User:Smallbones/drafts

Cite Formats

cite formats

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Listings in Manhattan below 14th Street

Mass killing of non-combatants has occurred under several Communist regimes in the pursuit of the communist ideal of a utopian society Estimates for those killed range from 60 million to 100 million. The term "mass killing" refers not only to direct methods of killing, such as executions, bombing, and gassing, but also to the deaths in a population caused by starvation, disease and exposure resulting from the intentional confiscation or destruction of their necessities of life, or similarly caused deaths during forced relocation or forced labor. Thus political assassinations, the starvation deaths in the 1958-1961 Great Chinese Famine, lethal forced labor in North Korea and ethnic cleansing in Vietnam, have all been described as mass killings.

The highest documented death tolls have occurred in the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and Cambodia. Estimates of mass killings in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin range from 15 million to 40 million, while estimates of the totals from 1917 to 1987 go up to to 60 million. In the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong, mass killings are estimated from 65 to 72 million. And in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge the estimated death toll is between 1.5 and 2.5 million.

There have also been mass killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries.

finish checking refs, put in links to sources

Bibliography

• Combs, Dick (2008). Inside the Soviet Alternate Universe The Cold War's End and the Soviet Union's Fall Reappraised. Penn State University Press. p. 361. ISBN 978-0-271-03355-6.
• Courtois, Stéphane (editor) (1999). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press. pp. 8xx. ISBN 0-674-07608-7. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Hosking, Geoffrey A. (1993). The first socialist society: a history of the Soviet Union from within. Harvard University Press. p. 570. ISBN 978-0674304437.
• Gellately, Robert (2003). The specter of genocide: mass murder in historical perspective. Cambridge University Press. p. 396. ISBN 978-0521527507. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Kurtz, Lester R. (1999). Encyclopedia of violence, peace & conflict. Academic Press. p. 809. ISBN 978-0122270116. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Naimark, Norman M. (2010). Stalin’s Genocides. Princeton University Press. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-271-03355-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Rosefielde, Steven (2010). Red Holocaust. Taylor & Francis. p. 358. ISBN 978-041577757.
• Staub, Ervin (2010). Overcoming evil: genocide, violent conflict, and terrorism. Oxford University Press. p. 576. ISBN 978-0195382044.
• Valentino, Benjamin A. (2005). Final solutions: mass killing and genocide in the twentieth century. Cornell University Press. p. 317. ISBN 978-0801472732.

Concept 1

"Definition of "mass killings under Communist regimes" is a matter of judgement and heavily coloured by political opinion, so no figures of the scale of these killings should appear in the first sentence of the lede, before needed explanations have been provided of what each particular author means under "mass killings"."

Concept 2

"@TLAM and others. Place your statement there"

I also present two versions of the lede, which are based on the two concepts mentioned above. I suggest everybody to express their opinion about the concepts and the texts writtem based on them.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:02, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Draft 1

"Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century. Scholarship focuses on the causes of mass killings in single societies, though some claims of common causes for mass killings have been made. Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only mass murders or executions that took place during the elimination of political opponents, civil wars, terror campaigns, and land reforms, but also lives lost due to war, famine, disease, and exhaustion in labor camps. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion combine all these deaths under the categories "mass killings", democide, politicide, "classicide", or loosely defined genocide. According to these scholars, the rough estimates of total death toll of the mass killings defined in this way amounts to a hundred of million; however, the validity of this approach is questioned by other scholars. As of 2011, academic consensus has not been achieved on causes of large scale killings by states, including by states governed by communists. In particular, the number of comparative studies suggesting causes is limited. The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. The estimates of the number of non-combatants killed by these three regimes alone range from a low of 21 million to a high of 70 million. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries.

References: per WP:LEDE the proposed text is supposed to summarise the article, so no references are needed. The sole reference is to the scholar who utilised the term "Mass killings" to describe most mass mortality events under Communists.