Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes

I don't get it

Why is Mass killings under Communist regimes still available, when Mass killings under capitalist regimes got deleted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Limngalsavigo (talk • contribs) 00:20, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

This article is still available because it meets Wikipedia's standard for inclusion, which is "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", and there has been a consensus among editors (established in the most recent deletion discussions in 2010: this one and this one) that the topic is suitable for a stand-alone article. For "Mass killings under Capitalist regimes", you can read those two deletion discussions here (2010) and here (2012), but the short version is that sources were not included in the article or produced during the discussion which justified the article's existence according to the standard for inclusion. That is not to say there never will be, but the mere existence of this article does not alone justify that one. Since I have never seen sources discussing a topic even remotely like that outside of reacting to the Black Book of Communism or similar sources, I would argue that it is best treated as a component of this topic, rather than as a stand-alone topic with its own article. It is already very briefly touched on in this article in the "Comparison to other mass killings" section and the "Inclusion of famine as killing" subsection of the "Controversies" section, but expansion will probably have to wait until the editing rules for this article are relaxed. AmateurEditor (talk) 01:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Neither article meets Wikipedia policy, it's just that more editors have supported this article than the capitalism one. I note btw that the far right wiki, Metapedia has an article with the same name, but otherwise it is not a real topic even in anti-Communist literature. TFD (talk) 17:54, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

And not only Metapedia[19], but also Conservapedia[20]. Both wikis and Wikipedia use The Black Book of Communism as reference. It is easy to know what is the purpose and quality of that book. emijrp (talk) 18:43, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

The reason for the consensus to keep this article had little to do with the majority favoring it. A majority favored deletion in the first discussion in August 2009 but that did not cause it to happen. A majority opposed deletion in the second discussion in September 2009 but the result was "no consensus". A two-to-one majority favored "keep" in the third discussion in November 2009 but the result was still "no consensus". Deletion discussions are not votes. This is stated explicitly in the deletion guide here: "Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policy (if any)." The consensus to keep this article was only established during the fourth deletion discussion, in April 2010, because literally every argument in favor of deletion was shown to be without merit in the course of the discussion. Even the nominator changed their mind. A key part of that was the presentation of several high-quality, reliable, academic, secondary sources addressing the topic in detail (these four in particular). If you are serious about getting this article deleted, you owe it to yourself to read that deletion discussion (and the one after it, which reinforced the consensus determination but mostly retreaded the arguments) and come up with credible, Wikipedia-policy-based responses to the points made there.

The second point about the contents of Metapedia and Conservapedia proving the inherent bias of this article ignores a few things: one, I am sure there are plenty of articles in those wikis that also have counterparts here that you would not object to; two, this article is not based on those articles, is worded differently, and uses a different set of sources written by different people to meet a different standard; and three, and most importantly, Wikipedia articles are to be judged on their own merits and sourcing, based on Wikipedia policies, not on what other articles may or may not exist elsewhere (including elsewhere in Wikipedia). AmateurEditor (talk) 00:33, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Certainly deleting administrators are supposed to only consider policy based arguments, but if one editors says keep, it is a valid topic in rs, while another says it is not, both views must be considered. Your mention of 4 sources discussing the topic is inaccurate. Valentine for example, while noting that mass killings have occurred under Communist regimes, provides no theory about the connection. It would be the same as if he said that there have been mass killings in Asia and we created an article called "Mass killings under Asian regimes." Also, he identifies mass killings as over 50,000 people intentionally killed in a 5 year period, which is not the definition used here. He concluded that most Communist regimes did not carry out mass killings and only three definitely did (Soviet Union, China and Cambodia). Furthermore his book does not group mass killings in Afghanistan under MKuCR, but under counter-terrorism mass killings.

I think it is significant that Metapedia should choose to copy this article's title, althoug certainly they make an explicit connection between Jews and Communism, which this article does not. While there surely are articles in Metapedia that are about legitimate subjects, it is significant that the only other encyclopedias that chose to include this topic are Metapedia and Conservapedia. (Incidentally, the link goes to the wrong Conservapedia article.)

The inherent weakness with this article is that it begins with a thesis then seeks sources to back it up, rather than beginning with sources and developing an article about what they say. That creates a huge problem with weight. We cannot know how widely held your views about Communism and mass killings are, because the subject is ignored in mainstream and even most fringe sources.

TFD (talk) 01:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you that deletions discussions are to be judged on policy based arguments, not majorities. Valentino (not "Valentine") certainly does identify a connection between the mass killing under communist regimes. You can call it a theory if you want, but I would rather just call it his opinion. He says "I argue that radical communist regimes have proven such prodigious killers primarily because the social change they sought to bring about have resulted in the sudden and nearly complete material and political dispossession of millions of people." I think the article is right not to limit itself too strictly to his 50,000 killed within 5 years standard, because it is an arbitrary boundary that even he acknowledges as such. He himself uses the term to also refer to smaller events, saying "Mass killings on a smaller scale also appear to have been carried out by communist regimes in North Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, and Africa." And you are mistaken about Afghanistan: he attributes the mass killing there to multiple overlapping causes, one of which is communism.

I don't think what is copied or written in Metapedia or Conservapedia is in any way significant to our discussion here.

There are more than enough good sources to justify this article by Wikipedia's standard. The four sources I presented were published by mainstream academic presses (Cornell University Press, Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, and Princeton University Press), so it is very far from fringe. I agree with you that this article was started poorly. It has, however, improved a great deal since then and you are welcome to propose edits to improve it further. Better yet, why not push to relax the editing restrictions so we can improve it faster? AmateurEditor (talk) 02:17, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

While Valentino does say that, he does not elaborate on his theory. Furthermore, it would only justify creating an article on his theory, although the lack of secondary sources covering it meets it fails notability. Max Weber presented a theory, the protestant ethic which says that Protestants are more industrious than Catholics due to their religious beliefs, and rightly that article explains his theory. But it does not attempt to prove his theory by coatracking in articles about economic success in the UK and U.S. and economic failure in Italy and Spain. Furthermore to reach good article status it would need to present opposing views. Note too that Valentino refers to "radical Communist" regimes, which presumably would be Stalinist USSR, Maoist China and Pol Pot's Cambodia rather than for example Gorbachev's Soviet Union. TFD (talk) 03:16, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Valentino elaborates quite a bit, he dedicated an entire chapter in his book to it. And he is just one of several academics who have studied the observed phenomenon of these killings. His "theory"/explanation of why these killings occurred shouldn't be confused with the topic of the killings themselves being somehow theoretical, or the topic being somehow outside of the academic mainstream, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. AmateurEditor (talk) 04:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

No, he provides three case studies (USSR, China and Cambodia) and other than the one sentence in the intro, does nothing to tie them to communist ideology. And he puts Afghanistan into a separate section (counter-insurgency, which btw is also carried out by non-Communist regimes.) The Black Book incidentally does the same thing. Different scholars were invited to write separate chapters about mass killings in USSR, China and Cambodia, but none of them tied them TFD (talk) 13:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

