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Let's face it. This whole paragraph is just one big embarrassment. I don't know whether to laugh or cringe when I read it. It's as if it was written by some 14 year old who just discovered Soviet style Communism and decided to adopt it to piss of their parents. It's not encyclopedic. It's not Wikpiedia policy-compliant. It's not even on topic. It's just. Junk.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">[[User:Volunteer Marek|<span style="color:orange;background:blue;font-family:sans-serif;">''' Volunteer Marek '''</span>]]</span></small> 15:06, 27 September 2021 (UTC) |
Let's face it. This whole paragraph is just one big embarrassment. I don't know whether to laugh or cringe when I read it. It's as if it was written by some 14 year old who just discovered Soviet style Communism and decided to adopt it to piss of their parents. It's not encyclopedic. It's not Wikpiedia policy-compliant. It's not even on topic. It's just. Junk.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">[[User:Volunteer Marek|<span style="color:orange;background:blue;font-family:sans-serif;">''' Volunteer Marek '''</span>]]</span></small> 15:06, 27 September 2021 (UTC) |
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:I think it's time for you to [[WP:BREATHER]] and then come back when you're ready to discuss things calmly. [[User:BeŻet|BeŻet]] ([[User talk:BeŻet|talk]]) 17:32, 27 September 2021 (UTC) |
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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jahir333 (article contribs).
Proposal to remove all the (heavily) politicized ballast...
...and to massively reduce the (politically and ideologically) bloated article back down to the actual core definition and the actual facts defining and explaining socialism. Anarchism, communism, social democracy, social capitalism... social welfare... for example each and all have their own main-articles and need (and should) not be included here in this article about socialism other than mentioning the (often highly debatable) influence of socialist ideas and ideologies upon them. Over 75% of this article's content does not provide any relevant information about the actual core topic of socialism. The vast majority of this article's content only discusses other topics more or less closely or loosely related to socialism, topics which are each and all honored with their own main-articles in Wikipedia. The informational value of over 75% of the article's content could easily be provided by just one single sentence stating: "Socialism and socialist ideologies form the basis of.... and influenced related political and economic and cultural concepts such as....." Instead of discussing these varoious concepts and terms related to socialism it would probably be much more helpful to replace these with a chapter on the common uses of the term socialism which is often incorrect and misleading, while at the same time pointing out the differences between the terms socialism, socialist, and social which by their strict definitions are NOT interchangable even though they are often (wrongfully) used interchangeably (not seldomly intentionally conflating them in order to mislead and misrepresent political views).
Market Socialism is Not socialism
Like fr, socialism means social ownership of the means of production, private co-operative ownership of the means of production is not socialism
@Luizpuodzius: The article is huge
We could break it down into "socialist philosophy" and "socialist politics" (for example: here). What about? 2804:14C:5BB1:9AC7:AADA:696:2BE1:D9EB (talk) 21:25, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
- That could also be helpful avoid conflation of socialism only as an economic system, but I would like to see first a draft on how it would be structured. Davide King (talk) 03:44, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
- Meanwhile, would it be appropriate to tag this article with Template:Very long. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 03:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- According to xtools, it is at 131,972 characters and 19,549 words. Featured-article Barack Obama has even more bytes at 374,920 but 88,249 characters and 14,102 words. I think Contemporary socialist politics can boldly be moved at History of socialism, since it may suffer of recentism and is more appropriate that; in 10 years, we may make a summary of that without occupying all this space. Just doing this should be enough to fix most issues. Davide King (talk) 07:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- With removal (moved at History of socialism, it reduced −43,865 bytes to 297,950 bytes, and 114,495 characters and 16,915 words. Davide King (talk) 02:12, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Meanwhile, would it be appropriate to tag this article with Template:Very long. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 03:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
A modest proposal
Why is it that the article details the efforts by Suharto in Indonesia to crush communism, with mention of the 500,000 to 1 million lives lost, but never mentions any of the tens of millions killed in the name of socialism, in such nations as the Soviet Union (up to 61 million), China (up to 77 million) and Cambodia (2 million, in a nation with only 8 million people)?
Also, why is it that advocates of socialism (who are, universally, harsh critics of capitalism) are allowed over 3000 words in this article to have their say, including a roughly 500-word section devoted entirely to "Criticism of capitalism," but there are only four lines at the bottom of the article titled "Criticism [of socialism]," unsourced?
Can we balance this out? You know, try to actually achieve WP:NPOV here? Flavor of the Month (talk) 22:10, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- "but never mentions any of the tens of millions killed in the name of socialism" You are in the wrong article. See Mass killings under communist regimes. Dimadick (talk) 07:39, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- These topics are already discussed in the appropriate articles. BeŻet (talk) 11:07, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I see. So why are the efforts by Suharto in Indonesia to crush communism, with mention of the 500,000 to 1 million lives lost, mentioned in this article? After all, they are already mentioned in the appropriate article here: Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66. Another 3000-word article. Why are 1 million lives lost in Indonesia's anti-socialism efforts mentioned here, but not roughly 100 times as many killings in pro-socialism efforts? This is like a divorce court judge shouting about the ex-wife's parking tickets, while ignoring the ex-husband's armed robbery conviction. Flavor of the Month (talk) 20:43, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not a court and volunteer editors are not judges. We cover only what is covered in reliable sources, and only with WP:DUE weight. The contents of other pages is not relevant, see WP:OTHERCONTENT. What specific sourced changes are you proposing to the article? - Astrophobe (talk) 18:26, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- I see. So why are the efforts by Suharto in Indonesia to crush communism, with mention of the 500,000 to 1 million lives lost, mentioned in this article? After all, they are already mentioned in the appropriate article here: Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66. Another 3000-word article. Why are 1 million lives lost in Indonesia's anti-socialism efforts mentioned here, but not roughly 100 times as many killings in pro-socialism efforts? This is like a divorce court judge shouting about the ex-wife's parking tickets, while ignoring the ex-husband's armed robbery conviction. Flavor of the Month (talk) 20:43, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
- Upon further review, I can't even find a link to the Mass killings under communist regimes article anywhere in this one. It's as though not even one person was ever killed in the name of socialism, throughout history, when in fact roughly 100 million were killed. We're all NPOV here, right? No bias here, right? Flavor of the Month (talk) 03:13, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- Your numbers are highly debatable. Moreover, the article about capitalism does not mention any mass killings either. Mass killings under communist regimes talks about the activities of so-called communist states, and like I said, those are discussed in the appropriate article. BeŻet (talk) 11:47, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think there's any room for debate that between China, the Soviet Union and Cambodia, the numbers are 100 times the 500K-1M range cited for Suharto. (In other words, 50M-100M.) The lower end of that range (50M) is effortlessly documented. And I don't believe you're getting the point. If Suharto's killings can be discussed HERE (despite a 3000-word separate article), why can't Stalin's, Mao's and Pol Pot's killings, which are 100 times as WP:NOTABLE and 100 times as shocking to the human conscience, be discussed HERE (despite a 3000-word separate article)? If you can't accept the idea of bringing in the killings by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, then let's take out the killings by Suharto. I am perfectly comfortable with either of these "cures," but WP:NPOV demands one or the other. Flavor of the Month (talk) 14:51, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Flavor of the Month: I disagree, I think there's plenty of room for debate. Starting from what you consider as "killings", because anyone who comes up with the 50-100 million range includes deaths from famine and other reasons; moving on to what is considered "socialism" or killings "due to socialist ideology", because for instance the massacres commited by the Khmer Rouge were more on ethnic/religious grounds; and finally the actual accuracy of said numbers, which are often expressed in ranges, but extremely exagerated by people claiming the 100 million "death toll". If we were to treat capitalism and capitalist countries the same way, we would end up in an even larger death toll - 100 million people die from hunger under capitalism every dozen years or so. BeŻet (talk) 11:06, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
