 million unrealised births unrelated to the war may also be included in this inventory bringing the total poplulation deficit attributable to Stalin's forced industrialisation policies to 43.8 to 46 million people; figures more than double the 20 million civilian and military casualties incurred during the war."

If you think Excess mortality under communist regimes is a more neutral title, then we must include unborn children as well. --Nug (talk) 22:15, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

No. The author says that 14.4 million birth deficit must be included not into the "excess death" category, but into "poplulation deficit attributable to Stalin's forced industrialisation policies".

"Population deficit" is synonym for "population losses": demographers use them interchangeably. In general, if you demonstrate that population losses/deficit is generally considered as a synonym for "excess mortality" (for example, during a discussion of Bengal famine or Great depression), then I will agree with you. However, even the quote provided by you does not support this your assertion and rather demonstrates that I was right, and Rosefielde considers unborn infants as a part of "population losses/deficit", not "excess death" (which is, both from scientific and common sense point of view, a different category: you cannot kill a man who was never born and even concepted). Which is not a surprise, because he is a reasonable person and good scholar, despite his deep disagreements with Wheatcroft. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:05, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I don't mind to discuss birth deficit that was a result of Communist policy, but that would require us to discuss ALL demographic consequences of their policy. Including an unprecedented overall decline of mortality (and the growth of life expectancy) in the USSR. By the way, during the discussion with you I accidentally found one source (I already presented it, here is the link again). As you can see, I posted this source (which I found using a totally transparent search procedure, so you can see by yourself that I didn't cherry-picked it), and only after that I've read it. It says that significant decline of mortality was observed in China under Communists, and the Great Chinese famine was just a short interruption in that trend.

Maybe, if we discuss infants who had never been born due to Communists, maybe, intellectual honesty requires us to discuss already born infants and adults who didn't die due to the same evil Communists? I wouldn't mind to discuss that in this article. Paul Siebert (talk) 00:05, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Support Rename (Excess mortality (or split): Regardless of your standard of who to count the article body includes citations which count death by direct action( killing ), and death by negligence/incompetence (starvation). I have commented on splitting the article so I won't repeat that here, but if you want to first split the article on killing vs preventable deaths and cross-link them then that makes both topics searchable while not having a clinical title that nobody can agree on. The problem there is now I think editors are trying to seperate deaths into two camps where the source material probably would not. Because of this I support renaming to excess death, and just doing a disambiguation page if someone tries searching for death in general, and they actually wanted to know about like funeral rites or natural causes.Ethanpet113 (talk) 08:11, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

And then people say Misplaced Pages isn't a left wing echo chamber. 93.141.205.124 (talk) 13:20, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

This AfD has to be a joke when articles like Anti Communist Mass Killings exist. What is next? An article called "Anti-fascist mass killings?" Skyrant (talk) 17:39, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I noticed that article, but one thing at a time. The 'anti-fascist mass killings' are also referred to as the premise for the 'second world war', arguably a euphemism, as "stoppin' communism" was for the extraordinary amount of ordnance dropped on North Korea a little later. ~ cygnis insignis 18:26, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

• Object Deletion (listify?): I fundamentally disagree with just deleting the body of this article, because for any other article on wikipedia we would apply the standard of seeing if anything is salvageable, even if editing has been protracted. It doesn't make any sense to delete this article in light of many other weaker politically charged articles which are kept. Afd mediation is usually required only if the community process failed, it has not, in fact this article has been not deleted 3 times now. There are also many social science articles just as old as this one of more dubious quality which are routinely kept. By the standard of any other article on wikipedia this article has a very strong keep article. The problem with this article is that it is bloated, not that it is unsalvageable. The article has been evaluated as a B-Class article which is much better than the vast majority of articles on WP. I agree that the article is unfocused, but it should just be edited down and its contents relocated to children as required. Worst case I would rename to List of mass killings under communist regimes and include a short heading to summarize and then offlinks. Alternatively several if there wouldn't be enough list items to make it a good list, or if more context is required, then several short summary sections sorted by year-regime with and a link with the {{main|main article}}. I think perhaps some conjectural scholarship should also be split out into sub articles, however any way you slice it you should be using the mark split-mark under construction-split-cleanup workflow to shrink the article, not doing wholesale deletion on established content, because you think it is an impossible task to make it succinct. As with any continuing social problem that humanity is tackling this article is always going to go interesting directions and some people will disagree. This is a common problem for political and sociological articles in general on WP, but we just keep iterating even if the amount of novel information on the matter seems galling.Ethanpet113 (talk) 08:11, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
  • I fundamentally agree that the core problem here is the article's title. It's not at all weird for Misplaced Pages to have a list page - it famously has list pages - but it's very weird for the word "list" not to appear in its name. And that's self-evidently what this page is - a list of mass killings under communist regimes, no stranger than List of serial killers in the United States. Quindraco (talk) 12:24, 25 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.

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

Maybe, but some argue this apparent denialism of communism's tendency towards mass murder is a manifestation of the Left's romance with tyranny and terror. --Nug (talk) 22:27, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Nug, please, stay civil. Noone here denies such terrible events as Cambodian genocide, Great Purge or Katyn massacre. The main point is that some users, including you, are trying to push a (minority) view that (i) all premature deaths under Communists, including famine deaths were a results of a deliberate program that was implemented by Communist authorities and was aimed to exterminate their own people, (ii) that all those deaths are directly linked to Communism, and (iii) they had more commonalities with each other than with other mass killing events, and some common causes, and, therefore, should be presented as a single topic. That view is not shared by majority of scholars, and your attempts to accuse your opponents of denialism cannot change that. I respect your right to have your opinion, but I do not respect your right to have your own facts.

In addition, there is one important consideration here. Recently, the tendency to equate Communism and Nazism (or even to claim thet Communism was a greater evil) suspiciously coincide with attempts to push a "double genocide theory", to glorify former Nazi collaborators as "fighters against Communism", or "fighters for national independence". Therefore, in is sometimes hard to find the line where condemnation of Communism is becoming whitewashing of Nazism. We should be very careful with that. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:58, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wrote this at the same time as Siebert.

If by some you mean the WorldNetDaily, which I assume is the owner of WND Books, which published the book you linked and has more to do with Islamo-leftism than MKuCR — you just proved that this is a right-wing talking point. Siebert, TFD was right — you're arguing with believers, which is why it is not going to take us anywhere. They actually believe there is such link, even though scholars do not draw such a link or conclusion, and focus more on leadership than ideology, and there may not be a difference for you but there actually is a difference between communism and Stalinism among most scholars. Just like Cloud200, you seem to take it as the ultimate truth that Stalin was the inevitable conclusion of Marx, even though that is one POV and mainly within anti-communist historiography (it may be mainstream among the popular press, especially on the Right, but that is not the view held by the most respected and neutral scholars); centre-right Jean-Claude Juncker defended Marx's legacy, so you are literally echoing Fidesz's reactions to it. This obsession with body-counting, especially in regards to communism but for every other ideology, too, is honestly disturbing and does not do justice to the many victims and all those who perished, it is in fact disrepectful.

