Talk:Holodomor/Archive 4

message: If someone wants to open an arbitration case, this is not yet the reason to abuse other editors and assume bad faith in every disagreeing edit. I understand that some would like to never admit that the mass murder of 7+ million people is considered a genocide by quite a significant portion of the world. I don't understand why this should require personal attacks directed at other editors who simply try to enforce the WP:NC policy.--Andrew Alexander 05:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I admonish you to follow your own advice. To demonstrate that you are editing in good faith, you can ask that Yakudza, Ultramarine, and AndriyK stop arbitrarily reverting back to your version of the intro when they appear uninterested in participating in the talk page discussion. Further, your post above shows that you yourself have been failing to engage in the legitimate neutrality concerns with your version of the intro stated over and over again here on talk for over a week. First, no one on this talk page is failing to admit the famine is "considered a genocide by quite a significant portion of the world." If you are referring to the users whose work you are reverting, your comment is a terrible misrepresentation. The version of the intro that you are reverting states: In some accounts the famine, often referred to as a "man-made" [4], is called the Ukrainian Genocide [5] [6] [7]. Ukrainian émigré historians were among the first to argue that the famine was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. Second, this comment is disingenuous: I don't understand why this should require personal attacks directed at other editors who simply try to enforce the WP:NC policy. I assume that you are implying that you are 'trying to enforce the naming conventions' policy. Yet, Irpen and I have probably explained over a dozen times over the course of more than a week that you lack compelling evidence that "Ukrainian genocide" is the common name of the subject. Further, if you are implying that the editors whose work you are reverting are engaging in personal attacks, your comment is again a misrepresentation. It is not a "personal attack" to criticize behavior that renders it impossible to reach a compromise in accordance with Wikipedia content policies such as NPOV. The blind reversions by Yakudza, Ultramarine, and AndriyK, made without bothering to read the discussion, are not helpful. 172 06:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You "admonish" me with another assumption of bad faith?--Andrew Alexander 15:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm telling you to act in good faith. I'll keep my assumptions to myself. Now, let's get down to business. We need to get the page unprotected; hopefully we can do this without waisting a lot of time in arbitration. You have not yet commented on Abakharev's proposed compromise. 172 05:39, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Could we please stop personal attacks on this forum

message: ::NB: I replaced the word 'disaster' with 'the Holodomor'. A hurricane is a disaster, but the Holodomor was a criminal act. Just my opinion. I am not going to go ballistic over the issue, just thought to point out that an attempt of keeping the language somewhat interesting may have had unintended consequences. Dietwald 20:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not want to bring up the 'bolding issue' again myself, but I agree with Irpen. Didn't know about the Ukrainian Genocide article's history. Agree on this is principle, though. Would be a cool article that could be linked to from the 'was the Holodomor genocide' section of this article, and we could all go to war on that page;) Dietwald 21:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The proposal is for the lead paragraph. We do not need to negotiate the paragraph on the countries that have designated the famine a genocide because there is not much of a discrepancy between between the subsequent paragraphs in the two competing intros. 172 | Talk 09:44, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that mentioning the recognition of the Holodomor as genocide by different countries at the end of the lead paragraph is something that could be considered essential to the topic. It should then, however, be combined with the reference to the discussion "was the holodomor genocide". I don't oppose including some reference to the genocide position in there. What I think we should avoid is any statement that gives the genocide position priority over other interpretations, in fact, it should be treated as questionable. To Alexander: I am at a point where I would not say that it wasn't genocide, but I would say that I don't think it was genocide. The difference is subtle, but crucial. It's the same logic as saying that you don't say you believe there are no pink unicorns, but you say that you don't believe there are pink unicorns. Maybe it was genocide, but I don't think the evidence for that is sufficiently clear. Pomnish? Dietwald 13:01, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro as of 20:34, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

message: Let's see if this works:
Intro Game                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     	Intro Game
Trolls coalition                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               	Allmighty coalition
Holodomor () is a term derived from the Ukrainian expression moryty holodom (Морити голодом), which means "to inflict death by hunger". The term refers to the 1932–1933 famine on the territory of today's Ukraine, as well as some regions of Russia (see Famines in Russia and USSR). It is often referred to as the Ukrainian Genocide stating that it was a man-made disaster engineered by the Soviets to specifically target Ukrainian people (see section #Was the Holodomor genocide?.	Holodomor () is a term derived from the Ukrainian expression moryty holodom (Морити голодом), which means "to inflict death by hunger". The term refers to the 1932–1933 famine on the territory of today's Ukraine, as well as some regions of Russia (see Famines in Russia and USSR). It is often referred to as the Ukrainian Genocide stating that it was a man-made disaster engineered by the Soviets to specifically target Ukrainian people (see section #Was the Holodomor genocide?.
Now please edit to make it as close as possible (as much as your POV allows you) to your opponents version. Bryndza
:Gentlemen, do we need the games? If we just discuss it in good faith we could get to a compromise version. Games, and especially with rules so inflammatory formulated (like "Teams" and their names) will lead us nowhere. --Irpen 18:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Irpen. Wikipedia has strick content policies that must be followed. We cannot think in terms of "teams" and "games." 172 05:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, the wording proposed here is not good: by putting the uncontentious reference to the man-made nature of the famine together with the disputetd reference to the term genocide in a sentence that seems to imply a minority position, we cast doubt on the man-made nature of the event. I think we should not forget to keep THIS aspect clearly in the intro. The Holodomor was the result of deliberate government actions, which included the deliberate neglect of a vast number of people, with the result that millions of these died. It was a crime, even if it was not a genocide.Dietwald 06:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

