Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Shorne and Fred Bauder/Evidence

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Restatement of the complaint
User:Shorne engages in edit wars on the articles, Great Purge, Communism, Communist state and People's Republic of China. He claims to be removing POV material and demands documentation, but no matter how minutely referenced, removal continues. Most references are unacceptable in his view including references which are generally accepted in the scholarly community. When negotiation is attempted he pleads lack of time and energy, but continues to have plenty of time and energy for his edit wars with me and other editors. Extensive discussions on article talk pages have been to no avail, see especially Talk:People's Republic of China, for example this edit:. Mediation has been refused, see Fred Bauder 22:09, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Ruy Lopez
This arbitration does not include Ruy Lopez, although a case for POV editing could also be made against him. I refer at times to edits by Ruy Lopez who has a similar perspective to Shorne as they are relevant to my actions regarding inclusion of all points of view.

Use of references
While Shorne denies the acceptablity of the references I cite in support of my edits, especially The Black Book of Communism, ISBN 0674076087 and The Great Terror: A Reassessment ISBN 0195055802 by Robert Conquest and reverts edits I make supported by the references he rejects, he advances POV references in support of his views, see for example this edit to Collectivisation in the USSR adding the book Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard to the reference section. See reviews of this book on Amazon. Some phrases from the reviews, "The use that MI6 and the CIA made of Ukrainian collaborators in Nazi genocide is built on a tissue of lies - and the myth of the Ukrainian "holocaust" is one of the most notorious.", ""Holocaust denial is a hate crime. So too should be Holodomor (Great Famine) denial. This is a book that has no place on the shelves of anyone other than a member of a police Hate Crimes unit.", "Tottle's book is a great triumph against fascism and capitalist bourgeois lies.", "Pure propaganda and worthless.", "Tottle uses the same techniques (partial truths, omissions, unnamed or secondary sources) as the Holocaust deniers and his book deserves the same fate as the Holocaust denial books." This book was published by Progress Publishers, a Moscow based organ of the Soviet state, see this link for examples of books it has published.

Here is another example of a POV reference placed in the article Collectivisation in the USSR by Shorne The edit contains a cite  from the The Red Comrades Documentation Project a site which prominantly features an image of the coat of arms of the NKVK, "Our website includes articles, pictures, and links that challenge the almost universally-accepted (and fundamentally flawed) ideas about Stalinism that presently dominate the airwaves." A second cite is to an exerpt to the text of a book, Another view of Stalin by Ludo Martens on the website of the Progressive Labor Party  which features a logo incorporating the words, "Fight for Communism". The homepage of the PLP features links to articles "Revisionism Led to Capitalism In China (PL Pamphlet from 1977 on Mao's death, 'Gang of Four')" and "'Whither China?' - anti-revisionists in China fight the new Chinese bourgeoisie, to the left of Mao".

The book Another view of Stalin by Ludo Martens cannot be found by either a search for a new or used  book on AddALL. It is a translation of a book in French, Un autre regard sur Staline, listing on Amazon France. It is often cited on websites which espouse Stalinism or rehabilitation of Stalin such as this Belgian site and, as noted above, the text translated into English is available on the PLP website.

The 3rd link in Shorne's edit is again to Another view of Stalin and quotes passages apparently from Russia Since 1917: Four Decades of Soviet Politics by Frederick Schuman (1957), a revisionist scholar, "[l]urid accounts, mostly fictional, [that] appeared in the Nazi press in Germany and in the Hearst press in the United States, often illustrated with photographs that turned out to have been taken along the Volga in 1921" and "[m]ost of the victims were kulaks who had refused to sow their fields or had destroyed their crops" Schuman is described as "a professor from the US who had travelled through the Ukraine during the period concerned."

Comparison and contrast
In the edit history of Great Purge on October 8 User:Ruy Lopez made the following edit,  which attempts an explanation of the thinking behind the purges according to Molotov. User:Adam Carr removed it with the comment, "this is now progessing towards being a respectable article and this ridiculous stalinoid rubbish will not be allowed", reverted by User:Everyking  with this comment, "rv, i think it's quite useful to include this pov in the article, don't see why it wouldn't be"; Adam Carr again removed it  with this comment, "because it is a pathetic attempt to drag absurd red herrings into a factual account of what happened, and should be tolerated by serious editors"; correcting the comment at  by adding 'oops, that should have been "should NOT be tolerated"'. At this point I intervened and restored a modified version of the text with the comment, "modify and restore Stalinist perspective".

