Talk:Collectivization in the Soviet Union/Archive 1

message: I started adding to Sovkhoz and writing kolkhoz, but soon realized that the articles share much. Also, comparison of these forms is required. I suggest to make a single article, Collective farming in the USSR. Also, to avoid confusion, I suggest eiher to rename Collectivisation in the USSR into History of collectivisation in the USSR or to make it into a section of the new article. Any opinions? Please put them into the Talk:Sovkhoz page. Mikkalai 04:38, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

message: From Talk:Kulak
:The collectivization campaign turned Russia from major agricutlural exporter into a country unable to feed itself.
I don't think this isn't true per se, but I do think it could be worded in a much more NPOV 130.157.90.64
:Thank you for poining out at this phrase. In fact, it is false. Collectivization per se didn't destroy the productivity of Russian agriculture. (By the way, even in 1913 Russian agriculture was retarded with respect to the rest of the world.) The long chain of disasters: WWI, Russian Revolution, Russian Civil War, aggravated by two droughts (of 1920s and 1930s), did that. If someone wants to discuss the issue further, let's do it at the Talk:Collectivisation in the USSR page. I am copying this dialog there. Mikkalai 01:20, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Problems with food production in China became quite serious when collectivisation was abandoned. Even Dazhai, China's most successful commune, did not raise enough grain to feed itself in 1987, four years after it was forcibly disbanded by the government. See William H. Hinton, The Great Reversal: The privatization of China, 1978–1989 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990), . Shorne 22:50, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Collectivisation impact 

message: In an attempt to overcome this resistance, shock brigades were used to coerce reluctant peasants into joining the collective farms between 1929 and 1933. 
To assist collectivisation, the Party decided to sent 25,000 "socially conscious" industry workers to the countryside. These workers have become known as twenty-five-thousanders ("dvadtsatipyatitysyachniki").
It happens that the "dvadtsatipyatitysyachniki" movement occurred exactly during the same time frame: 1929-1933. I strongly suspect that the author of the "shock brigades" phrase merely provided his own interpretation of the fact. Unless someone sheds an additional light (i.e., evidence) on the usage of the "shock brigade" buzzword from the U.S. military slang, the sentence is out. Mikkalai 20:28, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that "shock brigade" is POV. Shorne 21:27, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shock brigades 

message: Look, I know that this is hard for you to understand, but you have to have facts to be able to change something that is correctly documented and NPOV. You can't just revert it because it doesn't match your astigmatic view of the world. Shorne 09:12, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  To Boraczek 

message: : In my opinion, Shorne merely introduces statements taken from communist propaganda without any criticism or distance. If he goes on presenting these statements as facts rather than as opinions, I will consider it an intentional breaking of the NPOV policy, which clearly states that Wikipedia's policy is presenting conflicting views without asserting them. Shorne is welcome to present his opinion on kulaks' activity during the collectivisation as an opinion. Besides, I can see no reason why high estimates should be deleted, as they only provide additional information. Boraczek 09:59, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Reread what I said. You have to contest facts with facts, not with opinions. Shorne 10:01, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: I'm sorry to tell you that there is absolutely no way to discuss anything with you. It seems that you do not understand anything. Please seek assistance. Shorne 11:52, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Will someone else kindly accept the herculean task of explaining this to Boraczek? I just don't have the patience. Shorne 12:01, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: What do you want me to discuss? Shorne 19:56, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: Boraczek, pay attention, because this is the last time I'm going to say this: PROVE YOUR POINT WITH FACTS OR SHUT THE HELL UP. Shorne 20:12, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You need to enrol in the nearest kindergarten. That's what you need. Shorne 15:14, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for your opinion. BTW I wonder why this section is named "vandalism". Do U have any evidence of my vandalism, or is this name just one of your "facts"? Boraczek 16:24, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism by Boraczek 

message: I have found a piece about Soviet agiculture in wikipedia and made it into Agriculture of the Soviet Union. You are welcome to move this shitmixing talk over there. I am done for the topic. Mikkalai 20:30, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is about history ONLY 