While many, many people have died under Communist regimes, it is equally true for many other regime types on the other side, including even some who were and/or are democratic (e.g. the anti-communist politicide in democratic Sri Lanka, millions of preventable deaths under capitalism, etc.) — it appears to be that this is indeed a fetish of the Right to support their views of Communism as worse than Nazism; it really is done only for Communism, which is conflated for communism. By your own standard, there is a denial of capitalism/liberalism's tendency towards colonialism, ecocide, genocide, imperialism, and excess mortality due to distribution of resources (there are no memorials to commemorate them, nor remembrance days for victims of colonialism and imperialism, or resolutions against them, other than those rightly against Nazi-Fascism and Communism-Stalinism) — authoritarianism seems to be a much better link, irregardless of any ideology.

That communism is necessarily prone to authoritarianism, rather than one specific strand which simply feeds or breeds it, and vice versa (do I have to remind you that unlike — say fascism — there have actually been plenty of democratic communists?), is also not as a clear link as you would like to make it appear, and anyway is the job of scholars and other historians, not ours. If that is the kind of sources you have got, retry.

P.S. We actually had a RfC about this, which it was a snow close. Davide King (talk) 00:20, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

...you're arguing with believers, which is why it is not going to take us anywhere. This is my read of the situation as well. This is Kienger all over again. Levivich 00:25, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

There is even a university course on Mass Murder and Genocide under Communism. --Nug (talk) 06:13, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

A syllabus is not an RS. AFAICT the prof who teaches that course has been published but has published nothing about "mass murder and genocide under communism", which, to me, reinforces the lack of source for this topic. When editors ask about sources, providing examples of non-RS is just wasting everyone's time. Levivich 06:25, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Nug, I don't find your approach productive. It seems every participant of this discussion agrees that some mass killings, mass murders, and even genocide were committed by the authorities of some Communist states, and there is some commonality between some of them. That fact (and it is really a fact, not just someone's opinion) is a quite sufficient ground for existence of such a course, and the very fact of its existence proves nothing. The question is somewhat different, namely: can we pick a couple of sources, which, like Courtois, combine all premature deaths under Communists into one, single huge category, and by adding the works authored by mainstream authors, who do not share Courtois' views, write an article as if the Courtois views were universally accepted, thereby creating an absolutely false impression of the existence of some consensus among scholars that Communists, by using mass murder, deportations, deaths camps, engineered famine and similar tools deliberately exterminated 100 million people AND Communism is the greatest murderer of XX century? Paul Siebert (talk) 06:52, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

To add to what Levivich wrote, even your source proved my point, which is that events under Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes can indeed be categorized as mass killing events, which is what I have been arguing the whole time — if we follow the article's name and scholarly sources, this article should be limited only to them, at which point Siebert's comment that we already have each article for them and very little comparative analysis is correct, and another topic and scope should be pursued. If it was not clear enough, read my lips — we all agree that "some mass killings, mass murders, and even genocide were committed by the authorities of some Communist states, and there is some commonality between some of them."

No one is disputing the events, and all your arguments have been missing the point. What we are disputing and discussing is their interpretations and links, which are not universally supported among scholarly sources — can anyone answer Siebert's question about it? If none of you can do it, I hope Robert McClenon can do it for us and be done with, so that we can move forward to the next pass. Davide King (talk) 09:46, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Siebert's question around whether this article presents Courtois' views as universally accepted and fabricates a "consensus among scholars that Communists ... deliberately exterminated 100 million people AND Communism is the greatest murderer of XX century" is just a red herring, the article did not do this. In fact it was you yourself who added the 100 million figure to which TFD brought up the comparison with Nazism being the lesser evil with his "The 100 million victims of Communism is twice the 50 million victims of Nazism" comment above. --Nug (talk) 11:01, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Well, let's see.

1. The article says that scholars are trying to propose some common terminology for MKuCR (the "Terminology" section.

2. The article creates an impression that the question of the total number of killed under Communists is a subject of a mainstream scholarly discourse ("Estimates" section)

3. The article outlines three groups of common causes ("Causes" section), and totally ignores historical context of each event, as well as opinia or country experts.

4. The article creates a false impression that famine (as a single phenomenon) is a subject of some "debates" ("Debates over famine" section), which is the case only for Holodomor (and even not the Great Soviet famine of 1932-33).

All of that is a minority viewpoind advocated by Courtois and few other authors, and all of that creates a core of teh article.

And after that you dare to claim my question is "red herring"? Paul Siebert (talk) 17:05, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Mass killings under authoritarian regimes would be the right title for an article about, e.g., comparisons of the Holocaust and Holodomor. Levivich 15:35, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Is such a comparison a mainstream topic? I tried to look at this, and it seems that when these two events are being discussed together, the discussion mostly focudes on their perception in Ukrainian society and globally. Therefore, such an article would be not about the events, but about views/theories that compare, link, contrast etc these events. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:43, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

I'd put a moratorium on any Mass killings under ... regimes article. It'd still be bordering on SYNTH because though it may seem obvious, such link is not so clear either — e.g. Harff 2017's counter-example of anti-communist politicide in democratic Sri Lanka. Why not just title it Comparison of the Holocaust and the Holodomor (or something this — there are other different variants and possibilities), The Holocaust and the Holodomor (politics/memory) in Ukraine, etc.

Just like Victims of communism would be a better title for this article — it is, in fact, what the topic is called by scholars (e.g. Ghodsee 2014, Neumayer 2017, Neumayer 2020, and Dujisin 2020), though another possibility, in regards to the only notable topic as summarized here by Siebert, could be Communism/Communist state and mass murder. Both titles would be acceptable as long as the article's topic is that summarized by Siebert, which is nothing other than this same topic but neutral and without OR/SYNTH. Davide King (talk) 00:44, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Status and Action ?

A request was made on 4 November for moderated discussion at DRN. Some of editors here, User:Cloud200, User:Paul Siebert, and User:Davide King, were participating in moderated discussion, and my intention as moderator was to develop one or more RFCs to try to resolve some of the controversy about this article. User:Levivich then proposed to take the article to a deletion discussion. I was then asked by User:Paul Siebert to put the moderated discussion on hold, because he could not take part in the AFD and the DRN at the same time. An AFD takes priority over all other content dispute resolution mechanisms including any RFCs. I put the DRN on hold as requested. I also said, here, at this talk page, that I recommended that a formal community process be initiated, which could be AFD (as proposed by Levivich) or one or more RFCs (as I was planning to take the DRN). More than four days have elapsed since User:Levivich proposed to start a deletion discussion, and there has not yet been a deletion discussion, and discussion seems to have become defocused again. If no one is planning to file an AFD, but the interested parties still want moderated discussion, I will resume the DRN. If there is to be an AFD, it might as well be started now. If the editors who originally wanted moderated discussion have decided that they do not want moderated discussion after all, but would prefer to continue unfocused discussion here, I will close the DRN as abandoned, although I think that will be a mistake, because there seems to be agreement that something should be resolved. So: Do the editors want a community process? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:44, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not going to AFD it. I think this page should be turned into a disambiguation page, but I'm not sure if anyone else agrees. Either way no need to hold up DRN on my account. Levivich 06:04, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

