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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was NO CONSENSUS. After analyzing the agruments of both sides, I think there is no consensus to keep or delete this article. AdjustShift ( talk) 15:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Communist genocide (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) ( delete) – ( View log)

This article is blatant, ridiculous POV propaganda and an unneeded fork/original research. Its just different instances of violence caused by Communism and put it under the umbrella of "genocide"; furthermore it is extreme POV to associate actions of individual regimes with communism as a whole. The page was created as soapboxing by a user whose sole edits so far are POV pushing on Communism. Every system of government is responsible for many deaths throughout history, I don't see why Communism must be singled out. Furthermore, the deaths that occurred under communism was not genocide. Triplestop x3 17:06, 3 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Note from nominator, I apologize for having gotten carried away on this. I still think this page should go, but I will be removing this from my watch list. Cheers, Triplestop x3 01:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

To summarize

  1. Notability There are not enough RS to establish that deaths under communist regimes constitute genocide, nor that "Communist genocide" is a notable term. Furthermore, the two words used together doesn't make "Communist genocide" as a term notable, it just means "genocide by communists".
  2. POV It is incorrect to associate Communism in general with mass killings of individual regimes. "the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie" != genocide, besides most killed by Communist regimes were not rich. As defined in the Wikipedia page, Communism (from Latin: communis = "common") is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Does it say anything about mass killings?
  3. Trolling This is the work of a banned crosswiki vandal in a blatant attempt to incite conflict in a controversial subject
    • Note: User is indefinitely blocked for block evasion, not banned. Shadowjams ( talk) 06:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  1. Synthesis This is a bunch of sources, unrelated in the definition of "communist genocide", attempting to advocate the aforementioned unnotable concept.
"Communist genocide refers to the genocide carried out by communist regimes across the world. From the very beginning, communism forged a new order based on genocide" Wow, thats about as POV as it gets. Triplestop x3 15:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Then fix the article. The fact that an article might have some POV in it is not a sufficient reason to delete it. radek ( talk) 23:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The article, by it's very nature, pushes a POV that can't be removed. Irbisgreif ( talk) 23:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No it's not. And how can an article be POV "by it's very nature" - was it decided at the beginning of time by the Grand Creator (or Grand Someone) that this particular article was going to be POV by "it's very nature"? What are you talking about? There's nothing POV about the "nature" of this article, and if there is POV in the article itself it can be removed. Not a reason to delete. radek ( talk) 23:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It's POV in the same way "List of all Republican Serial Killers" would be inherently POV. Irbisgreif ( talk) 10:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Note to closing admin Given the nature of the subject, there is going to be clear bias in the votes. I ask that this be taken into account. Triplestop x3 03:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Note to closing admin - why should the nominator be allowed to put a very POV, biased, pronouncement at the top of the page (which makes sure that everyone will read it, as opposed to sifting through the individual comments and votes) asserting that somehow the voting is "biased" (which obviously, according to Triplestop, means that it hasn't gone according to her/his wishes). This is an attempt at manipulating the outcome with a grievous disregard of the actual votes. It borders on disruptive editing. radek ( talk) 23:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

This isn't a vote at all. What he has requested is that the Admin remember this, and disregard comments if the user posting them seemed very biased and did not have good reasoning. Irbisgreif ( talk) 23:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
What you mean it's not a vote "at all"? It's a bunch of people voting, isn't it? How does that make it not a vote? Obviously, if you take one side, you're going to think that the people who vote on the other side are wrong. But to jump from that to the conclusion that the other votes should not be counted - i.e. only the "right" votes should be counted - is ridiculous (and also appropriately fitting, given the subject matter). radek ( talk) 23:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Another note The creator of this page is a banned user, a serial crosswiki vandal. As this page was clearly an attempt to troll, perhaps G5 could apply here. Triplestop x3 20:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Supplementary note - the nature of the creator should mean, I think, that the default should be delete, not keep, if the judgement is "no consensus". Rd232 talk 21:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • I read the sock puppet investigation as well as the user page of the creator. He wasn't banned, he was blocked indefinitely. There's a subtle distinction (at least some have said as much before) between the two, and a ban is quite different. If you read the blocking admin's explanation too, it undermines the notion that everything this user touches is cursed, which is not how G5 works. Shadowjams ( talk) 06:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The nature of the creator (whoever s/he is - I have no idea) has no barring on a delete/keep vote what so ever! What are you making up here? There's been plenty of editing at the article since it was created. The default, per Wiki policy, is keep if no consensus is reached. radek ( talk) 23:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The page is a clear attempt to incite conflict in an issue of this controversial nature. If we can't agree to keep it, then don't feed the troll and trash it. Nothing of value would be lost Triplestop x3 02:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • I think it goes without saying that we're way beyond speedy territory. There's obviously a lot of debate about a simple delete, there's certainly not consensus for a speedy at this point. Not to mention, G5 requires "having no substantial edits by others." Shadowjams ( talk) 20:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Well, this article was created in a clear attempt to troll and I don't think we should allow his trolling to stand. Triplestop x3 20:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • I appreciate that concern, and I don't think it's wrong for you to have nominated it, but you're pretty bent on getting rid of this article. I'm just suggesting we don't lose sight of the big picture (encyclopedia). Shadowjams ( talk) 20:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • While we're on the subject of notifying the admin, you've been campaigning, in clear violation of WP:CANVASS. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 17:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • I haven't seen a non-neutral request for someone to come and take a look. His actions don't look like canvassing to me. Consider that I had to come here to find out what his opinion was. Irbisgreif ( talk) 18:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
      • Really? You found his talk page posting "Hi, don't you think it is a shame there are people wanting to keep this blatant propaganda article?" a neutral message? And you're a linguist? Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 19:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
        I have only seen his noticeboard requests. Irbisgreif ( talk) 22:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
        • Russavia had already voted when Triplestop put the question on his page, so it's not canvassing because people don't vote twice. PasswordUsername ( talk) 22:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
          • You're right, and for that reason, and only that reason, I strike through my comment and apologize. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 13:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Please keep Communism killed 100 million people which is more than Nazism. Communist genocide is a fact. Please keep this article. The article is nominated for deletion minutes after its creation. I am still working on it. -- Joklolk ( talk) 17:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC) — Joklolk ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. Comment struck - banned user. reply

  • — Note to closing admin: Joklolk ( talk • contribs) is the creator of the page that is the subject of this XfD. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 16:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. You can work on it, but there is nothing of encyclopedic value here--just a big ole soapbox. Drmies ( talk) 17:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete, the material is appropriate, but it's being assembled in an inappropriate way; Communist genocide falls under WP:NEO. Mintrick ( talk) 17:57, 3 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong delete. This is WP:SYNTH, and the article seems to be used for some kind of advocacy. I have found absolutely no evidence that the term "communist genocide" (as referring to an universal concept) even exists in credible sources. Taking a quick look at some of the references used in the article, there is no indication that it is even a real term. For example, the article says Former Vietnamese judge Nguyen Cao Quyen who was a victim of communist political repression after communist victory in Vietnam War describes communist genocide as "genocide of entire classes" (clearly implying that the source is talking about a universal concept "communist genocide", but the source actually says: Since 1945, the Vietnamese Communists exterminated religious leaders, assassinated opposition leaders, killed intellectuals, businessmen, and even peasants who disagreed with their ideology. These terrorist acts were crimes against humanity and the genocide of entire classes. Thus, it does not use the term "communist genocide" at all. It seems that this article is being used as a vehicle to invent a new concept and give credibility to it. I'm sure all of this material is present in the articles about the different genocides, so there is absolutely no need for this advocating, original synthesis article. Offliner ( talk) 10:08, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, notable concept - used in 300+ books. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:56, 4 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Those refer to specific incidents where communist regimes have committed genocide, not an overarching concept of "communist genocide". This article is about the latter. Mintrick ( talk) 18:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Actually, I haven't found any indication that the latter even exists. Can someone please point out a source which really discusses the universal concept "communis genocide"? Offliner ( talk) 10:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep There's a lot more here than the BB, which is just one of the sources--the question is whether there is a type of genocide characteristic of Communist regimes; personally, I have my doubts about it as a specific common factors but it's a well-known concept. DGG ( talk) 00:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The main problem with the article is that it's original synthesis. For example, is there a source which explicitly states that "during the Russian Civil War the Bolsheviks engaged in a campaign of genocide against the Don Cossacks" is part of an universal "communist genocide"? All of the incidents listed here are covered in their own articles, so why do we need this article? Here we are replicating content that is already present elsewhere, and putting it all together in a very questionable way. Offliner ( talk) 01:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
are you challenging whether there was a campaign of genocide against the Don Cossacks, or whether the government that engaged it it was Communist? DGG ( talk) 19:08, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Please re-read my comment. I'm not denying either. Offliner ( talk) 20:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Still doesn't indicate the overall concept is notable though. Triplestop x3 03:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
There is nothing in that article that would confirm that "communist genocide" is a specific term or a concept. The article mentions it only once, in the title. The term itself is not discussed in the article at all. Offliner ( talk) 10:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
That chapter was found with a search of Communist genocide in Google Books. Apparently there is only one hit in the entire book. On page 238, the words Communist and genocide both appear but not together. The Four Deuces ( talk) 04:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Yes, but we already have separate articles about those genocides. This article is about the universal concept of "communist genocide" - of which I haven't seen any indication that such concept (or even the term) exists. Offliner ( talk) 12:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The Holocaust is also a "democide" according to Rummel's definition, by your reasoning the Holocaust was not genocide? Quite a number of authors such as Stéphane Courtois, Benjamin Valentino, John Gray, Eric Weitz, Ronit Lenṭin and Rebecca Knuth have made the connection between mass killing in a number of communist regimes, the connection being that communist ideology was used as the justification for the killing. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, there is enough reference in academic literature to merit an article. -- Hillock65 ( talk) 13:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
See the works by Stéphane Courtois, Benjamin Valentino, John Gray, Eric Weitz, Ronit Lenṭin and Rebecca Knuth. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Arbitrary section break

  • Delete per Mintrick's comment. Communism as an ideology is no more responsible for genocide than capitalism or any number of religions, none of which have their own genocide articles. The relevant information in the article should be fragmented and moved to its appropriate article. Honestly, the cold war is over, we all know communism sucks. Can we keep the propaganda and ancient ideology wars out of wikipeida please? LokiiT ( talk) 13:54, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete as a highly subjective, uneducated POV fork. Aside from fully agreeing with Abductive's arguments, I also don't see any factual evidence that "Communist genocide refers to the genocide carried out by communist regimes across the world." All books seem to use the phrase trivially and none of them seem to refer to "Communist genocide" as a universal concept. As for Google Books, it also shows a whole bunch of results for "capitalist atrocities", "socialist monstrosity", "capitalist genocide", "socialist genocide", "economic slaughter" and "drunken Batman". Let's concentrate on specific evidence, not on WP:GHITS. — Rankiri ( talk) 13:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Not abductive synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray actually discusses the concept of "Communist genocide" here. -- Martintg ( talk) 20:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per Abductive. If the concept is notable, please show me one single academic publication that deals with "communist genocide" as a topic, not mentions it in passing in relation to specific events which may or may not be a part of a bigger picture. Communist regimes committed many atrocities, yes, but it is not our job as Wikipedians to collect them all in one place and present as a concept. That's a textbook example of what synthesis is.— Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • ( yo?); 14:19, August 5, 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete as WP:SYNTH. Ironholds ( talk) 15:50, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Actually the concept is not synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray publisged the concept of "Communist genocide" here. -- Martintg ( talk) 20:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete – original research used to push an anti-communist POV. If there is to be an article about "communist genocide", there needs to be material covering that concept itself and not list various genocides—regardless of how obvious it may seem—and then draw the arrow yourself. MuZemike 15:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per Offliner and per Mintrick's comments furthermore. PasswordUsername ( talk) 17:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Weak keep and only because the article points out, correctly, that there are laws that use the term "communist genocide" specifically (the Czech law referred to in the article provides that "The person who publicly denies, puts in doubt, approves or tries to justify Nazi or Communist genocide or other crimes of Nazis or Communists will be punished by prison of 6 months to 3 years", from [1]. Strictly speaking, genocide is the eradication of a particular race or culture, not the slaughter of people who oppose a regime. Mandsford ( talk) 18:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
That is not what the article is talking about, its all a POV fork against communism. Triplestop x3 18:37, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. The communits genocide as method in the so called class strugle for domination can be traced back to The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels, defined as necessary tool against a number of various wholesale groups of reactionaries. Please go back to it, and everything else will start to make sense right away. -- Poeticbent talk 18:28, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
But that is not what the article is about, its a highly POV against communism. Read the first sentence. Triplestop x3 18:37, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Defined as what exactly? And by whom? You? As one can see from your edit, there is a multitude of original research going on in this article, and I would stress that others keep an eye on it. -- Russavia Dialogue 22:27, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Poeticbent, I know that WP says "comment about the contributions, not the editor". But this particular vote of yours is so dumb that it raises questions about your intelligence. Read WP article on genocide and you will see it was not defined by Marx or Engels, in fact it was not in any use before 1944. What you probably meant was that Marx and Engels condoned terrorist acts in some cases as a revolutionary tool of the proletariat, and Lenin suggested that dictatorship of the proletariat was a necessary evil. ( Igny ( talk) 05:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
Igny, what you are saying is that you are fully aware of and understand the Wikipedia policy on civility and no personal attacks but then you proceed to break that very policy in a most insulting manner. Your comment is way out of line and I ask that you strike it. radek ( talk) 15:57, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. Certainly there are actions of communist regimes which qualify as genocide. "Democide" (to the mention of that alternative) is a term used only on WP to lobby that killing millions is something other than genocide. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  00:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
There is plenty of academic use of "communist genocide" to refer to communist acts in Cambodia and elsewhere. Not to be flippant, but I genuinely fail to see what Offliner means by not a "universal" term. Certainly it is well used on this planet, which is all that counts. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  00:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Only used on WP? Of course a simple Google search does lead one to call shenanigans on your laughable claim. -- Russavia Dialogue 00:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Could you please attempt to keep your comments civil. Thanks. -- Martintg ( talk) 00:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
To Russavia, feel free to insult me when "democide" appears as a word in a main-line dictionary, for example, at www.merriman-webster.com. Articles should not be written for the general public, the bulk of our readers, using words they can't find in their dictionary. Whereas "genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group" is clearly defined and—based on communist eradication of classes of individuals—clearly applies. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  13:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Nice userbox on your userpage also. Triplestop x3 00:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Thank you. To your point that it's an anti-communist fork, yes, certainly "genocide from the start" can be toned down if not directly cited to a scholarly source. However, the slaughter of millions is notable enough to merit its own article as a sub-topic under the repressive actions of (most) communist regimes. "Communists" is not "genocidal maniacs" by definition—if the Italian communists ever came to power, I rather doubt they would emulate the Khmer Rouge. But deleting this article denies the use of mass murder as an instrument of repression. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  13:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong delete Anyone can string two words together and come up with a neologism but no article should be written unless there is a clear definition of a subject and a body of literature specifically about that subject. The Four Deuces ( talk) 01:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The term is readily found in book titles and used in scholarly journals. "Communist genocide" is not a juxtaposition created just to smear communism on Wikipedia. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  13:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
A POV fork of what? -- Martintg ( talk) 23:20, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Genocide, Communism, probably others. ... Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The concept of "Communist genocide", linking the genocides committed by various communist governments and attributing the phenomenon as a feature of Communist policy is published here. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • The above book only mentions the phrase "Communist genocide" in the following sentence: "The action taken against the Ukranian language was, as one author has said, "systematic linguacide," one of the methods of Communist genocide in the field of culture. [2] This in turn illustrates an important point about how the term is actually used by most of these sources. — Rankiri ( talk) 03:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
In case you missed it, please double check the title of the book Genocide in the USSR: studies in group destruction. In case you're saying that this doesn't entitle an article about general Communist genocide, it should be on the Soviet genocide - Genocide in the USSR only?-- Termer ( talk) 04:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: First of all, this article is not a POV-fork of anything. Some users are suggesting communist genocide is a neologism, but it is not. The term is in use from as early as [3] 1951. There are two entire books written on communist genocide: The Communist Genocide in Romania, by Gheorghe Boldur-Latescu and Murder of A Gentle Land, The Untold Story of Communist Genocide in Cambodia, by Barron, John & Paul, Anthony. The term is used by respected academics like Nathaniel Weyl [4]. This is an universal concept like Nazi genocide. Both the Nazis and communists orchestrated genocide from their different beliefs, but the result were same. Whether it was USSR, China or Cambodia, the reason behind the genocide was communist beliefs. Joklolk ( talk) 02:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • Finally, Communist genocide is an accepted fact by most post-communist Eastern European governments. And there are instances of charges of communist genocide as in the case of Arnold Meri. Estonian charged with Communist genocide. [5] Several countries have laws which explicitly make it illegal to deny communist genocide. It proves communist genocide is an accepted fact by many governments. Joklolk ( talk) 02:51, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • No, Nazis deliberately and systematically killed people of a certain race. Purging the Jews was a core belief of Hitler. The Communists did no such thing. And so the two words were used together coincidentally a couple times. Doesn't make it notable. It's still original research by you. You just put together different instances of violence caused by Communism and put it under the umbrella of "genocide". Triplestop x3 03:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • Yes, communists deliberately and systematically killed people of a certain class with certain political affiliations. Purging the riches was a core belief of communism (Mao, Pol Pot, Lenin's atrocities against Kulaks and so on and so forth). Both the Nazis and communists did not tolerate any political opposition. And it is certainly not OR given the multiple references, don't you see what is written in the references? Your unsubstantiated claim of OR is going to be repeatitive and unproductive in this discussion. Joklolk ( talk) 03:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • That is not genocide. You're use of the word atrocities suggests that this page is an attempt by you to make Communism look bad by pushing your POV by creating a purely negative page on Communism. Triplestop x3 03:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
This is just your personal opinion "that is not genocide". The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as "...acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group..."
Communists certainly intended to destroy national groups, hence they committed genocide, as the literature shows [6]. -- Martintg ( talk) 04:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
And is what they did widely regarded as genocide? No. Triplestop x3 21:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Note on canvassing User:Triplestop is involved in vote canvassing [7] and this was done by User:Offliner also [8]. -- Joklolk ( talk) 03:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC) Comment struck; banned user reply

No, I am trying to invite further discussion on whether or not this page violates Wikipedia's policies. Did is say "PLEASE VOTE DELETE ON THIS?" No. Triplestop x3 03:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Posting to the NPOV noticeboard is not canvassing because it is merely publicizing the discussion and is not aimed at a group that has any specific point of view. And canvassing is defined as "sending messages to many Wikipedians with the intent to inform them about a community discussion", so Offliner's single posting to a user talk page is not canvassing. (See WP:Canvass). So let;s get back to the topic.
The examples show that scholars have written about genocide in various Communist-ruled countries but there is no specific concept of Communist genocide. Notice the books refer to genocide in specific countries. There is no RS book about Communist genocide that links genocide in various countries to Communist ideology, unlike Nazi ideology.
The Four Deuces ( talk) 03:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
This is simply not true. Many books do make a link between communist ideology and genocide, see Eric D. Weitz's book A century of genocide for example. -- Martintg ( talk) 04:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Interesting: the phrase "communist genocide" picks up no results with a thorough search of the book in the link provided. The first sentence reads "Ideology alone is never a sufficient explanation for such massive developments as genocide." It then goes on to explain the particular circumstances that explained the (Vietnam-overthrown) Cambodia example... PasswordUsername ( talk) 04:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Indeed if you read further the paragraph states it was a combination of reactions similar to what moved the Nazi system from discrimination to genocide, so the author seems to be implying that Nazi ideology alone is an insufficient explanation too. Either way, ideology is a factor, the question is to what degree. Communist ideology promotes the destruction of national groups, no question about that, and destruction of national groups is genocide according to Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. -- Martintg ( talk) 04:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Ridiculous. There is no such implication on my reading of the source – and it discusses Cambodia in particular! Which national groups did Karl Marx advocate destroying? PasswordUsername ( talk) 04:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It is well known that Karl Marx was a racist. -- Martintg ( talk) 05:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, it is not well known:

"The notion of race plays no clear part in his social thought, though he makes free use of the term, if often in contexts not involving the modern division of humanity into biologically defined groups..."

