Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes

This article is not POV. A google search is showing multiple referecnes on this topic. Communism killed 100 million people which is more than Nazism. This article should stay. --Joklolk (talk) 17:03, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

The topic and most of the contents of the article are worth of keeping, BUT certainly not in a separate article. It should be rewritten, maybe to be more compact in form, and added as a subsection to Communism, or some other relevant article.poisonborz (talk) 22:52, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Original research going on

I have now removed twice original research and editorial comment from the article, which is not backed up by the sources provided, here and here. Neither source mentions anything about so-called communist genocide and to portray it as such goes against core policies such as WP:V and WP:OR. If editors want to editorialise, take it to your own website/blog, there is no place for such things on WP. --Russavia ^Dialogue 00:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Undiscussed deletion of sourced material by User:Russavia

As per this edit, could User:Russavia explain why he/she deleted the reference. Foundation for the Investigation of Communist Crimes is reliable source. It is a non-profit research organization founded by historian Mart Laar. Please explain why you are considering this source unreliable. --Joklolk (talk) 02:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Edit by User:PasswordUsername

This edit by User:PasswordUsername removed a reliable source Baltic Federation in Canada. I added it back. Joklolk (talk) 03:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

No, please take a look at WP:QS (questionable sources):

"Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking, or with no editorial oversight. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional in nature..."

The Baltic federation is "an umbrella-organization for the central socio-political organizations of the three Baltic communities in Canada." [1]

And political organizations organized around particular constituencies tend to be promotional, which makes the source questionable. Of course, if there is academic consensus that the communists committed a "genocide" in Belarus, you'll have no trouble finding a better source than a pamphlet pdf file from the Baltic Federation's web site.

Furthermore, the Soviet Union never recognized any "genocide" or "ethnocide" in Belarus, except the Nazi one–and neither does modern Belarus, so materials like this

"The effects of this genocide and ethnocide were later admitted by the communists during the perestroika [17]"

are downright misleading.

There should be more reliable sources than a Candian political group. Looking at WP:RS should guide you well in this respect.

Best,

PasswordUsername (talk) 04:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

No problem, there is an entire chapter on the subject available in Belarus: at a crossroads in history by Jan Zaprudnik 1993. Hope that it helps. --Termer (talk) 04:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, as Radford University's Professor Grigory Ioffe writes, Zaprudnik is a nationalist who immigrated from Soviet Belarus for Nazi Germany–for whom an individual who "embraces Polish or Russian identity, as has happened many times in history, he or she is not a true Russian or Pole, and attempts are justified to uncover their true Belarusian selves." Zaprudnik spent a subsequent chunk of his life working for Radio Liberty propaganda broadcasts into Eastern Europe–but you can even get that from Wikipedia. As for the quality of the cited work as a polemical piece, Ioffe writes that

"The third major thread of Zaprudnik's portrayal of Belarus is blanket negativism about what happened to the country after 1944, when he left the country for Germany. In a 278-page book about Belarusian history, the immensity of what was built on the totally and completely devastated Belarusian land after the war receives 5 pages in the chapter titled "Destruction by War and Russification (1941-1985)." [2]

Consequently, Ioffe suggests that we read two books by David Marples, recommended as "devoid of Zaprudnik's extreme biases." Not a good candidate for Wikipedia policy on reliable sourcing for neutral-content articles.

Lastly, consider the fact that Zaprudnik considers as his main charge of genocide Stalin's advances against the presence of the Belarusian language in certain spheres such as universities–when Soviet policy until the mid-1930s actively promoted the Belarusian language after centuries of repression under czarism. (Even the Taraškievica alphabet for transcribing the language was designed as part of Soviet policy in 1933.) I dare say that Russification is no more an element of communism than Anglicization is a part of it, but hey, this article is a fork for anything with "communism" and "genocide" mentioned by the same person against whatever backdrop. PasswordUsername (talk) 05:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Who exactly is Grigory Ioffe? And how is someone who thinks that there is nothing wrong with the murderous regime of communists in the former USSR less biased than someone like Jan Zaprudnik who points out the wrongdoings? In case you like, feel free to add the viewpoints of Ioffe (in case he's notable enough) pr WP:YESPOV. Other than that Russification was an important aspect of the cultural genocide in the USSR, thanks for reminding me that. The cultural genocide or ethnocide by the communist regimes deserves perhaps it's own section, perhaps later entire article.--Termer (talk) 13:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Watching the OR circus

I am yet again not surprised to see the familiar faces from two very polarized teams arguing at this AfD. Let me make a few predictions of what will happen to this synthesis of a bunch of quotes taken out of context here.

• The polarized debate will be closed with no consensus.
• the war will start over adding/removing POV/OR/BIAS/SYNTH tags in this article
• a number of attempts will be made on renaming this article, e.g. into something ridiculous like allegations of communist genocide
• eventually the interest in editing this turd of an article will go to zero
• in several months another AfD will follow citing no consensus in this AfD, no significant improvements in this article, obvious POV/OR/SYNTH issues
• there might be a number of RfCs, ANIs, AEs initiated by the same usual suspects over this article, and, considering the team tagging, the result of these debates is also predictable (for those of you who's just tuned in, I mean a complete and utter waste of time)

Looking forward to this circus. (Igny (talk) 18:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC))

Making the point

For those of you who is interested in making a point, I have a few suggestions on the new articles with WP:GHITS

• Communism and AntiChrist, ghits
• Communism is/was bad, ghits
• Evil and Communism, ghits
• Communist havoc, ghits
• Communist boogeyman, ghits
• Communist occupation, ghits
• Communist apocalypse, ghits
• Communist brainwashing, ghits

And many more. Fire away, be creative. I would appreciate if you notify me, I will watch with much interest. (Igny (talk) 18:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC))