Talk:Communism/Archive 3

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

POV

this is one of the most pathetically POV articles i have ever seen. jesus christ on a cracker. you people need to get with the program and develop a little perspective. you also need to cut your hair and take a bath.

Definitions

I do not care about who is right or wrong on this issue, but the basic definitions of the word "communism" must remain in the beginning of the article. Please, dear partisans, stop meddling around with these definitions, since they are essentially dictionary definitions, which must be available at the beginning of the article, as they used to be, before these passionate recent changes.--McCorrection 19:32, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, but not all definitions must be in one basket. there is main definition, and there are derivations. Of course, we must present common usage, but we must not contribute to confusion. Mikkalai 20:48, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your division of the definitions and concepts in the first part of the article was superb, Mikkalai! That is what an encyclopedia article must look like. --McCorrection 21:55, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

By the way, is someone going to make order with triplicate Marxism, Leninism and Marxism-Leninism sections? I am not. Mikkalai 20:48, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hello! My name is Fredrik Bendz, in case it won't show here. Anyway, I think the three-adjective-definition of communist is wrong. It just doesn't compute. A person is not an adjective, and neither is a political party. Why would there be a difference if the same adjective is applied to people or parties? Isn't the adjective the same? This should be clairified in the article.

Origin of the term

The following piece deleted, until solid confdirmation:

Though communism is generally concieved of as marxism, the word communism was in fact not coined by Karl Marx, but by the French philosopher Étienne Cabet in his book...

The person who inserted this phrase proceeded further with provably distorted history (fixed), so after some thought I decided to doubt in this phrase as well. Mikkalai 00:10, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

BTW, Talk:Communism/Archive1 contains a big piece about utopian socialism removed from elsewhere, that can be recycled here or in utopian socialism. Mikkalai 00:15, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

De-Alienation?

Just a question or two to whomever wrote that sub-section, or to anyone else who can help me; but where in the "Economic and Political Manuscripts of 1844" does Marx use the term "de-alienation"? Also, should this be in the article since it is a criticism of the communist state and not communism per se?

Another problem is that alienation isn't correctly explicated on in the article, totally leaving out reification, and I think that it is incorrect that a new concept is introduced into the article at the same time that it is compared against the states that claimed themselves to be socialist. Is it possible that a neutral particular section on alienation would not be too repetitive since it theoretically is covered in the Marxism article?

I should have prefaced the above by saying that I do think it is a valid point which is ok by my understanding of wiki standards to include a critical view that alienation was not overcome in the societies which claimed to be socialist. It is important to note however that this is a failure from the perspective of its own goals as seen through the eyes of other communists, socialists, and anarchists who critically analyzed the claims by the USSR (and like wise China) that it was socialist in the Marxist sense of the word.

Capone 07:10, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I wanted to simply repair what was factually wrong about the section on "de-alienation", to start with that Marx never even uses the term at any time. The definition of alienation needed more than just tuning, it needs re-writing. Capone 08:45, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Expand Criticisms Section

I propose to further expand the criticisms section, there could be another section of criticism. This one could be a criticism of the self described socialist states (called communist states in the United States) from the view of classical communist theory of Marx and even Lenin. I do not know if i could do this without help but it seems to me that there is a.) a criticism to live up to its own standards b.) a criticism that it didn't live up to western standards.

I am sure that there will be some overlap, and those would also be of special interest to a reader who is just starting to learn about communism, and will not be entirely boring to others potential readers with more background in the area. Capone 07:11, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I would suggest to differentiate criticisms of the ideas of communism theory from criticisms of particular implementations by particular states. In the latter case the place of the criticiasm is in the Communist state article. Mikkalai

"Self-proclaimed" China

There are two Chinas.
They are not only "Self-proclaimed". Others would call them communist regardles how they proclaim themselves. By the way, Vietnam is "self-proclaimed" "Socialist". Mikkalai 05:28, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Are you referring to taiwan or what do you mean?
Um, a self-proclaimed socialist state is what is called communist state by outsiders. I am not clear what you mean.

