Talk:List of senior Securitate officers

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Where are the source for this? Who will ever claim that Ana Pauker, to name one, was a Securitate officer? What is the relevancy of all people on the list? Why does this list give the impression that only these people were Securitate officers? What on Earth is the difference bwtween "alphabetical" and "additional" lists - afraid users may not know the alphabet? Finally: what is the purpose and encyclopedic information this list provides? Dahn (talk) 23:18, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

One more thing: this list, aside from the alarming POV it has on sadism and whatnot, has false information of the nature found on neofascist and antisemitic sites that use this topic to illustrate "the Holocaust committed by foreigners against Romanians" and other such imbecilities. For example, Teohari Georgescu, never was "Baruch Tescovici"! In fact, why would names they had at birth (even if they had them) even be included here? Dahn (talk) 23:24, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I also allowed myself to drop the novel references to the "Romanian Red Terror" and other such things. Let me repeat this: the list only comprises a number of people active in ca.1948, and mixes them with people who had nothing official in common with the Securitate or with officership. If it is possible to actually research, with proper sources, and fit on one list the actual senior officers from 1948 to 1989 (and not just those hand-picked by some neofascist sources to make an absurd point), then this list will have a purpose. If anyone will show that such a list can actually be compiled and be meaningful sometime soon, I'll not be nominating this for deletion. Furthermore: this is an encyclopedic page, not a conspiracy theory, and not a coat hanger for original research. Dahn (talk) 23:34, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Dear Dahn,
  1. Isn't it obvious that this was only an initial material, and that it will require lots of work? Much of the information I added would have to go somewhere else. My introduction of it here was to serve as a positive provocation for people who are interested in this and related subjects to place the information more properly, to develop those articles (e.g. Securitate is very-very undeveloped). Please, do not take the rough initial version as anything but an initial version. I myself intend to move in and out a lot of info, and it would be very nice if you could help as well, as you seem to show your intention to be.
  2. The "hand-picked" "neofascist" sourse is the Sighet Memorial Museum, one of three museums hand-picked by the Council of Europe to place under its protection and support (The other two are the Museum of 1944 in Normandy and the Holocaust Museum in Auschwitz). Please, try to be more careful next time you use such words as "hand-picked", "coat hanger", "neofascist", "conspiracy theory"; their usage does not bring you any intellectual integrity. Did I ever call you "communist-defender" ? Let's show some more respect and good education, we are not teen-agers who learn to talk in chat spaces.
  3. If the article intends to have any relation with "neofascist and antisemitic sites that use this topic to illustrate "the Holocaust committed by foreigners against Romanians", then it is to cut the savvy of those sites by stating the information in neutral and civilized tone, to eliminate prejudices, to show what is fact and what is "conspiracy theory".
  4. The alphabetic list comprises the leadership during 1948-1952. Most of them continued afterwards. The "additional list" is those that came latter. About them I read, but did not place them within the main list as I do not have a good reference yet (at least not for all). The words "additional list" is just a temporary thing, untill all names will be sorted out.