message: You didn't bother to read the Fordson tractor article and apparently didn't take trouble to visualize the enormous difference between propaganda by speeches about "bright future" and actually seeing an actual tractor to enhance productivity. Fordson in steel spoke to peasants better than thousand speeches in air. I thought you have already noticed the difference between some politicizing editors here and me, who prefers to add facts rather than interpretations from leftist or rightist POVs. Mikkalai 16:53, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: What is really silly, is that the current article paints a picture of bolsheviks running countryside with speeches and slogans for bright future, and when it didn't help they started running around with guns. My "silly anecdote" tells you that there was more than words and guns speaking in favor of kolkhozes. Mikkalai 18:16, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right that I didn't take the time to look into the matter, and my edit was premature. You have my apologies. Still, you should try to refrain from insulting people gratuitously in your edit comments... -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 19:33, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Silly anecdote" 

message: However, these totals are a subject of intense controversy and dispute. In 1990, when  Soviet archives were opened to outside scholars, the following figures were released by Soviet and foreign scholars, such as Nicolas Werth. Of the 1,803,392 persons relocated, 1,317,022 reached the labour colonies; the remaining 486,370 either died (mostly from epidemics, poor sanitary conditions, or the failure of local officials to comply with state policy) or escaped. Deaths between 1932 and the end of 1940 totalled 389,521, most of these being from natural causes. Those executed represented only a fraction of the 63,000 kulaks classified as "active counterrevolutionaries".   These data imply that the most generous estimate of the death toll for the entire period from 1930 to 1940 is about 750,000. 
I do not advocate removal of the above material. But ambiguities need to be removed and proper attribution of these views made. For example, Nicolas Werth, a respectable scholar seems from the language to have "released the following figures"; he is quoted in the book the links are to, but the figures are not from him. Also links, as opposed to references make this particular reference stand out disporportiately without idenifying the nature or name of the book or the website it is on.  Also the phasing is confusing. Fred Bauder 13:02, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)
While I believe the information in the paragraph is false and would have a great deal of trouble revising it myself, it is Wikipedia policy that all significant points of view should be included in an article. One question is how is the point of view which this minimization of casualties represents. I would say Stalinist apologists and historical revisionists, but rather than me so characterizing the view point I suggest those who would include this material try to characterize their own point of view. Fred Bauder 14:17, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Fred that the paragraph in question is particularly objectionable for at least four reasons:
#It assumes that Soviet archives are a reliable source for information about a genocide perpetrated by Soviet leaders. Furthermore, as Fred pointed out, what is Werth's role?  Is the data his or is he merely repeating official Soviet numbers?  If it's the latter, why mention him at all?
#It says nothing about the fate of the 1.3 million people sent to forced labour camps, only that they arrived at the colonies:"Here is what some eyewitnesses wrote about their experiences: 'Barefooted and poorly clad peasants were jammed into railroad cars and transported to the regions of Murmansk and the like. Peasants were unloaded into snow about two metres deep. The frost stood at 75 degrees below zero. Without even an axe or a saw we began building huts from tree branches. In two weeks all the children, the sick and the elderly had frozen to death.'" ArtUkraine.comOther accounts put the survival rate of forced labourers below 50% in their first winter.  Such a number would more than double the deaths accounted for in the paragraph.
#The statistics defy logic.  Only 400,000 people died, of any cause, over 8 years in a country of approximately 30 million?  Even if you rely on the official Soviet numbers (I wouldn't), there is still a large discrepancy:"We do know that according to the 1926 Soviet population census there were 31.2 million Ukrainians in the U.S.S.R. According to the 1939 Soviet census this number had dropped by 3.1 million to 28.1 million. (There was no emigration from the Soviet Ukraine in this period.) Over a 13-year period, according to Soviet statistics, the number of Ukrainians had diminished by 11 per cent. The population of the U.S.S.R., on the other hand, increased by 16 per cent and the number of Russians by 28 per cent." ArtUkraine.com
#Finally, virtually no mention is made of the people who died as a result of harsh enforcement of unrealistic harvest quotas (i.e., starved to death). The paragraph implies that only rich kulaks were punished and dismisses the widespread suffering of the entire rural population as "failure of local officials to comply with state policy".
I also think it's more than a little disingenuous to exclusively cite one work, written with what appears to be a very clear pro-Stalin bias, as though it were the most authoritative source of facts and figures. Horbal 19:19, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: A paragraph that needs work