Capone 07:13, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ask the author, not me. He used the expression "self-proclaimed communist state". I don't know such ones. Mikkalai 07:16, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mikkalai, you got confused. The author, myself - I wrote "self described socialist states", because they call themselves "socialist" whether or not a.) they are objectively socialist or b.) there can be an objective determination of what socialism is or isn't. Capone69.111.189.126 21:36, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

We may be talking about different things here. I had changed "People's Republic of China" to "China" and added "self-proclaimed" before "communist states". Mikkalai and I seem to have reached a consensus on this matter. See the recent changes if you're interested in the details. Shorne 22:05, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Taiwan can be called Taiwan if necessary. It is nothing but a rump-state and certainly doesn't deserve to be regarded as "China". It is a part of China that is internationally regarded as such, even in the two dozen countries (Honduras and the like) that it has bribed into recognising the "Republic of China". And the UN recognises only one state in China (including Taiwan Province). I will add "(the PRC)" for clarity.
The issue of "communist" and "socialist" is annoying. Technically it is wrong, and even nonsensical, to speak of a "communist state". As for "self-proclaimed", it is accurate. To say that those countries are communist or socialist is POV. If we're going to accept a country's self-description, we might as well call North Korea democratic ("Democratic People's Republic of Korea"). I'm not convinced that others universally call those countries communist. Certainly I don't. Even the Western media, hardly a Marxist-Leninist stronghold, often correctly say that China is capitalist. Shorne 13:45, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You're confusing China and the People's Republic of China; the very good and impartial Wikipedia article on China clarifies the issue: "China is an ancient cultural and geographic entity in continental East Asia with some offshore islands which since 1949 has been divided between the People's Republic of China (governing Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau) and the Republic of China (governing Taiwan and several outlying islands of Fujian Province)."--McCorrection 15:52, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I know very well what China and the PRC are, thank you. Shorne 16:06, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's convention throughout Wikipedia, that we're always using People's Republic of China when referring to the country. Aris Katsaris 16:20, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The country is China. The state is the People's Republic of China. If we're going to have "People's Republic of China", we should also have "Lao People's Democratic Republic" instead of "Laos". Shorne 19:15, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If there was any part of Laos that called itself "Republic of Laos" then I assure you we'd have used "Lao People's Democratic Republic" to distinguish between the two states. Right now there's no need. Aris Katsaris 19:28, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Primitive communism

The paragraph added after the section on primitive communism is out of place. It should be moved to the article "primitive communism" and perhaps expanded. Here only a brief mention of the dispute is appropriate. A long one interrupts the flow of the article.

Also, the quotation marks ("historical 'proof'") are POV. Change to "view of history" or something similar. Shorne 23:24, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Crimes of communism

I'll repeat what I wrote yesterday:

It is estimated by critics of Marxism-Leninism that deaths during the 20th century due to Communist revolutions, repression, induced famines, and failed social and economic experimentation number about 100 million in addition to tens of millions of man-years spent in the concentration camps of the gulag and laogai.

I am dismayed and indignant that Shorne removed the part above. The sentence above is NPOV. It says that critics of Marxism-Leninism claim that comunnist rule is responsible for death of millions of people. And this is true, they claim so. The sentence does not allege that the estimate is necessarily correct, this is why it is NPOV. Anyway, it is evident that communists intentionally killed a huge amount of people, and that the communist economical system lead to horrible (and well documented) situations, when millions of people died out of hunger near public granaries full of grain, just because the central plan was based on false assumptions. To try to hide that truth is deeply immoral. It increases the likelihood that a similar situation will happen in the future, because we will not pay attention to that horrible experience. And to try to hide the truth, to remove correct information and to accuse it of being "dishonest" for no specified reason is a disgrace for a Wikipedian. I would like to express my deep disapproval for that kind of lack of respect for human life, for the truth and for other Wikipedians.

