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@Paul ("mass killings"≠"excess deaths" according to "some" sources): What is your position on suicides committed as a direct consequence of the Cultural Revolution? These are not strictly "killings" but they are direct results. What would be your proposal for insuring they are included? IMHO the purpose of this article is not to listify an inventory of those who got a direct bullet to the head. Perhaps others can present some thoughts on our purpose here before continuing to argue over sources at demonstrably crossed purposes.
PЄTЄRS J V ►
TALK 17:14, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
RFC has been moved, see further down | |||
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. | |||
Option 1Note. this is not a final version. Editors who support this option may make changes so that it is ready by Thursday 00:01 GMT Mass killing of
Non-combatants have occoured under communist regimes.These killings carried out in the pursuit of the communist ideology of forming a
Utopian society
[1] were caused for the most part by
terror-starvation,
terror,
lethal forced labor and
Ethnic cleansing.
[2] Estimates for those killed range from some 60
[3] to 100 million.
[4].
[5]
[6] The highest documented death tolls have occurred in the
Soviet Union under
Joseph Stalin with estimates for those killed ranging from 20
[7]
[8] to 40
[9] million during Stalin`s rule to some 60 million for the USSR as a whole.Cite error: The There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. [13] ReferencesBibliography
Option 2Note. this is not a final version. I expect some users to discuss it and to contribute to it Mass killing of non-combatants occurred under some Communist regimes. The highest death tolls that have been calculated are for the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. These mass killings include murders or executions that took place during civil wars, mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns; violence that accompanied land reforms in the Soviet Union, China and some smaller countries also led to death of the immense amount of peasants. Significant part of population perished during the genocide organized by the proponents of agrarian Communism in Cambodia. In the USSR and China, major amount of deaths were caused not by repressions, genocides of executions, but by war, famine and disease. It is currently believed that the total number of peoples who was killed by all Communist regimes taken together, or whose deaths were facilitated by the actions of these regimes amounted to 80 millions. Different explanations of the onset of mass killings in each Communist country taken separately have been proposed that trace the roots of the violence in the combination of Communist ideology, the past history of each particular country, traditions, and other factors. In addition to that, several general theories has been proposed that ascribe the onset of mass killings to totalitarian nature of Communist regimes, to Communist ideology, or to the strategic calculations of the Communist leaders. These theories apply the concepts of " mass killings", " democide", " politicide" or "classicide" to characterize there events. References: since the lede is supposed to summarise the article's content, no new references are required there. Most statements in this text are supported with the sources cited in the article.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 04:25, 27 September 2011 (UTC) Comments on Procedure
Option 1Old Support
Old Oppose
Option 2Old Support 2I'll prepare the alternative version, although I always prefer collective work (you edit - I edit - you edit again - we discuss - put to the article). With regard to the sources, the issue is not in reliability, but in the choice. For instance, you decided to use questionable Courtois, and ignored highly commended Werth. Why do you prefer to use the worst part of the book? In addition, if you write the lede, you are supposed to use the same sources as those used in the article. The article cites Ellman, Conquest and Wheatcroft, each of them, by contrast to Naimark, did their own demographis studies for the USSR. Why you preferred to ignore them?-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 22:17, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Old Oppose 2The scale of the mass killings, which PS has called the "upper limit" is only given as 80 million despite RS's that go to 100 million, and it is played down by being buried in the middle of the text. What's more important in an article about mass killings than the mass of people that was killed? No sources. Reads more like an apology for the mass killings rather than a simple description. Smallbones ( talk) 15:56, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Oppose all options
Where do we go from hereBy my count there are 2 supports for Option 1 vs. 3 opposes, 2 supports for Option 2 vs. 3 opposes. And there are also 3 "oppose both." Obviously there is no consensus for either Option. It looks like we are stuck with the current version, which was made with the then-consensus, and (at least temporarily) accepted by Paul. Paul had also mentioned that we might go to the Mediation Cabal, and that he would accept their decision. I'd like to know how this would work before signing on. In particular, I would want to insure that we had experienced mediators who have not expressed opinions on this subject (broadly construed) before. Can we do this? I have to say that I am quite disappointed that Paul now seems to have hardened his views considerably. Now he insists (immediately above) that no numbers - not even ranges - can be quoted in the article, no matter what the source. This is a direct contradiction to WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:NPOV. If anybody has any suggestions where we go from here, I'd love to hear them. Smallbones ( talk) 16:19, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Re suggestion. The ideal structure of the lede would be as follows:
No more figures are needed in the lede. Other figures should be discussed in the article's body, and I'll start to prepare the sources for the section devoted to that.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 17:36, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Paul - you never cite sources when you are asked for them. Not even above in the "RfC". Don't waste our time. Smallbones ( talk) 18:47, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
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I see, the intensity of the dispute is decreasing, and the authors of the recent edits, made with violation of the edit restrictions, stopped to present new arguments and to respond on my counter-arguments. In this situation, my next steps are the following.
Paul writes "If majority single society studies demonstrate that the Great famine was (fully or partially) a result of Stalin's collectivisation policy, which lead to poor harvest and the need of forceful confiscations of food, regardless of the danger of starvation, I fully agree with that. However, almost no not-nationalistic scholarly sources claim that it was a deliberately organised genocide, and most scholars believe that the opposite was true: the famine was a result of the policy of Stalin's authorities, but it was not intentional, so it was not mass killing, at least according to one of few definitions. Therefore, it should be mentioned with reservations, what the article (but not the lede) is doing."
Actually the article doesn't do that at all. A sub-section is listed now under controversies, but the only real controversy in the sub-section is whether the killings should be called genocide, or were merely mass killings, or perhaps just ‘negligent genocide’ or "a series of crimes against humanity." Paul's POV that the famine was completely unintentional is almost completely missing in the sub-section, except for a sentence on the Russian government's view. I think that if he has a reliable source that says the famine was unintentional he should include it (briefly, since it appears to be a minority view). Notice, however, I don't mean to say that if he has sources that don't mention intentions, that he should include this as evidence that there were no intentions. Sources that don't mention mass killings or intentions are simply not evidence against intentional mass killings.