If we all agreed that the article will survive AFD, so there is no need to start it, I definitely can continue with DRN. However, I expect all parties to take into account and address the thoughts and arguments that have been put forward during last few days here, on this talk page. One possible way is to summarize them briefly on the DRN page. Paul Siebert (talk) 06:42, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm open to any kind of moderated process and I think how Robert McClenon was leading it in the DRN was the best way to get constructive result. Cloud200 (talk) 11:38, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

IMO unless you define the scope/topic (not the title) of the article you'll be mired in hopeless complexity and have difficulty in moving forward. But, either way, if you have an excellent person like Robert McClenon to help moderate/resolve/organize your efforts, and a structure to do that under, you should grasp that great opportunity.North8000 (talk) 15:02, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I have taken the DRN discussion back off of hold to resume it. As requested by User:Paul Siebert, I am requesting that each of the editors summarize the thoughts that were put forward here, before we go on with further discussion. I will add that my objective is to define the scope of the article, and suggestions in that direction are welcome.

I will add that other editors are welcome to comment in the DRN, and will not be required to comment every 72 hours, but that I plan to move the discussion along, typically every 48 to 72 hours, occasionally more frequently, as I think will be productive. So please summarize the arguments and thoughts at the DRN. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:50, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Robert. On further reflection, I realized I have one more preliminary condition.

I would like to make sure I am arguing with rational persons, not believers, otherwise, as Levivich correctly noted, the whole discussion is senseless.

To do that, I propose each party to describe their main ideas again, and to demonstrate that it is falsifiable. Concretely, that included a description of possible evidences that may prove that those ideas are wrong. As an example, I can do that first. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:20, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I am afraid that is not possible, Paul Siebert. One user has cited a far-right publisher (WorldNetDaily Books), the other has literally said that the double genocide theory and Holocaust trivialization in the lead is fringe, completely ignoring that while it may be mainstream where they live, it is in fact their beliefs that are fringe, not the quoted part from the current lead, which they want to remove outright, along with any other edit I have made in the last month to make it more neutral, clarify that there is no consensus on terminology or estimates, and fix the article from treating this as a mainstream, scholarly discourse and consensus. Davide King (talk) 17:20, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, you are absolutely right, but, as I already said, that question was repeatedly raised on this talk page. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:06, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that the topic you correctly individuated here, which is the only notable topic that can be written about in respect with our policies instead of MKuCR, they actually believe in it and think it is a fact that Communism, which is conflated even for those on the Left who are anti-authoritarian and fully democratic, and in general is used to describe the Left in toto, is the greatest murderer of all-time — which clearly lacks any nuance and context, and is indeed a form of Holocaust trivialization and obfuscation because most scholars would say Nazism was worse, and Communism also has a good challenge from colonial and imperialist crimes (even by sheer numbers if capitalism is given the same standard in both relative and absolute terms), which The Four Deuces correctly summarized the link with capitalism in the quotes below. Rummel thought that colonialism is socialism, I would not be surprised if he thought fascism was far left or socialist, either — do other users understand that those are, in fact, what could be called fringe? The Soviet Union is not to be considered even pre-1941 on the Axis side, Trump did not win in 2020, and the U.S. Capitol attack was not a false flag from the radical left. Holocaust trivialization and double genocide theory are, in fact, very real and the latter is fringe.

Defenders of this article have shown such a low standard for which sources are fine, and is why we have a SYNTH problem. Cherry picking a few sources is not good research, and is not following scholarly literature, but perhaps that is the problem — there is no scholarly literature for what they want (OR/SYNTH is excluded) but there is plenty for what we propose. When we have users who want to put an unjustified overemphasis on primary sources that would fail due weight, it is a problem. When they fail to understand that Misplaced Pages must rely on independent secondary sources, which is why this whole article is a problem because it is "He said, she said" but, apart from very few exceptions, we are citing this to the ones who said it in the first place, rather than secondary sources which summarize their thoughts for us, and is also the main reason why many authors have been misinterpreted and there is OR — this is a serious problem and there can be no rational discussion when we are continually misunderstood, strawmanned, and insulted, for it is an insult to anyone's intelligence not to see there are problems with this article. Of course there are no problems with it, if you are a believer in it and you engage in Holocaust obfuscation through double-genocide lens. Davide King (talk) 17:20, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Interesting comment, Martin. Prairiespark was questioning the accuracy of a statement in the article that the number of colonials killed by capitalism was far lower than the number killed by Communists. However, we should not use Rummel's blog or other writings that have not been published in the academic press. Note too that Rummel describes colonialism as a form of socialism, not capitalism. --TFD

The colonialism referred to was carried out by capitalist countries and the colonies were largely established as privately owned business enterprises. --TFD

The Virginia Company, the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Falkland Islands Company, the Dutch East India Company, etc., were all private corporations. Even where colonial administration was directly controlled by the colonial powers, as in Hawaii, effective economic control has usually given to private corporations. Collect's view of the Belgian Congo is pure OR - it was the private property run as a privately-owned business. As Collect points out, Leopold's role as Belgian head of state and owner of the Congo were distinct. It later became a colony of Belium and its economy was organized along capitalist lines, with private investment in mining and agriculture. --TFD

If MKuCR is kept as it was, then the same sourcing standard must be applied to other articles, which means capitalist, fascist, Muslim, and other authoritarian regimes may be categorized, even though I would still argue they are OR/SYNTH ... but at least there would no longer be a double standard, and is just going to show how this article has such low standards for sourcing because there are plenty of sources that may be used for all sort of regime types.

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

My opinion is the page title shouldn't exist, therefore I have proposed the page be deleted and am assuming this is adequate notification, without individual pings, to those invested in its content. ~ cygnis insignis 15:07, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

May you expand the context of your opinion? WeiChengChao (talk) 22:32, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

How about no 2607:FEA8:F49A:F500:844B:8EE3:6322:1D9E (talk) 13:52, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

No. Vincenty846 (talk) 14:27, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

No. Oules (talk) 16:24, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Deleting this article would be truly Orwellian. It’s very nomination for deletion is a political act attempting to whitewash Communism. There is absolutely no justification for deletion.