- The estimate for Indonesia, from 500,000 to about 1 million killed, is far and away the consensus among scholars who study the issue. By contrast the numbers you provide for Communist states, like 61 million for the USSR, are clearly not the consensus view and no doubt come from Rummel's work, which is not taken seriously the majority of scholars. The death toll for the USSR hardly breaks 10 million now in light of archival evidence and is probably much lower than that when direct killings are considered the sole criteria, and probably closer to the numbers killed in Indonesia in fact ("the Stalinist regime was consequently responsible for about a million purposive killings" - see Wheatcroft, 1996). Furthermore, the killings in Indonesia are relevant to this section of the article as they destroyed the development of socialism in Indonesia and shifted the balance of power in that region towards the West during the Cold War; it is WP:DUE material backed by numerous reliable sources. The article MKuCR is a highly controversial article with its content disputed, and some of the killings you mentioned, such as those in Cambodia, have little to do with socialism at all.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:02, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- Mr. Griffin, you are welcome to include all of these concerns in the mainspace of this article. The Holodomor in Ukraine killed tens of millions. The officer purge in the Red Army killed hundreds of thousands. Sure it's debatable, because anyone can debate anything, but the piles of skulls with 7.62mm holes in them in Cambodia are difficult to explain away. Also, communism is a form of socialism, and Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot are all discussed at great length (except for their murder of millions, which is carefully avoided) right here, in the Socialism article. Please don't try to distinguish between communism and socialism as an excuse for excluding this one subject area. Thanks for that. Finally, Mr. BeŻet mentions the Capitalism article. I respectfully invite Mr. BeŻet to edit that article, with links to reliable sources, describing the killing of millions of people on behalf of capitalism. This should be entertaining. Go ahead. 15:08, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think there's any room for debate that between China, the Soviet Union and Cambodia, the numbers are 100 times the 500K-1M range cited for Suharto. (In other words, 50M-100M.) The lower end of that range (50M) is effortlessly documented. And I don't believe you're getting the point. If Suharto's killings can be discussed HERE (despite a 3000-word separate article), why can't Stalin's, Mao's and Pol Pot's killings, which are 100 times as WP:NOTABLE and 100 times as shocking to the human conscience, be discussed HERE (despite a 3000-word separate article)? If you can't accept the idea of bringing in the killings by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, then let's take out the killings by Suharto. I am perfectly comfortable with either of these "cures," but WP:NPOV demands one or the other. Flavor of the Month (talk) 14:51, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- Unlike the killings in Indonesia which directly impacted the development of socialism in that country and had major impacts on the Non-aligned movement and the Cold War itself, what you mention has little to do with socialism or the development of socialism. Pol Pot is hardly referenced in the article because he is hardly considered a socialist, but a monstrosity created by the Cold War and the violence it unleashed in Southeast Asia (without rampant US bombing of that country, his regime would never have seen the light of day). And the famine in Ukraine did not kill "tens of millions", but somewhere between 3.5 million to 6.5 million (see Davies and Wheatcroft, 2004 and Timothy Snyder, 2010). And of course these are not direct killings either.
- How many people in the US die for lack of healthcare every year? One study from 2009 put it at 45,000 annually. And what about deaths of despair and the opioid epidemic (courtesy of Purdue Pharma)? Could these examples, and I'm sure there are many others, be considered excess deaths under capitalism and neoliberalism? Regarding direct killings, how many people died as the result of US Wars and coups abroad? How many people have US backed military dictators killed around the world (you know, Yahya Khan, Alfredo Stroessner, Jorge Rafael Videla, Hissène Habré, Efraín Ríos Montt, etc, etc, etc.)? How many were killed in Vietnam and Iraq and now Yemen? (There is mass hunger in the latter right now thanks to Saudi Arabia and its Western allies). And shall we go back even further and look at the casualties of slavery and Jim Crow and the eradication of indigenous cultures in the West, or workplace fatalities and deaths during labor conflicts during the age of industrial capitalism? All told, such numbers would easily rival if not surpass your grossly inflated estimates of deaths under communism.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 16:36, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- Arguing about how many millions were killed in the name of socialism is an exercise in hairsplitting. Even you will agree many times more killings occurred under Mao and Stalin than under Suharto. Therefore either Mao and Stalin's killings should be included, or Suharto's killings should be excluded. And I don't even know why you think this point is arguable. You are more than welcome to edit the appropriate articles, concerning all of the many millions who have been (allegedly) murdered in the name of capitalism. And I'll bet, without even looking, that those articles already mention those killings. I'm talking about the alleged NPOV of THIS article. It isn't. For this painfully obvious reason. Flavor of the Month (talk) 16:55, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- I actually said the opposite of what you claim I said, that "when direct killings are considered the sole criteria," Stalin's killings are "closer to the numbers killed in Indonesia in fact ("the Stalinist regime was consequently responsible for about a million purposive killings" - see Wheatcroft, 1996)." The same could probably be said of Mao as well, when indirect deaths are excluded, although his probably would be higher to an extent (i.e., 2 million during land reform, 500,000 to 1 million during GPCR). Nevertheless, the material you wish to exclude is longstanding and therefore the consensus here, and I further established why it is relevant to the article and especially the section in question. If you wish to include deaths under Stalin and Mao I would find consensus here on what exactly to include, and what sources to use (yeah, probably not Rummel) so as not to make this article another hotbed of controversy and edit warring that MKuCR has been for over 10 years now.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 17:06, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- Again, arguing about how many millions were killed is an exercise in hairsplitting. Anything over 500,000 should be included, according to what I will now describe as the "Suharto Precedent." Also, since you bring up war dead under capitalism, in WWII the US fought a two-front war for almost 4yrs with 400K military dead. Stalin fought a one-front war for only a few months more than that, and had more than 10 million military dead. How many of those were excess deaths due to Stalin's direct mismanagement, or the indirect effect of his officer purge in 1939-40? Flavor of the Month (talk) 17:30, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- "Anything over 500,000 should be included, according to what I will now describe as the "Suharto Precedent." - you will definitely need to find consensus for this, just as you will need to find consensus for including death tolls for various Communist regimes and the deletion of long-standing and reliably sourced material that you don't like.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 17:35, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- C.J. Griffin, I didn't say I don't like it. It's accurate, therefore I like it, but we have to include all socialist related mass killings if we include that one. What I said is that if you insist on including it, then I insist on including every pro-socialism death toll that exceeds 500K, per the Suharto Precedent. Each and every event, including Pol Pot's. Starting with the Holodomor, and including every socialism-inspired mass murder and purge since then. Otherwise, it's an obvious WP:NPOV violation. Flavor of the Month
- Once again, you are conflating actual anti-socialist mass killings with mass killing commited by so called communist states (Marixist-Leninist states). There is no WP:NPOV violation here for the same reason why we don't mention The Great Famine, the Bengal famine of 1943, the Tulsa race massacre, the Jeju massacre, the Bodo League massacre, the Marichjhapi massacre, the Andijan massacre or many other events under capitalism. BeŻet (talk) 11:23, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