I would like to include a quote and brief explanation of it as the 2nd paragraph of the sub-section. This is from a Chapter by Werth in the Black Book of Communism, previously lauded by Paul. The inserted material would be:
We should also move the sub-section up to the Soviet Union section, since there doesn't seem to be much real controversy among the reliable sources. Let me know whether you agree or disagree with making this change in the article. Smallbones ( talk) 14:53, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
It's pretty clear that it's still very divided here. I don't really know where to take this, or even how the extra rules applied here should be interpreted. Lede 1, which PS seems to want to put in still, had 2 supports and 7 opposes, Lede 2, by my count, had 5 supports and 7 opposes. Lede 3 - which hasn't been put in a ready-to-go cited format - seems to have lots of support. Could somebody write it up and we could !vote on it (vs. the current lede)? If this doesn't work, we could try again (and again and again). Or somebody else could come up with a better way to move forward. Smallbones ( talk) 01:34, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Let's go with lede 3 then. Using, or course, the current refs from the lede I left the article with. Cheers, and glad this drama is over. Collect ( talk) 13:08, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
The editors of this article have long been divided into two groups, each having a different concept of how the article should be approached. While the whole article needs extensive work, the difference in concept shows up most clearly in the lede: one group does not want to include more than a couple of numbers in the lede, another believes that the scale of the mass killings needs to be clearly explained there. Rather than continue endless pages of argument on this matter, we've decided to ask the general population of editors on Wikipedia to decide which approach is best. Please make brief comments below.
Paul Siebert (
talk) 18:02, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Smallbones ( talk) 13:14, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
While not all these footnotes need to be in the lede, it is important for reviewers to know that these exist and can be included in the body of the text if they are not already.
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In regard to Biophys:
??? I thought we just had an RFC above [6]. Why are we doing this all over again? -- Martin Tammsalu ( talk) 20:55, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Sorry guys, I've just updated the lede 1 as I promised to Smallbones yesterday. -- Paul Siebert ( talk) 14:35, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
This part of the discussion not needed |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
If anybody, after review of the anon's edit history, really thinks that this really belongs in the RfC, just remove the "hat" at the top and "hab" at the bottom. Smallbones ( talk) 23:30, 1 October 2011 (UTC) --- All of these are bad and confusing. This is a simple article intended for the simple reader. I will suggest:
|
To me, not knowing much about the facts, lede 1 reads like (I exaggerate a bit to get the point across): "Some scholars exaggerate, they are politically motivated, actually the situation was not so bad". Lede 2 reads: "Bad communists!". To me the best lead is the one that has been removed: lede 3. Without POV, without spin, and to the point. But as I said, I'm not expert on the subject. -- Dia^ ( talk) 16:10, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
That would be:
The only real problem with it is the "most countries didn't" sentence. Ceraucescu may not have been Stalin, but he would have been described as a mass murderer in any other century than the twentieth. Amd if we exclude the USSR, the PRC, three of the East Asian Communisms, part of Eastern Europe, and much of Africa, what's left to be "most"? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I see the discussion has abated. In a situation when no progress can be expected in close future, I revert last changes that have been made to the lede in violation of the procedure described by Sandstein on the top of this talk page. We can continue the discussion about further improvements of the lede later.--
Paul Siebert (
talk) 19:45, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
In my opinion, the discussion below has a direct relation to the lede 3: since the very idea to put some numbers into the opening sentence of the lede is methodologically flawed (see below), the lede 3 is also unacceptable. In my opinion, the old lede (before TLAM made his edit) is a least controversial version, although its further improvement is still possible.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 23:22, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
In the section beginning here we have three sentences that begin with a number. Here's the first:
“ | 50,000 to 100,000 people may have been killed in Bulgaria beginning in 1944 as part of agricultural collectivization and political repression. | ” |
It looks weird to start off a sentence with a number. I propose we add the word 'Between' to the beginning of each of these 3 sentences. This is, IMO, a pretty minor change, but I'm not sure if it truly qualifies as a WP:MINOR edit. Can I get consensus for this change? A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 21:22, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
I would like to make two proposals for small changes of wording, mainly in the interest of NPOV. One of them would be a change in the lead. I know that the current lead needs to be replaced with a better one, but the discussion above is dragging on and we should not abandon all attempts to make small improvements while waiting for eventual consensus. So, having said that, here are my proposals:
-- Amerul ( talk) 04:21, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Amerul states "The evidence of a lack of consensus among scholars is simply the fact that so many different opinions and estimates have been published." Actually, that's no evidence at all - the way folks of that persuasion commonly argue here.
Smallbones ( talk) 14:38, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
@ Peters. I fully agree with the following:
What I cannot understand, however, and what I disagree with is your guys vehement attempts to push a single (and a very disputable) source to the opening statement of the lede. Yes, different estimates exist, and most of them deserve mention in the article, yes, different authors support or criticise the concept as whole. However, what relation does it have to the first lede's sentence? If different opinions and figures exist, why only a single (and not the most reliable) source is represented in the first sentence of the lede?
And one more point. Could you please stop using the word "contentions" to describe the statements I make. I believe I have already demonstrated for many times that all assertions I make are based on what reliable sources say. Your wording is insulting and uncivil.--
Paul Siebert (
talk) 22:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
The last Smallbones' post deserves more detailed answer. Before answering, let me explain that the below text is based mostly on what I learned reading reliable sources, therefore, any attempt to present it as my "personal contentions" will be treated as incivility. I do not, however, provide citations, because all of that is supposed just to demonstrate my point, and is not supposed to be added to the main article directly.
Re "Why do you repeatedly cite Werth, without including his estimates???" Because he does not provide them. One review on the BB specifically notes that Werth, by contrast to Courtois, who wants to shock a reader with figures, pays little attention to the overall numbers, preferring to focus on the essence of the events, because the history of these events, and cannot be reduced just to the numbers of victims. That is why the opinion of this serious author and the major contributor of the BB should have much more weight on WP pages.
Let me explain that using the following examples. Everyone knows the proverb about lie, big lie and statistics. Let me demonstrate how can it work here.
Paul's translation is clearly overly-literal. Werth is directly comparing his numbers to Courtois's, which are on mass killings or genocide, so translating "abusif" here as "abuse" is misleading. There should be no question about Werth's views about the intention of Communists in these killings in the USSR. Regarding just the famine of 1932-33, he states that
Werth estimates the total death toll of the famine as 6 million.
That is not the usual meaning of "abuse" in English. Abuse in English, is more like using the words on this page "tantamount to direct lie," "stupid," "lie" (several times), "crap," and "Your wording is insulting and uncivil," directed toward me and other editors - that is "abusive" and should not be tolerated.
How can Paul use Werth as the centerpiece in his argument that we can't put numbers on the death toll?