Adam Carr threw up his hands, again reverting with the comment, "well if apparently sensible editors think it is acceptable to include complete rubbish like this in a serious historical article I am withdrawing from it." He followed this reversion with with the comment, "as a parting expression of my disgust, i am returning the article to the crap state it was in before i began attempting to rescue it." He then left the following note on my talk page:

"Copy of my note to Everyking re Great Purge

I have now withdrawn from this article, and also from Khmer Rouge. I will now go through my watchlist and withdraw from all articles on modern historical and political topics, since I can longer stand having to conduct these endless stupid circular arguments over elementary facts of history with malicious fools like Shorne, while being sabotaged by people like you and Fred Bauder who ought to know better. I am in fact seriously considering withdrawing from Wikipedia altogether, since I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that its structure does not offer any support to those attempting to write intellectually credible articles on historical-political subjects. Adam 13:50, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)"

He posted the following on his user page :

"Note to visitors

'''I have decided to scale back substantially my involvement in the Wikipedia project, since I no longer believe it is capable in its present form of achieving its objectives. I have removed from my warchlist about 300 articles relating to historical and political subjects outside Australia. I will no longer edit any such articles or respond to requests to edit them or comment on them. My edits will be confined to Australian topics, ancient history and gay topics. When and if Wikipedia adopts a structure that protects serious editors and prevents fools and fanatics from sabotaging their work I will return to editing in other areas. I will be posting a longer piece giving my views on Wikipedia soon.''' Adam 14:22, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)"

The point of including this material is to demonstrate that I have not only not deleted the POV material Shorne (and the similar material added by Ruy Lopez) has added but have in fact actively defended its inclusion when properly attributed. This is in sharp contrast to the repeated removals and reversions of material I have added.

I remain undecided as to whether the significance of the Stalinist or Maoist point of view justify an equal voice in relevant disputed articles. I tend to the view that they do not, as they are the voice of a tiny minority. At any rate, generally I have not tried to purge that point of view from the articles at issue, but to include them with appropriate attribution.

History of editing for particular articles
The problem that Shorne presents in his editing is well explained at Historical_revisionism_%28political%29. He does not use all the listed techniques, but does use many of them.

Collectivisation in the USSR
My first edit to this article was made on September 9, 2004 and consisted of adding background derived from the work of Maurice Hindus, a sympathic American writer with a background in rural Russia. That same day I added Robert Conquest's book and Maurice Hindus' books to the reference section. I don't actually own the Conquest book, but know it to be a often cited source.

A month later Shorne made his first edit on October 11, changing some spelling around. Then on October 12, 2004 he added a link to a portion of Another view of Stalinby Ludo Martens on the Progressive Labor Party website which refuted "Conquest's absurd lies". He did not identify the book at that time.

Joseph Stalin
On October 29, 2004 Shorne made this revert with the comment, "Those issues have been discussed. Stop reverting this page." in response to Gene s who on his previous edit had left the comment, "Rv. Please settle collectivisation issues on the Talk:Collectivisation in the USSR page first." The problem with this is that there is no agreement and the page Collectivisation in the USSR is protected. This is the second attempt to maintain POV language inserted by Ruy Lopez in this edit.

Shorne and Ruy Lopez feel that there should be no mention in the introduction of the many deaths which resulted from Stalin's policies. While the exact language which proponents of a mention of this fact has varied Shorne and Ruy Lopez have consistently reverted all versions, see Shorne, Ruy Lopez, Shorne. This pattern of reversion has continued with 172 joining in for one revert. I tried to tone down the language a bit, "While the Soviet Union achieved immense economic growth under his tenure, his policies resulted in millions of deaths." and posted this to talk. Shorne's reaction and my attempt to respond and added comment. Sometimes I wonder why I pick Shorne rather than Ruy Lopez to focus on but this language by Shorne brings me back to what is especially problematical about him: "Furthermore, the contrast between this article on Stalin and the articles about many First World politicians (Nixon, Clinton, George W. Bush, just to name three from the US) also leads to a POV: while all of these people have put forward policies that have been accused of resulting in millions of deaths, only Stalin gets singled out for this accusation here." If I understand this, before the deaths associated with Stalin's regime can be included in the article Joseph Stalin, the crimes of Nixon, Clinton, George W. Bush and others must also be set forth. The problem with this is that he is demanding that other articles be put right before significant information can be included regarding Stalin. Note that he feels similar information might properly be included regarding say, Bill Clinton. This is simply not Wikipedia policy.

