Talk:Communist Ideology

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Discussion for plans of a possible reorganization of the "Communism" series of pages. The purpose of such is to streamline the existing pages into a set of more clear, concise articles with single points, rather than several entries which cover eachothers points, but in different ways.

Contents

[edit] Structure

The top portion of this page should deal with the reconstruction of the various Communism pages.

[edit] Outline

Outline an idea for a future set of pages. This is speculation for now; let's not change any existing articles until we come to some agreement.

My (Oceanhahn) plan is to simply rewrite the Communism and Communist states pages into three distinct subjects:

  • Communist History, which deals with the real effects of communist states, death toll (for the purposes of avoiding an ongoing dispute, I propose that numbers should only be expressed through rough numbers -- eg: "tens of millions", "several thousand"...) and all. Will take the place of the Communist states page, or perhaps a new article can be written from scratch. As a point of interest, the Communist states page seems more to do with "Communist Politics" at the moment; perhaps the history page could be expanded to include this. Discuss.
The Communist state article resulted from incomplete merger of the article Communist state which dealt with the formal organization of the communist state viewed from a political science perspective and Marxist-Leninist dictatorship which dealt with the practical ramifications of rule by a Marxist-Leninist Party. Fred Bauder 12:11, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
  • Communist Ideology, the various syles of communist theory -- Marx, Stalin, Castro / Guevara and all. A new article to replace / encompass what has already been said on the old Communism page. (I probably should not have put discussion for reformatting on a page with this name...)
  • Communism, a brief article on the subject which covers both of the above in as few words as possible. This will take the place of the existing Communism page, and will hopefully function as a portal to other articles as was suggested in a Talk:Communism discussion. Will become a breifing page with the major links listed in prominance and lesser, subordinate links to the plethora of less-relevant, less-informative articles and stubs below it.

[edit] Catalog of Existing Pages

So far there are a more than a few existing pages on the subject of communism (not counting socialism, which is a whole new can of worms)... To keep from repeating ourselves and taking up unnecessary space, we should try and group up as many sites as we can. If you dont know how a site fits with either Historical Data or Communist Theory, then add it to the bottom of the Other Pages list.

This idea has been replaced by / updated into the COMMUNISM ARTICLES' TEMPLATE shown at right.
Hopefully this template will adorn all Communism-Series pages in place of the usual set of links.

[edit] Major Pages

Large pages or pages to be reformatted go here.
  • Communism; The page where all this began. Currently intended as an ideology page free of historical or political data but rich with the theory of communism. According to designs in Talk:Communism, this could become a good portal to other, more specific pages. Whether is stays that way is up to chance. Cited for reformatting.
  • Communist states; This is somewhat baffling as it would SEEM to be a good candidate for all the history and politics of communism -- death counts, accomplishments, references to the Soviet Union, et al... -- but it seems to simply be a mess of NPOV infractions combined with a brief history of communist states, communist theory, communism and politics, and economics. I would like this to be a page for the sucessful and failed cases of communist states. Cited for reformatting.


[edit] Lesser Pages

Stubs and specific flavors of communism go here. These will likely end up as links.
Theory Links -- Kinds of government ideologies
  • Marxism; Looks pretty good as-is, but worth looking at, if you haven't already. I haven't looked at all the links here. Some may be relevant. I don't know, and it really isnt all that important at the moment.


Historical Links -- Various communist nations, their governments, their track records, and their leaders.

[edit] Other Pages

Miscelaneous links to be decided upon last.
  • Kibbutzim; This has it's own page, and while it may be mentioned in passing in Communist History, going on at any length over a sentence or two is out of place since it's merely a development style (plus psychological studies) and not a major component of Communism in terms of philosophy or theory.


