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![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on 11 July 2009. The result of the discussion was keep. |
![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on 29 September 2009 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep. |
Article is only referenced using an old essay hosted at a conservative website. - Mike Rosoft ( talk) 16:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
The paragraph beginning with "With the election of Ronald Reagan..." is a bit unclear and of questionable relevance. Were the peace movement organizations listed in it Soviet run or Soviet funded? If so then that should be stated explicitly and referenced. If not, it should probably be replaced by a general statement(s) that there was a peace movement and that a portion, but not all of it, was Soviet funded. Right now it's hard to tell what the purpose of this paragraph in the over article is. radek ( talk) 18:32, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
<-- Maybe, sort of, not really. If you want to include a paragraph about the broader peace movement and how a lot, maybe most, of it was not Soviet-sponsored then that's fine (include sources). But as it stands the paragraph is pretty much off topic and not written in a way that fits in with the article. Besides the fact that it's not good to keep material inserted by a banned user. So rewrite or remove. radek ( talk) 00:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
I have removed the offending paragraph. It was not relevant and did not claim that the very big peace protests of the 1980s were run by the Soviets, but it was probably included because an editor wished to imply that they were. As far as the UK is concerned, a major player in the peace demonstrations in the early 'eighties was END, European Nuclear Disarmament, set up precisely because its founders (including E.P.Thompson) considered that established peace organisations like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) concentrated on opposition to American nuclear weapons and were soft on Russian ones.
It has been claimed for fifty years that CND is communist-run. The facts seem to be as follows.
Marshall46 ( talk) 08:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Im suprised nobody has tagged this article for POV or weasel words. Even the title is pretty loaded. The allegation that peace movements in the West were run by soviet agents. Was (and still is) a common charge levelled by critics of these movements and occasionally there may even have been a small grain of truth there (as in some degree of infiltration or funding from questionable sources) but to infer that such movements were by and large run by the Soviet government is a controversial suggestion to say the least. As for the Nuclear winter hypothises being a forgery by the Soviet academy of sciences there was a lot of support from western scientists (along with evidence from large volcanic eruptions) for the notion that a large scale nuclear conflict would have some medium term effect on global climate. Such concerns were even raised during the late 1990's India/Pakistan standoff. 86.112.236.189 ( talk) 16:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
I've replaced the "dubious" tag within the text with references to Pete Earley's book "Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War". This book was reviewed by the historian Nigel West in the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Volume 21, Issue 4 December 2008 , pages 793 - 796, titled “The New Kind of Russian Defector”. According to West, the SVR defector Tretyakov waived any royalties from the book and claims he is a man of principle. In conclusion the only issue he had with the book was to say the "author Pete Earley is guilty of a major irritant— failure to provide an index, thereby reducing the utility of his otherwise fine volume". So the book's claims seem reasonable enough to remove the tags. -- Martintg ( talk) 12:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
How about Soviet-influenced peace movements in the West? I don't think that the word "run" is the best here; many movements were influenced by Soviet agents and propaganda, but were they completely run by them? And "Europe and the United States" equals the West (which includes Canada, Australia and New Zeland - which I am sure were also affected by this problem). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:57, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Why is this in the 'Vietnam War' section? He doesn't mention Vietnam. He does mention neutron weapons, AIDS... these things came along after Vietnam. The interview is informative but the material seems more suited to the lead or perhaps a new section on Soviet goals. Dlabtot ( talk) 21:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
This needs better refs, but the first para of that article is quite interesting.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
In the section on Soviet funding of peace movements, I have cited Staar more accurately. He says that the World Peace Council and the International Institute for Peace received funding from the Soviet Union; the other organizations listed are said to be "closely associated" with them. The Pugwash and Dartmouth conferences are said to have allowed Soviet delegates to promote the policies of the Soviet Union. I have removed references to the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the World Federation of Trade Unions because they are not peace movements. I have also tightened up the prose and removed repetition. Marshall46 ( talk) 21:43, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Just found an interesting chapter in Richard Felix Staar, Foreign policies of the Soviet Union, Hoover Press, 1991, ISBN 0817991026 ( [1]). Soviet Foreign Propaganda chapter starts at p.75, in particular, look at Front Organizations chapter at p.79, there is a large list of such organizations, from World Peace Committee to Esperantist Movement for Peace or International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War... On p.84., there is a subchapter for Front Conferences, and on p.86, a subchapter on "Specialized Peace Movements". -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure how reliable is this source: [2] but it has a nice clear statement: "The Soviets exploited Western peace movements as a means to reduce the build-up of arms in the West." -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree that this section needs improvement. It is not, however, as some suggested, about the Bolshevik/Soviet invasion of Poland, but about how Bolsheviks/Soviets employed propaganda/agents/etc. in a (rather successful) attempt to influence Western public opinion, portraying their invasion as some form of liberation or defense, denying that they had plans to advance further (to Germany and beyond), and prevent Poland from receiving support/supplies from the West. Part of that involved supporting/encouraging pro-peace sentiments and demonstrations in the West. I am not sure how significant were the peace movements before the era of Cold War, but there is enough reference to see that Bolsheviks/Soviets tried to influence the Western peace movements as early as during the time of the Russian Revolution and in its immediate aftermath. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:16, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
Here is a relevant sources:
The Cold War era Soviet interference in world (West...) peace movements can be dated back to Soviet policies of 20s and PSWar, hence this section is important. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:01, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
I have cited Staar correctly. He says that this organization was "closely connected" with the World Peace Council (Table 4.3, p.82). As to actual influence, he says that its Soviet members put forward the policies of their country at its meetings. I have removed Staar's statement that IPPNW was formed at the same time as the USSR started a campaign against NATO because this is spin and innuendo - one might as well say that it was formed at the same time as the USSR started deploying its SS20 missiles. Marshall46 ( talk) 22:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Or, more to the point, the IPPNW was formed at about the time that the missiles it protested the deployment of, were deployed. Sinister, eh? Anarchangel ( talk) 12:48, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
We have sources that clearly state some peace movement were founded/infiltatrated/run/heavily influenced by Soviet intelligence. There should be no weaseling along the lines that "It has been claimed that some of these movements were..." or "Organizations said to be "closely associated" include...". Example of major weaseling in intro: [3]-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
There are more citations of Richard F. Starr's book (eighteen) than there are other sources that match the article text, combined (fifteen). Starr's citations in his book include citations of books by Richard F. Starr. I am not joking. He really does cite himself, numerous times.
Starr paints the WPC black by assertion and then assumes that the rest of the WPC list of affiliated organizations are guilty by association. Any action of any organization on the list is then considered to be an action directed from Moscow. The only real citation of anything whatever of consequence in the entire nine pages of Starr's assertions and lists is one man's testimony before the US Congressional Committee for Intelligence. The text is not given.
Five citations, including the one of Starr's in the lede, do not verify what is said in the article.