We agree that Valentino ties this to communism (and he used more than that one sentence to explain himself, by the way, I just didn't see the need to copy it all to prove the point). If he structured his chapter with case studies of the big three, and others did similarly in their publications, then we were right to have structured this article that way. Establishing due weight in the article for the components of this topic is not so difficult after all: we focus on the big three (U.S.S.R, China, and Cambodia) and give less space to the others examples. You are right that Valentino discusses Afghanistan in a different section of his book (chapter 6 on counter-guerrilla mass killing), but wrong that he does not also relate it to communism. You can see here on table 5 on page 83 that he lists "communist" as an additional motive for the events there. Having different authors invited to write different sections of a book on communism as a whole is a practical way of concentrating expertise, not a trick on the part of the publisher or something. The writers of the Black Book of Communism knew what the project was about and signed on with that knowledge, whatever their later misgivings about the overall numerical estimate provided by Courtois. Controversy about particular estimates or causes is not the same as controversy about the topic as a topic. As a topic, I don't think this is controversial at all outside the left. There is lots of legitimate dispute about the details, and this article must accurately reflect that. AmateurEditor (talk) 00:40, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

That's a flimsy basis on which to build an article. In a table, Valentino puts the word "communism" in the field "other causes" for Afghanistan, yet never explains what the extent was. He did not mention it in the article. The authors of the articles in the Black Book knew that Courtois would compare and contrast mass killings in the various countries, yet none of them did so themselves. Even if you used original research and synthesis, the connection would be flimsy,

The other problem is that if a notable theory exists, we are able to report it, but we should not assemble information in order to prove it. That is why "Jews and Communism" was deleted. It pulled together a bunch of examples of Jews who were Communists in order to imply a connection between Judaism and Communism, just as this article pulls together mass killings to draw a connection.

TFD (talk) 16:39, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

The sourcing basis of this article has nothing to do with Valentino's treatment of Afghanistan, and I don't know why you would expect an extended explanation from him in a chart. I pointed that out to demonstrate your misunderstanding of his views on the events there, where he clearly considers communism to be a secondary motive (but not irrelevant). I also don't know why you would expect someone assigned to write a specific chapter in a collaborative work to color outside their lines. The Black Book of Communism is rightly treated as a whole because it was created that way. We would be right to wonder at their relevance if those chapters were copied from earlier unrelated publications without their authors' permission. That was not the case here. And why are you ignoring all the other academic sources presented to you here that "draw the connection" between communist regimes and mass killing, and which actually do serve as the basis for this article, along with those two? No original research or synthesis is needed to write this article. What is needed is a large number of edits to heal the scarring and mutilation that resulted from several years of rushed writing, lazy reading, partisan bickering, bad faith argument, and disruptive editing. I think the article is actually remarkably OK considering the circumstances, but there is a lot to do and all of it can be improved. AmateurEditor (talk) 23:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree with the argument that "if there's no articles of capitalist regimes, then this one should be deleted". Capitalism and communism are completely different concepts. Capitalism is merely a system of economics and ownership, while communism is political ideology and state system. Unlike communism, capitalism has no single canonical description, it's rather a loosely knit catalogue of economical concepts. Communism on the other hand had a number of canonical authors (Marx, Engels, Lenin), manifestos and a few branches, that can be clearly distinguished but come from the same origin. These canonical works of communism also clearly visible tendency towards violence and class cleansing, which was the very reason why mass killings were happening in the regimes described in the article. This article should perhaps discuss in more details the topic of systemic violence in marxism and communism, but the current description of historical killings has also its value. Kravietz (talk) 20:11, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

You might be right, but you would need sources that explain the connection between Communist violence and canonical works. If such a view was notable then we would be able to establish the degree of acceptance it has and write a neutral article. Some violence by capitalist states have been attributed to capitalism, at least by some writers. (See for example Chomsky's writings.) TFD (talk) 20:46, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I think that Kravietz is correct in saying that the comparison between Capitalism and Communism is not a symmetric one, and a bit of an apples vs oranges situation. I am still unsure of how I feel about the existence of this article. On the one hand, the topic is clearly notable, and has received coverage in reliable sources. On the other hand, treating these mass killings as a unified subject is not common among scholarly works, (I think) primarily because communism is not remotely unified. I think it was TFD who said that really the mass killings which have received significant attention are those in China, Cambodia, and the USSR, and even there the scholars making the connection between them are basically just Stephane Courtois....Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I've done quite a bit of reading on this for this article, and I am not confident in saying that treating these killings in a unified way is uncommon among scholarly works (assuming you mean scholarly works where you would expect to see such treatment, rather than in narrowly focused works, which would be more numerous almost by necessity). In fact, I think the sentence in the lead that says "Scholarship focuses on the causes of mass killings in single societies,..." is technically synthesis, as it is not specifically stated in any source I am aware of (although I would bet it's true). The Black Book of Communism is definitely the impetus behind the surge in scholarly attention on this, but I don't think it is right to attribute everything to Coutois. Even where other scholars are citing Courtois, they are making their own contributions. I hope we can all agree on this: everything in the article should have a citation backing it up and the sourcing should determine the article's shape and content. AmateurEditor (talk) 23:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

In the first place, "sources that explain the connection between Communist violence and canonical works" were not subject of this discussion. It started from "capitalism vs communism" and this is precisely what I responded to. Then, the connection between communism and violence is pretty well documented in articles on Dictatorship of the proletariat, Revolutionary socialism and Red terror. And finally, you don't really need any formal "proof" (which is impossible in such vague topic as social science), because the article is about communist regimes that explicitly self-declared themselves as communist. And this is correct approach - otherwise one could deny practically any connection between theory and practice of any ideology (sample: was Germany a real nazism? and what was actually nazism about? did they actually finish building nazi state? etc) Kravietz (talk) 22:57, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

If we were able to create articles about "communist regimes that explicitly self-declared themselves as communist" then we could throw the notability policy out the window. The fact that social sciences are not exact sciences does not mean that our own opinions are as valid as ones published in reliable sources. Anyway we do have articles such as "Slavery" because social scientists unanimously believe that slavery did exist. And of course we could write about capitalist regimes that carried out mass killings, because Nazi Germany and South American dictatorships were capitalist. The neutrality problem with that article is that it would imply these events were connected to capitalism, yet provide no sources. That is the same propaganda technique used in "Jews and Communism" - the listing of Jewish Communists and stats gave the impression that Communism was a Jewish project without providing any sources that made that analysis.

Incidentally, one of the sources used for this article, the Lost Literature of Socialism does draw an explicit connection between the canons of socialism and mass killings. According to the author, obscure writings of Marx and Engels called for mass killings, which Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot carried out. Unfortunately it does not jive with the standard anti-Communist ideology, because it sees socialism and nazism as conservative.

TFD (talk) 02:09, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

If I remember that discussion correctly, it was agreed that while Watson's book, The Lost Literature of Socialism, met Wikipedia's standard for inclusion, the views expressed there were outside the mainstream and it should both be given the lowest weight in the article and be paired with criticism from other reliable sources (which is how it sits today). I think that was the right decision. We didn't anticipate at the time how stunted the growth of the article would become under these wrong-headed sanctions, so the relative low weight of that source is not as obvious now as it should be. The solution is to resume building out the rest of the article. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:27, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Watson is an expert on Victorian English literature and his book was published with a professional publisher (there is even a second edition), and reviewed in a literary journal but otherwise ignored. I suppose that makes it meet a low threshold for rs, but there is no reasonable basis for presenting the opinions it expresses. Why has no editor called for his views to be included in articles about conservatism, liberalism, socialism, etc.? TFD (talk) 02:54, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

It turns out that he died not too long ago. Here's an article about him in the New Statesman. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:38, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Vanamonde93, the comparison will never be symmetric on an english language wikipedia, but not primarily for the reasons that Kravietz mentions. The asymmetry is primarily a product of the very long Cold War (spanning 80-odd years), which was itself asymmetric. This cannot fail to influence the overall balance of the literature that most editors rely on. It also cannot fail to produce some editors who will zealously defend the American hawk's eye view of history, even in places where they are on very weak ground. This in my view is reason why both of the "mass killings" articles do more harm than good: they essentially reflect the balance of political forces and encourage bias and generalization.