Smallbones ( talk) 13:25, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I fully understand a desire of some users to come out with some concrete figures of those who died under Communists. The motif is obvious: a reader, who will not probably read the article as whole, after seing the first sentence will say: "Look, Hitler killed just 6 million Jews, and Communist killed 100 million people. Definitely, Communism is much more deadly than Nazism." That is exactly what Courotris wanted to say, and that is exactly he was criticized for by many authors, including his own co-authors, Werth and Margolin:
formulas, the juxtaposition of histories aimed at asserting the comparability and, next, the identities of fascism, and Nazism, and communism." Indeed, Courtois would have been far more effective if he had shown more restraint." (Stanley Hoffmann. Source: Foreign Policy, No. 110, Special Edition: Frontiers of Knowledge (Spring, 1998), pp. 166-169)
In other words, not only the authors like Werth and Hoffman criticize the Courtois' figures, they criticize the very approach (an attempt to describe such a complex event with just one figure, or range of figures). And I see that Smallbones et al are trying to push exactly the same approach here. However, since this approach has explicitly been criticized, it cannot be implemented in the first sentence of the lede.
Recently, I have been surprised to learn that, despite its large scale, Gulag had no appreciable demographic consequences for the USSR. At the first glance, that sounds cynically, because every life is precious, and we are not supposed to speak in these terms. However, can you tell me, in which country more people are being killed in car accidents, in USA or in France? Of course, in the US. However, does this fact per se is an indication that cars in America much more deadly? Obviously, whereas the overall number of car accident victims was higher in the US, that is mostly due to the larger size of American population, so the probability to be killed in car accident is not much higher in the US than in France. Similarly, whereas a probability of a Jew to be killed under Nazi was >90%, the probability of ordinary Belorussian to be killed under Nazi occupation, and the probability of ordinary Khmer to be killed during KR genocide, were ca 40%, the probability of an ordinary Soviet citizen to be killed during the Great Purge was 1%. A difference was quite obvious, however, bare numbers conceal it quite effectively, which helps some authors (Courtois, Rosefielde et al) to use them for pushing their agenda (that is not my conclusion, almost every review on the BB states that).
Similarly, although noone can negate an obvious fact that totalitarian Communist regime in China killed tens of million people, the scale of those killing is partially explained simply by large size of this country.
It has already been demonstrated for many times that some parallelism between Nazi mass killings (the Holocaust, execution of the population of occupied territories, etc) and similar events in the Soviet Union can be drawn. However, the scale of these killings in the USSR did not exceed 1 million (Stephen Wheatcroft. The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-45. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 48, No. 8 (Dec., 1996), pp. 1319-1353) All other deaths fall into quite different categories and cannot be combined together. An example of a sober and reasonable approach to description of these events is presented in the article of another serious scholar (Ellman):
Although the latter work is a single society study, I suggest to follow this methodology in the lede: to pay much more attention to the explanation of different categories of mass deaths in different countries, and of different ways that have been used to evaluate these numbers. An attempt to come out with some exact number (or range) is totally misleading, and now, when I have explained that (with sources), every attempt to push this idea without providing serious counter-arguments against the approach I propose is tantamount to deliberate attempt to mislead a reader.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 14:00, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul should not want to hang his hat on anything that Ellman writes. Ellman cites many statistics and death tolls, and of course we can include those, with explanations. But Ellman is not somebody whose work can be cited as requiring a ban on death tolls here. And it should be useful to note that in regard to the 1932-33 famine in the USSR that he states that "the debate is between those who consider Stalin guilty ‘only’ of (mass) manslaughter, and those who consider him guilty of (mass) murder." [Ellman's (mass)]. If Ellman quantifies mass-killings like this, and Werth quantifies mass-killings (as above), and these are Paul's only two examples, we cannot conclude that quantification of mass killings should be disallowed here. You won't convince anybody with these examples. End of story. Let's procede with suggested new ledes. Smallbones ( talk) 15:23, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Wow, ok, I was clearly wrong to believe that I could help reconcile the two sides and reach consensus. Never mind, then. I am now inclined to believe that this article can never achieve NPOV. But I will go ahead and implement my second proposal, since that seems to be unopposed. -- Amerul ( talk) 06:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I have decided that, at least for now, I will stay out of the debate about whether to include exact numbers in the lead. When I made my first proposal above, I did not realize how controversial it would be. I thought it was a good way to satisfy all sides. I was wrong.
But I do not want to completely give up the idea of making small improvements to the lead. So here is a different proposal, which is hopefully uncontroversial. As it currently stands, the lead includes the following sentence:
This sentence gives the false impression that the "100 million" estimates include victims of war, famine and so on, while the "85 million" estimates do not. That is not the case. All estimates include famine victims. Even the lower estimates include at least the victims of the Great Chinese Famine during the Great Leap Forward. In fact, this one event seems to be responsible for 40-50% of all deaths attributed to Communist regimes, depending on the source.
As such, I propose replacing the words "Some higher estimates of mass killings" with "These estimates".
--
Amerul (
talk) 06:30, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I can't help but notice that the lead seems to switch back and forth between two different topics:
Currently, the first sentence is about #1. The second is about #2. Third sentence switches back to #1. Fourth sentence switches back to #2 and then back to #1. Add. Rinse. Repeat.
I attempted to re-arrange the lede so that all the content about the estimates is in one spot and all the content about the causes is another spot. I know that this is a contentious article, so let me emphasize the following:
The only exception to the above is that I combined (what used to be) the final two sentences and inserted a single word 'but' as a transition. I did this only because I thought the prose flowed better that way. If this is a sticking point, I'm fine with keeping them separate sentences.
Here's my suggested text:
Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll numbering between 85 and 100 million.
[1] Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only mass murders or executions that took place during the elimination of political opponents,
civil wars,
terror campaigns, and
land reforms, but also lives lost due to war, famine, disease, and exhaustion in labor camps. The estimates of the number of non-combatants killed by these three regimes alone range from a low of 21 million to a high of 70 million.
dubious
[2] The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the
Soviet Union under
Joseph Stalin, in the
People's Republic of China under
Mao Zedong, and in
Cambodia under the
Khmer Rouge but there have also been killings on a smaller scale in
North Korea,
Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Scholarship focuses on the causes of mass killings in single societies, though some claims of common causes for mass killings have been made. As of 2011, academic consensus has not been achieved on causes of large scale killings by states, including by states governed by communists. In particular, the number of comparative studies suggesting causes is limited. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion combine all these deaths under the categories "mass killings", democide, politicide, "classicide", or loosely defined genocide. According to these scholars, the total death toll of the mass killings defined in this way amounts to many tens of millions; however, the validity of this approach is questioned by other scholars.