"Surely a decisive consideration is the fact, as we will see below, that Marx explicitly rjeects racial division or hierarchy." [9]

Which national groups did he advocate destroying?
PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It is about implementation of communism also. If Ukrainian genocide, Cambodian genocide are not genocide, then what is genocide? And the motives behind these were communist beliefs. Joklolk ( talk) 05:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Communist beliefs =/= genocide. PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It is boring. Communist beliefs caused implementation of communism which caused genocide. Simple. Joklolk ( talk) 05:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Accordingly, capitalist beliefs resulted in the implementation of the Native American genocide. Wait, that one doesn't even get its own article on Wikipedia. PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Actually that's a good catch Password. But that means that someone should create the article Genocide of Native Americans rather than a reason for deleting this one. radek ( talk) 15:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • In "On the Jewish Question" Marx spoke of the Jews as a nationality in highly abusive and venomous language, heaping abuse on their religion, calling the Jews a "chimerical nationality" which he saw destined to disappear as a spiritual and cultural entity.-- Martintg ( talk) 05:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Name a Jewish genocide scholars credit communism with. PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Marx was against the Czechs and Southern Slaves too, stating:"Because the Czechs and the Southern Slavs were then 'reactionary nations', 'Russian outposts' in Europe, outposts of absolutism … to give support to the national movements of the Czechs and Southern Slavs at that time would have been to give indirect support to Tsarism, a most dangerous enemy of the revolutionary movement in Europe." -- Martintg ( talk) 06:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Holy Jesus. Marx regarded the Slavic nations looking to imperial Russia as outposts of tyrannical political systems in the 19th century, and thought it a good thing to give Slavs support, but not at the time when they identified with the czarist Russian Empire. Why are you piling on with this instead of answering my question? Incidentally, he took a pretty optimistic position on Russia in his ultimate years. And? PasswordUsername ( talk) 06:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Delete. This article inherently pushes a ridiculous POV. Irbisgreif ( talk) 04:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong delete per the eloquent POV argument of Poeticbent. ( Igny ( talk) 05:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
  • Keep with tag, important article, I believe any POV issues can eventually be resolved without resorting to deletion. -- œ ™ 05:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • By lumping in every example of genocide, real or purported, under on article? PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:57, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    No I meant the article as it stands now, perhaps with a title change. It's an important historical topic that needs to be covered, and I believe can be covered neutrally, if that means lumping in every example of genocide by communists then why not? -- œ ™ 16:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • Associating mass murder with Communism in general is blatant POV. Triplestop x3 03:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Keep Can't sanitize history just because some people are embarrassed by it. 144.26.92.12 ( talk) 10:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC) Comment struck; vote by an open proxy sock of banned user reply
Note: This anonymous editor has very few edits and has made a questionable edit recently: [10]. Offliner ( talk) 10:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The IP has been blocked. Offliner ( talk) 11:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Random heading to split the page for easier editing

  • Keep and expand. I have a feeling that those supporting deletion have not even bothered to do a simple Google Scholar search. The term "Communist genocide" has been in use for more than fifty years, so how can it be neologism? There are several monographs and dozens of scientific articles dealing with the communist genocide, quite a few dedicated to the topic. It is a term used even within last ten days by newspapers [11]. Several countries have laws dealing with communist genocide. So claiming that it didn't happen, isn't notable or the term doesn't exist is quite frankly, ridiculous and laughable. If the article is POV in your opinion, add opposing viewpoints - but that does not make article suitable for deletion, Wikipedia isn't censored. All other given reasons for deletion come down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Sander Säde 06:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
In that article he's referring to a genocide by communists - that's certainly not the same as "communist genocide", and only a fool or someone looking for something to support their point of view would use it to mean such a thing. I assume the latter. It's depressing to see how many people there are on the "keep" side of this AfD with such blatant, blatant POVs that I would've thought they'd have enough sense to stay away. I hope that the closing admin takes a gander through peoples' userpages and uses things like, uhh, massive anti-communist screeds as evidence of some form of heavy bias here. Note that I'm not directing that at you, Sander. Ironholds ( talk) 07:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Firstly, I very strongly suggest you stop personal attacks and repeating "closing admin must look at userpages, not arguments". That is simply not done in Wikipedia. Closing admin will weight arguments on both delete and keep and make a decision based on arguments.
Please note that I did not say the news article is dedicated to discussing communist genocide, I said the term is used in there.
We've established the term isn't neologism. We've established it has wide coverage in the scientific literature. We've established that there are laws dealing with denial of communist genocide. We've established there has been a recent use in both newspapers and scientific literature. We've established that Wikipedia has no article dealing with this topic, so not a content fork. There is no doubt that we need an umbrella article dealing with phenomenon that occurred all over the communist countries. So.. what is the remaining reason for deletion, per WP:DEL#REASON? Stop the personal attacks and go re-read the article instead, it has improved quite a bit in last few days. -- Sander Säde 07:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Personal attacks are unfounded comments based on the editor rather than the edits. I'm saying that based on the edits of some users, they're obviously biased. The article covers the idea of "communist genocide" as a uniform doctrine - the coverage looks at individual genocides committed by communists. If that's what we're going to write the article on, fine, but it turns it into an unneeded content fork summarising multiple crimes linked only by the political doctrine of the organisation running it. Ironholds ( talk) 08:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Not synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray discusses the concept of "Communist genocide" here. -- Martintg ( talk) 20:50, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. Search at Google Books [12] show that the term is notable and not a neologism. -- Vision Thing -- 08:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Once again, those refer to the individual genocides, not an overarching concept of "communist genocide." The overarching concept simply does not exist, and putting all the different genocides in one article under the name "communist genocide" is against WP:SYNTH. Did you read the other comments here before posting yours? Offliner ( talk) 09:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
These individual genocides are labeled as "communist genocide", so obviously the overarching concept exists. Also, one of the sources say: The notion of genocide has originally been confined to the physical annihilation, or intention to do so, of members of whole nations. If it were to have remained confined within those boundaries, the Communist genocide would, perhaps, be arguably applicable to massive deportations and annihilation of a large number of Ukrainians, Balts and other Soviet nationals, but if would leave out the massive extermination of own-nationals. The Cambodian Khmer Rouge, among others, could never be indicted for 'genocide,' which is absurd. To me this use seems pretty overarching. -- Vision Thing -- 09:24, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
These individual genocides are labeled as "communist genocide", so obviously the overarching concept exists. - this sentence looks like a textbook example of WP:SYNTH. Are you sure you have understood the guideline? And no, the quote you mentioned is not enough for having a whole article about the alleged concept in WP. Once again, the whole book mentions the term "communist genocide" only once. You need to point out a source which contains an extensive discussion of the general concept of "communist genocide," not just one passing mention in a whole book. Offliner ( talk) 09:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment. Is there a particular reason why every keep gets immediately replied/commented - the type of said comment often being a borderline personal attack? Why do I get a feeling that an agenda is being pushed with this deletion? -- Sander Säde 09:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • It's that or roll one's eyes at the -- at best -- misguided arguments being offered up. -- Calton | Talk 13:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
So, in effect you are saying that incivility is OK in Wikipedia discussions, as longer as one feels that opponent's arguments are "at best -- misguided"? -- Sander Säde 14:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Keep - But let me be clear. The title is problematic. Genocide has some specific definitions, depending on who you ask, and I think this article has aspirations that are outside of that title. That's not a trite concern. But, notwithstanding that concern, the general idea, that communist regimes perpetuate[d] unnecessary misery, is a very accepted scholarly topic. I might support a rename, but the article as I see it now is certainly a keep candidate. Shadowjams ( talk) 10:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Is what Communists did widely considered genocide? Just because a few crazy people do doesn't mean this article is legitimate. Triplestop x3 12:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Marting, thank you for being the first person to provide any evidence that anyone ever discussed "communist genocide" as a theory. By the way, the quote given is not from Ellen Frankel Paul, she was merely the editor. The quote is from an article by John N. Gray called "Totalitarianism, Reform and Civil Society" that originally appeared as a chapter in his book Post liberalism: Studies in Political Thought (1993). The problem with using this source is that it did not enter mainstream academic discussion and was largely ignored outside the National Review and libertarian circles. Even then most of the discussion focused on his views of liberalism. If you believe that this book has been ignored by Wikipedia, may I suggest that you create an article for it that explains all the various theories that it advances. However a fringe theory from a non-notable book is not sufficient to create its own article. The Four Deuces ( talk) 14:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Actually the problem with this source (apparent from talking about "socialist genocide" not communist) is that it amounts to half a page and doesn't have any conceptual discussion. It just chucks in the phrase "socialist genocide" for famines under communism. Rd232 talk 21:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
There is nothing in John N. Gray's bio that suggests that this British political philosopher and former Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics is a fringe theorist. He appears to have published extensively and in fact there is a book written about him: The Political Theory of John Gray, which states "He is much cited and discussed within political and social theory, but he also has a much wider audience, being one of those quite rare creatures in British academic life, a public intellectual, writing regularly for the quality press and appearing on both radio and TV". So I don't see where you get the idea his views are "largely ignored outside the National Review and libertarian circles". What ever your personal view is of John Gray, it cannot now be said that the concept of "Communist genocide" is WP:SYNTH -- Martintg ( talk) 19:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The link you give says "John Gray is one of today’s most...controversial political thinkers." (my emphasis) Controversial means that his ideas are not mainstream and the fact that his theory on communism has received no academic mention makes it fringe. However, I accept that you may wish to write an article about his views. The Four Deuces ( talk) 20:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
This your personal view point, I accept that. But the evidence doesn't sustain your claim, his work is extensively cited -- Martintg ( talk) 20:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete with prejudice. I'm not sure whether to call it synthesis or just regurgitation of standard American right-wing rhetoric: just because American conservatives like to string the words together when they talk -- and that Google will turn those examples up -- doesn't that there's any such objective concept. Give Conservapedia a ring, I'm sure they'll take it. -- Calton | Talk 13:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • Comment - That's ridiculous. The article I saw doesn't read like propoganda. It's a sourced article on a topic on which entire books have been written. I've got no problem with the tags, but there's nothing so broken about the article that requires deletion. I'm frankly dismayed at how many comments appear to be of this variety, and willfully ignoring the fact that the article is the subject of multiple books, many of which are cited here. And, at least one of those books itself is notable enough to have its own page The Black Book of Communism. Shadowjams ( talk) 18:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Definitely Keep - concept is notable, concept is used by scholarly sources, article is sourced. radek ( talk) 15:50, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • Assertion without evidence - WP:NOTVOTE. The sources in the article and in this discussion don't hold water in terms of discussing a concept. Two words strung together do not automatically constitute a concept. Rd232 talk 21:18, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Keep. The occurrence of these mass killings is a fact. Make whatever edits are necessary to maintain NPOV, but the article itself should be kept. AmateurEditor ( talk) 16:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • The issue is not verification of mass killings, nor of WP:NPOV. It is WP:OR on the alleged concept of "communist genocide" for which there is not any sourcing worthy of the name. Also WP:NOTVOTE - pay attention to the issues. Rd232 talk 21:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
      • NPOV was an issue from the beginning, but if that part of the discussion is resolved, great. As I see it, the only major item of contention remaining is the distinction between keeping the term "Communist genocide" and renaming the article to something like "Genocide by Communists" or "Mass killings by Communists". I'm sympathetic to the argument that using "Communist genocide" is inappropriate because of the implication that it is a common phrase used to define a certain type of genocide particular to communists. But to argue that the phrase is wrong is to argue that it should be replaced, not that the article itself should be deleted. AmateurEditor ( talk) 04:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • And it's still wrong to associate it with communism as a whole. Even if it were fact. Triplestop x3 03:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
      • Just curious, do you think the communist nature of the governments was incidental or even coincidental to the mass killings? AmateurEditor ( talk) 04:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Note The creator of this article is a banned crosswiki vandal who is now blocked indef. Triplestop x3 20:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • I've placed a speedy tag on it accordingly. His categories are now being speedily deleted, as well. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 20:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
      • Rmved the speedy tag: it has had far too many substantial edits for the tag to be placed, sorry. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 20:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong delete per NickD - extreme WP:SYNTH violation, disguised by lots of sources relevant to a different article (eg List of genocides committed by communist governments). Genocide may have been committed by Communists (certainly there are sources that argue that, though the meaning of "communism" is endlessly debatable) but there is no source for the concept of "Communist genocide". Also created by banned user. Rd232 talk 20:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
How can you say it is synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray duscusses the concept of "Communist genocide" here, linking the genocides committed by communist governments and attributing the phenomenon to Communist policy. -- Martintg ( talk) 21:00, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, its just two words used together, as in genocide done by socialists, not socialist genocide as a specific term. And one person said those 2 words, doesn't make it notable. Triplestop x3 21:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Words strung together do not constitute a "concept". And his discussion amounts to a couple of untheorised references on a single page, as far as I can see. Rd232 talk 21:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
However these "words strung together" have been published, hence WP:SYNTH no longer applies. -- Martintg ( talk) 21:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The words are strung together without sufficient discussion to justify calling it a concept in the published sources. So having an article on it is absolutely WP:SYNTH. Rd232 talk 21:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Never the less, the notion of "Communist genocide" being a specific feature of Communist policy common across many Communist regimes has be published, you could maybe argue WP:UNDUE, but it is definitely not WP:SYNTH. -- Martintg ( talk) 22:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Blatant POV/attack article. What is so special about communist genocide as opposed to genocide? When it comes to genocide, it doesn't matter who is committing it, what their particular system of government, religion, or world view is. All that matters is that they've killed masses of people. Genocide is genocide. Specifying a system of government is just stupid, petty and POV pushing. Keeping this will only result in every group with a bone to pick will come here and write POV attack articles about "communist/fascist/Turkish/Islamic/Christian genocide". Then those groups will come and scream prejudice and they'll be right. Wikipedia is not a battlefield. <>Multi-Xfer<> ( talk) 21:08, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Genocides have particular characteristics, Nazi genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for Jewish people, while Communist genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for any small, "backward" and reactionary peoples. -- Martintg ( talk) 21:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
WP:OR right there. Rd232 talk 21:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
How so? The line " Communist genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for any small, "backward" and reactionary peoples" is from a published source, the comparison to Nazi genocide is not made in the article, but merely a response to User:Multixfer. -- Martintg ( talk) 22:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It still doesn't deserve its own article. Anyone who commits genocide is targeting someone. That's the general idea: a specific act of mass-murder targeted at a specific group. So should we have 50,000 short POV fork articles and stubs about every instance of genocide committed by one group against another for whatever their justification was at the time? Or do we just have one Genocide article that covers genocide? (the holocaust, which redirects from Nazi genocide linked above, is a common historical title that transcends anything associated with general genocide). <>Multi-Xfer<> ( talk) 01:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I'm not sure what you are exactly arguing for here, when you state "should we have 50,000 short POV fork articles and stubs about every instance of genocide committed", this article does the opposite and aggregates a number of genocides into one article, an aggregation that is supported in the literature because of its particular features related to Communist ideology that makes it stand apart from regular genocide. -- Martintg ( talk) 01:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
This has already been mentioned several times above. However the article has since been significantly expanded by several other editors of good standing. -- Martintg ( talk) 22:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Are you actually pointing out to another editor that they are stating something that is repetitive? Now that's irony for you. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:15, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comparison: "Zionist genocide" gets even more Google hits than "Communist genocide": [13] [14] And to note the depth of scholarly coverage, GoogleBooks furnishes over 50 hits: [15]
PasswordUsername ( talk) 23:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Uhh, if you want to start an article on "Zionist Genocide" go ahead - and good luck with that, since I bet that a good chunk of those hits are going to be non-RS neo-Nazi sites and the like. But even if, the fact that one concept gets more hits than another concept which gets 1000+ hits is a reason for starting another article, not deleting this one. Same as with the Genocide of Native Americans (I'm serious about the need for that one - if you want to cooperate on it I'd be glad to help). radek ( talk) 23:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, I'm not sure if I should start it. But there's definitely a ring to classifying all genocides by ideology, especially with the Books Google feature. PasswordUsername ( talk) 23:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
So what? "Communist mass killing" [16] also gets tons of hits. This is a naming issue which is a content issue that should properly be discussed on the article talk page rather than here. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Only 10,600, Martin...? "Zionist mass murder" gets 91,200. PasswordUsername ( talk) 23:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
"Zionist mass murder" only gives me 1,060 hits. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Try this: [17]. It's showing up as 102,000 for me now. PasswordUsername ( talk) 00:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
To PasswordUsername, doing books.google.com, far more reliable for scholarly sources, shows 41 for "Zionist genocide" and 371 for "Communist genocide". Let's not include every web site (of questionable scholarly basis) screaming genocide regarding a topic of this gravity. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  00:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
41? I get 50 right now: it was 51 an hour ago. [18] Funny searching mechanism. PasswordUsername ( talk) 00:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Indeed Google searches throw up some strange results, and only covers stuff that is online in any case. I think we are straying off topic here, what we name a topic is a content issue, to be discussed else where, we don't go deleting an article because we don't like the name. -- Martintg ( talk) 01:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
My point on searches was that "Communist genocide" (words together, as a single term) appears far more frequently in a search of books (including appearing in numerous titles) than "Zionist genocide." Frankly, I'm flabbergasted at the contentions here that "Communist genicode" is not a well-used scholarly term and concept for, well, communist-perpetrated genovide. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  01:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It's already been explained numerous times in the comments above that "communist genocide" occurs in passing reference to some communist regime's act of mass-scale destruction - most prominently as naming the Cambodian Genocide, which is in such instances referred to by some as "the Communist genocide in Cambodia." There is no basis for an overarching concept of "communist genocide" as such - and no scholarly work on it has been produced. (A passing reference as part of a controversial discussion of political liberalism by John N. Gray is not a substitute for significant scholarly work.) The fact that GoogleBooks yields results for the juxtaposition advanced here – the very notion of "communist genocide" – is exactly what I am referring to in my comparison. Comparable locutions on GoogleBooks, such as "Zionist genocide" and "imperialist genocide", occur also – and they will soon exist on Wiki too, if all it comes down to is empty arguments. PasswordUsername ( talk) 02:32, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Claiming "A passing reference as part of a controversial discussion of political liberalism by John N. Gray is not a substitute for significant scholarly work" mis-interprets of the previous discussion, please provide a published source that contends John Gray's chapter "Totalitarianism, Reform and Civil Society" published in the book "Totalitarianism at the crossroads" is in any way "controversial". There is nothing in John N. Gray bio that suggests that he is a fringe theorist or controversial, yet we have Wikipedians here who have asserted that without providing any evidence what so ever. It is the quality of sources, not quantity, that determines reliability, and by all accounts John Gray is a scholar of the highest order. -- Martintg ( talk) 02:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I'm not claiming anything. Evidently you missed the above discussion. His publisher advertises him as one of today's most controversial theorists in political thought. If you would like to write about Gray's chapter in a book – or even regarding his scholarly work on liberalism (Post-Liberalism), from which the chapter in question comes – in its own article, nothing could possibly stand in your way, so long as either one of these resources has such adequate notability that it belongs on Wikipedia – just as it can as easily be written about some instance of a statute against denying a particular "communist genocide" in a particular country. But that is not tantamount to creating POV fork based on clamping everything in one piece or promoting certain political views. PasswordUsername ( talk) 03:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Now you are engaging in WP:SYNTH, taking the comments from a publisher about an unrelated book written by somebody else and applying it to John Gray's particular chapter "Totalitarianism, Reform and Civil Society" in "Totalitarianism at the crossroads". You really need to find a published scholarly review on John Gray's specific views about "Communist genocide" before you can claim it is "controversial", without it no controversy exists. As for this claim of "POV fork", what is the name of the article that this is supposedly a fork of? -- Martintg ( talk) 03:42, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, the publisher has clearly labeled the author "controversial." I have already explained the trouble with the article time and time again. I think I've had enough. PasswordUsername ( talk) 03:54, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Martintg has it exactly right. All of the WP:OR and WP:NPOV issues are article issues. I'll admit that they can justify deletion if they overwhelm an article, but that's simply not the case here. If this is a question of naming then take it to the talk page. Shadowjams ( talk) 01:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment The answer is to improve the article citing sources which discsuss "communist genocide". What is WP:SYNTH and WP:OR here are the allegations being made here why the topic is not worthy for an article and why the title is inappropriate for the topic. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  01:55, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Yet one more random split