text: A Stalinist apologist troll with not enough spine to sign his 'contribution'. Go, play with Zundel&Co. Dietwald 20:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Seconding Dietwald above. 207.151.38.178, to cite the scholarship finding that "numerous natural factors" (Tauger's argument that climatic conditions played a role in the famine?) as the basis of an attempt to exonerate the actions of the Soviet regime is a far more fitting example of what you call 'spin done in one of the most vile possible ways.' The fact that RW Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft (along with other famine specialists Mark Tauger and Lynne Viola) do not ascribe to the thesis of the famine as genocide does not mean that they consider the famine a "myth," as you callously call it. The famine was real and an atrocity. The view of historians like Davies and Tauger holds that regardless of whether or not weather played a role in the famine, the confiscation of grain during a famine was an atrocity. Frankly, I think your 'spin' of the work of RW Davies is a falsification of history much more 'vile' and insidious than anything coming from those "uneducated right-wingers." 172 | Talk 20:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

text: 207.151.38.178, in response to your points in no particular order, of course no one can deny legitimately that life expectancy went up dramatically under Stalin; that serious research was published suggesting that climatic conditions played a role in the famine; that Davies established himself as a leading specialist on the famine; and, most importantly, that that a historian should never intentionally exaggerate anything-- including the number of deaths attributable to Stalin's terror. By the way, eventually I am going to work toward inserting summaries of Davies' work in this article. Now, as for you defending Stalin based on the aforementioned points, I am quite distressed. No serious historian disagrees with the characterization of the regime's confiscation of grain during the famine, along with the regime's brutal blockade of affected areas, as an atrocity. Conterminous, seemingly favorable social and economic trends are immaterial to this characterization. Further, for the sake of argument, even if future publications validated Davies' proposed reduction of the death toll from Conquest's figures, such a reduction would also be immaterial to the characterization of the famine as a Stalinist atrocity. Davies' figures are still incredibly atrocious. If you cannot acknowledge that, Dietwald's correct in and free to-- in your words-- 'throw around the apologist term.' 172 | Talk 23:07, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup. Anonymous, you are an apologist. Go away and play with Tottle, Zundel, and the Turkish government (re. Armenian genocide). Dietwald 23:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

text: FYI I am going to be ignoring your comments. I am sure that the other users are going to do the same. 172 | Talk 21:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Game

message: 172, What's the status on Arbitration? Dietwald 18:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for the delay. I've been unexpectedly busy. So Andrew Alexader has at least another day to try to show a willingness to compromise. 172 | Talk 02:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Arbitration Status

message: Could somebody with more wiki-brains than I do some archiving? The page takes ages to load on my dial-up. Thank you. Dietwald 00:19, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm archiving the parts of the talk page where the discussions seemed inactive, which still leaves the talk page quite long. 172 | Talk 04:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Archiving

message: Putting the debates on Ukranian nationalism aside for a moment, as a soil scientist, I would just add that "poor weather conditions" and other factors that are debated by the "scholars" as a role in the famine need to wait until paleao-archeological data on pollen and soil chemistry for this period become known.  As any farmer will agree, "poor weather conditions" can wreck entire commuinties, indeed empires.  This is not to be a Stalin apologist, but the Ukraine/Soviet Famine is certainly generated thought some mix of climatic with lessez-faire (e.g. British role in Irish 11840's famine)and exclusively active (ie. the Chinese 1960 famine that tranversed numerous global climate zones) factors.
::I think the weather question is interesting. Also neglected in this article is the anti-collectivization actions by peasants, which included the slaughter of animals, including draft-animals. This certainly contributed to the decline in the harvest. However, while these factors played a role, the actions by the Soviet government were decisive in triggering the famine. After all, the government could have let the peasants keep their meagre harvest rather than confiscate it in toto. Dietwald 19:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Weather

message: add this ->  pl:Wielki głód na Ukrainie  exe 11:49, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: PL wiki

message: The word should be "drought". I don't have the Wiki-smarts to know how to request to fix it on a protected page.
Cheers, Peter1968 12:20, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Draught 

message: Lest I get myself suckered into even more personal attacks, I will refrain from commenting on anything AA is going to say here in the future and instead support wholeheartedly an arbitration process to be started. 
At the same time, I wish to apologize to the wiki community for my most recent outbursts against AA. While I stand by my assessment of him, they were inappropriate. Dietwald 12:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Arbitration Now

