Talk:Ba Congress/Archive 1

Archive 1

Envoy of the President?

Apparently, George Musulin was the envoy of the President of the United States? By what authority? He was a captainlieutenant in an intelligence unit attached to the Chetniks. Any source that makes this claim is inherently suspect. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:36, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

If an accurate reflection of the source, the claim is extraordinary, and requires an extraordinary source. I ask why this role as presidential envoy hasn't been mentioned in any other sources that discuss the congress. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:56, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

All sources that deal with this topic, I think including recently added one (diff), confirm that Musulin was an American citizen and an American military officer who was a member of the American mission that acted against the orders of American president. All sources agree that it was American president who ordered that Musulin should go to Chetniks in 1943 and that it was also American president who ordered that he should leave Chetniks later in 1944 (after Churchil made pressure to Roosevelt). I sincerely apologize if I am wrong, but I think that it would be extraordinary to claim that Musulin was envoy of anybody else except American president. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 16:05, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I accept your apology, because you are wrong in a critical respect. Perhaps this is an issue with your understanding what an envoy means in English, which revolves around its meaning in diplomacy between countries. The fact that Musulin was an American and was present at the conference doesn't make him an "envoy of the president". To be an envoy of the president he would have had to be personally appointed by Roosevelt to represent him at the conference, which is a pure fantasy intended to make his presence more important than it was. Roosevelt didn't personally appoint Musulin, a lowly OSS lieutenant, to do anything. Musulin was an American officer that was attached to the British liaison team with DM and reported to his OSS superiors, not to the president, as an envoy would. There is no evidence that Musulin was appointed by the president or reported back to him. This is a ridiculous claim and I am removing it on the basis of BLUE. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:43, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I disagree with this (diff) removal of assertion cited by more modern source. Musulin was present at the congress on behalf of somebody. Musulin was not there to act as ficus or to prepare and serve coffees. The source clearly say Musulin was present on behalf of US Army and American president. That corresponds with common sense and context given and supported by all sources on the topic. Plenty of sources refer to members of Allied missions with Chetniks or Partisans as envoys. If envoy is not correct translation (all dictionaries I saw online, including wictionary, say it can also mean "representative") it can easily replaced with better word. Now the text is factually incorrect and contradictory. It implies that Musulin was present in connection with British mission although British mission refused to participate or, as many sources say, they were not even invited. Please revert this edit.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 11:59, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

The source is clearly in error, and if your translation is correct, appears to be trying to make Musulin's presence more important than it was. This makes me concerned about the bona fides of the source. The fact that he was an American officer and attended doesn't make him an envoy or representative of the US president, or even of the US Army. He was clearly an observer not a participant, as there are no mentions of any discussions involving him during the congress in any source I'm aware of. He was attached to and under command of the British mission to the Chetniks, whether you like it or not. He even parachuted in with Armstrong, the British mission chief. Tomasevich states this clearly in two places, and even explains what the various command statuses of the Americans that were with the Chetniks between August 1943 and November 1944. Other more senior US officers (Seitz and Mansfield) were on an escorted fact-finding tour of occupied Serbia with Hudson and a Chetnik liaison officer at the time of the congress, a tour which had been approved by Armstrong but not cleared with OSS in Cairo. There was no separate American intelligence mission to the Chetniks until McDowell and his team arrived in August. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:54, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Multiple sources explain that Musulin held a speech during the Congress. Some sources even present pictures of him doing so. There is a scholarly consensus that the British Mission was not present at the congress. No valid reason for apparent refusal to acknowledge this and to revert problematic edit was presented. Also, there is no valid reason for another repeated (probably one of many thousands) unnecessary harsh comment against me (whether you like it or not). In order to avoid being subjected to this kind of treatment this will be my last comment in this article. This page is removed from my watchlist. All the best. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 15:52, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

If you have sources that state Musulin made a speech during the congress, you should add them and that information to the article. As I said, I am unaware of any. I did not state that the British officers were present, in fact I agree the sources say that they were not, only that Musulin was attached to the British mission, a fact you seem unable to accept. This needs to be included in the article because it explains why an American was in occupied Serbia. Finally, this repeated "picking up your bat and ball and going home" due to being over-sensitive to direct language pointing out where you are wrong or where you appear to be inserting a certain POV into articles will not improve the encyclopaedia or enable you to make a case against me in the future, which I have no doubt is your long-term aim. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:38, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Redžić Source

Under the heading of Resolutions, Redžić was cited as saying that the Chetnik program entailed "national minorities who were enemies of Yugoslavia and the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes would be expelled from Yugoslav territory." This included Note 37. However, the source says no such thing, and in facts talks about events from 1942, not 1944 which was when the Ba Congress took place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BoWithAFro (talk • contribs) 23:43, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Rubbish, it is one of the The Yugoslav Goals of the Ravna Gora Movement as detailed in the Ba Resolution. How about you read the book? It clearly relates to the outcome of the Congress and is not from 1942. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 20:12, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I have read the book. The source is not on page 152. How about the proper source gets cited? (Hint: it's on p. 161). Better yet, go to the primary source itself. So, you want to talk about rubbish, start with your research skills. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.7.205.231 (talk) 20:39, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Then check the version of the book you have read. Mine is the same as the one available on Google Books preview here. Clearly on page 152. [1]. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 20:44, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I think you are talking to split personalities: BoWithAFro/IP GENERIC 71.7.205.231.OyMosby (talk) 07:15, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Copyediting