It's not 100% perfect. By the end of the lede, it switches back to the death toll estimates, but my goal was not to modify any of the sentences, just simply re-arrange them. But at least there's not the constant back and forth.
I'm just throwing out a trial balloon here and see what others think.
A Quest For Knowledge (
talk) 23:19, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
How about replacing the contentious sentence with something like The estimates of mass killings variously include mass murders or executions that took place during the elimination of political opponents, civil wars, terror campaigns, and land reforms, and lives lost due to war, famine, disease, and exhaustion in labor camps? Also note that the expression these three regimes cannot precede the sentence which identifies the regimes, please fix this. Colchicum ( talk) 01:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
OK, here's my new proposal. It's pretty much identical to the first one, except I address the issue raised by Colchicum. Again, I didn't add, remove or change any of the existing content. I simply re-organized the existing content.
Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll numbering between 85 and 100 million.
[1] Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only mass murders or executions that took place during the elimination of political opponents,
civil wars,
terror campaigns, and
land reforms, but also lives lost due to war, famine, disease, and exhaustion in labor camps. The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the
Soviet Union under
Joseph Stalin, in the
People's Republic of China under
Mao Zedong, and in
Cambodia under the
Khmer Rouge. The estimates of the number of non-combatants killed by these three regimes alone range from a low of 21 million to a high of 70 million.
dubious
[2] There have also been killings on a smaller scale in
North Korea,
Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Scholarship focuses on the causes of mass killings in single societies, though some claims of common causes for mass killings have been made. As of 2011, academic consensus has not been achieved on causes of large scale killings by states, including by states governed by communists. In particular, the number of comparative studies suggesting causes is limited. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion combine all these deaths under the categories "mass killings", democide, politicide, "classicide", or loosely defined genocide. According to these scholars, the total death toll of the mass killings defined in this way amounts to many tens of millions; however, the validity of this approach is questioned by other scholars.
A Quest For Knowledge (
talk) 16:32, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
(od) What we have is a substantial number of reliable sources with estimates of deaths. Absent reliable sources saying that these are not "mainstream" it is not up to us to "know" that they are "fringe" (indeed, I have repeatedly suggested that those who dislike the figures present reliable sources contradicting the estimates - alas, such have not been given, or else are not cited by other scholars to any extent as contradicting the estimates). Wikipedia policies must be followed no matter what any editor asserts that he knows - that is how the project works. I make no assertions at all as to what I "know" to be "truth" and I ask the others to make that same commitment. Cheers. Collect ( talk) 00:28, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
(od)We have Rummel at [12] with figures of over 100 million.
Courtois at over 100 million.
Valentino at 110 million, with a range stated as being from multiple sources of 21 to 70 million for USSR, PRC and Cambodia alone, and noting that most such regimes have not engaged in "mass killing." His cite inplies that the likely range for the three nations then is on the order of 40 million to 50 million.
Gurr and Harff are cited in [13] (Wang) as citing the USSR for "11 million murders" in theperiod 1029 - 1936. This is the only estimate I found for anything approaching only 10 million deaths, and restricts itself to actual "murders" in a seven year period - so is far from inclusive. Wang sees "totalitiarianism" as being the problem.
Lansford appears to cite Rummel at [14] implying that Rummel is generally accepted as mainstream.
Kurtz and Turpin arrive at over 115 million at [15]
Using the fact that the most widely cited figures are in the total range of 80 to 100 million, it seems that this is the "mainstream" position, and any claim that 10 million is remotely near the mark is clearly WP:FRINGE.
[16] Zhengyuan Fu, who is widely respected, a former senior research professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a visiting associate professor at UC Irvine, a former fellow of the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford etc., lists a number of cites for "excess deaths" in China - citing Coale for 16.5 million "excess deaths" in 1958-61 alone, Aird a "population loss" of 23 million for that period, Ashton Hill et al 30 million deaths and 33 million lost or postponed births. He lists Bannister and Kane as agreeing wth Hill. Z. Fu then ascribes a figure of 43 million deaths in 1959-61 to Chen Yizi as his source. WP:RS from Cambridge University Press in 1993. Need more milk? I dount this manages to back your insistence on a fringe view of 10 million total for all the countries. I trust Fu, as a former personage in the PRC qualifies as "expert" on this matter, and Chen Yizi, former "head of the Government's Institute for Restructuring the Economy" (China) is adequate as a source on material to which he was privy as a government member in the PRC. All of this, of course, has been provided before. Cheers. Collect ( talk) 17:12, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
(ec):::(#GH)Your problem is still that you assert "facts" without giving scholarly cites to back them up. And I really would have ben amazed if the Duma said that Russia bore any responsibility for anything <g>. So that cavil drops.
[17] certainly offers no claim that large numbers did not die before 1939.
[18] gives a total 1941 Soviet population of 181 million including "annexed territories". Other sources give the base total at 164 million in 1940, which seems consistent. Rosefielde
[19] offers support as well for large numbers of deaths in the USSR (on the order of 15 million in one short period). By the way, with 50 million+ deaths in China, the 60 million you assert is given by Kurtz and Turpin is clearly not used at all in this computation and summary - it includes the deaths in the early years when the population fell by a very substantial number, but is not where the total of 85 to 100 million rests.
[20] is RS and states Russia's population fell from 171 million in 1914 to 132 million in 1921 (39 million loss in population in 4 years). Which likely explains the larger figure. And as the larger figure is not part of the body being summarized, it is nicely irrelevant. Are you going to try arguing that Yizi is not RS? Cheers.
One way or the another, I saw no serious arguments in favour of presenting the figures of "Communist mass killings" before the very term (more precisely, variour quite different meanings of this term) have been discussed. In other words,
Please, address the following request:
-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 01:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Um == I think the history of the article and the archived talk shows full well that sufficient reliable sources are present in the body for the lede to indicate the larger figure. The "proof by assertion" that such is not "majority" is doomed -- the onus is on those asserting that the material is not the current mainstream view to show such by using reliable sources in the article - not by mere assertion. It is not up to those using the current claims in the body of the article which are supported by the majority of reliable sources when no sources asserting otherwise have been presented (noting Paul's iteration that deaths due to opposing "agrarian reform" are not "deaths" for the purposes of this article - but that position is not supported by mainstream reliable sources). Cheers - but this iterated argument is getting tendentious - the rules of Wikipedia say to provide contradicting reliable sources if you wish a claim inserted in the body. Collect ( talk) 13:10, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 | → | Archive 35 |
@Paul ("mass killings"≠"excess deaths" according to "some" sources): What is your position on suicides committed as a direct consequence of the Cultural Revolution? These are not strictly "killings" but they are direct results. What would be your proposal for insuring they are included? IMHO the purpose of this article is not to listify an inventory of those who got a direct bullet to the head. Perhaps others can present some thoughts on our purpose here before continuing to argue over sources at demonstrably crossed purposes.