It should remain. Ashley Payne (talk) 09:25, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

No, the article should not be deleted. Minimizing, mitigating, or downplaying any sort of historical atrocity is wrong, including ones that have occurred in the communist regimes of the 20th century. Furthermore, to state that only this article be deleted amidst the countless other articles of similar style of content that Misplaced Pages has is special pleading. GrammarGuy16 (talk) 18:54, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

I do not see any reason for deleting this article. It should stay.Horea Vêntilă (talk) 09:55, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

All, if you'd like to have your opinion on whether this article should be deleted noted, please refer to the AfD discussion. colejhudson (talk) 18:55, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

OR - just going through the article

Ok, can someone show me where in the source is the part that supports this text:

“ As there are few or no comparative studies on communist regimes, it has not been possible to achieve an academic consensus on the causes and definition of such killings in more or less broad, general terms. ”

Source is this one . Volunteer Marek 01:50, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I just read the source, and sure enough it does not contain any language even remotely close to what Davide King wrote in this edit. In fact, the review by Straus is about problems in comparative genocide studies, and only discusses communist regimes in passing. For example: "Some authors such as Valentino employ a concept that includes dozens of twentieth-century cases. Other authors, such as Midlarsky, use a narrower definition, with only three twentieth-century cases. Some authors, such as Weitz, Valentino, Mann, and Levene, incorporate communist cases, which generally involve targeting class groups (not ethnic or racial ones). Other authors exclude communist cases. Some authors such as Mann, Levene, and Valentino include colonial cases; the other authors do not." (p. 496) The suggestion that "few or no comparative studies on communist regimes" exist is nowhere to be found in the source. Davide King's well-meaning incompetence when it comes to reading and understanding English-language sources has been a problem that I've noted before, as many of his edits either fail verification or contain liberal amounts of WP:OR/WP:SYNTH. Realistically, all of Davide King's recent edits are suspect due to lack of competence and this supports the need for a rollback to a more stable version of this article. Thanks for spotting this especially egregious WP:REDFLAG claim, Volunteer Marek.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:08, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

That is bordering to well-meaning criticism to personal attacks. Contrary to what has been stated, I used Straus 2007 not for the quoted part but for the fact that genocide scholars have placed little emphasis on regime-type when engaging in comparative analysis. "few or no comparative studies on communist regimes" could be changed to "few or no comparative studies on communist regimes as a whole", or something like that, since comparative studies have been done for Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes, and Communist regimes have also been compared to non-Communist regimes, rather than among themselves as a whole. It would be better to tag that part as citation needed or clarification needed rather than attack me like that and act as though the source I used for that quoted part is Straus 2007 — indeed, Straus 2007 is placed after Genocide scholars have placed little emphasis on regime-type when engaging in comparative analysis, Davide King (talk) 04:28, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Ok, honestly I didn’t look at who put what in when, I just simply read the text of the article and this one was a red flag. Since it seems we all agree that this part is not in the source, can we remove it without controversy? Volunteer Marek 04:39, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I'd prefer tagging it first, or reword it, before removing outright but I would avoid editing the article in general as long as the AfD is ongoing. For the same reason, you should revert yourself, as did Fifelfoo here for the same reason. If you are not aware, we did discuss a revert of two full months edits at DRN but there was disagreement — Robert McClenon may be helpful in regards to this issue and what can and/or should be done about it. Davide King (talk) 04:58, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

(EC) Davide King, for the record, you have no source for the statement that "there are few or no comparative studies on communist regimes"? That sentence was pure original research, or so self-evident in your mind that no citation was required?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:00, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Volunteer Marek, removal of the red flag claim would be a good start, but probably not sufficient. "Genocide scholars have placed little emphasis on regime-type when engaging in comparative analysis" is not supported by the source either, and there is much in the source that suggests otherwise: "That said, three overlapping explanatory paradigms are evident in the books: idealism, political development, and state interest. The idealism framework roots genocide in specific extreme ideologies ... " (p. 489); "Recent literature on the Holocaust has found some middle ground between these two positions, recognizing both a strong element of contingency and the importance of top-level ideology." (p. 493) . In sum: Straus 2007 says that the ideology of the governing regime is the major motivating factor considered by one of the three schools of thought in genocide studies that he is critiquing. Davide King summarized that as "Genocide scholars have placed little emphasis on regime-type when engaging in comparative analysis." Davide King's summary is inaccurate and misleading.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:00, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I think I should have made more clear I meant within the context of Communist regimes (e.g. genocide scholars may find ideology important in causing some genocides in non-Communist regimes — your quote seems to show they have reached a middle position, but that is of in genocides general, not necessarily of Communism, as assumed the wording in question is within the context of Communism, rather than generalize. I suggest you to discuss this with Paul Siebert (e.g. example of sourcing analysis performed by Siebert saying Valentino does not see regime type or ideology as important, and focus more on the leaders), as they can better answer your questions and fix the text and/or errors I may have made. I probably should not have generalize, I was mainly think of Valentino, who is a core source of this article — I will let Siebert explain you this better. Davide King (talk) 05:27, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Right, and Straus 2007 puts Valentino in the third school of thought mentioned above: "The third paradigm—what I label the 'state interest' framework—sees genocide as the product of leader-level planning, with Valentino and Midlarsky as the exemplars. ... For Valentino, the calculus appears to be a thought-through, rational response to particular conditions." (p. 491). However, strong competing views exist, and Straus states that all three approaches are flawed in terms of their predictive power and falsifiability.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:57, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

TheTimesAreAChanging, I was trying to summary this — e.g. lack of consensus/disagreements among genocide scholars, and "all three approaches are flawed in terms of their predictive power and falsifiability." Is this correct then? If so, do you think something along those lines may be (re-)added? Thank you.-Davide King (talk) 14:01, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Same thing here — do you think you could reword it/better phrase it? Like that comparative analysis has been done mainly between Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot (Jones discuss together only Stalin and Mao, and gives Pol Pot a separated chapter) rather than a broad comparative analysis between all or most Communist regimes, and the fact such regimes have also been compared with non-Communist regimes (e.g. Cambodia, the Holocaust, Rwanda), not necessarily between only Communist regimes? Also while the two sentences should be separated (e.g. Jones and Valentino are not mentioned in Karlsson 2008), on the basis that Stalin influenced Mao, who influenced Pol Pot; in such cases, killings were carried out as part of a policy of an unbalanced modernization process of rapid industrialization is from Karlsson 2008, p. 8. Full quote:

Where and how did the historical process begin that was to lead to communist regimes committing crimes against humanity? Did it begin with Marx and Marxism, or when Marxism took root in Russian ground and was remoulded to conform to Russian political culture, or when Lenin and the Bolsheviks carried out their coup d’etat in Petrograd on 7 November 1917, or when Stalin began the major, radical Soviet revolution in the early 1920s? If these crimes are an integral part of the modern project, for which there is much evidence in modern research, what marked the beginning of the unbalanced Russian modernisation process that was to have such terrible consequences?

