Talk:Joseph Stalin/Archive 5

message: I have never like that picture of Stalin at the top. It's too perfect. It's too much like a Soviet propaganda painting drawn to overglorify Stalin as some god. I could understand if Stalin really did look like that but he didn't. Stalin was never in that good of physical shape or that clean shaven. In fact his face was filled with freckles. The point is, we should try to find the best, clearest, REAL photo of a particular person possible. Good examples would be the Winston Churchill page.--Secret Agent Man 21:27, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, I'd much prefer a real photo as well. Everyking 21:30, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Also agreed.  Most soviet photos before 1973 don't have a copyright, so the hardest part will actually be finding one that wasn't touched up by his propaganda people. --tomf688(talk) 21:52, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
I uploaded this image here, I thought it was pretty good, and especially so because he's facing to the left. Good enough to replace the portrait at the top? Everyking 07:09, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

text: That looks better, but maybe it could be cropped a bit?  Sholtar 23:48, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
I oppose. This is an official parade portrait, used here for official purposes, in the infobox. You may put real-life photos in the artcle body, but what's the purpose of putting ugly scanned low-quality photos on top? I say the same POV only in the opposite direction. 
Unless a good quality photo provided, the replacement is a no go. 
By the way this version of the portrait is digitally mastered. That's why he Stalin looks so shiny. I'd suggest to use the very first uploaded version of the image. 
As for "clean shaven", this is a very unwise remark. Did you see him much in person? And I don't see any freckles at Everyking's image either; disqualified? :-) 
And if one really wants to be nasty, they may easily disqualify Churchill's photo as well, as well as Adolf Hitler's, Patrice Lumumba, Mikkalai's, and so on...  Mikkalai 00:42, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  I don't know about you fellows but... 

message: How do we know Stalin hated being forced to learn Russian at School? Is there a source, because his later life doesn't confirm it. Or is there only evidence that they all hated it. Also we do not know whether he thought education was his only route out in life. The truth is we have no idea what he may have thought as a child about his life. Again we do not know if he studied his fellow students. Do we have sources from classmates to prove the rest of this paragraph. Again we do not know that Stalin knew no-one would challenge him. This is misty rhetoric. Certainly later on he showed a paranoid perception that people would indeed challenge him, which is why he killed so many party members. Again we do not know that he tried to do the best in everything he did. I have taken out obvious speculation. --SqueakBox 02:05, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC) We don't know his father beat him and his mother "for no apparent reason. There has been so much speculative material here about his early years. We don't need to speculate or even wonder about his state of  mind before his ride to power but it didn't make any difference.--SqueakBox 18:03, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC) Excellent edit, Squeakbox. When I first saw the article, it said "for no reason." Well, there has to be a reason, even if it is not obvious to a rational person. I changed it to "no apparent reason." Your edit makes it even better, removing all speculation.Wikislm 19:41, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  School life 

message: I am pretty sure the early life is taken from some Stalinist propaganda, some memories of a classmate that could in no way be considered to reflect an accurate view of his childhood. The whole piece feels like a Stalin propaganda piece. I will wade through the archives, but if I cannot find a source for it there I will delete great portions of this sub-section. What is said is not credible, and does not concur with other and possibly more reliable pre-revolution accounts of Stalin. Before I edited the worstt out it was full of speculation and POV. --SqueakBox 02:07, Feb 21, 2005 (UTC)
:I actually think that much of it could be seen as the work of someone with a certain (negative) view of Stalin's political career, trying to ascribe personality attributes to that and then projecting it back into his childhood for the sake of crafting a good biography with a central theme. But either way it's the sort of material that definitely needs thorough sourcing. I would even be in favor of removing all the questionable stuff for the time being, since this is such a prominent article and so it's better not to take chances. Everyking 01:08, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Propaganda 

message: After some thought I have to agree that the following phrase:
:He was also rumored to have Jewish ancestry. Among suggested origins of the rumor is the episode with Papismedov related to  Stalin's childhood.
requires substantiation: why this rumor is important, as well as how it was discussed in serious research (like, e.g., Ossetian hypothesis). My initial insistence of its inclusion had the goal of its debunking, but I realize now that to debunk something, it must be sugnificantly notable, i.e., a standard "notability" criterion of encyclopedia. Mikkalai 17:33, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ancestry 

message: I question if Stalin is still embalmed, as when Stalin was first embalmed he was placed next to Lenin. Then during Krushev's de-Stalinization period he had Stalin taken out of the Lenin mausoleum and burried then his grave was covered with cement so as to prevent him "from rising again" --Bongoman 10:08, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Death 