PЄTЄRS J V ►
TALK 17:14, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
RFC has been moved, see further down | |||
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. | |||
Option 1Note. this is not a final version. Editors who support this option may make changes so that it is ready by Thursday 00:01 GMT Mass killing of
Non-combatants have occoured under communist regimes.These killings carried out in the pursuit of the communist ideology of forming a
Utopian society
[1] were caused for the most part by
terror-starvation,
terror,
lethal forced labor and
Ethnic cleansing.
[2] Estimates for those killed range from some 60
[3] to 100 million.
[4].
[5]
[6] The highest documented death tolls have occurred in the
Soviet Union under
Joseph Stalin with estimates for those killed ranging from 20
[7]
[8] to 40
[9] million during Stalin`s rule to some 60 million for the USSR as a whole.Cite error: The There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. [13] ReferencesBibliography
Option 2Note. this is not a final version. I expect some users to discuss it and to contribute to it Mass killing of non-combatants occurred under some Communist regimes. The highest death tolls that have been calculated are for the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. These mass killings include murders or executions that took place during civil wars, mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns; violence that accompanied land reforms in the Soviet Union, China and some smaller countries also led to death of the immense amount of peasants. Significant part of population perished during the genocide organized by the proponents of agrarian Communism in Cambodia. In the USSR and China, major amount of deaths were caused not by repressions, genocides of executions, but by war, famine and disease. It is currently believed that the total number of peoples who was killed by all Communist regimes taken together, or whose deaths were facilitated by the actions of these regimes amounted to 80 millions. Different explanations of the onset of mass killings in each Communist country taken separately have been proposed that trace the roots of the violence in the combination of Communist ideology, the past history of each particular country, traditions, and other factors. In addition to that, several general theories has been proposed that ascribe the onset of mass killings to totalitarian nature of Communist regimes, to Communist ideology, or to the strategic calculations of the Communist leaders. These theories apply the concepts of " mass killings", " democide", " politicide" or "classicide" to characterize there events. References: since the lede is supposed to summarise the article's content, no new references are required there. Most statements in this text are supported with the sources cited in the article.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 04:25, 27 September 2011 (UTC) Comments on Procedure
Option 1Old Support
Old Oppose
Option 2Old Support 2I'll prepare the alternative version, although I always prefer collective work (you edit - I edit - you edit again - we discuss - put to the article). With regard to the sources, the issue is not in reliability, but in the choice. For instance, you decided to use questionable Courtois, and ignored highly commended Werth. Why do you prefer to use the worst part of the book? In addition, if you write the lede, you are supposed to use the same sources as those used in the article. The article cites Ellman, Conquest and Wheatcroft, each of them, by contrast to Naimark, did their own demographis studies for the USSR. Why you preferred to ignore them?-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 22:17, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Old Oppose 2The scale of the mass killings, which PS has called the "upper limit" is only given as 80 million despite RS's that go to 100 million, and it is played down by being buried in the middle of the text. What's more important in an article about mass killings than the mass of people that was killed? No sources. Reads more like an apology for the mass killings rather than a simple description. Smallbones ( talk) 15:56, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Oppose all options
Where do we go from hereBy my count there are 2 supports for Option 1 vs. 3 opposes, 2 supports for Option 2 vs. 3 opposes. And there are also 3 "oppose both." Obviously there is no consensus for either Option. It looks like we are stuck with the current version, which was made with the then-consensus, and (at least temporarily) accepted by Paul. Paul had also mentioned that we might go to the Mediation Cabal, and that he would accept their decision. I'd like to know how this would work before signing on. In particular, I would want to insure that we had experienced mediators who have not expressed opinions on this subject (broadly construed) before. Can we do this? I have to say that I am quite disappointed that Paul now seems to have hardened his views considerably. Now he insists (immediately above) that no numbers - not even ranges - can be quoted in the article, no matter what the source. This is a direct contradiction to WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:NPOV. If anybody has any suggestions where we go from here, I'd love to hear them. Smallbones ( talk) 16:19, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Re suggestion. The ideal structure of the lede would be as follows:
No more figures are needed in the lede. Other figures should be discussed in the article's body, and I'll start to prepare the sources for the section devoted to that.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 17:36, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Paul - you never cite sources when you are asked for them. Not even above in the "RfC". Don't waste our time. Smallbones ( talk) 18:47, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
|
I see, the intensity of the dispute is decreasing, and the authors of the recent edits, made with violation of the edit restrictions, stopped to present new arguments and to respond on my counter-arguments. In this situation, my next steps are the following.
Paul writes "If majority single society studies demonstrate that the Great famine was (fully or partially) a result of Stalin's collectivisation policy, which lead to poor harvest and the need of forceful confiscations of food, regardless of the danger of starvation, I fully agree with that. However, almost no not-nationalistic scholarly sources claim that it was a deliberately organised genocide, and most scholars believe that the opposite was true: the famine was a result of the policy of Stalin's authorities, but it was not intentional, so it was not mass killing, at least according to one of few definitions. Therefore, it should be mentioned with reservations, what the article (but not the lede) is doing."
Actually the article doesn't do that at all. A sub-section is listed now under controversies, but the only real controversy in the sub-section is whether the killings should be called genocide, or were merely mass killings, or perhaps just ‘negligent genocide’ or "a series of crimes against humanity." Paul's POV that the famine was completely unintentional is almost completely missing in the sub-section, except for a sentence on the Russian government's view. I think that if he has a reliable source that says the famine was unintentional he should include it (briefly, since it appears to be a minority view). Notice, however, I don't mean to say that if he has sources that don't mention intentions, that he should include this as evidence that there were no intentions. Sources that don't mention mass killings or intentions are simply not evidence against intentional mass killings.