message: I did not put the Zbignlew Brzezinski estimate in and cannot find it easily on the internet. It is superflous and may be removed, in my opinion, without harm. However, it is hardly the only asserted fact which is not referenced. A great deal more work needs to be done along that line with respect to this article and other Wikipedia articles. Fred Bauder 16:03, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)
:Brzezinski didn't do original research on the topic. Therefore Brzezinski's quote is irrelevant and  must be removed. I could have added here quite a few anti-Soviet qoutes by various politicialns from the times of Cold War with even more "interesting" "facts". Mikkalai 16:26, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Zbignlew Brzezinski quote

message: I'm going to request protection for this page.  I have given up faith that VeryVerily is willing to work things out on this or any page long ago.  Coming to a consensus with him edit warring here is impossible.  Ruy Lopez 19:07, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: within the last 24 hours, VeryVerily has reverted this page a total of 6 times.  Is this what you mean by backing you up, breaking the three revert rule - on "general principles"?  Within the last 24 hours I have editted this page twice.  I don't break Wikipedia rules to get my way, unlike your backup.  Of course, VeryVerily, who has been banned before for breaking this very same rule, is currently in arbitration for his flagrant disregard of Wikipedia rules.  Well, no need to go into all of that, but while VeryVerily is breaking the three revert rule on this page, you are incorrect - my problem very much is with him. Ruy Lopez 07:48, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  VeryVerily and protection 

message: Fred Bauder, you cannot just delete whole passages of text because you think that someone else should revise them. If you have a small disagreement about the phrasing, propose something else.
Furthermore, it was entirely irresponsible of you to revert a whole batch of changes by Ruy Lopez indiscriminately. I have restored the material. Please discuss any disagreements here before making changes. Shorne 21:35, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This is childish. The material is amply cited and clearly explained. It was there for days and days, with your knowledge, before you came along and deleted it—dishonestly calling it "false information" when you yourself acknowledged that it belongs here. As to not wanting you to edit the material, I told you to edit it rather than deleting it. N.B.: That doesn't mean that any haphazard editing that you do will be acceptable. So don't write a POV screed and then come back later saying that I approved it. Shorne 23:55, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh the irony - "you cannot just delete whole passages of text because you think that someone else should revise them". That is just hilarious - happy to exploit the weaknesses of the system when pushing your POV, then whining when it's done to you. Stan 04:24, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If you'll open your eyes, you'll see that there's a big difference between deleting extensively cited factual material and removing one-sided POV opinion pieces. Shorne 16:04, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh yes, we must carefully preserve every link to the crude slanders on plp.org, while deleting material from actual scholars because it doesn't agree with some pseudonymous person's POV. Stan 16:42, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fred Bauder's deletion 

