Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Polish-Soviet War

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[edit] Polish-Soviet War

Resubmitting. I believe all objections have been adressed (see former failed nomination discussion). By use of subarticles the size have decreased from over 80kb to 45kb. Also, new maps have been added for your viewing pleasure - and expect to see some more over the coming days :) Again, I welcome any comments. Oh, and I see that the old archived discussion has already more supports then opposes - a good sign, I believe. Note: down to 29 paras in 1920 section :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:21, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• support This article is very well done. If Featured Articles are to be comprehensive then objections about length are uncalled for.Dinopup 03:35, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Support - all previous objections were answered (although I can't say I like the splitted article more than I liked the entire article in one chunk). Halibutt 06:36, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)
• Support - I thought this was already featured. The 1920 section still has too much detail for my taste, but that can be condensed some more later. --mav 14:20, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Strong object - no Russian sources used, making an article Polish-American POV. Example: "Polish win" is doubtful.Poland got its border 50-100 to the west from the one suggested by the Soviet Russia on Spring 1920 without the war. No mention of the fact, that mostly due to above reason Soviets, recognising their defeat in the battle of Warsaw, hold entire campaign as their victory. 213.115.184.126 13:16, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Okay, I think that is handled well. He's got a point there. How can you even come close to NPOV without consulting the sources from both sides? - Taxman 20:43, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)
    • Neither are any Polish sources used. This is an English Wiki, and we tried to keep to the sources available to an English speaker. Although at least one Russian source was used to prepeare/check some portions of the materials (Директивы командования фронтов Кр. Армии (1917-22) by Mikkalai, see Talk:Target Vistula for details). The article was read by at least two Russian Wikipedians I know of - Mikkalai and 172, both of whom had made significant contributions to it, and made no objections since it was nominated here. Some of the English sources for the article are in fact given by them, IIRC. Finally and perhaps most importantly, the Polish-Soviet war was a subject not covered in official communist history. As the biggest defeat of the Red Army, it was deemed a dangerous exception to the communist dialectic and such, and thus it was striken out from all Polish history books during the times of People's Republic of Poland (communists had their own 'better' version of history...*shivers*). It is quite possible that as anon writes (if I understand his English correctly) in some Soviet publications the war was portrayed as a Soviet victory. I doubt however that any of publications made in the Soviet Union are of any value except for the article on the communist version of real history (publications such as mentioned collected orders from 1917-22 are an exception only becaues they were written by soldiers on the field of battle without much thought to the political correctnes. For that very reason many useful Soviet documents were on the prohibited reading list, and declassified ony after 1991.). For similar reason we don't see - or demand - German Nazi references for the Second World War articles. I don't know of any post-91 publications in Russian on that subject, and as I can't read Russian I can't look for them on the net. I seriously doubt they would contain any major revalation, although perhaps the anon who objected (do we have any rules on anon objections to FA btw?) would like to prove me wrong by quoting the publication title, date, author, ISBN and the factual revelations that would force me to rewrite the article? Or at the very least a link to an English speaking site with such information? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:11, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Ok that sounds pretty reasonable. I guess I would like 172 to weigh in on the issue, but I think he isn't around anymore. Maybe Mikkalai can add his opinion. Well I'm not a history person and I suppose it is common knowledge the Soviets re-wrote their version of history, but maybe even that is worth noting? I could be wrong. As to anon objections, my understanding is they are treated just like any other. Many articles are promoted with one or even a few objections, Raul654 just judges them a bit based on their validity and weighs the support votes. Many support votes can outweigh a minor objection or one a number of people disagree with. And besides if that Russian source was used and is of high quality for the reasons you stated, then I am satisfied. This was just my first thought on the issue I'll have to read the article before I can give my support. - Taxman 01:10, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

It is worth noting and already noted in the aftermath section: Until 1989, while communists held power in a People's Republic of Poland, the Polish-Bolshevik War was either omitted or minimized in Polish and other Soviet block countries history books, or was presented so as to fit with the "truths" of communist propaganda. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 11:18, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The source mentioned (Direktivy Komandirovanya...) is simply a collection of all battle orders, orders of battle and reports issued during the war. As such, it is one of the two basic sources used by more or less all historians of that conflict (the other being a similar publication containing all Polish orders and reports). I can't say if it's 100% credible (which source is...), but it's definitely the best source out there, at least for the Red side. Halibutt 01:27, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

I continue to strongly object, I removed one more strong POV, that Soviet Union allied itself with Hitler by the means of MR Pact, see talk page. Polish sources used indirectly: along with getting facts from Western books, Piotrus introduced his own opinion, which pretty well fits to the latest campaign of Hitler-whitewash-Soviet-blackwash in Eastern European countries, including Poland. I look at the article itself, not at "Russian" wikipedians, who "signed" it. Soviet propaganda was not much different from anti-Soviet propaganda in Western countries during the existence of the Soviet Union and also was not much different from nowadays propaganda in Eastern European countries. 213.115.184.126 15:23, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It would be much better if instead of attempting an edit war on the article and deleting whole paragraph without even being close to any consensus you'd try to advocate you POV on the talk page before :-( Lysy 13:40, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Well summarized, organized, written, and researched. I can't comment in the slightest on the material, but it sounds like you guys have researched it well and done a good job there. Good work. - Taxman 03:01, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
• Support now that the accusation of POV has been addressed. KingTT 15:55, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Support - well structured, NPOV and well balanced. 213.115.184.126, if you think it's POV, try to express the alternative POV instead of forcibly deleting whole paragraphs Lysy 13:32, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Support V1^t 03:39, 17 November 2005 (UTC)