message: While I think the historical record proves that soviet grain requisitions and the decision not to engage in any famine relief contributed greatly to the number of deaths, there is another side to it.  Ukranian peasantry strongly resisted collectivization, and there are many personal and official accounts of ukranians slaughtering their herds and not planting or sowing any crops as a form of resistance. The obvious result of these actions were famine. The soviet authorities (stalin) chose to punish the ukranians for thier behavior, and so refused to aid them.  My understanding is that the problem was twofold.  The soviets requisitioned some grain, but there wasn't enough being grown there to begin with, so the requisitions were particularly devestating.  The article only mentions that in one sentence, when it may very well have been largely or completely responsible for the famine. Collectivization was not a disaster because it was inherently flawed. It was less efficient than the individual plots in most cases, but had the peasantry cooperated they would have produced enough food both for soviet export and for personal consumption. The article starts out very POV and gets less so as it continues, still, it would be preferable to make it NPOV throughout.
Other notes: Was it genocide? I think that's a bad question.  A better question is: Was it systematic cultural reppression?  I think the answer to that is pretty clearly yes. The intention was not to destroy the ukranian people but to destroy their culture.  Cultural Genocide? maybe.  Genocide? No.
--Irongaard 04:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Irongaard has a point. I think the resistance activities of the Ukrainian peasantry should be mentioned. It's mentioned, for example, in the PBS Series "People's Century", and Robert Conquest provides the voice-over, if I am not entirely mistaken. This aspect was included a long time ago, but I think it was actually AA who removed it pretty quickly. I have not bothered about this aspect anymore, though that aspect should be included. Yes, this will start another war here, but I think we should at least discuss this aspect. Dietwald 07:04, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Ooops, forgot one thing: whether collectivization was inherently flawed or not depends on what one refers to. IT was intended to make agriculture more productive. It did not. It was intended to create more equality among peasants. That it did. So, from an agronomic point of view, it was flawed, from a political point of view, it eventually was a resounding success. Dietwald 07:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Irpen, the reason why I have not pressed this point is because I am not as sure about this aspect. I would like to see it discuss here on the talk pages, though. I am sorry to be unable to provide more detail on this, but I will try to find some time to find some more information on this some time in the future. It's not that important right now. Dietwald 16:03, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feels more like point-counterpoint than a coherent article. 

message: I intend to resume work on this article, picking up where we all left off in the next few days. I all of sudden became much busier at work than I'd expected a couple of weeks ago. My apologies especially extend to Irpen and Dietwald, who were closely collaborating with me here a couple of weeks ago. 172 | Talk 19:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Glad to see some people are still alive. Felt like being in that joke about the last man on earth who is in a room when suddenly somebody knocks on the door... gg. Ok, let's move forward? Unprotect, put in the current version, and move to arbitration should the Usual Suspects move straight to edit-war to a version ante-status-quo? Dietwald 13:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Apologies

message: Fourth paragraph down in this section. The word should be drought not draught. Page is currently protected so I can't correct this. -- Krash (Talk) 18:36, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Holodomor#Causes_and_outcomes]]

message: Is there any chance this article is ever going to be revived? Has unreason finally defeated reason? How wonderful -- Stalin would enjoy this. 11:26, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Funny how some people can only get involved to destroy, but can't be bothered to move a finger to actually build this page. Thanks, Andrew, for contributing to yet another defeat of Stalin's victims. Hope you feel proud. Dietwald 12:25, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Movement, Please!

message: Very well done, Irpen. Bravo! --Lysytalk 22:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you! That's a music to my ears. I think a small modification to the lead is needed to say that estimation of loss of life vary widely, but all reasonable estimates are in the millions range. Just could not come up with the good phrase off hand. Will think about it when I have time or anyone is welcome to add that. Other than that, I suggest we freese the intro and return to the article itself. --Irpen 22:32, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I added the info about the millions of casualties to the lead. I think we can now go back to the rest of the article. --Irpen 04:28, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The lead 

message: The article is protected again. Please note that edit wars do not produce 'any results besides getting everybody involved stressed out. Discuss the desired outcome, negotiate a version that all can live with, and when you are ready to resume editing, place a request for unprotection at WP:RFPP. If you need other editors to make comments on the dispute, place a request for comments. ≈ jossi  ≈ t • @ 03:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is INSANE. Somebody, PLEASE, get the arbitration thing going. I am only online twice a week or so, thus I am hard-pressed to do more than what I have done in the past. Irpen, like your intro. Dietwald 14:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected 

message: I don't see what good is coming from stopping anyone editing this article.  I'm unprotecting, and will watch very closely. Be warned that I'm generally intolerant of edit warring in circumstances like this. --Tony Sidaway 01:52, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Unprotecting

message: There are a number of very strong photos in the article but they are very small and are almost unreadable (esp photos #2 and #3). Maybe we could zoom them out to the size 250..300? The article is long and we can accommodate it without problems. Also there seems to be a revert war over which photo to put to the top. I do not see this be a matter of principle, so maybe just have a straw poll? I, personally would prefer the photo #2, with the city folks walking through the dying people, but it does not seem to be an option for the other editors abakharev 06:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IMO, the child swollen from hunger symbolizes the famine best and is a very emotional image fitting this tragedy. I would prefer that one on top. Also, the one with three corpses lacks the source to begin with. --Irpen 06:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photos 