You can agree with the data from the Black book or not. We can add a note that these data are often questioned, no problem. But to try to ignore those data and to keep silence over the effects of communism is deeply immoral. Maybe we should put that information in another article. But let's discuss the matter instead of calling the data "propaganda" and removing them. I know you may not like it, but communists ARE responsible for deaths of millions of people. Boraczek 09:10, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your "data" is contradicted by just about every other historian on the planet (see this List of Sources and Detailed Death Tolls for the Man-made Megadeaths of the Twentieth Century), and it seems you can't even name the country where your "well documented" situations took place. You're acting exactly like the people who use the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as "evidence" of a massive Jewish conspiracy bent on world domination. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 10:52, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

An apt analogy. Shorne 11:37, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, the link referenced by Mihnea itself recognizes that Stalin was directly responsible for the deaths of 20 million people. But, "of course", even though he was recognized by most communists as their leader during his lifetime, the supreme guide of almost all Communist Parties, from the US to South America, from Mongolia to Japan, his bloody legacy is now rejected. I am still not sure if the millions of deaths caused directly by Communist regimes should be mentioned in this article, but the permanent refusal even to acknowledge the direct cause-effect relationship between Communism, Communist regimes, and the deaths of millions of innocents during the 20th century is mindboggling. Even more disturbing is the slandering of any reasonable person who mentions the death and destruction wrought by Communist regimes as "fascists", while the Communist partisans themselves are the ones acting in ways similar to the Holocaust deniers. My aim in Wikipedia is to correct partisanship, but the narrowmindedness of the ideologues is always unfathomable. --McCorrection 23:37, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Utterly distorted. I have nothing more to say; I've wasted enough time this week on this sort of rubbishy complaint. Shorne 00:19, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Notice the key word in the above paragraph: most communists - but by no means all. There were a good number of communists who strongly opposed Stalin with every fiber of their being during his lifetime. So how exactly can you hold them responsible for his crimes? Why should Stalin's bloody legacy be accepted by those communists who opposed him from the very beginning, and their intellectual heirs? Do you, as a capitalist, accept the bloody legacy of all brutal capitalist dictators in history? Or do you argue that they did not represent the kind of capitalism you support?

And notice another thing: No one here is denying the fact that Stalin, Mao & co. killed many people. We are only showing you that the death toll is nowhere near as high as the absurd numbers claimed by the Black Book. If a book claimed that Hitler killed 7289328566168578413 Jews, such a book would be utter garbage, and rejecting it would certainly not make you a "Holocaust denier!" -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 21:05, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Response to the petulant demand for the use of the Black Book of Communism

Text taken from Communist state. Shorne 09:16, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have already expressed my objections to the use of the absurd accusation of "100 million" deaths from "communism" on other pages, and I must admit that I'm becoming tired of going through the issues over and over again. Here is a summary.

The claim of "100 million" deaths is an absurd lie cooked up in a single source, Black Book of Communism. Two of the authors of that book have since distanced themselves from the work, claiming that Stéphane Courtois, one of their co-authors, had been infatuated with puffing up the death toll and that he had deliberately inflated the numbers in a quest to reach the big nine-figure goal (which he didn't even do: he got only to 85 million but still claimed 100 million). Courtois has also come under attack for the absurd claim of "only" 25 million deaths caused by the Nazis and that Nazism is therefore "better" than communism. Is he a Holocaust denier? More than 20 million were killed (yes, killed; they didn't die of starvation) in the Soviet Union alone by the invading German army during World War II.

No one who looks seriously at the book will say that it is anything but crude propaganda. Fred Bauder posted elsewhere (on which page, Fred?) several links to articles that refute it more easily than I can, since I don't have a copy to hand. The book has also been roundly criticised in such mainstream publications as the French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique. (Here's a link for those who read French: [1].)

Now, on with the notion that the claim in this article "is NPOV". It is anything but. Although it is a fact that someone somewhere has accused socialist states of collectively causing "100 million" deaths, mere verisimilitude does not imply NPOV. You are favouring a high estimate over a low one. In addition, need I point out that there is no reference to the "estimate"? Furthermore, "critics of Marxism-Leninism" implies much more general agreement on this absurd "100 million" lie than in fact exists. "Concentration camps" is also POV. Shall I go on?

