Talk:J. Arch Getty/Archives/2018

On what revisionism was

So My Very Best Wishes, made an edit (restoring to a version which consensus was not to keep) stating that the revisionists were those "who put forth the thesis that the Great Purge was planned and commanded not by Stalin, but by Yezhov and other Stalin's subordinates." The version I restored to gives a less contentious definition of the revisionists, and that which seems to be used in most academic sources, as being in opposition to the totalitarian model. Further one of the sources cited straight up contradicts this claim. The "Who killed Kirov" sources criticises those who claim Getty is somehow attempting to exonerate Stalin stating "Getty has not denied Stalin’s ultimate responsibility for the Terror, nor is he an admirer of Stalin" and gives an altogether more nuanced description of the revisionists reflective of academic consensus. It describes revisionists as those who"insisted that the old image of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state bent on world domination was oversimplified or just plain wrong. They tended to be interested in social history and to argue that the Communist Party leadership had had to adjust to social forces." --Brustopher (talk) 15:37, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

First of all, I did not restore old version, although I did reuse some of the old content. Second, I think this is just a matter of sourcing. Are you saying that some of the included materials (e.g. "who put forth the thesis that the Great Purge was planned and commanded not by Stalin, but by Yezhov and other Stalin's subordinates") were not properly sourced/not in the cited RS, or there is another problem? What was your objection? "You tell about "the "Who killed Kirov" sources". Which source are you talking about, exactly? I do not understand. This is new version. Simply telling: "there is no consensus for your new version" (that is what you seem to tell) is not an adequate explanation for your revert. My very best wishes (talk) 16:31, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, my explanation is a bit poorly written, wrote it in a rush. I was referring to the "Did Stalin Kill Kirov and Does It Matter?" article, which doesn't really work as a citation for what you've stated. There's a lot of heat regarding what the revisionist school of soviet history actually was. Some sources (those supporting the traditionalist totalitarian school like Conquest) paint them as a bunch of Stalin apologists akin to Holocaust deniers. The revisionist sources paint themselves as reasonable academics fighting against the politically biased "cold warrior" totalitarian school. You also have newer commentary post the collapse of the Soviet Union that puts them somewhere in between those two extremes. Therefore to in Wikipedia's voice paint Getty as attempting to deny Stalin any responsibility forin the Great Purge is not reflective of the sources. It's reflective only of one of the many partisan subsets of sources that strongly disagree with eachother. Further to this we have Getty himself in Origins of the Great Purges attributing primary responsibility to Stalin. Brustopher (talk) 17:23, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, I self-reverted and will double check the sources. My understanding is that Arch Getty openly wrote himself about Great Purge being planned and commanded not by Stalin, but by Yezhov and other Stalin's subordinates, and that he himself openly admitted to be a revisionist historian and to disprove the old school of thought, hence the title of his book, Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives. My very best wishes (talk) 18:52, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

So, I am simply looking at academic books by 3rd party historians [1],[2],[3],[4], and so on, and so on. They do call him a "revisionist" historian. Other publications, not academic books, but should also qualify as RS: [5], [6], [7]. My very best wishes (talk) 19:16, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, looking at your old comments [8], I actually agree with you and got your point: Getty did not deny any responsibility on the part of Stalin. If so, this just needs to be rephrased. My very best wishes (talk) 20:27, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

By no means your explanation was poorly written. Everything is correct. Actually, most historians writing after the "archival revolution" (which occurred after massive release of Soviet archival documents in late 80s - early 90s) can be considered "revisionist". In his second most cited work (Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence) Getty provides a revised version of the Gulag population size and mortality, which is currently considered a mainstream views (for example, even Conquest concede these data are correct in general), although some minor adjustments have been made in mortality estimates (for example, by Rosenfielde). By no means it can be considered Stalin's apology. I support your revert.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:35, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

PS. This second revert is a step that goes beyond a standard BRD cycle. Instead of that questionable step, a talk page discussion is strongly advised in this situation.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:44, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Research and ideas/Reception section

The first section is silly. Out of all the body of work by Getty, we find a single unsourced sentence signifying nothing (what exactly does it mean to be a revisionist historian, for an uninitated reader?) and a single sentence, with no context, about the culpability of Stalin in Kirov's murder. Why is the latter important?

The Reception section looks like an oppo-research dump.

Please, someone, with the knowledge fix this travesty, give an overview of the research and reception, preferably using secondary review sources, not plucking statements directly out of Getty's work. See the reception section of The_Harvest_of_Sorrow#Reception for one way in which I did it. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 23:33, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

The way you "fixed" The_Harvest_of_Sorrow is terrible, but this is not a place to discuss it. Now, speaking about that section, this is all a matter of sourcing. Right now this section uses seven RS, and I do not see any problems with them. Guccisamsclubs quoted above a book "In Denial" by Haynes & Kler. That's fine. This quote can be included. Brustopher quoted above a few more sources. That's fine. Let's use them too. What else? P.S. Yes, the culpability of Stalin in Kirov's murder is extremely important. That's why Arch Getty paid so much attention to it.My very best wishes (talk) 00:46, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

