Talk:Revolutionary Catalonia

Atrocities?

Really? How neutral is that? I suppose the criticism section isn't enough. Can we have an atrocities section on the USA page to maintain fairness or would that be going to far? The US has certainly massacred far more for far less reason... 82.77.99.92 (talk) 23:13, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Let's face it: it's common knowledge that Wikipedia is hopelessly biased towards neoliberalism and actively stifles, downplays or smears anything that could indicate that the working class, working for socialism, did anything good. Even the title of this article is biased, because Heaven forbid that they call a region run by anarchist unions what it was - Anarchist Catalonia. Ianbrettcooper (talk) 10:56, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

The article is named such because primary sources at the time referred to the region mostly as Catalonia or, sometimes, Revolutionary Catalonia. It’s literally a few scrolls down on the talk page where this discussion was had, and the term “Anarchist Catalonia” was rejected simply because it lacked basis in the political terminology of the day. It isn’t some grand conspiracy against socialism. If you propose changes to the article, state them and provide sourcing in accordance with Wikipedia’s rules. I don’t see the point just whining about bias without taking constructive steps to rectify it when it’s fully in your power to do so. 2601:147:8200:C040:4950:96DE:B096:537 (talk) 02:25, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Yeah exactly. No matter how we try to preserve WP:NPOW it will still have biases towards liberalism, as all contributors are born and raised in the imperial core, and speak English, the language of the current imperial hegemony. Aegesar (talk) 13:59, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Untitled

it seems nine articles link to this one, so i'm removing the tag that complains about few articles linking to it. Murderbike 05:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality no real sources except anarchist stories which although do defiently have an element of truth are severley distorted firstly to show anarchists as the "only true revolutionaries" also idolises the anarchists in the spanish civil war which although being part of the movement were not the runners of the movement for reasons more then "stalin was autocratic" overall this article seems to be more of a tale of how great anarchism is as opposed to about anarchist catalonia, ironically based on a marxist slogan.

Citations Needed. The lack of any cited references at all in this articleis a little worrying. I cannot speak to the validity of this article (I do not know enough about the subject), but it cannot be taken as correct until changes are made. Drivas 14:30, 05 August 2008 (GMT+1)

True enough. Please have a little understanding though, the article was written well before citations became a big issue around Wikipedia. Murderbike (talk) 01:40, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Dubious citations

Many of the citations are taken from blogs, which are inadmissable. There are a couple from random pamphlets: also not admissible (need to be published in a peer-reviewed journal or mass-circulating media outlet, or best of all a book by a respected non-vanity publisher. BillMasen (talk) 13:30, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

As Murderbike notes above, this article was written in an era with much different standards for verification.  Skomorokh  16:52, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but I'm talking about the citations which were added a few days ago, replacing the cite tags which I had previously put there. BillMasen (talk) 17:58, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Anarchist massacres

Another thing: what about the murder visited by the Anarchists upon those considered to be "burgeois" or upon religious people? I'm not signing up to the NKVD version of events, but the CNT weren't exactly whiter than white, either.

One source which mentions all this is 'The Spanish Cockpit', by Franz Borkenau (a book which is mostly critical of the Communists). Unfortunately I don't have access to this book any more. Can someone who does point out that opposition to the anarchists was not entirely motivated by economic self-interest or kowtowing to moscow, but also by the "bourgeoisie" wishing to save their own lives? BillMasen (talk) 13:30, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:LIBRARY might be able to find someone with access to the book. Regards,  Skomorokh  16:53, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Sources

I have replaced the most egregious refs with fact tags. Strict adherence to WP:RS would permit far more.

I am not talking about refs that have been there since pre-WP:RS. I mean refs which have been added in place of the fact tags I put there a few months ago.

Other open-content encyclopedias, anarchist blogs, and self-published pamphlets are not suitable for anything except citing the authors' opinions. Even they may not be appropriate for inclusion.

I've got a copy of Spanish Cockpit, so will be contributing more to this article very soon. BillMasen (talk) 15:31, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Misinformation

The article is full of pro-Anarchist misinformation. See this. Drama-kun (talk) 11:23, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

It's important to note that the university that runs the site was funded by the Koch brothers. The economics section of the website of a university funded by billionaires might not be the most neutral of sources for political information. 2A02:C7E:321D:3600:39FD:7CA5:BA50:E668 (talk) 15:05, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn’t “run by a university”, it’s a project run by its users. If you can back up a claim with well-cited and relatively objective sources, then generally it stands on this website in my experience. I’m not sure why you’re acting as if this website is locked down and controlled by a small set of curators whose strings are being pulled by Koch brother boogeymen, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a constructive response to the objectivity issues raised in this Talk page. 2601:147:8200:C040:4950:96DE:B096:537 (talk) 02:21, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree. You should have seen what it looked like before I had a go at it. BillMasen (talk) 12:28, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

FYI, claiming bias in the article and then using an article by Brian Caplan as the basis for that claim of bias, is, well, stupid. --121.220.176.50 (talk) 10:24, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

cite creep

Once again, the fact tags have been replaced with either incomplete or unreliable references.