- I will add that we will need to include multiple links to MKuCR (or sections thereof) wherever it is appropriate. That link still remains conspicuous by its complete absence from this article. (talk) 17:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- C.J. Griffin, I didn't say I don't like it. It's accurate, therefore I like it, but we have to include all socialist related mass killings if we include that one. What I said is that if you insist on including it, then I insist on including every pro-socialism death toll that exceeds 500K, per the Suharto Precedent. Each and every event, including Pol Pot's. Starting with the Holodomor, and including every socialism-inspired mass murder and purge since then. Otherwise, it's an obvious WP:NPOV violation. Flavor of the Month
- "Anything over 500,000 should be included, according to what I will now describe as the "Suharto Precedent." - you will definitely need to find consensus for this, just as you will need to find consensus for including death tolls for various Communist regimes and the deletion of long-standing and reliably sourced material that you don't like.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 17:35, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- Again, arguing about how many millions were killed is an exercise in hairsplitting. Anything over 500,000 should be included, according to what I will now describe as the "Suharto Precedent." Also, since you bring up war dead under capitalism, in WWII the US fought a two-front war for almost 4yrs with 400K military dead. Stalin fought a one-front war for only a few months more than that, and had more than 10 million military dead. How many of those were excess deaths due to Stalin's direct mismanagement, or the indirect effect of his officer purge in 1939-40? Flavor of the Month (talk) 17:30, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- I actually said the opposite of what you claim I said, that "when direct killings are considered the sole criteria," Stalin's killings are "closer to the numbers killed in Indonesia in fact ("the Stalinist regime was consequently responsible for about a million purposive killings" - see Wheatcroft, 1996)." The same could probably be said of Mao as well, when indirect deaths are excluded, although his probably would be higher to an extent (i.e., 2 million during land reform, 500,000 to 1 million during GPCR). Nevertheless, the material you wish to exclude is longstanding and therefore the consensus here, and I further established why it is relevant to the article and especially the section in question. If you wish to include deaths under Stalin and Mao I would find consensus here on what exactly to include, and what sources to use (yeah, probably not Rummel) so as not to make this article another hotbed of controversy and edit warring that MKuCR has been for over 10 years now.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 17:06, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- Arguing about how many millions were killed in the name of socialism is an exercise in hairsplitting. Even you will agree many times more killings occurred under Mao and Stalin than under Suharto. Therefore either Mao and Stalin's killings should be included, or Suharto's killings should be excluded. And I don't even know why you think this point is arguable. You are more than welcome to edit the appropriate articles, concerning all of the many millions who have been (allegedly) murdered in the name of capitalism. And I'll bet, without even looking, that those articles already mention those killings. I'm talking about the alleged NPOV of THIS article. It isn't. For this painfully obvious reason. Flavor of the Month (talk) 16:55, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- Flavor of the Month (talk · contribs) removed a paragraph about Suharto from the article. I reverted the change as the edit summary did not give a reason for removal. However, Flavor of the Month has informed me that the paragraph was an WP:NPOV violation. I'm not familiar enough with Suharto to tell whether this is the case. It would be nice if someone more knowledgeable in this area could look into this. Thanks. Ixfd64 (talk) 17:24, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- I removed references to mass killings and death estimates, which seems to be the issue here, while retaining the relevant long standing material on the social upheavals the purges and killings triggered, and added further context. I hope this resolves the issue.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 19:48, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
I’m really hesitant to wade into this but it’s definitely true that the article just has a ton of only tangentially related and UNDUE stuff in it, particularly stuff that’s not about socialism but about anarchism or communism. It really is in need of clarification of scope. Volunteer Marek 01:29, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Volunteer Marek: ...but anarchism and communism are types of socialism. BeŻet (talk) 10:36, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
- If that is the case the editor above is correct - this article is a complete white wash. If communism is a type of socialism and the article discusses societies which were “communist” (or regarded as such) then it needs to discuss all the less savory aspects of these societies. Otherwise it’s not NPOV. Volunteer Marek 02:07, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
- I think the disputed para on Indonesia can go, as it is too much detail for a global encyclopedia about socialism. I think socialism and anarchism should be included in this article to some extent, as part of the broad family of socialisms, but not in great detail as there are more appropriate articles. It might be sensible to create new talk page sections on sections of the article that editors feel need trimming. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:28, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
- The material the OP objected to, which referenced "the 500,000 to 1 million lives lost" in the Indonesian mass killings was removed and the paragraph reworded for NPOV. This rewording was also necessary to prevent the article from becoming a dumping ground of duplicated material from Mass killings under communist regimes, as the OP seemed to be using that version to justify possibly shoehorning ridiculously high death toll estimates for the "Soviet Union (up to 61 million), China (up to 77 million) and Cambodia (2 million)" into the article. Ixfd64 approved of the changes and the OP has been absent ever since. I see no reason to remove it now as these are significant events in the history of socialism in "Asia, Africa, and Latin America" (hence it is in the appropriate section) and the Cold War in general.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 13:17, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Volunteer Marek: On the contrary; since socialism encompasses a wide variety of ideologies, it would be NPOV to fixate on negative actions of Marxist-Leninist states as a defining factor of those states, let alone socialism as a whole. Moreover, there were never communist societies - this is an encyclopedia and we should be precise with our terminology. Regardless, this of course could me mentioned in an adequate way, but not in a way that will make it sound like Red Scare propaganda. BeŻet (talk) 15:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
- The obvious problem is that there's a bit of switcheroo going on here. If someone objects to excluding repressions against communism, then that gets restored under the reason that "communism is a type of socialism". But then if someone say "ok, then let's include some of the nasty things done by the communists states" then the objection is "that's not a defining characteristic of socialism!". Stop it. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either we include BOTH the repressions against communists AND repressions BY communists, or we define the scope of this article more narrowly and exclude both. Anything else would violate NPOV.
- And that is the current problem with the article - it serves as a WP:COATRACK for whitewashing communism and presenting only in positive light (Soviets invented space flight!) and to accomplish this POV approach it goes off topic. I agree with Bobfrombrockley's proposal above. Volunteer Marek 23:00, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
- The material was reworded to deemphasize the mass killings themselves and to emphasize the toppling of Sukarno, president of Indonesia, a socialist (but not a Marxist-Leninist) and a leader in the non-Aligned Movement (which is mentioned in a preceding paragraph in the same sub-section, which would make this somewhat relevant) and the massive impact it had. The purges (which targeted the entire left in Indonesia, including socialists, feminists, trade unionists etc., not just card carrying communists) and Suharto's ascension halted the development of socialism in Indonesia, and had significant impacts on the non-Aligned movement and the Cold War itself. And this is somehow not significant enough to include in the sub-section "Asia, Africa, and Latin America" in the section "Mid-20th century" in an article on socialism? Ridiculous. Not only is the material long-standing, this paragraph is by far the best sourced paragraph of the entire sub-section. The NPOV rewrite should have put this to rest, as the issues the OP had - the emphasis on mass killings including estimates - were written out of the disputed material and appropriate historical context added. The new argument that it is too detailed for a broad article on socialism is nonsensical. The establishment of the New Order under Suharto is now considered by historians to be one of the most significant events of the Cold War.
