Talk:The Black Book of Communism/Archive 6

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mentionning that the book is considered to be very inaccurate by scholars ?

first I must say that I am both biased and a noob to wikipedia, so don't forget to tell me if I've done something wrong so, I've tried to find reliable sources for and against the book and I've found a few against and none for, I have also found someone on a serious subreddit that compiled quite a few sources (this), and they say it's not accurate, maybe this could be mentionned in the overview to show that it's the current state of the debate ? Jossebul (talk) 21:47, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

The article mentioned the criticism, but also the support. Patriarca de Alejandria Santiago I (talk) 22:28, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Introduction (controversy)

Crossroads, thanks for keeping part of this addition. Let's discuss the controversial part (in bold):

The introduction, written by Stéphane Courtois, was the main source of controversy, and was acknowledged by Martin Malia in his foreword. Malia wrote that at least one scholar criticized it in Le Monde as antisemitic, and other critics also denounced it as antisemitic, a charge he disagreed with.

They wrote "But why is *this* being singled out of all the reception for inclusion in what is supposed to be a neutral summary of the book? Putting this here is WP:UNDUE and WP:POV. Reception belongs under "reception", especially since there isn't room here to explain exactly who said this and why, even though for whatever reason the response to this appeared in the US edition's foreword. I think we should have a short sentence on why it was controversial, as we do in other sections, like Courtois and Margolin viewing "class genocide as the equivalent to racial genocide" (Sémelin). Ideally, any criticism or analysis should be in the body, and I don't think what I added was "reception"; it explained why the introduction was controversial, and the antisemitic charge, properly attributed and including Malia rebuttal, is due because Paczkowski mentioned it and Malia himself discussed it in the foreword a few years later. Just saying it was controversial doesn't really help, and Reception is for more detailed analysis, but I see nothing wrong in the proposed wording as a very short summary. I am open about other proposed wording, including copy editing of my own proposal, but I think we should explain why it was controversial as a summary:

1. It is acknowledged by the authors themselves, including Malia, who mentioned "one respected researcher" denouncing it as antisemitic in Le Monde.
2. Even more positive reviews, such as Paczkowski, mention the charge of antisemitism for why it was controversial.
3. It includes Malia's rebuttal.

Reception should be for extensive analysis; it shouldn't be used as an excuse to avoid any in-body summary analysis. Davide King (talk) 10:54, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I stand by what I said. The stuff about controversy can and probably should be moved down too; it would actually be very unusual for a book article to include any analysis in the mere summary of the book itself. All that can be under the reception. There's no way to do justice to that or avoid cherry-picking in a summary. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:52, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

WP:STRUCTURE

Let me remind that our policy says: Segregation of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself, may result in an unencyclopedic structure, such as a back-and-forth dialogue between proponents and opponents. It may also create an apparent hierarchy of fact where details in the main passage appear "true" and "undisputed", whereas other, segregated material is deemed "controversial", and therefore more likely to be false. Try to achieve a more neutral text by folding debates into the narrative, rather than isolating them into sections that ignore or fight against each other. This article is organized in the way that is explicitly prohibited by the policy. I am going to re-organize the content. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

A restructure of the reception section would be helpful, perhaps separating that which followed the French publication from the English edition. ~ cygnis insignis 06:49, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

If you guys are talking about "Reception" section, then yes, it certainly could be much shorter and more policy-consistent. My very best wishes (talk) 19:18, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Some clarification is certainly needed. Is it that 'Overview' mainly relies on the book as primary source? Is that what is dismissed as criticism should be moved there? Should 'Reception' be merged? Davide King (talk) 19:57, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes. Actually, I am not sure what is a difference between "Reception" and "Memorial" Paul Siebert (talk) 19:59, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Thinking about it, 'Legacy' would probably be a better heading? Davide King (talk) 20:06, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