How could this be (re-)worded? Thank you. Davide King (talk) 14:13, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

While we are on the subject, Davide King, can you please provide a direct quotation supporting your statement that "Critics of communism define a 'generic communism' category as any political party movement lead by intellectuals," since I don't have access to your source? It would certainly help with verification!TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:17, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

While I will try to check the source, I think it should be qualified as such as Martin Malia and Stéphane Courtois. Davide King (talk) 05:30, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

The extended quote (to give you an impression of the context) is as follows:

"Malia flirts in the formulations cited above with the suggestion à la Courtois that communism was the greatest evildoer of them all. To his credit, however, in the bulk of the piece he is concerned with laying out a more rigorous set of desiderata that need to be addressed in any comparison between Nazism and communism. The implicit purpose of doing so is to address criticisms that have arisen over The Black Book, and chief among these was the objection that there existed vastly different kinds of communisms around the globe that cannot be treated as a single phenomenon. Malia thus counters by coining the category of “generic Communism,” defined everywhere down to the common denominator of party movements founded by intellectuals. (Pol Pot’s study of Marxism in Paris thus comes across as historically more important than the gulf between radical Soviet industrialism and the Khmer Rouge’s murderous anti-urbanism.) For an argument so concerned with justifying The Black Book, however, Malia’s latest essay is notable for the significant objections he passes by. Notably, he does not mention the literature addressing the statistical-demographic, methodological, or moral dilemmas of coming to an overall communist victim count, especially in terms of the key issue of how to include victims of disease and hunger. Paul Siebert (talk) 07:01, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: yes, you are right: these authors mentions Communism just in passing. Incidentally, the very same authors are used in the MKuCR article, which create an impression that Communist mass killings are the focus of their study. Do you have any fresh idea on how can we fix that blatant OR? Paul Siebert (talk) 07:17, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

This hardly supports the sentence as written. For starters it takes on author and turn them into a generic “critics of communism”, falsely implying that this is some definition shared by all “critics of communism”. For starters… Volunteer Marek 07:40, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for providing the relevant excerpt, Paul Siebert. I have taken a stab at modifying the text to avoid the implication that the definition provided by David-Fox 2004 is universal to critics of communism, as opposed to a scathing rebuke of Martin Malia's analysis.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:53, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: if you believe that David'Fox's opinion needs specific attribution (which is not completely the case, for his article is not op-ed), why the rest of text is full with "several authors" or "scholars"? Actually, all those statements were made just by handful of authors, so you should either self-revert or bring the rest of the text into accordance with your edits. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:36, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

To the contrary, Paul, the rest of the section is also attributed to specific authors (e.g., "According to historian Anton Weiss-Wendt"; "According to Professor of Economics Attiat Ott"; "Sociologist Michael Mann has proposed"; "As summarized by the Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence"; "Professor of History Klas-Göran Karlsson uses"; "Mann and historian Jacques Sémelin believe"; "Political scientist Rudolph Rummel defined"; "Under the Genocide Convention"; "coined by the Munich Institut für Zeitgeschichte"; "has been used by Professor of Comparative Economic Systems Steven Rosefielde"; "According to historian Jörg Hackmann"; "Historian Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine writes"; "Political scientist Michael Shafir writes"; "George Voicu states that fellow historian Leon Volovici has"; "Professor of Psychology Ervin Staub defined"; "Professors Joan Esteban (Economic Analysis), Massimo Morelli (Political Science and Economics), and Dominic Rohner (Political and Institutional Economics) have defined"; "has been defined by political scientist Benjamin Valentino"; "Political scientist Jay Ulfelder has used"; "Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies Alex J. Bellamy states"; "Professor of International Relations Atsushi Tago and Professor of Political Science Frank Wayman use"; "According to Professor of Economics Attiat F. Ott and his postdoctoral associate Sang Hoo Bae"; "Associate Professor of Sociology Yang Su uses"; "genocide scholar Barbara Harff studies"; "Political scientist Manus I. Midlarsky uses"; "Soviet specialist Stephen Wheatcroft states"). The exceptions (e.g., "Critics of communism define a "generic communism" category as any political party movement lead by intellectuals"; "as there are few or no comparative studies on communist regimes"; "Genocide scholars have placed little emphasis on regime-type when engaging in comparative analysis"; etc.) were added by your ally Davide King (, , and elsewhere).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:10, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Really?

"Different general terms are used to describe the intentional killing of large numbers of noncombatants." Don't see how that general statement is related to the topic of this article. One of the sources is Wheatcroft, who focuses on Russian history only. He never proposed anything of that kind.

"According to historian Anton Weiss-Wendt, the field of comparative genocide studies, which rarely appears in mainstream disciplinary journalsm, despite growth of research and interest, due to its humanities roots and reliance on methodological approaches that did not convince mainstream political science, has very "little consensus on defining principles such as definition of genocide, typology, application of a comparative method, and timeframe." According to Professor of Economics Attiat Ott, mass killing has emerged as a "more straightforward" term." - That relates to Mass killing, as you perfectly know, that article barely mentions Communism.

"Several authors have attempted to propose a common terminology to describe the killings of unarmed civilians by communist governments, individually or as a whole, some of them believing that government policies, interests, neglect, and mismanagement contributed, directly or indirectly, to such killings, and evaluate different causes of death, which are defined with various terms." Who those "several authors" are? Are they really numerous?

"According to this view, which has been either ignored or criticized by other genocide scholars and scholars of communism, it is possible to have an estimated communist death toll based on a "generic communism" grouping." I saw not much critics by genocide scholars. This view is just ignored. that text gives a totally undeserved weight to it.

"For example, Michael David-Fox states that Martin Malia is able to link disparate regimes, from radical Soviet industrialists to the anti-urbanists of the Khmer Rouge, under the guise of a "generic communism" category "defined everywhere down to the common denominator of party movements founded by intellectuals."" Do you have other examples?

All of that is just an attempt to give an undue weight to a couple of sources. In reality, Malia made a claim, he was criticized by David-Fox (and some other authors), and THAT'S IT. The rest is a total bullshit: I saw no example of any real debates among "genocide scholars" about a proper terminology: everybody uses the terms they like, and nobody cares. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:31, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

With the exception of the first sentence, which is a summary expounded on later in the article, most of the text above was added by your ally Davide King. Presumably that means you agree with Volunteer Marek that "the process here has been 'Step 1, make the article horrible by stuffing it full of bad writing and irrelevancies. Step 2, go running to AfD saying "look at how bad the article is!"'" and support the idea of a rollback?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:22, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Not exactly. My point is that any person who edit this section is doomed to balance between Scylla of OR and Charybdis of POV-violation. The section discusses some minor issues that are beyond the scope of majority scholars. DK tried to avoid Charybdis, and accidentally moved closer to Scylla. Yes, he is not an Odyssey, but who can throw a stone to him? Paul Siebert (talk) 20:39, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

This one is fantastic. I'm adding it to my long collection of quotes from Siebert and Kinge who run around teaching others about WP:NPOV while at the same time justifying ones between them. Cloud200 (talk) 09:29, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Not exactly. I am saying that DK's edits are far from perfect, but he has a dilemma: to keep the terribly POV text or to try to partially fix it by introducing some OR. I think he recognizes the problems with his edits, and he will not object to its improvement. If I were you, I would propose some concrete ways to fix all of that (my own proposal is to delete the section completely). Paul Siebert (talk) 19:33, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Maybe, this paragraph?

"The arguments in the second-generation books have some obvious differences. Weitz turns on race and Utopia; Semelin on identity and purity; Valentino on leaders' strategic goals; Midlarsky on imprudent realpolitik and loss; Mann on democracy and ethnic nationalism; and on the rise of the West and nation-states. Valentino importance of perpetrator publics; Mann, Levene, and Semeline explicitly argue otherwise. Midlarsky and Levene reject a utilitarian to genocide; Weitz implies the same (with the emphasis contrast, Valentino argues that genocide is the instrumental leaders who want to achieve a certain goal. Mann and the longue duree of modern state formation and nationalism; sky and Valentino focus more on short-term conditions. significant conceptual differences (discussed in greater Some authors use a narrow definition of genocide; one. Some include communist and/or colonial cases; These conceptual differences and the concomitant lection limit comparability of different findings."