Of the 15 non-Starr verifying cites, eight are in the first half of the article. This section, is about the pre-WWII Soviet maneuvering to get themselves a piece of Poland. Sad. But with no facts that bear upon the title of the article. The article is a stub without it, but then, I don't think it should be an article at all.
Of the remaining seven non-Starr, verifying, relevant citations in the article, one is from an ex-KGB accused of being a double agent. Two are from a defector. As well as spinning some ripping yarns about Russia funding anti-war movements during Viet Nam to get them to protest against the war (Talk about money well spent, eh? That must have been hard) the defector promised that there were caches of nuclear weapons hidden throughout Europe, guarded by bomb traps. At one of the locations, searchers accidentally set off an explosive device. Seeing as I haven't heard anything about a giant cloud of uranium particles floating across any of the states bordering Switzerland, or a cache of nuclear material, I am just going to have to assume that there wasn't any weapons-grade uranium at that location. Why does that sound familiar? He can always make up the locations of some more, if he is getting a bit short on lecture invitations.
Another defector given the remaining four cites (it was five, but it didn't match the text and there was another cite that didn't match the text anyway, why confuse things with one tag for two non-matching cites) doesn't need to go on lecture tours. He was given 2 million dollars by the CIA when he defected. He has a heck of a story about a couple of red-linked (WP, not commie conspiracy) russian science labs that cooked up this story about, get this, giant clouds of radioactive dust obscuring the sun for years, and called it, hah! nuclear winter. Can you believe it? Boy were those Nobel-prize-winning scientists dumb to fall for that one. Still not sure it was worth $2 million though. He wrote a book, too, for when the two million dollars runs out.
I added two citations to the article, which cite that useful idiots was wrongly attributed to Lenin. It is my opinion that this is the only solid piece of evidence in the entire article. It's kind of like hanging a gold star on top of a dead christmas tree. You end up wishing you didn't enjoy making things look nicer, so much. Or had an industrial-strength gold star to use, that would make it all better. It's awkward to clarify that there is no proof of it being Lenin's statement, etc etc, so wrongly will just have to do unless the whole phrase is removed or someone can think of a better way to phrase it.
If I am counting right, the entire article rests on the testimony of five individuals. There is no indication that anyone else in the historical community concurs with Starr, the two defectors, the double agent, or even the Congressional witness. Anarchangel (talk) 09:12, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
By the way, I completely disagree with the nominator that information in this article should be added to other articles. The madness must stop here. Unless there is, somewhere, better evidence for the existence of Soviet influence on western activist organizations, then any information on this subject should be restricted to articles about urban legends. Extraordinary claims such as these require extraordinary evidence. At this point I would probably settle for two cites per fabulously widesweeping and generalized insinuation, but I have probably had all my common sense worn down by the offhand and wholesale confabulation of this article. Anarchangel (talk) 09:35, 14 July 2009 (UTC) (previously written at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soviet-run peace movements in Western Europe and the United States) Anarchangel ( talk) 03:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
"The result was no consensus. If the article is not improved I would suggest a new AfD or a merge discussion on the talk page. BJ Talk 19:33, 18 July 2009 (UTC)" Diff of Closing statement added to this page by Anarchangel ( talk) 03:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
There appears to be some irregularity with regard to the closing. The closing statement now reads "The result was Keep. The notability of the subject in regard to the Cold War period is obvious; the question here is about content, focus and referencing in the article. However, that can be addressed via the editing process. AfD is not WP:CLEANUP, and I would recommend all interested parties in this discussion to please revisit the article and work towards its improvement. Pastor Theo (talk) 12:45, 19 July 2009 (UTC)" Added by Anarchangel ( talk) 15:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I have a question for Pastor Theo about the AfD decision, which I will print here first: "The notability of the subject, were it factually based, would not be at issue, nor was that issue addressed in the AfD. Would you care to comment on the Verifiability of the sources, and the multiple issues raised in the AfD about their quality? Anarchangel ( talk) 15:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Later, I propose to address the following problems:
The REDFLAG section (irony) in WP:VERIFIABILITY is pertinent to continued discussion of this article. In the AfD, I said, "Extraordinary claims such as these require extraordinary evidence" and REDFLAG is titled "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources". Had I only known.
Every post-WWII section is based solely on the testimony of a single individual. Every single individual's testimony is given on their own bio page. This article is utterly superfluous.
For now, I will restrict my arguments to the following problem:
When superfluous details are removed from the pre-WWII sections, what remains is not notable ( WP:N). This pretty much ends need for further consideration. For the sake of argument, however, I will discuss other problems, and of course show the details as superfluous.
Workers decide not to ship goods to Poland.
That is the entire substance of the first section. The rest is background.
There is no consensus of historical experts shown in this article for the circumstantial evidence concerning the non-shipping of goods to Poland. The mere statement of the fact that they didn't ship isn't controversial in any way. But in itself, it isn't notable.
There is no evidence shown that there was any influence by the Soviet Union on the trade unions, however the presence of the statement in an article about influence implies that there was. I don't believe that there is any WP rule covering this, I really don't like to do the usual thing that everybody does and try to stretch rules to fit the situation. The closest rule to this is WP:SYNTH, but we have a problem of implication by juxtaposition, not implication by assertion. What we have now is a section that assumes that there was influence, who states the facts. The trouble is, the facts don't back that assumption.
There is no evidence for the following. The language is PoV. Even if these assertions were not PoV, they would be removable under WP:CITE:
This section is a Von Daniken-esque profusion of unrelated evidence, each piece of which signifies absolutely nothing on its own, but which when presented in the desired context, purports to be circumstantial evidence.
When all the superfluous 'evidence' is removed from this section, what is left is: Previous edit by Anarchangel illustrating the paucity of the central thesis of the 1920 section.
I welcome your comments on this matter, and will respond to all that adhere to the top 3 layers of the discussion pyramid, and most that don't. Hopefully all. Some useful links to WP procedure: WP:LOP, WP:LGL, WP:EQ. Anarchangel ( talk) 03:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I thought I would wait until this first section stuff is resolved, but looking up at the rest of the talk page, it seems that Marshall believes Starr to be a reliable source. Allow me to acquaint you, Marshall, with a concept you may have heard of; consensus. Not, in this case, the editors on the talk page, but consensus in the academic community. The same thing goes for information coming from sources as for information going into the article; it has to meet the established consensus of scholars on the subject. Starr is one guy. Even assuming you don't see, don't want to see, or don't buy the argument that he shows no evidence of a connection between the the Soviet Union, the World Peace Council, and its list of affiliated members, you are still bound by WP:V and its attendant rule, WP:REDFLAG.
I also looked at the BBC cite; it is sad to see what a sorry tabloid POS BBC has become. Time was when I could accept the BBC as a reliable source and quote from it at random. Britain Betrayed, eh? "Fearsome Stasi held nation in its grip" with the immortal first line, "The Stasi earned a frightening reputation for thoroughness" -shudder- and "Respected lecturer's double life". All that's missing are the "I met Elvis on a UFO" stories and page 3.