My conclusion is that the "Reception" must be completely rewritten. Besides being a blatant violation of WP:STRUCTURE, it de facto does not allow adequate interpretation of the sources the article cites. In reality, majority of reviews on the BB are not fully positive or fully negative: most of them contain both praise and criticism. Furthermore, we must remember that the BB is a collective volume of a very non-homogeneous quality, and some authors who praise the BB may in reality praise just, e.g. Werth's chapter only. Other reviewers, for example Vladimir Tismăneanu, is generally positive, however, he absolutely disagrees with the attempt of Coiurtois to ascribe 85 millionn deaths to Communism and Marxism:

"Speaking of the number of victims under communist regimes (between 85 and 100 million) and comparing this horrible figure to number of people who perished under or because of Nazism (25 million), Courtois decided to downplay a few crucial facts. In this respect, some of his critics were not wrong. First, as an expansionist global phenomenon, Communism lasted between 1917 and the time of the completion of The Black Book (think of North Korea, China, Cuba, Vietnam, where it is still alive, if not well). National Socialism lasted between 1933 and 1945. Second, we simply do not know what the price in terms of victims of Nazism would have been had Hitler won the war. The logical hypothesis is that not only Jews and Gypsies but also millions of Slavs and other "racially unfit" individuals would have been destined to death. As for the political opponents of Hitler's reign of terror, suffice it to remember such names as Dachau, Buchenwald, or Sachsenhausen. Third, in the case of communism one can identify an inner dynamic that could and did in fact contrast the original promises to the sordidly criminal practices. In other words, there was a possible search for reforms, and even for socialism with a human face, within the communist world, but such a thing would have been unthinkable under Nazism. The chasm between theory and practice, or at least between the moral - humanist Marxian (or socialist) creed, and the Leninist, Stalinist (or Maoist, or Khmer Rouge) experiments was more than an intellectual fantasy." [1]

Therefore, it is necessary to combine "Support" and "Criticism", and discuss not the book as a whole, but separate parts and some specific, most notorious statements. I propose to start writing a discussion of reception of the most controversial and most notorious statement: that "Communism killed 85+ million, and, therefore, it is worse than Nazism". Frankly speaking that is the main (if not the only reason why the BB became so popular, I doubt anybody really read its best part (Werth's chapter), for this article would look quite differently. Therefore, let's split "Reception" on several subsections, and the first subsection should be "The claim that Communism killed 85 million, and is comparison to Nazism"--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:05, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

The initial reception might go first, some context on the controversies in the French papers, journals and court cases prosecuting the last of the nazi collaborators. The english translation meshes into a different type of discourse, primarily in US politics, which does not generally have a history that includes socialist or communist parties at the polls. Siebert's points on the support and 'criticism' which reads as 'disagree', being mutually exclusive is on target, it paints a division in intellectual discourse that largely fictitious. Most reviews gave sections of the book individual assessments, but questioned or condemned the Courtois pamphlet that bound these author's research. ~ cygnis insignis 09:43, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Blum

This edit summary claims that "Blum was hardly ever cited in mainstream media or academia until Osama bin Laden endorsed one of his books". Ok, let's check.

• Blum's book was cited 580 times
• The same book was cited 129 times before 2005 (Osama mentioned him in 2006).

Therefore, the edit summary is either a lie or a result of the user's poor familiarity with the topic. I picked just one article that cited Blum's book and looked at the context. It seems this author is seen as a pretty decent source by mainstream publications. Thus,

"However, geopolitical and geo-economic power does get territorialized in certain places. For example, the United States – as the world’s only superpower with military bases in at least 59 countries – wields an immense influence on international relations and, through its control of the IMF and World Bank, the global economy (Blum 2000; Mertes 2002)."

