Talk:Robert Conquest/Archive 2

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A great profile! Objective, comprehensive and not a whitewash! The most NPOV breif profile I've ever read. 172

As I was certain it would be before I even looked at it, this article is a disgusting slander on a great historian. I will rewrite it tomorrow. Adam 14:49, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

172 assures me that his comment above was meant to be ironic. I certainly hope so. Adam 04:26, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Presumably you're referring to the IRD stuff? I looked into it when adding the other stuff about his life, decided the IRD claims were tricky and mostly left it alone; some of Conquest's own words on the subject seemed a little evasive. I'd like to know more about the IRD goings-on, irrespective of Conquest's role, are there authoritative sources? Stan 07:17, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I have now written a completely new article, so let's see how long it lasts before the vandals get to it. My view is: so what that Conquest worked for the IRD? There was a Cold War on and he worked for the West in that war. Big deal. Adam 08:21, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Outstanding! Wetman 08:25, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Agreed! PMA 13:12, Jan 19, 2004 (UTC)

I'm a little troubled by how this article blatantly glosses over mainstream, academic Soviet historiography. Since the 1960s, Soviet historiography has moved away from Conquest's monolithic "totalitarian model" of the early 1950s.

Let me offer some background. Beginning in the late 1960s, "revisionist" scholars of Soviet studies began to focus on "society" as opposed to the "party-state," processes from "below" as opposed to those from "above," and "structural constraints" as opposed to "intentions." In their reaction to the simplicity and excessive voluntarism of the "totalitarian model," the "revisionist" social histories of the 1960s went to the opposite extreme of determinism. However, Conquest's approach has certainly not experienced a wholesale revival in Russian/Soviet studies and comparative politics. Today, mainstream Soviet specialists focus on the interplay between the ideology/personalities of party-state leadership and structural constraints. If anything, this is a "synthesis" rather than a vindication of Ukrainian émigré historians and Conquest.

The new article turns anyone who doesn't regard Conquest's work as holy writ into a straw man. It simplifies the debate in Soviet studies, casting it as one pitting Conquest against a coterie of Stalinist dupes and apologists. I'd expect this from popular periodicals and television series, but not from anyone who should be well versed in the academic literature on the subject. The question is not whether a terror-famine occurred in the Ukraine, but to what extent it was an intentional political phenomenon in and of itself.

It is only the crackpots who do not appreciate Conquest's role in brining this tragedy to the forefront of discourse on the Stalinist era, as it should be. But it now a matter of consensus that the famine was an outgrowth of collectivization. It was a requisite for the horrendous development strategy of the first Five Year Plan, allowing the state to control the distribution of grain, and garner a cheap and steady supply.

If anyone's also interested in an NPOV article well-versed in scholarly criticisms of Conquest, I recommend the following sources:

J. Arch Getty, Origins of the Great Purges. The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938 (Cambridge, CUP, 1985).

If anyone wants a quick synopsis, here is one of many book reviews available online: http://books.cambridge.org/0521335701.htm

This biographical entry doesn't need to turn into a book review, but a few quotations by serious scholars critical of Conquest's approach is necessary for NPOV. It is not appropriate to start the article off by stating as a matter of fact that Conquest's work has been vindicated by history. Even a groundbreaking work of history is not holy writ. No work of history is holy writ.

Getty's book review of Harvest of Sorrow is helpful:

  • Getty, "Starving the Ukraine: Review of Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-famine, by Robert Conquest", London Review of Books, 7 January, 1987.

Also, Stephen Cohen, Gabor Rittersporn, Lynne Viola, Shiela Fitzpatrick, Moise Lewin, and Robert Dallin could be cited as well.

I'm running short of time right now, but if anyone's interested, I can add more sources with ISBN numbers and links to journal entries at a later time. 172 21:43, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I appreciate 172's thoughtful comments. It is true that I was mainly conerned in this article to vindicate Conquest as a historian from the various slanders that were hurled at him when his books were published, and which some people continue to propagate (even at Wikipedia!) It was not intended to be a review of academic sovietology, which I agree has moved on since Conquest's time. Some comment to this effect in the article would be welcome, and if 172 wants to add such comments I have no objection.