[edit] Important Changes History

»CREATED A NEW PAGE FOR COMMUNIST GOVERNMENTS« See it here. -- Oceanhahn 03:59, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

»ADDED THE GROUNDRULES SECTION. SEE IT AT 1.5 CONVENTION ON THIS PAGE. (Two sections below this one) -- Oceanhahn 03:45, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Sections and Articles Cited for Redesignation

This section describes which article sections will be rearranged and into which areas.
Any complaints or disagreements should be noted in the ARTICLE AND ARTICLE SECTION RELOCATION subsection of the TALK area, with the corresponding change number.
I may make a proper table out of these later. Anyone who knows how and can do a good job is welcome to.
  • Change #0 -- Communism Sections 1~3 (1 Utopian communism, 2 The ideas of Marx and Engels, 3 Leninism versus Democratic Socialism) --JOIN-- Communist Ideology ((Sections to be arranged proprely later.))
  • Change #1 -- Communism Section 4 (4 The Future of Communism) --JOINS-- Communist Governments, probably in the capacity of a conclusion heading or paragraph.
  • Maintain #2 -- Communism Section 5 (5 Theory and the Adjective Communist) --REMAINS-- Part of the Communism article.
  • Decision #3 -- Communism Section 6 (6 Theory and Practice) --EITHER...--
3.A -- Moves to the Communist Ideology page, since it deals with Communist practice, --OR--
3.B -- Remains where it is in order since it contains references to actual states.
In either event, a link can be places to it from the page without.

[edit] Convention

I've taken it upon myself to field a few suggestions for the new pages. Please consider them, as they will hopefully speed the project along somewhat and foster neutrality.
  • 0. COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY shall NEVER touch upon a DEATH COUNT of any kind.
  • 1. No part of COMMUNIST GOVERNMENTS shall NEVER be taken or suggest to TYPIFY COMMUNISM AS A WHOLE. (Straw Man fallacy)
  • 2. ANTI-COMMUNISM of ALL KINDS shall be RELEGATED TO THE ARTICLE OF THE SAME NAME.
  • 3. DEATH COUNT NUMERICAL STATISTICS shall ALL BE CONSIDERED CONTROVERSIAL and therefore NON-NPOV -- There is no way to know; someone will always disagree with you; it is popular fodder for flaming and dispute.
  • 4. COMMUNIST GOVERNEMT ARTICLES may describe the IDEOLOGY of a SPECIFIC PARTY, but will NEVER TREAT ANY PARTY or PARTY IDEOLOGY as though it typifies COMMUNISM AS A WHOLE. (This should apply to Marxism and Leninism as well, I'm afraid)
Talk about these suggestions in a new 2. Talk section, please.
--Oceanhahn 03:43, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Notes

  • Any short design changes or considerations should be noted here. Please keep them breif, or list it in the TALK section.
  • If you have added something to the STRUCTURE section, and have left a comment which relates to another of your comments, then please include your username by using three tildes (~~~).
  • If this goes well, I'm thinking that the old Communism page may make a good article for the Controversy Sorrounding Communism. This way, the cloud of debate that follows this subject around will finally have a home and forum of its own while the other pages can remain informative and un- or less-opinionated where only relevant arguments and discussion need occur. Discuss in the section of talk labelled USES OF THE OLD PAGE.

[edit] Talk

I've used the top of this page to categorize a new set up for multiple Wikipedia pages to hopefully someday replace or unify the current tangled mess of communist entries. If you have any good ideas, I'm they'd probably come in handy since we're trying to help everyone out here. Thanks! -- Oceanhahn 09:51, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Reengineering

In light of recent arguments on the Talk:Communism page, I am now going to go ahead and make a new page for Communist Ideologies and post it here. NO CHANGES WILL BE MADE BY ME TO THE EXISTING PAGE UNTIL THE NEW ARTICLE HAS BEEN RATIFIED BY AT LEAST A FEW ACTIVE USERS.
If you want to make changes to the work done or being done on this new page, I would request that you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MAKE A NOTE HERE rather than going straight into edit mode! I appreciate all cooperation on this matter.
-- Oceanhahn 02:52, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Notes for editing of existing material go here.


[edit] Thoughts and Opinions

Most discussion should go here.

[edit] Uses of the Old Page

This section of chat is dedicated to the discussion of the new role of the existing Communism page, as it will become outdated if the aforementioned changed as realized.

