Talk:Red Army invasion of Georgia

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no move —Mets501 (talk) 01:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Red Army invasion of Georgia → Soviet-Georgian War — As clear from the comments by neutral parties above,the title is a piece of hopeless original research with POV connotations. The article should be moved to Soviet-Georgian War, per example of Soviet-Polish War (which is a featured article, by the way). Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:31, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.

• Support as nominator. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:32, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support, there is no need for POV words in the title. --Irpen 09:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, I have already explained my reasoning. Ghirla, you need to prove that the title is a "hopeless OR". I would also ask you to stop throwing groundless accusations around and be more respectful. Most scholarly works refer to the conflict as the Red Army invasion and I have listed them above. The Soviet-Georgian war is used only by ONE Russian source, http://www.hrono.ru. We have several articles titled "invasion" and I don't remember you, guys, questioning their neutrality. Please be careful about your own bias.--Kober 10:24, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Please be careful in accusing others as well. Again, you confuse two things. Now, the fact that the Soviet army invaded Georgia in this conflict can be stated in the article's text and references are handy. Other articles titled such have their exceptional reasons. Invasion of PL title was argued because PL was invaded from two sides, so it could not be called under an "XY war" title. A totally different issue is whether the "R.A. invasion of G." is the most widely accepted name of this war by such a margin as to trump the normal rule of sticking to neutral terms in the article's titles. The authors here and there say that Soviet army invaded Georgia. This is true but so is true that, for instance, Nazi Germany invaded the USSR. Nevertheless, the article about that war is not called the "German invasion of Russia". Neither the Operation Barbarossa has a POV title. The normal title would in no way prevent you from using the I-word in the text. The reader will read the article, will see the facts, will notice that they are referenced and will be able to conclude who invaded whom from the info the in the article. No need to invasion the title. It is an unnecessary POV. --Irpen 10:34, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
    • We have French invasion of Russia (1812), not French-Russian war of 1812. --Kober 11:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
      • First, the stable title was "Napoleon invasion..." and it was just moved yesterday[2]. Again, there is a complication there as Napoleon's Grand Army was multinational and this was not a French invasion. Insisting on the POV title really puts you in an unfavorable light as an editor. Nothing prevents you to express things in the article itself rather than load its titles. --Irpen 11:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
        • I'm insisting on an accurate title not on a POV one. If I meant to load it with POV, I would have chosen Soviet occupation of Georgia as the 1921 events are generally known in Georgia.--Kober 11:33, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
          • Whataever you say, the XY-war is the WP standard. It is broken either because of the event's complication or, in rare articles, because of POV-pushing or poor style. Too bad if this move vote fails because it will add to the poor style titles list an article about Georgia. This would be an embarassment to the Georgian editors, not to me. Anyway, you want invasions and massacres in titles? Welcome to the club. --Irpen 11:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
            • The "XY-war" is neither a "WP standard" nor is it "exceptional" to use the term "invasion". Actually, WP has the articles Invasion of Poland (1939), Invasion of Yugoslavia, Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, Tatar invasions, Mongol invasions, Sichuan invasion, British invasions of the Río de la Plata, 1833 invasion of the Falkland Islands, 2003 invasion of Iraq, Post-invasion Iraq, 2003–2006, Occupation of Baltic Republics and Attack on Pearl Harbor. In August users discussed to change the title of the article 2003 invasion of Iraq into Liberation of Iraq(Talk:2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Requested_move_4_August) but it was opposed by the majority because "Invasion is neutral". -- Irakli D 12:15, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. A better title could be selected, but to call military occupation a war is not correct. Basically what happened was that Bolsheviks occupied Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia one by one without meeting any serious resistance, as the forces were not equal. But there was no actual war between RSFSR and Georgia, as well as the other two countries. All 3 Transcaucasian republics were occupied and incorporated in Soviet Union as Soviet Socialist Republics. So in my opinion the title should accurately reflect what happened at the time. Grandmaster 10:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose No need to change a concise title into a title that has its origin in the soviet-stalinist vocabulary. Reminds me of George Orwell's Newspeak in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. -- Irakli D 11:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • This is the first ever edit from this account. I would appreciate removal of trolling from this page. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 13:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • This is obviously a blatant sock, I concur... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Since it is so obvious, I urge a checkuser on this issue. If we determine which user disrupted the poll by sockpuppetry, he should be permabanned from editing Wikipedia per current guidelines. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 18:07, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Please do not bite the newcomers. This user has been anonymously contributing for a while and he is an active user on German Wikipedia.--Kober 18:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I think, I have written more articles about Georgia for Wikipedia than user:Grafikm_fr and user:Ghirlandajo have written together all their lives. Excuse me that I have done that in the German Wikipedia (de:Benutzer:Irakli). I hope this is not a bullying of German people by a kind of Russian-French axis. -- Irakli D 01:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. The Polish-Russian war was quite distinct in its origins from the invasion of Georgia in that both Poland and Russia were expansionist at the time and (assuming I am understanding the political backdrop correctly) began a war over territory that both held claims on. The Georgian incident was not a war in the traditional sense of two belligerent nations fighting each other. The Dark 15:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Changing my level of opposition after the Google-fu results that "Soviet Invasion of Georgia" is at least five times as common as "Soviet-Georgian War" (with the latter having zero non-Wikipedia English references). The Dark 16:50, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
• Strong support. This title is POV and OR. A move to a more neutral, and WP:NC compliant, title is necessary. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • OR? Prove it. --Kober 17:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
    • It gets about 20 hits on google [3] and the first 2 are from... WP!!! Any other questions? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
      • How many hits does the Soviet-Georgian War get? I have already said here that the conflict is underreported on the Internet. Scroll up and have a look at the list of references and citations. --Kober 18:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
        • Soviet-Georgian War gets 4 hits [4]. The first 2 are WP, the third is on a Russian TV program, and the fourth is in Russian, which I don't read well enough to translate. The Dark 18:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
          • Yeah, and one of them refers not to the Soviet-Georgian war, but to a war veteran from Soviet Georgia:).--Kober 18:14, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
            • S-G War is a descriptive title. In the absence of the prevailing terminology, the descriptive titles are the best solution because they are neutral and do not imply any POV. --Irpen 02:19, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
              • Irpen, it's only you and your friends who say that "invasion" is not descriptive. You didn't read Talk:2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Requested_move_4_August. There you will find the statement "Invasion is neutral". -- Irakli D 10:02, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
                • Please avoid grouping people and generalizing arbitrary. This reflects poorly on you and the position you are trying to argue. --Irpen 10:23, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
                  • Instead of argueing against me you better stick to the subject. The question is wether "invasion" is a neutral word or not. In Talk:2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Requested_move_4_August a majority said it's neutral. Why do we discuss questions over and over again that have already been decided on Wikipedia? -- Irakli D 07:19, 13 November 2006 (UTC).
• Strong Oppose As I have mentioned before this title is used in numerous scholarly works of well known Historians (Lang, Allen, Suny, etc). This article is under attack only because of some Russian users who have political reasons behind it. This is completely unacceptable for encyclopaedic studies. I already suggested to review the references and sources provided in the article to confirm the title which is used throughout historical documents and books which focus on Soviet invasion and aggression against Georgia in 1921. Nazi invasion of Poland has same parallels as Soviet invasion of Georgia. I want the users to know that this article is compromised due to latest Russian-Georgian conflict. If anybody here will allow this NPOV to be tampered, than we should rename Invasion of Poland (1939) into Liberation of Poland (1939). In terms of historical and academic terms this title is the only one which is widely used in many research materials and books (please see references). Ldingley 18:14, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Grandmaster.--Eupator 18:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - this was not a war. And, I believe, opinions here should be sought from not only active editors, but readers as well. Soneone who engages in random edits here is not therefore more credible opinionwise. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 19:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
• Neutral but where's the POV? Both "Red Army" and "Georgia" are accepted translations of self-designations and neither side denies that the invasion occurred. —  AjaxSmack  03:07, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
• Strong support. Elk Salmon 16:11, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Would you be so kind as to explain your vote at least in a few words?--Kober 16:23, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose per Grandmaster. -- Clevelander 20:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments:

