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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Davide King (talk | contribs) at 04:49, 24 November 2021 (→Klas-Göran Karlsson and Michael Schoenhals (three paragraphs, one which is quote from source itself): ce). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Mass killings under communist regimes (4th AfD nomination) — 3,740ish words in total — c. 10 minutes to fully read

Comment (must read — short single paragraph)

Delete as POV fork ("deliberately created to avoid a neutral point of view (including undue weight), often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts"), as no other solution, after two-year-long discussions, is possible to solve the NPOV, OR/SYNTH, and even VERIFY issues (e.g. contradiction with Mass killing and all individual events that are not described as mass killings by majority sources, excess deaths and mass mortality events conflated as mass killings, etc.), since the 'Keep' side has refused attempts at rewrite, lack of consensus around the topic, and some even refusing to acknowledge any issue despite recognition from the moderator at WP:DRNMKUCR. I have no prejudice in a future rewrite that is NPOV, in full respect of our policies and guidelines (NPOV is not negotiable), and a clearly agreed and defined topic, such as this one. Merely stating "per source" does not mean anything, especially if you do not address our legitimate concerns, as can be seen in my in-depth analysis of so far cited sources below.

Rationale (must read — short three paragraphs)

The article is a content POV fork and coat, as acknowledged and recognized by DRN moderator here (though they did not weight in on whether to 'Keep' or 'Delete'), which fails NPOV and VERIFY, and is OR/SYNTH per AndyTheGrump, Levivich, and the nominator, and because (1) Communist grouping is controversial (it was one scholarly criticism of The Black Book of Communism, see Mecklenburg & Wolfgang Wippermann 1998, Dallin 2000, and David-Fox 2004), and (2) genocide scholars themselves do not find regime type to be significant in explaining mass killings (Straus 2007).

The article takes an alleged Communist genocide/mass killing concept from Mann, Straus (who is merely reviewing rather than proposing the concept), and Valentino, even though the first is about classicide, the second is about genocide in general, and the third is a chapter about genocides and mass killings in the 20th century, then listing all mass killings under Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pol, adding all excess deaths under all Communist regimes, even as only few scholars and from one side (Courtois, Rummel) list all non-combatant victims (famines, wars, etc.), to suggest all those are mass killings and/or victims of communism (the main culprit, which is contrary to Valentino's view of leaders, not regime type, being the main culprit), its more accurate title that, however, does not really solve all those issues I have highlighted.

Other possibilities include a general article about mass killings, or during the 20th century, as a spin-off of Mass killing. I also accept those three proposals here as possible solutions other than deletion but only if the article is completely rewritten/restructured per WP:BLOWITUP (not a policy but an especially relevant essay for this article and its problems), e.g. if the closure give the green light to such rewrite, 'Keep' side must be collaborative and accept such possibility.

For the closer (must read — short two paragraphs)

Addendum — "per sources" arguments must not be taken at face value due to a sourcing problem as summarized here by Siebert (see also this and this) and the issue described here in the lack of agreement about the main topic.

Thanks to Hemiauchenia for pointing out here that Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence is a good precedent in that the same, if not very similar, rationale for 'Delete' applies here, and I hope the closer here will also not take "'keep' opinions merely reply 'but it's notable' , ... " at face value. This is not a 'voting', as Misplaced Pages is not a democracy, so rational arguments and their strength, backed by sources (e.g. as I did to show Communist grouping is controversial) should be seen as the most valuable, irregardless if it is to 'Keep' and/or 'Delete', in weighting it. As noted there, "he 'keep' side would instead have needed to show that the alleged quality problems either don't exist or can be relatively easily fixed by editing; and most of them did not attempt to make this argument." None, if any at all, of 'Keep' votes have showed and/or answered this so far.

Davide King (talk) 00:19, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Analysis of sources (can be skipped if above is deemed sufficient enough rationale)

In response to this, see Google Scholar et al. analysis of sources and Analysis of main topics and sources.

Introduction (two short paragraphs)

Among others, Nug have failed to realize we understand the topic differently, as has been also noted by North8000 here, so saying the topic is notable is not helpful if those on the 'Keep' side do not provide a clearly defined topic; e.g. I would vote 'Keep', provided the article is rewritten on this topic as summarized by Siebert here:

"In my opinion, the really notable topic is the discussion of the view that Communism was the greatest mass murderer in XX century. Who said that? Why? What was the main purpose for putting forward this idea? How this idea was accepted? Who supports that? Who criticise it and what the criticism consists in? How this idea is linked to recent trends in Holocaust obfuscation? And so on, and so forth. This would be a really notable topic, and that can save the article from deletion. However, that will require almost complete rewrite of the article."

