Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:47, 26 March 2024

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Great Purge article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2Auto-archiving period: 2 months

This  level-4 vital article is rated B-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Soviet Union: Russia / History Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Soviet Union, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Soviet UnionWikipedia:WikiProject Soviet UnionTemplate:WikiProject Soviet UnionSoviet Union Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Russia (assessed as Top-importance). This article is supported by the history of Russia task force. Death Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Death, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Death on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.DeathWikipedia:WikiProject DeathTemplate:WikiProject DeathDeath Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Socialism High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Socialism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of socialism on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SocialismWikipedia:WikiProject SocialismTemplate:WikiProject Socialismsocialism High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Problem with the introductory summary

The introduction states "The Great Purge... was Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin's campaign to solidify his power over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the state; the purges were also designed to remove the remaining influence of Leon Trotsky as well as other prominent political rivals within the party." This is contradicted by the more recent work of James Harris, Stephen Wheatcroft, and others cited later in the article that the purges were not motivated by Stalin's hunger for power but a fear of counterrevolution fueled by misleading intelligence reports, the rise of anticommunist right-wing dictatorships along Soviet borders led by the aggressive, expansionist Nazi regime, intensified fears of invasion, particularly after the emergence of the Anti-Comintern Pact and the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. STPatrick1982 (talk) 15:55, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

The works of Arch Getty also provide another outlook, focusing on the nature of how the purges spread out and ended up infecting the intelligentsia at large which caused it to accelerate in scope rather than some grand orchestrated terror campaign to secure Stalin's position 144.124.136.48 (talk) 10:57, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Why does the link for the "Kremlin Case" redirect to the Great Purge article?

The Kremlin Case or what is more commonly known as the Kremlin Affair/Kremlin Plot was a distinct event in 1935 that occurred before the Great Purge. No special attention is paid to the specific affair within the article, so if there's a good reason for it let me know. Padlocks (talk) 06:48, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

• If it was a lead-up event, then it would be worth mentioning, and properly sourced of course, even if it isn't a part of the Great Purge itself. More than likely, the reason it isn't included is simply because no one has taken the time to research, source and write it. Alternatively, if it truly is completely unrelated, you can always start an article using WP:AFC and ask for the sourced article (even if incomplete) to be published over the redirect. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 06:55, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Western émigré victims in great purge article provides uncited source.

comment that ‘americans who went to the embassy of the united states were rounded up and shot by ‘lurking nkvd agents’ links to a third hand report piece which provides no citations. given a lack of citations this section should be shortened to discuss more general issues 82.14.96.126 (talk) 04:07, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The statement is also almost copied word for word from the cited article:

Article:

At the height of the Terror, the American emigrants had besieged their embassy, begging for passports so they could leave Russia.

Misplaced Pages:

At the height of the Terror, American immigrants besieged the US embassy, begging for passports so they could leave the Soviet Union.

Article:

They were turned away only to be arrested on the pavement outside by lurking NKVD agents.

Misplaced Pages:

They were turned away by embassy officials, only to be arrested on the pavement outside by lurking NKVD agents.

The cited article is also an advertisement / summary of a book (The Foresaken) that Tim Tzouliadis wrote (the same Tim Tzouliadis also happens to be the author of the cited article). As for this author's credentials, Amazon states: "Tim Tzouliadis is a writer and filmmaker. Born in 1968, he read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University, and went on to pursue a career in television current affairs and documentary-making for Channel 4, BBC2, NBC Television and National Geographic Television." If I'm reading that correctly, he doesn't have an academic background in history or Eastern European studies that would make him an obvious expert on the topic at hand. Though, the synopsis on Amazon on the book also claims that, the author looked into potentially reliable sources: "Through official records, memoirs, newspaper reports and interviews searches the most closely guarded archive in modern history to reconstruct their story - one of honesty, vitality and idealism brought up against the brutal machinery of repression." However, from the synopsis, it's not clear how he got access to "the most closely guarded archive in modern history", and it's also not clear how much of his book is based on actual reliable sources and how much on "memoirs and interviews". I don't have a copy to fact-check. There are some reviews that say that notes and bibliography take up half the book and that he relies "mostly on secondary literature", while others say that it's mostly based on the memoirs of two Americans, "thin documentary record", that the author "failed to capture the overall historical significance beyond the obvious suffering of select individuals", and that "the book is pretty thin in terms of historical interpretation and significance".

Either way, it's definitely not a classical academic source. Nakonana (talk) 17:36, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Not in source

I reverted recent changes by @FictiousLibrarian because no source saying that - User talk:FictiousLibrarian#February 2024 . ManyAreasExpert (talk) 18:45, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Crimes against humanity category removal

Crimes against humanity is a specific legal concept. In order to be included in the category, the event (s) must have been prosecuted as a crime against humanity, or at a bare minimum be described as such by most reliable sources. Most of the articles that were formerly in this category did not mention crimes against humanity at all, and the inclusion of the category was purely original research. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:49, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

WP:NPOV issues with "Stalin's role" section

The section, contra WP:DUE, presents a biased account containing largely only the views of a specific camp of historians. While those historians certainly exist and do have those views, the section incorrectly presents their views as consensus or as fact in Wikivoice. The section should be revised to (1) point out that there is a lively and ongoing scholarly debate as to the extent and character of Stalin's involvement and (2) summarize the views of all sides in this debate. Notable voices excluded from this discussion include the views of J. Arch Getty, Sheila Fitzpatrick, R. W. Davies, Stephen G. Wheatcroft, Jerry F. Hough, Lynne Viola, Moshe Lewin, Bob Allen, and undoubtedly others. Brusquedandelion (talk) 03:47, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• B-Class level-4 vital articles
• Misplaced Pages level-4 vital articles in History
• B-Class vital articles in History
• B-Class Soviet Union articles
• Top-importance Soviet Union articles
• B-Class Russia articles
• Top-importance Russia articles
• Top-importance B-Class Russia articles
• WikiProject Russia articles
• B-Class Russia (history) articles
• History of Russia task force articles
• WikiProject Soviet Union articles
• B-Class Death articles
• Mid-importance Death articles
• B-Class socialism articles
• High-importance socialism articles
• WikiProject Socialism articles