message: Andrew posted a request for assistance on the admin incident noticeboard (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=43297483&oldid=43295812]).  I see fomr the above that there has been sustained edit warring over this article.  Without weighing the merits of the competing claims, I looked at the most recent revert by Andrew and it seems to me that Irpen's version is stated in more neutral terms, and his tone is closer to that of an encyclopaedia - Andrew's reads to me as being more polemical.  I repeat, though, that this is just the tone and presentation - good intentions and references are evident on both sides.
If Andrew has additional facts (which I think he does) these can surely be worked in in similarly neutral terms.  Please do not edit war, I am sure that with a bit of reasoned debate a suitable compromise can be reached.  It does not look to me as if there is any fundamental dispute as to the nature, cause and seriousness of the famine - you seem to me to be in violent agreement! Just zis Guy you know? 16:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, let's go sentence by sentence of what was erased. First you erased a commonly known term from the first paragraph. There is a long debate on this page by the people who refuse to accept it. However, the term passes the definition of a "common term" according to Wikipedia standards (please read WP:NC - "When choosing a name for a page ask yourself: What word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine?" Is this not neutral?). Second, you erased the sentence "The Holodomor was caused by the seizure of the 1932 crop by the Soviet authorities." It is referenced and seems neutral. Then you erased a referenced sentence "At the height of the famine, while confiscating crops from the starving peasants, the USSR exported 1.70 million tons of grain in 1932 and 1.84 million tons in 1933 (close to a quarter of a ton per each victim in each year)." Again, I don't see anything not neutral here, please correct. Then you deleted "The Soviet authorities also banned travel out of the famine affected areas under the pretext that people travelling for food spread "anti-kolkhoz agitation"." Is this not neutral? If not, please explain why in detail. Then you erased two paragraphs: "The death toll of the famine is estimated at between five and ten million people. The rationale behind the famine as well as the exact number of casualties is unknown because the pertinent archives of the NKVD (later KGB, and today FSB) remain closed to historians in general." and "Ukrainian émigré historians were among the first to argue that the famine was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. Today, the governments or parliaments of 26 countries recognized the 1932-1933 famine as an act of genocide. Among them Ukraine, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, United States, and Vatican City. The fourth Saturday of November is the official day of commemoration of the Holodomor victims in Ukraine. Still the Holodomor remains a politically charged topic for many parties, especially in Russia. Some Russian authors continue claiming that the Holodomor was not an act of genocide but a "mere famine"." Both paragraphs are well supported by references. For instance, each country added to the list above was supported by a reference within edit comments. I can't find anything not neutral about this text. Again, my opinion could be subjective, so I need your explanation of why you deleted this material.--Andrew Alexander 02:48, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I did not erase any particular sentences, I looked at two versions of the opening paragraph and took the view that one of them was stated in more neutral terms.  Andrew's version gave the appearance of advocacy.  Like I said, I make no judgment in respect of the factual accuracy or otherwise of the content, I just felt that Irpen's version represented a better starting point for building a consensus view since the purpose of this article is to document the facts, not to assert a particular political slant on them or to promote a particular agenda.  Revert warring is ridiculous and sterile.  Complaining on the Admin noticeboard when you don't get your way is similarly unproductive and amounts to WP:POINT - article content issues are best sorted by consensus, failing that there are various processes like mediation, article RfC, article improvement drive and so on.  Andrew, you are right that your view of your own work may not be neutral.  So, see if you and the other editors can now work together to include the verifiable facts in language which is as dispassionate as Irpen's that will be great. Just zis Guy you know? 09:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just zis Guy you know, you did erase quite a few sentences by your edit. I asked you what was not neutral in those sentences. Instead of answering the question, you ask me to "be neutral". Would you like me to stay away from editing this article? I am ready to do this. I have added 90% of the facts to this article for the last half a year. You come in, erase, then lecture me on neutrality without answering simple questions. Have it your way. I am out.--Andrew Alexander 17:35, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now go back and actually read what I wrote: I did not erase any specific sentences, I compared the tone of two versions of the introduction and I am of the strong opinion that Irpen's version, irrespective of the merits or otherwise of individual facts, is more encyclopaedic in tone: your version reads like advocacy.  So Irpen's is a better version form which to build a great article.  I have nothign against including verifiable facts (althjough I note that some of what you are trying to promote to the lead is actually stated lower down anyway), what I do not like is coming to an article and having the feeling right away that it is trying to recruit me to right some injustice.  Just zis Guy you know? 08:15, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Complaint on [[WP:AN/I]] 

message: Thank you, whoever reopened the article. And thanks to the others for staying on the ball. The intro right now is really nice, I think. Everything in there, even references to the more controversial words. Maybe we can try to to leave the intro as it is now, though here and there flow COULD be slightly improved, and move on to the article? There is a lot of work that needs to be done there, lot's of sloppy wording and structural problems.Dietwald 09:08, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's why I went back to it.  It states the case baldly, and is the more powerful for that: the reader is presented with the stark reality without the suspicion that somebody is trying to recruit them to a campaign.  It is a very strong opening, in my view, and if the rest of the article can be brought up to that standard we could easily be looking at a featured article candidate - FAs are often thorough and scholarly treatments of subjects which are somewhat off the beaten track.  Just zis Guy you know? 12:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Thank You