THere were a fair number of infelicities of style in this article's lead, particularly related to repetition. For instance, "a new political party was formed, the Yugoslav Democratic National Union (JDNZ), a political party formed..." It also, by talking about them first, kind of made the lead paragraph almost entirely about AVNOJ. I've trimmed a little from the lead for focus reasons - it's not like it's not in the article - and punched up the text a bit. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.8% of all FPs} 21:36, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure a reversion is doing the article any favours. One could add back some cut material - although much of it was simply rearranged, but the numerous language errors - all of which were reinstated - are going to put readers off. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.8% of all FPs} 01:18, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I've tried reworking it to get all the information in. First sentence is kind of long, but seems to be justified by Summary Style, which asks that the first sentence act as a summary of the subject. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.8% of all FPs} 02:17, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Lead

I'm honestly shocked this passed given the state of the lead. One section literally reads "At the congress, a new political party was formed, the Yugoslav Democratic National Union (JDNZ), a political party formed to..." A clear example of forgetting the first half of the sentence when the second is written. The opening of the lead goes against the sourced text:

• Lead: "The congress aimed to advance a political alternative to the November 1943 Second Session of the communist-led Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) of the Yugoslav Partisans"
• Sourced text later in the article: "Despite being planned well before the Second Session of AVNOJ was held, the Ba Congress was widely seen as a response to it."

It offers information on an odd way. The fact that AVNOJ "resolved that post-war Yugoslavia would be a federal republic, based on six constituent republics with equal rights." - literally the first point raised in the second sentence of the lead - isn't at all relevant to the discussion until the end of the second paragraph: "Lastly, it proposed its own vision for the political and socio-economic future of Yugoslavia. This political framework included a Serb sovereign and a tripartite federal state, with entities for the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes only, with the Serb unit being dominant. This was reminiscent of Homogenous Serbia, a document produced several years earlier by the Chetnik ideologue Stevan Moljević."

Some things are obvious as to why they'd be a problem for the Chetniks. If one mentions that before the Ba Conference, the Partisans "asserted [they were] the sole legitimate government of Yugoslavia", that needs no explanation. But if one wants to talk about the Partisan plans for King Peter II or their plans for dividing up Yugoslavia, when the subject of the article is the Chetnik plans, why not put the Partisan plans in contrast to the Chetnik plans.

And if one doesn't do that, why not at least list the points from the AVNOJ Second Session in the same order you're going to bring up the contrasting Chetnik plans? The AVNOJ plans for The fiction of Yugoslavia are the first point brought up, and yet are the last point from the list to have the contrasting Chetnik plans discussed.

I don't want to criticise this article too much, because I've read every other word of it and thought everything but The lead was clear, organised, and well-written. But the lead is simply not FA quality as it was at time of passing. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.8% of all FPs} 01:53, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I am honestly shocked that you read the article then thought that your version of the lead was a better summary of the article. I'll explain why. Integral to an understanding of this event is AVNOJ, as the congress was driven by a Chetnik desire to provide a political alternative to it. Not having the date of AVNOJ doesn't make any sense, the fact that it was a rather rapid response is central to the article. Your movement of the "six constituent republics" info to later in the lead also doesn't make any sense, you have to know what the Chetniks were responding to in order to understand how their response differed. You removed the fact that the conference was probably held with the approval of the Germans, why? The Chetnik collaboration and the fact the Germans probably let this event happen is central to understanding the nature of the congress. However, on a positive note I like the way you integrated some of the material about AVNOJ alongside the material about the congress decisions, which you have alluded to above, and have taken that further with the partial restoration of the info about the additional federal units, again, essential to an understanding of the Chetnik political program, which did not recognise the other nations of Yugoslavia. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:17, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

There is sometimes some benefit of not being too knowledgable about a subject, because the main problem with the lead (well, other than things that a quick copyedit could fix) was that it failed to ground the reader quickly enough. It was genuinely quite difficult to understand the lead, but - and I really do mean this - the article itself is so clear and well-written that it makes the subject really easy to understand, as well as very interesting.

The biggest problem with the AVNOJ Second Session paragraph right now - I'm going to try to fix this - is that unless you go into it knowing that the Chesnik's wanted to prioritise Serbian interests, knowing the Partisans wanted "post-war Yugoslavia would be a federal republic, based on six constituent republics with equal rights." is basically meaningless, because you don't have the context.

