Talk:Communism/Archive 3

message: I do not care about who is right or wrong on this issue, but the basic definitions of the word "communism" must remain in the beginning of the article. Please, dear partisans, stop meddling around with these definitions, since they are essentially dictionary definitions, which must be available at the beginning of the article, as they used to be, before these passionate recent changes.--McCorrection 19:32, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, but not all definitions must be in one basket. there is main definition, and there are derivations. Of course, we must present common usage, but we must not contribute to confusion. Mikkalai 20:48, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Your division of the definitions and concepts in the first part of the article was superb, Mikkalai! That is what an encyclopedia article must look like. --McCorrection 21:55, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Definitions

message: The following piece deleted, until solid confdirmation:
Though communism is generally concieved of as marxism, the word communism was in fact not coined by Karl Marx, but by the  French philosopher Étienne Cabet in his book...
The person who inserted this phrase proceeded further with provably distorted history (fixed), so after some thought I decided to doubt in this phrase as well. Mikkalai 00:10, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the term 

message: Just a question or two to whomever wrote that sub-section, or to anyone else who can help me;  but where in the "Economic and Political Manuscripts of 1844" does Marx use the term "de-alienation"?  Also, should this be in the article since it is a criticism of the communist state and not communism per se?  
 
#Another problem is that alienation isn't correctly explicated on in the article, totally leaving out reification, and I think that it is incorrect that a new concept is introduced into the article at the same time that it is compared against the states that claimed themselves to be socialist.  Is it possible that a neutral particular section on alienation would not be too repetitive since it theoretically is covered in the Marxism article?
# I should have prefaced the above by saying that I do think it is a valid point which is ok by my understanding of wiki standards to include a critical view that alienation was not overcome in the societies which claimed to be socialist.  It is important to note however that this is a failure from the perspective of its own goals as seen through the eyes of other communists, socialists, and anarchists who critically analyzed the claims by the USSR (and like wise China) that it was socialist in the Marxist sense of the word.  
Capone 07:10, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: De-Alienation?

message: # I propose to further expand the criticisms section, there could be another section of criticism. This one could be a criticism of the self described socialist states (called communist states in the United States) from the view of classical communist theory of Marx and even Lenin.  I do not know if i could do this without help but it seems to me that there is a.) a criticism to live up to its own standards b.) a criticism that it didn't live up to western standards.  
I am sure that there will be some overlap, and those would also be of special interest to a reader who is just starting to learn about communism, and will not be entirely boring to others potential readers with more background in the area.
Capone 07:11, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Expand Criticisms Section

message: The paragraph added after the section on primitive communism is out of place. It should be moved to the article "primitive communism" and perhaps expanded. Here only a brief mention of the dispute is appropriate. A long one interrupts the flow of the article.
Also, the quotation marks ("historical 'proof'") are POV. Change to "view of history" or something similar. Shorne 23:24, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primitive communism 