message: There is an ongoing debate in the Hungarian Wikipedia about the death toll numbers.
On our 20th century page there is a section on the most deadly events of the 20th century.
The current version of the text says:
* "Joseph Stalin's rule (1924-1953) - 40-60 million (but at least 20) million dead."
Some editors find this number highly exagerated (the original text simply said "20 million or more dead").
The proponents of the higher numbers cite this quote in their support:
* "According to Roy Medvedev, Stalin's victims numbered forty million. Solzhenitsyn says the number is far greater-perhaps sixty million. The debate continues even now."
From the book: Lenin's Tomb : The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by DAVID REMNICK (p. 129).
My question is. Are the numbers cited above (40-60 million dead) reasonable or do these numbers include Gulag prisoners who survived?
I know that it is difficult to estimate the death toll, but what are the most authorative sources on this subject?
Can you help me find a reasonable range for estimation and the best sources to support it?
I appreciate your help. nyenyec ☎ 00:30, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Most mainstream western historians give a figure of 10-20 million; that is itself probably a considerable overestimate. Everyking 00:37, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Death toll numbers and sources 

message: I think there something wrong with the infobox (the top one with the picture) and the succession boxes at the bottom. First the infobox says his term of office was from 1922-1953 (I assume we are talking about the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, here, so I added that in). But if we are talking about the office of General Secretary, how can we say Lenin was the successor, as Stalin was the first General Secretary? Also, I'm not as sure about this, but I believe all Soviet leaders following Stalin were known as "First Secretaries", so Malenkov doesn't technically work as a successor either, I don't think. Also, the successor box on the bottom for General Secretary is definitely wrong, as Stalin was the first and Lenin never held that position, he was the Chairman, and indeed granted Stalin his position. Didn't want to make changes without consensus. --Dmcdevit 01:39, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The "secretary" position was that of the top boss of the Soviet Communist Party. There is no reason to play technicalities about a particular "office" with a specific title. The issue is pretty confusing and there is no reason to put these intricacies in an infobox. At the same time, I agree that the formal details about party leadership must be addressed more carefully in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union article. Mikkalai 23:05, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just that I assumed, with such specific info there, dealing with de facto leadership is tricky. Perhaps if the infobox said it was only leader, that would help. But that's not the common convention. For George Washington, to use an example of a first officeholder, we don't say preceded by George III, or whomever, just because that is the leader. Well... on second thought that's not the best example, because it's a different country. But what I'm trying to say there's got to be a better way to do it without implying that Stalin and his predecessor and his successor all held the same title. --Dmcdevit 23:46, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Info box inaccuracies 

message: removed: 
:, and by providing certain segments of the population benefits so as to win their support or co-opt them into the regime.
What the heck these "certain segments" are? If bureaucracy is in mind, then this is of no special note: at all times in every state a bureaucrat lives better than a peasant. Apart of these (with a special subclass of apparatchiks), there were no benefitted segments. Mikkalai 22:52, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Certain segments of the population 

message: I removed the following addition by an anon, about deportations of nationalities
: Romanians (from Moldova), 
I have a very vague memories on the issue. If this took place, then it must be covered in  Population transfer in the Soviet Union in the first place. There certainly were deportations during the annexation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, but these  were of class character, rather than national. 
I will try to dig something tonight. Mikkalai 21:36, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deportation of Romanians 

message: "Collectivization had met widespread resistance, resulting in a bitter struggle of many peasants against the authorities and millions of deaths."
I'm not even sure where to start with this.  Widespread resistance?  Many peasants?  Resistance from kulaks, maybe.  They were a very small minority however.  Not much resistance from batraks and bednyaks, who benefited from collectivization and were the vast majority.
Then there is the conditional "resulting" with it's dubious causality.  The sentence more than implies that the "bitter struggle of many peasants against the authorities" which caused "millions of deaths" was due to the "authorities" shooting millions of peasants in the head or something.  One must go further down in the article to see that what is said to be a famine is actually what killed them.  Whether or not there was a famine, or whether millions died, the causal connection is stated as a fact, not a theory.  Actually, later in the article it is more qualified than in the heading - "many historians agree" that "collectivisation was largely responsible".
Finally there's the "millions of deaths" due to a supposed famine (a famine not mentioned in this article, "collectivization" is the killer).  This "famine" in which "millions died" was somehow missed by the New York Times, which reported at the time that reports that there was a famine in which millions were dying were false. Ruy Lopez 06:35, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: this doesn't even merit a response. J. Parker Stone 07:06, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  collectivization 

message: can we get a more real one? it looks like a propaganda portrait. J. Parker Stone 09:17, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture 

message: From the "Doctor's Plot" section of the article:
"The Doctors Plot followed on the heels of the 1952 show trials of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which resulted in twelve of the thirteen defendants being executed,[249] and (emphasis added) the Night of the Murdered Poets, where thirteen prominent Jewish writers, poets, actors and other intellectuals were executed on Stalin's orders.[250]"
 