This source is Trans Inst Br Geogr. NS 28 333–349 2003, and that article was cited 601 times, which is a very good indicator. I strongly recommend not to edit war unless you have an ironclad evidences. Paul Siebert (talk) 21:25, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I am not going to edit war further, but if this text will be reverted by at one of two users, I am going to inform admins at AE about this emerging edit war and see their advise. Paul Siebert (talk) 21:28, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

WRT "To compare Blum with Chomsky is ridiculous," I am not comparing them, but they are cited in the same context. See, e.g., this:

"As Magdoff and Foster (2002) contend, by the turn of the millennium the world was facing "a major new development in the history of imperialism," a state of affairs that, as Ignatieff (2003a: 2) concurred, had "no precedent since the days of the later Roman emperors." Likewise, Steinmetz (2005:360) maintained that there could be "little doubt" that the United States stood as "the controlling center of a global empire." And as Krauthammer (2001) famously exulted: "America is no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome" (from an exhaustive literature also see Magdoff and Foster 2001; Chomsky 2003a,b; Burrach and Tarbell 2004; Cox 2004a,b; Bello 2005; Blum 2006; Johnson 2006; ...) (New Imperialism: Toward a Holistic Approach. Author(s): Steven Kettell and Alex Sutton. Source: International Studies Review, June 2013, Vol. 15, No. 2 (June 2013), pp. 243-258 Published by: Wiley on behalf of The International Studies Association. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24032950) The article was cited 22 times)

Blum, 2006 is " Blum, William. (2006) Rogue State: A Guide to the Word's Only Superpower. " Paul Siebert (talk) 21:52, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, with respect, you are only demonstrating the profound methodological flaws with your approach to identifying reliable sources based solely on citation count with your analysis above.

Among other things, your analysis shows that Blum's citations increased almost five-fold increased considerably after the Osama bin Laden endorsement and that the examples you checked were brief passing mentions including Blum in a long list of authors (sometimes 10 or more!) identifying the U.S. as a superpower (an observation hardly unique to Blum's Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower).

If Blum was really "seen as a pretty decent source by mainstream publications," to the point where you feel comfortable asking "If that is fringe, then what is mainstream?", there would be reliable sources saying so, Blum's work would be reputably-published rather than being self-published or published by marginal outlets like Common Courage Press, and The Washington Post's obituary would not state that "For years, William Blum toiled largely without notice on writings in which he railed against the imperialism of U.S. foreign policy. ... even left-wing publications such as the Nation declined to publish his works, Mr. Blum said, because they judged him too fanatical."

Regardless, any notoriety that Blum has is related to his criticism of the United States rather than his views regarding the quality of life in twentieth-century communist regimes, which have rarely, if ever, been cited by secondary sources.

Final thought: No, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (which has been cited 19,300 times on Google Scholar) is not on a par with The Black Book of Communism in terms of fact-checking and accuracy—Blum's inflammatory suggestion to the contrary notwithstanding.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:15, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Ok, you are using such words as "methodological flaws", etc, and, therefore, I have a right to respond in the same vein.

• You said: "Blum was hardly ever cited in mainstream media or academia until Osama bin Laden endorsed one of his books." I demonstrated it was cited 129 times before 2006. That means your edit summary contained a direct a lie: the book was cited pretty well before 2006. And, in my opinion, the first sentence of your responce was supposed to acknowledge this your good faith mistake.
• In this your post you say: "your analysis shows that Blum's citations increased almost five-fold after the Osama bin Laden endorsement". Ok, let's do a simple arithmetic.

• Starting from 1999, the book was cited 580 times;
• From 1999 to 2005 (6 years) the book was cited 126 times that is 126/6 = 21 times per year.
• From 2006 to 2021 (15 years) the book was cited 391 times that is 391/15 = 26 times per year. A contribution of Osama (+ 5 citation per year) is quite impressive. That completely debunks all my groundless assertions (sarcasm).
• Ok, maybe lion's share of those citations were due to Osama, and it was an outburst of citations in 2006, and now the boom is forgotten? Let's check. 129 citations in 2006-2009 (43 citations per year), and 84 citations in 2015-2018 (28 citations per year). In summary, Osama may be responsible for additional ~100 citations, which is hardly impressive.

Another conclusion: arithmetic is a very good science, I strongly recommend to use it.