Clearly, the author says that Communism/communist regimes is not considered as an important parameter in comparative studies made by the second generation genocide scholars. That is the fact that is very hard to fit into the article with that structure. And that is an additional reason for at least its major rewrite if not deletion.

@Volunteer Marek: if you honestly want to go through the article, I suggest you to start with old text: it is much more problematic from the point of view of WP:V. Paul Siebert (talk) 07:13, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Clearly, the author says that Communism/communist regimes is not considered as an important parameter in comparative studies I don’t think that’s “clearly” at all! In fact there’s nothing in there to draw the WP:SYNTH that is being presented. Volunteer Marek 07:42, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I would also like to see where in the source this claim: which has been either ignored or criticized by other genocide scholars and scholars of communism is supported? Volunteer Marek 07:48, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Marek, frankly speaking, I think the whole paragraph is unsatisfactory. The problem is, however, that the article contains even worse SYNTH/POV, which this para is trying partially alleviate: It create an absolutely false impression that the issues discussed in this section is a part of a mainstream scholarly discourse, which is absolutely false. In a situation when the views expressed in that article are simply ignored by most historians, it is hard to expect a widespread criticism. Do you have any idea how to fix that problem without engaging in original research? Paul Siebert (talk) 14:01, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I was just going through the article sequentially and this is the part I came to that had lots of red flags and just the wording suggested there was some non-sourced OR going on. Other parts of the article may very well also have problems but I haven’t gotten to these yet. Can we then remove this paragraph? Volunteer Marek 18:10, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Paul, Straus 2007 states that some comparative studies of genocide specifically exclude communist killings of political or class enemies, citing the UN definition, so it is not surprising that it mentions communism only in passing. However, Straus 2007 does not support the inference that mass killings under communist regimes did not occur in the twentieth-century or are not a notable topic. The specific use of this source by Davide King was WP:SYNTH and failed verification; while Straus is somewhat critical of the scholars in question (who include some of our key sources, especially Valentino), and of the field of comparative genocide studies in general, there is no indication that Straus's view is the more mainstream view in academia. To the contrary, Straus seems to make clear that academic discourse regarding the common causes of genocide has not yet achieved consensus.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:10, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

"Genocide scholars" do not care too much about terminology, so they frequently use the term "genocide" in its broader meaning, i.e. it implicitly covers all other "-cides". In that sense, "genocide prevention" does not mean prevention genocides sensu stricto. You know that it was me who brought this source here, and I perfectly know what Straus says.

To prevent possible disruption of the discussion, let's agree that noone questions that mass killings never occurred in Communist states, or that Communist authority bear no responsibility for them. The points of disagreement are different: (i) what exactly fall into the category of "mass killings" (the answer strongly depends on one's political views), and (ii) if those mass killings have some significant common causes, and this cause was Communism. If you agree that that is the core issue, then let's continue our dialogue. If you can propose some better summary, please, do that. Otherwise, I have no desire to waste our time. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:48, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

What you are trying to do here, is to push your WP:POV that there exists any single majority view on these two issues you correctly identified. By endlessly disputing this, you have effectively blocked any attempts to improve the article since at least August, and certainly wasted weeks of people's time.

As it was highlighted plenty of times, if there is a debate on a particular topic subject to interpretation, the point of WP:NPOV is not to "average" it by selecting any "majority" view, but to objectively present the debate itself, which the article does to some extent. What you have been pushing in the article since September however was to frame the debate through the lens of an actual fringe "double genocide theory", which is an extreme WP:POV.

You have been doing that by letting King push more blatant edits, which are or are not contested, but if they are, then King steps back and you step in to defend them by watering down the criticism with Gish gallop and gaslighting. This was exactly the case with mentions of "double genocide theory being mainstream in Eastern Europe", which were added by King, defended by you and King for over a month, and "magically" disappeared after I explicitly tagged each of them as unsourced and weasel - which they were from the very beginning. And yes, what I'm doing here is accusing you of WP:DE and I'm determine to take this further as I can clearly see you have now replicated the same tactics in the DRN and AfD. Cloud200 (talk) 09:46, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

@Cloud200: That becomes annoying. Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence is a personal attack. I respectfully request you to provide evidences, or I report you at AE. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:35, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Another solution is as follows: you withdraw all your insulting posts and switch to a more productive mode, which, among other things implies a respectful dialogue devoid of inflammatory language and logical answer to my arguments. Deal? Paul Siebert (talk) 19:38, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Marek, frankly speaking, the only solution is to remove the "Terminology" section. It is awful, and it contains a lot of POV/SYNTH. What is a purpose to have it if majority country-experts just ignore all that bullshit? Paul Siebert (talk) 20:52, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

If you really want to save this article, let's talk what we can do. I have some plan, which will allow us to write a totally neutral, well sources and notable story. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:55, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

misplaced comment sections

There are some comments in new sections above that seem to be misplaced !votes in the current AfD. Is moving them there appropriate? ~ cygnis insignis 16:58, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

None of the comments were policy-based, so they would be inappropriate at AFD. I've removed them per WP:NOTFORUM/WP:REFACTOR. Additionally, I've protected the page temporarily from further disruption from unregistered editors. This page is not for airing grievances regarding communism. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mass killings under communist regimes (4th nomination) is still open for editing, though everyone seems to be leaving comments on its talk page for some reason. clpo13_(talk) 17:08, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

They almost certainly due to a thread on conspiracy-clickbait website 4Chan, which entirely misrepresented what the AfD discussion is about. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:11, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

This thread has clearly grown out of 4chan and into mainstream politics on platforms such as Reddit and Twitter. Nothing good will come out of it, and some conspiracy centered political leaders seems to have taken the fight. The current political situation isn't helping. Larrayal (talk) 23:45, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

As I say, misplaced, but I was considering how to incorporate those comments into the AfD There are keep !votes that are founded on similar points of view, although I would be hesitant to link the diff of reverted edits as an example. ~ cygnis insignis 17:23, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Most of the same arguments are being made at Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for deletion/Mass killings under communist regimes (4th nomination), if you're looking to reference them. Taking some of those concerns into account might be worthwhile, particularly the complaint that Misplaced Pages is whitewashing communism entirely by deleting this one article. clpo13_(talk) 17:27, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Also, as pointed out at the AFD, the deletion discussion has been mentioned at https://notthebee.com/article/wikipedia-is-considering-the-deletion-of-the-page-titled-mass-killings-under-communist-regimes-. For context: The Babylon Bee#Not the Bee. clpo13_(talk) 17:30, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

It was a reasonable action per NOTFORUM, I'm also comfortable with the last two sections being deleted as well if the line was drawn at established v. identifiable ip swarm. ~ cygnis insignis 17:33, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@Clpo13: Incidentally, I was one out of few persons who bothered to go to a library and take a paper version of Rummel's database. That is awful: Rummel seriously cites Cold war era rough estimates of Soviet deaths, and his GULAG figures are totally inconsistent (more than 10 times greater) with all consensus figures. Rosefielde re-considered his estimates (significantly downward), Conquest did that too - everybody. Rummel is arguably the only person who refused to take a look at new data that became available after fall of the USSR. And those figures are seriously cited by that web site? Surely, that is an additional strong reason to delete the article. Rummel already has one page, and that is more than enough.