For example the article on capitalist mass killings could have easily included slavery, the industrial revolution, the bourgeois revolutions, world wars, colonialism, the holocaust, ethnic cleansing, famine and malnutrition, the Vietnam War, inequality etc etc. Contrary to TFD, sources plenty of sources describe the regimes responsible for these unspeakable crimes as capitalist, some even draw a connection between capitalist dynamics and the said crimes, which is trivial to do. You'd get quite a few corpses that way. This does not even touch upon the fact that the business of flashing the numbers of human rights violations has been targeted disproportionately at Communist regimes. Producing body counts and atrocity stories is both difficult and labor intensive. Due to the cold war, millions of man hours have been spent documenting and publicizing the crimes of the other side. No remotely comparable effort has been directed towards disputing these numbers or cataloging "our" crimes. This is the reason why many of the lesser-researched and fringe communist atrocity stories make their way to wikipedia without any challenge. One would expect that they would strain credulity and require proper verification, but they don't because they fit the general narrative established during the cold war. I am speaking here from extensive personal experience. To channel Chomsky (sorry): incriminating the enemy requires less evidence than incriminating one's own regime. This is simply a fact of life.

All this is NOT to dispute the fact that Communist regimes were responsible for tens of millions of deaths, which they most certainly were. I am simply urging caution when approaching the "reliable sources" on commie atrocities. An article such as this one simply encourages one to compile a list of the more extreme "anti-communist" sources - which are in plentiful supply - regardless of their merit. Take a look at the sections on Vietnam and Hungary. Would such blatant black propaganda be acceptable on any other issue? How to explain the weight that Rummel (who charged the post-Stalin USSR with killing 7 million people) is given throughout Wikipedia?Guccisamsclub (talk) 03:12, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

And actually Kravietz, if you want to be pedantic about the ideological foundations, all the regimes you mention described themselves as "democratic", "popular" and god knows what else. Interestingly, none of them claimed preside over a communist society. But remember Stalin's slogan? Hint: it's not Communism in one country. Of course "communism" remained their purported goal and was one common thread. My goal for example is six-pack abs. As for the "dictatorship of the proletariat", I never knew that auto-workers were a significant presence in the Khmer Rouge, or in Cambodia as a whole. Sorry, I know this tongue in cheek is not terribly constructive, but I couldn't resist. After all this thread won't really affect the article anyway. Guccisamsclub (talk) 03:53, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Capitalism has no "canonical works", especially ones that would propose disappearance of a whole social class to achieve equality. Communism has well-defined canonical works which propose precisely that: and if you follow the history of communist movement between 19 and 20th century, you will see that the mainstream communism (Marxism, then Marxism-Leninism) made a number of critical decision choices that were always pro-violence. First, it was the Critique of the Gotha Program and Marx's opposition to any form of evolutionary socialism, then Lenin's State and Revolution. The connection between the ideology and further actions of these government is in these cases quite clear and IMHO justifies an article that documents practical outcome of these choices. You might write a huge articles listing all possible atrocities in the history and blame it on vaguely defined "capitalism" (actually using it as a synonym for "greed"), but pointing out to any canonical works would be difficult. In the first place, there are no "canonical works" for capitalism, second, none of those I know call for extermination of people. And those for communism do. Kravietz (talk) 05:30, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Guccisamsclub, You are not correctly reflecting what I wrote. I wrote, "Some violence by capitalist states have been attributed to capitalism...." Sometimes that violence has resulted in mass killings. What we do not have is a body of literature that connects "mass killings" with capitalism, as opposed to specific case studies. I notice that Pluto Press published Final Solutions: Human Nature, Capitalism and Genocide in 2013, but that does not constitute a body of literature. Even if we had dozens of similar books, it would be tendentious to present detailed accounts mass killings carried out by capitalist regimes rather than explain why some people think they are connected.

Kravietz, no communist canons call for extermination, but lots of pro-capitalist texts, especially in the age of imperialism, can be read that way. It may not be greed either. It could for example be justified if primitive races or communists stood in the way of property rights.

TFD (talk) 06:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

There are plenty of marxist canons for extermination, please refer to the articles mentioned above. A wide selection of citations is also available in Wikiquote. Kravietz (talk) 19:32, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

None of the quotes say that. Please provide a single source that backs up your view. TFD (talk) 15:13, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Here you go: "The working class must act in such a manner that the revolutionary excitement does not collapse immediately after the victory. On the contrary, they must maintain it as long as possible. Far from opposing so-called excesses, such as sacrificing to popular revenge of hated individuals or public buildings to which hateful memories are attached, such deeds must not only be tolerated, but their direction must be taken in hand, for examples' sake." (Karl Marx, Address to the Communist League (1850)) or "there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror." (Marx, 1848) or "The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward." (F. Engels, "The Magyar Struggle"), or "Under all conditions well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points" (Trotsky, 1940). This is just a small sample, I didn't bother to quote Derzhynski or Latsis. Kravietz (talk) 20:06, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

If you read entire the "Address to the Communist League (1850)", Marx was daring the "radical democrats" - read NOT the Worker's League or workers in general - to carry out their "terroristic phrases" in their struggle against the dictatorship. He was not calling upon the Worker's League to engage in wanton murder, which would have been absurd, but rather to egg on the "radical democrats" in their attack on the old regime. So what was the task of the Workers League? To "Alongside the new official governments they must simultaneously establish their own revolutionary workers’ governments, either in the form of local executive committees and councils or through workers’ clubs or committees, so that the bourgeois-democratic governments not only immediately lost the support of the workers but find themselves from the very beginning supervised and threatened by authorities behind which stand the whole mass of the workers. In a word, from the very moment of victory the workers’ suspicion must be directed no longer against the defeated reactionary party but against their former ally, against the party which intends to exploit the common victory for itself." Later, the attitude of Marxists toward petty-bourgois "terror" evolved into one of outright hostility. It is no accident that you cite the early Marx here. Regardless, the connection between Stalinist terror and a few phrases from the early Marx is tenuous at best, especially given the context. What were the main characterictics of Stalinist terror and what did they have in common with these phrases from Marx, other than the general acceptance of violence, which was and remains universal? Did Marx in 1848-50 call upon the workers to murder all rich peasants or to murder left and right deviationsists within their own ranks? In any case Marx was not much of a terrorist in his day. Like "dictatoship", terror was a generic term back then. There were far more appeals to terror in non-Marxist radical literature (anarchists, radical democrats, narodniks etc), and mass violence was practiced by all political forces. To bring it all back to WP, you can certainly cite any source that explicitly makes the connection between Marx and Stalin, but there are also tons of sources which view it as being highly problematic.Guccisamsclub (talk) 02:23, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Marx called for a violent revolution and explicitly rejected possibility of a peaceful transition (like Gotha). Because he believed he discovered 'universal laws of history and economics' and the revolution is unevitable, he didn't call for an immediate uprising, because it should have happened by itself. But where it would happen, he fully approved use of violence. The objective was 'disappearance of bourgeoisie as a class', and since he did not leave many precise instructions on what should happen after the revolution, these proposals were freely interpreted by their interpreters. Many variants of which we have seen in 20th century. My authority on Marxism, Leszek Kolakowski wrote in his Main Currents of Marxism that while Marx's intentions were generally to achieve a democractic state, the 'logic of the ideology' he described was such that allowed quite extreme interpretations and this is precisely what happened in USSR in his opinnion. I can only add to that that Marx's definition of 'democracy' was also not really compliant with today's definition of democracy. When saying about 'true democracy' Marx meant rather something like ochlocracy, and absolute rule of majority (the working class), but not neccesarily the whole set of democratic institutions like freedom of speech, public debate, free elections etc. This fitted the logic of marxism, because he believed after the dictatorship of the proletariat there will be 'classless communism' but, again, this was as scientific as Terry Pratchett's books. Kravietz (talk) 21:31, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