See WP:RS

Self-published sources, including

• http://www.buckyogi.com/footnotes/nata.htm
• http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPmontseny.htm
• http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/coll_catalonia_dolgoff.html

are definitely not acceptable in this case. See WP:selfpub for instances where they are acceptable.

Since there is obviously a problem with sources on this page, which is very long-standing, I am removing references which do not cite page numbers. It is essential to verify statements, and an article which repeatedly cites the "sources" above has lost the benefit of the doubt.

There are a large number of contentious, uncited claims on this page. There is no excuse for this; the article may have been written a long time ago, but the concerns I raised over a year ago have not been addressed. If there is no improvement in sourcing, I will delete all of the tagged statements in two week's time. BillMasen (talk) 11:38, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

In reference to the current 3rd citation, "^Pawns in the Game, 1958, by the former Intelligence Branch (Canadian Forces) agent William Guy Carr." There is a book such titled in the Bodleian Library (a copy-right library). The only information I can get is:

   * Title: Pawns in the game
   * Publisher Details: Willowdale
   * Creation Date: [c.1965].]
   * Language: Undetermined
   * Author: William Guy Carr
   * Source: OLIS
   * Type: Book
   * Snippet: Pawns in the game 

Cannot confirm if the cited sentence can actually be sourced to the book. Note the supposed date of publication differs to that offered by the original editor. --129.67.121.82 (talk) 13:08, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

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Infobox

Myself and Mangokeylime have been discussing the use of the Former country infobox at Talk:Free Derry, and I think the same arguments apply here. This article is not really a "country" article like, for instance, United States, which has sections for geography, demographics (including languages), government etc. An infobox summarises this information from the article. This article doesn't have this kind of information. There is no infobox designed to summarise an article like this, because the article is essentially a chronology. The Military conflict infobox wouldn't really work either, as the article is not primarily about battles, armies and leaders. It falls between two stools, for infobox purposes. Some articles just don't lend themselves to infoboxes, and I think this is one of them. Scolaire (talk) 10:16, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I still think that the Free Derry article should be considered for some sort of conflict infobox, but this article is not really fit for such an infobox. This article documents a history that involves politics, collectivization, and conflict, there is no infobox that combines all three. Since this article has a wide range of info it allows itself to a wide range of infoboxes. I would enjoy an infobox for this article if someone could find one that fits. Mangokeylime (talk) 19:33, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Huge pov

it an anarchist friendly pamphlet that is supposed to a Wikipedia neutral article. George  Orwell is not a rs but his propaganda opinions are cited all the time. Αντικαθεστωτικός (talk) 16:18, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

@Αντικαθεστωτικός: I just put a POV template, I find this article biased, too. It also contains questionable information: ¿was there an independent State in Catalonia from 1936 to 1939? ¿Who recognised it internationally? ¿Which reliable sources say that? It's weird considering that the Spanish Republican Government was installed in Barcelona since October 1937... — Preceding unsigned comment added by PedroAcero76 (talk • contribs) 18:19, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, this article needs a lot of work. I just started by removing a bunch of quotes from Orwell. Homage to Catalonia is certainly a valuable eyewitness account, but per Wikipedia policy on primary sources, giving long quotations from it such a prominent position in the article is unacceptable without analysis from a reliable secondary source. Something I have noticed in the "History" section of this article is a lack of focus on the actual events that took place in Catalonia, instead going into long segues about the Spanish Revolution of 1936 and Confederal militias, in lengthy subsections that may be better placed in said articles. I'm sure I'll eventually get around to a deeper improvement of this article, neutralizing language and providing more sources, but I have too much on my Wikipedia plate at the moment. --Grnrchst (talk) 21:27, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand. What exactly is the problem with using Orwell as a source? The article clearly uses quotations from CNT members, Orwell wasn't even an anarchist. Also, as someone who has read Homage to Catalonia, the book is actually very objective, and doesn't paint a perfect picture of the anarchists. I don't have the time to look at every single quotation rn, but I don't understand why some of his quotes were even deleted. Especially the first one which simply describes the scene he found when he arrived at Barcelona. The fact that the revolutionaries collectivized large parts of the economy and placed related imagery is indisputable. Why remove something like this? PantMal (talk) 10:36, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Hey @PantMal. So one problem with using Orwell as a source is that Homage is a primary source, which means that we cannot use it to analyze or interpret events and that any Orwell citations would need to be strictly verifiable statements of fact. As for the quotations, there is a problem with large sections of an article being entirely from a primary source, least of all a partisan one. I removed the first quote because the statement of fact that the economy was collectivized can be achieved without quoting an entire paragraph from Homage, least of all one that paints such a romanticized picture. (Note: this was not the only article that gave undue weight to Orwell's account, some others went even further with excessive quotations.)