message: This page is in dire need of drastic restructuring. It seems that much of the material within this article was merely plucked out from the sensationalistic "Black Book of Communism". This is supposed to be an independent online encyclopedia, not an outlet for imperialist propaganda. 
"By the end of 1933, between five and ten million people had starved to death or had otherwise died unnaturally in Russia and Ukraine."
Pardon my skepticism, but where is the evidence for this alleged death toll? Are these merely outdated estimations from rabidly anti-Communist Westerners to the effect of Robert Conquest who wrote speeches for Margaret Thatcher? I thought there was a non-POV policy at this website. 
RGAE files show that in Ukraine there was a total of 1.54 million excess deaths in 1932-1933. Source: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/harrison/archive/hunger/deaths.xls
Keep in mind that the above data of births and deaths is a revision that occurred in 1934, one year after the famine. 
According to RGAE 1562/329/107: (1933)
1933: Current registration of deaths in Ukraine: 1,309,000
According to RGAE 1562/329/108, 6 (mid-1934)
1933:Revised registration of deaths in Ukraine: 1,909,000
This is all derived from Davies and Wheatcroft's "Years of Hunger" in the final chapter. 
"The exact number of the victims remains unknown; the Soviet Union long denied that the famine had ever existed, and the NKVD (and later KGB) archives on the Holodomor period have never been fully disclosed."
Why would the NKVD deal with agriculture and the the demographics of USSR? The purpose of this agency was to eliminate internal counter-revolutionary threats to the power of the Soviets. To repeat, RGAE archives show that there were 1.54 million excess deaths in Ukraine from 1932-1933. 
"even the official Soviet statistics show a decrease of roughly four million people in the population of Ukraine between 1927 and 1932."
Now this here is a lie. If you'd take a look at the chart that I've linked, Ukraine's population went from 28.9 million in 1926 to 28.6 million in 1931 to 28.4 million in 1934 to 28.3 million in the 1937 census. 
"Taking an estimate of natural population growth of one to two percent, the calculated loss of population in Ukraine was over ten million during these years."
This is inaccurate because Ukraine's population declined by about 50,000 annually even from the famine-free period of 1926-1931. 
"The premeditation of the mass murder can also be judged from the official Soviet figures of grain exports. The USSR exported 1.70 million tons of grain in 1932 and 1.84 million tons in 1933 ([15]), almost a quarter of a ton in each year per each dead in the Holodomor." 
Address this one: how could there have been a premeditation of mass murder in Ukraine when according to pg. 214 of "Years of Hunger" by Davies and Wheatcroft states that between Feb. and July 1933, no less than Politburo decisions and Sovnarkom decrees authorised 320,000 tons of grain for food to be issued to famine-stricken areas? Plus, it must be taken into perspective that the export of grains during 1932-1933 was a mere fraction of the level of previous years. The following manifests this fact:
(exports of thousand tons of grain)
1930: 5832 
1931: 4786 
1932: 1441 
1933: 2319
"The Soviet authorities made sure to prevent the starving Ukrainians from traveling to areas where food was more available." 
Actually, the Soviet authorities made sure to assist starving Ukrainians as I showed in my above refutation.
Zvesda
:Zvezda, all sources are in the article. Feel free to check them. Actually, the article is much better sourced than most WP articles on the controversial subjects. --Irpen 23:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Red Star, your pov has been soundly refuted here, and in the literature on the topic. This is an encyclopdia, not an outlet for Stalin apologists. Dietwald 06:23, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Zvesda, I have some excellent sources that are credible and not ridden with vehement naturalist agendas that show evolution did not take place. I also have some even better sources not ridden with Zionist propganda showing the Holocaust never happened. And some more excellent sources not ridden with anti-Turkish propaganda that there was never such a thing as the Armenian genocide... The reason nobody responds to you is because few people have the nerve to talk to deal with this kind of stuff -- Holocaust denial, Holodomor denial, Armenian genocide denial, or creationism. It's pointless. I am just kind enough to point it out to you. Dietwald 12:15, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't care how I look to you, and I don't need to refute you. I will just ignore you henceforth, unless you become disruptive. Dietwald 06:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious Material 

message: may be a good idea again? If someone does it, please remove this section, since it adds nothing to the discussion as such...Dietwald 12:35, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: archiving

message: To be perfectly honest, discussions like this, and badly edit-warred articles are no small part of the reason why most people are suspicious of WP and dubious of its ability to ever be anything more than a general potpouri of ideas, opinions, and unverified footnotes.  I'm always appalled by people, regardless of their WP "credentials", trying to make NPOV a shorthand for "whatever my point of view is."  
That having been said, I'm rather amazed at how decently some portions of the article have turned out, particularly the intro, which I think does an excellent job of contextualizing the famine, and the particular national perspective the article (should) focus on.  But some portions of the article seem to still bear the scars of people wielding their own ideological or nationalistic axes... the grammar here is atrocious:
In controversy, the term democide, introduced by R.J. Rummel is "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder".[24]. Moreover, arguments that the rural population (in 1932 75% to 85% of Ukrainians resided in villages) does not represent the whole nation, also what terminology to use for the designation of an event that led to the extermination of roughly one quarter of the population of the former Soviet republic of the Ukraine in 1932-1933, as well as the dispute to what extent the Soviet government deliberately aggravated the famine is rather unreasonable and often used for confrontation and politicization of the tragedy.[1]
Although the famine went outside Ukraine's borders into the Volga Basin and the Don and Kuban steppes of Russia, yet the full extensiveness of Stalin's intervention in crop seizure was seen only in Ukraine and Kuban - a region in Russia whose significant rural population was Kuban Cossacks - 18th century descendants from the Zaporozhian Host, and thus with potentially significant Ukrainian lineage.''
Really.  Could someone clean that up?  Maybe just eliminate that whole mess?  There are sentences that are internally contradictory and reflect not just recognition of controversy, but push a particular agenda.  Honestly, I think what the intro says puts it best and most succinctly.  The term Genocide is highly fraught, and as in the introduction, I think it would be best to simply address the sides of the controversy breifly and matter-of-factly.  This can be done -- cite the scholars, cite the political resolutions, refrain from calling either "apologists" or accuse "politicizing/exagerating."  Let the reader look at the article on Genocide, look at the arguments and sources cited here, and decide for themselves whether they feel that this was a unique, ethnically-targeted, intentional killing, or whether it was just a horrible and unintended consequence of some horrid Soviet policies.  
I think that "causes" very well highlights the different strands that played into creating the crisis.  The question of terminology is clearly the real root of the problems here -- but that's not something that can be defnitively resolved by an encyclopedia.  National and ethnic identity and politics did not disappear with the Soviet Union and then magically reappear afterward -- I think this article, or at least, the idea of this article -- is a perfectly legitimate recognition of the impact of a severe famine and violent state policies surrounding it on a particular nationality/group.  Political/policy elements are no small part of why some people consider this to be unique and differentiated from the more general famine in the USSR at the time.  That perspective and the facts that support it do not need to be presented in a way that says "this was a genocide!" nor rejected in a way that says "this is just nationalist exaggeration!"... And I think this article is a lot closer to NPOV than some people are willing to see.  Cleaning up/combining "genocide?" and "politicization" would go a long way to making this article "controversial" only to those with an axe to grind.
Just my $.02. --69.74.48.25 20:57, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: An Outside Opinion