If you feel uncomfortable to continue a conversation in this format, please, switch to a more polite language, and I'll do the same. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:55, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

• Is this a detailed discussion or a passing dismissal in his book? There are numerous journalist opinions in non-academic books and in newspaper op-eds. I see no reason to pick these and include them when there are many of these, and probably at least as many supporting the book's claims. Any of that type are not analyses by people with relevant expertise (as recognized by academics and not just by pundits) and seem WP:UNDUE. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:09, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  This is a new argument. My answer is: I don't know. I agree that passing dismissals and passing praises should not be included into this article. However, my post was an answer to a totally different argument. Paul Siebert (talk) 05:14, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  Indeed, that is a good argument for removal in general but I would rather we agree on, and work toghether for, an improvement structure, with various 'drafts' of section to compare, rather than removing stuff without a clear consensus and risking to edit war. From a previous discussion in the archives, Aquillion provided a better source, i.e. a book published by Zed Books and compared it to Revel. Davide King (talk) 23:28, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

  And, I'll point out, as I said there... we're still devoting most of a paragraph to Last Exit to Utopia, a source I would qualify as of comparable or lesser weight (eg. America's Deadliest Export has 62 citations while Last Exit to Utopia has 15); both authors are partisan writers whose only expertise on Communism, totalitarianism, or even politics in general comes from writing a large number of books, mostly via partisan press, including the one we're citing. Due weight is relative, so we should be trying to figure out which sources are comparable in terms of coverage, expertise, citations, etc. and balancing them out appropriately. If we're going to remove Blum on the basis that 62 citations for the book we're citing is insufficient and that he has no formal expertise, then we need to go over the other sources in both the support and criticism sections and apply the same standards to them... citation count is not the be-all-and-end-all, but 15 cites for Last Exit to Utopia, combined with the author's complete lack of formal expertise, and the fact that it was published in the partisan press, makes it really hard to justify including it, especially when we're applying that exact same logic to Blum, who is broadly similar but has more citations. So as I said back then, I would suggest removing both Blum and Revel as a compromise, as well as anyone else in the reception section who is broadly similar, and improving the reception overall by focusing on sources with formal expertise, significant reception, etc. FWIW I'm still not a fan of dividing reception into "support" and "criticism" in any case - it tends to attract these sorts of axe-grindy pieces. --Aquillion (talk) 23:43, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

  Nug, please self-revert — there is no clear consensus yet for removal, especially since we only discussed Blum. Besides, if those are fringe views, then so is Revel (who, ironically, actually proves Milne's point because he does not think capitalism is to blame for colonialism, and Milne's claim is not fringe), as persuasively argued by Aquillion just above. Davide King (talk) 01:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Crossroads here. There are many journalist opinions about this book. Why are we picking the one by a WP:FRINGE author known for making crazy statements? Volunteer Marek 06:33, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

"fringe author known for making crazy statements", should that fact be in the article William Blum? ~ cygnis insignis 06:46, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Blum was respected, good source.--Horace Snow (talk) 10:03, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

But what did they "fabricate" exactly [2], according to the accuser? This is not at all clear. My very best wishes (talk) 19:35, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

'Fabricated' is in not in reference to the Black Book, which is obviously not, but to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. Just like this antisemitic text does not represent Judaism or Jews, the Black Book does not fairly represent "the study of communism" in his view, not that they are both fabricated, if that is what you think the text says. Davide King (talk) 19:54, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

@Davide King: My understanding of MVWB's point is that MVBW disagrees that "Protocols" were fabricated, and that they are an authentic historical document. If that is what MVBW asserts, it belongs to the article about "Protocols". Paul Siebert (talk) 19:58, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I never said such nonsense. Everyone knows that the protocols were fabricated. But the inserted text tells that "Black Book" was fabricated, just as the "Protocols", without even explaining why the author (Blum) thinks so. Hence my removal. My very best wishes (talk) 00:10, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