You are confusing WP:V with WP:ONUS. Of course the material is sourced - that is not the issue. On any historical topic, you can find plenty of sourcing. They should be selected based on some transparent method - not oppo-research fashion. For instance, why did you quote Robert Conquest (involved in a well-known dispute with Getty) and not others? This can be avoided by simply looking at a few review articles about the area, and rendering them fairly. The Kirov assassination is a good example. It is sourced to Getty himself, with no indication about how it fits into his larger work. The way to do it is to look at the review articles and see if they mention the part about the Kirov assassination and what their verdict about the matter is. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 00:56, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Great job on The_Harvest_of_Sorrow#Reception. It's interesting how editors here chose to quote only the most extreme attacks on Getty, and merely cited the rest of the critiques. So for example, even Jonathan Haslam's "Why Rehabilitate Stalin?" did not quite have the requisite take-no-prisoners tone, so it could not be quoted verbatim. Instead someone just paraphrased it to say that "getty rehabilitated Stalin at a time when the truth about his evil deeds were becoming clear to everyone". This was oppo-research in purest form.Guccisamsclubs (talk) 01:12, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

To make this section you should describe: (a) which his books are considered most notable by 3rd party sources, and (b) what his most notable original/new/"revisionist" ideas are, according to RS published by others. Note that one should not make section "reception" prior to creation section "Ideas". Reception of what? My very best wishes (talk) 12:44, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Let me clarify. Your version tells only this: "Arch Getty is known for his work on the Great Purge. Getty is one of the forerunners of revisionist school of Soviet studies.[citation needed]. He has argued that Stalin was not culpable in Kirov's assassination.[3]" This is nonsense. Why Kirov? What does it mean "revisionist school"? This text tells nothing about his research and ideas. My very best wishes (talk) 04:30, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

I have rewritten the section to include several sources including the one on Kirov's murder which I mentioned below. I have excised Conquest's comparison of the Kirov's murder explanation to David Irving because pretty much everyone has rejected the comparison. I have kept the viewpoints of the various schools to one or two sentences each and noted Sarah Davies' observation that since the end of the Soviet Union, a lot of the heat has gone out of the debate. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:45, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

• Speaking of "Research and ideas" section, this version is terrible. For example, it tells: Academic Sovietology after World War 2 was dominated by the "totalitarian model" of the Soviet Union, stressing the absolute nature of Stalin's power. The "revisionists" beginning in the 1960s, focused on relatively autonomous institutions which might influence policy at the higher level. Yes, this can be sourced to something, but (a) the "totalitarian model" of the Soviet Union is not about the absolute nature of Stalin's power, and (b) the "revisionist" ideas are not about "autonomous institutions which might influence policy at the higher level", and it is entirely unclear what it means "autonomous institutions which might influence policy at the higher level". I do not have time for that right now, but possibly will return later. My very best wishes (talk) 16:10, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

/ #2 could be tweaked (institutions were not really autonomous under Stalin, but they certainly often acted that way) is OK— it says "relatively" autonomous, and #1 is essentially non-controversial. The "totalitarian" model stressed the total subordination of the population to the regime, and no "totalitarianist" would dispute that, under Stalin, Stalin was the regime. And the "totalitarian model" is primarily description of the Stalin period. What came before and after may been the "roots" and "products" of Stalinist totalitarianism by they were not the actual thing.Guccisamsclubs (talk) 16:29, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

The phrasing all comes from the introductory chapter to Stalin: A New History, pages 3-5. Anything which reduces a large school to a sentence or two must be somewhat imprecise by definition. I reckon my effort is much better than the travesty which was there before. I quote the relevant parts from the text:

Academic Sovietology, a child of the early Cold War, was dominated by the ‘totalitarian model’ of Soviet politics. Until the 1960s it was almost impossible to advance any other interpretation, in the USA at least...

In 1953, Carl Friedrich characterised totalitarian systems in terms of five points: an official ideology, control of weapons and of media, use of terror, and a single mass party, ‘usually under a single leader’. There was of course an assumption that the leader was critical to the workings of totalitarianism: at the apex of a monolithic, centralised, and hierarchical system, it was he who issued the orders which were fulfilled unquestioningly by his subordinates...

Tucker’s work stressed the absolute nature of Stalin’s power, an assumption which was increasingly challenged by later revisionist histori- ans. In his Origins of the Great Purges, Arch Getty argued that the Soviet political system was chaotic, that institutions often escaped the control of the centre, and that Stalin’s leadership consisted to a considerable extent in responding, on an ad hoc basis, to political crises as they arose. Getty’s work was influenced by political science of the 1960s onwards, which, in a critique of the totalitarian model, began to consider the possibility that relatively autonomous bureaucratic institutions might have had some influence on policy-making at the highest level.

Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 22:18, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

• Do your best, guys! I am not sure why so many contributors suddenly came to this page. This is really not a notable author/historian. Did you actually read his books? If not, I would not be surprised because nothing he wrote is worth reading. My very best wishes (talk) 00:14, 31 August 2016 (UTC)