message: By the end of 1933, millions people had starved to death or had otherwise died unnaturally in Russia and Ukraine.
I don't mean any disrespect to the efforts of Wikipedia's editors, but this information is simply incorrect. Demographic data from former USSR archives have revealed since 1990 that the death toll in Ukraine amounted to 1.54 million. I would suggest for you to look up RGAE 1562/329/109. This can be located in "Years of Hunger" by Stephen Wheatcroft and R.W Davies. This consists of demographic data that had recorded 1.9 million deaths in Ukraine in 1933 compared to 522 thousand in 1927. Subtracting the 1927 total from 1933 gives us 1.4 million excess deaths in 1933. For 1932, there were 668 thousand deaths and compared to the data of 1928, there wer 100 thousand excess deaths. Therefore, 1.4 million in 1933 + 100 thousand in 1932 = 1.54 million excess deaths. It is available here on the website of scholar Mark Harrison of Warwick University: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/harrison/archive/hunger/deaths.xls	
 The exact number of the victims remains unknown and probably impossible to find out even within an error of a hunder thousand.
Again, this is incorrect. In April 1990 of Soviet Studies, scholar Stephen Wheatcroft reported extensively on revelations from Russian archives in concern to demographic data. You can look up this article on jstor.org. He very accurately reported that there were between 4 to 5 million deaths in the whole USSR. 
The estimates vary as much as from 1.5[3] to 10[4] million (with the numbers in the higher or lower end of the range being strongly affected by political or otherwise unreliable considerations). 
It can be agreed that figures above 5 million are heavily motivated by right-wing politics, however, the figure of 1.5 million is correct at least according to reported demographic data from Russia's archives. Even way back in August 23, 1933 when such data was impossible to assess, Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Duranty of New York Times extremely accurately estimated that there were 2 million excess deaths in Ukraine, Lower Volga, and North Caucuses:
So with a total population in the Ukraine, North Caucasus, and Lower Volga of upward 40,000,000 the normal death rate would have been about 1,000,000. Lacking official figures, it is conservative to suppose that this was at least trebled last year in those provinces and considerably increased for the Soviet Union as a whole.
Even the results based on the scientific methods also vary widely but the range is somewhat more narrow, 2.5 million (Volodymyr Kubiyovych) and 4.8 million (Vasyl Hryshko). Modern calculation that use demographic data including those available from formerly closed Soviet archives narrow the losses to about 3.2 million or, allowing for the lack of the data precision, 3 to 3.5 million.
Not only is such information wrong, it is also unnecessary. With the availability of archival documents, estimates are completely worthless. 
even the official Soviet statistics show a decrease of roughly four million people in the population of Ukraine between 1927 and 1932.
This contradicts the demographic data I have presented which shows that Ukraine's population declined by roughly 600,000 between the censuses of 1926 and 1937.
Mikhail Frunze
:Frunze, your numbers coinside with the numbers in the table published by Kulchytsky which I copied to the article. However, the analysis of the overall numbers simply doesn't add up which means that Soviet statistical institutions simply did not register all the death events (as explained by Kulchytsky). Otherwise, the 1926 census number from which the officially registered number of deaths in the following ten years is subtracted, the officially registered number of births added and officially registered migration accounted for given us exact result of 1937 census. There is however the discrepancy. With census numbers assumed correct (there are good reasons to do so) the analysis of the annual numbers of deaths/births allows to infer where exactly the Soviet statistics was wrong and make a correction. This is all done in this article (also listed in the ref list, and I copied its calculations. 
:To summarize, you cite the published numbers correctly. However, because these numbers don't match the census numbers, there is an error somewhere. The error is estimated in the article I linked and from this (taking into account the migration) the loss is ~3.2 million or accounting for the calculation error 3-3.5 million. --Irpen 07:54, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obsolete Information 