Since the 'Keep' side has refused any attempts at rewrite, identify a topic, and even acknowledge any issue, I see the only solution as 'Delete', with no prejudice in a future rewrite that is NPOV, in respect of our policies, and a clearly defined topic. Now let us move on to the issue of sourcing.

Helen Fein (short two paragraphs)

Nug cite Helen Fein but they fail to realize and do not point out something that is even in the article itself (as you can see here), e.g. the xenophobic ideology of the Khmer Rouge regime bears a stronger resemblance to "an almost forgotten phenomenon of national socialism", or fascism, rather than communism, therefore the Khmer Rouge regime should not be discussed per Fein because she does not necessarily agree with categorizing as Communist; other scholars also categorize it as totalitarian (within the context of "xenophobic European nationalism", not Marxism) rather than Communist, e.g. Ben Kiernan and Michael Vickery (see here, sourced to Karlsson 2008, pp. 96–98)

We must not cherry pick authors and acts as though they are proposing MKuCR when they are discussing genocide and/or mass killing in general; as noted by Nug themselves, that is chapter but the book is about genocide and/mass killings in general, so I do not see how that justifies MKuCR rather than a general article about mass killings during the 20th century, irrespective of regime type, which remains a possibility and alternative to both 'Keep' and 'Delete' options.

Adam Jones (single sentence)

Adam Jones also separates Stalin and Mao, who are discussed together, from Pol Pot, as you can see here.

Benjamin Valentino and other genocide scholars (four paragraphs, two of which are quotes from user Paul Siebert)

Benjamin Valentino is the core source but his actually main idea is, to quote Siebert from WP:DRNMKUCR, that the regime type is not a good predictor for mass killings onset. He came to that conclusion by having analyzed similar type regimes, and he found that one of them committed mass killings, whereas another one didn't. His main conclusion is that leader's personality is the main factor responsible for mass killing, and a practical conclusion is: if we remove some concrete group from power, we may eliminate a risk of mass killings even without making serious transformation of the state's political system. It is ironical that the work of the researcher who wanted to demonstrate that some limited number of persons are real culprits became a core of the article that puts responsibility for mass killings on Communist ideology as whole. ...

Valentino demonstrated that by the fact that many (majority) of Communist regimes had not been engaged in mass killings (his own words), and the core of his methodology was a comparison of similar regimes, one of which committed mass killings, whereas another didn't. That means the article twisted the idea of the main source it is based upon. A title that correctly transmits Valentino's views would be "Mass killings under some Communist regimes", but I am not proposing it, for that would be non-encyclopaedic, and because the views of genocide scholars are not fully in agreement with views of historians.

While Misplaced Pages articles are not reliable in themselves, their sources there certainly are and all this can be verified at Benjamin Valentino, Genocide studies, and Mass killing. Nug has argued that all those articles have problems because they do not reflect what is said at MKuCR but these remain unproven allegations, as is showed by the fact that there has been no serious discussion in support of Nug's allegations and at Talk:Mass killing they have been rejected by at least two other users, meaning that if Nug refuse to engage with us at Mass killing and do not gain consensus, they must concede that their allegations are wrong, and stop using this as an argument.

Genocide scholars,1 such as Valentino and many others, are a minority, lack consensus among themselves, and have not achieved mainstream status in political science (Weiss-Anton 2008 and Verdeja 2012), which is further proved by the fact they are not relied by scholars of Communism and many events discussed at MKuCR are not described as mass killings et similia by historians and country experts/specialists. As has been noted by Barbara Harff, a disciple of Rudolph Rummel, genocide scholars are mainly concerned in establishing patterns and not data accuracy for which they must rely on country experts and specialists (Harff 2017), who do not necessarily reach their same conclusion.

Rudolph Rummel (very short single paragraph)

From Crimes against humanity under communist regimes – Research review, which is a tertiary source and a core source of both MKuCR and Crimes against humanity under Communist regimes (CaHuCR),2 Rummel is considered to be controversial ("they are hardly an example of a serious and empirically-based writing of history"), and is only mentioned "on the basis of the interest in him in the blogosphere." In addition, Rummel has been discussed at WP:RSN (1, 2). Harff herself, a disciple of Rummel, has acknowledged it (Harff 2017), there is no point in denying this any longer.