The very article's structure does not allow us to get rid of that trash, because serious scholars are not interested in compiling Guinness book type figures of a "global Communist death toll. As a result, we have a paradoxical situation: we have modern and trustworthy figures of human life loss for almost each event, but, instead of that, we put forward a lousy "Communist death toll" data from an outdated databases or from self-described anthropologist. Paul Siebert (talk) 00:02, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

If Rummel's "Death by government" is trash, why is it cited 1573 times? Rummel's numbers seem good enough for this genocide site, or is that trash too? --Nug (talk) 11:37, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

'If Mein Kampf is cited 390,000 times , why doesn't Misplaced Pages use it as a source for articles? Proof by Google search results is a poor argument for anything... AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:44, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Lol, never thought Godwin's law would be invoked. It was Paul's suggestion to select sources based upon Google scholar citation counts. --Nug (talk) 12:21, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Regardless of who's suggestion it is, trying to use Google search results as a means to assess the usefulness of sources is poor practice. And WP:OR, to use Misplaced Pages jargon. And methodologically flawed, for several obvious reasons. Though if it is being used in this discussion, I can't say I'm surprised, given the disregard for normal Misplaced Pages practice (and basic academic practice for that matter) evident from this talk page. If Rummel is being cited, what is he being cited for? And what do those who cite him have to say about it? That is what matters when assessing a source. That, and whether other independent sources come to similar conclusions. Because otherwise, this article isn't discussing 'Mass killings', it is discussing what Rummel had to say about them. And we appear to already have an article on that. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:37, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

That is correct. Rummel is being cited mainly for his works where he applied Factor analysis to social sciences, and for his democratic peace theory. That makes him prominent. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:43, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

No, it is not a poor argument. Can you please tell me how many sources that cite Mein Kampf support it? Obviously, all of them cite it mostly for criticism.

Of course, the number of citations per se is not a sign of reliability, it is a sign of notability. However, usually, books or articles are sited not for criticism or debunking, but as a source of information. If the citing articles contain no serious criticism (and usually that is the case) then the numer of citation is a good measure of reliability.

I am a little bit disappointed that I need to explain you so trivial and obvious things. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:42, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree that Mein Kampf was probably not a good comparison, for a better one, The Bell Curve has been cited over 12,000 times, but I doubt the majority of the citers agree with the conclusions of the book. but it is no doubt well known and has received much commentary. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:49, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

then it is by no means notable, but controversial. However, the situation described by you is hardly typical. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:04, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't exactly describe Rummel or the Black Book as typical either. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:13, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Scope

I was thinking after reading Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, that changing the title of this article to "Excess mortality under communist regimes" would probably be a better title if this article is to be kept, as this article covers more than simply intentional killings, like mass famines. Thoughts? Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:33, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

• Support Makes sense. Dream Focus 22:36, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, we discussed that, and I think that may be one option. But the article needs a major rewrite anyway. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:37, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Maybe something like "Theories about the excess mortality under communist regimes" would be more fit if the article is to be kept as it is. Sadly I doubt that a complete rewrite would be left alone by the mob ; too many political interests are at stake behind the apparent acknowledgment of the higher estimation by Misplaced Pages, and now that the political focus is on the article, it will probably be hard to modify anything about the fringe estimations without conflicts in the coming months. Larrayal (talk) 23:10, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

“Excess deaths” and “mass killings” aren’t the same thing. Volunteer Marek 23:34, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Would you define the Great Leap Forward and Soviet famine of 1932–1933, which are both covered in this article, as mass killings? Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:39, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Some scholars define them as mass killings, others don't. That's why the article has the section Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#Debate_over_famines. --Nug (talk) 02:04, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Minority of scholars define them as "mass killings", and there is no "debates" (except Holodomor). Paul Siebert (talk) 04:49, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Minority of sources define them as "mass killings", majority sees them as excess deaths (or variation thereof). Taking into account that "mass killing" is a subset of "excess deaths", the latter may serve as an umbrella term for both. A part (a minor part) of "excess deaths" is universally seen as "mass killings" by all authors. Other "excess deaths" is seen as mass killings only by a minority. Paul Siebert (talk) 21:52, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Where is the proof? I'm seeing 1650 hits for "mass killings and only 145 hits for "excess deaths". --Nug (talk) 18:05, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

& vs Paul Siebert (talk) 19:11, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. The argument made: "as this article covers more than simply intentional killings, like mass famines" implies that the mass famines were unintentional accidents by do-gooders such as good uncle Joe Stalin. The 3.5 million human beings killed by the man-made Holodomor may beg to differ. XavierItzm (talk) 14:17, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Not a surprising response here considering Xaviers long history of deliberately trolling. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:54, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. I think the point made by @XavierItzm: is actually a historically sound one, in particular as it relates to the Holodomor and the clear intentionality with which certain mass death famines occurred. That said, I am open to continue to hear more points on the matter. I think as it stands regarding the article though that has been around since 2009 or earlier, I think the title is comprehensive for the subject as is. As for subject matter within the article, I am sure there is some cleaning up that could be done. When I have some time I'll investigate that end more as well, but I stand with "Oppose" at least for the suggestion to change the name of the article. Thanks all for listening! ♥ Th78blue (They/Them/Their • talk) 19:09, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Obvious bias.

Misplaced Pages is protecting this section to allow obvious abuse and manipulation by a handful of partisans pushing to rewrite history to cover atrocities by citing other partisan academics. The effort to derail this into the realm of opinion, while calling those opinions fact, is as blatant as it is absurd. If this is allowed to continue, this entire project has failed, and Misplaced Pages should just close up shop. 2600:1700:1260:11E0:A5CF:E379:8577:8704 (talk) 18:51, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Why isn’t there an article on mass killings under fascist regimes? 2001:569:BE89:B000:619A:78A7:10A9:88B3 (talk) 19:00, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree that there should be an article about mass killings under fascist regimes as well. X-Editor (talk) 20:07, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree as well. Th78blue (They/Them/Their • talk) 23:36, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Go for it. --Nug (talk) 23:55, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Please don't. We really don't need more of these articles. Every item you could fit there already has it's own article, a brief search for sources on the topics of general fascist mass killings only reveals sources that talk about genocide/mass killings at large, or specific incidents such as the Holocaust or Indonesian genocide. BSMRD (talk) 00:04, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. Valentino's work Final Solutions is about genocides and mass killings in the 20th century. We may want to describe all relevant events in such an article, rather than make controversial and/or inadeguate grouping by ideology or regime type. Davide King (talk) 00:11, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Don't be in denial. Valentino does in fact categorise mass killings as "communist" with a chapter called "Communist mass killings". The first sentence in that chapter:

"Communist regimes have been responsible for this century’s most deadly episodes of mass killing. Estimates of the total number of people killed by communist regimes range as high as 110 million.".