message: * Miron Dolot, Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust, W. W. Norton (1987), trade paperback, 231 pages, ; hardcover (1985), 
If I may add some more references as well:
* Ammende, Ewald, "Human life in Russia, (Cleveland: J.T. Zubal, 1984), Reprint, Originally published: London, England: Allen & Unwin, 1936, 
* Davies, R.W., "The Socialist offensive: the collectivization of Soviet agrilculture, 1929-1930", (London: Macmillan, 1980), 
* "Famine in the Soviet Ukraine 1932-1933: a memorial exhibition", Widener Library, Harvard University, prepared by Oksana Procyk, Leonid Heretz, James E. Mace. -- (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard College Library, distributed by Harvard University Press, 1986), 
* International Commission of Inquiry into the 1932-1933 Famine in Ukraine. Final report", [Jacob W.F. Sundberg, President], 1990. [Proceedings of the International Commission of Inquiry and its Final report are in typescript, contained in 6 vols. Copies available from the World Congress of Free Ukrainians, Toronto]. 
* United States, "Commission on the Ukraine Famine. Investigation of the Ukrainian Famine, 1932-1933: report to Congress / Commission on the Ukraine Famine", [Daniel E. Mica, Chairman; James E. Mace, Staff Director]. -- (Washington D.C.: U.S. G.P.O.: For sale by the Supt. of Docs, U.S. G.P.O., 1988), (Shipping list: 88-521-P).
* United States, "Commision on the Ukrainian Famine. Oral history project of the Commission on the Ukraine Famine", James E. Mace and Leonid Heretz, eds. (Washington, D.C.: Supt. of Docs, U.S. G.P.O., 1990), 
Many more are available at the InfoUkes Famine resource page (from which I culled the above references). Also, there is a virtual treasure trove of material in the US Library of Congress Online Catalog. Search for "famine ukraine". Horbal 18:00, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Your "generally recognized numbers and facts" are lies cooked up by Nazis. Putting in references to books that you haven't read is intellectually dishonest. Some of your sources are quite questionable indeed: the World Congress of Free Ukrainians, for example, a known warren of fascists that has been behind the production of loads of lies, such as _Harvest of Despair_, which was exposed by Douglas Tottle as utter fraud. Shorne 10:04, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Further reading

message: - using the word alienation, especially with all the Marxian connotations can lead to confusion to the point where it almost seems intentional.  I have removed the word.
- another flag word is productivity and the many connotations of it.  One sentence is: "Despite the initial plans and expectations, collectivisation, accompanied by the bad harvest of 1932–1933, led to a drop in farming productivity, which did not regain the NEP level until 1940."  Productivity can mean so many things, what specifically is meant here.  I'm quite sure I could show (some aspect of) productivity went up in this time frame.  Please be more specific.
- removed some POV adjectives whom I assume from the style (although I didn't look) were probably written by Fred Bauder.  "Just the facts, ma'am". Ruy Lopez 09:04, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Rehabilitating the Nazis, that's what it is. Goebbels, Hearst, and some other Nazis manufactured these lies, then suddenly (lo and behold!) they became the truth in the 1950s. Shorne 09:56, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: I don't buy the claim by Brzezinski. Did he do any research? No, he was just aping something that someone else said. We might as well cite our next-door neighbours if we're going to use sources like Brzezinski. (And need I point out that no citation is given?) The one by Werth is OK, with a reference—and with the more scientific discussion that I and others provided. Shorne 09:56, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  changes 

message: Definately lots of bias here, but who has the time to fix it... Mir 05:15, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Bias

message: Your other edits are reasonable but can you explain why you made these changes:
1. liquidation of private property of land. 
changed to:
transfer of the land from kulaks to peasants.
I favor the first version because the land wasnt realy transfered to peasants, it was transfered to the state (or am I wrong). Furthermore, land was taken from everyone who had land, not just kulaks and again transfered to the state.
: liquidation of private property of land doesn't sound like a phrase from someone who uses English as their primary language.  The important thing is that private property did not cease to exist - peasants shoes weren't owned by the state, so why mention private property of all?  "Ownership of land, the majority of which was in the hands of rich peasants, was transfered to the state" is fine.
: Private ownership of land specifically did cease. I dont know if its right to say kulaks had the majority of land, anyone have any stats on this? If they had more than 50% then i'd agree with "Ownership of land, the majority of which was in the hands of rich peasants, was transfered to the state". Also, while theoretically land was supposed to go to the peasants in reallity it went to the state Mir 23:54, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't mind if the resolution is there but it belongs at the end of the article, if at all.  The Canadian government deciding what happened in the Ukraine 70 years after the fact is - politically motivated, far removed from the fact and in many ways irrelevant. Ruy Lopez 21:50, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: "During the revolution, the peasants seized the land," so who owned the land before the revolution? I know a large part of it was owned by large land owners, but certainly not all of it. I find it hard to imagine that every single hectare of land was "seized" by a different owner after the revolution, thereby making Stalin's collectivizations a just and fair enforcement of the legal status quo. I'm quite sure that at least some of the land persisted in the hands of the same owner from circa 1900 up until Stalin's collectivization program. 130.71.96.19 23:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: revisions by Ruy Lopez