message: I looked over the edits made by user:Mikhail Frunze. I will do my best to put aside some time to merge two versions. His deletions of the sourced info and the map will be restored. OTOH, he brings new info referenced to 
*R. W. Davies and Stephen G. Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, . 
This book seems rather noteworthy in the academia and its authors are not discountable from the amount of google info I could find. But since the book isn't online and isn't indexed by google books, I request the author to provide the quotes in addition to the page numbers. Not everyone can easily get a hold of the book and such info would be helpful. TIA, --Irpen 22:54, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is very serious objections with position revisionist of Holodomor (including Davies and Wheatcroft). Please see series article "Why Stalin us destroyed?" (Почему Сталин нас уничтожал?) of Kulchitsky in newspaper "Day". , , ,  , ,  and more (see also fragments this article in other site subscribe.ru , ,  and inosmi.ru , ) --Yakudza 00:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Regardless of what Wheatcroft has stated earlier, in his latest book he states 5.5-6.5 million deaths. Ultramarine 21:47, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 5.5 mln-6mln in the whole Soviet Union. Still as the peasants of Ukraine were the main victims it would give millions of dead in Ukraine abakharev 22:28, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wheatcroft

message: It was the largest national catastrophe of the Ukrainian nation in modern history, with loss of human life in the range of millions (estimates vary)
This comment is not only unsourced, it is also inaccurate. World War II resulted in 6 million dead Ukrainians while this famine resulted in a documented 1.54 million deaths. 
the famine was caused by the deliberate policies of the government of the Soviet Union.
There is not a consensus amongst academians on this theory. Stephen Wheatcroft, R.W Davies, Mark Harrison, and Mark Tauger have all rejected this the intentionalist theory and have provided substantial acrhival evidence that famine resulted from natural factors including poor weather, drought, and an inadequate availability of horses. Even Robert Conquest in p.344 of "Harvest of Sorrow" stated that it is not his opinion that "Stalin purposely inflicted the 1933 famine. No. What I argue is that with resulting famine imminent, he could have prevented it, but put 'Soviet interest' other than feeding the starving first -- thus consciously abetting it" 
This was, however, ended and replaced with the a policy of effective Russification, as soon as the Soviet regime firmly took root, thereby causing significant social, cultural, and political conflict in the Ukrainian populated territories.
To my knowledge, never was the Ukrainian language in the USSR restricted. In consideration of the fact of how the Ukrainian people after 70 years of Soviet power are fluent in their native tongue, the use of the term "Russification" is baseless and inappropriate. Russification refers to policies that curtailed the use of the mother tongue of a minority group. With the possible exception of the Jews, there was not any sort of Russification in the USSR. The hundreds of nationalities of the former USSR speak their own languages, eat their traditional food, practice their traditional religions, have their own schools, etc, etc. The charge that Ukrainian culture was assaulted in the USSR is simply unfounded. I propose for this unsourced, blatantly Ukrainian Nationalist POV to be removed. 
Despite the decrease in agricultural output, Soviet authorities soon drastically increased Ukraine's crop production quotas (by 44% in 1932). The targets were unrealistic and some historians believe that this was intentional.
This does not correspond to data presented by Stephen Wheatcroft and R.W Davies. According to page 448 of their work on the subject "The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933", the agricultural production plans for the harvest of 1932 had been reduced numerous times. In January 1932, the production plan was set at 90.7 million tons. Half way through the year in July 1932, the production target had been reduced to 76 million tons. In September 1932, it had been reduced to 67.1 million tons. Collection plans correspondingly dropped from 29.5 mn tons in Jan. 1932 to 23.3 mn tons in July 1932 to 22.8 mn tons in September 1932. I propose for this unsourced, inaccurate information to be removed.
Mass arrests of the hierarchy and clergy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church culminated in the liquidation of the church in 1930. Thousands of priests were tortured, executed and sent to labor camps in Siberia and the Far North.
This was part of a broad anti-religion campaign that did not exclusively apply to Ukraine. Churches in Russia were similarly closed down. Mosques and synagogues were closed down as well. Plus, it is debateable as to whether the restriction of religious practice attempts to target the cultural identity of a group because people of every cultural background can belong to one religious body. For instance, observe the Catholics of Western Europe, West Africa, Philippines, and South America. If Catholic churches in France were to be shut down, I don't think that this would amount to an assault on French culture. 
The artificial famine of 1932-33 fit well into the politics of assault on Ukrainian national culture.
It is hotly debated that this famine was artificial. Many scholars have rejected this theory including Stephen Wheatcroft, R.W Davies, Mark Tauger, and Mark Harrison.
Mikhail Frunze
::Frunze (isn't there a WK policy against political names?), there is little debate on whether the famine was artificial. There is serious -- and valid -- debate on whether it was genocidal in intent. Your recent edits are a misrepresentation of the consensus, and I will make changes to them accordingly. Dietwald 08:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Frunze, we have had this debate before on this page. Please go through the records. The famine itself was avoidable, there is little doubt about that. You seem to mention the same three guys all the time. Isn't it time to find some additional sources? They say this was so, but their views are not widely shared. We can mention their points, but not include them as facts. Hence my edits. I did not delete your points, just weakened them. BTW: get a wiki name, it's free, and it makes you less suspect. Dietwald 07:47, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is such a joke! Holodomor not being artificial!? Absolutely preposterous to say something like this, It's like saying the Holocaust was not done on purpose. Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Xioyux 02:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV Pushing 