I would like to include a quote and brief explanation of it as the 2nd paragraph of the sub-section. This is from a Chapter by Werth in the Black Book of Communism, previously lauded by Paul. The inserted material would be:
We should also move the sub-section up to the Soviet Union section, since there doesn't seem to be much real controversy among the reliable sources. Let me know whether you agree or disagree with making this change in the article. Smallbones ( talk) 14:53, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
It's pretty clear that it's still very divided here. I don't really know where to take this, or even how the extra rules applied here should be interpreted. Lede 1, which PS seems to want to put in still, had 2 supports and 7 opposes, Lede 2, by my count, had 5 supports and 7 opposes. Lede 3 - which hasn't been put in a ready-to-go cited format - seems to have lots of support. Could somebody write it up and we could !vote on it (vs. the current lede)? If this doesn't work, we could try again (and again and again). Or somebody else could come up with a better way to move forward. Smallbones ( talk) 01:34, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Let's go with lede 3 then. Using, or course, the current refs from the lede I left the article with. Cheers, and glad this drama is over. Collect ( talk) 13:08, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
The editors of this article have long been divided into two groups, each having a different concept of how the article should be approached. While the whole article needs extensive work, the difference in concept shows up most clearly in the lede: one group does not want to include more than a couple of numbers in the lede, another believes that the scale of the mass killings needs to be clearly explained there. Rather than continue endless pages of argument on this matter, we've decided to ask the general population of editors on Wikipedia to decide which approach is best. Please make brief comments below.
Paul Siebert (
talk) 18:02, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Smallbones ( talk) 13:14, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
While not all these footnotes need to be in the lede, it is important for reviewers to know that these exist and can be included in the body of the text if they are not already.
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In regard to Biophys:
??? I thought we just had an RFC above [6]. Why are we doing this all over again? -- Martin Tammsalu ( talk) 20:55, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Sorry guys, I've just updated the lede 1 as I promised to Smallbones yesterday. -- Paul Siebert ( talk) 14:35, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
This part of the discussion not needed |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
If anybody, after review of the anon's edit history, really thinks that this really belongs in the RfC, just remove the "hat" at the top and "hab" at the bottom. Smallbones ( talk) 23:30, 1 October 2011 (UTC) --- All of these are bad and confusing. This is a simple article intended for the simple reader. I will suggest:
|
To me, not knowing much about the facts, lede 1 reads like (I exaggerate a bit to get the point across): "Some scholars exaggerate, they are politically motivated, actually the situation was not so bad". Lede 2 reads: "Bad communists!". To me the best lead is the one that has been removed: lede 3. Without POV, without spin, and to the point. But as I said, I'm not expert on the subject. -- Dia^ ( talk) 16:10, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
That would be:
The only real problem with it is the "most countries didn't" sentence. Ceraucescu may not have been Stalin, but he would have been described as a mass murderer in any other century than the twentieth. Amd if we exclude the USSR, the PRC, three of the East Asian Communisms, part of Eastern Europe, and much of Africa, what's left to be "most"? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I see the discussion has abated. In a situation when no progress can be expected in close future, I revert last changes that have been made to the lede in violation of the procedure described by Sandstein on the top of this talk page. We can continue the discussion about further improvements of the lede later.--
Paul Siebert (
talk) 19:45, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
In my opinion, the discussion below has a direct relation to the lede 3: since the very idea to put some numbers into the opening sentence of the lede is methodologically flawed (see below), the lede 3 is also unacceptable. In my opinion, the old lede (before TLAM made his edit) is a least controversial version, although its further improvement is still possible.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 23:22, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
In the section beginning here we have three sentences that begin with a number. Here's the first:
“ | 50,000 to 100,000 people may have been killed in Bulgaria beginning in 1944 as part of agricultural collectivization and political repression. | ” |
It looks weird to start off a sentence with a number. I propose we add the word 'Between' to the beginning of each of these 3 sentences. This is, IMO, a pretty minor change, but I'm not sure if it truly qualifies as a WP:MINOR edit. Can I get consensus for this change? A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 21:22, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
I would like to make two proposals for small changes of wording, mainly in the interest of NPOV. One of them would be a change in the lead. I know that the current lead needs to be replaced with a better one, but the discussion above is dragging on and we should not abandon all attempts to make small improvements while waiting for eventual consensus. So, having said that, here are my proposals:
-- Amerul ( talk) 04:21, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Amerul states "The evidence of a lack of consensus among scholars is simply the fact that so many different opinions and estimates have been published." Actually, that's no evidence at all - the way folks of that persuasion commonly argue here.
Smallbones ( talk) 14:38, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
@ Peters. I fully agree with the following:
What I cannot understand, however, and what I disagree with is your guys vehement attempts to push a single (and a very disputable) source to the opening statement of the lede. Yes, different estimates exist, and most of them deserve mention in the article, yes, different authors support or criticise the concept as whole. However, what relation does it have to the first lede's sentence? If different opinions and figures exist, why only a single (and not the most reliable) source is represented in the first sentence of the lede?
And one more point. Could you please stop using the word "contentions" to describe the statements I make. I believe I have already demonstrated for many times that all assertions I make are based on what reliable sources say. Your wording is insulting and uncivil.--
Paul Siebert (
talk) 22:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
The last Smallbones' post deserves more detailed answer. Before answering, let me explain that the below text is based mostly on what I learned reading reliable sources, therefore, any attempt to present it as my "personal contentions" will be treated as incivility. I do not, however, provide citations, because all of that is supposed just to demonstrate my point, and is not supposed to be added to the main article directly.
Re "Why do you repeatedly cite Werth, without including his estimates???" Because he does not provide them. One review on the BB specifically notes that Werth, by contrast to Courtois, who wants to shock a reader with figures, pays little attention to the overall numbers, preferring to focus on the essence of the events, because the history of these events, and cannot be reduced just to the numbers of victims. That is why the opinion of this serious author and the major contributor of the BB should have much more weight on WP pages.
Let me explain that using the following examples. Everyone knows the proverb about lie, big lie and statistics. Let me demonstrate how can it work here.
Paul's translation is clearly overly-literal. Werth is directly comparing his numbers to Courtois's, which are on mass killings or genocide, so translating "abusif" here as "abuse" is misleading. There should be no question about Werth's views about the intention of Communists in these killings in the USSR. Regarding just the famine of 1932-33, he states that
Werth estimates the total death toll of the famine as 6 million.
That is not the usual meaning of "abuse" in English. Abuse in English, is more like using the words on this page "tantamount to direct lie," "stupid," "lie" (several times), "crap," and "Your wording is insulting and uncivil," directed toward me and other editors - that is "abusive" and should not be tolerated.
How can Paul use Werth as the centerpiece in his argument that we can't put numbers on the death toll?