  5. Romanian Red terror is what happened in Romania in 1946-1965.:Dc76\talk 14:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  1. WP:NOT has an extensive argument about what is and isn't encyclopedic material. One should not create lists of people that will not be articles, and most Securitate officers are not worth independent articles. Therefore, this list, even when complete, will have little or no purpose. To give you an example: a student association who was interested in finding out and listing the names of just those of officers who are suspected of involvement in the repression ran several episodes published successively in Academia Caţavencu. Each of those episodes covered as much what is covered in your list here, more or less, and the basic information on those people was vague and incomplete. Even you list, as large as it is, only covers people who were known to be senior officers in 1948. Unlike the Sighet list, Wikipedia is not a directory, Dc76. What you have "set out" to complete here is currently the object of several research institutions, and wikipedia is not here to conduct their research or replicate their result, not is it here to imply that every person they study is necessarily notable.
  2. For starters, I was not referring to you, but to the claims this article made. Secondly, it appears that the Sighet memorial list does not serve the same purpose as your list here, meaning that your inclusion of Ana Pauker et al was an infringement of your stated purpose (since the Sighet memorial does not claim that she and others were Securitate officers). Thirdly, if the Sighet memorial has information such as Georgescu being named "Baruch Whatnot", it means it lines itself up with the likes of Holocaust deniers who entertain this myth, and it has a serious problem to remedy.
  3. No, it should not those sources at all. Furthermore, the observations you added in the article (no matter from what source, and no matter how justified emotionally), did little to enhance the image of neutrality. And, let me add: a curator with talent for writing is not a reliable source - it would mean that all people have to do in order to become sources is to have their stuff printed on a large board.
  4. Let's not start this utopia, shall we? As I have said: that list, when compiled, would be highly unencyclopedic (unencyclopedic means irrelevant for this project, not irrelevant for human knowledge in general), so the work will be pointless. Like a list of senior Iron Guard activists, it would simply group people who are otherwise not notable enough to have articles. And, furthermore, no matter how you come to produce a list, it is common sense not to include the same people several times!
  5. Let's not toy with concepts: the term has a very strict meaning in history, and implies Leninist policies that, for better or worse, did not apply in Romania or anywhere else but Russia. That it may be applied metaphorically, yes; but wikipedia is no place for metaphors or coining concepts. Dahn (talk) 15:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Let me just interject here a short comment (I am very much interested in this discussion, but don't have time now to pursue it, maybe later). About point #5, I have a two-part answer:
  • I agree with Dahn that the term "Red Terror" does not apply to Romania — not that it couldn't, since the methods and practices were similar in many ways to its older cousin from Russia, though with some very specific features (such as the re-education/brainwashing experiment at Piteşti prison, which, far as I know, was a first), but it's not something that was used at the time (or now) in any systematic way, perhaps only occasionally — kind of metaphorically, as Dahn says.
  • On the other hand, I part company with Dahn on whether the term Red Terror applies nowhere else but Russia. This, in fact, has been (and still is) a subject of hot debate on that respective article, and it is certainly a view that can be defended vigorously. But I think one can argue equally vigorously (and, perhaps, even more convincingly?) for the opposite. As evidence, I will adduce the pages on Red Terror (Hungary), Red Terror (Spain), and Red Terror (Ethiopia) (and, arguably, the Red Terror in China -- though there is no specific page on that one).