I suggest you take a bit of a step back from this and reassess. What about the article has gotten better since you nominated it for deletion, other than what you yourself have added to it? Are you not putting ribbons on rubbish? There is nothing different about a Communist newspaper editor telling Russian Communists what he believes in his heart they ought to know to keep the balance, to what has been done by a thousand CIA informants, except that it is for significantly less money and with considerably more ethical considerations. And yet it is, the Reds 'control' this and 'manipulated' that. Wake up. Anarchangel ( talk) 17:40, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
What is the basis of claiming that Richard Felix Staar is an unreliable author? He is an author of numerous printed works ( [4], [5]), published by the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, University of Michigan and other reliable presses. He also published in reliable academic journals ( [6] and [7] in Mediterranean Quarterly - Duke University Press). He has a PhD, and in US academia has a rank at least a visiting / associate professor. Here's his bio: [8]. Here's an academic review of one of his work (or memoirs?), that states: "As a scholar, Richard Staar represents the best. In his works he has gathered facts carefully, painstakingly, and has drawn his inferences from reality rather than theory." As far as I can see, any criticism of his work above is pure IDONTLIKEHISPOVTHUSHEHASTOBEUNRELIABLE. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I have deleted Tretyakov's conspiracy theory about Nuclear winter as WP:Fringe.
He is the only source given for the claim that the nuclear winter hypothesis was a malicious fabrication by the KGB foisted on credulous westerners in order to foment opposition to the US weapons programme. The claim is inherently doubtful.
Major changes, a lot of work, and work well done I say. Only one of we three got what they wanted, but I got more of what I wanted than did Piotrus I think. I am satisfied with the way it is now, on first glance; it at least gives a neutral distance between Starr's assertions and the reader. Have to sleep, will take another look tomorrow.
Starr's Institution is not as easy to categorize as a tool of Edgar Hoover, unfortunately. I think the person quoted on Starr's bio page may have made that mistake, or maybe he knew something about President Hoover that I don't. It was founded in '59, tho; an Anti-Red agenda fits with that time frame, no matter who founded it. It has become a sort of prep school for foreign service/spy/diplomats, with the same goals but different means to the School of the Americas (aka new name), as far as I can tell. It's ironic that this propaganda machine in some ways resembles the World Peace Council that Starr rails against, except the WPC churns out publications, where the HI puts the finishing touches on the likes of Condoleeza Rice. Anarchangel ( talk) 14:00, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
I am still trying to improve this entry and I have tracked down the Bukovsky article cited (Vladimir Bukovsky, "The Peace Movements and the Soviet Union", Commentary, May 1982, pp.25-41). Bukovsky reports on the proceedings of the 1980 World Parliament of Peoples for Peace organised in Sofia by the World Peace Council, citing articles in Izvestia and Pravda. He notes that the conference's call for action in 1981 against the build up of Western armaments was followed the next year by huge peace demos in the West. "How on earth could the Soviets have known in 1980 about events that would take place in 1981," he asks, "unless they were running the whole show?" As evidence of Soviet influence, this speculation is without value, and, although I put in the Bukovsky citation, I am now deleting it. Marshall46 ( talk) 14:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Soviet "influence" on Western peace movements - the new title is misleading now to say the least.-- Jacurek ( talk) 20:38, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
I propose a modification of my previous title idea: Alleged connections between the USSR and on activist groups in the West. 'Run' is preposterous. Influence has only been alleged, not proven.
Moreover, if the Johnny Appleseed Society proposes that more apple trees be planted, and the CEO of Fnord Motors decides that is a fine idea, and declares himself a fervent apple-tree-planter, is Fnord Motors run by the Appleseed Society? Is Fnord Motors influenced? The decision to become an apple tree advocate is unilaterally, the Fnord CEO's. Apple-tree related business decisions later made by the CEO are his/ers. Beliefs aren't a disease that people are infected with. Causality is a real problem here. "Connections" takes away the supposition about cause and effect. Contacts between individuals and an organization do not cause the individuals to do something, and 'influence' implies that more than 'connections' does. Anarchangel ( talk) 04:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
The above title gives a little bit of wiggle room to include Trotskyite stuff if need be. More importantly, it is neutral, without having to go the other route and say 'allegations', which implies that the reports might not be untrue. I withdraw my suggestion of 'activist groups'; such can easily be put in their own section, and spun off into another article if need be, or the article title could simply be changed again to reflect the new content. Anarchangel ( talk) 23:23, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
The material you added is a perfect example of why I chose 'activist groups'. As for including the fact that communists and the trade unions opposed the peace movement, that sounds like a reason for changing the name. What's wrong with including that material? Because it contradicts the thesis of the article?
I'll give you this. The Lenin-era Communist Party was nothing like the Stalin era which was nothing like the Brezhnev era. But lumping them all together under Communism is considerably less of a liberty than claiming they influenced 'peace groups', whatever that means, by means assumed, unstated, and uncited.
I don't buy the 'where will it end' argument though, that's a ' Camel's nose'/'thin end of the wedge' argument I see a lot of in AfD. I'll give you the same answer I give them there. If someone wants to include information that expands the scope of the article too much, you delete it, and tell them why. The article is at nine kilobytes, seems a little early to be worrying about exceeding the 100 KB limit ( WP:SPLIT). Anarchangel ( talk) 11:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
This one [9]. Please see W:POINT. radek ( talk) 23:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Please bring a reliable source which says the US tried to establish an evil capitalist empire throughout the world and the Soviet Union tried to stop the spread of evil capitalism. As far as I know and the sources are saying, USSR tried to spread communism throughout the world in accordance with proletarian internationalism and the US tried to stop the spread of communism. The opening sentence in this version is misleading and inaccurate, which is why I made this edit to make it clear. -- Joklolk ( talk) 10:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Rationale: influenced is more broad and often more correct than run and we don't discuss only the West (for example, Soviet Peace Committee which is mentioned is not a Western organization, but a Soviet one). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:58, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Moving the article should be postponed until the AfD is concluded. Can this be moved back to Soviet-run peace movements in the West until then? radek ( talk) 01:24, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
[10] - it's Hoover which is respectable and reliable but still somewhat partisan. It may also aid in finding further sources. radek ( talk) 01:28, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
And here is one from Routledge press [11]. radek ( talk) 01:30, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
And here is another academic source from a prominent historian [12]. radek ( talk) 01:31, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Soviet-manipulated pacifism has appeared as a considerable political force inside the countries of Western Europe. radek ( talk) 01:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
And more history books [13]. radek ( talk) 01:42, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Cambridge University Press: [14] radek ( talk) 01:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Greenwood Publishing, though this one's more about influence on Japan's peace movement (West?) [15] radek ( talk) 01:44, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Another book source: [16] Resisting the bomb: a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement ... By Lawrence S. Wittner. Not saying it supports any specific claim (I haven't read it) but clearly relevant. Rd232 talk 12:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Marshall I don't think we disagree that much here. I certainly don't think that this article should give the impression that the entire peace movement was Soviet influenced. At the same time, this article is not about any 'allegations' that were made but rather about specific instances and organizations (like WPC) which were in fact Soviet influence or controlled or whatever the appropriate terminology here is. Also, if you have a source which states that a lot of peace groups tried to stay clear of the WPC for the reasons you state then that'd be a great addition to the article. radek ( talk) 02:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
The deletion review resulted in a decision to keep the article. I suggest that it is renamed "Soviet influence on non-aligned peace movements".