message: I have been able to find evidence for a drought in 1931 (by searching online at Amazon in Years of Hunger, , but not during the period of greatest impact of the famine, early 1933, following the harvest of 1932. Could those of you who feel drought played a significant role in the famine, please clarify the situation? Also, while there is some mention of both typhus and typhoid affecting people weakened by starvation, there does not seem to be any evidence of this as an independent factor.  Fred Bauder 15:10, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
:Yes, I would like to see someone look into this a bit more. This article seems to occasionally be edited with assertions that a large portion, or even the majority, of the deaths were due to drought conditions. I would love to see a deeper source based analysis of these claims. 130.71.96.19 23:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Drought

message: Trey Stone, you can not remove links to web pages whose opinion you disagree with, and leave only external links to pages you agree with.  This is trying to impose your POV on the article. Ruy Lopez 11:10, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: external links

message: What's the deal with moving Collectivisation to Collectivization and back? Is is some sort of pissing match? --Gene s 09:46, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You're damn straight it is. J. Parker Stone 22:00, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Moving articles back and forth

message: VeryVerily's changes reverted as a condition of my unblocking him. Although his changes seem mostly rather minor, he also deleted a good deal of material in the same edit and should make such changes gradually and with due respect of using the discussion pages a well where there is disagreement. - Marshman 05:30, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I noted in E-mail to Marshman that most of the deletion was a mistake, but not a huge one as this is a wiki where it's easy to patch such things up, but even so this was absolutely not a revert as Neutrality falsely charged (and blocks are harder to fix).  I have made the edit with the paragraphs alluded to in E-mail restored, which is what we agreed to. VeryVerily 06:07, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Reversion

message: just simply reading the page, I noticed the sentence "Decades later, with the start of the Cold War, historians would begin reinvestigating Goebbels' claims and, surprisingly, most investigators found them to be true."
No mention is made of what Goebbels claims are, and no link is provided. This seems rather dumb.
:The point is that with The New York Times and other sympathetic media publishing stories about how wonderful conditions were in Ukraine at the height of the famine, it was thought that Goebbel's claims were just Nazi propaganda. They turned out, in large part, to be true. Not sure that information is still in the article, but that was the point being made. User:Fred Bauder Talk 20:36, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Goebbels claims

message: The terminology has been discussed before (#Use of word kulak, above), but this exact issue wasn't broached.
Kulak may have been a traditional term for a class in the Russian Empire, but it was used and wildly misused by the Soviet communist party.  I'm concerned that this article is making the mistake of unselfconsciously doing the same when it says that "kulaks did this or that", or that "X number of kulaks were deported".
I'm not saying the term is offensive, I'm saying that we don't use the term, or at least that we don't assign the same meaning that the Soviets did during collectivization.
The article at kulak seems to avoid this, by referring to "people who were labelled kulaks", or putting quotation marks around the word.  Would anyone oppose my editing this article, and any others, to use the term in the same way as that article does?  —Michael Z. 2005-04-7 03:13 Z
Ye me
Just wanted to add is some of the Russian translation slightly wrong, just noticed some differances of the spelling for state and collective farms?
::I have tried to clean up the article in this respect. Dietwald 09:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Unselfconscious use of the term "kulak"

message: Repeated attempts to use the term genocide to describe the Ukrainian famine are POV. Even if I agree with you that it was a genocide, it's still disputed by a number of historians. It's clearly a famine, clearly a democide (which includes "knowingly wreckless and depraved disregard for life"), but its status as genocide is disputed. Even the Holomodor article acknowledges the dispute. -- TheMightyQuill 12:09, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. For all it matters. The Ukrainian famine can be considered a genocide, but there is no agreement on this -- unlike the Holocaust, or the killing of Armenians by Turkey at the end of WWIDietwald 19:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: anytime:) Dietwald 13:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Genocide