message: I'm sorry, but there simply is not a consensus in mainstream academic circles that famine was limited either to Ukraine or that there was a genocidal attempt towards the so-called Ukrainian people. This page needs to be changed to accomodate the 160 million people of the USSR as a whole rather than one measley socialist republic that somehow deserves extra attention. This current "Holodomor" outlook is not reflected in Brittanica. It is not reflected in Encarta. It is not reflected in either of my high school history textbooks. It is not reflected in any college course. Of the 59 results on Proquest database of the term "Holodomor", 49 results are found in the psychopathic, Yushchenko-supporting, Russophobic, nationalist outlet called "Ukrainian Weekly". This is clearly a fringe point of view that is not accepted by any mainstream academic circles. The researchers Stephen Wheatcroft, R.W Davies, Robert Thurston, Gregory Freeze, and Mark Tauger completely object to any view that includes so-called "Holodomor" towards the so-called Ukrainian people. Wikipedia is supposed to accomodate all views and not give disporportionate emphasis on sectarian nationalist propaganda. 
Modern calculation that use demographic data including those available from formerly closed Soviet archives narrow the losses to about 3.2 million or, allowing for the lack of the data precision, 3 to 3.5 million.
This is disproportionate emphasis on a single author whose views do not posess a consensus. The journalist Walter Duranty In "The New York Times" correctly estimated in 1933 that excess deaths in Ukraine, North Caucuses, and the Lower Volga amounted to 2 million. The demographic reports from the Tsunkhu archives have proved these estimates to be correct as there were indeed 2 million excess deaths in these aforementioned regions. These Tsunkhu figures can be found on p.415 "Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933" by Stephen G. Wheatcroft and R.W Davies: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/harrison/archive/hunger/deaths.xls
Additionally, Wheatcroft and Davies estimated 1.5 million excess deaths in Kazakhstan but there exists no archival documents to back up these conclusions. It is probably an overestimate because 1.5 million dead out of a population of 6 million is too inconsistent with the much lower proportion of Ukraine of 1.5 million dead out of a population of 28 million. 
The map by Maksudov has to removed because it has been contradicted by the above archival chart. 
The artificial famine of 1932-33 fit well into the politics of assault on Ukrainian national culture.
This unsourced assertion is strongly objected to by respectable academic scholars including Stephen Wheatcroft, R.W Davies, Mark Harrison, Mark Tauger, and Gregory Freeze. Wheatcroft and Davies, the ones who have actually done research on the topic, have documented how disastrous weather resulted in decreased agricultural production. They have documented how the lack of horses obstructed the harvest.
Mikhail Frunze
:Mikhail, please note the discreapancy within the official Soviet statistics. The yearly records of deaths and births (formely classified) don't add up  to  census numbers (also formerly classified). So, either of the two is incorrect. There are reasons to believe that census results are accurate (see refs). The rest is in the refs. Please read them, rather than my not so good attempt to retell them shortly.
:The context of the assault on the intellectual elite and their connection is not well written. I will get to that some time soon.
:The article doesn't assert that the famine was limited to Ukraine. Neither it states that it was a genocide. To the contrary, the lead pargraph states that it was a part of the wider famine and that opinions on the Genocidal intent differ. It is however legitimate to have an article on these events from the Ukrainian context. Be it called "Ukrainian Famine" or "Holodomor", is secondary. Soviet Famine of 1932-1933 would have been a legitimate article as well. Here is the analogy for you. There was an article titled Soviet partisans. That article has been lately attacked and is now in a chaotic state but that's a separate issue. At the same time, we have a separate article on Soviet partisans in Poland. While that other article has even bigger problems, it's the problems that has to be addressed rather than the article deleted. From the SP position, the section of "actions in Poland" is redundant, since it's covered by the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian section. However, actions in the territories annexed from Poland in 1939 specifically, is also a legitimate angle. Those articles need a lot of work, but not a merge. --Irpen 00:49, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV Topic 

message: Finally there has been improvement on this page. In no longer reads like a CIA polemic. I will proceed to add more work by Wheatcroft & Davies and Tauger.Jacob Peters
:I am waiting for you to finish with your changes but before you leave, please make sure that every ref to Wheatcroft is supplied with the page number. --Irpen 03:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: " Between February and July 1933 at least thirty-five Politburo decisions and Sovnarkom decrees authorised issue of a total of only 320,000 tons of grain for food for 30 millions persons"
What is ommitted here is that there was another resolution that ordered dividing peasants hospitalized and diagnosed with dystrophy into ailing and recovering patients. The resolution ordered improving the nutrition of the latter within the limits of available resources so that they could be sent out into the fields to sow the new crop as soon as possible.
This is just an example that illustrates why the recent edits need to be not reverted wholesale but worked on with care and dilligence. 
No one is of course prohibited from editing the article, but I urge everyone to be careful, unlike the recent editors. I thank Alex for semiprotecting it. At least, the endless anonymous editing will stop now. Later, --Irpen 07:11, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

text: This seems to be a complete rewrite of previous version, which was stable for quite some time.  Now the recent edits are more pov, have numerous misspellings and affected the formating of the entire article.  Will be involved in editing off and on as well.--Riurik (discuss) 00:26, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improvement