I have re-organised the material and I would suggest that it now gives a balanced view, reporting the undoubted attempts by the World Peace Council (WPC) to influence non-aligned peace organisations, and fairly reporting writers like Lunev and Kalugin who claim that Soviet influence went far beyond the WPC. I have also quoted Wittner, who reports how non-aligned peace organisasations distanced themselves from the WPC.
Why "non-aligned" rather than "western"? Because a large part of the WPC's constituency was organisations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Similarly, the organisations that remained independent of the WPC and Soviet influence were from the Non-Aligned Nations as well as from Europe, the USA and Australasia.
I feel that we are coming to a consensus on this hotly-contested topic, and I hope my recent amendments meet with the approval of other editors . Marshall46 ( talk) 10:56, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Marshall, just chill. Just because this article brings certain things to light doesn't mean that one day you're going to have to find all those receipts. You're in the clear. Tringross ( talk) 14:38, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
I have removed this passage because it gives undue weight to a fringe theory:
"More recently, Russian former intelligence officer and SVR defector Sergei Tretyakov went further and claimed that the KGB invented the concept of nuclear winter to foment opposition to Pershing II cruise missiles in Western Europe, alleging false reports released through the Soviet Academy of Sciences ... According to Tretyakov, this propaganda was distributed to peace groups, the environmental movement and Ambio, a peer-reviewed journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which published a key article on the topic. It then entered the mainstream with the help of popular scientist Carl Sagan, co-author of a study of the consequences of nuclear war."
Tretyakov is the only person to say that nuclear winter theory was invented by the KGB. He also gets the facts wrong:
Marshall46 ( talk) 13:14, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I have added a neutrality tag -- this article only presents claims from one side, saying what people thought was Soviet influence. Ot states them as claims, but it makes little attempt to provide sources that refute the claims. 204.167.92.26 ( talk) 20:04, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I've removed the neutrality tag. The editor who put it in posted it from an IP address with multiple users and hasn't followed it up. If they want to pursue it, perhaps they might like to improve the article. Marshall46 ( talk) 18:04, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
I have added more information about the Christian Peace Conference, the International Institute for Peace and the World Peace Esperanto Movement. The first two appear to have been founded as WPC front organizations. The World Peace Esperanto Movement was generally pro-Soviet, but merely tolerated in the Soviet bloc because of Stalin's deep-rooted suspicion of Esperanto. Its founder was eventually expelled from the Communist Party.
Soviet influence on independent peace groups in the west seems to have been harder to achieve. It is notable that KGB defectors like Lunev and Kalugin make huge claims about KGB influence but are unable to name a single organizations that the KGB controlled or funded. I suspect that KGB agents exaggerated their influence. Tretyakov's claim about the KGB faking the data behind the nuclear winter scenario seems also to be bragadoccio, as western atmospheric scientists were a long way ahead of those in the Soviet Union. Marshall46 ( talk) 10:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
An anonymous editor keeps putting in a passage that adds nothing to what is already there, except to mention Pershing missiles as per Earley p.170. I have added Pershing but taken out the rest. Marshall46 ( talk) 16:09, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
There is an interesting series of articles by Rob Prince about the World Peace Council (WPC), of which he was secretary. [1] They cast further doubt on the extent to which the Soviet Union succeeded in influencing the peace movement in the West.
If we add that the WPC denounced pacifism and hence distanced itself from most western peace organizations, and that Western peace organizations distanced themselves from the WPC, the extent of its influence is dubious. The few organizations that have been found to be closely associated with the WPC and to be funded by it were organizations in the Eastern bloc, not in the west. Marshall46 ( talk) 10:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Soviet influence on the peace movement's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "barlow":
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 09:36, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
I have done some work on the World Peace Council (WPC). According to all the sources I have seen, the Soviet Union took a position shortly after the Second World War to promote the concept of peace in order to protect itself against American superiority of arms. In 1950, through the agency of the International Department of the CPSU and the Soviet Peace Committee, it promoted the WPC, which Communist organisations throughout the world were instructed to support. The WPC followed the Soviet line that the world was divided between a peace-loving Soviet Union and a warmongering USA, and never deviated from it. When the Soviet Union developed the atom bomb, the WPC supported it. When the USA attacked Korea, the WPC attacked it. When Russia invaded Hungary, the WPC was silent.
Huge resources were put into the WPC, which mounted large international conferences, attended by thousands of delegates. Because of the resources and energy of the WPC, and its ability to attract star names like Frederic Joliot-Curie, Paul Robeson, Pablo Picasso and Jean-Paul Sartre, it dominated the peace movement in the early '50s to such a degree that it appeared in the public mind to be identical to it. Dozens of organisations were directed by Moscow to support it. They are all well-known front organisations, like the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) and the International Union of Students (IUS).
Two events changed this. The first was the silence of the WPC on the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, which revealed it as a ridiculous Soviet mouthpiece. The second was the growth in the non-aligned peace movement in the late 1950s, following the development of the H-bomb and the emergence in Britain of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. This movement differed from the WPC – it was less ideological, more sceptical of governments, more youth oriented and generally unbiddable. This peace movement was anathema to the WPC and the Soviet Union, which condemned its pacifism and its non-aligned stance. At the height of the anti-Vietnam war, the CIA decided that although the anti-war movement served the interests of the Communists, they did not control it. The WPC plodded on with its pro-Soviet line, but despite its grandiose conferences and declarations it had been sidelined by the non-aligned movement.
We have a few writers, like Staar, who claim that the peace movement was controlled by the Soviets, but when it comes to detail he mentions only known Communist front organisations, no non-aligned groups. Kalugin said that the Soviet Union ran all sorts of congresses, but it seems he is referring to outfits like the WPC, the WFTU, the WFDY and the IUS. Lunev claimed that the KGB funded every anti-war organisation in the USA, but fails to mention even one. His claim is contradicted by the CIA, whose 1967 report on the peace movement is now available.
We have known for some time that this article was written by members of the EEMG, who were motivated by an anti-Russian POV and didn’t know anything about the peace movement. (They even included the peace movement before the Second World War, which was in fact infiltrated by fascists, not by communists.) The idea of Communist or Soviet control of the peace movement is an old anti-Communist trope, given credence by the Soviet control of the WPC, but no source gives any evidence of Soviet influence on non-aligned peace groups.