But I will object if any such comment waters down the essential point about Conquest's work, which was that it exposed and documented the truth about Stalinism at a time when large numbers of people were still in denial about it. Any attempt to introduce marxist or post-modern apologetics for Stalinism or the widespread intellectual blindness, in the 30s and in the 60s, towards it will be hotly contested. Adam 07:11, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Very good. I will get to it shortly. It would be preferable, however, if you added a section for the sake of NPOV in order to maintain the same style of the prose. This is a very well written article, and additional editors could only disrupt the nice flow. If you've gone on to other projects, I'll try to keep the section I had in mind shorter than my comments on the talk page. 172 08:43, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I agree about the stylistic problem. I'd be quite happy if you wrote a paragraph and placed it here, then I can integrate it into the text. Adam 10:36, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Very good. I'll get to it shortly, once I get caught up with some non-Wiki paperwork. 172 22:29, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
A very nice rewrite! It comes off as just a bit too adulatory, casually assuming that Conquest has to be right on controversial points and that his critics have to be wrong. For instance, statements like "the extent to which it was based on anti-Soviet sources has been greatly exaggerated by hostile commentators" should have some kind of authoritative support, and "No historian familiar with Conquest's work takes these assertions seriously" concerning his IRD involvement is a pretty bold statement unless you've interviewed every historian in the world and gotten unanimity (which seems unlikely given the diversity of opinions). Justification of IRD involvement by saying that it was just a response to Soviet actions is not really a good justification; if Soviets were passing around misinformation, does that then make it OK to pass around anti-Soviet misinformation? As I mentioned earlier, Conquest's evasiveness and excuses are very suspicious, but the whole paragraph takes the POV that there couldn't possibly have been any misdeeds, as "proven" by Conquest's own words. (And yet later on we hear all about the dishonorable motives of Conquest's opponents - a double standard!) But these are all quibbles, I'll ponder a bit before tinkering. Stan 08:46, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

My view about this is that it exposes one of the weaknesses of Wikipedia's "NPOV" policy, when it is applies too literally. I don't except the notion of "moral equivalency" in the Cold War, any more than I do in relation World War II. This means that I don't accept that working for British Intelligence in the Cold War was the moral equivalent of working for the KGB, any more than I would accept that being in the British SAS was the moral equivalent of being in the Waffen SS. I don't accept for a minute that Conquest "passed around misinformation." It was not necessary to pass around misinformation about the Soviet Union - the truth was quite damning enough.

The Cold War was a period when intellectuals had to take sides, because it was a war of ideologies. Choosing the side of the democracies was the morally correct choice, and was the choice that Conquest made. I accept that this was not nearly as apparent at the time as it is now - I was after all a Communist myself in the 1970s. But now that it is apparent, people like Conquest and Orwell who saw the choice more clearly than we did ought to get due credit for having done so. Conquest ought to be judged by the quality of his work as a historian, on which count he has been fully vindicated.