You have a very good point. We don't make pages about things that are inherently POV. However, you are starting to run afoul of WP:POINT. Irbisgreif ( talk) 02:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I agree with you 100% Triplestop x3 02:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Again, this is just a naming issue which should be addressed as a content issue on the talk page, some names are used more often than others in various contexts, but they all point to the same underlying topic, the mass killing of people by totalitarian communist regimes around the world. What is "inherently POV" about this topic? What is the alternate POV this article is suppose to fork, that communist regimes didn't kill anyone? Has anyone provided any sources that articulate the claim that no one was killed? "Communist genocide" is a specific term discussed in books, memorial days proclaimed for and courts prosecuting alleged perpetrators because of it. It is a notable and worthy topic no matter how you want to name it. -- Martintg ( talk) 02:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
You missed my point. This is not a naming issue. This is a trolling issue. ( Igny ( talk) 02:43, 7 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
Probably more likely a case of WP:IDONTLIKEITitis. We have people here asserting it is "inherently POV", but seem unable to articulate what the actual POV issue is. -- Martintg ( talk) 03:02, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The POV arises from the ignorance of capitalist-indoctrinated people thinking that communism is something totally evil, causing people to associate it with Holocaust, Apocalypse, Genocide, etc. On the other side are people brainwashed into thinking that communism is so great. We cannot honor these extreme points of views. See also: The Crucible Triplestop x3 03:06, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I don't see anywhere in the article that makes the judgment that Communism is "something totally evil", it is for the reader to judge. Is it a fact that these regimes engaged in mass killing, many eminent scholars contend in published sources that these mass killings were genocidal and a common feature of totalitarian communist policy in multiple regimes, and discuss it in terms of "communist genocide". Would you be comfortable if the article was renamed to Communist mass killings, or would you also contend that was POV too, disputing even that fact? -- Martintg ( talk) 03:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Again, it's not widely considered genocide. Sure, individual regimes have committed mass murders however it is incorrect to associate it with Communism. "the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie" is not genocide, and most of the deaths caused by communist regimes were not the rich. Triplestop x3 03:47, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Sorry, but this comes across as personal opinion, you need to find published sources that make these claims and add it to the article per WP:YESPOV. Plenty of published sources associate mass killings with Communism have been provided, you need to find reliable sources that assert there is no connection between mass killing and totalitarian Communism. -- Martintg ( talk) 04:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, as the one attempting to associate the system of Communism with mass killings, the onus is on you to prove that Communism == Mass killing. As defined in the Wikipedia page, Communism (from Latin: communis = "common") is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Does it say anything about mass killings? Because this is the POV the page is putting across Triplestop x3 04:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Easy, see the book Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century, chapter 4. -- Martintg ( talk) 04:27, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
So you found one crazy person who wrote their fringe theory in a book. And? Triplestop x3 14:37, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
(od) "attempting to associate"? Excuse me, no one is saying "communism = mass killing", what is being said is that communism (multiple countries and regimes) used mass killing as an organized instrument of repression, as described in numerous upon numerous scholarly sources. What communism says it stands for is completely immaterial in this regard. I'm sorry, Triplestop, but it's you that has the POV that we can only talk about what communism says it is (prosperity et al.) and not what communist regimes have done (mass murder). VЄСRUМВА  ☎  04:55, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
That the phrase "communist genocide" is sometimes used does not make "communist genocide" a concept. None of the sources demonstrate a conceptual discussion of the term. They use it as a label for some very bad events alleged to be genocide (not that clearcut in most cases) which people claiming to be communists were largely responsible for. "Communist genocide" qua concept implies a causal connection between genocide and Communism as ideology or system of government, which has not been shown. You might as well start the article male genocide because the perpetrators of most genocides have been men. Rd232 talk 07:32, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
How about these sources:
"The Communist Genocide in Romania." [19]
"... Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea, where the phenomena of Communist genocide and autogenocide reached their ultimate expression." [20]
"... the idea of a "Red Holocaust" and a "Communist Genocide" have become a part of today's vocabulary." [21]
"Soviet and communist genocide and mass state killings, sometimes termed politicide, occurred..." [22]
I suspect the term is more common in Eastern Europe than it is here (and there were a number of grammatical mistakes in the article which suggest writing by editors for whom English is not their first language) but the term does exist for the concept. Whether or not we should use it for this article is another matter on which I am fairly ambivalent. AmateurEditor ( talk) 18:18, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I appreciate the effort, but (2) is too short and cryptic (sounds potentially interesting though); (3) and obviously (1) all references are to historiography in Romania, where post-1990 anti-communism apparently is keen to equate nazism and communism, but again "communist genocide" is not a theorised concept, it's genocide by communists; (4) the expression "soviet and communist" clearly indicates the shorthand use of "communist" to denote some communist states; this is clearly not a source for the concept of "communist genocide". Rd232 talk 19:06, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
If all this boils down to the use of "Communist genocide" as a proper noun rather than as an adjective and a noun, it can be easily resolved through edits. Outright deletion strikes me as an over-reaction. Regardless, I think Wikipedia is improved by having an article which describes the various actions of communist governments which accumulated in a combined death toll, outside of war, of 100 million people in less than a century. Would you be satisfied if we changed the article to something like "Communist mass killings"? AmateurEditor ( talk) 21:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No one is saying that? Well this is exactly what this page is saying. And I'm speaking from a neutral point of view of someone who came across this ridiculous page first when cleaning out spam articles. And that is exactly what a reader would think. Since we are accusing each other of having POV, your tone clearly sugguests that your are speaking from the point of view of one who opposes communism. Look at your userpage. Triplestop x3 14:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment - For all the POV issues (which are usually a talk page issues, not a delete issues) there's zero bias pushing on communism. The nominator said there'd be "bias" very early in this discussion, but even now I don't see it.
It's not like Senator Mcarthy's been running loose on AfD. If this was something about a current political debate I'd expect that kind of premonition, but forgive me if I'm naive to say that I would have never thought this was a bias issue. Who exactly is displaying bias, and what exactly is this bias? Nothing in this debate (other than cries of "POV") has suggested otherwise. Shadowjams ( talk) 06:19, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, Communist countries have engaged in systematic mass destruction, which has been proven beyond reasonable doubt in academic literature. The article can be developed to better comply with the Wikipedia core policies. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 10:19, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • That was not the reason this page should be deleted Triplestop x3 14:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment - why are people posting their views - what are essentially "comments" like this one - on top of the page (presumably to make sure that it's the first thing everyone sees) instead of properly doing it by posting a comment like this one. Add to that there's completely no consensus in presenting these views as a summary ("to summarize") and the summary itself is just one user's POV and this is really screwing up the page. Please follow standard procedures and move your comments down to the bottom and label them as "comment". Thanks. radek ( talk) 13:25, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • No, that is the nominator's rationale which is present in every afd. Triplestop x3 14:38, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • No, it is not the nominator's rationale - that's a separate thing. Nor is it the nominator's prerogative to put up a section called "To summarize" at the top of the page which pretends to summarize the ongoing discussion in a very biased and pov-ed way in order to try and influence the closing admins into taking an action that is very much against the opinion of many editors here. Nor is it ok to argue that standard Wikipedia policy should be thrown out the window, just because the vote is not going according to one's wishes. radek ( talk) 17:10, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • I moved the off-topic comments to the talk page. It might have been better to leave it there, in hindsight - I suspect the closing admin would have been as shocked as I was at such blatant attempt to change the outcome of AfD discussion, attack on editors with opposing viewpoints and the sheer nastiness some users are displaying there. -- Sander Säde 14:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Ah, good. Offliner restored the off-topic nastiness situated in the wrong place. -- Sander Säde 14:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, this is relevant info the admin needs to know when closing this. And we can all assume the admin is competent enough not to be "influenced" Triplestop x3 14:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
And you think that the closing admin is an idiot incapable of going through arguments and making a decision himself or herself? Or just seeing that the article is vastly improved, with loads of valid sources and as such probably not deleted. Is that the reason why there are small nasty hints everywhere - "look at your userpage", "note at closing admin" etc etc. Shameful. -- Sander Säde 14:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It's still relevant. And you are being just as "shameful" by moving the comments to attempt to influence it the other way. Ironholds says it nicely. [23] Triplestop x3 15:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
My move of discussion would have allowed admin to make up his mind based on arguments, not "To summarize" by someone obviously interested in a certain outcome. -- Sander Säde 15:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It's highly doubtful that its a coincidence that you also voted keep. Triplestop x3 15:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Since I have not been canvassing, haven't lowered myself to personal attacks, haven't tried to force the closing admin to see my way, haven't commented on everybody with opposing views, I get "its a coincidence" I voted keep...
Firstly, this isn't a popularity contest. AfD's are not elections, they are resolved with arguments from both sides. Secondly, why don't you actually go over to page and read the article. It is now solidly sourced, plenty of RS's, including sources directly dealing with the topic. Don't judge a book by its cover - the article was a complete mess at start (I would have supported deletion of this version myself), now it is starting to get in a better shape than most articles in Wikipedia are.
-- Sander Säde 15:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I have read it. It still ridiculously reeks of POV and I there isn't any way to fix it. And you have indeed engaged in personal attacks, saying Their main issue is WP:IDONTLIKEIT. You can always tell when someone accuses of WP:SYNTH, WP:POV and WP:OR but is unable to point out what exactly is wrong, forcing them to use phrases such as "the whole thing was nothing but trolling". when clearly the opposite is true. Triplestop x3 16:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Another pointless splitting