Communism
Shorne has posted the ultimatum that "Unless a death toll appears on the page capitalism, I refuse to allow one to appear here. Shorne 05:37, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)". The obvious problem with this is that however many casualties neglect of social problems have caused in capitalist countries, the article communism is about communism which due to a number of dramatic actions such as Collectivisation in the USSR, the Red Terror, the Great Purge, the Great Leap Forward and the Gulag have produced deaths which can be directed to policies specific to Communism.

Communist state
Shorne initially tolerated mention of the many deaths which have occured in Communist states, but finally removed the data, laying down an ultimatium with this comment, "Unless a death toll is given in the articles on capitalism, I refuse to allow one to appear here." An edit war ensued with Shorne removing and others restoring, meanwhile the content of the material being inserted had changed to: "It is estimated by critics of Marxism-Leninism that deaths during the 20th century due to Communist revolutions, repression, induced famines, and failed social and economic experimentation number about 100 million in addition to tens of millions of man-years spent in the concentration camps of the gulag and laogai.", Shorne's reversions to the sanitized version continued. User:Boraczek commented regarding the above material, "I am dismayed and indignant that Shorne removed the part above. The sentence above is NPOV. It says that critics of Marxism-Leninism claim that comunnist rule is responsible for death of millions of people. And this is true, they claim so. The sentence does not allege that the estimate is necessarily correct, this is why it is NPOV." Shornes response at is long but contains the following: ":Now, on with the notion that the claim in this article "is NPOV". It is anything but. Although it is a fact that someone somewhere has accused socialist states of collectively causing "100 million" deaths, mere verisimilitude does not imply NPOV. You are favouring a high estimate over a low one. In addition, need I point out that there is no reference to the "estimate"? Furthermore, "critics of Marxism-Leninism" implies much more general agreement on this absurd "100 million" lie than in fact exists. "Concentration camps" is also POV. Shall I go on?"; ":The claim of "100 million" deaths is an absurd lie cooked up in a single source, Black Book of Communism. Two of the authors of that book have since distanced themselves from the work, claiming that Stéphane Courtois, one of their co-authors, had been infatuated with puffing up the death toll and that he had deliberately inflated the numbers in a quest to reach the big nine-figure goal (which she didn't even do: she got only to 85 million but still claimed 100 million)." He then goes on to attack the book the estimate comes from, The Black Book of Communism, with this statement, ":No one who looks seriously at the book will say that it is anything but crude propaganda. Fred Bauder posted elsewhere (on which page, Fred) several links to articles that refute it more easily than I can, since I don't have a copy to hand." (The work is strongly criticized by Trotskyist and Maoist sources, but also somewhat criticized by mainstream Western sources). Shorne has gone on to attempt to create a POV article on The Black Book of Communism.

In that same edit he goes on to say, "Prove to me that any "communists" ever induced a famine. How would they even go about it?". On this point there is a substantial literature, notably "Harvest of Sorrow", ISBN 0195040546 by Robert Conquest. For Wikipedia purposes it is not a question of whether someone can "prove" something to him, but whether or not substantial authority exists for information.

Great Purge
At 13:16, Oct 23, 2004 after the page was unprotected Shorne removed (and not for the first time) a paragraph which deals with the intellectual history in the west of treatment of the Great Purge:

" Despite great scepticism regarding the show trials and occasional reports of Gulag survivors, many western intellectuals retained a favorable view towards the Soviet Union which persisted until definitive proof began to appear after Stalin's death with, first, the relevations of Khrushchev, then, the writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the publication of The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties by Robert Conquest in the late 1960s, the release of Soviet records during glasnost and finally, in France, where the intellectual climate was most sympathetic to Soviet communism, publication in 1997 of The Black Book of Communism. Minimizations of the Great Purge continues among revisionist scholars in the United States. ."