Smallbones ( talk) 13:25, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I fully understand a desire of some users to come out with some concrete figures of those who died under Communists. The motif is obvious: a reader, who will not probably read the article as whole, after seing the first sentence will say: "Look, Hitler killed just 6 million Jews, and Communist killed 100 million people. Definitely, Communism is much more deadly than Nazism." That is exactly what Courotris wanted to say, and that is exactly he was criticized for by many authors, including his own co-authors, Werth and Margolin:
formulas, the juxtaposition of histories aimed at asserting the comparability and, next, the identities of fascism, and Nazism, and communism." Indeed, Courtois would have been far more effective if he had shown more restraint." (Stanley Hoffmann. Source: Foreign Policy, No. 110, Special Edition: Frontiers of Knowledge (Spring, 1998), pp. 166-169)
In other words, not only the authors like Werth and Hoffman criticize the Courtois' figures, they criticize the very approach (an attempt to describe such a complex event with just one figure, or range of figures). And I see that Smallbones et al are trying to push exactly the same approach here. However, since this approach has explicitly been criticized, it cannot be implemented in the first sentence of the lede.
Recently, I have been surprised to learn that, despite its large scale, Gulag had no appreciable demographic consequences for the USSR. At the first glance, that sounds cynically, because every life is precious, and we are not supposed to speak in these terms. However, can you tell me, in which country more people are being killed in car accidents, in USA or in France? Of course, in the US. However, does this fact per se is an indication that cars in America much more deadly? Obviously, whereas the overall number of car accident victims was higher in the US, that is mostly due to the larger size of American population, so the probability to be killed in car accident is not much higher in the US than in France. Similarly, whereas a probability of a Jew to be killed under Nazi was >90%, the probability of ordinary Belorussian to be killed under Nazi occupation, and the probability of ordinary Khmer to be killed during KR genocide, were ca 40%, the probability of an ordinary Soviet citizen to be killed during the Great Purge was 1%. A difference was quite obvious, however, bare numbers conceal it quite effectively, which helps some authors (Courtois, Rosefielde et al) to use them for pushing their agenda (that is not my conclusion, almost every review on the BB states that).
Similarly, although noone can negate an obvious fact that totalitarian Communist regime in China killed tens of million people, the scale of those killing is partially explained simply by large size of this country.
It has already been demonstrated for many times that some parallelism between Nazi mass killings (the Holocaust, execution of the population of occupied territories, etc) and similar events in the Soviet Union can be drawn. However, the scale of these killings in the USSR did not exceed 1 million (Stephen Wheatcroft. The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-45. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 48, No. 8 (Dec., 1996), pp. 1319-1353) All other deaths fall into quite different categories and cannot be combined together. An example of a sober and reasonable approach to description of these events is presented in the article of another serious scholar (Ellman):
Although the latter work is a single society study, I suggest to follow this methodology in the lede: to pay much more attention to the explanation of different categories of mass deaths in different countries, and of different ways that have been used to evaluate these numbers. An attempt to come out with some exact number (or range) is totally misleading, and now, when I have explained that (with sources), every attempt to push this idea without providing serious counter-arguments against the approach I propose is tantamount to deliberate attempt to mislead a reader.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 14:00, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Paul should not want to hang his hat on anything that Ellman writes. Ellman cites many statistics and death tolls, and of course we can include those, with explanations. But Ellman is not somebody whose work can be cited as requiring a ban on death tolls here. And it should be useful to note that in regard to the 1932-33 famine in the USSR that he states that "the debate is between those who consider Stalin guilty ‘only’ of (mass) manslaughter, and those who consider him guilty of (mass) murder." [Ellman's (mass)]. If Ellman quantifies mass-killings like this, and Werth quantifies mass-killings (as above), and these are Paul's only two examples, we cannot conclude that quantification of mass killings should be disallowed here. You won't convince anybody with these examples. End of story. Let's procede with suggested new ledes. Smallbones ( talk) 15:23, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Wow, ok, I was clearly wrong to believe that I could help reconcile the two sides and reach consensus. Never mind, then. I am now inclined to believe that this article can never achieve NPOV. But I will go ahead and implement my second proposal, since that seems to be unopposed. -- Amerul ( talk) 06:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I have decided that, at least for now, I will stay out of the debate about whether to include exact numbers in the lead. When I made my first proposal above, I did not realize how controversial it would be. I thought it was a good way to satisfy all sides. I was wrong.
But I do not want to completely give up the idea of making small improvements to the lead. So here is a different proposal, which is hopefully uncontroversial. As it currently stands, the lead includes the following sentence:
This sentence gives the false impression that the "100 million" estimates include victims of war, famine and so on, while the "85 million" estimates do not. That is not the case. All estimates include famine victims. Even the lower estimates include at least the victims of the Great Chinese Famine during the Great Leap Forward. In fact, this one event seems to be responsible for 40-50% of all deaths attributed to Communist regimes, depending on the source.
As such, I propose replacing the words "Some higher estimates of mass killings" with "These estimates".
--
Amerul (
talk) 06:30, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I can't help but notice that the lead seems to switch back and forth between two different topics:
Currently, the first sentence is about #1. The second is about #2. Third sentence switches back to #1. Fourth sentence switches back to #2 and then back to #1. Add. Rinse. Repeat.
I attempted to re-arrange the lede so that all the content about the estimates is in one spot and all the content about the causes is another spot. I know that this is a contentious article, so let me emphasize the following:
The only exception to the above is that I combined (what used to be) the final two sentences and inserted a single word 'but' as a transition. I did this only because I thought the prose flowed better that way. If this is a sticking point, I'm fine with keeping them separate sentences.
Here's my suggested text:
Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll numbering between 85 and 100 million.
[1] Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only mass murders or executions that took place during the elimination of political opponents,
civil wars,
terror campaigns, and
land reforms, but also lives lost due to war, famine, disease, and exhaustion in labor camps. The estimates of the number of non-combatants killed by these three regimes alone range from a low of 21 million to a high of 70 million.
dubious
[2] The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the
Soviet Union under
Joseph Stalin, in the
People's Republic of China under
Mao Zedong, and in
Cambodia under the
Khmer Rouge but there have also been killings on a smaller scale in
North Korea,
Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Scholarship focuses on the causes of mass killings in single societies, though some claims of common causes for mass killings have been made. As of 2011, academic consensus has not been achieved on causes of large scale killings by states, including by states governed by communists. In particular, the number of comparative studies suggesting causes is limited. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion combine all these deaths under the categories "mass killings", democide, politicide, "classicide", or loosely defined genocide. According to these scholars, the total death toll of the mass killings defined in this way amounts to many tens of millions; however, the validity of this approach is questioned by other scholars.