message: For example, the differentiation of wages in Poland in 1987 was at nearly the same level as the differentiation of wages in highly developed capitalist countries.
Why do you remove this part? These are just statistical data. I gave a reference. The source is in Polish, so probably many of you won't be able to read it without a translator. But if you want, I can scan the source and send it to you. Or I can search for an English version. These are just true statistical data, why do you remove them? Is anything that is not in agreement with a left-wing point of view necessarily an "anti-communist" propaganda? Can't you discuss or add something instead of automatically removng any data you don't like? Wikipedia is a place for providing information and not for promoting communism, I think. Please discuss. Boraczek 09:36, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Why don't you take your own advice and reply to Shorne's lengthy post right above yours? You do insert ridiculous and self-contradictory anti-communist propaganda (the Black Book claims "100 million" but even its own over-inflated numbers only add up to 92.36), and then accuse us of supporting "communist propaganda" when we merely want to remove the kind of statements that can be summarized as "cOmmUnizM is t3H eVil". -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 09:54, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  That communists killed many people is a fact. I can't help it. If that means that communism is evil, I can't help it. And to try to hide that fact is definitely POV. You just removed the data and that brought about the edit war. Then you inserted a POV message and that was OK. We can think how to make the article NPOV. Oh, well, Shorne came and started the edit war again. That man is unbelievable. Boraczek 10:07, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Of course the communists killed people. And the capitalists killed people too. The question is how many. And, as Shorne pointed out, you have to balance this out with the number of lives saved (or at least improved) by the communists. And how exactly was my message POV? I just did the math. 92.36 does not equal 100. That's a mathematical fact, which exposes the most blatant and unforgivable lie in the Black Book. And just because I didn't continue the revert war, that doesn't mean I don't agree with Shorne. He is absolutely correct, and you are, frankly, a troll. But since you seem to be a very persistent troll, I must try to find some way to reason with you. So, let us begin. Please answer these two simple questions: (1) Have you read Shorne's lengthy post which explains why the Black Book is an unreliable, POV piece of propaganda? (2) Do you understand that allegations regarding the "crimes of communism" don't belong in this article?
Sorry, I didn't write it correctly, I meant the "NPOV dispute" message rather than a message that was POV. For the rest of my reply, please see above. Boraczek 11:11, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text:  But I'm asking: why do you remove the part about the differentiation of wages? What do you think is wrong with it? Boraczek 10:10, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  I never removed it, and I have no intention to ever remove it. Keep your differentiation of wages, but please, for God's sake, remove the idiotic propaganda of the Black Book. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 10:35, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The Black Book is not propaganda, but a serious academic study. No wonder it has been published in the US not by a rightwing think tank, but by Harvard University Press. Naturally, not even Harvard is serious enough for the passionate ideologues.--McCorrection 00:55, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Tell me, would you accept the factual accuracy of a book published by the equivalent of Harvard University Press in a communist country? If not, then why are you insinuating that people should accept the factual accuracy of a book published by the Harvard University Press in a capitalist country? Especially when there is concrete proof that many of the book's claims are whooping lies. Hell, the book can't even agree with ITSELF! It claims that communist regimes killed "100 million" people, but when you add up their own numbers, you only get a little over 90 million! -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 21:07, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Differentiation of wages 

message: Even 92.36 million is an overstatement. Most of the fantastic figures are given to only one significant digit of accuracy; therefore, the total is properly 90 million, not 92.36 million. The claim of 100 million represents more than 10% on top of an already whopping lie. Shorne 13:55, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's the amazing thing - not only did they exaggerate all the numbers completely out of proportion, but they also added nearly 10 million deaths out of thin air, without even pretending to have any sort of sources for them. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 15:20, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "92.36 million" 

message: Please discuss your changes here before you revert and put them in the article again. In my opinion, those changes blatantly violated the NPOV policy and were not justified. Boraczek 10:30, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Why? Just because you didn't like them? Shorne 11:34, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Because you deleted true (at least IMHO) information without giving any reason, even if the fact that you only deleted the parts disadvantegeous for communism and left the parts advantageous for communism lets us guess the reason. Please discuss the changes before making them. Boraczek 19:24, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: It is a shame that this article must be constantly policed, but partisan remarks that obliterate neutrality must be erased.--McCorrection 17:58, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Who is being partisan? Ruy Lopez correctly removed some material that was out of place. The content of the material has not (yet) been in question. He told you where to put it. Go and put it there if you wish. Shorne 20:49, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'd expect some explanation why the material is out of place. I think the material is relevant, because it substantiates the statement that communism may look beautiful in theory, but its implementation brings about negative consequences. Maybe there's good reason to move it to another article. But Ruy Lopez didn't move it to another article, he just deleted it. I'd like to get to know your arguments. Boraczek 22:09, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Last edits by Shorne 

message: both the communist states of Eastern Europe and the government of the Soviet Union were overthrown
I have a doubt about the word "overthrown". Eastern and Central Europe countries followed different paths. What happened in Romania was a mass revolt. What happened in Poland and Hungary was a pact between communists and the opposition. What happened in Czechoslovakia was an implosion of the system. I am not a native speaker of English, so I can't be sure, but I guess the word "overthrown" can be too strong in some of these cases. Boraczek 21:10, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: For once I agree with Boraczek. They weren't overthrown; they fell apart. I'll make the change. Shorne 22:16, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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

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

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