Can Stan name a reputable historian who seriously challenges the substance of Conquest's work (as opposed to points of detail)? Adam 10:36, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Heh, you've given yourself not one but two weasel-word-outs now :-) - the use of the word "reputable", and the phrase "points of detail", so even if I were to come up with a name, you have two non-quantitative ways to dismiss it. I'm no expert, I'm just cautious of blanket statements in such an ideologically-contested area. I'm also suspicious when a figure like Conquest could simply enumerate his long-ago activities with the IRD, and insteads gets vague about it; especially given his present-day vindication, what motive could there be for evasiveness?
About morality, it's not WP's business to assert whether something is or is not morally equivalent. You don't want to get into the business of deliberately adopting a particular POV ("the democracies were right and the Soviets were wrong"), because that opens the door to people pushing their own POVs in other articles. I and the other readers are fully capable of making our own moral judgments based on the facts presented, we don't need you to tell us what to think about them. I know it's possible to adopt NPOV here - been reading Gaddis and paying attention to style, he's very deft at presenting both sides' views without giving away what he personally thinks about each of them. Stan 16:01, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Good example with Gaddis, Stan. His style is very clean, allowing the history to come across as unfiltered. IMHO, he's a Cold Warrior whose work is far more convincing than those who favor a polemical, moralizing style. Here's a good link for you both (especially Adam), if you haven't read it yet. "On Moral Equivalency and Cold War History" by John Lewis Gaddis, Ethics & International Affairs, Volume 10 (1996) 172 22:29, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I have re-read the article in the light of the comments made, and I will defend both its accuracy and its NPOV standing. It's not me who called anyone a dupe of Stalin etc, I have only quoted what Conquest said. I have not asserted that Conquest was right about everything, or that he was "necessarily" right. I have asserted that he was right in his description of the famine and the purges, and also in saying that the many people who denied those things at the time were wrong. That is a statement of historical fact and not my POV. I think Stan is being over-pedantic in some of his comments. Who exactly in recent years has alleged that Conquest's work is inaccurate? Who has shown the relevance of his work at the IRD to his work as a historian? If there are names and sources, let's have them and they can go in the article. I haven't seen any. Adam 10:24, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

At the very least, the previous version had an inline reference to a 1978 Guardian article that disappeared in the rewrite. (Presumably Guardian articles are considered sufficient as sources, since a 2003 article is now cited.) Over-pedantic? That's probably true of everyone who's spent a year on WP... :-) If I hadn't already done research on him as part of adding bio bits before, I probably would have read the article and accepted it uncritically. Here's another thing; you have quotes from reviewers praising Conquest, but there are no actual examples of that "guaranteed" "hostile reception" during the 60s. It would a fine demonstration of NPOV to include a critical comment from the highest-reputation intellectual that ragged on Conquest, plus which it connects readers to the other people in the dispute. (The source of the "mere journalist" crack suggests itself.) I'm going to be at the university library on Sunday, perhaps I can dig up something then. Stan 16:04, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Stan is correct to say that I used recent direct quotes in support of Conquest (which are easy to find online) while only indirectly referring to hostile commentaries from the past (which I remember, but which are generally not online). If he can find some direct quotes, well and good. There is, incidentally, no link to the 1978 Guardian article in the old version of this article, only a reference to it.

Since Stan insists on having this NPOV argument, however, let me refer anyone who's interested to the November 23 version of this article (ie before I rewrote it) and ask them to decide which version is more NPOV. That version consisted of a basic biography, followed by the allegation (lifted from an extreme-left website) that his work was all lies because he had once worked for British intelligence. There was no discussion whatever about what his books actually said or whether he was right or wrong about Stalinism. In other words, it was a totally dishonest smear-job on an anti-communist historian. I agree that Stan's edit of August 10 improved it somewhat. But it was still a grossly one-sided article, and Stan was apparently happy to leave it that way. So it's a bit much for Stan to now accuse me of propagandising when I have written a proper biography and allowed some defence of Conquest against his critics.

There is also a point to be made about the intellectual climate of Wikipedia. Although Wikipedia claims that all its material is or should be "NPOV," in fact its centre of political gravity is well to the left. Anything written from a conservative POV, or written about anybody with a conservative POV, appears out of place and attracts a swarm of hostile editing. Left-wing commentary is generally left alone even when it grossly POV, because it seems perfectly OK to most Wikipedia editors. My political views are a mixture of left and right. Just for the record, I'm a member of a centre-left political party, but I am strongly anti-communist, and I greatly admire Conquest's work. No doubt my article reflects that - I don't believe in "objective" history-writing, and the article was intended to be a bit of a challenge to readers' left-wing preconceptions. My point is that if I had written an equally admiring article about, say, Noam Chomsky, no-one would have touched it. Adam 00:20, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I wasn't actually happy to leave the article in its previous state, I just didn't feel like I had enough credible information to justify deleting other people's additions. If I don't know about something, I just leave the article alone. 172 will attest that I've taken strong exception to the left-wing writing too, and I agree that the amount of it is depressingly large. But if you're introducing opposite POVs just to make a point, it's not really a good strategy, because it legitimizes the very behaviors you're objecting to. BTW, I've added material about a bunch of conservatives, because they were being neglected, including favorable stuff even, and haven't seen the swarms of hostile editors. I think it's because there are really only a small number of articles that attract a lot of attention, while great masses of important supporting material is being ignored (and yes, I admit that by quibbling here, I'm cutting into article writing time, sorry). Stan 02:20, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

