Talk:Gas van/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Rundown of sources for uninvolved editors?

Can anyone provide a rundown of the sources and what they say? Only secondary sources published by well-known academic publishing houses etc. Thanks. François Robere (talk) 21:12, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Do I understand it correct that you are talking about Soviet gas van?--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:36, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

You are. François Robere (talk) 13:31, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

• The sourcing discussion in the Requested Move section above is a red herring. We don't split or merge articles on the basis of sourcing. The issue is: given the argument that Nazi gas van is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of Gas van, and Nazi gas van is unequivically a topic of the Holocaust, why should material on Soviet gas van (a topic of the Great Purge) be inserted into a Holocaust topic[1]? Nobody has answered that satisfactorily. They should remain separate articles. --Nug (talk) 21:58, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Nug, I already answered that: "Soviet gas van" was in reality a minor incident during the Great Purge, and has drawn the attention of some authors only because of parallelism with Nazi gas vans. Both Solzhenitsyn and Albats write about that in a context of Nazi gas van. Obviously, "Soviet gas van" emerges from Nazi gas van. I am sure the word "dushegubka" was applied to Soviet gas vans retrospectively. It is absolutely obvious that Soviet gas van should be discussed in a context of Nazi gas van.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:18, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Since some sources that focus on Soviet gas vans draw comparisons with Nazi gas vans, that can be stated in the article Soviet gas van. But since sources that focus on Nazi gas vans make no mention of Soviet gas vans (as there is no connection since the Nazis invented them independently), there is no need to devote a whole section on Soviet gas vans in the article Nazi gas van, a link in "See also" would be sufficient. --Nug (talk) 05:13, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

• I'm only looking to understand what sources exist that support the text, especially as I've noticed some sources may not be WP:RELIABLE for the purpose of this grouping of articles (eg. articles from popular media). Once RS are established, content can be discussion. François Robere (talk) 14:22, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Ok, here is the list of sources with my comments.

1. An article by Zhirnov in Komsomolskaya pravda. This article is not available online, but several other sources reproduce it, including the later article by the same author that was published in Kommersant. This article tells about Isaj Berg, a medium rank NKVD official who used gas vans for transportation victims to the place where they were supposed to be shot. The document Zhirnov was referring to was the NKVD dossier (Berg himself was arrested, and usage of gas vans was one of accusations that were put forward against him). Several other sources cite this story, and KP article is the only source they are using as a source: they cite either the KP article or each other, but they use NO other independent sources of information. These sources are:
2. Solzhenitsyn's "200 years together"
3. KGB: The State Within a State. 1995 by Albats
4. Catherine Merridale. Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia.
5. Timothy J. Colton. Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Belknap Press, 1998. ISBN 0-674-58749-9 p. 286.
6. Е. Жирнов. «По пути следования к месту исполнения приговоров отравлялись газом». Коммерсантъ Власть, № 44, 2007 (The same author, Zhirnov, tells the same story and cites the same document)
7. Robert Gellately, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe, Knopf, 2007.

The above sources are reliable secondary sources, although it would be POV pushing to present them as separate and independent sources: they use the same source of information, and they describe the same event. In addition, the following source exists that does not disclose its sources of information, but tells essentially the same story:

8. Н. Петров. «Человек в кожаном фартуке». Nikita Petrov, Novaya Gazeta (ru:Новая газета, спецвыпуск «Правда ГУЛАГа» от 02.08.2010 № 10 (31))

In addition, one source, which is not cited in the article, (The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-45 Author(s): Stephen Wheatcroft Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 48, No. 8 (Dec., 1996), pp. 1319-1353Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/152781)) says that the claim about usage of gas van during the Great Purge is "sensational", and it requires further confirmation.

In addition to these sources, another group of sources exists that tells about the same event (1937 Moscow executions), and are based on a collection of testimonies assembled by Golovkova and published by Lipkov:

9. Александр ЛИПКОВ, "Я к вам травою прорасту…", Alexander Lipkov, Kontinent, N 123, 2005. This author is not a professional historian, he is writing about cinema, and he provides no own analysis of collected testimonies. There is a lot of interesting information there, but we cannot use it, because it would be OR. Interestingly, some witnesses note that Berg's words about usage of gas van are not more trustworthy than confessions made by other Great Purge victims, because most likely Berg was tortured during the interrogation. The testimonies of other witnesses allow us to make a conclusion that the vans were used to incapacitate victims before execution similar to what Nazi did in Yugoslavia with non-Jewish victims (in contrast to the Berg's story, that can be found in a reliable source). That is a good demonstration of a danger of usage of primary sources, as our policy says.

10. Хроника событий 1937 года (Chronicle of the events of the year 1937), by Evgeniy Zhirnov, Kommersant, №42, 22.10.2012, page 10. In this source, the author cites testimonies of one witness where a usage of a van is described with the goal to incapacitate victims. Actually, no analysis or author's comments is provided, so it is more a primary source.

11. Kizny (not cited in the article) performs the analysis of the above primary sources (Assayer has an access to that source, I am waiting for some text from him).