Even if the "100 million" had any basis in reality, it would be a distortion without an explanation—and without a standard of comparison. If even more people would have died under the ancien régime, for example, that death toll would actually be a feather in communism's cap. What are the facts? Don't look to the Black Book of Communism for any answers. Certainly don't look to it for information on lives saved or prolonged by socialism; that would get in the way of the monochromatic picture being painted. China, for example, doubled its people's life expectancy in 27 years under Mao. Count that as, oh, a quarter of a life saved per person, just to underestimate the gain. For a population of 600 million, that's 150 million lives saved—a number that easily offsets all the "100 million" deaths that Courtois & Cie cooked up.

Also don't expect any information about deaths under capitalism. UNICEF reports that 40 thousand children in today's capitalist world die every day of malnutrition. That's almost 15 million per year, or 100 million in seven years, done to death by capitalism. Already the "100 million" dishonestly blamed on communism are entirely offset by this one factor alone—every seven years. Add in adult deaths from malnutrition and all deaths from other capitalist causes (such as war), and the number vastly exceeds even the wildest accusations of your "critics of Marxism-Leninism". Funny, you won't find a word about this on the page capitalism (although I'm going to see to correcting that).

Your undocumented claims about peasants' starving next to granaries suggest a low degree of knowledge of the subject. Such claims could not mean anything without at least a mention of the time and place (country, at a minimum) of the alleged dying next to granaries. In fact, you have it exactly the wrong way around. People in many capitalist countries starve to death next to supplies of grain, fruit, fish, and other foods destined for the North, in many cases to be rendered into cat food so that Fluffy in London will better than Felipe in Lima. And "failed social and economic experimentation" also reflects a heavy bias. Certainly the entire period cannot be summed up as one great big unmitigated failure. The Soviet Union did not become a superpower by failing at everything.

Generalities about "repression", "induced famines", and the like are simply unacceptable in an article with any pretence of fairness and accuracy. Prove to me that any "communists" ever induced a famine. How would they even go about it? By spreading exotic plant and animal diseases over farms, as the CIA has done in Cuba? As for tens of millions of man-years spent in prison, shall we do the calculation for the United States, which has for many decades had by far the world's highest rate of imprisonment?

What is disrespectful of human life is to treat whole populations as pawns in a propaganda game. The "100 million" become a mass of faceless numbers to hurl at people who are trying to create something better than the status quo. Wikipedia is not the place for ideological battles. The aim is neutral, accurate, fair, useful reporting of facts, and propaganda gets in the way of that.

I stand by my removal of this "100 million" lie and am prepared to defend my decision before a panel of arbitrators. Shorne 18:53, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I already answered to that post in Talk:Communist state and I don't need to do it again.

Oh, don't worry about me. I probably shouldn't have cast my pearls before swine in the first place. More fool I. Shorne 12:04, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please read this part from Wikipedia:Neutral point of view: The notion of "unbiased writing" that informs Wikipedia's policy is "presenting conflicting views without asserting them."

If you say that my point of view is anti-communist propaganda and I say that your point of view is communist propaganda, we won't get anywhere. Asserting that the data from the Black Book are necessarily true is POV and removing the data just because they are not advantageous to communism is POV as well. Let's present conflicting views without asserting them. Maybe the data from the Black Book are exaggerated. But this is not a reason to remove them completely and to ignore the fact of communist terror and other disastrous consequences of the communist system. It is a reason to add in the article, that the data are questioned. And I agree that they are questioned by many people. But it's not true that they are questioned by all people. Boraczek 10:27, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OK, my first suggestion is that we move those "Crimes of Communism" to a new article. Maybe we should create an article "Black Book of Communism"? What do you think? Boraczek 10:34, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fine. By all means, go right ahead and follow this link: The Black Book of Communism. Start by writing the article, and then we'll see what needs to be edited. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 11:46, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I read Shorne's message, of course, and I think it is a piece of disgusting communist propaganda, aiming at denying communist crimes. Are you happy knowing this? We won't get anywhere this way.