But that is clearly not what the text says... it says the Protocals was fabricated, not the Black Book. It says the Black Book is "a book that is to the study of communism what the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is to Judaism." Davide King (talk) 00:37, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@Horace Snow: any other sources that support that would be helpful to discussion. ~ cygnis insignis 11:37, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• Obviously, this "Protocols" comparison and the whole statement is a FRINGE personal view and therefore does not belong to the page. One might include it to the page about author, i.e. William Blum, but I do not think it belongs even there. My very best wishes (talk) 16:00, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Why does this keep being restored? Per WP:ONUS, there is clearly not a consensus to include. These are just partisan journalists with no particular academic expertise and who don't even delve that deeply into the topic, seemingly just giving the book a passing mention. If there are other equally poorly justified comments on the "support" side, then get rid of them too. That's not a justification for keeping these. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:10, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Most of the cited 'support' is misrepresented, editor's opinion of Blum is not a reason to delete. The comparison compares two works, compare that to the published accusations of historians adopting Courtois's propositions, "worse than holocaust denial" against living people. ~ cygnis insignis 10:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

William Blum, Seumas Milne

William Blum is not an expert in history of Europe.

Seumas Milne is not only a journalist but also a political aide, which makes him biased.Xx236 (talk) 13:29, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, I like this approach. Let's remove all political journalists and non-experts from the article, and focus at the opinia of experts, preferably peer-reviewed publications.

Another approach is to move journalists and non-experts to the "Public reception" section. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:47, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Those are personal and highly politicized opinions by people who are not experts on the subject. Wikipedia is not a vacuum cleaner. My very best wishes (talk) 02:41, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
• I obviously agree with removing both, as I said above, but we ought to go over everyone cited in both sections and survey them to see how WP:DUE they are (this will also provide a degree of comparison that should make the worst sources more glaring.) Part of my problem with these support / opposition sections is that they tend to attract snappy opinions crammed in there by editors who like how sharp they are rather than based on them being WP:DUE. Going over some of them:

• Reviews from The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times Book Review, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, The New Republic, National Review, and The Weekly Standard are referenced. The citation for this is the Harvard University Press page selling the book - we might want to replace that; a book's store page, even from a high-quality publisher, is not a good source, and there's no indication even on that page that the quotes there are representative. I'll also note that several reviews are cited solely to this page, which is, again, inappropriate; even if it is Harvard, the publisher's page selling the book is not a place we can source a book's reception to per WP:INDEPENDENT - that citations should be totally replaced (though it ought to be easily replaceable.) We should also reconsider the specific quotes we use - all of them seem to have been selected based on their use on the publisher's website, which, again, isn't a good way to make editorial decisions for WP:INDEPENDENT reasons. Many of the reviews themselves are probably individually usable but we should cite them directly (and check to make sure the quotes are representative; publisher blurb quotes often aren't and there is no expectation that they will be, even if that publisher is Harvard.) It feels like someone just slapped this in there because the URL had Harvard in it, without considering the implications of using the publisher's website as a source for quotes in this specific context.
• Ronald Aronson (no Wikipedia page), a professor focused on Marxism, one sentence. Aronson is quoted speaking approvingly of Werth's chapter; this is technically true insofar as it's an accurate quote, but is wildly out of context. (You can see the rest of what Aronson says in a footnote further down the page; weirdly, we cite this for general statements, but only quote Aronson and mention him by name in the Support section, which seems like a torturous abuse of a source given that his conclusion includes things like saying that the rest of the book ignores essential topics in order to present a highly skewed narrative and extensive criticism of Courtois' figures. This sort of thing is part of the reason why a support / criticism division is such a terrible idea - in-depth reviews by credible authors (at least those without axes to grind) will usually touch on both - but at the very least if we're going to have it it's completely inappropriate to mention Aronson's largely critical review only in the support section.
• Martin Malia - who contributed to the book - is cited via publisher's page, and this one I'm not sure we can actually source to elsewhere. This is obviously not WP:INDEPENDENT, and unquestionably requires an independent or secondary source if we're going to include it at all. Possibly we could include it in another section as Malia's opinion, but a contributor quoted on the publisher's website isn't reception.
• Andrzej Paczkowski's review is another one where the classification as "support" seems dubious.
• Alan Ryan (a political philosopher, published in the NYT Book Review) is an ok source, but he is given an entire paragraph for reasons that are unclear to me. His expertise is less specifically relevant than the previous sources, who are largely given single sentences; nor is his opinion unusual enough to require the extra text. I'd suggest trimming him down to a sentence to match the others.
• Vladimir Tismăneanu is an academic expert on the subject and is given the largest dedicated paragraph in the support section. Again, while he's a decent source, I'm not seeing why he's given so much more focus than most other people. If we're going to give someone a paragraph he isn't a terrible choice at a glance, but we're citing a lot of other comparable experts here at much less length.
• Jacques Julliard is mentioned only in passing; he is, at least, a historian, although not an expert on the subject beyond that.
• Revel has been discussed above; his degree is in philosophy with no relevant expertise beyond that, and his book was published via a partisan press. I'd suggest removing him entirely - in terms of expertise or the quality of where he was published, he's flatly the worst source in the entire support section except maybe Jacques Julliard, who isn't actually quoted and is just mentioned. Yet Revel gets most of a paragraph.