  • Delete. "Communist" and "genocide" is not a meaningful intersection of topics. An analogous (and much less controversial) hypothetical article would be Communist basketball teams ... Communist countries have basketball players, but there's no unifying characteristic among them that would lead to people talking about "Communist basketball". The situation is similar here once you look past the politics clouding people's perceptions. -- Soap Talk/ Contributions 16:17, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Not surprisingly, Google Books shows four book results for "Communist basketball team". — Rankiri ( talk) 16:30, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Delete. The article is an almost random collection of unrelated materials; with the information already in Wikipedia. The article can be replaced by few links in other articles ( Communism and Genocide come to mind :-). Dimawik ( talk) 19:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Some seem to hold the view that there is no causal link between communist ideology and mass killings. The view seems to be that the mass killings in the former USSR, the Democratic Kampuchea, in the People's Republic of China and Ethiopia were all independent events where the ideology of government was just co-incidental, not a root cause. The problem is that no evidence is presented from published sources that supports the case that this view of no causal link is held by any significant author, we are just left with the unqualified opinion of some Wikipedians that this is the case. When presented with books that make that causal link, like Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century, the author who has published extensively in academia is immediately dismissed as a crazy fringe theorist by the AfD nominator. -- Martintg ( talk) 21:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
As genocides in history show there is no direct link between the genocides and communism. Just a handful genocides were perpetrated by the communist regimes, and quite a few (most notably genocides of the indians) happened before the theory of communism even appeared. You can see there are much better links between the genocides and imperialism, colonialism, religion, and socialism. This seems to indicate that the evil (manifested in genocide, racism, slavery, etc) just seems to be part of the human nature. There appears to be a lot of confusion between the theory of communism which is ultimately idealized in communist utopia and different perverted interpretations/realisations of various aspects of the theory in practice. Are perversions of the theory result of the theory? This is open to interpretations, and such interpretations may even easily link democracy to genocides. ( Igny ( talk) 21:55, 7 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
So have you published your theory of no causal link between totalitarian communism and mass killing in some journal? One eminent scholar (fringe theorist according to our AfD nominator) has stated "it must be observed that the political creation of an artificial terror-famine with genocidal results is not a phenomenon restricted to the historical context of Russia and the Ukraine in the Thirties, but is a feature of Communist policy to this day, as evidenced in the sixties in Tibet and now in Ethiopia. The socialist genocide of small, "primitive" peoples, such as the Kalmucks and many others, has been a recurrent element in polices at several stages in the development of Soviet and Chinese totalitarianism. Once again, communist policy in this respect faithfully reproduces classical Marxism, which had an explicit and pronounced contempt for small, backward and reactionary peoples - no less than for the peasantry as a class and a form of social life". -- Martintg ( talk) 22:13, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
You really have to show that Valentino's theory has gained acceptance by the academic community and is now generally recognized. If you want to draw attention to his work, perhaps you could create articles about him and his book. As far as I can tell his theory has received no recognition either from the academic community or from newspaper reviews. Incidentally far more writers have written about perceived American genocide in the Indian Wars, the Civil War, Hawaii, the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan (and countless other places), yet there is no article about that. The Four Deuces ( talk) 22:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
How about you provide evidence for your assertion "As far as I can tell his theory has received no recognition either from the academic community" by providing a published paper that refutes the causal link between the communism and mass killing. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:13, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It is so easy to find anti-communist propaganda in the Western publications. What I said earlier was not my theory that was common sense. If you want to find source which support the common sense, be my guest. In fact I dare you to go and try to google for counter-arguments to this POV-filled article. Believe me if you try you will find plenty of the counterarguments, but you would probably call them communist propaganda. While we are on this topic, I could challenge you to find a single diff of your edit which is pro-Russian or just balancing anti-Russian/ anti-communist POV, but nevermind. But if you go to original theory of communism you would fail to find any single phrase which condones/ causes/ provokes genocides. Mind that revolutions are not genocides. All the interpretations in the Western media are just that, interpretations. ( Igny ( talk) 22:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
Seems all you can offer is "common sense", i.e. OR, and a personal attack. How about trying to contribute to the debate by supplying a peer-reviewed paper that claims that ideology was not a factor in mass killings in the various Communist regimes. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Just to prove you inability to find the counterarguments in plain view, and demonstrate that some claims there are taken out of context. Here is a quote from one of the sources from the very article.
"Only a fool could hold Marx responsible for Gulag,, but there is, alas, a ready supply of fools... Should philosophers be blamed for any and every subsequent mutilation of their ideas?"
( Igny ( talk) 00:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
So? I'm certainly not holding Marx personally responsible for genocide. Then again, "C"ommunism has very little to do with Marxist "c"ommunism. Red herring. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  01:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I am not talking about you because honestly I do not care about your point of view. I'd like however to point out that the lead of this article blames Marx' manifesto for genocides not less. ( Igny ( talk) 01:37, 8 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
  • With regard to the POV fork argument, the nominator seems the believe this article is a direct POV fork of the article Communism, when in fact is is simply a valid sub article of a notable topic in need of coverage (and there is a vast range of sub topics in this space, see Template:Communism), (I note also that Wikipedia does not have an article Totalitarian communism either). Whether we call it Communist genocide, Communist mass killing, Totalitarian Communist mass killing, Communist inspired mass murder or something else is really just a naming issue, but the underlying topic is a valid one and is covered extensively in the literature [24] There is no escaping the fact that there is a significant body of literature that does discus and make the link between mass killing and the implementation of communist ideology, no matter how much we would want to paint prominent scholars and authors that hold that view as "fringe theorists". -- Martintg ( talk) 21:35, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Communist Genocide is no more a valid topic than Capitalism Genocide, Christian Genocide, Islam Genocide, Jewish Genocide, African Genocide etc.. LokiiT ( talk) 23:17, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Look for "Islamic genocide" in scholarly sources. Purely a synthesis of your personal opinion. Nothing to do with scholarly sources. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  01:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Martintg - you have the issue the wrong way around. There is no peer-reviewed paper that claims that ideology was not a factor in mass killings in the various Communist regimes because there is no peer-reviewed paper that that claims it was. The Four Deuces ( talk) 23:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The argument "Communist" and "genocide" is not a meaningful intersection of topics" is as meaningless as the argument "Islam" and "terrorism" is not a meaningful intersection of topics", yet we have the article Islamic terrorism precisely because it is a meaningful intersection. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:28, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • As far as I know, there is nothing inherently "evil" or inhuman about the basic communist ideology. It holds that all people are entitled to enjoy the fruits of their labour and advocates economic equality and communal ownership of all property, the benefits of which must shared by all according to the needs of each. What you refer to is called Stalinism or Maoism or Communist state or general totalitarianism. You can't just lump all these concepts together and label the entire theory as genocidal, especially considering that Stalin's USSR, Pol Pot's Kampuchea and Mao's China were by no means representative of all communist philosophies and governmental systems. — Rankiri ( talk) 23:59, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
You argument appears to be equivalent to claiming that since there is nothing inherently "evil" or inhuman in the Koran, the article Islamic terrorism should be deleted. It the issue is one of labeling the entire theory as genocidal, why would you object to renaming to Totalitarian Communist genocide? -- Martintg ( talk) 13:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Have you even read the Quran? Fighting may be imposed on you, even though you dislike it. But you may dislike something which is good for you, and you may like something which is bad for you. GOD knows while you do not know [25], and so on. — Rankiri ( talk) 19:34, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Delete Synthesis at its finest. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 00:18, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Odd, as you say it's all about sources and there are hundreds that discuss "communist genocide." VЄСRUМВА  ♪  01:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
In passing as in "genocides by communist regimes". No source yet blames communists for genocides in general, nor actually define the phrase "communist genocide" and does not discuss how the genocide by the communists differs from other genocides. Yet somehow the lead of this article traces the communist genocides to Marx' theory of the communism by synthesis of words taken out of context from different sources. ( Igny ( talk) 01:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
  • Keep but move to a neutral title, such as "Genocide in Communist regimes" or some such. "Communist genocide" implies that genocide is an inherent part of Communism, rather than merely being a practice of some (but not all) Communist regimes. -- FOo ( talk) 03:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I would suggest genocide in totalitarian regimes with a subsection on the genocides by the communist totalitarian regimes.( Igny ( talk) 03:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
genocide in totalitarian regimes? What exactly would be the reason to duplicate the article about Nazi genocide, better known as Holocaust in another article? There is the main article Genocide which has content forks on Nazi genocide, Armenian genocide etc., and now on Communist genocide. To say that "Communist genocide" somehow implies like "all communists are genocidal", sorry but it can't be taken seriously. However renaming the article is an option as long as a new name as the current one is based on published sources pr. WP:NAME, not on "own opinions, experiences, arguments, or conclusions".-- Termer ( talk) 04:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Wow, "What exactly would be the reason to duplicate the article about Nazi genocide, better known as Holocaust in another article?" sure sounds funny from a guy who insists on keeping another POV fork in place right here. PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
POV fork of what? POV fork is something that is made parallel to another article. Is there anywhere on Wikipedia an article on mass killings of estimated 60-100 million people committed by Communist regimes? In case there is, please let me know.-- Termer ( talk) 06:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • The Black Book of Communism—which, by the way, has a lengthy criticism section that includes statements like famines were caused by the "stupidity or incompetence of the regime," and that the deaths resulting from the famines, as well as other deaths that "resulted directly or indirectly from government policy," should not be counted as if they were equivalent to intentional murders and executions..— Rankiri ( talk) 12:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Fubar's suggestion is excellent. Really excellent. It cuts through a lot of the arguments on here. Genocide in communist regimes avoids some of the worries about "communist genocide" being a discrete concept, and focuses on the sources that the Keep editors have added here, without the concerns by many of the Delete editors about lending credence to a new theory of political history that would arise as a gramatical coincidence. Shadowjams ( talk) 06:23, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Genocide by communist regimes would be more accurate perhaps. Otherwise, support rename-- Termer ( talk) 06:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Would you also support Genocide by capitalist regimes? Because we can have it by cleverly exploiting references like this: [26]. PasswordUsername ( talk) 08:11, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Delete I don't think a rename would word - what would an article, "Genocide in communist regimes" contain, aside from a list of links to articles about specific such genocides? As the sources produced thus far only discuss connections between these events briefly or in passing, anything other than a mere list of links to otherwise unrelated articles would be either very short, or an OR synthesis. The problem with "Communist genocide" is that it implies that there is a notable academic theory of communist genocide; if "Genocide in communist countries" were to have any content, it would have to make the same claim, and this is precisely the claim that is disputed. VoluntarySlave ( talk) 08:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Would you consider Totalitarian Communist mass killing? Surely nobody here disputes that mass killing was a defining feature of Totalitarian Communist regimes, even if some of us claim the mass killing wasn't genocide. -- Martintg ( talk) 13:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Keep a well known concept,lot of references Shyamsunder ( talk) 11:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Claim without evidence made by a user who's just stalked eight of my edits. Dude, WP:NOTVOTE. PasswordUsername ( talk) 11:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete as SYNTH. There are obviously people (on-wiki as well as off-wiki) who argue that there is such a concept as 'communist genocide' (i.e. that there is a historic linkage between events, roughly along the arguments of BB). To be brief, I say that analysis is politically motivated, and the existence of the article is becomes the pushing of one POV in a wider historical debate. There are plenty of ghits for 'Zionist Genocide' also (including 51 google book hits), but it would be a bad article title. Wiki is an encyclopedia, we dont need argumentative pieces like 'Why the Black Book of Communism is right'. The debate on the Black Book is amply covered in that particular article. -- Soman ( talk) 11:52, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
How can you claim it is SYNTH, then acknowledge "that there is a historic linkage between events, roughly along the arguments of the Black Book". If the author of the Black Book, Stéphane Courtois, writes about this linkage in his book, as Benjamin Valentino, John Gray, Eric Weitz, Ronit Lenṭin and Rebecca Knuth also do in their respective books, then it is no longer SYNTH. No body has provided authors that have contended that there is no linkage, so how can you speak of a "wider historical debate"? -- Martintg ( talk) 12:56, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I don't acknowledge that. I say that there are people that argue in a similar fashion. Don't misquote me. Copypasting a summary of a highly politicized document like the Black Book, and claiming that it is an encyclopediatic article is not npov. May I remind other editors of the following passage in the lead of the article at present:
"Totalitarian communist regimes took the violent "class struggle" described by Marx and Engels in their Communist Manifesto to its most virulent incarnation, that of genocide, giving "the world the wars and genocides of Lenin, Stalin and Mao."[8] According to the Communist Manifesto, the existence of traditional ruling classes (including leaders, property owners, educated professionals, etc.) became "no longer compatible with society", therefore "the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie" proposed by it, became a way of laying the so called "foundation for the sway of the proletariat", ostensibly the ideological basis for legally sanctioned genocide of the future.[9][10] "Never have so few pages done so much damage", writes Benjamin Wiker.[11]" That is about as SYNTHish as you can get, in my view. -- Soman ( talk) 13:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Synthesis is advancing a new position, how is what is in the lead new from what has already been published by Peter A. Zuckerman, Benjamin Valentino and Benjamin Wiker, who are essentially saying the same thing? In fact, the Black Book appears to be only cited within the body in regard to numbers of deaths, So I don't quite understand what you mean when you say "Copypasting a summary of a highly politicized document like the Black Book". -- Martintg ( talk) 13:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
With respect to that particular passage, I edited the first part of that last night to more accurately reflect the source cited. I also inserted "ostensibly" in the second part to insure that it is the regime executing genocide that is taking "class struggle" as justifying genocide, and that it is not something Marx/Engels personally advocated (although it was clear it would be a violent class struggle, and so undeniably the seed, that is, those "words" being alluded to)--mass execution was a subsequent interpretation. How is what is being stated, fairly representing the sources, indeed quoting them in part, qualify as "SYNTH"? As responded above, absolutely nothing new is being presented.
   If totalitarian rule including amassing the state as your personal instrument were your goal, you could not find a better excuse than the elimination of the bourgeousie to rape your population of all their posessions and destroy those that had possessions (that is, people who had showed initiative, were professionals, were successful,....)—and eliminating entire classes of people would be genocide, no? VЄСRUМВА  ♪  15:12, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment about the renaming debate. I think a big part of the problem is that the compromise legal definition for the term genocide was specifically required by the Soviet Union and others to exclude the mass killing of political and social groups back in 1948. [1] As a result, consensus for the terminology varies from incident to incident. As I searched for sources on the topic, I came across a variety of terms, from communist genocide, to socialist genocide, class genocide, politicide, and democide, among others. While many sources clearly still think the term is appropriate - and I would agree with them - there is legitimate contention. By using the term "Mass killings" in the title of the article and perhaps including a section explaining the labeling issues, I think we can reach a general consensus. AmateurEditor ( talk) 16:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Disambiguate/Listify (Keep) - A very prominent term in the context of Eastern Europe and used in a number of academic works. Since it can be used for Ceaucescu, Stalin, and Pol Pot, ths page should be sourced for mentions of Communist Genocide and then the user can decide which genocide they want to learn about. Sorry if this sounds amazingly callous, but I;m trying to build consensus here. Pectore talk 16:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Why not merge/redirect to already existing list in genocides in history? ( Igny ( talk) 18:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
You might also want to check out Historical_revisionism_(negationism)#Politically_motivated_historical_revisionism Smallbones ( talk) 03:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Holodomor is still under debate. The Great Leap Forward and Gulag, for example, do not even mention the word genocide at all. Great famines in communist countries could be just attributed to tragic mistakes in management rather than malicious intent, yet this article fails to mention that. Is the current famine in Zimbabwe a genocide? ( Igny ( talk) 14:09, 9 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
See Holodomor denial and Red terror - Red terror was official government policy and a major tenant of Marxism-Lenninism/ From Red terror:

Communist leader Grigory Zinoviev seemed to be advocating genocide when he declared in mid-September of 1918:

"To overcome of our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia's population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated." [2]
To answer your question: yes, the current famine in Zimbabwe is considered genocide, according to the Sunday Times [27]. PasswordUsername ( talk) 07:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply

I'd say this is not a "mistake in management" Smallbones ( talk) 15:08, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply

What you would say really really does not matter. I'd say this article is highly POVed, as in not neutral at all, clearly politicized, fails to disclose any counterarguments, and in some instances advocates a specific POV by synthesis of different sources. Besides, taking quotes out of context does not help your position. ( Igny ( talk) 15:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
  • Keep, but perhaps rename as "Genocides in Communist countries". One could also create a list. This is described in all modern textbooks. Biophys ( talk) 04:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per Abductive. He makes a good point. Is there anything that makes these genocides uniquely communist? Is there anything connecting these events in a concrete way? Would a page called 'Capitalist Genocides', listing the Holocaust, the various massacres of the Native Americans, the genocide in Tasmania, the Rwandan Genocide, etc, have any less justification than this page? LK ( talk) 11:06, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • What makes them "uniquely communist" is the specific ideological justification, like the "theories" of class struggle, dictatorship of proletariat, "the merging of the city and the countryside", and so on, as in the classic genocide by Khmer Rouge. Hence there are many books specifically about this subject, like Black Book of Communism. No large-scale repressions would be possible without some kind of an ideological justification, according to many authors. Biophys ( talk) 20:50, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The Black Book of Communism is a somewhat controversial work about deaths under communist regimes in various places – but it is not a book about "communist genocide" as such – and your presentation of it as an example of one is a classic case of WP:SYNTH itself. That there are no academic works devoted to the concept of "communist genocide" – as opposed to a number of particular instances of mass killings in communist regimes that are considered genocides by many researchers – is exactly what many of the arguments above have revolved around, with no apparent success for the "keep-this-article" side. PasswordUsername ( talk) 06:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Are you suggesting that other non-communist genocides, such as Holocaust, lack the ideological justification? ( Igny ( talk) 21:19, 9 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
I don't think he was saying that. I think he was saying that this does have an ideological compnent. Why would that imply that others do not? Obviously, we have an article for that Jewish Holocaust. Besides, it's not our job to delve into Stalin's mind. That's what the reliable sources do. Look to those. Shadowjams ( talk) 21:46, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Again my point is that the article lacks overview of the sources which counter many of the arguments presented in a very biased way there. For example, a picture from Holodomor is used as the main picture, lots of talk about the holodomor denial, lots of POVs talking about the holodomor, as the worst genocide ever, is presented... And yet nowhere in the article the Holodomor genocide question is mentioned (see plenty of reliable sources countering the genocide arguments there). All the links between the genocide and the communist ideology are synthesis of the quotes out of context... Many POVs are controversial and yet stated as fact in the article rather than attributed to a specific person advocating the view... Is this neutral coverage of the sources in your opinion?( Igny ( talk) 01:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
Also class struggle even if violent is not equal to genocide, violent overthrow of monarchies or revolutions are not genocide. Even civil wars in most cases are not genocide. Plenty of famines/epidemics in history of humankind are not genocide. I am surprised that Chernobyl was not mentioned here as genocide of Belorussia by the communists, even though technological catastrophes are not genocide either. And the very lead of this article (as well as most of the editors who voted "keep" here) advocates the view that Marxism ideology is somehow the primary cause of the genocides, even though there are plenty of sources claiming the link is merely coincidental at best. ( Igny ( talk) 01:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
"even though there are plenty of sources claiming the link is merely coincidental at best", care to post these sources that claim that Communist ideology was not a factor in mass killing in these regimes? -- Martintg ( talk) 02:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I did provide an example on the talk page of the article and I just mentioned the Holodomor genocide question. But naturally you ignored all that, so I do not know why I bothered to answer your question, which by the way you could easily answer yourself by googling. ( Igny ( talk) 02:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
  • Comment: Setting aside the question of whether the mass-killings discussed in the article were in fact genocides, it is easy to see the argument for labelling many or all of them communist. “Communism” is a reasonably well defined term, referring to a collectivist, egalitarian economic order, and these mass killings were effected as an avowed part of an avowed attempt to bring about or to maintain such an order. Meanwhile, a killing isn't “capitalist” simply by virtue of not having been effected for communistic reasons. If one were to discuss “capitalist” mass-killings, the first problem would be that the word “capitalism” has never been particularly well defined, and in the 20th Century its definition became even more problematic as various parties attempted to lump-together very distinct systems in order to disparage or to promote some of these by specious association. Wikipedia's own article somewhat admits the fuzziness, and then tries to soldier-on with a fudge. But nothing in its messy definition, nothing in the definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and nothing in either of the two definitions that have been used in the history of the American Heritage dictionaries has a meaningful fit to the Nazi extermination of Jews, the various massacres of aboriginal populations, &c. These exterminations were effected based upon ethnic and religious claims, and when the Nazis demonized their victims it was often as rapacious “capitalists”. — SlamDiego ←T 03:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Indeed, not withstanding the question whether or not the mass killing was genocide, the fact that mass killing was inspired by Communist ideology is not in question. It is interesting to note that the Dictionary of Genocide has an entry for "Communism", characterizing it as an intolerant, repressive and genocidal political force in the modern world. In fact in the same book states that mass killings along the lines of genocide are often motivated doctrinally. Genocide scholar Helen Fein contends such genocides are justified by an articulated social goal that enjoins the destruction of the victims. It goes on to state that the notion of "class struggle" was used as a guideline for aggressive policies that has led to regimes using genocidal means to destroy the "enemies of the working class", leading to the destruction of millions of lives. So Communist mass killing is certainly a valid topic. -- Martintg ( talk) 05:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Neologism that is not supported by reliable sources -- there isn't a concept or category of "communist genocides" the way there might be "communist countries" ... this is soapboxing based on synthesis of original research. csloat ( talk) 07:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
  1. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=LoQo50YPzTUC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=soviet+union+definition+of+genocide&source=bl&ots=NLamTIqdqA&sig=3MES2CtZuF4Gc4lma1AtyBrrtZ0&hl=en&ei=joB8SqS0CpX8tgeX8YDdAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
  2. ^ George Leggett. The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN  0198228627 page 114
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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was NO CONSENSUS. After analyzing the agruments of both sides, I think there is no consensus to keep or delete this article. AdjustShift ( talk) 15:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Communist genocide (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) ( delete) – ( View log)

