Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Collapse of Socialism


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   no consensus. No consensus to outright delete, but most agree that the article and especially the title need work (an ideology cannot "collapse", there's overlap with other articles and so forth). If no solution is found through renaming or merging, a renomination may be warranted.  Sandstein  06:02, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Collapse of Socialism

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content fork of Revolutions of 1989 Wuh  Wuz  Dat  11:16, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

This article covers a much wider range of events. Revolutions of 1989 refers to the Eastern Bloc and depending on the definition may not include Albania, Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. This article covers many more countries and events that were not revolutions.--Damczyk (talk) 11:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 12:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 12:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. The term is extremely widely used] in reference to quite important events. - Altenmann >t 15:41, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge with Revolutions of 1989. Well actually come to think of it. This article has some info about nations outside of Europe...--Coldplay Expert (talk) 19:13, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. I have problems with the title (ideologies don't collapse, only their adherents) and would greatly prefer a new one. It is not unreasonable for us to have two articles in this situation. The first, Revolutions of 1989, would cover the specific set of Eastern European revolutions that took place through 1989. The second, Collapse of Socialism (or whatever new title we may or may not choose for that article after this deletion debate), would detail the worldwide contraction of socialist governments and political parties that accompanied the fall of the Soviet Union and the conclusion of the Cold War. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 19:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Very weak keep with name change to Collapse of socialism on the basis that the topic has the potential to be a good article. The Origins of socialism is currently a topic discussed within History of socialism, so I tend to think that Collapse of socialism should be discussed there prior to forking or creating the article elsewhere. This article currently outlines a list of countries in which socialism has failed but it doesn't really tell me why it failed across the globe within a relatively short period of time. Location (talk) 19:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I will change me vote to Keep. I can see how this article has potential.--Coldplay Expert (talk) 20:27, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete Revolution on 1989 is immensely the better article. If there were to be an article on collapse of soviet communism (which is what collapsed) the current one would not be much of a start. To list  Tiananmen Square   as an example of the collapse rather than the reinforcement of such regimes is as much as a POV as confusing socialism with nazism by selective quotation.   It might conceivably be of some value as a list of topics that might need covering, hence the weak delete rather than delete.    DGG ( talk ) 02:31, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * comment the article has to be renamed, as its too vague. hadnt other socialist govts collapsed at other times? arent there democratic socialist govts still extant? what is definition of socialism? probably better named "list of collapsed socialist govts connected with the Soviet Union". no opinion at this time on content. i imagine the info is found elsewhere.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 07:54, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per arguments by Damczyk, Hemlock Martinis and others. That was really a collapse of the world socialism system ("revolutions" sounds more POVish to me). No, that was not only Soviet socialism what had collapsed. Not sure where Tiananmen Square belongs, but this is not a reason for deletion.Biophys (talk) 03:34, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as personal essay and WP:SYNTH. Beyond the vague title and ambition of becoming an umbrella term for events that may or not be related at all, this article's useful content is already covered by Revolutions of 1989 (and should remain so). What remains is either a misnomer (some kind of socialism survives unabashed in plenty of countries, in most cases without ever having been dragged into the Eastern bloc thing, and even communism has a nominal presence in some countries) or a synthesis of material already covered to death by Post-communism, Lustration, Decommunization and about a billion other articles. And, incidentally, it matters naught that "the name is widely used", if the name is intended as a synonym for something we already cover - the idea behind wikipedia is not to have every conceivable word or phrase lead to a separate article, but to structure information into a coherent and intelligent whole. Dahn (talk) 16:05, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep but restructure as Collapse of Socialism outside Europe (or "Communism" or "Marxist governments" or "Marxist-Leninist governements"). The European material is merely a link farm to Revolutions of 1989 and the countries referred to and should be deleted and replaced by a single "See also" link. Alternatively, it could be kept as it is with the addition of some brief text on the events of 1989, with the (existing) main template to link it to the 1989 article. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:10, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge (or major rename/rewrite) with Revolutions of 1989. And socialism is doing pretty well in many parts of the world; it was the Soviet communism variant that collapsed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 01:23, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Then it should be kept to allow discussion of merging. This article has good content not present in Revolutions of 1989. I agree that "socialism" sounds a little bit misleading. This article should be renamed to something like Collapse of Communism, although it did not collapse completely and remains in Cuba, North Korea and China.Biophys (talk) 22:31, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge, Delete, or Rename. "Collapse of Socialism" is a misleading title. Would support merging with Revolutions of 1989 or renaming to "Collapse of Communism". Kaldari (talk) 16:26, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge, Delete or Rename: in the event of a merger, some rescoping and potentially renaming of Revolutions of 1989 may be sensible but most of this article would be removed - undeniably there was a large change to the world order, although "Collapse of Socialism" is clearly an atrocious title. Further, the article content is clearly inferior to the Revolutions of 1989 article (so in the event of a merge, it is the material of the latter that should predominate). Having said that, the title "Revolutions of 1989" seems rather limiting. There clearly could and probably should be an article on the wider changes that happened, not just restricted to the events of 1989 (though admittedly that article does contain information about the run-up and consequences of the 1989 revolutions too). Another issue with the 1989 revolutions article is that its geographic scope is more restricted, while the change in "world order" around that time has been analyzed more holistically (it's certainly not original synthesis to look at a bigger picture involving Eastern Europe, Ethiopia and changes in the character of Communist Party rule in East Asia). One solution might be to find a better title for this wider topic, and retitle and slightly rescope Revolutions of 1989. TheGrappler (talk) 01:14, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. Obviously socialism didn't collapse, just look at Obamacare!!!! Seriously though, the page adds nothing to Revolutions of 1989 or the other umpteen articles on this topic. Fences  &amp;  Windows  20:04, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge I already moved most of the content to Revolutions of 1989.--Damczyk (talk) 21:08, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.