I'm going to let someone else go over the criticism section in-depth, but a few obvious things leap out at me in comparison to the support section. Almost nobody gets an entire paragraph (only Noam Chomsky, whose comments have significant secondary coverage due to his stature.) Also, Michael Ellman's paper only mentions the Black Book in a footnote - it probably shouldn't be cited here at all; but in any case how is it criticism? It feels like in a few places "responses" have been inserted into the criticism section - not a terrible idea, but if we're going to do that we should restructure the entire reception section. And as far as that goes the first two paragraphs of the criticism section are largely the best parts of the entire section, since they have a coherent thesis and mostly stick to it; virtually all of the support section, and the rest of the criticism section, is just scattered nose-counting or zingers. We should consider restructuring it into broad topics that reception of the book focuses on, and covering what people say about those, rather than dividing it into critics / supporters. Dividing it into broad topics will also avoid the nose-counting and "clobber quote" problems that these sections tend to accrue. --Aquillion (talk) 11:24, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Aquillion, this is certainly a well-balanced analysis and good solution provided, rather than focusing only on non-experts from 'Criticism' and/or removing something from 'Criticism' but not from 'Support', even though they are both problematic on the same grounds. Indeed, the structure both you and Siebert put forward should be the ideal for any similar article, and it is a shame that so many articles still follow the 'Support'–'Criticism' section, which may be understandable as an easier way to organize but it should be discarded if we want to improve quality. Broad topics include 'Antisemitism and Holocaust trivialization', 'Body-counting and grouping', 'Comparison of Communism and Nazism' (which we already have but may be moved and expanded), and reactions to Courtois' thesis going back to Marx and stressing commonality rather than societal context. Davide King (talk) 12:59, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

First, I propose to take a look at these sources. It is possible that some of them were not cited in this article.

Second, let me be frank. The main thing that made the BB so important and controversial is Courtois's introduction, where he made a claim that Communism killed 85 milloin victims, and there is a direct linkage between Marxism and the deaths. Based on those figures, Courtous makes a claim that some "generic Communism" was more murderous than Nazism, and it is possibly the greatest evil of XX century. That is arguably the main claim that deserves attention. Werth's chapter is a balanced and detailed story of the process of killing of people in Soviet Russia by their own state, and this story analyses, among other things, the roots of this phenomenon, which Werths sees as follows: Nechaev -> Lenin -> Stalin. And that is a big contrast with Courtois concept that links everything to Marxism and some "global Communism". Actually, the Werth's chapter is a totally separate monograph, which is based on its own concepts, uses its own approaches, and comes to totally different conclusions than Courtois makes. And it is not a surprise that Werth publicly criticised Courtois. The same can be said about some other chapters.

As we can see, this article is de facto not about the Black Book, but about Courtois's introduction. And, therefore, we must discuss reception of the introduction, not the book as whole. And, more specifically, we should discuss a reaction on the most scandalous claim.

It would be cheating to wrap Courtois (who was accepted mostly negatively) into positive reviews on Werth (who was mostly praised). But it would be incorrect to focus on Werth, because his chapter, which is deep and balanced, is just one out of many monographs about history of Soviet Russia: there is no serious controversy in his chapter, but there are no extraordinary claims (which attract laymen) either.