This article is blatant, ridiculous POV propaganda and an unneeded fork/original research. Its just different instances of violence caused by Communism and put it under the umbrella of "genocide"; furthermore it is extreme POV to associate actions of individual regimes with communism as a whole. The page was created as soapboxing by a user whose sole edits so far are POV pushing on Communism. Every system of government is responsible for many deaths throughout history, I don't see why Communism must be singled out. Furthermore, the deaths that occurred under communism was not genocide. Triplestop x3 17:06, 3 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Note from nominator, I apologize for having gotten carried away on this. I still think this page should go, but I will be removing this from my watch list. Cheers, Triplestop x3 01:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

To summarize

  1. Notability There are not enough RS to establish that deaths under communist regimes constitute genocide, nor that "Communist genocide" is a notable term. Furthermore, the two words used together doesn't make "Communist genocide" as a term notable, it just means "genocide by communists".
  2. POV It is incorrect to associate Communism in general with mass killings of individual regimes. "the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie" != genocide, besides most killed by Communist regimes were not rich. As defined in the Wikipedia page, Communism (from Latin: communis = "common") is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Does it say anything about mass killings?
  3. Trolling This is the work of a banned crosswiki vandal in a blatant attempt to incite conflict in a controversial subject
    • Note: User is indefinitely blocked for block evasion, not banned. Shadowjams ( talk) 06:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  1. Synthesis This is a bunch of sources, unrelated in the definition of "communist genocide", attempting to advocate the aforementioned unnotable concept.
"Communist genocide refers to the genocide carried out by communist regimes across the world. From the very beginning, communism forged a new order based on genocide" Wow, thats about as POV as it gets. Triplestop x3 15:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Then fix the article. The fact that an article might have some POV in it is not a sufficient reason to delete it. radek ( talk) 23:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The article, by it's very nature, pushes a POV that can't be removed. Irbisgreif ( talk) 23:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No it's not. And how can an article be POV "by it's very nature" - was it decided at the beginning of time by the Grand Creator (or Grand Someone) that this particular article was going to be POV by "it's very nature"? What are you talking about? There's nothing POV about the "nature" of this article, and if there is POV in the article itself it can be removed. Not a reason to delete. radek ( talk) 23:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It's POV in the same way "List of all Republican Serial Killers" would be inherently POV. Irbisgreif ( talk) 10:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Note to closing admin Given the nature of the subject, there is going to be clear bias in the votes. I ask that this be taken into account. Triplestop x3 03:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Note to closing admin - why should the nominator be allowed to put a very POV, biased, pronouncement at the top of the page (which makes sure that everyone will read it, as opposed to sifting through the individual comments and votes) asserting that somehow the voting is "biased" (which obviously, according to Triplestop, means that it hasn't gone according to her/his wishes). This is an attempt at manipulating the outcome with a grievous disregard of the actual votes. It borders on disruptive editing. radek ( talk) 23:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

This isn't a vote at all. What he has requested is that the Admin remember this, and disregard comments if the user posting them seemed very biased and did not have good reasoning. Irbisgreif ( talk) 23:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
What you mean it's not a vote "at all"? It's a bunch of people voting, isn't it? How does that make it not a vote? Obviously, if you take one side, you're going to think that the people who vote on the other side are wrong. But to jump from that to the conclusion that the other votes should not be counted - i.e. only the "right" votes should be counted - is ridiculous (and also appropriately fitting, given the subject matter). radek ( talk) 23:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Another note The creator of this page is a banned user, a serial crosswiki vandal. As this page was clearly an attempt to troll, perhaps G5 could apply here. Triplestop x3 20:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Supplementary note - the nature of the creator should mean, I think, that the default should be delete, not keep, if the judgement is "no consensus". Rd232 talk 21:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • I read the sock puppet investigation as well as the user page of the creator. He wasn't banned, he was blocked indefinitely. There's a subtle distinction (at least some have said as much before) between the two, and a ban is quite different. If you read the blocking admin's explanation too, it undermines the notion that everything this user touches is cursed, which is not how G5 works. Shadowjams ( talk) 06:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The nature of the creator (whoever s/he is - I have no idea) has no barring on a delete/keep vote what so ever! What are you making up here? There's been plenty of editing at the article since it was created. The default, per Wiki policy, is keep if no consensus is reached. radek ( talk) 23:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The page is a clear attempt to incite conflict in an issue of this controversial nature. If we can't agree to keep it, then don't feed the troll and trash it. Nothing of value would be lost Triplestop x3 02:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • I think it goes without saying that we're way beyond speedy territory. There's obviously a lot of debate about a simple delete, there's certainly not consensus for a speedy at this point. Not to mention, G5 requires "having no substantial edits by others." Shadowjams ( talk) 20:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Well, this article was created in a clear attempt to troll and I don't think we should allow his trolling to stand. Triplestop x3 20:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • I appreciate that concern, and I don't think it's wrong for you to have nominated it, but you're pretty bent on getting rid of this article. I'm just suggesting we don't lose sight of the big picture (encyclopedia). Shadowjams ( talk) 20:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • While we're on the subject of notifying the admin, you've been campaigning, in clear violation of WP:CANVASS. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 17:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • I haven't seen a non-neutral request for someone to come and take a look. His actions don't look like canvassing to me. Consider that I had to come here to find out what his opinion was. Irbisgreif ( talk) 18:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
      • Really? You found his talk page posting "Hi, don't you think it is a shame there are people wanting to keep this blatant propaganda article?" a neutral message? And you're a linguist? Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 19:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
        I have only seen his noticeboard requests. Irbisgreif ( talk) 22:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
        • Russavia had already voted when Triplestop put the question on his page, so it's not canvassing because people don't vote twice. PasswordUsername ( talk) 22:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
          • You're right, and for that reason, and only that reason, I strike through my comment and apologize. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 13:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Please keep Communism killed 100 million people which is more than Nazism. Communist genocide is a fact. Please keep this article. The article is nominated for deletion minutes after its creation. I am still working on it. -- Joklolk ( talk) 17:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC) — Joklolk ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. Comment struck - banned user. reply

  • — Note to closing admin: Joklolk ( talk • contribs) is the creator of the page that is the subject of this XfD. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 16:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. You can work on it, but there is nothing of encyclopedic value here--just a big ole soapbox. Drmies ( talk) 17:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete, the material is appropriate, but it's being assembled in an inappropriate way; Communist genocide falls under WP:NEO. Mintrick ( talk) 17:57, 3 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong delete. This is WP:SYNTH, and the article seems to be used for some kind of advocacy. I have found absolutely no evidence that the term "communist genocide" (as referring to an universal concept) even exists in credible sources. Taking a quick look at some of the references used in the article, there is no indication that it is even a real term. For example, the article says Former Vietnamese judge Nguyen Cao Quyen who was a victim of communist political repression after communist victory in Vietnam War describes communist genocide as "genocide of entire classes" (clearly implying that the source is talking about a universal concept "communist genocide", but the source actually says: Since 1945, the Vietnamese Communists exterminated religious leaders, assassinated opposition leaders, killed intellectuals, businessmen, and even peasants who disagreed with their ideology. These terrorist acts were crimes against humanity and the genocide of entire classes. Thus, it does not use the term "communist genocide" at all. It seems that this article is being used as a vehicle to invent a new concept and give credibility to it. I'm sure all of this material is present in the articles about the different genocides, so there is absolutely no need for this advocating, original synthesis article. Offliner ( talk) 10:08, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, notable concept - used in 300+ books. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:56, 4 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Those refer to specific incidents where communist regimes have committed genocide, not an overarching concept of "communist genocide". This article is about the latter. Mintrick ( talk) 18:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Actually, I haven't found any indication that the latter even exists. Can someone please point out a source which really discusses the universal concept "communis genocide"? Offliner ( talk) 10:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep There's a lot more here than the BB, which is just one of the sources--the question is whether there is a type of genocide characteristic of Communist regimes; personally, I have my doubts about it as a specific common factors but it's a well-known concept. DGG ( talk) 00:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The main problem with the article is that it's original synthesis. For example, is there a source which explicitly states that "during the Russian Civil War the Bolsheviks engaged in a campaign of genocide against the Don Cossacks" is part of an universal "communist genocide"? All of the incidents listed here are covered in their own articles, so why do we need this article? Here we are replicating content that is already present elsewhere, and putting it all together in a very questionable way. Offliner ( talk) 01:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
are you challenging whether there was a campaign of genocide against the Don Cossacks, or whether the government that engaged it it was Communist? DGG ( talk) 19:08, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Please re-read my comment. I'm not denying either. Offliner ( talk) 20:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Still doesn't indicate the overall concept is notable though. Triplestop x3 03:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
There is nothing in that article that would confirm that "communist genocide" is a specific term or a concept. The article mentions it only once, in the title. The term itself is not discussed in the article at all. Offliner ( talk) 10:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
That chapter was found with a search of Communist genocide in Google Books. Apparently there is only one hit in the entire book. On page 238, the words Communist and genocide both appear but not together. The Four Deuces ( talk) 04:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Yes, but we already have separate articles about those genocides. This article is about the universal concept of "communist genocide" - of which I haven't seen any indication that such concept (or even the term) exists. Offliner ( talk) 12:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The Holocaust is also a "democide" according to Rummel's definition, by your reasoning the Holocaust was not genocide? Quite a number of authors such as Stéphane Courtois, Benjamin Valentino, John Gray, Eric Weitz, Ronit Lenṭin and Rebecca Knuth have made the connection between mass killing in a number of communist regimes, the connection being that communist ideology was used as the justification for the killing. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, there is enough reference in academic literature to merit an article. -- Hillock65 ( talk) 13:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
See the works by Stéphane Courtois, Benjamin Valentino, John Gray, Eric Weitz, Ronit Lenṭin and Rebecca Knuth. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Arbitrary section break

  • Delete per Mintrick's comment. Communism as an ideology is no more responsible for genocide than capitalism or any number of religions, none of which have their own genocide articles. The relevant information in the article should be fragmented and moved to its appropriate article. Honestly, the cold war is over, we all know communism sucks. Can we keep the propaganda and ancient ideology wars out of wikipeida please? LokiiT ( talk) 13:54, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete as a highly subjective, uneducated POV fork. Aside from fully agreeing with Abductive's arguments, I also don't see any factual evidence that "Communist genocide refers to the genocide carried out by communist regimes across the world." All books seem to use the phrase trivially and none of them seem to refer to "Communist genocide" as a universal concept. As for Google Books, it also shows a whole bunch of results for "capitalist atrocities", "socialist monstrosity", "capitalist genocide", "socialist genocide", "economic slaughter" and "drunken Batman". Let's concentrate on specific evidence, not on WP:GHITS. — Rankiri ( talk) 13:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Not abductive synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray actually discusses the concept of "Communist genocide" here. -- Martintg ( talk) 20:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per Abductive. If the concept is notable, please show me one single academic publication that deals with "communist genocide" as a topic, not mentions it in passing in relation to specific events which may or may not be a part of a bigger picture. Communist regimes committed many atrocities, yes, but it is not our job as Wikipedians to collect them all in one place and present as a concept. That's a textbook example of what synthesis is.— Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • ( yo?); 14:19, August 5, 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete as WP:SYNTH. Ironholds ( talk) 15:50, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Actually the concept is not synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray publisged the concept of "Communist genocide" here. -- Martintg ( talk) 20:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete – original research used to push an anti-communist POV. If there is to be an article about "communist genocide", there needs to be material covering that concept itself and not list various genocides—regardless of how obvious it may seem—and then draw the arrow yourself. MuZemike 15:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per Offliner and per Mintrick's comments furthermore. PasswordUsername ( talk) 17:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Weak keep and only because the article points out, correctly, that there are laws that use the term "communist genocide" specifically (the Czech law referred to in the article provides that "The person who publicly denies, puts in doubt, approves or tries to justify Nazi or Communist genocide or other crimes of Nazis or Communists will be punished by prison of 6 months to 3 years", from [1]. Strictly speaking, genocide is the eradication of a particular race or culture, not the slaughter of people who oppose a regime. Mandsford ( talk) 18:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
That is not what the article is talking about, its all a POV fork against communism. Triplestop x3 18:37, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. The communits genocide as method in the so called class strugle for domination can be traced back to The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels, defined as necessary tool against a number of various wholesale groups of reactionaries. Please go back to it, and everything else will start to make sense right away. -- Poeticbent talk 18:28, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
But that is not what the article is about, its a highly POV against communism. Read the first sentence. Triplestop x3 18:37, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Defined as what exactly? And by whom? You? As one can see from your edit, there is a multitude of original research going on in this article, and I would stress that others keep an eye on it. -- Russavia Dialogue 22:27, 5 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Poeticbent, I know that WP says "comment about the contributions, not the editor". But this particular vote of yours is so dumb that it raises questions about your intelligence. Read WP article on genocide and you will see it was not defined by Marx or Engels, in fact it was not in any use before 1944. What you probably meant was that Marx and Engels condoned terrorist acts in some cases as a revolutionary tool of the proletariat, and Lenin suggested that dictatorship of the proletariat was a necessary evil. ( Igny ( talk) 05:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
Igny, what you are saying is that you are fully aware of and understand the Wikipedia policy on civility and no personal attacks but then you proceed to break that very policy in a most insulting manner. Your comment is way out of line and I ask that you strike it. radek ( talk) 15:57, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. Certainly there are actions of communist regimes which qualify as genocide. "Democide" (to the mention of that alternative) is a term used only on WP to lobby that killing millions is something other than genocide. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  00:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
There is plenty of academic use of "communist genocide" to refer to communist acts in Cambodia and elsewhere. Not to be flippant, but I genuinely fail to see what Offliner means by not a "universal" term. Certainly it is well used on this planet, which is all that counts. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  00:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Only used on WP? Of course a simple Google search does lead one to call shenanigans on your laughable claim. -- Russavia Dialogue 00:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Could you please attempt to keep your comments civil. Thanks. -- Martintg ( talk) 00:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
To Russavia, feel free to insult me when "democide" appears as a word in a main-line dictionary, for example, at www.merriman-webster.com. Articles should not be written for the general public, the bulk of our readers, using words they can't find in their dictionary. Whereas "genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group" is clearly defined and—based on communist eradication of classes of individuals—clearly applies. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  13:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Nice userbox on your userpage also. Triplestop x3 00:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Thank you. To your point that it's an anti-communist fork, yes, certainly "genocide from the start" can be toned down if not directly cited to a scholarly source. However, the slaughter of millions is notable enough to merit its own article as a sub-topic under the repressive actions of (most) communist regimes. "Communists" is not "genocidal maniacs" by definition—if the Italian communists ever came to power, I rather doubt they would emulate the Khmer Rouge. But deleting this article denies the use of mass murder as an instrument of repression. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  13:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong delete Anyone can string two words together and come up with a neologism but no article should be written unless there is a clear definition of a subject and a body of literature specifically about that subject. The Four Deuces ( talk) 01:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The term is readily found in book titles and used in scholarly journals. "Communist genocide" is not a juxtaposition created just to smear communism on Wikipedia. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  13:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
A POV fork of what? -- Martintg ( talk) 23:20, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Genocide, Communism, probably others. ... Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The concept of "Communist genocide", linking the genocides committed by various communist governments and attributing the phenomenon as a feature of Communist policy is published here. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • The above book only mentions the phrase "Communist genocide" in the following sentence: "The action taken against the Ukranian language was, as one author has said, "systematic linguacide," one of the methods of Communist genocide in the field of culture. [2] This in turn illustrates an important point about how the term is actually used by most of these sources. — Rankiri ( talk) 03:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
In case you missed it, please double check the title of the book Genocide in the USSR: studies in group destruction. In case you're saying that this doesn't entitle an article about general Communist genocide, it should be on the Soviet genocide - Genocide in the USSR only?-- Termer ( talk) 04:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: First of all, this article is not a POV-fork of anything. Some users are suggesting communist genocide is a neologism, but it is not. The term is in use from as early as [3] 1951. There are two entire books written on communist genocide: The Communist Genocide in Romania, by Gheorghe Boldur-Latescu and Murder of A Gentle Land, The Untold Story of Communist Genocide in Cambodia, by Barron, John & Paul, Anthony. The term is used by respected academics like Nathaniel Weyl [4]. This is an universal concept like Nazi genocide. Both the Nazis and communists orchestrated genocide from their different beliefs, but the result were same. Whether it was USSR, China or Cambodia, the reason behind the genocide was communist beliefs. Joklolk ( talk) 02:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • Finally, Communist genocide is an accepted fact by most post-communist Eastern European governments. And there are instances of charges of communist genocide as in the case of Arnold Meri. Estonian charged with Communist genocide. [5] Several countries have laws which explicitly make it illegal to deny communist genocide. It proves communist genocide is an accepted fact by many governments. Joklolk ( talk) 02:51, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • No, Nazis deliberately and systematically killed people of a certain race. Purging the Jews was a core belief of Hitler. The Communists did no such thing. And so the two words were used together coincidentally a couple times. Doesn't make it notable. It's still original research by you. You just put together different instances of violence caused by Communism and put it under the umbrella of "genocide". Triplestop x3 03:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • Yes, communists deliberately and systematically killed people of a certain class with certain political affiliations. Purging the riches was a core belief of communism (Mao, Pol Pot, Lenin's atrocities against Kulaks and so on and so forth). Both the Nazis and communists did not tolerate any political opposition. And it is certainly not OR given the multiple references, don't you see what is written in the references? Your unsubstantiated claim of OR is going to be repeatitive and unproductive in this discussion. Joklolk ( talk) 03:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • That is not genocide. You're use of the word atrocities suggests that this page is an attempt by you to make Communism look bad by pushing your POV by creating a purely negative page on Communism. Triplestop x3 03:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
This is just your personal opinion "that is not genocide". The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as "...acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group..."
Communists certainly intended to destroy national groups, hence they committed genocide, as the literature shows [6]. -- Martintg ( talk) 04:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
And is what they did widely regarded as genocide? No. Triplestop x3 21:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Note on canvassing User:Triplestop is involved in vote canvassing [7] and this was done by User:Offliner also [8]. -- Joklolk ( talk) 03:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC) Comment struck; banned user reply

No, I am trying to invite further discussion on whether or not this page violates Wikipedia's policies. Did is say "PLEASE VOTE DELETE ON THIS?" No. Triplestop x3 03:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Posting to the NPOV noticeboard is not canvassing because it is merely publicizing the discussion and is not aimed at a group that has any specific point of view. And canvassing is defined as "sending messages to many Wikipedians with the intent to inform them about a community discussion", so Offliner's single posting to a user talk page is not canvassing. (See WP:Canvass). So let;s get back to the topic.
The examples show that scholars have written about genocide in various Communist-ruled countries but there is no specific concept of Communist genocide. Notice the books refer to genocide in specific countries. There is no RS book about Communist genocide that links genocide in various countries to Communist ideology, unlike Nazi ideology.
The Four Deuces ( talk) 03:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
This is simply not true. Many books do make a link between communist ideology and genocide, see Eric D. Weitz's book A century of genocide for example. -- Martintg ( talk) 04:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Interesting: the phrase "communist genocide" picks up no results with a thorough search of the book in the link provided. The first sentence reads "Ideology alone is never a sufficient explanation for such massive developments as genocide." It then goes on to explain the particular circumstances that explained the (Vietnam-overthrown) Cambodia example... PasswordUsername ( talk) 04:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Indeed if you read further the paragraph states it was a combination of reactions similar to what moved the Nazi system from discrimination to genocide, so the author seems to be implying that Nazi ideology alone is an insufficient explanation too. Either way, ideology is a factor, the question is to what degree. Communist ideology promotes the destruction of national groups, no question about that, and destruction of national groups is genocide according to Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. -- Martintg ( talk) 04:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Ridiculous. There is no such implication on my reading of the source – and it discusses Cambodia in particular! Which national groups did Karl Marx advocate destroying? PasswordUsername ( talk) 04:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It is well known that Karl Marx was a racist. -- Martintg ( talk) 05:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, it is not well known:

"The notion of race plays no clear part in his social thought, though he makes free use of the term, if often in contexts not involving the modern division of humanity into biologically defined groups..."