- I think the disputed para on Indonesia can go, as it is too much detail for a global encyclopedia about socialism. I think socialism and anarchism should be included in this article to some extent, as part of the broad family of socialisms, but not in great detail as there are more appropriate articles. It might be sensible to create new talk page sections on sections of the article that editors feel need trimming. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:28, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
- If that is the case the editor above is correct - this article is a complete white wash. If communism is a type of socialism and the article discusses societies which were “communist” (or regarded as such) then it needs to discuss all the less savory aspects of these societies. Otherwise it’s not NPOV. Volunteer Marek 02:07, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
- As there is yet no consensus for removal, I have restored the material.
- If one must insist on adding material on mass killings under communism to this article, which I think would be unwise for reasons I stated previously, I would say that the Communism article as it exists now could be a good model for that here, much better than the highly controversial MKuCR.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 05:47, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- This one particular topic - Indonesia - is indicative of much broader problems with the article as a whole. The fact that the entire article is not actually about Socialism but serves as a WP:COATRACK for a POV treatment of Communism. Yes, “Socialism” can mean a lot of things but this article gives huge weight to Marxist-Leninist and Communist movements. Where is the section on German socialist parties? Where is the section on Leon Blum? Where are the sections on other mainstream socialist parties? Instead there’s a whole ton of undue stuff on the Bolsheviks, Rosa Luxembourg, communist economic planning, anarchism, Leninism, Chinese Communist Party, Soviet Union, Cuba etc. We already have a different article on Communism so why is all that info here? I swear, it’s almost as if this article was hijacked by one of those far right wingers who argue that all “socialism” is same as “communism”. Volunteer Marek 06:46, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- I took the liberty of fixing your markup as we ended up having the rest of the text underlined. BeŻet (talk) 09:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with you that all those things could and should be included in the article. But the article does include sections on the Nordic Model, Self managed economy, syndicalism, market socialism, democratic socialism, etc. so I don't think it's as slanted towards Marxism-Leninism as you seem to think it is.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 13:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- Then include them rather than edit warring to include OTHER, irrelevant text! Volunteer Marek 02:29, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- You could have included them since you brought them up, instead of arbitrarily removing well sourced material under discussion on talk, with no consensus reached for removal.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:11, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- Then include them rather than edit warring to include OTHER, irrelevant text! Volunteer Marek 02:29, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- C.J. Griffin, exactly. Indeed, socialism is dismissed as whatever the Communist regimes and those more moderate, centre-left socialists are dismissed as 'capitalism', ironically enough by both those to their left and the right; even though it could be argued that both Communist and left-leaning Western governments did not establish socialism, only for the latter it is done because socialism must be associated with command economies, famines, and failure. Clearly, anarchism, communism, and social democracy are all relevant to socialism, e.g. Socialism: A Very Short Introduction (2005). We may argue about giving too much weight to one socialist side or not enough to the other, but they are clearly relevant. This is what several scholarly books I have read do; when they discuss communism in socialist books, they do it within the context of socialism, i.e. the schism between reformist and revolutionary socialists, and debates within the broad socialist movement, etc., not the killings, famines, etc., for which we have plenty of other articles, so I think this arguments fails, though I can sympathize with the argument of too much focus on communism, mainly as represented by Communist states, though they did defined themselves as socialist, not communist, states.
- Either way, it would be better to work on a sandbox and find some common ground and consensus before just removing stuff and engaging in edit warring; while the article is not good article status, it is decent and neutral enough in describing what socialists believe, etc. I recall recently an argument, I guess from Jimmy Wales but I could not remember the link, where essentially posited that we should say what laissez-faire capitalists (this was the example given, I am sure of it) believe (according to reliable sources), which is what we do, and should be doing, here and for similar articles. There are plenty of articles for where further and more in-depth analysis can be done on any positive, mixed, and negative aspects. P.S. I believe that C.J. Griffin gave a valid argument for why the Indonesian event is relevant, i.e.
Suharto's ascension halted the development of socialism in Indonesia, and had significant impacts on the non-Aligned movement and the Cold War itself
, while others (for which, again, we have whole articles about them) are not. Davide King (talk) 15:55, 23 September 2021 (UTC) - @Volunteer Marek: If you're grouping together the Bolsheviks, Rosa Luxembourg and Anarchism, you are encompassing a really wide variety of ideologies and viewpoints. Looking at your comment I think what you mean is that there isn't enough information about social democracy, which, of course, you are welcome to improve. BeŻet (talk) 17:49, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- The article is neither “decent” nor “neutral enough”. It’s a POV WP:COATRACK for Communism, rather than Socialism. Volunteer Marek 02:32, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- Marek, listen. First of all, capital 'C' Communism has been the largest socialist movement in history, therefore it isn't surprising that there are larger sections about it (which aren't that large at all!). Secondly it isn't WP:COATRACK because it literally talks about socialism, while talking about Communism. I think you seem to be confused about what socialism and communism actually is. BeŻet (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- Like I said, if you want to turn the article on Socialism into a WP:COATRACK for Communism (for which we have a SEPARATE article) whatever. I don't think that's a sensible approach but I'll just roll my eyes and go along with it. However, IF we're going to do that, you can't just cherry pick only positive aspects of communist countries like Soviet Union (they gotz spaceflight!... as if capitalist countries didn't) and completely ignore the negative aspects, the ones that reliable sources actually discuss. You have NOT addressed a single point I have raised, just waived your hands and said "it's important, it's not important" without bothering to provide any support or rationale for your stance. Volunteer Marek 12:51, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- Marek, listen. First of all, capital 'C' Communism has been the largest socialist movement in history, therefore it isn't surprising that there are larger sections about it (which aren't that large at all!). Secondly it isn't WP:COATRACK because it literally talks about socialism, while talking about Communism. I think you seem to be confused about what socialism and communism actually is. BeŻet (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- The article is neither “decent” nor “neutral enough”. It’s a POV WP:COATRACK for Communism, rather than Socialism. Volunteer Marek 02:32, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- This one particular topic - Indonesia - is indicative of much broader problems with the article as a whole. The fact that the entire article is not actually about Socialism but serves as a WP:COATRACK for a POV treatment of Communism. Yes, “Socialism” can mean a lot of things but this article gives huge weight to Marxist-Leninist and Communist movements. Where is the section on German socialist parties? Where is the section on Leon Blum? Where are the sections on other mainstream socialist parties? Instead there’s a whole ton of undue stuff on the Bolsheviks, Rosa Luxembourg, communist economic planning, anarchism, Leninism, Chinese Communist Party, Soviet Union, Cuba etc. We already have a different article on Communism so why is all that info here? I swear, it’s almost as if this article was hijacked by one of those far right wingers who argue that all “socialism” is same as “communism”. Volunteer Marek 06:46, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Another problem - the view that “Soviet communism was really just state capitalism” is about as WP:FRINGE as the (usually but not exclusively right wing) view that “Soviet communism was just a version of fascism”. And both are off topic! Neither should get much, if any, representation in the article. Volunteer Marek 02:37, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
And another. This one is almost hilarious. The entire section about socialism “during late 20th century”, while, it spends a lot of text discussing communist regimes and movements somehow manages to mention… the collapse of communism in the … late 20th century. A previously uniformed reader might very well walk away from reading this article thinking that communist societies are alive and well across the globe. This flagrant omission is another illustration of just how skewed and bad this entire article is. We need major clean up here. Volunteer Marek 02:49, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Volunteer Marek: Please read the article. It clearly talks about the collapse there:
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic integration of the Soviet republics was dissolved and overall industrial activity declined substantially
. It's literally there! BeŻet (talk) 14:08, 24 September 2021 (UTC)- Yep. And the Eastern Bloc is included later in the text:
The transition to capitalism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc
...--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:54, 24 September 2021 (UTC)- No, it doesn't talk about the collapse it talks about what happened AFTER the collapse. This collapse of communism in Eastern Europe just seems to appear out of nowhere. If anything the text, quite hilariously, implies that the Soviet Union collapsed because "Gorbachev wanted to move it to Nordic-style socialism". Seriously, I burst out laughing when I read that. It's beyond mendacious. Come on guys. If the article on Socialism, is going to cover the Soviet Union, then it HAS TO cover WHY it collapsed.
