Category talk:Romanian Social Democratic Party (1927–1948) politicians

Splitting category

I think it's time to split this category to account for each of the SD incarnations in Romania. The pre-WWI, interwar, post-WWII and post 1989 had quite different ideologies. Suffice to say that of the 4 member of the central leadership of the pre-WWI party that actually survived the war, 2 went on to join the CPSU and 2 the PCdR. A superficial look at the names in the category show 16 pre-WWI only (of which 17 went on to become communists), 8 of the 1927-1948 period only, 1 post-1989 only, with only a minority activating in more than one of the SD (main) avatars. Thoughts?Anonimu (talk) 09:21, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

The Labour Party had "quite different ideologies" in 1903, 1953, and 2003, yet I don't see the urgency of a split in Category:Labour Party (UK) politicians... Dahn (talk) 20:58, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

The Labour Party never suffered a major split comparable to the one that happened in the Romanian socialist movement in 1921. Considering that several parties claimed to be the true heir of PSR (and its PSDR precedent), arbitrarily conflating the pre-1918 party with one of these heir is POV. Also, Labour never had such a long hiatus as the "PSDR" (technically, the PMR/PCR was the direct heir to all the parties claiming ascendency to the original PSD, thus the only caesura in the continuity of the Romanian socialist movement was in the last days of December 1989). Dividing the cat (and eventually the article) would also solve the arbitrary and POV break between the pre-2001 PSDR and the PSD created that year from its merger with the PDSR.Anonimu (talk) 19:31, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Going to extreme lengths to preserve the shaky account offered by the Communist Party as to who succeeded whom is the exact definition of POV. Dahn (talk) 19:41, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Much of the same "reasoning" goes for the Communist Party itself -- of the delegates that voted for the maximalist program, none but two were alive in 1940. All sources but communist ones clearly specify that the majority of party members either left the PCdR altogether before 1924 or immediately moved to the Federation of Socialist Parties that became the PSDR. This is a drop from several tens of thousands to some, let's be generous here, 2,000 members. The first PCdR General Secretary himself made a full return to the PSDR in that same interval! The PCdR virtually ceased to exist between 1938 and 1944. And so on.

How do reliable third-party sources deal with the issue? -- that is the only thing that merits interest here. The bulk of this "let's split" so far is your fast-talking self-sourced POV that aims to introduce a creeping rule. Dahn (talk) 19:44, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not proposing to merge this cat with RCP politicians. On the other hand, we can't ignore that a party named PSD (restricted to Wallachia) only emerged a month after the PSR (or the majority thereof) went to become the PCR, and just assign the history to the newly created organization.

Splitting the PCR history at 1944 wouldn't be that big of a deal (the party itself had a separate "category" for its pre-1944 members). Regarding the cessation of PCR activity, I have a different viewpoint, but I don't think this is the place to discuss it.

Most sources (including the communist ones) do say that a large part of the pre-May 1921 member left the socialist political organizations altogether (with the fact that around 250 of the PSR leaders spent a year in prison in the immediate aftermath of the May Congress being a significant deterrent to socialist political advocacy). The part about a large part of them moving to the new organisations of the right-wing PSD is news to me. If that were true, one cannot stop wondering how come the underground PCR, coming just after a massive intestine war, succeeded in getting 5 MP elected in 1931, while the legal PSD got 6.

Do they deal with it? I've only seen the claim of all-encompassing PSDR continuity only in authors strongly associated with the later avatars of the PSDR. Some obviously anti-communist sources try to dismiss the PCR as a minor wing, implicitly suggesting a PSDR-wise continuity (somehow ignoring the fact that the post-1921 PSDR needed some years to reunite in a congress the size of the May 1921 PSR Congress), but nothing clearly expressed. And are sources with a noticeable anti-communistic/pro-PSD27/pro-PSD90/pro-PSD2001 bias more reliable than the ones with pro-communist bias published before 1989 (in both cases, I'm talking only about sources published by professional historians, not newspaper articles and the like).Anonimu (talk) 20:18, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Let's cut through the chaff. What are your sources? Dahn (talk) 22:15, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Sources for what? That PSD(1910-1918), PSDR(1927-1948) and PSDR(1990-2001) were different parties? Just look at the dates! At best, you could include the left-wing socialists splinters in the interwar PSD cat (PSI, PSU, PS-Popovici all split and eventually returned to that PSDR), but if you believe they all were the same party, you have to bring sources for that!