• The conference was scheduled before the AVNOJ Second Session happened ("Despite being planned well before the Second Session of AVNOJ was held, the Ba Congress was widely seen as a response to it."), so I worried, perhaps too much, about whether it was misleading to emphasise that, as opposed to AVNOJ as a whole.
• I'm not sure the six constituent republics are as important as is being made out by the order of information provided. To whit:
  • The details of the AVNOJ plan aren't really important: The point of contention seems to be that they didn't (simplifying a bit) emphasise Serbia and Serbian interests over other groups, and the Chetnik plan did, so detailing how many republics they planned seems to distract from the key difference. Perhaps something like - suitably worked into the sentence "The AVNOJ proposed a federal republic with no special position for Serbia over other constituent republics" would get to the point? If AVNOJ had proposed five or ten or seven and a half constituent republics, it wouldn't have mattered much to the heart of the dispute.
  • That the AVNOJ declared themselves the only legitimate government, and this was being accepted by the allies is arguably the biggest problem faced going into the Ba Congress. It gives the urgency and necessity of moving quickly, and, while the dispute about governmental style are the issue of dispute, the urgency is the reason the conference was so important to get right.
• As for why I removed the tacit approval note:
  • The text it summarises is "Given that the Germans could easily have prevented it from occurring or disrupted it once underway, it has been argued by the historians Jozo Tomasevich and Marko Attila Hoare that the congress was held with the tacit approval of the Germans" - which is certainly a valid point for the main article, but it's also arguably one of the least firmly-stated points in the article, being carefully attributed to specific people.
  • There's a lot we don't include in the lead that adds more nuance than a second statement about collaboration. To give two examples of things related to collaboration we don't summarise:
    1. "The Chetniks under Mihailović advocated a "wait-and-see" strategy of building up an organisation for a struggle which was to commence when the Western Allies arrived in Yugoslavia, thereby limiting losses in military and civilian personnel alike until the final phase of the war."
    2. "By the end of the year, due to a drift towards collaboration, the Government of National Salvation and the Germans were at least as influential over the Chetnik movement in the German-occupied territory of Serbia as Mihailović, who was becoming increasingly isolated."
    3. "The Germans were very interested in the congress, and German agents provided a detailed account of it to the Higher SS and Police Leader in the German-occupied territory of Serbia, SS-Gruppenführer and Generalleutnant der Polizei,[b] August Meyszner. These reports mentioned the frequent anti-German outbursts that had occurred.[32] The Germans were concerned about the outcomes of the congress, and they may have had some limited consequences in military terms, as the formal armistice agreements between the Germans and Chetniks ended soon after the congress..."

It just feels like there's a lot about the relationship of Chetniks and Germans that we could talk about, and that's one of the least interesting

• I'd kind of like to integrate the railway bridge thing, on that subject.

Lead is looking a lot better, by the way. I was writing up this article for the February Signpost (Yes, I work that far ahead now), and started to realise when it came time to abridge it down that the structure was weird, and there were a lot of unnecessary words, and, well, I'd like people to read this article, but the lead was not doing a good job advertising it. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.8% of all FPs} 09:30, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

And now I've doubled the lead's length. See what you think. I'm trying to do the summary style thing of starting out with a clear statement which lacks a lot of details, but makes the framework of the subject clear, then immediately fill that detail in. So the first paragraph lacks tons of detail, but sets out the framework, then all that's filled in. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.8% of all FPs} 10:42, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

The first 4 paragraphs of the new version are awfully repetitive and in my view, too detailed. I think they should be condensed to the following single paragraph:

Suggested first lead para.

The Ba Congress, also known as the Saint Sava Congress or Great People's Congress, was a meeting of representatives of Draža Mihailović's Serb nationalist and royalist Chetnik movement, held between 25 and 28 January 1944 in the village of Ba in the German-occupied territory of Serbia during World War II. It sought to provide a political alternative to the plans for post-war Yugoslavia set out at the second session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) in November 1943, which was dominated by the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans. The major Allied powers, concerned about Chetnik collaborationism with the occupying Axis forces, had switched their support to the Partisans at the Tehran Conference in late 1943, and the Ba Congress was a political gesture aimed at addressing the resolutions of AVNOJ and reversing the Allies' decision to withdraw support for the Chetniks.

Jr8825 • Talk 13:56, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Adam, I see what you are trying to do here, but as I am sure you know, the current version is a basic fail of MOS:LEAD, as it has six paragraphs, when the widely known guidance is up to four paras. I agree with aspects of what Jr8825 is trying to do, but think we should be concentrating on developing what they have suggested for the first para which establishes and lightly fleshes out the notability of the congress, then decide on the subjects that need to be covered in the remaining three paras. Right now, less bold editing of the lead and more discussion and workshopping of options on its structure and contents here on the talk page is what is needed. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:56, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

I figured that if we have a structure, we can work things in much more easily. And it's fairly trivial to combine paragraphs - with relatively minor rewrites, I was able to get it down to four slightly larger paragraphs that work as paragraphs. I did cut a list of the republics under the AVNOJ plan, but that should probably have been in the AVNOJ paragraph anyway. Think the rest should be somewhat uncontroversial. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.8% of all FPs} 08:16, 12 January 2021 (UTC)