Aren't these events one and the same? Unless my history is a little fuzzy, I don't believe there were two trials which resulted in the execution of Jewish intellectuals in the same year (1952). Although the Black Book of Communism does note that ten "engineer saboteurs" from the Stalin automobile factory, all Jewish, were executed on the same night. (p. 248)--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch.  The Night of the Murdered Poets involved JASC members.  I just changed it.Mosedschurte (talk) 22:28, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Night of the Murdered Poets X 2? 

message: ... and Volga Germans were allowed to return en masse to their homelands.
From what I've read, most of the (descendents of) the Volga Germans have emigrated to the West; a few thousand settled in the Kaliningrad Oblast.
Sca (talk) 20:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Volga Germans 

message: Birthday 1879 should also be where 1878 is, both birthdays are valid!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gohomego (talk • contribs) 01:33, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birthday footnote 

message: All of the image px tags were deleted, with the MOS given as the reason, but the MOS doesn't say that the default must be used without exception, rather, it says that this is the "rule", but they can be adjusted with px tags:"    * As a rule, images should not be forced to a fixed size (i.e., one that overrides the default). Where it is appropriate to force size, images should generally be no more than 550 pixels wide, so that they can be comfortably displayed on 800x600 monitors." 
The MOS goes on to provide and inclusive list of examples where px thumb adjustment may be appropriate: "Examples where size-forcing may be appropriate include: Images with aspect ratios that are extreme or that otherwise distort or obscure the image,  Detailed maps, diagrams, or charts, Images containing a lot of detail, if the detail is important to the article,  Images in which a small region is relevant, but cropping to that region would reduce the coherence of the image, Lead images, which should usually be no larger than 300 pixels."
Not only was adjustment proper for the thumbs with px tags, but many of them fit specifically into these examples, such as detailed maps (M-R Pact maps, Soviet advances on Eastern Front, Eastern bloc map), original documents images where detail is difficult to examine (Beria's letter, Stalin's resolution, the Politburo's decision, March 5 memo) and photos where the detail is important (Reichstag flag raising photo, Ribbentrop and Stalin signing pact).
Also, not only did none of them exceed 550px described in the MOS, but I think they all were 300px and under.Mosedschurte (talk) 02:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image Thumb Pixel Sizes 

message: The editor Viplovecomm just changed the lead image from this photo of the article subject, to this artists' rendition, created by himself.
The actual photo of the subject is preferable to an artists' rendition, though I must say, nice job if he actually did create that himself.Mosedschurte (talk) 12:06, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Meh, I much prefer the photo that shows Joe's rough skin and untamed hair. Binksternet (talk) 15:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

text: I'm pretty sure that was actually a Soviet propaganda image.Kurzon (talk) 00:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead Image change 

message: It is well known fact that denying Holocaust is crime in Germany and many other countries. In general, most countries scrutinize even a slightest attempt of trying to distort views about Holocaust. Just check out video interview with Bishop Williamson given to Swedish TV where he claims that only 200-300 thousands of Jews were killed and none of them in gas chambers. If this kind of topic can be a reason for dispute in Wikipedia then it should be closed down immediately. Wikipedia doesn't exist so that various sickos can change historic facts but to allow us to get objective, balanced and most accurate view of history and other subjects. I guess that we can then expect pedophiles, bank robbers and cannibals to come here and dispute carious topics as well.
Valeofruin that disputes facts about Stalin purges and Gulags openly admits that he is Holocaust denier as well and that he would gladly dispute Holocaust as well on Wiki pages. His claims that only 400,000 people died in Gulags is very similar to the numbers Bishop Williamson gave about Holocaust. The exact number of death is always hard to determine but there are good statistical methods used like lower number of males, city population and others that can accurately indicate number of people who perished. I'm not sure who Valeofruin is but only two options remain. He is either a wacko or he is being paid by Russian KGB government that openly glorifies Stalin. Web site he quoted is financed and run by undercover KGB(FSB) agents. Ravenlord, February 12, 2009.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ravenlord (talk • contribs) 11:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Holocaust Deniers and Stalinists 

message: That section states the Bolsheviks won that war in the late 1919. That is completely wrong by any historic books and textbooks. Officially the war ended in 1922, but there was still fighting going on in the Russian Far East. That is what the Soviet historical textbooks say. For some reason the war with the Ukraine is being perceived as the Civil war in Soviet times and it seems that the same trend exist today as well. That is also wrong. Ukraine was a recognized state by the Soviet Russia as well as by the other numerous countries. That was a straight aggresion against the Ukrainian republic, following an unbelievable slaughtering of population in Ukraine by bolsheviks (Kyiv and Podillia still remembered). In 1920 Ukraine united with Poland to stop the bolshevik bandits. The Soviet textbooks state that it was an intervention of the "White" Polish burgouis, relating it to the Russian white movement which is way off. 
 Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 17:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate your concern, however, initiation of a debate that clearly violates WP:NPOV, WP:BATTLE, WP:ANARCHY and WP:SOAP must be commented on and stopped. It may seem slightly edit-warrish, but bear with me/us. As for Wikipedia's capacity to handle this chat...WP:PAPER. ...Ω.....¿TooT?....¡StatS!.. 04:45, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Role in Russian civil war 