- Same thing for the Eastern Bloc. Only the "shock therapy" (which wasn't even implemented in all these countries!) and the rise of oligarchies (which was also mostly a Soviet phenomenon though the article pretends it applied to all these countries!) is mentioned but not the situation leading up to the fall of communism there or why it fell. This is what I mean by the fact that the article is full of cherry picked facts and complimentary omissions.
- Honestly, there should be a separate section on stagnation, economic crisis and collapse of "socialism" in Late 20th century - that's how most sources on the subject treat it. Volunteer Marek 07:10, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Volunteer Marek: Marek, you need to work on your tone, and also realise that perhaps you are just viewing things from your own point of view. You have clearly said above, and I quote:
This one is almost hilarious. The entire section about socialism “during late 20th century”, while, it spends a lot of text discussing communist regimes and movements somehow manages to [not] mention… the collapse of communism in the … late 20th century. A previously uniformed reader might very well walk away from reading this article thinking that communist societies are alive and well across the globe. This flagrant omission (...)
. You have been proven wrong. What you said was false as this was clearly not ommited. You didn't say that the reason behind the collapse is missing, you clearly said that it is not mentioned that it has collapsed - which was false. Therefore could you please start behaving in a more respectful manner. BeŻet (talk) 12:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)- BeZet, how about instead of trying to lecture me about my "tone" you actually address the issue? Instead of accusing me of having a "point of view" you acknowledge that your own "point of view" has resulted in a ridiculously lopsided and WP:FRINGE article? How about you stop with silly grade-school assertions like "you have been proven wrong"? What is this, "I know you are but what am I"? You haven't proved anything wrong. You. Just. Evaded. The. Question. The article is missing key crucial information on why these communists states collapsed and no amount of hair splitting or semantic games on your part is going to remedy that. Volunteer Marek 14:17, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- I am just pointing out that you made an invalid accusation about the article. What's more to discuss here if your point is wrong? And if you would like to add more details about the causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union, I will welcome those additions, but doesn't that conflict with your previous accusation that there is too much focus on the Soviet Union? Help me understand what the issue is here. BeŻet (talk) 14:30, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- BeZet, how about instead of trying to lecture me about my "tone" you actually address the issue? Instead of accusing me of having a "point of view" you acknowledge that your own "point of view" has resulted in a ridiculously lopsided and WP:FRINGE article? How about you stop with silly grade-school assertions like "you have been proven wrong"? What is this, "I know you are but what am I"? You haven't proved anything wrong. You. Just. Evaded. The. Question. The article is missing key crucial information on why these communists states collapsed and no amount of hair splitting or semantic games on your part is going to remedy that. Volunteer Marek 14:17, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- @Volunteer Marek: Marek, you need to work on your tone, and also realise that perhaps you are just viewing things from your own point of view. You have clearly said above, and I quote:
- Yep. And the Eastern Bloc is included later in the text:
Soviet technological achievements
@Volunteer Marek: could you explain why you think mentioning Soviet technological achievements is "off-topic" and should be removed? It feels very on-topic if the section is literally about the Soviet Union. BeŻet (talk) 15:57, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
- Because it doesn't have anything to do with the topic of this article. Socialism. Do we mention that the USA was the first to land a person on the moon in the article Capitalism. No. Because it makes no sense to include it.
- And yes, the section is on the Soviet Union. But if we are going to include more stuff about Soviet Union there then how about we actually mention the things which are usually associated with Soviet style "socialism" - the gulags, the purges, the economic breakdown. Space stuff is just random attempt to include something "positive".
- Also re this. "Truth-out" is simply not a reliable source, except for claims about itself. And you have been here long enough to know that just because it's not listed at "perennial sources as unreliable" doesn't make it reliable (a whole bunch of junk is not listed there). Please stop restoring this source - it's note even needed! Volunteer Marek 22:56, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
- The Truthout source has become an issue over at the Communism article as well, and I believe User:Davide King resolved it with this edit. I have imported that citation here. Given Truthout has won awards for its journalism, I don't consider it an unreliable source, especially in this case given Richard D. Wolff, a notable academic, is the author of the piece. Perhaps it should be taken to WP:RSN?--C.J. Griffin (talk) 06:01, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- The UMass source is better. But there’s also the issue of DUE. Chomsky’s area is linguistics and he’s not an expert here. Other than that, these are cherry picked sources which may not represent general consensus of reliable views. Volunteer Marek 06:34, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- Chomsky is probably the most influential public intellectual and well known advocate for libertarian socialism on the planet right now, and his writings on politics and social issues are widely cited. Richard Wolff is a well known Marxian economist and socialist. I would say they are both notable enough to be included in a broad article on socialism.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 13:36, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- He might be "well known" but this is simply not his area of expertise. You can't cite him for claims of fact. Wolff could be cited (also with attribution) but WP:BALANCE means we shouldn't cite ONLY him (given the fact that he's like one of the four Marxist economists left in this world). Volunteer Marek 07:12, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- Chomsky is probably the most influential public intellectual and well known advocate for libertarian socialism on the planet right now, and his writings on politics and social issues are widely cited. Richard Wolff is a well known Marxian economist and socialist. I would say they are both notable enough to be included in a broad article on socialism.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 13:36, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- The UMass source is better. But there’s also the issue of DUE. Chomsky’s area is linguistics and he’s not an expert here. Other than that, these are cherry picked sources which may not represent general consensus of reliable views. Volunteer Marek 06:34, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- The Truthout source has become an issue over at the Communism article as well, and I believe User:Davide King resolved it with this edit. I have imported that citation here. Given Truthout has won awards for its journalism, I don't consider it an unreliable source, especially in this case given Richard D. Wolff, a notable academic, is the author of the piece. Perhaps it should be taken to WP:RSN?--C.J. Griffin (talk) 06:01, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- I don't understand your reasoning at all - somehow technological achievements are not relevant, but gulags, the purges and "economic breakdown" are. That's just plain silly. The Soviet Union as a whole has witnessed huge economic and technological development. The gulags and purges are only relevant to the Stalinist era, and the "economic breakdown" to the late 80s/early 90s. BeŻet (talk) 09:38, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- There’s nothing silly about it. As I said, we don’t put “USA was the first country to put a man on the moon” in the article on Capitalism so why are we doing similar here? There’s nothing exceptional about a country “witnessing” huge economic and technological development. Lots of countries did. How in the world is that relevant to a reader’s understanding of “socialism”? It’s not. It’s just a sad attempt at trying to tell the reader “see, the Soviet Union wasn’t all bad”. Which aside from being POV, is just not relevant to the topic here.