User:Kravietz, you are blowing the existence of supposedly "canonical texts" out of all proportion. We are not talking about religious sects. Colonialism had no canonical texts, does that mean it never existed? Same goes for New World slavery. Same for feudalism. Disputing the existence of capitalism as a distinct politico-economic system because it has no "canonical documents" is clearly fringe and absurd. Systems exist primarily for material reasons, not because some guy draws up a model and everyone agrees. Capitalism is very diverse, but that does not mean it's undefinable. Indeed the term is familiar and recognizable the world over. There is hardly ever serious disagreement about whether a country can be described as capitalist, through there is plenty of bickering about "true capitalism" among the faithful (just as there was the same kind among Communist regimes.)

Just go and read Lenin's State and Revolution to see why 'canonical texts' are important. Lenin is approaching writings of Marx and Engels in the same way as salafites approach texts of Muhammad and Witnesses of Jehova approach Bible. They pick up specific sentences, take single words, to come to their decision-making conclusions - in case of Lenin, that "Engels' historical analysis of its role becomes a veritable panegyric on violent revolution", for example. Also you're not that much wrong about the religion - sectarian character of Marxism has been pointed out by Karl Popper and Leszek Kolakowski. Kravietz (talk) 19:32, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

IMO there is indeed an asymmetry "capitalism" and "socialism" (in the revolutionary sense), namely that the former arose to describe an existing system, while the latter arose to describe a future system. As far as I can tell, the only thing that follows from this is that it is much more straightforward to describe the USA as capitalist than the USSR as socialist. We don't have to qualify our labeling of a country as "capitalist" with "but according to Von Mises, true capitalism is X Y Z..." or "some people prefer it be called the Free World", because capitalism as a developed social system preceded the actual term. On the other hand, while Marx's did not invent the socialist movement, his writing clearly preceded the establishment of any "socialist" regime that claimed him as its own. So if we follow your emphasis on canonical texts we would have to qualify socialism each and every time by highlighting the differences between the original vision and the reality of 20th century Communist regimes. Before too long, every article will begin to sound like a Trotskyist pamphlet.

The words 'socialism' are so overloaded with meanings that they're now pretty much meaningless, especially socialism, as it's used to describe spectrum as wide as from public healthcare, through social-democracy to 'real socialism' in USSR. Communism is simpler, as it's mostly used to describe the marxist-leninist fraction simply because they called themselves as 'approaching communism', and were considered as the most successful of all fractions (of course, untill 1990). And all 'communist' states indeed shared the same core of marxism, similar methods and aims. With capitalist states it's much more difficult: can you see find many similarities between capitalist Sweden and Russia, China and Germany, US and France? They are indeed very different political and social systems, but tend to call them all 'capitalist'. Kravietz (talk) 19:32, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll just respond one last time: what I had in mind was socialism as envisioned by revolutionaries in the 19th century. It is only appropriate to ask what the original meaning of the term had to do with Marxism-Leninism. I completely agree that state-socialism (Marxist-Leninist variant) is a less diverse category than capitalism, but its is still fairly diverse. Indeed it is possible to see the Cuba as vastly different from Democratic Kampuchea. As for capitalism, of course all of these countries have a capitalist economic system, coupled with a political system that perpetuates it. This is not even debatable. The existence of a welfare state or dictatorship does not mean that a country is not capitalist. Again capitalism is almost universally accepted as a valid category. Guccisamsclub (talk) 20:26, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Turning to the particular documents you mention, are you aware that the Gotha Programme was founding document of the Social Democratic Party of Germany? Or of the fact that canonical texts of the Bolsheviks included Kautsky's works? The State and Revolution is almost universally seen as a libertarian document, in stark contrast to the actual workings of the future Soviet system. In any case few scholars pretend that the connection between the wording of the founding documents and the resulting social system is trivial to make. Usually conservative people just borrow the argument of Edmund Burke: that any social revolution will lead to terror and misery, regardless of the revolutionaries original intent. This of course makes any analysis of the canonical writings irrelevant, as all revolution are expected to lead to lead to the same disaster anyhow (be they anti-colonialism, anti-slavery, anarchist, bourgeois, peasant etc.)

I'm very well aware of both Gotha Program and Kautsky's position, and you missed the key point: Marx totally rejected Gotha Programme (thus "Critique of...") and Bolsheviks considered Kautsky to be a "renegade" (lital title of Lenin's article). This is precisely what I meant when I wrote about key decisions points made by Marx and Lenin towards more violent variants - social democracy went the very other way and was never called "communism" in the mainstream, because this word was used to describe Bolshevik movement. Kravietz (talk) 19:32, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry I misread. As far as the mainstream German social democracy is concerned (including Kautsky) it certainly took the Critique of the Gotha Programme to heart, after it became a more Marxist party (Lassalle was not a Marxist). The Renegade Kautsky was written after the fallout of the war, which resulted in a split in the word socialist movement. Lenin considered German Social Democracy as a model before the war, and greatly respected Kautsky. Also as far as founding texts are concerned, consider the prestige of Plekhanov in Soviet Marxism, particularly from Stalin onwards.Guccisamsclub (talk) 20:26, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

By the way one of the more convincing connections between the model and the result was drawn by a Communist named Nicos Poulantzas in "State, Power, Socialism". Poulatzas argument is that Lenin, and to a far lesser degree Marx, were dangerously wrong in calling for the complete destruction of the capitalist state and its replacement with workers' councils. Like Rosa Luxemburg before him, he advocates a middle road between parliamentary and soviet democracy.