Currently...
  • OPTION 0: One argument is to change it into a links portal with a breif description. A much-reduced version of the existing page since most of it's contents will have been moved to newer, better named articles.
  • OPTION 1: May include some political information -- specifically that which is already written in Section 5 of Communism.
  • OPTION 2: An alternative is to make a Controversy Sorrounding Communism section discussing, in a fair way, both sides of the long-standing communism debate. Included would be death counts, opinions and thoughs on various people throughout history, and other topics. The purpose of this is to contrast viewpoints. If only one side of a subject can be presented, it should not be included.

[edit] Article and Article Section Relocation

Discuss this here.
Remember to include the number and specific change cited in your comment!

[edit] General Debate

Before I go and get too involved in this, I'd like to hear what other people think. Agree? Disapprove? Comments? Please post them below. --Oceanhahn 22:12, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with your plans, especially since I was the first to suggest such a move. Thank you for setting it in motion. My opinion is that most of what is in the Communism page could be transferred to this page, and expanded as needed. --McCorrection 00:24, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You are welcome to edit any article concerning communism in good faith. Please take care to include the details of how it worked in practice. Fred Bauder 01:55, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

As I said in Talk:Communism: I have a different idea. Why don't we make a Communism series, like the one for Liberalism? The massive changes you are proposing seem to be rather unjustified. Look at the articles for Anarchism, Socialism, Liberalism, Conservatism, Fascism, etc. - they're not lists of links pointing to various other sub-articles, are they? And some of those ideologies have just as many (if not more) different and conflicting flavours than communism. Think of classical liberalism and social-liberalism, for example. Or the myriad forms of anarchism.

P.S. By the way, the current hammer & sickle image is ugly. I'll upload a better one. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 13:30, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think we're saying the same things here. I wasnt proposing a series of small articles, simply meant the division of the existing communism pages into better defined versions of hte same. At it's core, the changes I'm proposing arent all that severe; it's really closer to glorified sorting with some editing done in the process. Fundementally the changes aren't that massive -- no more so than any others which have taken place recently -- they simply involve whole articles being moved, which I suspect could be met with some resistance.
I hadn't seen the Liberalism page before today, and you're right -- it is very neat and well laid out. Many of the things I had in mind from the Talk:Communism debate show up there, and I think that it would be a great way for the page to turn out. I'm still concerned about people adding irrelevant or quasi-relevant information for lack of knowledge of other communism pages where it more properly belongs, but perhaps this page could be expanded to include such information. Perhaps someone could make a template like the liberalism one out of the links on this and other pages.
I'm looking at the page quite differently now that I've seen the liberalism page. I've down(up?)graded my opinion of the Communism from "baffling wreck" to "unweildy and messy". I wouldnt mind seeing the article split into an ideology section and a history section, but I still give my support to separating the two entirely.
I maintain, however, that the Communist states page needs to be rewritten, or at least considered; that's just me though. The formatting of that page is pretty good, it simply lacks completion.
Also I agree about the hammer and sickle. I could just as easily draw a new one using flash or some such, but I'm putting my time into this instead.
-- Oceanhahn 22:43, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I made a model template. See it at Template:Communism and tell me what you think. -- Oceanhahn 23:15, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm glad the series idea is going forward. As for hammers and sickles, there's a much better one on the actual Hammer and sickle page. Also nice format.
Yossarian 23:20, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
I'm not even sure if the hammer and sickle is a symbol generic enough for the whole series, since it is more of a Bolshevik emblem. Other Communist parties, countries, regimes had different symbols. Anyway, congratulations to JFO! Keep up the good work. --McCorrection 23:38, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I wouldn't worry about it...
Was wondering about utopian communism and whether that should be an article (as McCorrection suggested)?
-- Yossarian 23:50, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
PS: We forgot Deng Xiaoping!
Quite right, but perhaps the Utopian Communism section of the existing Communism page could be expanded to include a more detailed explanation of the matter rather than creation of a new page. I favor expansion at this point, unless Utopian Communis goes into a page or more of text; in that case, I'd perhaps reconsider. At present it's about ten sentences.
-- Oceanhahn 23:58, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think it should. Since the Communism page would become a portal of the history, theory, and practice of Communism, and Marxist theory would be mostly concentrated in the new Communist Ideology page. Just one more word for JFO: do not base the look of the Communism page on the Liberalism article. Liberalism does not involve as many and as passionate opposite opinions as Communism, and if the Communism article is not narrowly tailored as a basic introduction to Communist history, theory, and practice, it will be perpetually engulfed in partisan debates ans edit wars. --McCorrection 00:13, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
A side note: For some very odd reason, someone has set the redirect for Marxism-Leninism to Stalinism...Personally, I totally disagree with that. Anyway, I left a comment. Have a look and decide what to do...
-- Yossarian 03:42, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
McCorrection -- I support the look of the Liberalism page in terms of format. I havent abandoned the divergance option yet for exactly the reasons you've given. What I'm trying to accomplish is a set (as in two or three) of pages are neutral and factual, but it is just as important to have them look nice and flow smoothly. If I / we cant do both of these things, any new work will invariably backslide into the sporattic edit-wars we have now -- only in more places -- due to people editing things because they cant find out where it says "Not ownly iz commonizm evil btu it'z also t3h bad ideea!!11". I hate that -- I think everyone does (though they may take the opposite side of the argument). However, if these complaints are never addressed (sigh) they'll never go away...
Addressing both sides while explicitly agreeing with neither is what we have to do to make the problem go away. It's very hard to tell if the problem can be solved with one long well-written page or with two or three shorter well-written pages, but there is a constant in there...
Also: Yossarian -- that redirect weird and slightly heinous. The reasoning behind it is odd and it's also been corrected. Thank you for letting us know. -- Oceanhahn 08:34, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Fanning the Fire of Initiative