- Otoh, when people, and more importantly, sources, discuss “socialism in Soviet Union” they discuss gulags and purges. Like it or not that’s a key characteristic of Soviet style socialism. You want to include a Soviet communism under the umbrella of “socialism” (and I’m not sure that’s a good idea, except very briefly), then that’s what needs to be in here. Volunteer Marek 02:28, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- They're not a key characteristic. BeŻet (talk) 13:55, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- Lol. Gulags and purges are not "key characteristic" of Soviet version of "socialism" but space flight is? Seriously? According to whom??? Please actually address the issue rather than evading it. Volunteer Marek 06:37, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- @BeŻet: Can you please actually address this issue in a constructive manner rather than just dismissing it? Like, can you provide some sources which actually state "gulags and purges were not a key characteristic of Soviet society but space flight was" (good luck with that, lol). Volunteer Marek 14:09, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- Lol. Gulags and purges are not "key characteristic" of Soviet version of "socialism" but space flight is? Seriously? According to whom??? Please actually address the issue rather than evading it. Volunteer Marek 06:37, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- They're not a key characteristic. BeŻet (talk) 13:55, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
Adequacy of POV tags
I think the POV and undue tags should be removed as they seem to reflect, in my opinion, the sole inaccurate opinion of Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs) about the article. The article talks about a wide variety of topics, thus saying it somehow focuses on the Soviet system is innacurate. BeŻet (talk) 13:58, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
Also judging from other comments, with all due respect I don't think Marek has read the article at all. BeŻet (talk) 14:09, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- I tend to agree. The tagged sub-section on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is only two paragraphs. By contrast, the preceding sub-section on the Nordic model is three times its size. Looking over the article, outside of the History section, and in particular two sub-sections tagged, along with the Planned economy section, the USSR and its satellites are hardly discussed.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:16, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
- It’s undue but that isn’t the only problem. The section also suffers from cherry picked sources which do not represent scholarly consensus, for example, Phillip Ther, who is not even an expert in economics. Volunteer Marek 19:02, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
- Philipp Ther is a historian who specializes in European history and also the director of the Institute of European History at the University of Vienna. He is well qualified to be considered a reliable expert on these issues. Not only that, but the book was published by Princeton University Press in 2016. This is a high quality source.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 21:34, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
- He is a historian and not an economist and as such is not a good source FOR THIS information. Volunteer Marek 06:48, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- For the statement "As a result of communist modernization, living standards in Eastern Europe rose"? First of all, I'm not sure why this is even controversial. Is it disputed that living standards increased in the Eastern Bloc countries throughout the 1950s and 60s? And secondly I fail to see why a historian who specializes in European history is not qualified to make statements about this, or that it's somehow non-RS for Wikipedia, even though it was published by a major university press. Ridiculous IMO. We could take it to WP:RSN if necessary.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 13:09, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- The problem is that the statement in this article doesn't say "in the 50's and 60's" (and the whether they did or not in the 60s is indeed controversial and goes to the question of "when did the stagnation first set in"). It implies that the living standards rose THROUGHOUT the period of "socialism" (sic) in the Eastern bloc. Additionally, the statement is cherry picked - in this one (maybe two) decade the living standards happened to rise, according to some sources. Ok. But what about ALL THE OTHER decades? Did living standards rise in the 20's and 30's during the periods of collectivization of agriculture, mass famines and millions of deaths? Did living standards rise in the late 70's and 80's as these "socialist" (sic) economies "went into tailspin" (according to sources)? If you're going to put one part then NPOV requires that you put in the other. Otherwise it's just mendacious. Volunteer Marek 14:04, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- For the statement "As a result of communist modernization, living standards in Eastern Europe rose"? First of all, I'm not sure why this is even controversial. Is it disputed that living standards increased in the Eastern Bloc countries throughout the 1950s and 60s? And secondly I fail to see why a historian who specializes in European history is not qualified to make statements about this, or that it's somehow non-RS for Wikipedia, even though it was published by a major university press. Ridiculous IMO. We could take it to WP:RSN if necessary.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 13:09, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- He is a historian and not an economist and as such is not a good source FOR THIS information. Volunteer Marek 06:48, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- It seems to be just your opinion that these sources are cherry-picked, or undue, or not of adequate quality. It's all subjective. BeŻet (talk) 22:00, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
- No. The UNDUE issue is obvious. The article includes mention of Soviet space flights and tries to make it sound like the Soviet economy - after it already began collapsing in mid 80's - was healthy and affluent. Why did the Soviet Union collapse then exactly? It obviously tries to cherry pick only "positive" aspects of the Soviet Union and is completely mum on anything negative. Obviously there are oodles and oodles of sources on purges, exterminations, famines, gulags, expulsions, persecutions etc. etc. yet some editors on this article decided that the important thing to mention was ... Soviet space flight (again - why is it that we don't mention space flight in USA in article on Capitalism - this hasn't been addressed or even acknowledged in this discussion!) and the fact that after collapse of the Soviet Union (again, why exactly did it collapse) things got bad.
- In a similar manner, some editors decided that it's crucial for the article on Socialism to include Suharto's repression against ... communists in Indonesia, but Soviet repression against, well, everyone (including Socialists!) is not worthy enough of mention. How in the world does that work? It's pretty clear that here again the intent is to present only the "good" of Socialist (actually Communist) countries, and only the "bad" of capitalist or anti-communist countries. You have to be WP:TENDENTIOUS not to be immediately struck by this obvious fact.
- Other issue - the issue of increase in mortality at end of 80's/early 90's. You can't just include the couple debunked sources from a flawed study (21 observations, erroneously and mendaciously coded data, failure to report all findings or consider alternative hypothesis... I mean, they coded privatizations earlier than they actually happened in order to make it look like these preceded and caused the rise in mortality! And no, this isn't "original research", it's the papers I mentioned and many other ones) and completely ignore the rest of the literature. Again, this is just textbook WP:TENDENTIOUS behavior and WP:CHERRY PICKING. Come on! Don't restore this unless you're willing to treat the subject with the neutrality it deserves.
- Another issue. You restored completely unreferenced text which is also clearly POV. Yes, you put in some "citation needed" tags but this text has been around for long time and no one's bothered to source it. Gee, maybe it's caused it's just some personal POV someone put in the article at some point?
- Until these issues (and there are also others) are addressed (or even an attempt to address rather than dismiss them) is made, please don't remove the relevant tags.