"Surely a decisive consideration is the fact, as we will see below, that Marx explicitly rjeects racial division or hierarchy." [9]

Which national groups did he advocate destroying?
PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It is about implementation of communism also. If Ukrainian genocide, Cambodian genocide are not genocide, then what is genocide? And the motives behind these were communist beliefs. Joklolk ( talk) 05:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Communist beliefs =/= genocide. PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It is boring. Communist beliefs caused implementation of communism which caused genocide. Simple. Joklolk ( talk) 05:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Accordingly, capitalist beliefs resulted in the implementation of the Native American genocide. Wait, that one doesn't even get its own article on Wikipedia. PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Actually that's a good catch Password. But that means that someone should create the article Genocide of Native Americans rather than a reason for deleting this one. radek ( talk) 15:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • In "On the Jewish Question" Marx spoke of the Jews as a nationality in highly abusive and venomous language, heaping abuse on their religion, calling the Jews a "chimerical nationality" which he saw destined to disappear as a spiritual and cultural entity.-- Martintg ( talk) 05:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Name a Jewish genocide scholars credit communism with. PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Marx was against the Czechs and Southern Slaves too, stating:"Because the Czechs and the Southern Slavs were then 'reactionary nations', 'Russian outposts' in Europe, outposts of absolutism … to give support to the national movements of the Czechs and Southern Slavs at that time would have been to give indirect support to Tsarism, a most dangerous enemy of the revolutionary movement in Europe." -- Martintg ( talk) 06:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Holy Jesus. Marx regarded the Slavic nations looking to imperial Russia as outposts of tyrannical political systems in the 19th century, and thought it a good thing to give Slavs support, but not at the time when they identified with the czarist Russian Empire. Why are you piling on with this instead of answering my question? Incidentally, he took a pretty optimistic position on Russia in his ultimate years. And? PasswordUsername ( talk) 06:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Delete. This article inherently pushes a ridiculous POV. Irbisgreif ( talk) 04:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong delete per the eloquent POV argument of Poeticbent. ( Igny ( talk) 05:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
  • Keep with tag, important article, I believe any POV issues can eventually be resolved without resorting to deletion. -- œ ™ 05:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • By lumping in every example of genocide, real or purported, under on article? PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:57, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    No I meant the article as it stands now, perhaps with a title change. It's an important historical topic that needs to be covered, and I believe can be covered neutrally, if that means lumping in every example of genocide by communists then why not? -- œ ™ 16:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • Associating mass murder with Communism in general is blatant POV. Triplestop x3 03:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Keep Can't sanitize history just because some people are embarrassed by it. 144.26.92.12 ( talk) 10:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC) Comment struck; vote by an open proxy sock of banned user reply
Note: This anonymous editor has very few edits and has made a questionable edit recently: [10]. Offliner ( talk) 10:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The IP has been blocked. Offliner ( talk) 11:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Random heading to split the page for easier editing

  • Keep and expand. I have a feeling that those supporting deletion have not even bothered to do a simple Google Scholar search. The term "Communist genocide" has been in use for more than fifty years, so how can it be neologism? There are several monographs and dozens of scientific articles dealing with the communist genocide, quite a few dedicated to the topic. It is a term used even within last ten days by newspapers [11]. Several countries have laws dealing with communist genocide. So claiming that it didn't happen, isn't notable or the term doesn't exist is quite frankly, ridiculous and laughable. If the article is POV in your opinion, add opposing viewpoints - but that does not make article suitable for deletion, Wikipedia isn't censored. All other given reasons for deletion come down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Sander Säde 06:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
In that article he's referring to a genocide by communists - that's certainly not the same as "communist genocide", and only a fool or someone looking for something to support their point of view would use it to mean such a thing. I assume the latter. It's depressing to see how many people there are on the "keep" side of this AfD with such blatant, blatant POVs that I would've thought they'd have enough sense to stay away. I hope that the closing admin takes a gander through peoples' userpages and uses things like, uhh, massive anti-communist screeds as evidence of some form of heavy bias here. Note that I'm not directing that at you, Sander. Ironholds ( talk) 07:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Firstly, I very strongly suggest you stop personal attacks and repeating "closing admin must look at userpages, not arguments". That is simply not done in Wikipedia. Closing admin will weight arguments on both delete and keep and make a decision based on arguments.
Please note that I did not say the news article is dedicated to discussing communist genocide, I said the term is used in there.
We've established the term isn't neologism. We've established it has wide coverage in the scientific literature. We've established that there are laws dealing with denial of communist genocide. We've established there has been a recent use in both newspapers and scientific literature. We've established that Wikipedia has no article dealing with this topic, so not a content fork. There is no doubt that we need an umbrella article dealing with phenomenon that occurred all over the communist countries. So.. what is the remaining reason for deletion, per WP:DEL#REASON? Stop the personal attacks and go re-read the article instead, it has improved quite a bit in last few days. -- Sander Säde 07:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Personal attacks are unfounded comments based on the editor rather than the edits. I'm saying that based on the edits of some users, they're obviously biased. The article covers the idea of "communist genocide" as a uniform doctrine - the coverage looks at individual genocides committed by communists. If that's what we're going to write the article on, fine, but it turns it into an unneeded content fork summarising multiple crimes linked only by the political doctrine of the organisation running it. Ironholds ( talk) 08:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Not synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray discusses the concept of "Communist genocide" here. -- Martintg ( talk) 20:50, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. Search at Google Books [12] show that the term is notable and not a neologism. -- Vision Thing -- 08:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Once again, those refer to the individual genocides, not an overarching concept of "communist genocide." The overarching concept simply does not exist, and putting all the different genocides in one article under the name "communist genocide" is against WP:SYNTH. Did you read the other comments here before posting yours? Offliner ( talk) 09:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
These individual genocides are labeled as "communist genocide", so obviously the overarching concept exists. Also, one of the sources say: The notion of genocide has originally been confined to the physical annihilation, or intention to do so, of members of whole nations. If it were to have remained confined within those boundaries, the Communist genocide would, perhaps, be arguably applicable to massive deportations and annihilation of a large number of Ukrainians, Balts and other Soviet nationals, but if would leave out the massive extermination of own-nationals. The Cambodian Khmer Rouge, among others, could never be indicted for 'genocide,' which is absurd. To me this use seems pretty overarching. -- Vision Thing -- 09:24, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
These individual genocides are labeled as "communist genocide", so obviously the overarching concept exists. - this sentence looks like a textbook example of WP:SYNTH. Are you sure you have understood the guideline? And no, the quote you mentioned is not enough for having a whole article about the alleged concept in WP. Once again, the whole book mentions the term "communist genocide" only once. You need to point out a source which contains an extensive discussion of the general concept of "communist genocide," not just one passing mention in a whole book. Offliner ( talk) 09:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment. Is there a particular reason why every keep gets immediately replied/commented - the type of said comment often being a borderline personal attack? Why do I get a feeling that an agenda is being pushed with this deletion? -- Sander Säde 09:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • It's that or roll one's eyes at the -- at best -- misguided arguments being offered up. -- Calton | Talk 13:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
So, in effect you are saying that incivility is OK in Wikipedia discussions, as longer as one feels that opponent's arguments are "at best -- misguided"? -- Sander Säde 14:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Keep - But let me be clear. The title is problematic. Genocide has some specific definitions, depending on who you ask, and I think this article has aspirations that are outside of that title. That's not a trite concern. But, notwithstanding that concern, the general idea, that communist regimes perpetuate[d] unnecessary misery, is a very accepted scholarly topic. I might support a rename, but the article as I see it now is certainly a keep candidate. Shadowjams ( talk) 10:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Is what Communists did widely considered genocide? Just because a few crazy people do doesn't mean this article is legitimate. Triplestop x3 12:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Marting, thank you for being the first person to provide any evidence that anyone ever discussed "communist genocide" as a theory. By the way, the quote given is not from Ellen Frankel Paul, she was merely the editor. The quote is from an article by John N. Gray called "Totalitarianism, Reform and Civil Society" that originally appeared as a chapter in his book Post liberalism: Studies in Political Thought (1993). The problem with using this source is that it did not enter mainstream academic discussion and was largely ignored outside the National Review and libertarian circles. Even then most of the discussion focused on his views of liberalism. If you believe that this book has been ignored by Wikipedia, may I suggest that you create an article for it that explains all the various theories that it advances. However a fringe theory from a non-notable book is not sufficient to create its own article. The Four Deuces ( talk) 14:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Actually the problem with this source (apparent from talking about "socialist genocide" not communist) is that it amounts to half a page and doesn't have any conceptual discussion. It just chucks in the phrase "socialist genocide" for famines under communism. Rd232 talk 21:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
There is nothing in John N. Gray's bio that suggests that this British political philosopher and former Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics is a fringe theorist. He appears to have published extensively and in fact there is a book written about him: The Political Theory of John Gray, which states "He is much cited and discussed within political and social theory, but he also has a much wider audience, being one of those quite rare creatures in British academic life, a public intellectual, writing regularly for the quality press and appearing on both radio and TV". So I don't see where you get the idea his views are "largely ignored outside the National Review and libertarian circles". What ever your personal view is of John Gray, it cannot now be said that the concept of "Communist genocide" is WP:SYNTH -- Martintg ( talk) 19:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The link you give says "John Gray is one of today’s most...controversial political thinkers." (my emphasis) Controversial means that his ideas are not mainstream and the fact that his theory on communism has received no academic mention makes it fringe. However, I accept that you may wish to write an article about his views. The Four Deuces ( talk) 20:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
This your personal view point, I accept that. But the evidence doesn't sustain your claim, his work is extensively cited -- Martintg ( talk) 20:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete with prejudice. I'm not sure whether to call it synthesis or just regurgitation of standard American right-wing rhetoric: just because American conservatives like to string the words together when they talk -- and that Google will turn those examples up -- doesn't that there's any such objective concept. Give Conservapedia a ring, I'm sure they'll take it. -- Calton | Talk 13:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • Comment - That's ridiculous. The article I saw doesn't read like propoganda. It's a sourced article on a topic on which entire books have been written. I've got no problem with the tags, but there's nothing so broken about the article that requires deletion. I'm frankly dismayed at how many comments appear to be of this variety, and willfully ignoring the fact that the article is the subject of multiple books, many of which are cited here. And, at least one of those books itself is notable enough to have its own page The Black Book of Communism. Shadowjams ( talk) 18:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Definitely Keep - concept is notable, concept is used by scholarly sources, article is sourced. radek ( talk) 15:50, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • Assertion without evidence - WP:NOTVOTE. The sources in the article and in this discussion don't hold water in terms of discussing a concept. Two words strung together do not automatically constitute a concept. Rd232 talk 21:18, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Keep. The occurrence of these mass killings is a fact. Make whatever edits are necessary to maintain NPOV, but the article itself should be kept. AmateurEditor ( talk) 16:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • The issue is not verification of mass killings, nor of WP:NPOV. It is WP:OR on the alleged concept of "communist genocide" for which there is not any sourcing worthy of the name. Also WP:NOTVOTE - pay attention to the issues. Rd232 talk 21:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
      • NPOV was an issue from the beginning, but if that part of the discussion is resolved, great. As I see it, the only major item of contention remaining is the distinction between keeping the term "Communist genocide" and renaming the article to something like "Genocide by Communists" or "Mass killings by Communists". I'm sympathetic to the argument that using "Communist genocide" is inappropriate because of the implication that it is a common phrase used to define a certain type of genocide particular to communists. But to argue that the phrase is wrong is to argue that it should be replaced, not that the article itself should be deleted. AmateurEditor ( talk) 04:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • And it's still wrong to associate it with communism as a whole. Even if it were fact. Triplestop x3 03:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
      • Just curious, do you think the communist nature of the governments was incidental or even coincidental to the mass killings? AmateurEditor ( talk) 04:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Note The creator of this article is a banned crosswiki vandal who is now blocked indef. Triplestop x3 20:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • I've placed a speedy tag on it accordingly. His categories are now being speedily deleted, as well. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 20:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
      • Rmved the speedy tag: it has had far too many substantial edits for the tag to be placed, sorry. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 20:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong delete per NickD - extreme WP:SYNTH violation, disguised by lots of sources relevant to a different article (eg List of genocides committed by communist governments). Genocide may have been committed by Communists (certainly there are sources that argue that, though the meaning of "communism" is endlessly debatable) but there is no source for the concept of "Communist genocide". Also created by banned user. Rd232 talk 20:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
How can you say it is synth, noted British political philosopher John N. Gray duscusses the concept of "Communist genocide" here, linking the genocides committed by communist governments and attributing the phenomenon to Communist policy. -- Martintg ( talk) 21:00, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, its just two words used together, as in genocide done by socialists, not socialist genocide as a specific term. And one person said those 2 words, doesn't make it notable. Triplestop x3 21:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Words strung together do not constitute a "concept". And his discussion amounts to a couple of untheorised references on a single page, as far as I can see. Rd232 talk 21:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
However these "words strung together" have been published, hence WP:SYNTH no longer applies. -- Martintg ( talk) 21:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The words are strung together without sufficient discussion to justify calling it a concept in the published sources. So having an article on it is absolutely WP:SYNTH. Rd232 talk 21:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Never the less, the notion of "Communist genocide" being a specific feature of Communist policy common across many Communist regimes has be published, you could maybe argue WP:UNDUE, but it is definitely not WP:SYNTH. -- Martintg ( talk) 22:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Blatant POV/attack article. What is so special about communist genocide as opposed to genocide? When it comes to genocide, it doesn't matter who is committing it, what their particular system of government, religion, or world view is. All that matters is that they've killed masses of people. Genocide is genocide. Specifying a system of government is just stupid, petty and POV pushing. Keeping this will only result in every group with a bone to pick will come here and write POV attack articles about "communist/fascist/Turkish/Islamic/Christian genocide". Then those groups will come and scream prejudice and they'll be right. Wikipedia is not a battlefield. <>Multi-Xfer<> ( talk) 21:08, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Genocides have particular characteristics, Nazi genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for Jewish people, while Communist genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for any small, "backward" and reactionary peoples. -- Martintg ( talk) 21:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
WP:OR right there. Rd232 talk 21:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
How so? The line " Communist genocide was derived from an explicit and pronounced contempt for any small, "backward" and reactionary peoples" is from a published source, the comparison to Nazi genocide is not made in the article, but merely a response to User:Multixfer. -- Martintg ( talk) 22:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It still doesn't deserve its own article. Anyone who commits genocide is targeting someone. That's the general idea: a specific act of mass-murder targeted at a specific group. So should we have 50,000 short POV fork articles and stubs about every instance of genocide committed by one group against another for whatever their justification was at the time? Or do we just have one Genocide article that covers genocide? (the holocaust, which redirects from Nazi genocide linked above, is a common historical title that transcends anything associated with general genocide). <>Multi-Xfer<> ( talk) 01:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I'm not sure what you are exactly arguing for here, when you state "should we have 50,000 short POV fork articles and stubs about every instance of genocide committed", this article does the opposite and aggregates a number of genocides into one article, an aggregation that is supported in the literature because of its particular features related to Communist ideology that makes it stand apart from regular genocide. -- Martintg ( talk) 01:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
This has already been mentioned several times above. However the article has since been significantly expanded by several other editors of good standing. -- Martintg ( talk) 22:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Are you actually pointing out to another editor that they are stating something that is repetitive? Now that's irony for you. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:15, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comparison: "Zionist genocide" gets even more Google hits than "Communist genocide": [13] [14] And to note the depth of scholarly coverage, GoogleBooks furnishes over 50 hits: [15]
PasswordUsername ( talk) 23:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Uhh, if you want to start an article on "Zionist Genocide" go ahead - and good luck with that, since I bet that a good chunk of those hits are going to be non-RS neo-Nazi sites and the like. But even if, the fact that one concept gets more hits than another concept which gets 1000+ hits is a reason for starting another article, not deleting this one. Same as with the Genocide of Native Americans (I'm serious about the need for that one - if you want to cooperate on it I'd be glad to help). radek ( talk) 23:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, I'm not sure if I should start it. But there's definitely a ring to classifying all genocides by ideology, especially with the Books Google feature. PasswordUsername ( talk) 23:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
So what? "Communist mass killing" [16] also gets tons of hits. This is a naming issue which is a content issue that should properly be discussed on the article talk page rather than here. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Only 10,600, Martin...? "Zionist mass murder" gets 91,200. PasswordUsername ( talk) 23:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
"Zionist mass murder" only gives me 1,060 hits. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Try this: [17]. It's showing up as 102,000 for me now. PasswordUsername ( talk) 00:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
To PasswordUsername, doing books.google.com, far more reliable for scholarly sources, shows 41 for "Zionist genocide" and 371 for "Communist genocide". Let's not include every web site (of questionable scholarly basis) screaming genocide regarding a topic of this gravity. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  00:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
41? I get 50 right now: it was 51 an hour ago. [18] Funny searching mechanism. PasswordUsername ( talk) 00:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Indeed Google searches throw up some strange results, and only covers stuff that is online in any case. I think we are straying off topic here, what we name a topic is a content issue, to be discussed else where, we don't go deleting an article because we don't like the name. -- Martintg ( talk) 01:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
My point on searches was that "Communist genocide" (words together, as a single term) appears far more frequently in a search of books (including appearing in numerous titles) than "Zionist genocide." Frankly, I'm flabbergasted at the contentions here that "Communist genicode" is not a well-used scholarly term and concept for, well, communist-perpetrated genovide. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  01:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It's already been explained numerous times in the comments above that "communist genocide" occurs in passing reference to some communist regime's act of mass-scale destruction - most prominently as naming the Cambodian Genocide, which is in such instances referred to by some as "the Communist genocide in Cambodia." There is no basis for an overarching concept of "communist genocide" as such - and no scholarly work on it has been produced. (A passing reference as part of a controversial discussion of political liberalism by John N. Gray is not a substitute for significant scholarly work.) The fact that GoogleBooks yields results for the juxtaposition advanced here – the very notion of "communist genocide" – is exactly what I am referring to in my comparison. Comparable locutions on GoogleBooks, such as "Zionist genocide" and "imperialist genocide", occur also – and they will soon exist on Wiki too, if all it comes down to is empty arguments. PasswordUsername ( talk) 02:32, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Claiming "A passing reference as part of a controversial discussion of political liberalism by John N. Gray is not a substitute for significant scholarly work" mis-interprets of the previous discussion, please provide a published source that contends John Gray's chapter "Totalitarianism, Reform and Civil Society" published in the book "Totalitarianism at the crossroads" is in any way "controversial". There is nothing in John N. Gray bio that suggests that he is a fringe theorist or controversial, yet we have Wikipedians here who have asserted that without providing any evidence what so ever. It is the quality of sources, not quantity, that determines reliability, and by all accounts John Gray is a scholar of the highest order. -- Martintg ( talk) 02:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I'm not claiming anything. Evidently you missed the above discussion. His publisher advertises him as one of today's most controversial theorists in political thought. If you would like to write about Gray's chapter in a book – or even regarding his scholarly work on liberalism (Post-Liberalism), from which the chapter in question comes – in its own article, nothing could possibly stand in your way, so long as either one of these resources has such adequate notability that it belongs on Wikipedia – just as it can as easily be written about some instance of a statute against denying a particular "communist genocide" in a particular country. But that is not tantamount to creating POV fork based on clamping everything in one piece or promoting certain political views. PasswordUsername ( talk) 03:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Now you are engaging in WP:SYNTH, taking the comments from a publisher about an unrelated book written by somebody else and applying it to John Gray's particular chapter "Totalitarianism, Reform and Civil Society" in "Totalitarianism at the crossroads". You really need to find a published scholarly review on John Gray's specific views about "Communist genocide" before you can claim it is "controversial", without it no controversy exists. As for this claim of "POV fork", what is the name of the article that this is supposedly a fork of? -- Martintg ( talk) 03:42, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, the publisher has clearly labeled the author "controversial." I have already explained the trouble with the article time and time again. I think I've had enough. PasswordUsername ( talk) 03:54, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Martintg has it exactly right. All of the WP:OR and WP:NPOV issues are article issues. I'll admit that they can justify deletion if they overwhelm an article, but that's simply not the case here. If this is a question of naming then take it to the talk page. Shadowjams ( talk) 01:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment The answer is to improve the article citing sources which discsuss "communist genocide". What is WP:SYNTH and WP:OR here are the allegations being made here why the topic is not worthy for an article and why the title is inappropriate for the topic. VЄСRUМВА  ☎  01:55, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Yet one more random split

