Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people described as Stalinists (2nd nomination)


 * 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 of the debate was no consensus; keep. Johnleemk | Talk 10:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

List of Stalinists
The list as written currently violates WP:V and WP:CITE, and it is also an inherent violation of WP:NPOV. Who described these individuals as Stalinists? In some cases, they may have self-described, but many of them did not. Is everyone who was taken in by Stalinist propaganda in the 1930s and 1940s to be listed here? Do we really need a list that includes Charles Chaplin, Joseph Stalin, George Bernard Shaw, Pablo Picasso, and Kim Jong-il? What purpose does this serve? Crotalus horridus (TALK � CONTRIBS) 04:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete per excellent nom. Reyk 06:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * After considering the rewrite by Gazpacho, my vote is still delete. It's become clear that tightening the criteria to avoid POV issues leaves mainly people who should be listed in the Stalinism article rather than a seperate list, and just a handful of others. It's just not worth having this list. Reyk 06:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete as inherently POV listcruft Segv11 (talk/contribs) 06:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak keep this list has been cleaned up to include only self-identified Stalinists, which solves the POV issue. But there's not much annotation in the article; I think it might still be better as a category.  Segv11 (talk/contribs) 06:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Sentence to ten years without right of correspondence "And that means once and for all"-Solzhenitsyn. Daniel Case 06:37, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * A List of Stalinists would be useful to counterbalance the List of Fascists, so I suggest we rename it. I have removed most of the names, leaving only those figures identified as Stalinists in their respective wikipedia articles. GeorgeStepanek\talk 06:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 06:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Werdna648T/C\@ 09:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete POV listcruft. KillerChihuahua?!? 10:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment notable Stalinists should already be in the article for Stalinism; if individuals on this list are not in that article, then either that article needs expansion or those people don't belong on this list. I stand by my delete position; that some have commented that there are other unmaintainable POV lists cluttering up WP does not validate this one. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:22, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep I don't see anything wrong with this--Nn-user 18:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * User's second edit. CDC (talk) 19:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep at List of Stalinists, I never supported the original move. However, some people who were removed, like Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and H. Bruce Franklin, should not have been. Gazpacho 18:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete This is worthless, as it contains no useful or verifiable information. 19:17 UTC, 10 Jan 06.
 * It is quite verifiable that Hoxha and Gottwald recognized Stalin as the leader of world communism and imitated his policies. Gazpacho 22:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. See also Votes_for_deletion/List_of_people_described_as_Stalinists Turnstep 20:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep, we have List of fascists, List of people described as neoconservatives, why not this one? All concerns with regard to WP:V and WP:CITE can be addressed, but only if the article exists. DTC 23:01, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep-but limit to those who self-described as Stalinists/Stalin-thought-people and require sources showing that they supported Stalin. (That said I'd be for deleting List of people described as neoconservatives and List of people described as Maoists)--T. Anthony 23:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge into Stalinism as a subsection titled Notable Stalinists. I'm afraid this list will become a cesspool of unsourced inclusions of famous people who were not Stalinist at all, inserted into there to further Stalinism. Pablo Neruda, according to his article, rejected Stalinism later in his life, so he definitely should not be listed. --Revolución (talk) 01:47, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * This could also be doable, but I have a feeling confirmed Stalinists would still be too long of a list to merge.--T. Anthony 04:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep. I strongly agree with T. Anthony and DTC here. -- JJay 03:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge into Stalinism] DTC makes a good point, but the problem is the way in which Stalinist as a label is itself a shifting, uncertain, and historically determinative one. For example, it is used disparagingly post-56 (Khrushchev Secret Speech) to justify purges (Beria was a Stalinist); for collective identification (47-53) in Eastern Europe as part of the Soviet bloc integration, as well as later on a contradistinction to Titoism; as a label for different splits within different communist movements as well as their leaders, each with their own post-56, pre-56, as well as *sigh* post-37, pre-37 significations (esp. France); as a badge of identity in the Spanish Civil War, both as a ready-made identity against anarchism and anarcho-socialism, as well as Trostkyism; as a label of attack both in 1956 and 1968 (Prague), and again in 1991 following the coup-attempt in Russia; and most recently in the last Russian elections, and I am sure I am missing a bunch of additional significances.  So what, I ask, is a Stalinist?  And who gets to decide which of these many options counts and which do not? Eusebeus 05:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per excellent nomination. - brenneman (t) (c)  07:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge as per Revolución. If the list is confined to self-identified Stalinists, it's short enough to be merged into Stalinism.  The only way it becomes too long is if it's a grab-bag collection of everyone who's been accused of being a Stalinist at some point, which would be a useless list. JamesMLane 07:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Either delete or redefine with clear criteria. Right now, the list excludes Lavrenty Beria, but includes H. Bruce Franklin. The former was Stalin's henchman; the latter has a complicated set of views about Stalin (he was my professor in college, I've heard him talk on great length on the topic) but does not call himself a Stalinist. He's of the "Stalin was a historical neccesity" school, but that doesn't mean he embraces him. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge. If any form of this list subsist, watch and make sure that it does not end up being the personal blog of a handful for pushing tendentious points. Rama 10:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per DTC and the fact that it has already been cleaned up since nominated: Charlie Chaplin, George Bernard Shaw, and Pablo Picasso are no longer on the list. Turnstep 12:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Lists of people by ideology are inherently useful and in most cases the people on this list have something in their bios which identifies them as a sympathiser with the USSR under the control of Stalin. Perhaps the introduction should be tweaked so as to make it sound less like a pejorative list. David | Talk 13:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep'. The article does serve a historical purpose. There are a number of such subjective lists in Wikipedia (eg: List of neo-cons). --DuKot 19:39, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete As DTC says, we have other unverifiable uncited POV lists, that doesn't mean we should keep this one. By personalising it as Stalinists rather than, say, Communists or Marxixts, this is simply an attack page.  Also, it contains no actual ancyclopaedic content: there is no context regarding why each of the listed has been called a Stalinist, or indeed by whom (self-identification is not, after all a terribly reliable guide here), or how often, or in what media.  Most of all, when the sixty contentious entries were removed, what was left was 17 more-or-less statist political leaders and a couple of hangers-on, one of whom repudiated the claim in later life.  It's ridiculous! Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|25px|  ]] AfD? 19:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The list should be a bit longer now. I think most of the names still essentially fit as self-described. Granted I'm not so sure about that modern Russian, but most of the rest were people who worked closely with Stalin and or said they patterned themselves after him.--T. Anthony 23:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete. Although the names may fit the description (sort a) the list brings almost no useful information to a reader. Making a "list" by putting a label to forehead of few people is not encyclopedical activity. This kind of "contributions" is what makes WP look like garbage bin. Pavel Vozenilek 01:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Personally I'd think things like List of Japanese bondage models or the numerous ways to analyze Sci-Fi shows is more what makes the place look a bit trashy. Stalinists are in least an important part of history and length limits don't allow for all these lists to be linked to their articles the way lists would be in encyclopedias.--T. Anthony 04:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Rename as List of Self-Described Stalinists and edit accordingly. Grandmasterka 07:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * keep. this list is useful. Kingturtle 19:27, 15 January 2006 (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.