Sources that they are treated as different parties. Dahn (talk) 13:16, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

"And are sources with a noticeable anti-communistic/pro-PSD27/pro-PSD90/pro-PSD2001 bias more reliable than the ones with pro-communist bias published before 1989 (in both cases, I'm talking only about sources published by professional historians, not newspaper articles and the like)."

I find it hard to believe that one has to answer this equivocation in the year 2014, but yes, absolutely. In one case, we are talking about professional historians whom you infer have a pro-PSDR bias; even if that were real, it fails to be relevant -- the bias is constructed within a free society, and we follow it over the party line and mythology of a totalitarian state. What is more, the former category, which you conveniently label "pro-PSDR", comprises all sorts of academics, with all sorts of political attitudes. Meaning that the "bias" is more accurately called scholarly consensus. Dahn (talk) 22:35, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't know where you take your info from (the Tismaneanu report?), but you don't seem to be accustomed with the RSR-era historiography of the problem. While indeed popularisation articles and party discourse presented an overly-simplistic image of the situation (today, the situation is the same in the "free society"), professional historians had a much more nuanced view, and, while the objective was to present PCR as the primary legitimate representative of the proletariat, occasional praise of the interwar PSDR is not unheard of (sometimes even coupled with criticism of the "erroneous" position of the PCR). Such sources are indeed much more reliable than the bunch of slogan-based post-1989 productions, which portray an ethicist view of the PCR as a Soviet-controlled, Jewish-dominated spy ring whose objective was to destroy the "spirit" of the Romanian people and therefore any socialist-minded Romanian (who couldn't be a "true Romanian" anyway) had to necessarily join the PSDR. Regarding the pro-PSDR guys, I was thinking about authors such as N. Jurca, who, while a professional historian - and one of the most important modern historians of the problem, was a member of the 1990-2001 PSDR. The situation is the same with most other modern treatments (which are not that much, unsurprisingly, considering that the ideology of the interwar PSDR was too far to the left even for PDSR standards).Anonimu (talk) 10:19, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

You and I will continue this conversation when you bring to the table something other than self-sourced guesses and the usual tropes. Something that would at least state precedence for the classification you're proposing. Dahn (talk) 13:16, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Considering the obvious discontinuity between the three parties named "Social Democratic" in the history of Romania ("SDP (of Romania)", active 1910-1916 and underground 1916-1918; "(Romanian) SDP", active 1927-1938 and 1944-1948, underground 1938-1944; and "Romanian SDP", active 1990-2001), and the incongruous exclusion of another two parties claiming that title ("SDP of the Workers of Romania" active 1893-1899, and the current "SDP", the legal successor of the 1990-2001 RSDP), I am going to split the category (and its main article) during the following week. I'm providing this interval for anyone who wants to bring sources that would support the current peculiar grouping of different parties.Anonimu (talk) 14:24, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

While I still object to the way in which this solution is creeping up against the standing consensus, and without even bringing your one source to support your contentions, I do not necessarily object to the move as long as it is completed judiciously and consistently. I. e. as long as you take care of tying at least the bulk of the loose ends yourself.

I will however be sure to police the move for any suggestion that the PCR's claim to represent the successors of the PS(D)R, by simply adding contemporary sources which say otherwise, and which take precedence in the non-fantasy world. Have a good day, Anonimu. Dahn (talk) 15:23, 27 July 2014 (UTC)