What, then is, the point of this article? Marshall46 ( talk) 11:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Something about human rights organizations criticizing Ukraine for using some types of weaponry (that Russia uses anyway) like mines or cluster munitions or such may be relevant here. Ex. [17]. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:43, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
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![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on 11 July 2009. The result of the discussion was keep. |
![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on 29 September 2009 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep. |
Article is only referenced using an old essay hosted at a conservative website. - Mike Rosoft ( talk) 16:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
The paragraph beginning with "With the election of Ronald Reagan..." is a bit unclear and of questionable relevance. Were the peace movement organizations listed in it Soviet run or Soviet funded? If so then that should be stated explicitly and referenced. If not, it should probably be replaced by a general statement(s) that there was a peace movement and that a portion, but not all of it, was Soviet funded. Right now it's hard to tell what the purpose of this paragraph in the over article is. radek ( talk) 18:32, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
<-- Maybe, sort of, not really. If you want to include a paragraph about the broader peace movement and how a lot, maybe most, of it was not Soviet-sponsored then that's fine (include sources). But as it stands the paragraph is pretty much off topic and not written in a way that fits in with the article. Besides the fact that it's not good to keep material inserted by a banned user. So rewrite or remove. radek ( talk) 00:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
I have removed the offending paragraph. It was not relevant and did not claim that the very big peace protests of the 1980s were run by the Soviets, but it was probably included because an editor wished to imply that they were. As far as the UK is concerned, a major player in the peace demonstrations in the early 'eighties was END, European Nuclear Disarmament, set up precisely because its founders (including E.P.Thompson) considered that established peace organisations like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) concentrated on opposition to American nuclear weapons and were soft on Russian ones.
It has been claimed for fifty years that CND is communist-run. The facts seem to be as follows.
Marshall46 ( talk) 08:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Im suprised nobody has tagged this article for POV or weasel words. Even the title is pretty loaded. The allegation that peace movements in the West were run by soviet agents. Was (and still is) a common charge levelled by critics of these movements and occasionally there may even have been a small grain of truth there (as in some degree of infiltration or funding from questionable sources) but to infer that such movements were by and large run by the Soviet government is a controversial suggestion to say the least. As for the Nuclear winter hypothises being a forgery by the Soviet academy of sciences there was a lot of support from western scientists (along with evidence from large volcanic eruptions) for the notion that a large scale nuclear conflict would have some medium term effect on global climate. Such concerns were even raised during the late 1990's India/Pakistan standoff. 86.112.236.189 ( talk) 16:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
I've replaced the "dubious" tag within the text with references to Pete Earley's book "Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War". This book was reviewed by the historian Nigel West in the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Volume 21, Issue 4 December 2008 , pages 793 - 796, titled “The New Kind of Russian Defector”. According to West, the SVR defector Tretyakov waived any royalties from the book and claims he is a man of principle. In conclusion the only issue he had with the book was to say the "author Pete Earley is guilty of a major irritant— failure to provide an index, thereby reducing the utility of his otherwise fine volume". So the book's claims seem reasonable enough to remove the tags. -- Martintg ( talk) 12:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
How about Soviet-influenced peace movements in the West? I don't think that the word "run" is the best here; many movements were influenced by Soviet agents and propaganda, but were they completely run by them? And "Europe and the United States" equals the West (which includes Canada, Australia and New Zeland - which I am sure were also affected by this problem). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:57, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Why is this in the 'Vietnam War' section? He doesn't mention Vietnam. He does mention neutron weapons, AIDS... these things came along after Vietnam. The interview is informative but the material seems more suited to the lead or perhaps a new section on Soviet goals. Dlabtot ( talk) 21:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
This needs better refs, but the first para of that article is quite interesting.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
In the section on Soviet funding of peace movements, I have cited Staar more accurately. He says that the World Peace Council and the International Institute for Peace received funding from the Soviet Union; the other organizations listed are said to be "closely associated" with them. The Pugwash and Dartmouth conferences are said to have allowed Soviet delegates to promote the policies of the Soviet Union. I have removed references to the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the World Federation of Trade Unions because they are not peace movements. I have also tightened up the prose and removed repetition. Marshall46 ( talk) 21:43, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Just found an interesting chapter in Richard Felix Staar, Foreign policies of the Soviet Union, Hoover Press, 1991, ISBN 0817991026 ( [1]). Soviet Foreign Propaganda chapter starts at p.75, in particular, look at Front Organizations chapter at p.79, there is a large list of such organizations, from World Peace Committee to Esperantist Movement for Peace or International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War... On p.84., there is a subchapter for Front Conferences, and on p.86, a subchapter on "Specialized Peace Movements". -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure how reliable is this source: [2] but it has a nice clear statement: "The Soviets exploited Western peace movements as a means to reduce the build-up of arms in the West." -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree that this section needs improvement. It is not, however, as some suggested, about the Bolshevik/Soviet invasion of Poland, but about how Bolsheviks/Soviets employed propaganda/agents/etc. in a (rather successful) attempt to influence Western public opinion, portraying their invasion as some form of liberation or defense, denying that they had plans to advance further (to Germany and beyond), and prevent Poland from receiving support/supplies from the West. Part of that involved supporting/encouraging pro-peace sentiments and demonstrations in the West. I am not sure how significant were the peace movements before the era of Cold War, but there is enough reference to see that Bolsheviks/Soviets tried to influence the Western peace movements as early as during the time of the Russian Revolution and in its immediate aftermath. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:16, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
Here is a relevant sources:
The Cold War era Soviet interference in world (West...) peace movements can be dated back to Soviet policies of 20s and PSWar, hence this section is important. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:01, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
I have cited Staar correctly. He says that this organization was "closely connected" with the World Peace Council (Table 4.3, p.82). As to actual influence, he says that its Soviet members put forward the policies of their country at its meetings. I have removed Staar's statement that IPPNW was formed at the same time as the USSR started a campaign against NATO because this is spin and innuendo - one might as well say that it was formed at the same time as the USSR started deploying its SS20 missiles. Marshall46 ( talk) 22:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Or, more to the point, the IPPNW was formed at about the time that the missiles it protested the deployment of, were deployed. Sinister, eh? Anarchangel ( talk) 12:48, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
We have sources that clearly state some peace movement were founded/infiltatrated/run/heavily influenced by Soviet intelligence. There should be no weaseling along the lines that "It has been claimed that some of these movements were..." or "Organizations said to be "closely associated" include...". Example of major weaseling in intro: [3]-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
There are more citations of Richard F. Starr's book (eighteen) than there are other sources that match the article text, combined (fifteen). Starr's citations in his book include citations of books by Richard F. Starr. I am not joking. He really does cite himself, numerous times.
Starr paints the WPC black by assertion and then assumes that the rest of the WPC list of affiliated organizations are guilty by association. Any action of any organization on the list is then considered to be an action directed from Moscow. The only real citation of anything whatever of consequence in the entire nine pages of Starr's assertions and lists is one man's testimony before the US Congressional Committee for Intelligence. The text is not given.
Five citations, including the one of Starr's in the lede, do not verify what is said in the article.