Ok. I think its time to stop writing because this thread is already too long. An interesting but futile debate.Guccisamsclub (talk) 16:34, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Kravietz, you are taking quotes and adding your own nonstandard interpretation. Following your reasoning, when Michael Harrington said there should be no poor people in America, that was a call to take out all poor people and shoot them. TFD (talk) 18:20, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Mass killings under Capitalist regimes

Just a quick note. The article Mass killings under Capitalist regimes which was deleted in July 2010 after Afd discussion, was re-created in 2012 and again deleted after afd discussion, was again re-created in August 2015 and deleted as G4, which deletion was confirmed by deletion review closed on 7 September 2015. --Bejnar (talk) 22:04, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

And good thing, too. That categorization is far, far too broad, not to mention vague. Kurtis ^(talk) 01:10, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I have a feeling that the consensus for deletion was based on the feeling that such an article should not exist in "principle". Of course the actual article was pathetic. But I stongly disagree that such an article should not exist in principle. Capitalism is not a vague natural phenonomenon; its a distinct social system that has existed for only the past <500 years of human history. To say capitalism is too vague a word is actually an extreme form of apologetics. Such deconstructionist view on capitalism is also fringe.Guccisamsclub (talk) 10:45, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Well actually, "capitalist" can apply to a very, very broad range of economic systems used by an equally wide variety of different historical societies. That's because capitalism involves some degree of private investment in the market, from simple mercantilism through to full-out plutocratic hegemony and everything in between. If such an article were to exist, there would need to be a clearly defined scope, which is next to impossible to achieve. You would have some obvious additions to the list - Augusto Pinochet and other Operation Condor regimes, Park Chung-hee, etc. But where is the line drawn? Do we include the likes of Saddam Hussein, Hafez al-Assad, or Benito Mussolini, who did allow a few private enterprises to exist but within very strict parameters (i.e. "private" in name only)? Does the system of governance necessarily have to be dictatorial? Do we exclude any government that espouses some form of socialism? Communism was a very specific political and economic movement that took hold in the 20th century and has come to be associated with oppression, mass killings, and the complete absence of private enterprise. It is very easy to delineate communist regimes - they were self-identified as such and conformed to the centrally planned economic model established by the Soviet Union. It is therefore much easier to define the scope of this article; Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Kim Il-sung, Vladimir Lenin, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Le Duan, Siad Barre, probably Ho Chi Minh and Josip Broz Tito as well, etc. Kurtis ^(talk) 11:49, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

There is about as much similarity between Lenin and Siad Barre as there is between Napoleon III and Nehru, both of who presided over CAPITALIST regimes incidentally. This business about seeing the enemy as a monolith and everyone else as diverse is ideology pure and simple. Naturally the scope of the capitalism article would be "broader": Capitalism is a 500-year old worldwide social system. Does the capitalist regime have to be dictatorial? No. Does the capitalist regime have to promulgate an ideal "neo-liberal" capitalism? No. Arguably, no such regime has EVER existed. You also missed the big one in your list: Nazi Germany. You want to pin all the crimes of Stalinism (even third-word regimes whose leaders barely knew who Stalin was) on the socialist left. OK. But you have to be prepared for the fact that on the other side people will grind another axe, and will tell you that the Holocaust is a product of European capitalism.Guccisamsclub (talk) 12:07, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

The cases you mention: Assad and Hussein, as well as Algeria and Libya: these are borderline cases. However they differed with the Soviet model in the following way: they arguably did not set out to replace capitalism with a completely different social system. The "direction" of these regimes different. This is not a minor point, because if you judge capitalism by solely by the size of the private sector, you'll find that Soviet Russia under the NEP was "more capitalist" than the Arab nationalist and kleptocratic regimes you mention. But this, as I think many experts would agree (including CIA analysts), would be a pretty nonsensical statement because it looks at snapshots and not at the historical processes. Yeltsin's Russia also had a huge state sector, especially early on. But everyone knew which way the wind was blowing and the sort of model the Yeltsin regime was trying to establish. You can just as easily find Marxist-Leninist regimes with largely private economies: eg Angola in the 1980's and perhaps a few others. Oh yeah: China today.Guccisamsclub (talk) 12:22, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

But more to the point: what would be our criteria for inclusion? Well we'd have to examine the borderline cases one at a time and see what the RS' say. This would be preferable to some rigid static criteria. But either is preferable to denying that capitalism exists (as something distinct from human nature, which is tens of thousands of years older than capitalism) and assuming that "communism" is the only politico-economic "system" in human history that can be held responsible for crimes of one kind or another. That way the case is bound to rigged.Guccisamsclub (talk) 12:54, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Can we compile sources about capitalism and its crimes in another talk page (perhaps a stub article or user subpage)? This has been discussed several times here but always ends archived after it falls inactive. I can help with sources in Spanish. emijrp (talk) 13:34, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

• I categorically reject each of your assertions. For starters, Lenin was not a capitalist by any stretch of the imagination; he allowed for limited mercantilism and private ownership of land because it was more pragmatic than having the burgeoning Russian government attempt to control all the means of production itself, which would have exacerbated what was already a humanitarian catastrophe wherein millions of people starved to death. In what way was the regime of Siad Barre capitalist? Is it because he aligned himself with the U.S during the Cold War? I don't know where you got the idea that I want to "pin the crimes of Stalinism on the socialist left", or that I see communism as "a monolith"; neither of these are true. My opinion is that the countries mentioned in this article should be ones that openly identified themselves as communist, and are recognized as such by reputable sources. The subject of mass murder under communist regimes has received extensive mainstream academic attention, and as I've said before, is much easier to define than a parallel list of mass killings under capitalist regimes. Kurtis ^(talk) 13:45, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I never said Lenin was capitalist. I said the opposite. Nor did I say that Barre was a capitalist. Apologies Kurtis, had you confused with another user. You're categorically rejecting a straw man, just as you've done with the writings of Marx and Lenin. Your case boils down to the self-identification of the regimes, which makes it easy to treat them as a single category. But just because something sounds simple does not mean it's correct or accurate or has any explanatory value, something that is understood among serious scholars. As for "pinning the crimes of Stalinism on the revolutionary left", I think smearing the classics of Marxian thought as religious and genocidal screeds is doing exactly that.Guccisamsclub (talk) 14:09, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread your reply. I thought you were referring to Siad Barre and Vladimir Lenin as "capitalist regimes", when you were actually talking about Napoleon III and Nehru. Kurtis ^(talk) 16:55, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Sure emijrp, set up a place and ping the participants. But Kurtis is correct that an article about "Capitalist Crimes" - especially on an english wiki - would be very tricky business. Many people are critical of both types of Mass Murder articles for the same reasons, including myself. But then you have many people who will only have it one way: communist regimes are guilty of mass murder until proven completely innocent in the vast majority of sources (good luck there), while capitalism is innocent until proven guilty, and even then with a ton of caveats. This side has a sort of monopoly on the issue of "mass murder" and I think its wrong to let it go uncallanged. At least we can try to provide some balance.Guccisamsclub (talk) 14:00, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