I should have expected that. When insane anti-communists run out of arguments, they always resort to pathetic insults. So, yes, you're right - we'll never get anywhere this way. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu

Actually, it is you who "resorted to pathetic insults" first. Let me quote what you wrote: remove the idiotic propaganda of the Black Book. And now you're insulting me, which is definitely not a way to solve the problem. Boraczek 11:57, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My suggestion is that we create a separate article, report what the Black Book says and then list objections to it. It is not our task to judge who is right and who is wrong. Our task is to present conflicting views. I'd only like to ask Shorne not to add objections to the article, because if he starts writing the article, we will fall in an endless edit war. Shorne, please don't do it. Let Mihnea or some other Wikipedian do it. Boraczek 11:09, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

By what right do you decide what I may and may not do? Who the hell made you God? In any event, I sincerely doubt whether Black Book of Communism (have you even read the thing, or do you just brandish it as a fundamentalist Christian brandishes his unread Bible?) deserves an article. This is not the place for book reviews. If it does get an article, it will have to be treated fully, and that means that you most certainly will not be able to control the POV or "objections" to what you say. Shorne 11:35, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

At least it will move the controversy away from the main Communism article, and place Boraczek's claims in a more appropriate place, where they can be dissected and analyzed at leisure. Therefore, I support the creation of an article on The Black Book of Communism. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 11:46, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think it's just an attempt to establish credibility for the 856-page bundle of coarse toilet paper by getting it mentioned in Wikipedia. This deserves an article about as much as my local telephone directory does—nay, less, for at least the data in the telephone directory are 95% correct or better. Furthermore, I doubt very much whether Boraczek intends to write an article about the book itself—its authors, its (ahem) style, the quality of its research—; almost certainly he just wants a space to promote its fanciful claims. Sort of like the believers in the Evil Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy". They slip their trash in through the back door on the grounds that the "controversy" surrounding it or its "historical value" makes it worthy of attention, then they proceed to erect a bully pulpit from which to spew their anti-Jewish venom.

That said, I won't oppose the article. Mihnea's points have some merit. Go ahead and write the article if you wish. We'll see how "NPOV" it ends up being. Shorne 12:04, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You have to be joking. Everyone here has heard of the Black Book of Communism, that book has won worldwide fame and infamy -- and you claim it doesn't "deserve" an article in Wikipedia? Aris Katsaris 03:56, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh, we've given it an article, all right: The Black Book of Communism. Has Boraczek contributed to it? Hell, no! What a lying propagandist! Claiming that it was important that the words of his sacred anticommunist bible be shared on Wikipedia, then failing to write one word when given the chance. I'll bet ten roubles that he's never even read the goddam book. Shorne 04:09, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, I just can't think of any other way to stop Boraczek's continued trolling on this article... So, Boraczek, do you agree to start writing about the "Black Book" in its own separate article? -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 12:28, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I know what you mean. Like some other people here whose right-wing outlook rests on nothing but unfounded opinions, he'll wail and wail of persecution until we yield to his demands. Sure, go off and write the stupid article. I can't promise, however, that I won't modify it. Shorne 12:54, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Differentiation of wages

For example, the differentiation of wages in Poland in 1987 was at nearly the same level as the differentiation of wages in highly developed capitalist countries.