Of the 15 non-Starr verifying cites, eight are in the first half of the article. This section, is about the pre-WWII Soviet maneuvering to get themselves a piece of Poland. Sad. But with no facts that bear upon the title of the article. The article is a stub without it, but then, I don't think it should be an article at all.
Of the remaining seven non-Starr, verifying, relevant citations in the article, one is from an ex-KGB accused of being a double agent. Two are from a defector. As well as spinning some ripping yarns about Russia funding anti-war movements during Viet Nam to get them to protest against the war (Talk about money well spent, eh? That must have been hard) the defector promised that there were caches of nuclear weapons hidden throughout Europe, guarded by bomb traps. At one of the locations, searchers accidentally set off an explosive device. Seeing as I haven't heard anything about a giant cloud of uranium particles floating across any of the states bordering Switzerland, or a cache of nuclear material, I am just going to have to assume that there wasn't any weapons-grade uranium at that location. Why does that sound familiar? He can always make up the locations of some more, if he is getting a bit short on lecture invitations.
Another defector given the remaining four cites (it was five, but it didn't match the text and there was another cite that didn't match the text anyway, why confuse things with one tag for two non-matching cites) doesn't need to go on lecture tours. He was given 2 million dollars by the CIA when he defected. He has a heck of a story about a couple of red-linked (WP, not commie conspiracy) russian science labs that cooked up this story about, get this, giant clouds of radioactive dust obscuring the sun for years, and called it, hah! nuclear winter. Can you believe it? Boy were those Nobel-prize-winning scientists dumb to fall for that one. Still not sure it was worth $2 million though. He wrote a book, too, for when the two million dollars runs out.
I added two citations to the article, which cite that useful idiots was wrongly attributed to Lenin. It is my opinion that this is the only solid piece of evidence in the entire article. It's kind of like hanging a gold star on top of a dead christmas tree. You end up wishing you didn't enjoy making things look nicer, so much. Or had an industrial-strength gold star to use, that would make it all better. It's awkward to clarify that there is no proof of it being Lenin's statement, etc etc, so wrongly will just have to do unless the whole phrase is removed or someone can think of a better way to phrase it.
If I am counting right, the entire article rests on the testimony of five individuals. There is no indication that anyone else in the historical community concurs with Starr, the two defectors, the double agent, or even the Congressional witness. Anarchangel (talk) 09:12, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
By the way, I completely disagree with the nominator that information in this article should be added to other articles. The madness must stop here. Unless there is, somewhere, better evidence for the existence of Soviet influence on western activist organizations, then any information on this subject should be restricted to articles about urban legends. Extraordinary claims such as these require extraordinary evidence. At this point I would probably settle for two cites per fabulously widesweeping and generalized insinuation, but I have probably had all my common sense worn down by the offhand and wholesale confabulation of this article. Anarchangel (talk) 09:35, 14 July 2009 (UTC) (previously written at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soviet-run peace movements in Western Europe and the United States) Anarchangel ( talk) 03:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
"The result was no consensus. If the article is not improved I would suggest a new AfD or a merge discussion on the talk page. BJ Talk 19:33, 18 July 2009 (UTC)" Diff of Closing statement added to this page by Anarchangel ( talk) 03:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
There appears to be some irregularity with regard to the closing. The closing statement now reads "The result was Keep. The notability of the subject in regard to the Cold War period is obvious; the question here is about content, focus and referencing in the article. However, that can be addressed via the editing process. AfD is not WP:CLEANUP, and I would recommend all interested parties in this discussion to please revisit the article and work towards its improvement. Pastor Theo (talk) 12:45, 19 July 2009 (UTC)" Added by Anarchangel ( talk) 15:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I have a question for Pastor Theo about the AfD decision, which I will print here first: "The notability of the subject, were it factually based, would not be at issue, nor was that issue addressed in the AfD. Would you care to comment on the Verifiability of the sources, and the multiple issues raised in the AfD about their quality? Anarchangel ( talk) 15:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Later, I propose to address the following problems:
The REDFLAG section (irony) in WP:VERIFIABILITY is pertinent to continued discussion of this article. In the AfD, I said, "Extraordinary claims such as these require extraordinary evidence" and REDFLAG is titled "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources". Had I only known.
Every post-WWII section is based solely on the testimony of a single individual. Every single individual's testimony is given on their own bio page. This article is utterly superfluous.
For now, I will restrict my arguments to the following problem:
When superfluous details are removed from the pre-WWII sections, what remains is not notable ( WP:N). This pretty much ends need for further consideration. For the sake of argument, however, I will discuss other problems, and of course show the details as superfluous.
Workers decide not to ship goods to Poland.
That is the entire substance of the first section. The rest is background.
There is no consensus of historical experts shown in this article for the circumstantial evidence concerning the non-shipping of goods to Poland. The mere statement of the fact that they didn't ship isn't controversial in any way. But in itself, it isn't notable.
There is no evidence shown that there was any influence by the Soviet Union on the trade unions, however the presence of the statement in an article about influence implies that there was. I don't believe that there is any WP rule covering this, I really don't like to do the usual thing that everybody does and try to stretch rules to fit the situation. The closest rule to this is WP:SYNTH, but we have a problem of implication by juxtaposition, not implication by assertion. What we have now is a section that assumes that there was influence, who states the facts. The trouble is, the facts don't back that assumption.
There is no evidence for the following. The language is PoV. Even if these assertions were not PoV, they would be removable under WP:CITE:
This section is a Von Daniken-esque profusion of unrelated evidence, each piece of which signifies absolutely nothing on its own, but which when presented in the desired context, purports to be circumstantial evidence.
When all the superfluous 'evidence' is removed from this section, what is left is: Previous edit by Anarchangel illustrating the paucity of the central thesis of the 1920 section.
I welcome your comments on this matter, and will respond to all that adhere to the top 3 layers of the discussion pyramid, and most that don't. Hopefully all. Some useful links to WP procedure: WP:LOP, WP:LGL, WP:EQ. Anarchangel ( talk) 03:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I thought I would wait until this first section stuff is resolved, but looking up at the rest of the talk page, it seems that Marshall believes Starr to be a reliable source. Allow me to acquaint you, Marshall, with a concept you may have heard of; consensus. Not, in this case, the editors on the talk page, but consensus in the academic community. The same thing goes for information coming from sources as for information going into the article; it has to meet the established consensus of scholars on the subject. Starr is one guy. Even assuming you don't see, don't want to see, or don't buy the argument that he shows no evidence of a connection between the the Soviet Union, the World Peace Council, and its list of affiliated members, you are still bound by WP:V and its attendant rule, WP:REDFLAG.
I also looked at the BBC cite; it is sad to see what a sorry tabloid POS BBC has become. Time was when I could accept the BBC as a reliable source and quote from it at random. Britain Betrayed, eh? "Fearsome Stasi held nation in its grip" with the immortal first line, "The Stasi earned a frightening reputation for thoroughness" -shudder- and "Respected lecturer's double life". All that's missing are the "I met Elvis on a UFO" stories and page 3.
