Talk:Soviet and communist studies

message: This article notes that the historiography of Soviet and Communist studies is characterized by a split between "traditionalists" and "revisionists"-- a fair if simplistic characterization of the field. But then it sees confate the social science research with Cold War stances, at times unfairly maligning scholars writing after "traditionalists" like Conquest. This article needs a clean-up. 172 21:45, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [Untitled]

message: Poor sourcing, PoV, stub, vague/misleading title. There is so much damn information under the heading "Soviet and Communist studies" ranging from a timeline of primary sources (obviously there was a media blockade and sources came out in waves; who released these sources? Was it official or smuggled out?), history of Western documentation of Soviet (and Communist?) history and sociology, a discussion of major authors... And these are all just off the top of my head. Instead, there is nothing but a little stub of unsourced unprofessional opinion that divides an historiographic controversy into 'traditionalists' and 'revisionists,' and then dares assert without a source that "Revisionists [...] are more numerous and, furthermore, dominate academic institutions and learned journals."
Really, this is garbage. If it's not cleaned up, then it ought not to exist in this state.67.44.164.142 (talk) 13:12, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that in recent weeks I have done significant cleanup, and also added some sources. It still needs to be improved further by someone more knowledgeable of the subject, but I think the article should be kept.(talk) user:Al83tito  20:50, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is absolute garbage 

message: This article now focuses mostly on Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism. While this should also be mentioned to an extent, we have other articles on that topic, and it isn't the sole focus of Soviet and communist studies. Soviet and Communist studies was primarily the broad, mainstream field of area studies of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, as found in Western universities, and sometimes in cooperation with the military and intelligence communities. For example it could include studies of topics such as Soviet agriculture, Soviet media, Kremlinology, studies of the Soviet military etc. Nowadays it has mostly been succeeded by "Russian studies", "Eastern European studies" or similar fields and programmes in universities, and continues as a more narrow historical field under different names. The paragraph on the supposed "double genocide theory" isn't very accurate or very relevant to Soviet and communist studies. One editor has asserted that such a theory really exists in Lithuanian debate, but I have seen no evidence of such a theory being posited by anyone in English language sources or the European sphere, certainly not within the field of Soviet and communist studies, and that article is currently, as admitted by its author, a WP:SUBPOV outlining the views of (what Barry Rubin called a tiny group of) opponents of recent political developments related to communism in Europe, and not a general article on these developments. The fact that the article is about Lithuania is made clear already in the first sentence that includes its Lithuanian name; I believe a WP:SUBPOV article outlining a certain (opposing) perspective on recent developments in Lithuania isn't WP:DUE in that paragraph here in this article on the field of Soviet and Communist studies. The sources discussing this don't mention or even engage with Soviet and communist studies as a research field either, and quite frankly seem ignorant of the history of the totalitarian paradigm. I can't see a strong justification for mentioning Katz, a linguist, in an article on Soviet and communist studies, when he doesn't even seem to be aware of the existence of this academic field/tradition.
The use of "revisionist" here in the context of the various mainstream European initiatives that build on the totalitarian model to condemn communism, e.g. in the European Parliament, is incorrect; revisionism in the context of Soviet and communist studies encompass those who "insisted that the old image of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state bent on world domination was oversimplified or just plain wrong" as the article explains. Applying the totalitarian model in a rather traditional, Cold War-like manner is not "revisionist". In the context of Soviet and communist studies it is the traditionalist view, opposed by the revisionists.
Perhaps it is possible to say something about how mainstream political developments in the European Parliament and other European political bodies to condemn communism build on the totalitarian paradigm, and on how that paradigm has its roots in Cold War-era Soviet and communist studies to a significant degree, and on how Central and Eastern European countries have been influential (as discussed by Neumayer) in strengthening the totalitarian interpretation of communism in the spirit of traditionalist Soviet and communist studies, and on how these developments have promoted an anti-communist remembrance policy of the EU since the 2004 EU enlargement, how the "Europeanization of an antitotalitarian 'collective memory' of communism" has fostered "a field of anticommunism", but it would have to be worded differently than the current paragraph, and use sources that discuss and engage with communism and its legacy more directly than the current sources (with the exception of Neumayer). --Tataral (talk) 02:59, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, and have trimmed the article per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. --Nug (talk) 06:12, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Focus of the article

message: The concept is not popular among scholars in Germany or internationally.
??? Or among bartenders in Oklahoma, probably. What information is this sentence even supposed to convey? This is non-encyclopedic writing. Volunteer Marek  22:29, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaningless sentence that tries to hard... 

message: The capitalization of "Communist" in "Soviet and Communist studies" was the most common form in this historical field, because it focused more on specific Communist Party apparatuses than the generic idea of communism. As such, the Wiki article move/ name change to "Soviet and communist studies" was not an improvement. -- Rauisuchian (talk) 02:25, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion to revert the article renaming