Talk:Criticism of communist party rule

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Criticisms of socialism which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 15:39, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Added some counterbalance to "Social development"
Reading the paragraph under "social development", citing only one primary source (Horowitz), it is easy to see how imbalanced this article is. I'll be doing some counterbalance work on this article. All meticulously cited and sourced of course. I'm not too great at the editing of citations (the format seems to have changed), so if anyone would like to help edit, it'd be appreciated.

If however my citations are removed (as these kind've things tend to happen in political articles), I'll ask a good explanation why. Everything I posted is legitimate, even if it does happen to make communism look good.

Solntsa90 (talk) 03:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Communism is good, communism is something that hasn't been achieved as it involves a stateless, classless, moneyless society with the means of production held in common by all of society and community regulation of such, a lack of commodity production, and a lack of wage labour, the dissolution or withering away of state after the socialist transitory stage towards the achievement of this society, an industrialized society and proletariat, etc. What most people in the western world erroneously refer to as "communism" is merely socialism, as these nations were only socialist and had not established communism, a communist society, nor have they reached that stage of progression. Socialism has resulted in improvements of the quality of life, literacy, women's rights, rights for minorities, industrial and military capabilities, economies, democracy, lifespan, caloric intake, etc. Some examples of increased literacy and lifespan would be in the Soviet Union and China, some examples of industrialization would also be within those nations. Some examples of electrification would be in Albania for example where under Enver Hoxha's leadership the entirety of the nation was electrified and electricity brought to every household. Also, an improvement of women's rights could be seen in the Soviet Union and China with women playing a role in education, government, military, the workforce, etc as women were guaranteed equal rights to men, equal pay in accordance with the quantity and quality of their labour such as in the Soviet Union, guaranteed by the constitution, women were allowed to serve in the military and in government positions, you can see old photos, videos, documentaries, etc which show female politicians in socialist nations such as the previously mentioned, female soldiers, female farmers, female industrial workers, etc. Communism is the complete antithesis and solution to capitalism, socialism is merely a temporary transitory stage which is a quick-fix, a temporary solution. Proletarian Banner (talk) 21:57, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
 * "it involves a stateless, classless, moneyless society" No offense intended, but it sounds like a utopian project on solving the world's problems. The various methods proposed or used to reach this ideal world have often had negative consequences of their own. And I state this as a lifelong supporter of socialism, as were my parents and my grandfather. Dimadick (talk) 15:56, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Got rid of one tag
These are the tags on this article ---
 * This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these :issues on the talk page.
 * This article possibly contains original research. (December 2009)
 * This article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2009)

I removed the 'original research' tag from Dec. 2009, as there has been no follow-up at all nor rebuttals for almost four years now. 10stone5 (talk) 20:02, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

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Requested move 13 September 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 12:27, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Criticisms of communist party rule → Criticism of communist party rule – Per WP:PLURAL - Champion (talk) (contribs) (Formerly TheChampionMan1234) 05:23, 13 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Alternative accounts
An attempt was made to purge the article of this alternative account on mass killings, but it serves the same purpose here as the two which precede it here and here. It's called an alternative account for a reason. If the others can stay, why not this one?--C.J. Griffin (talk) 06:41, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It wasn't a "purge" (was that a purposeful choice of words?). Anyway, this is WP:UNDUE in this article because it is a prime example of a WP:COATRACK.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:02, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * And seriously, having sub-sections titled "Alternative views" basically screams POV!!! Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:05, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This is something on entirely different subject. This is simply not an alternative view on the subject of this page. An alternative view would be someone saying that Communism was great, wonderful system. I am sure that could be sourced to Leonid Brezhnev, etc. Yes, according to the official doctrine by the CPSU, the Communism was mostly already built in the USSR.My very best wishes (talk) 12:42, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * "Alternative views" basically screams POV? Is this a joke? The entire article screams POV! If anything, the alternative accounts sections provided some balance to an otherwise ridiculously biased article, and they were sourced, the last section in particular was sourced with a plethora of academic citations. And it is absurd to proclaim that an alternative view would simply be something like "communism is rosy." I mean, seriously? They were used to point out some of the criticisms of the Communist system also apply to Western societies which often level the criticism, such as this sourced and well written section which as arbitrarily deleted:


 * "'Some Western academics argue that anticommunist narratives have exaggerated the extent of political repression and censorship in states under communist rule. Albert Szymanski, for instance, draws a comparison between the treatment of anticommunist dissidents in the Soviet Union after Stalin's death and the treatment of dissidents in the United States during the period of McCarthyism, claiming that 'on the whole, it appears that the level of repression in the Soviet Union in the 1955 to 1980 period was at approximately the same level as in the U.S. during the McCarthy years (1947–56)'."