A couple of points; Guccisamsclub, I don't think you're far wrong in your analysis, but the trouble is that we're dependent on secondary sources making the connection between Capitalism and mass murder, and more importantly, between the various regimes that were both capitalist and murderous. Not many such exist. Any article built on individual examples is likely to be SYNTH. There's not many for communism, either; but given that we are on the English 'pedia, we tend to be dependent on English (read "US based") sources, which naturally have a certain tilt to them. If it were purely up to me, neither would exist, because they would both be viewing their respective systems as monolithic. But it's not up to me; we have to work with what we have, and reliable sources are reliable sources, regardless of their biases. Vanamonde93 (talk) 14:27, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I recognize the problem, Vanamonde93. On the issue of RS' that draw the connection between capitalism and cases of mass murder, that's where you are wrong. No RS' agrue that the enclosure movement, colonialism, new world slavery, settler colonialism and genocide, America's wars, Fascist and other reactionary bloodlettings, or indeed the great bourgeois revolutions themeselves had something to do with capitalism? How about a few million deaths after the collapse of the USSR? All this can be sourced. Or let's take a failed state like Haiti. Capitalism and capitalist regimes had nothing to do with its predicament? And these are just cases where the connection between capitalist dynamics and mass suffering is self-evident and can be sourced. But we could also take the whongheaded approach employed in this article and complile a list of crimes that occurred in capitalist countries, regardless of the reasons. Of course we'll never be able to complile an simplistic indictment along the lines of Courtois and Rummel, because such idiocy is largely the provenance of the Cold War right. But yeah I doubt it'll ever get off the ground. RE SYNTH: that is a major problem. Thanks for pointing it out. Guccisamsclub (talk) 14:53, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Crimes listed in this article were not committed "regardless of reasons". They were committed in most cases because this was how these governments, openly declaring themselves as communist, interpreted the marxists concepts of communist revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat, categorically denying any form of evolutionary social changes — this is the essence of marxism. You can't really find anything like this in capitalism. First, none of the states I know declares itself as "capitalist". Second, no state cites some lunatic prophets in their constitutions, like communist countries did with Marx, Engels or Lenin (neither has mumified their presidents too). You might have more luck with openly theocratic states, either referring to Islam (a wide selection today) or Christianity (not sure if there are any). But I'm not sure if it's really worth the effort, as now it mostly looks like "oh, they wrote something bad about our communism, let's find something equally bad for their capitalism". The difference is that capitalism is an open system, that constantly evolves, and large part of it nowadays incorporates many social-democratic proposals. Communism was a closed system, because its beginning and end was defined in 19th century and, as we know today, it was completely detached from reality in both its means and objectives. Kravietz (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure Khmer Rouge decided to wipe out the cities, because that's what the ghosts of Marx, Kautsky, Lenin and Luxemburg commanded. Is this the new academic consensus on the Khmer Rouge genocide? You think Communism was the worst thing since the plague, ok I get it. I am not keen on it myself. Guccisamsclub (talk) 22:36, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Ghost are bourgeois metaphysical superstition, so definitely not ghosts, but this was definitely their understanding of speedy way from bourgeoisie to a form of agrarian socialism. Kravietz (talk) 21:19, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Guccisamsclub: Rather than an article purely about capitalism and mass murder (with a list of massacres and figures), I would like to start one about repression in capitalist countries against working-class, labour movements, strikes, students, etc, and that can include murder, torture, imprisonment, banning of organizations and publications, espionage, etc. Of course there are many examples like Marusia massacre but capitalism crimes are more complex and broader than just a list of massacres. And not only capitalism per se, but also imperialism (imperialist wars, etc) and (neo)colonialism crimes (slavery, etc). Unemployement (25 million in Europe), refugees (current news), coup d'etat and killing of head of states (Allende, Lumumba, Gadafi), ties between bourgeoisie and fascism (Hitler, Mussolini, Franco), supporting of dictatorships like Pinochet, etc. So, if someone is interested in all that, we can set up a place to discuss the article(s) schema. emijrp (talk) 15:20, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Now, why didn't you continue the list with Shooting of the Romanov family or Novocherkassk massacre? Seem to fit your definition of capitalism: coup d'etat and killing of head of states plus repression against working-class Kravietz (talk) 21:19, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

"Seem to fit your definition of capitalism: coup d'etat and killing of head of states plus repression against working-class". Oh no, but then how do we define capitalism???!! After your a brilliant refutation, I have to concede - with great sadness - that capitalism in fact cannot be defined as "the act of killing of a head of state". Now why did I believe such nonsense all these years? Thanks for opening our eyes Kravietz.Guccisamsclub (talk) 23:59, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

There is actually article Anti-communist mass killings, it is not very good though.--Staberinde (talk) 20:03, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

This is actually quite good article from scoping perspective: it has precisely defined scope (murders of supporterts of communism) and is well-documented. This is why it's not being deleted, as compared to the Mass killings under Capitalist regimes strawman. If you really care about the subject, go and expand it. Kravietz (talk) 20:25, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Kravietz Sorry to bicker again, but it it really that great from a scoping perspective? Take the "White Terror" in Spain. Even if Franco succeeded in killing every PCE member, which is absurd, that would still be half the total death toll. So is it correct to see it as an "anti-communist" mass killing? It may be correct that these massacres were carried out by professed "anti-communists", but the lede promises an article about the killing of communists, while the article delivers something entirely different. And besides, "anti-Communism" is indeed a very broad tent. Also, that article makes no mention of the guy who shot more known Communists than anyone else, by a landslide: Joe Stalin during the Great Purge. Quite an oversight, if you ask me.Guccisamsclub (talk) 21:12, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

The pair of you are still arguing from first principles; "no government identifies as capitalist!" "capitalists do not deify lunatics!" it doesn't matter what you "know". Are there sources which describe governments as capitalist? If so, they are capitalist for our purposes. Similarly with communism. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:35, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

This was sort of a different topic, but I'll take the bait, Vanamonde93: Haiti was a capitalist state. The victims of Duvalier's reign of terror numbered in the tens of thousands. So we have the first section of "Mass Killings under Capitalist Regimes" then and there. And did I really have to source the claim that Haiti was a capitalist state? Now moving on the USA... The USA was a capitalist state {disputed, the US self-identifies as "free"}, Truman nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. So we got section two. And section two+1... And section n. Do I think this is quality article in the making? Hell no. Can it be sourced? Hell yes. Should it exist? If "mass killings under communist regimes" exists, hell yes. Guccisamsclub (talk) 22:10, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Okay folks, with all due respect, the discussion has veered very far from a) changes to this article and/or b) possible other articles. Unless this gets back on track, I am going to invoke NOTFORUM and hat this thread, because this really isn't the place for general discussions on Marxism and Capitalism. Vanamonde93 (talk) 01:54, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Good call. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:08, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

The talk page reflects the quality of the article, in my view. My goal here was only to demonstrate that a comparable article could have been written about mass killings under capitalist regimes, not to argue about which was "worse", which would have been silly. I think I've at least partly demonstrated that it was possible. The fact that it was not reflects the "ideological" balance in the community above all else. To most here, "mass killings under communist regimes" is just good common sense and requires little to no evidence (again, take a look at the Vietnam and Hungary sections for an illustration). On the other hand, "mass killings under capitalist regimes" is seen as gibberish along the lines of "bestiality under fiat money." Indeed the very concept that capitalist regimes can preside over "mass death" appears bizarre (reminds me of a NYT editorial about Pol Pot - no not saying he's "capitalist" - when he was on our side: "Brutal Yes, Mass Murderer No"). For any "capitalist mass killing" you better have conservative numbers and extensive proof; no Rummel number-mongering will cut it. But again, in principle a well-sourced and circumspect article on capitalist mass killings is possible (at least one that's far more nuanced than this article here). What is lacking is (wo)man-power, enthusiasm and ideological bluster. Much of the ideological energy here is being directed in the opposite direction: opening people's eyes to the horrors of the red revolution and exposing its lies about capitalism. Something to think about about as we continue to teach from the establishment cold-war canon, the victors' version.Guccisamsclub (talk) 03:59, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Minor change to ref -- edit protected request

Page has been protected for a while, so requesting this minor reference format change please, change ref at end of Further Reading from:

• Weiss-Wendt, Anton (December 2005). "Hostage of Politics Raphael Lemkin on "Soviet Genocide"" (PDF). Journal of Genocide Research (7(4)): 551–559.

To

• Weiss-Wendt, Anton (December 2005). "Hostage of Politics Raphael Lemkin on "Soviet Genocide"" (PDF). Journal of Genocide Research. 7 (4): 551–559. doi:10.1080/14623520500350017.