I suggest you take a bit of a step back from this and reassess. What about the article has gotten better since you nominated it for deletion, other than what you yourself have added to it? Are you not putting ribbons on rubbish? There is nothing different about a Communist newspaper editor telling Russian Communists what he believes in his heart they ought to know to keep the balance, to what has been done by a thousand CIA informants, except that it is for significantly less money and with considerably more ethical considerations. And yet it is, the Reds 'control' this and 'manipulated' that. Wake up. Anarchangel ( talk) 17:40, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
What is the basis of claiming that Richard Felix Staar is an unreliable author? He is an author of numerous printed works ( [4], [5]), published by the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, University of Michigan and other reliable presses. He also published in reliable academic journals ( [6] and [7] in Mediterranean Quarterly - Duke University Press). He has a PhD, and in US academia has a rank at least a visiting / associate professor. Here's his bio: [8]. Here's an academic review of one of his work (or memoirs?), that states: "As a scholar, Richard Staar represents the best. In his works he has gathered facts carefully, painstakingly, and has drawn his inferences from reality rather than theory." As far as I can see, any criticism of his work above is pure IDONTLIKEHISPOVTHUSHEHASTOBEUNRELIABLE. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I have deleted Tretyakov's conspiracy theory about Nuclear winter as WP:Fringe.
He is the only source given for the claim that the nuclear winter hypothesis was a malicious fabrication by the KGB foisted on credulous westerners in order to foment opposition to the US weapons programme. The claim is inherently doubtful.
Major changes, a lot of work, and work well done I say. Only one of we three got what they wanted, but I got more of what I wanted than did Piotrus I think. I am satisfied with the way it is now, on first glance; it at least gives a neutral distance between Starr's assertions and the reader. Have to sleep, will take another look tomorrow.
Starr's Institution is not as easy to categorize as a tool of Edgar Hoover, unfortunately. I think the person quoted on Starr's bio page may have made that mistake, or maybe he knew something about President Hoover that I don't. It was founded in '59, tho; an Anti-Red agenda fits with that time frame, no matter who founded it. It has become a sort of prep school for foreign service/spy/diplomats, with the same goals but different means to the School of the Americas (aka new name), as far as I can tell. It's ironic that this propaganda machine in some ways resembles the World Peace Council that Starr rails against, except the WPC churns out publications, where the HI puts the finishing touches on the likes of Condoleeza Rice. Anarchangel ( talk) 14:00, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
I am still trying to improve this entry and I have tracked down the Bukovsky article cited (Vladimir Bukovsky, "The Peace Movements and the Soviet Union", Commentary, May 1982, pp.25-41). Bukovsky reports on the proceedings of the 1980 World Parliament of Peoples for Peace organised in Sofia by the World Peace Council, citing articles in Izvestia and Pravda. He notes that the conference's call for action in 1981 against the build up of Western armaments was followed the next year by huge peace demos in the West. "How on earth could the Soviets have known in 1980 about events that would take place in 1981," he asks, "unless they were running the whole show?" As evidence of Soviet influence, this speculation is without value, and, although I put in the Bukovsky citation, I am now deleting it. Marshall46 ( talk) 14:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Soviet "influence" on Western peace movements - the new title is misleading now to say the least.-- Jacurek ( talk) 20:38, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
I propose a modification of my previous title idea: Alleged connections between the USSR and on activist groups in the West. 'Run' is preposterous. Influence has only been alleged, not proven.
Moreover, if the Johnny Appleseed Society proposes that more apple trees be planted, and the CEO of Fnord Motors decides that is a fine idea, and declares himself a fervent apple-tree-planter, is Fnord Motors run by the Appleseed Society? Is Fnord Motors influenced? The decision to become an apple tree advocate is unilaterally, the Fnord CEO's. Apple-tree related business decisions later made by the CEO are his/ers. Beliefs aren't a disease that people are infected with. Causality is a real problem here. "Connections" takes away the supposition about cause and effect. Contacts between individuals and an organization do not cause the individuals to do something, and 'influence' implies that more than 'connections' does. Anarchangel ( talk) 04:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
The above title gives a little bit of wiggle room to include Trotskyite stuff if need be. More importantly, it is neutral, without having to go the other route and say 'allegations', which implies that the reports might not be untrue. I withdraw my suggestion of 'activist groups'; such can easily be put in their own section, and spun off into another article if need be, or the article title could simply be changed again to reflect the new content. Anarchangel ( talk) 23:23, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
The material you added is a perfect example of why I chose 'activist groups'. As for including the fact that communists and the trade unions opposed the peace movement, that sounds like a reason for changing the name. What's wrong with including that material? Because it contradicts the thesis of the article?
I'll give you this. The Lenin-era Communist Party was nothing like the Stalin era which was nothing like the Brezhnev era. But lumping them all together under Communism is considerably less of a liberty than claiming they influenced 'peace groups', whatever that means, by means assumed, unstated, and uncited.
I don't buy the 'where will it end' argument though, that's a ' Camel's nose'/'thin end of the wedge' argument I see a lot of in AfD. I'll give you the same answer I give them there. If someone wants to include information that expands the scope of the article too much, you delete it, and tell them why. The article is at nine kilobytes, seems a little early to be worrying about exceeding the 100 KB limit ( WP:SPLIT). Anarchangel ( talk) 11:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
This one [9]. Please see W:POINT. radek ( talk) 23:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Please bring a reliable source which says the US tried to establish an evil capitalist empire throughout the world and the Soviet Union tried to stop the spread of evil capitalism. As far as I know and the sources are saying, USSR tried to spread communism throughout the world in accordance with proletarian internationalism and the US tried to stop the spread of communism. The opening sentence in this version is misleading and inaccurate, which is why I made this edit to make it clear. -- Joklolk ( talk) 10:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Rationale: influenced is more broad and often more correct than run and we don't discuss only the West (for example, Soviet Peace Committee which is mentioned is not a Western organization, but a Soviet one). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:58, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Moving the article should be postponed until the AfD is concluded. Can this be moved back to Soviet-run peace movements in the West until then? radek ( talk) 01:24, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
[10] - it's Hoover which is respectable and reliable but still somewhat partisan. It may also aid in finding further sources. radek ( talk) 01:28, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
And here is one from Routledge press [11]. radek ( talk) 01:30, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
And here is another academic source from a prominent historian [12]. radek ( talk) 01:31, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Soviet-manipulated pacifism has appeared as a considerable political force inside the countries of Western Europe. radek ( talk) 01:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
And more history books [13]. radek ( talk) 01:42, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Cambridge University Press: [14] radek ( talk) 01:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Greenwood Publishing, though this one's more about influence on Japan's peace movement (West?) [15] radek ( talk) 01:44, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Another book source: [16] Resisting the bomb: a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement ... By Lawrence S. Wittner. Not saying it supports any specific claim (I haven't read it) but clearly relevant. Rd232 talk 12:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Marshall I don't think we disagree that much here. I certainly don't think that this article should give the impression that the entire peace movement was Soviet influenced. At the same time, this article is not about any 'allegations' that were made but rather about specific instances and organizations (like WPC) which were in fact Soviet influence or controlled or whatever the appropriate terminology here is. Also, if you have a source which states that a lot of peace groups tried to stay clear of the WPC for the reasons you state then that'd be a great addition to the article. radek ( talk) 02:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
The deletion review resulted in a decision to keep the article. I suggest that it is renamed "Soviet influence on non-aligned peace movements".