message: As a historian of Soviet Russia, I would like to point out that Amis's book is considered by the majority of historians of this subject to be largely biased and poorly sourced. I completely agree with the mention of the August 7 decree on pulic property and think it is relevant to the discussion, but could this point be referenced to a historian of more repute and more thorough research? 09:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Amis and 'Koba the Dread'

message: So, generally you're supposed to go by what the first person who wrote the article used, but unfortunately, the first entry gave the article a title with British spelling (Collectivisation) but wrote content with the American spelling (Collectivization). Can anyone give any reason to choose one spelling over the other? - TheMightyQuill 09:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: American English is spoken by more people around the world
I'm not sure. Most europeans use british spelling, plus, many of the former british colonies. Canadians such as my self would write collectivization, but our population doesn't add much to the global total. - TheMightyQuill 03:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

text: "American english is spoken by more pople around the world" - Care to cite such a bold statement?Tourskin 01:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

text: American spelling is written in the United States and (as a second language) the Philippines.  British spelling is written in Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Belize, Australia, New Zealand, and (as a second or minority language) Japan, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria, etc. 
Will Sandberg (talk) 23:46, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: British vs American spelling

message: This article makes no mention of collectivization or Soviet agriculture after the second world war. Itoldalthea 04:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It remained much as the same as before.Tourskin 01:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Collectivization after the second world war?

message: Please don't add categories that do not follow from article text. The term unfree labor has a specific meaning that you have no rights to extend. In principle, all labor is unfree: if you don't work and earn for living, you will die (unless you live in a banana paradise or have millions). This is especially true for soviet Union, where not working was a criminal offense (called "social parasitism").  `'mikka 23:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: kolkhoz/sovkhoz were not serfdom or "unfree labor": the workers were neither slaves nor prisoners: one could leave kolkhoz and work elsewhere. And let us not go into a discussion that the whole Soviet Union was not a free society. I strongly suggest you to edit things you are expert or can provide references from material published in reliable sources.  `'mikka 17:06, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: kolkhoz sovkhoz

message: Please provide references or you will be blocked from editing. `'mikka 16:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Threats and Reversions 

message: Lao Wai adds false and incorrect material, but since no one else bothers to edit this page, despite my requests for comments in several places, I am tired to figth stubbornness alone, leaving the article tagged for future editors. `'mikka 20:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Totally disputed 

message: Okay, I know dbose2's recent edits are going to be reverted soon, and the great majority of them should be. Unreferenced accusations against people like Koestler & Orwell are totally out of line, referring to Ukrainians who view the famine as genocide as "western propagandists" is totally out of line, and a great many other things are obviously NPOV and should be reverted. The main issue, however, is difficult: how to find a version of this article that will be acceptable to both communists (who seem to have some legitimate criticisms of accusations of genocide and sources) and ukrainians (who have legitimate criticisms of communist actions and soviet sources)? "The black deeds of the kremlin" is an interesting example: I can't find any references to it on the internet aside from "Genocide memorial" pages holding it up as proof, and Communist pages, decrying it as the work of Goebbels. It was published with the author "S.O. Pidhainy" but I can't find any information on him either. Before we descend into a long revert war, can we please discuss? - TheMightyQuill 15:05, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe we must simply use most recent scholarly sources written by internationally recognized scientists like Robert Conquest. Some people think that one should find a "middle ground" between the official Soviet propaganda and "western science". But the middle ground between huge lie and truth is lie (as Vladimir Bukovsky said). Fortunately, no one is trying to find the middle between the science and pseudo-science in natural sciences, where I came from.Biophys 16:47, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Saying that, I agree 100% that a lot of statements in the present version are completely unsourced and misleading, as far as I know from the books.Biophys 16:51, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I think we simply do not need a long discussion of situation at Ukraine here, because there is Holodomor article. As well, we should not discuss Conquest. There is a separate article about him.Biophys 22:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality between Communism and Ukrainian nationalism