This adds the DOI and corrects the volume/issue parameters. Thanks Rjwilmsi 08:07, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:43, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposed additions to section "Comparison to other mass killings"

I would like to seek consensus on adding the following materials to the section Comparison to other mass killings for the purpose of counterbalance:

Mark Aarons contends that right-wing authoritarian regimes backed by Western powers committed atrocities and mass killings comparable to the Communist world, citing such examples as the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, the Indonesian killings of 1965–66, the "disappearances" in Guatemala during the civil war, and the torture and killings associated with Operation Condor throughout the Southern Cone of South America. Daniel Goldhagen claims that during the last two decades of the Cold War, the number of U.S.-backed regimes practicing "mass-murderous politics" outnumbered those of the Soviet Union. John Henry Coatsworth suggests the number of repression victims in Latin America alone far surpassed that of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc during the period 1960 to 1990.

References

--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:28, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose Sounds like trying to make this a "POV-fork" - as articles on the other categories already exist on Wikipedia. Perhaps you would do better improving those other articles instead of crating a faux balance in this one?Collect (talk) 15:41, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support per WP:DUE. Comparisons between such killings are frequent in the literature, and form a significant portion of academic coverage on this subject. Therefore, it needs to be covered. The current version does not adequately cover the diversity of academic views on the subject. Collect, POV-forks refer to separate articles; Griffin's addition is required by policy, which states that "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources." Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:39, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

The "other articles" already exist - thus if we add this here, we should also add the material from this article to the others. This addition is thus not "required by policy" - it flies in the face of the practice under which each article can be separate. Anti-communist mass killings already exists. If you wish it to be included here, propose a merge at AfD. And add all the articles in the Politicide and Genocide categories whilst you are at it <g>. Sorry -- hard enough to have a simple article on a single topic without infusing it with every killing under the sun. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:47, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

The article you mentioned does not have a section comparing anti-communist mass killings to others (perhaps it should); this article does. This section is inadequate and POV as it omits what scholars have to say on the subject of comparing Communist mass killings to those of Western-backed regimes in the context of the Cold War. I did not make this up out of whole cloth as a POV-fork; the scholarship mentions these incidents in that specific context. No one is trying to infuse the article "with every killing under the sun."--C.J. Griffin (talk) 17:18, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I do not think they compare "Communist mass killings," since that topic does not exist outside this article, but they compare mass killings by the USSR or Eastern European countries. TFD (talk) 18:31, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Aarons does compare the "mass repressions and killings occurred throughout the Communist world" (including the USSR, PRC and DK) to those of Western backed regimes (see the link in my last comment). As the proposed additions above indicate, Goldhagen and Coatsworth are comparing such killings only to those of the USSR and/or Eastern Bloc.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 18:46, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Other than saying "These atrocities have been matched by those committed by Western backed or sponsored dictators or regimes," he does not say anything. His article is about the lack of prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The article for example does not explain how MKuCR differs from Western supported mass killings. TFD (talk) 19:26, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

TFD, your long-standing denial that this topic exists at all, despite the clear "Keep" outcomes of two consecutive AfD discussions, verges on trolling. But to assume good faith, here are excerpts of four sources that address this topic directly, one of which has a chapter literally called "Communist Mass Killings". AmateurEditor (talk) 03:56, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Accusing another editor of trolling is a personal attack. Despite two consecutive decisions to keep, there were three consecutive decisions of no consensus. The article was created by a troll, who has been indefinitely blocked[21] and his user and talk pages have been deleted. After I nominated this article for deletion you set up a page about me, User:AmateurEditor/thefourdeuces, which has been deleted, but clicking it one can still see the advice it was deleted. This article has been protected from editing since 2011[22] based on enforcement of WP:EEML of which you were a party.

I have already commented on your sources. It reminds me of the subject who is shown inkblot pictures and says, "Why are you showing me dirty pictures." The dispute between Russia and Ukraine etc. is ethnic/nationalist based, not ideological, and we should not conflate them. That the dispute remains despite the ideological shift proves that.

As I explained, there is literature about mass killings in each of these countries, and some articles connect mass killings by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, but no one (except us) has put them all together.

TFD (talk) 15:06, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

To be clear, your behavior has been more like civil POV pushing than baiting people for fun. But you have demonstrated a pattern of tendentious behavior with this article that is absolutely appropriate to discuss. I'm not disparaging you personally, I'm telling you that your refusal to accept the well-established consensus here is disruptive to the process. Those three "no consensus" determinations preceded the two clear "Keep" determinations, which are the most recent ones (and the most relevant, since they included the sources I just again provided to you). It's true that I was assembling a case about your behavior to present on a noticeboard back in 2009 (your claim it was an attack page was dismissed at the time, see here), but I thought your behavior then was too similar to the behavior of others involved here on the other side of the dispute to justify singling you out. However, you're completely wrong that I had anything to do with the EEML group; you may remember that those editors were blocked while the "Keep" consensus was established, and I participated in both of those "Keep" AfDs. If you have honest problems with those four sources, then you should address the excerpts in detail to try to convince others. Dismissing them as "inkblot" tests for the reader does nothing to convince anyone and serves only to disrespect those who disagree with you. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:32, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Probably best to avoid personal attacks on the article discussion page. A large number os editors have always found this article problematic and it is the longest protected article in Wikipedia history, so there is no real consensus on the article content, which is why we continue to discuss it. TFD (talk) 16:50, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

As I recall, the last time it was proposed to ease the protection level, you opposed it. But the length of the article protection doesn't reflect badly on the article itself so much as it reflects no clear consensus to change the protection level. Maybe that's what we should be discussing. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:13, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

The reason that I opposed unprotecting was that without any general agreement on how we were to proceed, there could be no improvement. Administrators have kept this article protected because there is disagreement about it. It's not a matter of they thought this article was so outstanding that any changes could only weaken its excellence. TFD (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the article protection doesn't reflect on the article at all, one way or the other. But you have not been trying to improve the article, you have been denying its legitimacy despite the "Keep" consensus and despite the plain evidence that the consensus is based upon being presented to you. Rather than trying to convince others that you are right, which would certainly be appropriate for a time despite any consensus, you make empty assertions over a span of years that the topic doesn't even exist, and when (repeatedly) presented with the quoted evidence you ignore, dismiss, or strangely belittle it as "inkblot pictures". Disagreements over how to improve the article would be no problem at all, but you want it deleted, despite everything to the contrary.

You don't have to change your opinions, and you don't have to stop criticizing, but refusing to acknowledge reality doesn't make it go away. When even showing you use of the term "Communist mass killings" in a reliable source doesn't get you to acknowledge that the topic exists, and even - and I'll link to them again - emphasizing in bold font the use of the generalized term "communist regimes" in quotes from several reliable sources doesn't make an impact on you, and even posting a quote using the generalized term "communist regimes" to this talk page, as Collect did below, so that you don't even have to take the effort to click on the link to the academic source gets no reaction from you, then disruptive POV pushing on your part is the only reasonable explanation.