You have a very good point. We don't make pages about things that are inherently POV. However, you are starting to run afoul of WP:POINT. Irbisgreif ( talk) 02:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I agree with you 100% Triplestop x3 02:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Again, this is just a naming issue which should be addressed as a content issue on the talk page, some names are used more often than others in various contexts, but they all point to the same underlying topic, the mass killing of people by totalitarian communist regimes around the world. What is "inherently POV" about this topic? What is the alternate POV this article is suppose to fork, that communist regimes didn't kill anyone? Has anyone provided any sources that articulate the claim that no one was killed? "Communist genocide" is a specific term discussed in books, memorial days proclaimed for and courts prosecuting alleged perpetrators because of it. It is a notable and worthy topic no matter how you want to name it. -- Martintg ( talk) 02:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
You missed my point. This is not a naming issue. This is a trolling issue. ( Igny ( talk) 02:43, 7 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
Probably more likely a case of WP:IDONTLIKEITitis. We have people here asserting it is "inherently POV", but seem unable to articulate what the actual POV issue is. -- Martintg ( talk) 03:02, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The POV arises from the ignorance of capitalist-indoctrinated people thinking that communism is something totally evil, causing people to associate it with Holocaust, Apocalypse, Genocide, etc. On the other side are people brainwashed into thinking that communism is so great. We cannot honor these extreme points of views. See also: The Crucible Triplestop x3 03:06, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I don't see anywhere in the article that makes the judgment that Communism is "something totally evil", it is for the reader to judge. Is it a fact that these regimes engaged in mass killing, many eminent scholars contend in published sources that these mass killings were genocidal and a common feature of totalitarian communist policy in multiple regimes, and discuss it in terms of "communist genocide". Would you be comfortable if the article was renamed to Communist mass killings, or would you also contend that was POV too, disputing even that fact? -- Martintg ( talk) 03:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Again, it's not widely considered genocide. Sure, individual regimes have committed mass murders however it is incorrect to associate it with Communism. "the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie" is not genocide, and most of the deaths caused by communist regimes were not the rich. Triplestop x3 03:47, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Sorry, but this comes across as personal opinion, you need to find published sources that make these claims and add it to the article per WP:YESPOV. Plenty of published sources associate mass killings with Communism have been provided, you need to find reliable sources that assert there is no connection between mass killing and totalitarian Communism. -- Martintg ( talk) 04:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, as the one attempting to associate the system of Communism with mass killings, the onus is on you to prove that Communism == Mass killing. As defined in the Wikipedia page, Communism (from Latin: communis = "common") is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Does it say anything about mass killings? Because this is the POV the page is putting across Triplestop x3 04:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Easy, see the book Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century, chapter 4. -- Martintg ( talk) 04:27, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
So you found one crazy person who wrote their fringe theory in a book. And? Triplestop x3 14:37, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
(od) "attempting to associate"? Excuse me, no one is saying "communism = mass killing", what is being said is that communism (multiple countries and regimes) used mass killing as an organized instrument of repression, as described in numerous upon numerous scholarly sources. What communism says it stands for is completely immaterial in this regard. I'm sorry, Triplestop, but it's you that has the POV that we can only talk about what communism says it is (prosperity et al.) and not what communist regimes have done (mass murder). VЄСRUМВА  ☎  04:55, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
That the phrase "communist genocide" is sometimes used does not make "communist genocide" a concept. None of the sources demonstrate a conceptual discussion of the term. They use it as a label for some very bad events alleged to be genocide (not that clearcut in most cases) which people claiming to be communists were largely responsible for. "Communist genocide" qua concept implies a causal connection between genocide and Communism as ideology or system of government, which has not been shown. You might as well start the article male genocide because the perpetrators of most genocides have been men. Rd232 talk 07:32, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
How about these sources:
"The Communist Genocide in Romania." [19]
"... Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea, where the phenomena of Communist genocide and autogenocide reached their ultimate expression." [20]
"... the idea of a "Red Holocaust" and a "Communist Genocide" have become a part of today's vocabulary." [21]
"Soviet and communist genocide and mass state killings, sometimes termed politicide, occurred..." [22]
I suspect the term is more common in Eastern Europe than it is here (and there were a number of grammatical mistakes in the article which suggest writing by editors for whom English is not their first language) but the term does exist for the concept. Whether or not we should use it for this article is another matter on which I am fairly ambivalent. AmateurEditor ( talk) 18:18, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I appreciate the effort, but (2) is too short and cryptic (sounds potentially interesting though); (3) and obviously (1) all references are to historiography in Romania, where post-1990 anti-communism apparently is keen to equate nazism and communism, but again "communist genocide" is not a theorised concept, it's genocide by communists; (4) the expression "soviet and communist" clearly indicates the shorthand use of "communist" to denote some communist states; this is clearly not a source for the concept of "communist genocide". Rd232 talk 19:06, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
If all this boils down to the use of "Communist genocide" as a proper noun rather than as an adjective and a noun, it can be easily resolved through edits. Outright deletion strikes me as an over-reaction. Regardless, I think Wikipedia is improved by having an article which describes the various actions of communist governments which accumulated in a combined death toll, outside of war, of 100 million people in less than a century. Would you be satisfied if we changed the article to something like "Communist mass killings"? AmateurEditor ( talk) 21:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No one is saying that? Well this is exactly what this page is saying. And I'm speaking from a neutral point of view of someone who came across this ridiculous page first when cleaning out spam articles. And that is exactly what a reader would think. Since we are accusing each other of having POV, your tone clearly sugguests that your are speaking from the point of view of one who opposes communism. Look at your userpage. Triplestop x3 14:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment - For all the POV issues (which are usually a talk page issues, not a delete issues) there's zero bias pushing on communism. The nominator said there'd be "bias" very early in this discussion, but even now I don't see it.
It's not like Senator Mcarthy's been running loose on AfD. If this was something about a current political debate I'd expect that kind of premonition, but forgive me if I'm naive to say that I would have never thought this was a bias issue. Who exactly is displaying bias, and what exactly is this bias? Nothing in this debate (other than cries of "POV") has suggested otherwise. Shadowjams ( talk) 06:19, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, Communist countries have engaged in systematic mass destruction, which has been proven beyond reasonable doubt in academic literature. The article can be developed to better comply with the Wikipedia core policies. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 10:19, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • That was not the reason this page should be deleted Triplestop x3 14:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment - why are people posting their views - what are essentially "comments" like this one - on top of the page (presumably to make sure that it's the first thing everyone sees) instead of properly doing it by posting a comment like this one. Add to that there's completely no consensus in presenting these views as a summary ("to summarize") and the summary itself is just one user's POV and this is really screwing up the page. Please follow standard procedures and move your comments down to the bottom and label them as "comment". Thanks. radek ( talk) 13:25, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • No, that is the nominator's rationale which is present in every afd. Triplestop x3 14:38, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • No, it is not the nominator's rationale - that's a separate thing. Nor is it the nominator's prerogative to put up a section called "To summarize" at the top of the page which pretends to summarize the ongoing discussion in a very biased and pov-ed way in order to try and influence the closing admins into taking an action that is very much against the opinion of many editors here. Nor is it ok to argue that standard Wikipedia policy should be thrown out the window, just because the vote is not going according to one's wishes. radek ( talk) 17:10, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • I moved the off-topic comments to the talk page. It might have been better to leave it there, in hindsight - I suspect the closing admin would have been as shocked as I was at such blatant attempt to change the outcome of AfD discussion, attack on editors with opposing viewpoints and the sheer nastiness some users are displaying there. -- Sander Säde 14:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Ah, good. Offliner restored the off-topic nastiness situated in the wrong place. -- Sander Säde 14:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
No, this is relevant info the admin needs to know when closing this. And we can all assume the admin is competent enough not to be "influenced" Triplestop x3 14:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
And you think that the closing admin is an idiot incapable of going through arguments and making a decision himself or herself? Or just seeing that the article is vastly improved, with loads of valid sources and as such probably not deleted. Is that the reason why there are small nasty hints everywhere - "look at your userpage", "note at closing admin" etc etc. Shameful. -- Sander Säde 14:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It's still relevant. And you are being just as "shameful" by moving the comments to attempt to influence it the other way. Ironholds says it nicely. [23] Triplestop x3 15:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
My move of discussion would have allowed admin to make up his mind based on arguments, not "To summarize" by someone obviously interested in a certain outcome. -- Sander Säde 15:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It's highly doubtful that its a coincidence that you also voted keep. Triplestop x3 15:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Since I have not been canvassing, haven't lowered myself to personal attacks, haven't tried to force the closing admin to see my way, haven't commented on everybody with opposing views, I get "its a coincidence" I voted keep...
Firstly, this isn't a popularity contest. AfD's are not elections, they are resolved with arguments from both sides. Secondly, why don't you actually go over to page and read the article. It is now solidly sourced, plenty of RS's, including sources directly dealing with the topic. Don't judge a book by its cover - the article was a complete mess at start (I would have supported deletion of this version myself), now it is starting to get in a better shape than most articles in Wikipedia are.
-- Sander Säde 15:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I have read it. It still ridiculously reeks of POV and I there isn't any way to fix it. And you have indeed engaged in personal attacks, saying Their main issue is WP:IDONTLIKEIT. You can always tell when someone accuses of WP:SYNTH, WP:POV and WP:OR but is unable to point out what exactly is wrong, forcing them to use phrases such as "the whole thing was nothing but trolling". when clearly the opposite is true. Triplestop x3 16:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Another pointless splitting