message: Someone just inserted here a text telling about  "incredible falsehood and lies of Robert Conquest", without actually supporting this by credible references. This is original reserach (OR) that has no place in WP.Biophys 16:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Incredible falsehood and lies of Robert Conquest"

message: The source specifically states, re: Harvest of Sorrow by Conquest:
The endnote gives as the source a book called "The Black Deeds of the Kremlin," edited by S. O. Pidhainy in 1953. Nowhere in the notes or in the bibliography is the credibility of this source even discussed. As it happens, like several other of Mr. Conquest's principal sources, the book was published by Ukrainian emigres in Canada and the United States not long after World War II.
The eyewitness testimony may indeed be reliable, but far more debatable is the thesis that the famine was specifically aimed as an instrument of genocide against the Ukraine. The clear implication of this book is that the author has taken the side of his Ukrainian sources on this issue, even though much of his evidence does not support it well. Mr. Conquest's attempts to document the claim that while people were starving in the Ukraine they were being well fed just across the border in Russia fall far short of a rigorous standard - a few citations from "The Black Deeds of the Kremlin" and other exile sources do not make the case. And the author himself estimates that at least two million of the approximately seven million people who died in the famine perished not in the Ukraine, but in the Northern Caucasus and other intensely agricultural areas elsewhere in the country.
The Village Voice article (I can reference this as well if that helps) states:
In The Harvest of Sorrow, Conquest outdoes himself. He weaves his terror-famine from unverifiable (and notoriously biased) émigré accounts. He leans on reportage from ex-Communist converts to the American Way. He cites both "Walker" and Ammende. Black Deeds of the Kremlin, a period piece published by Ukrainian émigrés in 1953, is footnoted no less than 145 times.
What exactly is your problem with these sources? - TheMightyQuill 17:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, did you read this book by Conquest? It is based on many hundreds of publications, not on the obscure "Black Deeds of the Kremlin". Your segment says: "Robert Conquest, however, has been criticized for an over-reliance on one book "Black deeds of Kremlin" by S. O. Pidhainy) as a source for estimations on the death toll in Ukraine". However your source only disputes a couple of specific examples. It does not claim and does not provide any arguments that Conquest wrongly estimated the number of victims. Most important, the estimate of the number of victims by Conquest was not based on "Black deeds of Kremlin"Biophys 18:44, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

text: With regard to your second point, if you make a reference Village Voice, you must provide a link to Village Voice, not to a personal web site (WP:SOURCE)Biophys 18:44, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: First, I'm using other peoples criticism, not my own reading of the book, as that would be original research. Second, I don't need to provide a link to the Village Voice article, as it hasn't been archived online. If you don't want to read the version on the personal website, you can go find the print article yourself. - TheMightyQuill 19:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why did you revert all my changes in the first paragraph? Using the book by Conquest is not OR. Quite the opposite. This is scholarly secondary source published by a notable internationally recognized historian, exactly as recommended by WP:SOURCE.Biophys 20:03, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NYT Article:

message: Please explain in detail the massive deletions you did during reorganization, or your work will be reverted. `'Míkka 15:23, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit of Themightyquill

message: For "The failures of collectivisation are also revealed in official documents":
The two references for this sentence are from a blog. WP:Verification states:Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.An exception is carved out for:Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.I don't believe this blog is maintained by an established expert and question their use as source material. Thoughts? ∴ Therefore | talk 01:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are a bit mistaken about the issue here. In this case it is not a blog  but rather an archive. Ane the ref is to a photocopy of a letter to a Soviet official, it  and may be a temporary supplementary ref in lieu of a more direct ref. However I deleted the sentence as misplaced and falsely referrnced: the document in question is not a "Soviet offcial document", but a personal letter. `'Míkka>t 02:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I apologize if this site is an official archive usable as a reliable source. I was taken aback by the site's home page self-description as a blog. If this site is self-published, then please understand I am not questioning whether the documents are valid (in this case, I presume as much) but instead rather if they are reliable as defined by WP:V: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." Thanks for taking care of this matter. ∴ Therefore | talk 16:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Blog reference