Also, leaving Wikipedia policy aside, I have my own problems regarding the anglophone obsession with Orwell's account, as it centers the perspective of a single person rather than a more broad-based coverage of events that affected millions of people. At the end of the day, reliable history books covering the subject are going to be far more valuable for building this article than anything from Homage. Grnrchst (talk) 12:00, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Note about name "Revolutionary Catalonia"

The citogenesis affair with the article about the so-called "Free Territory" (see talk page discussion) got me thinking whether the term "Revolutionary Catalonia" had a historical basis in the sources.

I looked through the ones available to me and, sure enough, three of them (Alexander 1999, p. 754; Graham 2002, p. 221; Paz 1996, p. 512) do use this term. However, all three of them only use the term once each, and in the vast majority of my sources, no reference is made to a "Revolutionary Catalonia" - indicating that it isn't a common name.

Most of my sources use the simple term "Catalonia", without any adjectives, but obviously this wouldn't fit for an article title. Another term that is used is "Autonomous Catalonia" (Paz 1996, p. 339; Peirats 1998, p. 80), or the "autonomous region of Catalonia" (Bolloten 1991, p. 386), however these terms also may not disambiguate well with the present-day autonomous community. Another option is "Republican Catalonia" (Alexander 1999, p. 148), which disambiguates better, but isn't even as common as the current title.

Also note that the articles on Spanish Wikipedia and Catalan Wikipedia are titled "Anarcho-syndicalism in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War".

Just wanted to bring this up here and see if anyone has proposals for changing the article's title, or if they think we should leave it as is. -- Grnrchst (talk) 14:35, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

How about "Anarchist Catalonia"? The region, though under de jure control of the Generalitat of Catalonia, was a de facto stateless society largely independent of the Spanish Republican government. Anonymous Useriol (talk) 08:22, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

@Anonymous Useriol: Do you have any reliable sources for the term "Anarchist Catalonia"? The only source I can find is a brief passing mention in Peirats 1998, p. 114, which hardly constitutes a common name, even compared to "Revolutionary Catalonia". -- Grnrchst (talk) 15:30, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

There are actually a number of sources used "revolutionary Catalonia", I'm not sure whether this is a point, but, at least I think I'd present them: (put date before 2012) Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL, The POUM's Seven Decades, Economics and Politics in Revolutionary Spain. ときさき くるみ ^{not because they are easy, but because they are hard} 22:01, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

@Tokisaki Kurumi: Thanks so much for sharing these! Aye if it was referred to as "Revolutionary Catalonia" by Karl Korsch in 1938, that's a good enough reason for me to keep it as is. And the other links you've provided make it clear that this is widely used. Thanks again for looking into it. -- Grnrchst (talk) 22:10, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Hoi4

Is their appearance in Hoi4 in the article, if not I believe it should seeing as it’s one of the only games they are in. 165.234.101.96 (talk) 19:55, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Maybe we should add a section about their HOI4 appearance? Maybe a legacy section? 165.234.101.98 (talk) 14:21, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

We need a consensus on this before we do anything rash. 2001:48F8:4028:1C23:7946:4B61:231A:20E (talk) 19:42, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Timeline?

I don't really think it's fair to describe Catalonia after 8th of May 1937 as revolutionary, as the power of CNT-FAI was greatly diminished and POUM was outlawed. The Spanish Revolution article doesn't really mention any events after July 1937 either. My suggestion would be to change the timeline of Revolutionary Catalonia to 21st of July 1936, the day of the establishment of the CCMA, to 8th of May 1937, the end of the Maydays. CNT-FAI still had power after this, and still one minister in the Generalitat, but they weren't really the dominant force in Catalonia any longer. What do y'all think? Any sources I could use for this? Amalthea Little (talk) 10:20, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

@Amalthea Little: I've adjusted the dates, while keeping the fall of Catalonia in the infobox as an important post-event. Honestly, this article is in desperate need of a rework. I hope I'll find the time for it at some point. -- Grnrchst (talk) 10:22, 2 July 2023 (UTC)