Atsushi Tago and Frank Wayman (single paragraph)

Tago & Wayman 2010, who do not discuss of MKuCR but of mass killings in general (even Rummel's categorization is described as "authoritarian and totalitarian government" at p. 5 vis-à-vis Valentino's disagreement, so that is an argument to rewrite MKuCR as mass killings under any regime type but why should give so much WEIGHT to Rummel when, as I am going to show next, scholars disagree on regime type?), show that there is a disagreement among scholars, and the solution is certainly not to give too much weight to Rummel by following his categorization, which are criticized by other scholars by Valentino, who is not the only one. When scholars disagree, the solution is not following categorization by a relevant but undue (in light of disagreement and criticism) scholar like Rummel. That we must give WEIGHT and priority to Rummel by having a MKuCR (full Communist-devoted article despite scholars either disagreeing or rejecting ideology and regime type links) is absurd, false balance, does not follow, and is quite frankly beyond me. I cannot possibly be the only one to think this — I am well open to the idea of being proven wrong but I just do not see any sufficient rationale that would justify this.

Stéphane Courtois (two short sentences, plus quote from Karlsson)

Stéphane Courtois is as controversial as Rummel, again see Karlsson 2008, pp. 53–54.

Bearing in mind the charged nature of the subject, it is polemically effective to make such comparisons, but it does not seem particularly fruitful, neither morally nor scientifically, to judge the regimes on the basis of their 'dangerousness' or to assess the relationship between communism and Nazism on the basis of what the international academic community calls their 'atrocities toll' or 'body count'. In that case, should the crimes of all communist regimes, in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and other countries where communism is or has been the dominant party, be compared to the Nazi regime's massacre of six million Jews? Should the Nazi death toll also include the tens of millions of people who the German Nazi armies and their supporting troops killed during the Second World War? Not even Courtois' analytical qualification, that ranking the two regimes the same is based on the idea that the 'weapon of hunger' was used systematically by both the Nazi regime and a number of communist regimes, makes this more reasonable, since this 'weapon' on the whole played a very limited role in the Nazi genocide in relation to other types of methods of mass destruction, and in relation to how it was used by communist regimes.

Keep in mind this is one of MKuCR's core sources and has dismissed, or otherwise criticized, two claimed sources in support of MKuCR as either controversal or not mainstream. Courtois' participation to The Black Book of the French Revolution was also revisionist and similarly controversial (Le Figaro 2012).

Steven Rosefielde (one sentence, plus one helpful quote by Siebert)

What is ignored is that Steven Rosefielde says Communism is less genocidal than Nazism, they are specifically about excess deaths and mass mortality rather than mass killings, which contrary to the 'Keep' side is not the same thing. To quote Siebert from WP:DRNMKUCR:

As I already explained, the question is not only the figures themselves, but in their interpretation. As Rosefielde pointed out (Premature Deaths: Russia's Radical Economic Transition in Soviet Perspective Author(s): Steven Rosefielde Source: Europe-Asia Studies , Dec., 2001, Vol. 53, No. 8 (Dec., 2001), pp. 1159-1176) 3.4 million of Russians died prematurely in 1990s, after fall of Communism. If we consider all "premature deaths" as mass killings, should we speak about "democratic mass killings" in that case? It seems Rosefielde does not consider premature deaths in neither post-Communist Russia not in Communist USSR as "mass killings". The problem is not only in Rummel's figures, but in his interpretation of those figures.

Klas-Göran Karlsson and Michael Schoenhals (three paragraphs, one which is quote from source itself)

This is not the best source because, as noted here by The Four Deuces, because it was written at the request of Sweden's conservative government with the objective of "elucidating and informing on communism's crimes against humanity." Yet, it describes 'Keep' side's core MKuCR's sources (Courtois and Rummel) as either controversial or not mainstream, and acknowledges as follows:

This research review does not claim to list all research on the communist regimes' crimes against humanity. Bearing in mind the large number of books written on Soviet communism in particular, and on the terror of the last decade in the West and in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, this would be an impossible task. ... There is, therefore, a great need for Swedish research on communist regimes' crimes against humanity, and a great need to create the right conditions for this research. This research would benefit from taking a comparative approach, either focusing on comparing these criminal histories with each other, or with crimes against humanity perpetrated by other regimes in modern history.