message: We have information on Latvia and Ukraine, but not on other republics. Perhaps efforts could be made to assist the writing of paragraphs on other areas and their experiences of collectivisation. I will add chapter headings for the other two Baltic States if someone wants to fill them in for me. Lstanley1979 (talk) 22:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Other republics

message: "The equal land shares among the peasants gave rise to food shortages in the cities. Although grain had nearly returned to pre-war production levels, the large estates who had produced it for urban markets had been divided up.[2] Not interested in acquiring money to purchase overpriced goods, the peasants chose to eat their produce rather than sell it, so city dwellers only saw half the grain that had been available before the war.[2] Before the revolution, peasants controlled only 2,100,000 km² divided into 16 million holdings, producing 50% of the food grown in Russia and consuming 60%. After the revolution, the peasants controlled 3,140,000 km² divided into 25 million holdings, producing 85% of the food, but consuming 80% of what they grew. .[3]"
Remaining for city dwellers:
Before: 40% of 50% is 20%.
The peasants grew half the food. What remained after they had eaten 60% of that was 20% of the total grown.
After: 20% of 85% is 17%.
The peasants grew 85% of the food. What remained after they had eaten 80% of that was 17% of the total grown.
A difference of 3%. This cannot, alone, produce food shortages worth discussing, except maybe at dinner, by the city folk.
What is truly significant about these numbers is not, how much less was produced for city consumption, but how much of the percentage of the total crop they obtained per unit of land. As the number for total crop before and after is not given, and neither is the productivity of the land given to the peasants, before it was given to them, this is only a curiousity, but it is a curiousity that is statistically more significant than the supposed fact that is being presented in the article.
Before: 50% / 2,100,000 square kilometres = 0.0000002381 of the total crop per square kilometer.
After:  85% / 3,140,000 square kilometres = 0.0000002707 of the total crop per square kilometer.
2381 / 2707 = .8795 
Peasants produced 88% as much of the total crop per square kilometer before, as they did after.
2707 / 2381 = 1.1369 
Peasants produced 113.7% as much of the total crop per square kilometer after, as they did before.
They were given land that had previously belonged to landowners. Perhaps that was better land. Because we don't know the total productivity, they might even have produced less per acre than before. Or both. Or it was a little better, and they produced more, maybe it wasn't better, and they produced more; any combination of those. But the one thing we know for sure is, the statistics that are given do not show that it wasn't the dividing up of the land in itself that caused the famine. Which is in the article. This needs fixing. 
I am 96% sure that my figures aren't Original Research. It was mathematics, and therefore empirically observable, repeatable, and verifiable. It is a scientific fact, as long as it is presented correctly. Anarchangel (talk) 04:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Add it up

message: The book is an apology of Joseph Stalin and isn't a "source" but rather an anecdote.Xx236 (talk) 12:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Martens, Ludo. Un autre regard sur Staline - a source? 

message: The collectivization caused the death of 11 440 000  plus organized transfer of several millions plus flight of millions peasants. According to logic of another articles Collectivization can be described as a population transfer of (probably) 24 million.Xx236 (talk) 13:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of victims 

message: Why is there a lack of precursor information regarding the cause of Collectivization in the Soviet Union? There are numerous textbook sources that indicate the important role of Buhkarin and Trotsky on the formation of the idea of collective farms in the USSR.  They introduced the idea as a positive change to counter the agricultural issues within the state, and to the best of my knowledge, Stalin used these ideas to exploit and terrorize the countryside.  Is this a correct understanding? If so, why is this overlooked in the background section of the page? Alihay (talk) 22:32, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: History

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thread_title: File:442px-Kolkhozianos.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: Can we roll all of the Viola citations into one? I'm sorry, but every page of a book doesn't count as a new source of information. (This might lead to most of that 'information' being removed; which I think would benefit the article)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.243.128 (talk) 13:42, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You can list Viola as a source and then use cites of page such and such for each fact cited. Citations should cite the page of the source for each fact used. User:Fred Bauder Talk 20:43, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Viola citations

message: The title misinforms, there was no real decollectivization.Xx236 (talk) 11:58, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Decollectivization under German occupation