References and Sources for Soviet Invasion of Georgia:

1. The Georgian Republic, by Roger Rosen, Jeffrey Jay Foxx, p. 18: "...Soviet invasion of Independent Georgia...."
2. Socialism in Georgian Colors: The European Road to Social Democracy, 1883-1917, by Stephen F. Jones, p. 71: "..... After Soviet invasion of Georgia...."

1. A modern history of Georgia, Lang, David Marshall 3 Edition, p. 217 "Title:: Soviet invasion of Georgia and collapse of the Menshevik Government" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]]).

One and two is not a proof that this is good for a title. These are simply sentences that say that invasion took place. They can be used for references inside the article, they do not prove that the "RA I of GA" is the most widely accepted name of the event. There are two different things, to say that invasion took place and to say that the most common name of the event is the "RA invasion of GA". Example: Operation Barbarossa was an invasion. It can be called such inside the article but the most common name for the event is "Barbarossa", not the "Nazi invasion of the USSR" and the article is called as such. Another example, plenty of source, including the Ukrainian government sites, talk about Liberation of Kiev as well as of Ukraine from the Nazi occupation. Still, the articles are called Battle of Kiev and Battle of Dnieper. Within the text, the word Liberation can be used as such usage is sourced, but no one tried to push strong words in the titles.

Example 3 is meaningful, unlike the other two. So, you have 1 ref to support the title and not three.

Also note that many articles are called by decriptive titles, particularly, the articles about the rather obscure events where there is little literature and little refs to establish prevailing usage. This is one such article. Descriptive titles should be as neutral as possible. See, eg. Evacuation of East Prussia which is neither Liberation of EP nor Soviet plundering of EP or occupation (POV words).

Finally, the claim that SGW is the "Soviet terminology" is simply false. Soviets did not present this as any kind of war at all but rather as an expulsion of Mensheviks, that is an intra-party struggle and part of the Russian Civil War. --Irpen 22:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, more sources are listed at the top of the page. Some of them have entire chapters titled "Red Army/Soviet Invasion of Georgia". They state that the invasion did occur and you seem to agree with them. Then, why do you find the title POV?

Again, I have never suggested titles like Occupation or Conquest despite the fact that these terms are also used by scholars (e.g., Blank, Stephen. "The Soviet Conquest of Georgia." In Central Asian Survey, 33-46. 12. 1993.). "Invasion" is a neutral name and is even used for such a controversial topic as the 2003 invasion of Iraq.--Kober 04:25, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.