12. Marek Hałaburda, “The Polish Operation”. The genocide of the Polish people in the USSR in the years 1937–1938, Orientalia Christiana Cracoviensia, 2013, v.5, p. 71 - cites Kizny as the only source. If a good summary of Kizny's study will be provided, Halabuda should be removed.

All above sources say about the same story: the gas van usage during the Great Purge executions in Moscow, presumably under supervision of Isaj Berg. Other sources discuss usage of gas van elsewhere.

13. Газовые душегубки: сделано в СССР (Gas vans: made in the USSR) by Dmitry Sokolov, Echo of Crimea, 09.10.2012 An obscure op-ed article published in an obscure local newspaper with non-existing Alexa ranking, and this article was authored by some Sokolov, whose credentials are unknown, and who has no publications that were cited by peer-reviewed publications, and no review on his works are available. An RSN discussion you were a participant of concluded that that source is unreliable. This article cites two primary sources.

14. Григоренко П.Г. В подполье можно встретить только крыс… (Petro Grigorenko, "In the underground one can meet only rats") — Нью-Йорк, Издательство «Детинец», 1981, page 403: the author reproduces, from memory, a conversation, which took place in a distant past, with a witness of what he believes was usage of gas vans in Omsk city in 1930s.

15. Шрейдер М.П. (Shreider M.P) НКВД изнутри: Записки чекиста. (NKVD from within. Notes by Chekist ), Moscow: Возвращение, 1995. – p.78. This source presents testimonies of a witness of usage of a van to incapacitate victims before execution. According to the author, that happened in Ivanovo city. Interestingly, the wording:

"Причем он рассказывал, что, когда закрытая автомашина прибыла к месту расстрела, всех осужденных вытаскивали из машин чуть ли не в бессознательном состоянии. По дороге они были одурманены и почти отравлены выхлопными газами, специально отведенными по спецпроводу в закрытый кузов грузовика."

coincides with the text of the source #10:

"Причем он рассказывал, что, когда закрытая автомашина прибыла к месту расстрела, всех осужденных вытаскивали из машин чуть ли не в бессознательном состоянии. По дороге они были одурманены и почти отравлены выхлопными газами, специально отведенными по спецпроводу в закрытый кузов грузовика. "

That means the Gas van article uses the same primary source twice.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:22, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

• Yes, there are at least 15 sources, all of which qualify per WP:RS and make claims generally consistent with each other. Other comments are mostly your personal assumptions, although I will not respond in detail because everything was responded already on several pages. For example, your #13. No, this is not an "opinion piece", but a history article for general public by a historian. No, the information about this author was reliably published in other RS, he published books, etc. No, his article cites more than 2 other sources. And so on. My very best wishes (talk) 17:00, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

1. Thanks Paul. First off, keep in mind sourcing restrictions and general sourcing quality guidelines; the Pravda article on its own is not enough, but scholarly sources that cite it are usable.
2. If the first few sources describe the same case, then we should mention it as a single case.
3. Witness testimonies are WP:PRIMARY sources. The definition of a WP:SECONDARY source is (or should be) "an uninvolved author using primary sources in the process of synthesis, analysis, observation and critical review." If the testimony was reprinted but none of these took place (as you suggest for Lipkov), then it is still considered "primary".

@My very best wishes: How many of the sources are recent, secondary, peer-reviewed sources? Not newspaper articles, and nothing earlier than 1950-1960? François Robere (talk) 19:52, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

First publication on this subject apparently appears in 1981, in the famous book by Petro Grigorenko published in New York (contrary to the claim by Paul just below). As about other questions, I would be happy to discuss and answer, but given the recent comment by Paul [2], I would rather stop editing these pages and even talking, at least for time being. You should understand it. I have better things to do in my life. My very best wishes (talk) 20:14, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Also, please keep in mind that 3 first paragraphs in the Soviet Union section were re-written by user Darouet [3], I only made a few minor trivial corrections later. I would write this differently. My very best wishes (talk) 21:02, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@François Robere: For the first time, the Soviet gas van story was published in 1990 in Komsomolskaya pravda. After that, several secondary sources reproduced this information and supplemented it with some comments. The historical document that laid a foundation of this bunch of publications (##1-7 in my list, and probably ##8&9) is 1938 interrogation records of Berg (an NKVD document). Other sources cite the data collected by Golovkova and published by Lipkov, and they tell about the same story. Kizny is RS per our policy, without reservations. Halaburda just cites Kizny. Sokolov uses some testimonies, but this artilce is not a RS per NEWSORG.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:31, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

---

I've taken the option of applying the more stringent sourcing requirements to the Soviet gas van content off the table, for now. But please feel free to launch an RfC about whether the notability of the Soviet gas van phenomenon can be attributed to that of the Nazi gas van one (mainly in the context of the latter). If there is consensus for that, then the sourcing requirements may be reintroduced to encompass the Soviet gas van content (be it in a split article or in a section in this article, does not matter). El_C 01:12, 5 December 2019 (UTC)