Thanks for launching this initiative.

I like the idea of a communism series parallel to the series on liberalism. That is just what we want. We have a lot of material to cover, and there are already a number of more or less adequate articles on some subdivisions of the broad field. We need better organisation of the links and, most of all, some new high-level (general) articles. The current article Communism is a travesty.

I'm in favour of keeping the hammer and sickle. Maybe it doesn't suit the various libertarian communists, utopian socialists, and others, but they're on the fringes anyway. Like it or not, communism nowadays is Marxism-Leninism, or at least Marxism. Movements outside the Marxist-Leninist tradition should be mentioned, but let's not let the tail wag the dog. Other traditions should find their own names rather than adding to the confusion that already exists.

Controversy surrounding communism should be a major section or even a separate article. There are numerous issues to address, and each of them needs a paragraph or so. Just now in the article Communist states I tried to add balance to the bald claim that upwards of 50 million people are thought to have died from communism in the twentieth century, but there just wasn't room to address that matter adequately from both sides. Even such topics as the status of China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam as socialist states need much more space than they now receive.

There should probably also be some space for an overview of the major trends, in which it could be explained, for example, that Maoism is a development of Stalinism, that Stalinism is a development of Leninism, and that Stalinists and Trotskyists regard each other as non-Leninist. Shorne 01:47, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good to see someone trying to light the fire again. As you can see, this initiative has lost a little steam (my pal Oceanahn's a rather busy fellow, so he's been a bit absent for a while). I like that "controvesies" article idea. The C. States page is good for specifics of that sort of thing, but it does seem logical to have something more general. The deaths thing has been a big controversy, and where it should be placed has been debated somewhat.
As I've stated before (despite my pushing this reorganization thing), I can only help in general effort to a certain extent: my knowledge of communist dogma and policy is somewhat limited (my interests lie more in the exstistential, and not so much the political, though I do enjoy a good debate). But I'm definately glad to help. Just tell me what to do and like so many little hard working proletariots, and I'll do it.
Oh, and the hammer and sickle debate is getting a little silly. It's the most recognizable symbol of communism (sometimes even socialism). It's that simple. It's not there because it necessarily represents communists as a whole, but because it's familar. But...if we use it, we use it. If we don't, we don't. It's fairly trivial. That's all I have left to say on the matter.
Anywho, if you (I mean that in a general sense, as well as Shorne) haven't checked it out already, there's some background on how all this started on the Talk:Communism page...it gets very angry and mean...but then we all make up in the end!
-- Yossarian 05:14, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)