--Nug (talk) 01:12, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Did you read other chapters? How do you summarise the main concept of the Valentino's book? And hot his ostensible categorisation of "Communist mass killings" fits in hos major theoretical concept? Paul Siebert (talk) 01:49, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Do not be rude. That is a subcategory of "dispossessive mass killing", which also includes "ethnic mass killings" and "mass killing as leaders acquire and repopulate land." Neither of this explains why 'Communist mass killings' cannot be described within the context of genocides and mass killings in general article, which is exactly what scholars like Valentino did — their work was not focused on Communism but on genocide and mass killings, which is going to include also Communism and Communist regimes anyway, though mostly Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's.

You also ignore that Valentino says only Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot (e.g. the most radical Communist regimes) certainly fit the Communist mass killings category, while other events may also fit it but cannot verify them, and that most Communist regimes did not, in fact, engage in mass killings, and that his purpose was to explain why — all of this is missing, and can be described much better within the context of genocide and mass killings in general, especially during the 20th century, which is what most scholars do, e.g. comparison between Communist and non-Communist regimes, such as Cambodia, Holocaust, Rwanda. If you want a specific article focused on Communism, we may have a Communist death toll article, or have a separated article about links between Communism and mass killing, while merging events into a general article summary of genocides and mass killings in the 20th century, exactly as Valentino did. Can you explain what would be wrong with this, and why we should not adopt Valentino's work structure?

Davide King (talk) 01:59, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

(Mobile IP) Ya may wanna hold off on that idea & wait, until the AfD is closed on this article. GoodDay (talk) 09:45, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

A whole week is 'enough'. Decide the article's fate & close down the AfD.

It's nearly a whole week since the AfD was opened. Recommend an administrator or somebody who's good at judging AfDs, close it. You've got only two options - Close as 'keep' or close as 'delete'. If anybody complains about which option is chosen? Let'em complain to me, since I'm recommending closure. GoodDay (talk) 09:36, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Black Book of Communism

Evidently not a reliable academic source judging by how 3 of its main contributors rejected the conclusions synthesised by the editor, and two of them alleging that death tolls had been purposely inflated. If the AfD fails then content that relies on its conclusions and sources that draw on its conclusions should be removed per WP:QUESTIONABLE. Dark-World25 (talk) 12:10, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Black Book of Communism describes the work, and its criticism, which articles display a link to the work includes those featuring Template:Anti-communism in Europe since 1989. ~ cygnis insignis 12:24, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

I have no problem with that, but it should not be used as a source for academic consensus. A significant portion of the conclusions drawn in the article derives from the Black Book and its derivative sources. Dark-World25 (talk) 12:31, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

The criticisms revolved around the comparison of communism and nazism, which the article MKuCR doesn’t do. The other criticism is that Courtois inflated the numbers killed as 100 million, okay, say he did and the real number is actually 50 million, does that really make a difference? — Nug (talk) 12:38, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

PS, you should take it to WP:RSN rather than just tagging the article, that just seems lazy to me. —Nug (talk) 12:42, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

The template "{unreliable sources}" loses all meaning when an article is so tagged because someone does not like Courtois. Dark-World25 ought to revert.XavierItzm (talk) 15:51, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, RSN is the appropriate place for this discussion. Would be good to get a formal consensus on the Black Book at least. Perhaps it may be best to wait a few days after the close of the AfD before asking for community input on anything related to this article, just to let the heat die down a little bit. BSMRD (talk) 16:13, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

All of that is superficial. "Reliable" for what? The Werth's chapter is definitely contains many reliable facts and conclusions. The problem is that the source is used mostly to advocate the most controversial and politicized statement it makes: that "a total number of victims" is a legitimate scholarly topic, that all victims should be ascribed to Communism, and that Communism (a "generic Communism") was the worst murdered of XX century, which implies it was worse than Nazism. All of that is heavily criticized, and, if that article will be kept, it should be moved to the bottom to a separate section that discusses various controversies. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:21, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

A book published by Harvard University Press is not what the "unreliable sources" tag was created for.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 17:40, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes. It is reliable. But it is reliable primarily due to Werth&Margolin, but Misplaced Pages uses it to advocate the views of Courtois, whom Werth&Margolin openly disagree with. Werth traces the roots of Stalinist violence in Lenin, who according to him, was a successor of Nechaev, and he emphasises specific features of pre-revolutionary Russian society. Courtois sees the roots in Marx, and he stresses commonalities. Werth is praised by majority of authors, whereas Courtois is criticised. And guess, whom Misplaced Pages picks? That is not an ureliability issue, that is a misuse of a pretty reliable source, which is more a conduct issue than a content dispute. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:41, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

It is not my intention to be offensive, but one possible reason is that Werth's chapter is long, it contains no simple thoughts and general facts that can be picked up and pasted to the article, and it requires some efforts to understand and summarise it. By the way, did anybody here read it in full? Paul Siebert (talk) 18:45, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

The article does not use the BBoC to advocate anything, it just mentions Courtois' estimate of the death toll along with ten other estimates, along with his opinion about the linkage with communism along with the other author's opinions as to the causes, all attributed to him. Any challenge to his attributed viewpoint is either given immediately inline or as footnote anyway. So a separate section that discusses various controversies is redundant not only for that reason but also because nobody disputes that some specific mass killing did not occur under a specific communist regime, apart from certain famines for which there is a section on famine debates. --Nug (talk) 18:52, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Courtois sets the paradigm: to collect all deaths in one category. That creates a whole section, because is we remove this source, most of the rest is garbage. Courtois's idea to collect all deaths together was severely criticized by Werths and many other authors. That alone makes the existence of this section incompatible with NPOV. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:16, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Undue weight

I've noticed a lot of new sources have been introduced recently and it appears that many are given undue weight. For example why should we give any weight to Engel-Di Mauro when his paper is cited by nobody and his main area of expertise seems to be in the field of ecology? --Nug (talk) 19:02, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

@Nug: That is a rational argument. I wish you will apply it uniformly to all sources.

Yes, we need a common approach to assess weight issues. I already proposed you to express your thoughts on that account, but you did not respond.

WRT this concrete source, it is ridiculous to expect that the article published in May 2021 may have a large number of citations. In that case, the approach would be:

• Evaluate a publisher: Taylor&Francis is a reputable publisher, but I don't know if this concrete journal is respectable. Try to find its impact-factor.
• Evaluate the author: what is his main works? How well are they cited? and so on. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:13, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

It was discussed at RSN. As it published this year, and is corroborated by other sources already cited there (Ghodsee 2014), it seems premature to dismiss it like this. Apparently that is undue but Watson or Hicks (who is writing about criticism of postmodernism) are not? It is interesting how you find undue any form of controversy and criticism related to the topic, even if published in academic journals (e.g. you removed David-Fox too). Davide King (talk) 19:16, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

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