At any rate, however one calls them, I'd go with Ronald Reagan's characterization, who called communism a "sad, bizarre chapter in human history". Turgidson (talk) 15:39, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Granted, I forgot about the other instances (though the Spanish term is quite one-sided: it seems to replicate a coinage in Francoist propaganda, which, although the policies/incidents were mostly real, circumscribed them to an image of Soviet policies as obsolete as war communism). Dahn (talk) 15:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Allow me to expand on a couple of points. Since it appears that this particular list will not provide any significant information on any significant people, I propose a different approach.

Let us note, for starters, that we have the Category:People of the Securitate (if you look through its subcategories, you will note how it is structured and down to what level). Admitting that the bulk of relevant information is about people relevant enough to have their own articles (and very few Securitate officers actually live up to that standard), the category seems to make lists quite pointless.

If you still want to have lists alongside categories, the one solution is to make a list of Securitate generals - it will have a clear criterion for inclusion, and, as a rule, people on that list will be notable enough to have their own articles. Note that a number of people were relevant enough for Securitate structures without even making it on Dc76's extended lists (they were not senior officers). One obvious example is Matei Pavel Haiducu. These people will be included in categories, but they cannot possibly make it on any relevant list (one for ranks will get us back to this list, one for function could only include a couple of names). Dahn (talk) 16:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I really gotta run, but a couple of quick points. Dc76: That info about the Sighet Museum sounds very interesting -- I didn't know about that; why not put it in the article on Sighet prison? BTW, I added a pic there from your collection -- I assume it's 100% safe, since you took it, and released any copyright to it, yes? (Why that white box on the left lower corner, though -- battery acting up, or something?) Dahn: Everything being equal, I am usually a proponent of categories over lists, since I find cats much more useful. I'm not sure though that things are equal here, since some of the info on Dc76's list will almost certainly not make it to stand-alone articles (I mean, deputy Securitate chief in Copăcenii de Vale in 1948 is not that notable, I think we all agree on that!). But let me think this through before I go on--sorry, I'm a bit wooly right now. Turgidson (talk) 17:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I have longer answers for the issues raised by both of you; hopefully tomorrow... Today I have one suggestion: how about moving this page to Structure of Securitate or smth like that? List of Senior officers, as Dahn noted, would effectively exclide a couple individuals which ought not to be excluded. :Dc76\talk 15:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
It would be good to have a precedent for such an article -- I did a quick search (looked at KGB, NKVD, Stasi, CIA, MI5, MI6, DST, etc), but could not find anything like that, though some have info on the structure in the main article, which seems to be the preferred model (doesn't necessarily mean we need to follow it, but precedents count). By the way, take also a look at SDEC. Nothing spectacular there, but what I liked is that they don't just give a list a names (which is not something that gripping), but actually gives some hints at what that particular service did ("Known operations"). Would there be enough material for something like this when writing about the Securitate? OK, we have the story of Matei Pavel Haiducu and the Berne incident (anything else external?), plus Piteşti prison, Gheorghe Ursu, etc internally. If this is going to be something more ambitious, I'd say it needs to tie up individuals to specific events, though, of course, this would be quite hard to do. Turgidson 15:25, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
To Dc. Correction: what I have actually noted first and foremost is that virtually all of the people included on this list are not in any way notable, and a list of non-notable people is bound to get deleted sooner or later. I also pointed out that a list of the top leadership would exclude some people who were actually Securitate cadres, but not high-ranking. But: I also pointed out that those people would also be grouped in the existing categories.
An article on the Securitate structure, Dc, will be an article on the Securitate... (there is no significant difference between the Securitate and its structure). Furthermore, indicating the structure would by no means mean including all the anonymous people who were part of it in 1948 or any other year - it would merely review what, well, the structure was. Logic imposes that elaborating on that is not only feasible, but also preferable, in the confines of the Securitate article.
From my perspective: the list cannot possibly be saved under the form it has (and I doubt that there is any form under which it could be saved). The information it provides is unencyclopedic and purely directory-like. Dahn 15:28, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the logic: one cannot separate the structure of an object (or an entity), from that object (or entity). From that point of view (and from the precedents above), the top half of the list (top leadership + national directorates) could (should?) go in the main article (where, by the way, that kind of top-level structure is already sketched, but without names attached to it). On the other hand, I'm not sure what to say about the second half of the list -- the Regional Directorates. That seems like too much detail for the main article, but it could be the skeleton for a sub-article dedicated specifically to a specific directorate (I'm not quite sure what's the organigram here -- did those regional directorates depend on a parent national directorate -- if so, which one?) Now, one can reasonably object that that would be too much detail (or content forking?) But, if there is enough material (and reliable sources) to back it up, I think it could be done. Again, as a precedent, I'll point to First Chief Directorate (good article), Ninth Chief Directorate (no comment!). While at it, how about creating an organization chart like in the FCD article -- there is plenty of software that does charts like that -- I don't have one handy, but I'm pretty sure I can be found. Turgidson 16:01, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
First Chief Directorate and Ninth Chief Directorate are good examples, I agree. In Romania, I believe these would be the 5th and the 6th, if I am not mistaken. Some smaller ones, of technical nature, do not deserve separate articles unless by some accident they become important. I also suggest to look at SS and List of SS personnel, since comparing Securitate with CIA or FBI is a bit of a stretch. Agree about moving the skeleton into Securitate. I believe one can also list the regional directorates and their leaders in there - one sentance, 3 lines. And I suggest to turn this article into List of Securitate personnel, obviously with a different structure/organization than it is now, a la SS personnel; not necessary by rank, maybe by year and function. You see, Securitate lasted for 2 - 2.5 generations. Then, people involved in torture can go into a separate section, those in foreign affairs in another etc. Now, i am sorry, I have to go. I'll read your replies though tomorrow (i strongly hope). And I am thinking also... You had very good ideas... But, obviously, Securitate has to be improved. It is a shame to have such a small article.:Dc76\talk 16:25, 30 November 2007 (UTC)