The bolded part is one more reason why the currently structured article should be deleted — it simply is an impossible task. MKuCR article does not reflect this source because it says (1) the topic does not exist in reliable sources, and even if it did, it would be limited to three Communist leaders (Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot),3 not even Communist regimes, as the review is limited to three very specific periods of three different Communist regimes (Fein and Jones separates Pol Pot from Stalin and Mao) out of dozens and dozens of other Communist regimes, which did not engage in mass killings;4 (2) the article's must be restructired to limit the scope to them, e.g. removing discussion about causes, since the killings were the result not of communism per se, as Karllson 2008 say they were carried out as part of a policy of an unbalanced modernization process of rapid industrialization (Karlsson 2008, p. 8); and (3) it is not discussed in a vacuum but is compared with non-Communist regimes, which MKuCR fails to address.

Main topic (can be skipped but is useful for context)

I think that if we truly want to move forward, we need to identify the main topic of this article. If we cannot agree on what the main topic is, and is to be structured, it should be both AfD and RfC — because it is not sufficient that AfD results in Keep or No consensus, if we, in fact, do not agree on what the main topic is, hence RfC will be necessary.

Main topics

1. Mass killings under Communist states1 (previous version) — it essentially discusses and merge all the topics below,2 treats any death as a mass killing, and treats it as scholarly discourse (as if they are all discussed together) and consensus; it is both theory-based and events-focused
2. Mass killings under Communist states (current version) — it has the same problems as the previous version but at least it aknowledges the controversy and the lack of consensus, and recognizes that while there were many killings under Communist states, only Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes can be categorized as having engaged in mass killing as proposed by genocide scholars, the core sources
3. Excess mortality under Communist states, Mass deaths under Communist states – one of Siebert's proposal for rewrite; it would be the neutral version of topic No. 1, and my understanding is that it would remain both theory-based and events-focused, which may fix NPOV and be a compromise between the two sides but not fix OR/SYNTH because country experts and specialists, which this article would rely much more, do not make such Communist grouping, hence we may mislead users in acting as though those scholars are part of the scholarly discourse of topic No. 1
4. Communist state(s) and mass killing(s),3 Victims of communism – Siebert's and TFD's, plus me, proposed topic and really the only notable one, see summary here4 Karlsson 2008, p. 8 identifies the topic for us — discussion of the number of victims of communist regimes has been "extremely extensive and ideologically biased."

Alternatives (disambiguations) — it does not preclude having No. 3 or 4, and one of those

1. Communist mass killing – the name given by core source Valentino and applied only to Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes
2. List of article – it would only include events which are universally described as mass killings in scholarly sources (again, mostly Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes)

Davide King (talk) 12:21, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Conclusion (in 457 words, excluding links and wikitext)

The article is a POV content fork and coatrack, which fails NPOV and VERIFY, and is OR/SYNTH per AndyTheGrump, Levivich, and the nominator, and because (1) Communist grouping is controversial (it was one scholarly criticism of The Black Book of Communism, see Mecklenburg & Wolfgang Wippermann 1998, Dallin 2000, and David-Fox 2004), and (2) genocide scholars themselves do not find regime type to be significant in explaining mass killings (Straus 2007).

Notes (very short and useful)

1. All those authors cited are genocide scholars, while Rummel is best known for his democratic peace theory, a different topic, in which he is mainstream.

2. Karlsson 2008 is completely misunderstood at CaHuCR because Karlsson says to prefer crimes against humanity over mass killings and discusses MKuCR but limits himself only to Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes, not to any Communist regime5 — in all those cases, killings were carried out as part of a policy of an unbalanced modernization process of rapid industrialization (Karlsson 2008, p. 8).

3. Such an article would not be encyclopedic, as we already have articles for each event, and the review discuss them individually.

4. "Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing. In addition to shedding light on why some communist states have been among the most violent regimes in history, therefore, I also seek to explain why other communist countries have avoided this level of violence." (Valentino 2013, p. 91.) The bolded parts are obviously missing and not reflected in MKuCR.

5. The most accepted definition of mass killing is 50,000 killed within five years, and that applies to Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes, and the Red Terror, which must be seen within the context of the Russian Civil War and the White Terror, not as it is described at MKuCR.

Davide King (talk) 22:00, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Davide King (talk) 00:57, 24 November 2021 (UTC)