Why do you remove this part? These are just statistical data. I gave a reference. The source is in Polish, so probably many of you won't be able to read it without a translator. But if you want, I can scan the source and send it to you. Or I can search for an English version. These are just true statistical data, why do you remove them? Is anything that is not in agreement with a left-wing point of view necessarily an "anti-communist" propaganda? Can't you discuss or add something instead of automatically removng any data you don't like? Wikipedia is a place for providing information and not for promoting communism, I think. Please discuss. Boraczek 09:36, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why don't you take your own advice and reply to Shorne's lengthy post right above yours? You do insert ridiculous and self-contradictory anti-communist propaganda (the Black Book claims "100 million" but even its own over-inflated numbers only add up to 92.36), and then accuse us of supporting "communist propaganda" when we merely want to remove the kind of statements that can be summarized as "cOmmUnizM is t3H eVil". -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 09:54, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That communists killed many people is a fact. I can't help it. If that means that communism is evil, I can't help it. And to try to hide that fact is definitely POV. You just removed the data and that brought about the edit war. Then you inserted a POV message and that was OK. We can think how to make the article NPOV. Oh, well, Shorne came and started the edit war again. That man is unbelievable. Boraczek 10:07, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Of course the communists killed people. And the capitalists killed people too. The question is how many. And, as Shorne pointed out, you have to balance this out with the number of lives saved (or at least improved) by the communists. And how exactly was my message POV? I just did the math. 92.36 does not equal 100. That's a mathematical fact, which exposes the most blatant and unforgivable lie in the Black Book. And just because I didn't continue the revert war, that doesn't mean I don't agree with Shorne. He is absolutely correct, and you are, frankly, a troll. But since you seem to be a very persistent troll, I must try to find some way to reason with you. So, let us begin. Please answer these two simple questions: (1) Have you read Shorne's lengthy post which explains why the Black Book is an unreliable, POV piece of propaganda? (2) Do you understand that allegations regarding the "crimes of communism" don't belong in this article?

Sorry, I didn't write it correctly, I meant the "NPOV dispute" message rather than a message that was POV. For the rest of my reply, please see above. Boraczek 11:11, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

But I'm asking: why do you remove the part about the differentiation of wages? What do you think is wrong with it? Boraczek 10:10, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I never removed it, and I have no intention to ever remove it. Keep your differentiation of wages, but please, for God's sake, remove the idiotic propaganda of the Black Book. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 10:35, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The Black Book is not propaganda, but a serious academic study. No wonder it has been published in the US not by a rightwing think tank, but by Harvard University Press. Naturally, not even Harvard is serious enough for the passionate ideologues.--McCorrection 00:55, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Tell me, would you accept the factual accuracy of a book published by the equivalent of Harvard University Press in a communist country? If not, then why are you insinuating that people should accept the factual accuracy of a book published by the Harvard University Press in a capitalist country? Especially when there is concrete proof that many of the book's claims are whooping lies. Hell, the book can't even agree with ITSELF! It claims that communist regimes killed "100 million" people, but when you add up their own numbers, you only get a little over 90 million! -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 21:07, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mediation requested

User VeryVerily's intransigence and impossible behaviour have left me no option but to request mediation. People who have anything to add to my request are asked to visit Wikipedia:Requests for mediation. Shorne 11:02, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I support this request and have requested joining the mediation. I will also request that others who have have been involved in the disputes with respect to this article also join. Fred Bauder 13:45, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

Please note, as I have already mentioned on that page, that no one else is welcome to "join" the dispute at this time, for reasons that shall become apparent soon. Contributions, however, are invited. Shorne 13:52, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Personally, I believe that this article is beyond mediation -- and even arbitration -- due to flaws inherant to it's title (too vague. This dispute has been 'resolved' at least twice now, and apparently it's cropped up a third time. The primary reason for this, I believe, is because the article is named improperly, to horrific results displayed by the perhaps-twice-monthly Flame- and Edit Wars here.

Therefore, the system of articles should be rebuilt. I have one such plan here.