It's not 100% perfect. By the end of the lede, it switches back to the death toll estimates, but my goal was not to modify any of the sentences, just simply re-arrange them. But at least there's not the constant back and forth.
I'm just throwing out a trial balloon here and see what others think.
A Quest For Knowledge (
talk) 23:19, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
How about replacing the contentious sentence with something like The estimates of mass killings variously include mass murders or executions that took place during the elimination of political opponents, civil wars, terror campaigns, and land reforms, and lives lost due to war, famine, disease, and exhaustion in labor camps? Also note that the expression these three regimes cannot precede the sentence which identifies the regimes, please fix this. Colchicum ( talk) 01:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
OK, here's my new proposal. It's pretty much identical to the first one, except I address the issue raised by Colchicum. Again, I didn't add, remove or change any of the existing content. I simply re-organized the existing content.
Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll numbering between 85 and 100 million.
[1] Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only mass murders or executions that took place during the elimination of political opponents,
civil wars,
terror campaigns, and
land reforms, but also lives lost due to war, famine, disease, and exhaustion in labor camps. The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the
Soviet Union under
Joseph Stalin, in the
People's Republic of China under
Mao Zedong, and in
Cambodia under the
Khmer Rouge. The estimates of the number of non-combatants killed by these three regimes alone range from a low of 21 million to a high of 70 million.
dubious
[2] There have also been killings on a smaller scale in
North Korea,
Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Scholarship focuses on the causes of mass killings in single societies, though some claims of common causes for mass killings have been made. As of 2011, academic consensus has not been achieved on causes of large scale killings by states, including by states governed by communists. In particular, the number of comparative studies suggesting causes is limited. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion combine all these deaths under the categories "mass killings", democide, politicide, "classicide", or loosely defined genocide. According to these scholars, the total death toll of the mass killings defined in this way amounts to many tens of millions; however, the validity of this approach is questioned by other scholars.
A Quest For Knowledge (
talk) 16:32, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
(od) What we have is a substantial number of reliable sources with estimates of deaths. Absent reliable sources saying that these are not "mainstream" it is not up to us to "know" that they are "fringe" (indeed, I have repeatedly suggested that those who dislike the figures present reliable sources contradicting the estimates - alas, such have not been given, or else are not cited by other scholars to any extent as contradicting the estimates). Wikipedia policies must be followed no matter what any editor asserts that he knows - that is how the project works. I make no assertions at all as to what I "know" to be "truth" and I ask the others to make that same commitment. Cheers. Collect ( talk) 00:28, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
(od)We have Rummel at [12] with figures of over 100 million.
Courtois at over 100 million.
Valentino at 110 million, with a range stated as being from multiple sources of 21 to 70 million for USSR, PRC and Cambodia alone, and noting that most such regimes have not engaged in "mass killing." His cite inplies that the likely range for the three nations then is on the order of 40 million to 50 million.
Gurr and Harff are cited in [13] (Wang) as citing the USSR for "11 million murders" in theperiod 1029 - 1936. This is the only estimate I found for anything approaching only 10 million deaths, and restricts itself to actual "murders" in a seven year period - so is far from inclusive. Wang sees "totalitiarianism" as being the problem.
Lansford appears to cite Rummel at [14] implying that Rummel is generally accepted as mainstream.
Kurtz and Turpin arrive at over 115 million at [15]
Using the fact that the most widely cited figures are in the total range of 80 to 100 million, it seems that this is the "mainstream" position, and any claim that 10 million is remotely near the mark is clearly WP:FRINGE.
[16] Zhengyuan Fu, who is widely respected, a former senior research professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a visiting associate professor at UC Irvine, a former fellow of the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford etc., lists a number of cites for "excess deaths" in China - citing Coale for 16.5 million "excess deaths" in 1958-61 alone, Aird a "population loss" of 23 million for that period, Ashton Hill et al 30 million deaths and 33 million lost or postponed births. He lists Bannister and Kane as agreeing wth Hill. Z. Fu then ascribes a figure of 43 million deaths in 1959-61 to Chen Yizi as his source. WP:RS from Cambridge University Press in 1993. Need more milk? I dount this manages to back your insistence on a fringe view of 10 million total for all the countries. I trust Fu, as a former personage in the PRC qualifies as "expert" on this matter, and Chen Yizi, former "head of the Government's Institute for Restructuring the Economy" (China) is adequate as a source on material to which he was privy as a government member in the PRC. All of this, of course, has been provided before. Cheers. Collect ( talk) 17:12, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
(ec):::(#GH)Your problem is still that you assert "facts" without giving scholarly cites to back them up. And I really would have ben amazed if the Duma said that Russia bore any responsibility for anything <g>. So that cavil drops.
[17] certainly offers no claim that large numbers did not die before 1939.
[18] gives a total 1941 Soviet population of 181 million including "annexed territories". Other sources give the base total at 164 million in 1940, which seems consistent. Rosefielde
[19] offers support as well for large numbers of deaths in the USSR (on the order of 15 million in one short period). By the way, with 50 million+ deaths in China, the 60 million you assert is given by Kurtz and Turpin is clearly not used at all in this computation and summary - it includes the deaths in the early years when the population fell by a very substantial number, but is not where the total of 85 to 100 million rests.
[20] is RS and states Russia's population fell from 171 million in 1914 to 132 million in 1921 (39 million loss in population in 4 years). Which likely explains the larger figure. And as the larger figure is not part of the body being summarized, it is nicely irrelevant. Are you going to try arguing that Yizi is not RS? Cheers.
One way or the another, I saw no serious arguments in favour of presenting the figures of "Communist mass killings" before the very term (more precisely, variour quite different meanings of this term) have been discussed. In other words,
Please, address the following request:
-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 01:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Um == I think the history of the article and the archived talk shows full well that sufficient reliable sources are present in the body for the lede to indicate the larger figure. The "proof by assertion" that such is not "majority" is doomed -- the onus is on those asserting that the material is not the current mainstream view to show such by using reliable sources in the article - not by mere assertion. It is not up to those using the current claims in the body of the article which are supported by the majority of reliable sources when no sources asserting otherwise have been presented (noting Paul's iteration that deaths due to opposing "agrarian reform" are not "deaths" for the purposes of this article - but that position is not supported by mainstream reliable sources). Cheers - but this iterated argument is getting tendentious - the rules of Wikipedia say to provide contradicting reliable sources if you wish a claim inserted in the body. Collect ( talk) 13:10, 18 November 2011 (UTC)