message: Still a monster article over Wikipedia guidelines.  Of course, it's going to be huge given the 29 year rule of the Soviet Union at the very center of world history during the time.  
There were some huge sections for which no sub-articles existed, such as Stalin before the Revolution, Stalin in the Revolution and early wars and Stalin's rise to power, so the prior text (unedited) is all there.  They were actually so long, that they're pretty nice-sized articles now.  Now, I (and others) can add to them without worrying about ballooning the size of the Stalin article. Mosedschurte (talk) 04:57, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Down to 96k.  Just had to move a lot of material that I'd worked on to Stalin in World War II, but it was too long for this article.Mosedschurte (talk) 06:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

text: Now 93k readable prose.  I added sources and summarized for the purge section.Mosedschurte (talk) 23:43, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Did some more summarizing, mostly of the WWII sections (most of which I'd added before) that are in the Stalin in World War II article, and it's now down to 83k readable prose.Mosedschurte (talk) 01:00, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Down to 79k now.  I just summarized the beginning of the Cold War section, with links to the main articles.  Most of that section had contained text or cites that I had earlier provided over the last few months.Mosedschurte (talk) 02:57, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The birth rumors and long discussion of name transliteration and etymology is in Stalin before the Revolution, so this is now down to 73k readable prose (11.7k words).Mosedschurte (talk) 07:02, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

text: To my opinion, removal of the text made by Mosedschurte improved the article a lot. We don't need a long description of the WWII events etc., because it is the article about Stalin, not about the USSR. Now the article more resembles the article about Adolf Hitler (that is very good to my opinion, btw).In connection to that I think we can discuss a possibility of removal of the "too long" tag.The neutrality tag removal also can be discussed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:27, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

text: At 70k readable prose and 11,100 words after shortening the section on the Doctors Plot (and moved some material to that article).  I had written much of that section in the first place, but it was really too long for the article given the length issues.Mosedschurte (talk) 01:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prose length from 142k to 70k 

message: An attempt was made to copy and paste the text of Stalin before the Revolution‎, Stalin in the Revolution and early wars‎ and Stalin's rise to power into this article.  This grossly inflated the article size to 93kb readable prose and 15,109 words -- over double the median of the general standard that: "Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 30 to 50 KB, which roughly corresponds to 6,000 to 10,000 words of readable prose. If an article is significantly longer than that, it may benefit the reader to move some sections to other articles and replace them with summaries." 
As directed by Wikipedia policy, this article summarizes those much more extensive long articles on various subjects, and on other such subjects.  Even so, it is still (at this moment) 70kb of readable prose and around 11,200 words.Mosedschurte (talk) 07:43, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please Stop Copying and Pasting Other Articles into this one 

message: Should we really be using CelebHeights as a source for Stalin's height in the "Cult of personality" section? If we're going to talk about "photographic evidence," someone needs to find a serious academic source for it. I don't see how CelebHeights even remotely passes the threshold for any of the standards set out by WP:RS. --98.232.98.144 (talk) 04:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  CelebHeights 

message: Under the heading "Religious Beliefs and Policies", the word "atheist" is misspelled as "athetist".
:Correct it then :] ...Ω.....¿TooT?....¡StatS!.. 02:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misspelling 

message: Read the title. ...Ω.....¿TooT?....¡StatS!.. 02:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inserting Too Long template per [[WP:TOOLONG]] 

message: "After the capture of Berlin, Soviet troops reportedly raped from tens of thousands to two million women,[159] and 50,000 during and after the occupation of Budapest.[160][161] In former Axis countries, such as Germany, Romania and Hungary, Red Army officers generally viewed cities, villages and farms as being open to pillaging and looting."
They did same thing in Poland. My grandma told me that she had to hide all girls what were at home because Russians raped girls and women no matter of what age, they've been seen raping girls as young as 5 and as old as 80. Same thing with looting, they steal my grandma's cows, car and her jewelry.
--DumnyPolak (talk) 03:41, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questionable tactics 

message: *Stalin and Purim 1953 at []  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.53.145.216 (talk) 13:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stalin/Haman 

message: There was a bit of a problem with his birthdate: instead of December 18 1878, it should be December 18 1879.
MagnetJ18 (talk) 19:52, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just a minor issue