And yet, still, I think you could contribute to improving the article. Constructive criticism of it is valuable and I don't actually want you to get blocked. Half a loaf is better than none, and you've gotten none here for a long time. C.J. Griffin's proposed edit makes a significant contribution to diversifying the perspectives on the topic in the article. Surely you would rather accomplish something with your time on Wikipedia other than beating a dead horse. There's plenty to do. AmateurEditor (talk) 01:30, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support. The sentences add missing perspectives that improve the article's coverage and neutrality, and the citations check out. Citing sources with points of view is appropriate for that section of the article and is done appropriately in the proposal. The views are clearly attributed to their sources and not in Wikipedia's voice. That section is explicitly for sources that have made these comparisons and it is not altering the subject of the article to include them. Collect's concern that it would create a POV fork does not apply because this is not a proposal to create an article focused on one POV of the topic, it is more like the opposite of that: it is filling out the various diverse POV's on this topic found in the sources. AmateurEditor (talk) 03:56, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment In addition to the "Black Book", other places using this as a defined topic include Rummel's many works, Valentino's Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, Rosefielde's Red Holocaust, Travis' Genocide, Ethnonationalism, and the United Nations: Exploring the Causes of Mass Killing Since 1945, Snyder's Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, and slews more including [23] which says that "communist regimes, when they do engage in mass killing, kill large numbers of people." And so on. Wikipedia is not the only place noting the issue. Collect (talk) 15:24, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
  • I imagine you were replying to me. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin discusses mass killings by Stalin between 1933 and 1945. As I said above, "there is literature about mass killings in each of these countries, and some articles connect mass killings by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, but no one (except us) has put them all together." The same discussion came up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jews and Communism (2nd nomination). As I wrote there, "The article fails notability because no books or articles have been written about the topic. In the few cases where the subject is mentioned in reliable sources, it usually contains the statement that no studies have been conducted on this topic. Of course there are various articles about Jews and Communism in different countries at different times, for example Jews under Communism in Stalin's Soviet Union or Communist Jews in the United States between the two world wars. But nothing links them, making the article implicit "synthesis."" TFD (talk) 00:01, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - this article is about mass killings under communist regimes, not about cold war. What's next, shove Holocaust in here and conclude that Stalin wasn't really that bad after all? If people want to add extra content about anti-communist massacres then there is whole separate article for that: Anti-communist mass killings. Feel free to expand that.--Staberinde (talk) 16:45, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but the section in question compares communist mass killings to other (non-communist) mass killings. The Holocaust is already mentioned there, btw.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 23:29, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. Comparisons to other killings are made in a variety of directions in sources about this topic, so we shouldn't be excluding these based on our own personal preferences. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:32, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

To second the above remarks - the article did shove the Holocaust in there - it's right there in the very section we're discussing. And what does the article tell us? Communist atrocities were "at least as heinous" as the Holocaust (and according the very source the article quotes for this breathless POV (Rosenfielde) - they were 10 times more murderous than Hitler and Hirohito combined). Not one quibble, not one contrary opinion to this near-revisionism of the Holocaust and WWII is presented - not one. That is where things stand with current section.81.88.116.27 (talk) 23:31, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment C.J. Griffin added the exact same content to Criticism of communist party rule [24]. So, are you going to add "hey, US support for authoritarian regimes was worse than the communist states!" on every occasion crimes by communist states are discussed? Seems like the work of a POV pusher.--Pudeo' 22:50, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I think that as long as the points of view are correctly sourced and accurately represented, we are actually obligated to include them if they are on topic, per WP:YESPOV. AmateurEditor (talk) 01:36, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

True as long there is due weight to include such a comparision. And that's dubious with this kind of "gotcha!" commentary. Every instance of human rights violations by communist states does not warrant a mention of US foreign policy. --Pudeo' 02:01, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Oppose. C.J. Griffin is scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel with worthless sources like Chomsky, Coatsworth, and outspoken genocide denier Edward Herman to promote his anti-American agenda. It is profoundly telling that three of Griffin's four examples are civil wars (in Indonesia, Guatemala, and East Timor; the latter conflict also involved foreign occupation by Indonesia and extensive atrocities by communist rebels who were responsible for 49% of the violent killings in 1975; for the purposes of this article, it would be more relevant to discuss the brief period of communist rule in East Timor) while the fourth, Operation Condor, is a laughable far-left hoax article that collapses upon even a cursory examination and should probably be deleted. ("At least" 60,000 to 80,000 killed, based on citogenesis with mainstream sources that say "as many as 60,000" and blogs used for the higher figures? How is that possible, when the official estimates for all killings perpetrated by the juntas in Argentina and Chile combined account for only a meager 16,000 and none of the other countries included in the definition committed atrocities of any statistical significance? BTW, not even the actions of Argentina or Chile would constitute "mass killing" as defined by Valentino et al.; "repression victims" is not "mass killing", but a selective POV WP:COATRACK.)TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:19, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Do you have any sources for your statement about Indonesia? TFD (talk) 04:23, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Which statement? If you are talking about the events of 1965-66, the communists attempted to seize power by force, and it backfired horribly. Rather than an organized purge, what followed was a chaotic campaign of vigilante violence enjoying broad popular support, with killings conducted face-to-face and using the most primitive and brutal methods. As the main article says, the role of the army has never been fully explained; in some cases, the authorities had to intervene to put an end to the bloodbath. The communists fought back and in some areas continued guerrilla warfare for years afterward: "In a number of areas communists regrouped. Bali, like parts of Java, was almost in a state of civil war until military groups came in and tipped the balance in favor of the anti-communists....In parts of East Java, conflict lasted for years. In Blitar, Sukarno's birthplace, PKI survivors regrouped for guerrilla action before they were crushed in 1967 and 1968."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:19, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Of course, this isn't merely a semantic point; the point is that Suharto's regime did not commit mass killings as part of its normal process of domestic rule (in fact Indonesia under Suharto was characterized by many of the systems of social consultation that constitute a democracy).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:32, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Your last argument carries zero weight. If we were to judge Stalin's regime by the last years of his rule, he would not go down in history as a mass-murderer. If someone cherry picked a citation to this effect, shoved it into Wikipedia to advance the POV that "Stalin was not a bad guy" - they'd be universally regarded as insane or worse. But somehow your utterly clumsy whitewashing of Suharto is supposed to be taken seriously? And what did this "social consultation" consist of under the late Suharto? Massive looting of public funds and awe-inspiring corruption a la Mobutu (who also implemented a sham "parliamentarism" in his latter years)? 81.88.116.27 (talk) 19:48, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support The current section is laughably POV. It quotes Goldhagen - selectively. It quotes Rosenfielde at length - including a flippant remark about mass death under Capitalism being "fashionable nonsense". I also like his quote about the "Red Holocaust" being "as heinous" as the Holocaust. Yep - nothing contentious about that innocent little remark. Also, while Rosenfielde's section on the USSR - his area of expertise - is well sourced and accurate (though very little of the research is his own) - his section on Vietnam is FRINGE garbage. And yet he's a "reliable source" on the entire history of Communism, whose claim that Communism was "ten times as murderous" as Hitler and Hirohito is in no way reflective of extreme bias. If that's really the case, maybe the US and Britain fought on the wrong side in WWII - Hitler and Hirohito would have saved tens of millions from the "Red Holocaust". C.J. Griffin does NOT propose OR or SYNTH - he simply quotes the sources, as far as I can tell, so I don't see any reason to block his changes. Is the current section really so perfect? Guccisamsclub 81.88.116.27 (talk) 19:30, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

• Further Comment If the proposed additions are inappropriate, then neither is the entire section. In fact, I don't think these questions can be adequately addressed in this article - so if the existing section is deleted that'd be fine too.Guccisamsclub 81.88.116.27 (talk) 20:00, 23 January 2016 (UTC)