I have re-organised the material and I would suggest that it now gives a balanced view, reporting the undoubted attempts by the World Peace Council (WPC) to influence non-aligned peace organisations, and fairly reporting writers like Lunev and Kalugin who claim that Soviet influence went far beyond the WPC. I have also quoted Wittner, who reports how non-aligned peace organisasations distanced themselves from the WPC.
Why "non-aligned" rather than "western"? Because a large part of the WPC's constituency was organisations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Similarly, the organisations that remained independent of the WPC and Soviet influence were from the Non-Aligned Nations as well as from Europe, the USA and Australasia.
I feel that we are coming to a consensus on this hotly-contested topic, and I hope my recent amendments meet with the approval of other editors . Marshall46 ( talk) 10:56, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Marshall, just chill. Just because this article brings certain things to light doesn't mean that one day you're going to have to find all those receipts. You're in the clear. Tringross ( talk) 14:38, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
I have removed this passage because it gives undue weight to a fringe theory:
"More recently, Russian former intelligence officer and SVR defector Sergei Tretyakov went further and claimed that the KGB invented the concept of nuclear winter to foment opposition to Pershing II cruise missiles in Western Europe, alleging false reports released through the Soviet Academy of Sciences ... According to Tretyakov, this propaganda was distributed to peace groups, the environmental movement and Ambio, a peer-reviewed journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which published a key article on the topic. It then entered the mainstream with the help of popular scientist Carl Sagan, co-author of a study of the consequences of nuclear war."
Tretyakov is the only person to say that nuclear winter theory was invented by the KGB. He also gets the facts wrong:
Marshall46 ( talk) 13:14, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I have added a neutrality tag -- this article only presents claims from one side, saying what people thought was Soviet influence. Ot states them as claims, but it makes little attempt to provide sources that refute the claims. 204.167.92.26 ( talk) 20:04, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I've removed the neutrality tag. The editor who put it in posted it from an IP address with multiple users and hasn't followed it up. If they want to pursue it, perhaps they might like to improve the article. Marshall46 ( talk) 18:04, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
I have added more information about the Christian Peace Conference, the International Institute for Peace and the World Peace Esperanto Movement. The first two appear to have been founded as WPC front organizations. The World Peace Esperanto Movement was generally pro-Soviet, but merely tolerated in the Soviet bloc because of Stalin's deep-rooted suspicion of Esperanto. Its founder was eventually expelled from the Communist Party.
Soviet influence on independent peace groups in the west seems to have been harder to achieve. It is notable that KGB defectors like Lunev and Kalugin make huge claims about KGB influence but are unable to name a single organizations that the KGB controlled or funded. I suspect that KGB agents exaggerated their influence. Tretyakov's claim about the KGB faking the data behind the nuclear winter scenario seems also to be bragadoccio, as western atmospheric scientists were a long way ahead of those in the Soviet Union. Marshall46 ( talk) 10:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
An anonymous editor keeps putting in a passage that adds nothing to what is already there, except to mention Pershing missiles as per Earley p.170. I have added Pershing but taken out the rest. Marshall46 ( talk) 16:09, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
There is an interesting series of articles by Rob Prince about the World Peace Council (WPC), of which he was secretary. [1] They cast further doubt on the extent to which the Soviet Union succeeded in influencing the peace movement in the West.
If we add that the WPC denounced pacifism and hence distanced itself from most western peace organizations, and that Western peace organizations distanced themselves from the WPC, the extent of its influence is dubious. The few organizations that have been found to be closely associated with the WPC and to be funded by it were organizations in the Eastern bloc, not in the west. Marshall46 ( talk) 10:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Soviet influence on the peace movement's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "barlow":
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 09:36, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
I have done some work on the World Peace Council (WPC). According to all the sources I have seen, the Soviet Union took a position shortly after the Second World War to promote the concept of peace in order to protect itself against American superiority of arms. In 1950, through the agency of the International Department of the CPSU and the Soviet Peace Committee, it promoted the WPC, which Communist organisations throughout the world were instructed to support. The WPC followed the Soviet line that the world was divided between a peace-loving Soviet Union and a warmongering USA, and never deviated from it. When the Soviet Union developed the atom bomb, the WPC supported it. When the USA attacked Korea, the WPC attacked it. When Russia invaded Hungary, the WPC was silent.
Huge resources were put into the WPC, which mounted large international conferences, attended by thousands of delegates. Because of the resources and energy of the WPC, and its ability to attract star names like Frederic Joliot-Curie, Paul Robeson, Pablo Picasso and Jean-Paul Sartre, it dominated the peace movement in the early '50s to such a degree that it appeared in the public mind to be identical to it. Dozens of organisations were directed by Moscow to support it. They are all well-known front organisations, like the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) and the International Union of Students (IUS).
Two events changed this. The first was the silence of the WPC on the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, which revealed it as a ridiculous Soviet mouthpiece. The second was the growth in the non-aligned peace movement in the late 1950s, following the development of the H-bomb and the emergence in Britain of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. This movement differed from the WPC – it was less ideological, more sceptical of governments, more youth oriented and generally unbiddable. This peace movement was anathema to the WPC and the Soviet Union, which condemned its pacifism and its non-aligned stance. At the height of the anti-Vietnam war, the CIA decided that although the anti-war movement served the interests of the Communists, they did not control it. The WPC plodded on with its pro-Soviet line, but despite its grandiose conferences and declarations it had been sidelined by the non-aligned movement.
We have a few writers, like Staar, who claim that the peace movement was controlled by the Soviets, but when it comes to detail he mentions only known Communist front organisations, no non-aligned groups. Kalugin said that the Soviet Union ran all sorts of congresses, but it seems he is referring to outfits like the WPC, the WFTU, the WFDY and the IUS. Lunev claimed that the KGB funded every anti-war organisation in the USA, but fails to mention even one. His claim is contradicted by the CIA, whose 1967 report on the peace movement is now available.
We have known for some time that this article was written by members of the EEMG, who were motivated by an anti-Russian POV and didn’t know anything about the peace movement. (They even included the peace movement before the Second World War, which was in fact infiltrated by fascists, not by communists.) The idea of Communist or Soviet control of the peace movement is an old anti-Communist trope, given credence by the Soviet control of the WPC, but no source gives any evidence of Soviet influence on non-aligned peace groups.
What, then is, the point of this article? Marshall46 ( talk) 11:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Something about human rights organizations criticizing Ukraine for using some types of weaponry (that Russia uses anyway) like mines or cluster munitions or such may be relevant here. Ex. [17]. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:43, 10 July 2023 (UTC)