- Volunteer Marek 06:48, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- I also see that you tried to "fix" the claim that SU was the world's "second largest economy" on the eve of its collapse (according to CIA which was notorious for overestimating Soviet production in order to justify increases in their own budget, and based on "official", Soviet-set exchange rates of 4 rubles per dollar, while the market exchange was 40 rubles per dollar, all of this based on a primary source) by adding the WP:WEASELly "by some measures" on the basis of Britannica, but you completely ignored the entire paragraph of that source. The paragraph [1] is basically written as "by some measures it was second largest economy BUT". The "BUT" there is the key. It goes on to mention shortages, black market economy, economic stagnation, inflationary spirals, fiscal policy mismanagement, and "Soviet economy in a tailspin". So somehow from a paragraph which is all about the collapse of the Soviet economy (before any capitalism got there) you somehow managed to pull out the "it was the world's second largest economy". If that isn't cherry picking and tendentious POV then those phrases have no meaning. Volunteer Marek 07:00, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- And why are you adding a source that consists of "short stories" to source statements of fact? Volunteer Marek 07:01, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- If multiple sources show increased mortality, you can't just remove it and say "trust me bro" - you have to present a case for removal, which can be reviewed by others and a consensus can be reached. BeŻet (talk) 13:08, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- Sigh. No. No one, absolutely no one, is disputing that mortality increased. You're constructing a STRAWMAN here. What is under dispute is what caused the mortality increase. And there the sources say the opposite of what you've put into article, except for one flawed study and its derivatives. Volunteer Marek 14:00, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- If multiple sources show increased mortality, you can't just remove it and say "trust me bro" - you have to present a case for removal, which can be reviewed by others and a consensus can be reached. BeŻet (talk) 13:08, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- Philipp Ther is a historian who specializes in European history and also the director of the Institute of European History at the University of Vienna. He is well qualified to be considered a reliable expert on these issues. Not only that, but the book was published by Princeton University Press in 2016. This is a high quality source.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 21:34, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
- It’s undue but that isn’t the only problem. The section also suffers from cherry picked sources which do not represent scholarly consensus, for example, Phillip Ther, who is not even an expert in economics. Volunteer Marek 19:02, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
Seriously. The article includes the sentence: "The nation became one of the world's top manufacturers of basic and heavy industrial products, while deemphasizing light industrial production and consumer durables" but nothing about the multiple famines that occurred throughout the 20's and 30's that were the result of the same policy of industrialization!. Volunteer Marek 07:18, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- You are really confusing. First you say that there is too much emphasis on the Soviet Union, and then you complain that there are some omissions. Which one is it then? Too much or too little information? BeŻet (talk) 13:08, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- No, I am not confusing, you're just confused. All along I've said that IF we are going to include info on the Soviet Union in the article Socialism THEN we must do so in a neutral balanced manner. That means not cherry picking a couple "positive" facts about it (Space Flight!!!) and ignoring the many negative ones. You STILL haven't explained why space flight should be included in THIS article even though it's not even mentioned in the Capitalism article. Volunteer Marek 13:59, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Another aspect completely missing from the article in relation to the Soviet Union is the fact that Soviet "socialism" was widely criticized by other socialist almost immediately (from Rosa Luxembourg to Karl Kautsky) and resoundingly rejected by most of world's socialist parties. Volunteer Marek 07:25, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- The article literally states:
Rosa Luxemburg and Eduard Bernstein criticised Lenin, stating that his conception of revolution was elitist and Blanquist
. This is another occurance of you saying something is not there while it is. Also, it hasn't been "resoundingly rejected by most of world's socialist parties". BeŻet (talk) 13:08, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- The article literally states:
- Could you please stop removing well sourced content without prior discussion. BeŻet (talk) 12:41, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- I am NOT "removing well sourced content without prior discussion". The content is NOT "well sourced" - that's the problem! And obviously I've been discussing it extensively, you're the one who's been refusing to actually address the issue. Could you please stop accusing others of things they didn't do just to win a dispute? Can you please actually bother to address the issues at hand? Volunteer Marek 12:47, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- Could you please stop edit warring and reach consensus first? You are removing well sourced information. BeŻet (talk) 12:48, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- Could you also please stop adding WP:COATRACK when there is no problem about this in the article, and your understanding of the article has been questioned above? BeŻet (talk) 12:49, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- BeZet, I really don't appreciate the fact that you repeatedly try to accuse me of things which YOU are actually guilty of. You've been edit warring on this article ever since I've made my first edit. You're the one who has failed to actually discuss the issues - instead you just WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT dismissed them (like by claiming that purges and gulags were not a key characteristic of Soviet society or by failing to explain why exactly Soviet space flight belongs in this particular article). And you really need to stop removing relevant tags when these concerns have been explained AT LENGTH and in great detail. Volunteer Marek 14:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- A lot of things you said have been directly contested or disproven. You also seem to "learn as you go". Earlier you said:
Instead there’s a whole ton of undue stuff on the Bolsheviks, Rosa Luxembourg, communist economic planning, anarchism, Leninism, Chinese Communist Party, Soviet Union, Cuba etc. We already have a different article on Communism so why is all that info here?
, grouping Rosa Luxembourg with the Bolsheviks, and later suddenly you realise that the Soviet Union has been criticised by Rosa (see above). In short, your concerns have been heavily contested and rendered incoherent by your other comments. Finally, I would appreciate if you stopped loling, bolding and exclaiming (!!!) all the time. I would also like you to remember about the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, which helps us edit articles. You have made bold changes that have been contested and reverted, and we should now discuss them. BeŻet (talk) 14:25, 27 September 2021 (UTC)- "A lot of things you said have been directly contested or disproven." NO THEY HAVE NOT. Rather than making spurious statements giving yourself credit for something which you didn't do, why don't you actually address the issues???? And you're doing the strawman again and falsely misrepresenting what I said. What I said is that IF we gonna include a bunch of stuff about Communism in the article on Socialism (like Rosa Luxembourg, whom I most certainly did NOT "group with the Bolsheviks" - you made that up) THEN we have to present the issue in a neutral balanced manner.
- You haven't bothered to address a single issue I've raised. Here they are again:
- Why is Soviet space flight relevant to article on Socialism but, say, USA space flight isn't relevant to article on Capitalism?
- Why is Soviet space flight relevant to article on Socialism but other more prominent aspects of Soviet society, like political purges or mass repressions aren't?
- Why are only Soviet economic "achievements" presented (and dubiously at that since they were really confined to a decade or two) but all the Soviet failures omitted?
- Why is the dissolution of the Soviet Union presented as if it happened for no reason at all?
- Why are negative health outcomes being presented as consequences of transition to market based economies even though - as many sources emphasize - these were already getting bad long before any capitalists showed up in Russia?
- Why are we using Original Research based on debunked primary sources (CIA Factbook) to make prima facie absurd claims about the Soviet economy on the eve of it's collapse and pretending like it was the greatest (well, second greatest) thing ever. Right before it just imploded, lol.