 * Now that seems like a perfectly resonable addition to an article which is otherwise heavily biased and filled with materials which smack of outdated Cold War propaganda. I would also argue that WP:COATRACK is one of the most abused rules here on Wikipedia, used to justify removal of materials that editors simply don't like. I've seen it time and again. This article is a perfect example of it.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 13:06, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * No, it's not a joke. Whenever you see a section titled something like "alternative viewpoints", the redflags go off. It basically announces "here be POV pushing". On the other hand there's nothing inherently POV about a title like "criticism of xyz". You've constructed three whole large and undue sections, which are essentially off topic, based on a single source by a guy not even notable enough for a Polish wikipedia page, who represents an obviously fringe view point, whose book was published almost thirty years ago by a marginal publisher. I'm sure in some circles Szymanski is well known, but that's not Wikipedia. The content violates half a dozen of our policies.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:15, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't attribute all of those sections to me. I created one and added content to the last section that already existed, and I think they have existed for some time. And someone else added the Albert Szymanski source and content earlier on. I just objected to its deletion.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 23:06, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I have reinserted some of the materials, heavily trimmed to avoid COATRACK accusations, in the appropriate section on counter-criticisms. This restores some balance to the article I believe.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:06, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Please stop edit warring.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:15, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

My very best wishes, would you please stop wiping out the content of entire sections you don't like without some kind of consensus? Thank you.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 18:01, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This must be removed, and I hope will be removed. Like I said, the criticism of capitalism or criticism of anti-communism simply does not belong to this page. Something can be probably placed here, but it should be framed as criticism of criticism (the subject of this page). Please do not re-insert irrelevant (or hardly relevant) materials to the page. My very best wishes (talk) 18:03, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Criticism sections are allowed per wikipedia policy, and given the content of this page a counter-criticism section is certainly warrented here, and it is well sourced and contains the viewpoints of notable scholars. You are merely purging the article of content you don't agree with ideologically and you know it. I have made resonable adjustments in the materials and have not restored the larger alternative views sections (which I feel should be restored but don't want an edit war), but you decide to go ahead and wipe out another entire section anyway (and not just what I recently added but the entire thing!), as if you are attempting to goad an edit war. Be reasonable stop purging things because you don't like it.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 18:14, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * You got one minor scholar and it's off topic. Wikipedia articles are suppose to be encyclopedia articles not polemical debates with "point" and "counter point".Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:16, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * And seriously, you actually tried to use this ("Benefits of communism") as a source? Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:22, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * According to the policy above, criticism sections can be useful in articles such as this, which is already polemical as can be. And no, I didn't cite that source. That was someone else. There were also three academic citations in that section, those are the ones I added. The article as it exists now is one extremely lopsided criticism becauee of all the deletions of sourced materials. How anyone can say a counter-criticism section in such an article is "off topic" is beyond me. And I'm not the one edit warring; I've been making sensible adjustments to mostly long standing materials that are being systematically deleted. I believe they call this accusation in a mirror. --C.J. Griffin (talk) 22:33, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * "Criticism of criticism" is something questionable, but the problem is a little different. This text is about Criticism of anti-communism, but we do not have such page. That's fine, please include this content into page Anti-communism, i.e. Anti-communism My very best wishes (talk) 23:27, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * If this will resolve the issue, then I will do that.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 23:36, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Communism in full literally involves a stateless, classless, and moneyless society, thus it is pointless to criticize communism, something of which had not been achieved when you could be critiquing former socialist experiments which are just that socialist experiments which had various positive outcomes, along with some negatives that can be learned from and improved upon. Many of the positives have been improving of literacy, healthcare, education, equality, democracy, women's rights, lifespan, industrialization, electrification, etc. Some examples of increased literacy and lifespan would be in the Soviet Union and China, some examples of industrialization would also be within those nations. Some examples of electrification would be in Albania for example where under Enver Hoxha's leadership the entirety of the nation was electrified and electricity brought to every household. Also, an improvement of women's rights could be seen in the Soviet Union and China with women playing a role in education, government, military, the workforce, etc as women were guaranteed equal rights to men, equal pay in accordance with the quantity and quality of their labour such as in the Soviet Union, guaranteed by the constitution, women were allowed to serve in the military and in government positions, you can see old photos, videos, documentaries, etc which show female politicians in socialist nations such as the previously mentioned, female soldiers, female farmers, female industrial workers, etc. Proletarian Banner (talk) 21:48, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Summary style
If this article is meant to be justified as a summary style split from Communist state, it needs to be covered in the parent article in much greater depth. (not watching, please )  czar  21:48, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Whataboutism
The sections Criticism of communist party rule seems to be fast growing "criticism of criticism", which basically consists of statements trying to probe that "Americans did more...". Because the article is called Criticism of communist party rule rather than, for example, "Comparison of socialism and capitalism" or "Who was eviler, Soviets or Americans", the purpose of these edits is to depreciate well-documented abuse by parties explicitly calling themselves "communist" and they are nothing other than classic whataboutism and And you are lynching Negroes eristical technique. These are WP:UNDUE and WP:POV, apart from being simply nonsense, because if you take for example article on Criticism of United States foreign policy, you obviously won't find passages arguing "but USSR killed more". Cloud200 (talk) 20:46, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Editing article
My recent edit summary was supposed to mention that Rudolph Rummel revised his 110m estimate to 148mOriginalcola (talk) 13:58, 6 June 2022 (UTC)