  • Delete. "Communist" and "genocide" is not a meaningful intersection of topics. An analogous (and much less controversial) hypothetical article would be Communist basketball teams ... Communist countries have basketball players, but there's no unifying characteristic among them that would lead to people talking about "Communist basketball". The situation is similar here once you look past the politics clouding people's perceptions. -- Soap Talk/ Contributions 16:17, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Not surprisingly, Google Books shows four book results for "Communist basketball team". — Rankiri ( talk) 16:30, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Delete. The article is an almost random collection of unrelated materials; with the information already in Wikipedia. The article can be replaced by few links in other articles ( Communism and Genocide come to mind :-). Dimawik ( talk) 19:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Some seem to hold the view that there is no causal link between communist ideology and mass killings. The view seems to be that the mass killings in the former USSR, the Democratic Kampuchea, in the People's Republic of China and Ethiopia were all independent events where the ideology of government was just co-incidental, not a root cause. The problem is that no evidence is presented from published sources that supports the case that this view of no causal link is held by any significant author, we are just left with the unqualified opinion of some Wikipedians that this is the case. When presented with books that make that causal link, like Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century, the author who has published extensively in academia is immediately dismissed as a crazy fringe theorist by the AfD nominator. -- Martintg ( talk) 21:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
As genocides in history show there is no direct link between the genocides and communism. Just a handful genocides were perpetrated by the communist regimes, and quite a few (most notably genocides of the indians) happened before the theory of communism even appeared. You can see there are much better links between the genocides and imperialism, colonialism, religion, and socialism. This seems to indicate that the evil (manifested in genocide, racism, slavery, etc) just seems to be part of the human nature. There appears to be a lot of confusion between the theory of communism which is ultimately idealized in communist utopia and different perverted interpretations/realisations of various aspects of the theory in practice. Are perversions of the theory result of the theory? This is open to interpretations, and such interpretations may even easily link democracy to genocides. ( Igny ( talk) 21:55, 7 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
So have you published your theory of no causal link between totalitarian communism and mass killing in some journal? One eminent scholar (fringe theorist according to our AfD nominator) has stated "it must be observed that the political creation of an artificial terror-famine with genocidal results is not a phenomenon restricted to the historical context of Russia and the Ukraine in the Thirties, but is a feature of Communist policy to this day, as evidenced in the sixties in Tibet and now in Ethiopia. The socialist genocide of small, "primitive" peoples, such as the Kalmucks and many others, has been a recurrent element in polices at several stages in the development of Soviet and Chinese totalitarianism. Once again, communist policy in this respect faithfully reproduces classical Marxism, which had an explicit and pronounced contempt for small, backward and reactionary peoples - no less than for the peasantry as a class and a form of social life". -- Martintg ( talk) 22:13, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
You really have to show that Valentino's theory has gained acceptance by the academic community and is now generally recognized. If you want to draw attention to his work, perhaps you could create articles about him and his book. As far as I can tell his theory has received no recognition either from the academic community or from newspaper reviews. Incidentally far more writers have written about perceived American genocide in the Indian Wars, the Civil War, Hawaii, the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan (and countless other places), yet there is no article about that. The Four Deuces ( talk) 22:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
How about you provide evidence for your assertion "As far as I can tell his theory has received no recognition either from the academic community" by providing a published paper that refutes the causal link between the communism and mass killing. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:13, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
It is so easy to find anti-communist propaganda in the Western publications. What I said earlier was not my theory that was common sense. If you want to find source which support the common sense, be my guest. In fact I dare you to go and try to google for counter-arguments to this POV-filled article. Believe me if you try you will find plenty of the counterarguments, but you would probably call them communist propaganda. While we are on this topic, I could challenge you to find a single diff of your edit which is pro-Russian or just balancing anti-Russian/ anti-communist POV, but nevermind. But if you go to original theory of communism you would fail to find any single phrase which condones/ causes/ provokes genocides. Mind that revolutions are not genocides. All the interpretations in the Western media are just that, interpretations. ( Igny ( talk) 22:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
Seems all you can offer is "common sense", i.e. OR, and a personal attack. How about trying to contribute to the debate by supplying a peer-reviewed paper that claims that ideology was not a factor in mass killings in the various Communist regimes. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Just to prove you inability to find the counterarguments in plain view, and demonstrate that some claims there are taken out of context. Here is a quote from one of the sources from the very article.
"Only a fool could hold Marx responsible for Gulag,, but there is, alas, a ready supply of fools... Should philosophers be blamed for any and every subsequent mutilation of their ideas?"
( Igny ( talk) 00:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
So? I'm certainly not holding Marx personally responsible for genocide. Then again, "C"ommunism has very little to do with Marxist "c"ommunism. Red herring. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  01:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I am not talking about you because honestly I do not care about your point of view. I'd like however to point out that the lead of this article blames Marx' manifesto for genocides not less. ( Igny ( talk) 01:37, 8 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
  • With regard to the POV fork argument, the nominator seems the believe this article is a direct POV fork of the article Communism, when in fact is is simply a valid sub article of a notable topic in need of coverage (and there is a vast range of sub topics in this space, see Template:Communism), (I note also that Wikipedia does not have an article Totalitarian communism either). Whether we call it Communist genocide, Communist mass killing, Totalitarian Communist mass killing, Communist inspired mass murder or something else is really just a naming issue, but the underlying topic is a valid one and is covered extensively in the literature [24] There is no escaping the fact that there is a significant body of literature that does discus and make the link between mass killing and the implementation of communist ideology, no matter how much we would want to paint prominent scholars and authors that hold that view as "fringe theorists". -- Martintg ( talk) 21:35, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Communist Genocide is no more a valid topic than Capitalism Genocide, Christian Genocide, Islam Genocide, Jewish Genocide, African Genocide etc.. LokiiT ( talk) 23:17, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Look for "Islamic genocide" in scholarly sources. Purely a synthesis of your personal opinion. Nothing to do with scholarly sources. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  01:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Martintg - you have the issue the wrong way around. There is no peer-reviewed paper that claims that ideology was not a factor in mass killings in the various Communist regimes because there is no peer-reviewed paper that that claims it was. The Four Deuces ( talk) 23:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The argument "Communist" and "genocide" is not a meaningful intersection of topics" is as meaningless as the argument "Islam" and "terrorism" is not a meaningful intersection of topics", yet we have the article Islamic terrorism precisely because it is a meaningful intersection. -- Martintg ( talk) 23:28, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • As far as I know, there is nothing inherently "evil" or inhuman about the basic communist ideology. It holds that all people are entitled to enjoy the fruits of their labour and advocates economic equality and communal ownership of all property, the benefits of which must shared by all according to the needs of each. What you refer to is called Stalinism or Maoism or Communist state or general totalitarianism. You can't just lump all these concepts together and label the entire theory as genocidal, especially considering that Stalin's USSR, Pol Pot's Kampuchea and Mao's China were by no means representative of all communist philosophies and governmental systems. — Rankiri ( talk) 23:59, 7 August 2009 (UTC) reply
You argument appears to be equivalent to claiming that since there is nothing inherently "evil" or inhuman in the Koran, the article Islamic terrorism should be deleted. It the issue is one of labeling the entire theory as genocidal, why would you object to renaming to Totalitarian Communist genocide? -- Martintg ( talk) 13:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Have you even read the Quran? Fighting may be imposed on you, even though you dislike it. But you may dislike something which is good for you, and you may like something which is bad for you. GOD knows while you do not know [25], and so on. — Rankiri ( talk) 19:34, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Delete Synthesis at its finest. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 00:18, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Odd, as you say it's all about sources and there are hundreds that discuss "communist genocide." VЄСRUМВА  ♪  01:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
In passing as in "genocides by communist regimes". No source yet blames communists for genocides in general, nor actually define the phrase "communist genocide" and does not discuss how the genocide by the communists differs from other genocides. Yet somehow the lead of this article traces the communist genocides to Marx' theory of the communism by synthesis of words taken out of context from different sources. ( Igny ( talk) 01:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
  • Keep but move to a neutral title, such as "Genocide in Communist regimes" or some such. "Communist genocide" implies that genocide is an inherent part of Communism, rather than merely being a practice of some (but not all) Communist regimes. -- FOo ( talk) 03:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I would suggest genocide in totalitarian regimes with a subsection on the genocides by the communist totalitarian regimes.( Igny ( talk) 03:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
genocide in totalitarian regimes? What exactly would be the reason to duplicate the article about Nazi genocide, better known as Holocaust in another article? There is the main article Genocide which has content forks on Nazi genocide, Armenian genocide etc., and now on Communist genocide. To say that "Communist genocide" somehow implies like "all communists are genocidal", sorry but it can't be taken seriously. However renaming the article is an option as long as a new name as the current one is based on published sources pr. WP:NAME, not on "own opinions, experiences, arguments, or conclusions".-- Termer ( talk) 04:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Wow, "What exactly would be the reason to duplicate the article about Nazi genocide, better known as Holocaust in another article?" sure sounds funny from a guy who insists on keeping another POV fork in place right here. PasswordUsername ( talk) 05:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
POV fork of what? POV fork is something that is made parallel to another article. Is there anywhere on Wikipedia an article on mass killings of estimated 60-100 million people committed by Communist regimes? In case there is, please let me know.-- Termer ( talk) 06:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • The Black Book of Communism—which, by the way, has a lengthy criticism section that includes statements like famines were caused by the "stupidity or incompetence of the regime," and that the deaths resulting from the famines, as well as other deaths that "resulted directly or indirectly from government policy," should not be counted as if they were equivalent to intentional murders and executions..— Rankiri ( talk) 12:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Fubar's suggestion is excellent. Really excellent. It cuts through a lot of the arguments on here. Genocide in communist regimes avoids some of the worries about "communist genocide" being a discrete concept, and focuses on the sources that the Keep editors have added here, without the concerns by many of the Delete editors about lending credence to a new theory of political history that would arise as a gramatical coincidence. Shadowjams ( talk) 06:23, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Genocide by communist regimes would be more accurate perhaps. Otherwise, support rename-- Termer ( talk) 06:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Would you also support Genocide by capitalist regimes? Because we can have it by cleverly exploiting references like this: [26]. PasswordUsername ( talk) 08:11, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Delete I don't think a rename would word - what would an article, "Genocide in communist regimes" contain, aside from a list of links to articles about specific such genocides? As the sources produced thus far only discuss connections between these events briefly or in passing, anything other than a mere list of links to otherwise unrelated articles would be either very short, or an OR synthesis. The problem with "Communist genocide" is that it implies that there is a notable academic theory of communist genocide; if "Genocide in communist countries" were to have any content, it would have to make the same claim, and this is precisely the claim that is disputed. VoluntarySlave ( talk) 08:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Would you consider Totalitarian Communist mass killing? Surely nobody here disputes that mass killing was a defining feature of Totalitarian Communist regimes, even if some of us claim the mass killing wasn't genocide. -- Martintg ( talk) 13:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Keep a well known concept,lot of references Shyamsunder ( talk) 11:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Claim without evidence made by a user who's just stalked eight of my edits. Dude, WP:NOTVOTE. PasswordUsername ( talk) 11:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete as SYNTH. There are obviously people (on-wiki as well as off-wiki) who argue that there is such a concept as 'communist genocide' (i.e. that there is a historic linkage between events, roughly along the arguments of BB). To be brief, I say that analysis is politically motivated, and the existence of the article is becomes the pushing of one POV in a wider historical debate. There are plenty of ghits for 'Zionist Genocide' also (including 51 google book hits), but it would be a bad article title. Wiki is an encyclopedia, we dont need argumentative pieces like 'Why the Black Book of Communism is right'. The debate on the Black Book is amply covered in that particular article. -- Soman ( talk) 11:52, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
How can you claim it is SYNTH, then acknowledge "that there is a historic linkage between events, roughly along the arguments of the Black Book". If the author of the Black Book, Stéphane Courtois, writes about this linkage in his book, as Benjamin Valentino, John Gray, Eric Weitz, Ronit Lenṭin and Rebecca Knuth also do in their respective books, then it is no longer SYNTH. No body has provided authors that have contended that there is no linkage, so how can you speak of a "wider historical debate"? -- Martintg ( talk) 12:56, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I don't acknowledge that. I say that there are people that argue in a similar fashion. Don't misquote me. Copypasting a summary of a highly politicized document like the Black Book, and claiming that it is an encyclopediatic article is not npov. May I remind other editors of the following passage in the lead of the article at present:
"Totalitarian communist regimes took the violent "class struggle" described by Marx and Engels in their Communist Manifesto to its most virulent incarnation, that of genocide, giving "the world the wars and genocides of Lenin, Stalin and Mao."[8] According to the Communist Manifesto, the existence of traditional ruling classes (including leaders, property owners, educated professionals, etc.) became "no longer compatible with society", therefore "the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie" proposed by it, became a way of laying the so called "foundation for the sway of the proletariat", ostensibly the ideological basis for legally sanctioned genocide of the future.[9][10] "Never have so few pages done so much damage", writes Benjamin Wiker.[11]" That is about as SYNTHish as you can get, in my view. -- Soman ( talk) 13:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Synthesis is advancing a new position, how is what is in the lead new from what has already been published by Peter A. Zuckerman, Benjamin Valentino and Benjamin Wiker, who are essentially saying the same thing? In fact, the Black Book appears to be only cited within the body in regard to numbers of deaths, So I don't quite understand what you mean when you say "Copypasting a summary of a highly politicized document like the Black Book". -- Martintg ( talk) 13:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
With respect to that particular passage, I edited the first part of that last night to more accurately reflect the source cited. I also inserted "ostensibly" in the second part to insure that it is the regime executing genocide that is taking "class struggle" as justifying genocide, and that it is not something Marx/Engels personally advocated (although it was clear it would be a violent class struggle, and so undeniably the seed, that is, those "words" being alluded to)--mass execution was a subsequent interpretation. How is what is being stated, fairly representing the sources, indeed quoting them in part, qualify as "SYNTH"? As responded above, absolutely nothing new is being presented.
   If totalitarian rule including amassing the state as your personal instrument were your goal, you could not find a better excuse than the elimination of the bourgeousie to rape your population of all their posessions and destroy those that had possessions (that is, people who had showed initiative, were professionals, were successful,....)—and eliminating entire classes of people would be genocide, no? VЄСRUМВА  ♪  15:12, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Comment about the renaming debate. I think a big part of the problem is that the compromise legal definition for the term genocide was specifically required by the Soviet Union and others to exclude the mass killing of political and social groups back in 1948. [1] As a result, consensus for the terminology varies from incident to incident. As I searched for sources on the topic, I came across a variety of terms, from communist genocide, to socialist genocide, class genocide, politicide, and democide, among others. While many sources clearly still think the term is appropriate - and I would agree with them - there is legitimate contention. By using the term "Mass killings" in the title of the article and perhaps including a section explaining the labeling issues, I think we can reach a general consensus. AmateurEditor ( talk) 16:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Disambiguate/Listify (Keep) - A very prominent term in the context of Eastern Europe and used in a number of academic works. Since it can be used for Ceaucescu, Stalin, and Pol Pot, ths page should be sourced for mentions of Communist Genocide and then the user can decide which genocide they want to learn about. Sorry if this sounds amazingly callous, but I;m trying to build consensus here. Pectore talk 16:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Why not merge/redirect to already existing list in genocides in history? ( Igny ( talk) 18:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
You might also want to check out Historical_revisionism_(negationism)#Politically_motivated_historical_revisionism Smallbones ( talk) 03:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Holodomor is still under debate. The Great Leap Forward and Gulag, for example, do not even mention the word genocide at all. Great famines in communist countries could be just attributed to tragic mistakes in management rather than malicious intent, yet this article fails to mention that. Is the current famine in Zimbabwe a genocide? ( Igny ( talk) 14:09, 9 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
See Holodomor denial and Red terror - Red terror was official government policy and a major tenant of Marxism-Lenninism/ From Red terror:

Communist leader Grigory Zinoviev seemed to be advocating genocide when he declared in mid-September of 1918:

"To overcome of our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia's population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated." [2]
To answer your question: yes, the current famine in Zimbabwe is considered genocide, according to the Sunday Times [27]. PasswordUsername ( talk) 07:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply

I'd say this is not a "mistake in management" Smallbones ( talk) 15:08, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply

What you would say really really does not matter. I'd say this article is highly POVed, as in not neutral at all, clearly politicized, fails to disclose any counterarguments, and in some instances advocates a specific POV by synthesis of different sources. Besides, taking quotes out of context does not help your position. ( Igny ( talk) 15:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
  • Keep, but perhaps rename as "Genocides in Communist countries". One could also create a list. This is described in all modern textbooks. Biophys ( talk) 04:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per Abductive. He makes a good point. Is there anything that makes these genocides uniquely communist? Is there anything connecting these events in a concrete way? Would a page called 'Capitalist Genocides', listing the Holocaust, the various massacres of the Native Americans, the genocide in Tasmania, the Rwandan Genocide, etc, have any less justification than this page? LK ( talk) 11:06, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
    • What makes them "uniquely communist" is the specific ideological justification, like the "theories" of class struggle, dictatorship of proletariat, "the merging of the city and the countryside", and so on, as in the classic genocide by Khmer Rouge. Hence there are many books specifically about this subject, like Black Book of Communism. No large-scale repressions would be possible without some kind of an ideological justification, according to many authors. Biophys ( talk) 20:50, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The Black Book of Communism is a somewhat controversial work about deaths under communist regimes in various places – but it is not a book about "communist genocide" as such – and your presentation of it as an example of one is a classic case of WP:SYNTH itself. That there are no academic works devoted to the concept of "communist genocide" – as opposed to a number of particular instances of mass killings in communist regimes that are considered genocides by many researchers – is exactly what many of the arguments above have revolved around, with no apparent success for the "keep-this-article" side. PasswordUsername ( talk) 06:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Are you suggesting that other non-communist genocides, such as Holocaust, lack the ideological justification? ( Igny ( talk) 21:19, 9 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
I don't think he was saying that. I think he was saying that this does have an ideological compnent. Why would that imply that others do not? Obviously, we have an article for that Jewish Holocaust. Besides, it's not our job to delve into Stalin's mind. That's what the reliable sources do. Look to those. Shadowjams ( talk) 21:46, 9 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Again my point is that the article lacks overview of the sources which counter many of the arguments presented in a very biased way there. For example, a picture from Holodomor is used as the main picture, lots of talk about the holodomor denial, lots of POVs talking about the holodomor, as the worst genocide ever, is presented... And yet nowhere in the article the Holodomor genocide question is mentioned (see plenty of reliable sources countering the genocide arguments there). All the links between the genocide and the communist ideology are synthesis of the quotes out of context... Many POVs are controversial and yet stated as fact in the article rather than attributed to a specific person advocating the view... Is this neutral coverage of the sources in your opinion?( Igny ( talk) 01:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
Also class struggle even if violent is not equal to genocide, violent overthrow of monarchies or revolutions are not genocide. Even civil wars in most cases are not genocide. Plenty of famines/epidemics in history of humankind are not genocide. I am surprised that Chernobyl was not mentioned here as genocide of Belorussia by the communists, even though technological catastrophes are not genocide either. And the very lead of this article (as well as most of the editors who voted "keep" here) advocates the view that Marxism ideology is somehow the primary cause of the genocides, even though there are plenty of sources claiming the link is merely coincidental at best. ( Igny ( talk) 01:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
"even though there are plenty of sources claiming the link is merely coincidental at best", care to post these sources that claim that Communist ideology was not a factor in mass killing in these regimes? -- Martintg ( talk) 02:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply
I did provide an example on the talk page of the article and I just mentioned the Holodomor genocide question. But naturally you ignored all that, so I do not know why I bothered to answer your question, which by the way you could easily answer yourself by googling. ( Igny ( talk) 02:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)) reply
  • Comment: Setting aside the question of whether the mass-killings discussed in the article were in fact genocides, it is easy to see the argument for labelling many or all of them communist. “Communism” is a reasonably well defined term, referring to a collectivist, egalitarian economic order, and these mass killings were effected as an avowed part of an avowed attempt to bring about or to maintain such an order. Meanwhile, a killing isn't “capitalist” simply by virtue of not having been effected for communistic reasons. If one were to discuss “capitalist” mass-killings, the first problem would be that the word “capitalism” has never been particularly well defined, and in the 20th Century its definition became even more problematic as various parties attempted to lump-together very distinct systems in order to disparage or to promote some of these by specious association. Wikipedia's own article somewhat admits the fuzziness, and then tries to soldier-on with a fudge. But nothing in its messy definition, nothing in the definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and nothing in either of the two definitions that have been used in the history of the American Heritage dictionaries has a meaningful fit to the Nazi extermination of Jews, the various massacres of aboriginal populations, &c. These exterminations were effected based upon ethnic and religious claims, and when the Nazis demonized their victims it was often as rapacious “capitalists”. — SlamDiego ←T 03:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply
Indeed, not withstanding the question whether or not the mass killing was genocide, the fact that mass killing was inspired by Communist ideology is not in question. It is interesting to note that the Dictionary of Genocide has an entry for "Communism", characterizing it as an intolerant, repressive and genocidal political force in the modern world. In fact in the same book states that mass killings along the lines of genocide are often motivated doctrinally. Genocide scholar Helen Fein contends such genocides are justified by an articulated social goal that enjoins the destruction of the victims. It goes on to state that the notion of "class struggle" was used as a guideline for aggressive policies that has led to regimes using genocidal means to destroy the "enemies of the working class", leading to the destruction of millions of lives. So Communist mass killing is certainly a valid topic. -- Martintg ( talk) 05:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Neologism that is not supported by reliable sources -- there isn't a concept or category of "communist genocides" the way there might be "communist countries" ... this is soapboxing based on synthesis of original research. csloat ( talk) 07:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
  1. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=LoQo50YPzTUC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=soviet+union+definition+of+genocide&source=bl&ots=NLamTIqdqA&sig=3MES2CtZuF4Gc4lma1AtyBrrtZ0&hl=en&ei=joB8SqS0CpX8tgeX8YDdAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
  2. ^ George Leggett. The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN  0198228627 page 114
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