- Etc. etc. etc. Honestly there are so many problems here - these just scratch the surface - and your complete unwillingness to address even these most basic ones really illustrates the structural problems with the editing on this article. Volunteer Marek 15:13, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- A lot of things you said have been directly contested or disproven. You also seem to "learn as you go". Earlier you said:
- BeZet, I really don't appreciate the fact that you repeatedly try to accuse me of things which YOU are actually guilty of. You've been edit warring on this article ever since I've made my first edit. You're the one who has failed to actually discuss the issues - instead you just WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT dismissed them (like by claiming that purges and gulags were not a key characteristic of Soviet society or by failing to explain why exactly Soviet space flight belongs in this particular article). And you really need to stop removing relevant tags when these concerns have been explained AT LENGTH and in great detail. Volunteer Marek 14:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- I am NOT "removing well sourced content without prior discussion". The content is NOT "well sourced" - that's the problem! And obviously I've been discussing it extensively, you're the one who's been refusing to actually address the issue. Could you please stop accusing others of things they didn't do just to win a dispute? Can you please actually bother to address the issues at hand? Volunteer Marek 12:47, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Just look at this paragraph and how ridiculous it is
Mikhail Gorbachev wished to move the Soviet Union towards of Nordic-style social democracy, calling it "a socialist beacon for all mankind".[266][267] Prior to its dissolution in 1991, the economy of the Soviet Union was by some measures the second largest in the world after the United States.[268][269][270] With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic integration of the Soviet republics was dissolved and overall industrial activity declined substantially.[271] A lasting legacy remains in the physical infrastructure created during decades of combined industrial production practices, and widespread environmental destruction.[272] The transition to capitalism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, which was accompanied by Washington Consensus-inspired "shock therapy",[273] Following a transition to free market capitalism there has been a steep fall in the standard of living. The region experienced rising economic inequality and poverty[274] a surge in excess mortality,[275][276][277][278][279] and a decline in life expectancy,[280] which was accompanied by the entrenchment of a newly established business oligarchy in the former.[274] The average post-communist country had returned to 1989 levels of per-capita GDP by 2005,[281] and as off 2015 some were still behind that.[282] These developments led to increased nationalist sentiment and nostalgia for the Communist era.[283][284][285]
Just look at it. It's a textbook example of POV pushing, UNDUE content, FRINGE content, CHERRY PICKING and TENDENTIOUS editing. This should be framed and put into some Wikipedia Hall of Fame of what NOT to do. Let's take it sentence by sentence.
- Mikhail Gorbachev wished to move the Soviet Union towards of Nordic-style social democracy - First source is Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine", a pop book which is NOT a reliable source. Second source is better but it really represents the idiosyncratic opinion (and wishful thinking) of one author. Other authors had more realistic assessments. Gorbachev tried to "patch up" Soviet communism, not replace it. For example: The most revealing themes were his (Gorbachev's) attack on reforms that are directed at creating market socialism, his defense of centralization of economic control, and his negative evaluations of the Yugoslav model of socialism and the Chinese economic revolution. Gorbachev warned against the false glitter of market-oriented reforms (...) He deplored the tendency to consider economic centralization as the source of the failure of communist economies"[2]
- Prior to its dissolution in 1991... - this is the very next sentence and it completely omits any discussion of WHY the Soviet Union "dissolved". There's no mention of the economic crisis of the 70's an d80's. It presents the dissolution as something that just happened out of the blue. Like Gorby woke up one morning and just said "oh hey lets dissolve" . It's obvious to anyone with any kind of background knowledge that the article is PURPOSEFULLY omitting all the problems that led to the dissolution because apparently that reflects badly on the Soviet Union. But it gets worse:
- ...the economy of the Soviet Union was by some measures the second largest in the world after the United States. - so not only did the Soviet Union dissolve for no reason at all, according to our article, but in fact, it dissolved right when it was doing just great! Awesome! It was the 2nd largest economic power!!!! Man, it must've been some really evil or stupid people that dissolved such a great - 2nd largest!!!! - society for no reason at all! Sheeeeeeeessshhhh. Could this possibly be more over-the-top POV? There's no mention of the fact that this "2nd largest" business was only if you calculated Soviet GDP at official exchange rate of 4 rubles to 1 dollar, set by Soviet authorities themselves and no mention of the fact that the market exchange rate was actually 40 rubles to a dollar. Additionally this relies on a primary source (CIA Factbook). Anyone who has actually studied this topic even briefly is quite aware that the CIA figures for the Soviet Union were complete junk. Here is one easily accessible source on the topic but this is a well known fact in the literature: [3] (excerpt: Until recently, the CIA stated that the national income per capita was higher in the Soviet Union than in Italy. Anyone who has visited both countries should be able to see for himself that such a statement is absurd. If the U.S.S.R. had been so well off, there would not have been much need for a radical reform. Excessive belief in CIA statistics is an important reason why so few Western experts predicted any Soviet reform.). Hell, even official SOVIET economists of the early 80s were disputing CIA statistics saying "no, no, we're not actually that rich" (which is kind of hilarious).
- With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic integration of the Soviet republics was dissolved and overall industrial activity declined substantially - The industrial activity declined substantially in the years prior to dissolution!!!. Again, this is part of this false pretense that the Soviet Union collapsed just out of the blue for no reason at all and until capitalism it had no economic problems what so ever.
- A lasting legacy remains in the physical infrastructure created during decades of combined industrial production practices, and widespread environmental destruction. - this part's fine.
- The transition to capitalism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, which was accompanied by Washington Consensus-inspired "shock therapy" - sigh. First, 'shock therapy' or "Washington Consensus" occurred in only SOME of the post-Soviet, post-Communist states. Poland. Czech Republic. Estonia. Latvia and possibly Russia and Albania (not so succesfull but the question of whether they actually did or not, as opposed to being advised to, is still debated) [4]. That's FOUR out of THIRTY something countries. Yet the text here pretends that they all did.
- Following a transition to free market capitalism there has been a steep fall in the standard of living. - the living standards were ALREADY falling in these countries before the "transition"! Again, this is completely omitted information. And while some of these countries didn't successfully transition (ironically for our article, the ones that DIDN'T do shock therapy) others experienced a sharp but short recession and then grew economically catching up with the West.
- The region experienced rising economic inequality and poverty[ - the source given is this, page 51. I cannot stress the following enough: there is nothing in that source to support this statement!!!!!. Russia is barely mentioned on that and adjacent pages (it only says that present day Russian oligarchs may resemble "premodern elites") Somebody just made this up and then added a fake citation to the end of a sentence to fake-justify it.
- a surge in excess mortality, - it's true that mortality went up but this sentence falsely pretends that this increase was due to the transition to capitalism! In fact mortality rates in Russia had been rising since ... 1965! Nineteen sixty five. For 26 years before the dissolution of the Soviet Union! (But hey, it was the "2nd largest economy" with "modernization increasing standards of living" (sic)) [5]. There was a change in that trend - a drop in mortality - between ... 1984 and 1986 (so still before the fall of communism) which had everything to do with Gorbachev's anti-alcohol law. When that law was rescinded in 1987, mortality rates resumed their upward march. Again, this is blatant false misrepresentation of facts, all as part of some FRINGE Soviet Union apologism.
- decline in life expectancy - see above.
- was accompanied by the entrenchment of a newly established business oligarchy in the former - yes in Russia. But this text is talking about "the region".
- The average post-communist country had returned to 1989 levels of per-capita GDP by 2005,[281] and as off 2015 some were still behind that - this WOULD BE fine except another crucial piece of information is omitted. As the author says, the ones that fell behind are the ones which experienced civil war or international war. I tried adding this info, straight from the source, since it otherwise the quotation is clipped off to make it seem like something it isn't, but this was removed by BeZet without explanation.
Let's face it. This whole paragraph is just one big embarrassment. I don't know whether to laugh or cringe when I read it. It's as if it was written by some 14 year old who just discovered Soviet style Communism and decided to adopt it to piss of their parents. It's not encyclopedic. It's not Wikpiedia policy-compliant. It's not even on topic. It's just. Junk. Volunteer Marek 15:06, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
- I think it's time for you to WP:BREATHER and then come back when you're ready to discuss things calmly. BeŻet (talk) 17:32, 27 September 2021 (UTC)