Thanks for your comments. Yes, I saw that discussion in Talk:Communism. I must admit that I didn't read all of it; it got to be rather tiresome and repetitive. I do agree that the article Communism is crying to be rewritten, on account of both its anticommunist POV and its inadequate presentation of communism.
I think there's plenty of material for an article on controversies, with sections on deaths, human rights, the feasibility of communism, and other controversial issues.
I would like to see this proposal move ahead. Once the structure is in place, people can work individually on different sections. Let's try to achieve a consensus quickly. Shorne 06:17, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I whole heartedly agree.
-- Yossarian 06:31, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Initiative / Momentum

I created this page based on the thoughts and views of some of the discussers at Communism Central, but the amount of time I could devote to such a thing waned once my work got started again in what I reluctantly refer to as real life. Also, my enthusiasm is somewhat tried by the ongoing fracas in Communist states. I will continue to build on this page as best I can, but progress will be slow, and I encourage others to submit designs to this discussion page to be built into a larger article or articles. --Oceanhahn 02:55, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's a real pity, for I think that we need to start at the top, with some restructuring, instead of getting into all these wars with right-wing @#*($& about details. Shorne 03:10, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
This is why we're stymied. I formed this page to hopefully keep the effort away from flaming until a fair, NPOV model is formed, and I'll try and give it a bit more effort (since I left suddenly for two weeks...). I belive that a good articel can be written. Really I do. But the air around it is so charged that it rarely stays like that for long, and I find that extremely disenchanting.
--Oceanhahn 03:27, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Damned if I don't know what you mean. I've been in the middle of this stupid right-wing propaganda-fest since you've been gone, and I don't see much hope of achieving NPOV with people who use this as a bully pulpit to bash communism. Shorne 03:29, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The problem is that they have to be pacified or else this baffling ordeal will go on forever, but there are people out there who if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. I thought of creating "Communist Death Count" page just to house all the chaos and intellectual debris that is the topic, perhaps in the style of www.iraqbodycount.com. Of course, it would be completely partisan and would invariably break down into a free-for-all between Ivory Towerists, Anti-Revisionists, Neo-Cons and other undesirables...
But that's a huge task, and it can wait until some other time. Food for thought.
--Oceanhahn 04:08, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I know. They're such goddam hypocrites. I've been arguing with them over those idiotic "death tolls" at Talk:Communist state, Talk:Communism, and other pages, and I've done some back-of-the-envelope calculations that show more than a hundred million dead because of capitalism every few years, yet they just keep on preaching their gospel of "communism killed 100 million, praise the Lord". Absolutely no discussion is possible with people who refuse to listen. Shorne 05:52, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A new proposal

I propose a new approach to the communism-related articles. As an anonymous user has recently brought to my attention (through his edits of the communism page), there are 4 possible meanings of the word "communism":

  1. Communism as a state-less, property-less, class-less social system.
  2. Communism in the sense of Communist Ideology - in other words, Marxism.
  3. Communism in the sense of a political movement based on Marxism.
  4. Communism in the sense of the so-called "communist states".

The first 3 of those meanings should be covered by the main communism article, while the fourth should be discussed in communist state. As for this Communist ideology article, it should redirect to Communism (the main article covering an ideology should not be reduced to a mere disambig page - look at the articles for all other ideologies; things like liberalism or socialism have at least as many meanings as communism, and they're not disambig pages). -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 13:54, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The article communism needs a section on practical consequences combined with a link to the more complete article at communist state. This can be divided into subsections regarding the arguably good consequences and the arguably negative consequences. Fred Bauder 14:08, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

The main reason why those consequences shouldn't be explained in any detail in the communism article is that they are only the consequences of a specific type of communism. Stalinism and the Soviet system are only a branch of Leninism, which is only a branch of Marxism, which is only a branch of Communist Ideas in general. See the point? -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 14:11, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

On another note, this Communist Ideology project, if it's still alive at all, is clearly in deep freeze. Therefore, I will make the page a redirect to communism. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 14:11, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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