--Oceanhahn 03:08, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I like your plan as elaborated so far, but it would essentially require coöperation—something that's not going to happen when we're overrun with the reds-under-the-beds crowd. Shorne 00:08, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"92.36 million"

Even 92.36 million is an overstatement. Most of the fantastic figures are given to only one significant digit of accuracy; therefore, the total is properly 90 million, not 92.36 million. The claim of 100 million represents more than 10% on top of an already whopping lie. Shorne 13:55, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that's the amazing thing - not only did they exaggerate all the numbers completely out of proportion, but they also added nearly 10 million deaths out of thin air, without even pretending to have any sort of sources for them. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 15:20, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Last edits by Shorne

Please discuss your changes here before you revert and put them in the article again. In my opinion, those changes blatantly violated the NPOV policy and were not justified. Boraczek 10:30, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why? Just because you didn't like them? Shorne 11:34, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Because you deleted true (at least IMHO) information without giving any reason, even if the fact that you only deleted the parts disadvantegeous for communism and left the parts advantageous for communism lets us guess the reason. Please discuss the changes before making them. Boraczek 19:24, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It is a shame that this article must be constantly policed, but partisan remarks that obliterate neutrality must be erased.--McCorrection 17:58, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Who is being partisan? Ruy Lopez correctly removed some material that was out of place. The content of the material has not (yet) been in question. He told you where to put it. Go and put it there if you wish. Shorne 20:49, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'd expect some explanation why the material is out of place. I think the material is relevant, because it substantiates the statement that communism may look beautiful in theory, but its implementation brings about negative consequences. Maybe there's good reason to move it to another article. But Ruy Lopez didn't move it to another article, he just deleted it. I'd like to get to know your arguments. Boraczek 22:09, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

overthrown

both the communist states of Eastern Europe and the government of the Soviet Union were overthrown

I have a doubt about the word "overthrown". Eastern and Central Europe countries followed different paths. What happened in Romania was a mass revolt. What happened in Poland and Hungary was a pact between communists and the opposition. What happened in Czechoslovakia was an implosion of the system. I am not a native speaker of English, so I can't be sure, but I guess the word "overthrown" can be too strong in some of these cases. Boraczek 21:10, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

For once I agree with Boraczek. They weren't overthrown; they fell apart. I'll make the change. Shorne 22:16, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the path was different in each country, see The Strange Death of the Soviet Empire, ISBN 0805041540 which contains extensive interviews with the last rulers and those who suplanted them. In all cases the ruling role of the Communist Party was abandoned. Fred Bauder 23:00, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Then why did you restore "overthrown"? I shall remove it again. Shorne 23:04, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Because I couldn't think of a better word. Your replacement, "Both the communist states of Eastern Europe and the government of the Soviet Union collapsed." seems rather insipid. You also removed this sentence, "On the other hand, the theory and practice of achieving this society usually involved systemic application of terror." In what way is this POV? It was Lenin's and the other leaders of the Soviet state's point of view, see pages 59 and 76 of The Black Book of Communism. Further down you removed "When the threat of terror was removed under the leadership of Gorbachev both the communist states of Eastern Europe and the government of the Soviet Union were overthrown and replaced it with "Both the communist states of Eastern Europe and the government of the Soviet Union were overthrown" with the comment, "POV reference to "terror" deleted, for reasons too obvious to mention to anyone more intelligent than a canary" leaving the reference . The cited reference is full of references to a use of force and to both Gorbachev's refusal to use it and to fear that if they did try to use force it would result in disaster as indeed it did in Romania.

I will try for better language than "overthrown" but terror belongs in the article. The Soviet leaders talked the talk and walked the walk and we would not be honest to not credit them. Fred Bauder 00:47, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Insipid? I wish I had a kopek for every time I've heard "the collapse of communism" in the Western press. I merely chose a common word to replace one that we all agree to be inaccurate. As for terror, why don't you go and read the article terrorism yourself? It admits that the term is merely a political slogan, therefore POV. I don't understand how you can honestly assert that terror is factual and NPOV. You apparently need to be given lessons, preferably in one-syllable words. Shorne 01:11, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Chaotic

This article is still much too chaotic. Stuff about Ceauşescu is mixed in with Plato and hippies. The whole thing needs to be restructured before we add more details about tangential stuff, to say nothing of quadrillions of alleged murders and "concentration camps". Shorne 21:26, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)