Reverted, by VeryVerily, he again removed it at 20:48, Oct 23, 2004. Reverted by VeryVerily he [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Great_Purge&diff=6816545&oldid=6816101 removed it again at 22:15, Oct 23, 2004. Reverted yet again by VeryVerily he removed it for a third time at 22:39, Oct 23, 2004. Reverted a fourth time by VeryVerily he again removed it at 23:03, Oct 23, 2004. Reverted a fifth time by VeryVerily he removed it a 6th time at 07:22, Oct 24, 2004. Reverted a 6th time by User:Boraczek with the comment, "restored the paragraph about Western intellectuals", he removed it a 7th time at 10:39, Oct 24, 2004 with the comment, "this is an encyclopædia, not a bully pulpit". Reverted a 7th time by Boraczek with the comment, "this is an encyclopaedia, so I'm adding some information", he again removed it for the 8th time with the comment, "reverting obvious POV rubbish" at 11:11, Oct 24, 2004. Reverted an 8th time by Boraczek with the comment, "restored obvious correct information", he removed it for the 9th time without comment at 11:17, Oct 24, 2004.

Shorn'e objections to this paragraph are as follows:

"The references are irrelevant when the entire text is plainly POV. It is absurd to claim "definitive proof" from the likes of Khrushchev (built a career on anti-Stalinism, later pushed aside by the Soviet government), Solzhenitsyn (protégé of Khrushchev and proven liar who claimed an outlandish total of 110 million deaths), and Conquest (controversial at best, for reasons already discussed ad nauseam). The release of the Soviet records exposed Conquest's fabrications, much to his surprise (which is why he doesn't trumpet the opening of the Soviet archives, which he long expected to corroborate his claims). The Black Book of Communism is so tawdry as to be an embarrassment to its proponents." See entire discussion at Talk:Great Purge.

Shorne's editing history
User Shorne's first Wikipedia edits were made on September 25, 2004. His first foray into the area covered by this arbitration was on September 28, 2004 with this edit to Talk:Great Purge in which he declared the article to be, "heavily biased and distorted". At that time this is what the article looked like. His first edit of significance replaces the language, " Robert Conquest in his book The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties exposed to Western readers the scale, inner works and the psychology of the events of these times, dubbed by him The Great Terror. with "The term Great Terror was first used by Robert Conquest in his hotly disputed book The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties." This is the beginning of Shorne's attack on The Great Terror which he eventually followed up with by struggling on the article The Great Terror to discredit this generally accepted reference work. See the reviews on Amazon which include the following comments from editorial reviews: "an essential source, and any library without it should buy it", 'Edmund Wilson hailed it as "the only scrupulous, non-partisan, and adequate book on the subject."', 'Harrison Salisbury called it "brilliant...not only an odyssey of madness, tragedy, and sadism, but a work of scholarship and literary craftsmanship."', "in recent years it has received equally high praise in the Soviet Union, where it is now considered the authority on the period", "Both a leading Sovietologist and a highly respected poet, Conquest here blends profound research with evocative prose, providing not only an authoritative account of Stalin's purges, but also a compelling and eloquent chronicle of one of this century's most tragic events.", "The definitive work on Stalin's purges", and the reviews go on and on in the same vein. Of 18 readers reveiws most praise the book although some question his numbers. There are negative reviews, for example this one which terms the book "Worthless", "The book was written by a former British intelligence agent during the cold war, what can one expect? It is full of distortions and lies from Russian and Ukrainian emigres, same with his 'harvest of sorrow' book. Sources are non-existant of anything else. Do yourselves a favor and read J. Arch Getty and Thurston, as well as Reese's "Stalin's Reluctant Soldiers" for some real historical work." and another which terms it "a lie", saying, "Conquest book is not history or scholarship but rather a well written series of lies and distortions. If the book was not dated 1968 you would think it was published in Berlin about 1938. Conquest's sources are primarily Russian emigrees who had an ax to grind or German's who were pro-Nazi. How valid would a history of the American Revolution be if it was based on interviews of British tories in Montreal in 1783. I am sure they spoke highly of Washington and Jefferson.". I believe their perspective is tranparent enough. Shorne would have had it in the article that Conquest's book is "hotly disputed". As can be seen it is generally accepted, although seen to have some limitations, but only disputed by the far left.

Shorne's point of view
Shorne boldly proclaims his point of view, see User:Shorne.