Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Communist terrorism

Communist terrorism

Delete. Non-notable neologism. The phrase "communist terrorism" is occasionally used to refer to many different things, but there is no clear definition of the term and it is never used in counterterrorism scholarship. The page is a barely readable hodge-podge of WP:SYN violations, bringing a number of organizations together under the umbrella, using WP:FRINGE theories like Pacepa's ridiculous claim that the KGB created the PLO and making them seem mainstream. It cites people talking about "Red terror" and combines it with material about theorists like Nechaev and Bakunin (more widely understood as anarchists than communists) and other material. Nearly every citation I've looked at on the page is taken out of context to try to make a case for "communist terrorism." csloat 07:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep So none of the thirty odd sources quoted in the piece matter then? Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence official to have defect from the Soviet bloc, would disagree with the assertion that 'communist terrorism' isn't a useful term. This from a piece in the Wall Street Journal site [1] on August 7, 2007. 'The final goal of our anti-American offensive was to discourage the U.S. from protecting the world against communist terrorism and expansion. Sadly, we succeeded. After U.S. forces precipitously pulled out of Vietnam, the victorious communists massacred some two million people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Another million tried to escape, but many died in the attempt. This tragedy also created a credibility gap between America and the rest of the world, damaged the cohesion of American foreign policy, and poisoned domestic debate in the U.S.'

As for it being a new fangled 'neologism' the phrase was used by Time Magazine in a piece on the Malay Communist Insurgency in 1951 - the piece, by Manfred Gottfried, chief of foreign correspondents for TIME & LIFE, begins 'They speak of Emergency here. It means Communist terrorism. The Emergency is not getting any better. Every day or so another planter or soldier or constable is killed. .' [2]

The nominator also says it isn't a term used in counterterrorism scholarship. He's obviously unfamiliar with the book 'Terrorism verses Democracy' by Paul Wilkinson which states 'Italy, Germany, France and Belguim, all of whom have deployed the hardline approach against the Red Army or fighting Communist terrorism of the 1970s and early 1980s, succeeded in these efforts' [3] .

There are any number of such references if one cares to look for them. Perhaps the nominator was too preoccupied with this [4] to look them up for himself. Nick mallory 09:09, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]