Therefore, I propose to write that the BB is a highly in-homogeneous collective volume, and each its chapter was a subject of some praise and criticism. We should note that Werth's chapter is widely praised, and it is a "rock the whole Book rests upon". I don't see why we need to devote any significant space to that. And after that, we must focus on the discussion of the most scandalous statements made by Courtois (see above). We have a lot of sources about that, and we can write a nice story.

Actually, to avoid creation of apparent hierarchy, I would propose to move the discussion of these controversial theses directly to the "Estimated number of victims" and "Comparison ..." sections. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:48, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with Xx236 and Aquillion. Not every sourced opinion by non-experts belong to WP. Personally, I would remove a lot more from "Reception". My very best wishes (talk) 20:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
• I'm not sure I'm understanding this edit (the IP seems to have removed these sources alongside a huge number of other edits, but we hadn't agreed to start removing them and they hadn't therefore been "added"), but if we're going to start this removal process then we need to move forwards with more than just Blum and Milne - the entire point of both this and the discussion above is that WP:DUE has to be applied evenly; we cannot remove low-quality partisan sources on one side of a debate and not the other. I'm happy to start removing both (though this discussion had stalled) but the fact that the IP removed them and got reverted obviously doesn't mean there's a consensus to just remove those two and then stop there. In particular, I consider it straightforwardly obvious that Revel must be removed if we are removing Blum and Milne, since they're almost exactly comparable. We also have to deal with the issue of large portions of the reception section being cited to blurbs from the publisher's website, though that is trickier because some of that can be replaced with proper cites. --Aquillion (talk) 10:26, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• I agree; however, should we remove Ryan too? He is a philosopher and I am not aware of him being "an expert in history of Europe" either, which is the ground given for removing Bulme and Milne, even though they are published in a reliable news source (The Guardian) like Ryan (The New York Times) and a better publisher than Revel's (Zed Books), and at least Milne's views were published in The Guardian and are supported by historian Wiener in How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey Across America. Unlike Revel, who was published by a partisan press, Bulme was published by Zed Books and was relevant in criticism of the introduction as antisemitic, which was also supported by others and we include Malia's response. There is indeed a double standard, and while I do agree those may not be the best sources, there is a false balance in dismissing them but not Revel and others. Bulme and Milne do not say fringe things about the Black Book either. Davide King (talk) 11:25, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Question

"Distinguishing between small-c communism, which has existed for millennia, while capital-c Communism only started in 1917, Courtois argues against the claim that actually existing Communism had nothing to do with theoretical communism."

1. [3] - Where and what exactly BBoC say about it? Page?
2. The lead suppose to summarize content of the page, and I do not see much about it the body of the page.
3. This should be also referenced to 3rd party sources to avoid WP:SYN.

My very best wishes (talk) 00:27, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

At p. 2: "We must make a distinction between the doctrine of communism and its practice. As a political philosophy, communism has existed for centuries, even millennia. ... There will always be nitpickers who maintain that actual Communism has nothing in common with theoretical communism." Davide King (talk) 21:18, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

All of this is in the section about the introduction. I think it is relevant for the lead to make clear this distinction and what is meant by Communism. As for the third point, it does not look so controversial and has been long-standing without any significant issue, but note that is my exact same argument about MKuCR, where we are citing everything to their primary works rather than third-party sources about the weight their opinion holds. Reliable secondary coverage always help. Davide King (talk) 21:23, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Sure, this is correct citation, but please compare:

"There will always be nitpickers who maintain that actual Communism has nothing in common with theoretical communism" (said Coutois) and

"Courtois argues against the claim that actually existing Communism had nothing to do with theoretical communism"

The second phrasing is too convoluted. Should we say that Courtois argued that the communist regimes have implemented the classic Communism ideas? I am not sure. Some authors do imply it by referring to Republic (Plato), etc., but I do not think this is an important point made in BBoC. My very best wishes (talk) 16:16, 22 January 2022 (UTC)