A little poking around shows at least two serious scholars who are currently disputing Conquest's numbers - Stephen Wheatcroft at Melbourne (homepage) and Mark Tauger at West Virginia University. Googling turns up references to various recent papers, doesn't look like it's a settled point. Interesting tie-ins to Ukrainian nationalism, I predict this will get to be a much hotter issue in the future. Stan 08:28, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think this provides sufficient justification for removing the line: "No serious scholar today disputes the correctness of Conquest's accounts of the purges and the collectivisation famine." But I think the whole article is written in a rather biased tone and needs to be reworked. Everyking 19:59, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Well, I've done a NPOV edit, and among all my changes, I suspect the one that will attract most attention is my removal of certain pro-Conquest quotes, so let me justify it in advance: Quotes are often POV. In order to maintain NPOV while introducing quotes, the best strategy is to introduce quotes from all sides. The article only contained quotes from one side, so I have removed them. I'd be happy to re-introduce them once I (or anyone else) also add(s) quotes from the opposing side into the article. - Mihnea Tudoreanu
I think you've gone too far the other way, removing factual bits and the like. For instance, the Great Terror book is extensively researched; substituting "famous" makes it seem like any old polemic screed. Some of the other wording seems in the whitewash category too. There are so many questionable changes that I'm half-inclined to revert and make you do them more incrementally. Your argument that the presence of only pro-Conquest quotes is POV is completely bogus; NPOV means that we don't take a position, it's perfectly fine to introduce attributed POV quotes, and there's no "equal time" rule - if the only quotes available are pro-Conquest, that's just the way it goes, and deleting them is wrong. Stan 19:40, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The article was previously laudatory and frankly rather ridiculous (and even worse before I made a few changes back in February); the new changes seem to have improved it greatly. The quotes were obviously being used to increase the pro-Conquest slant of the article in an indirect way, so I can't object to their removal. Everyking 20:21, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Adding attributed quotes cannot, by definition, make an article biased (go back and read Wikipedia:NPOV more carefully). I actually looked for negative quotes a while back, but couldn't find any made by anybody significant (spews on personal websites not counting). Also, as I mentioned, if you look closely at some of the changes, they've gone further than neutral, subtly slanting things the other way. Stan 23:57, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If the Joseph Stalin article was nicely neutral in most respects but sprinkled throughout with adulatory quotes about what a brilliant guide and teacher he was, it wouldn't last a second. You can't tell me that doesn't slant an article. When you exclusively give time to positive quotes, you leave the reader with the impression that a positive view of the person is natural and uncontroversial. And since the quotes in question didn't really add anything to the article to begin with, I can't see any harm in their loss. Everyking 00:21, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Actually plenty of the dictator articles are scattered with adulatory quotes, and they've been in there for a while. If you want to say that the quotes don't add any information, that's a completely different reason that has nothing to do with slant. I think they're useful as independent support for the claims of controversy, since we don't have a book-type bio to work from. Stan 05:41, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

When I get time I will restore the statements of fact which Mihnea Tudoreanu has removed. I don't feel strongly about the quotes, but (as I stated at the time I rewrote the article), I will firmly oppose any attempt to restalinise this article by removing factual statements. Adam 02:18, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Restalinise" the article? I take severe offense to that; my personal opinion is that a mass murderer like Stalin deserves to burn in hell; but the article was much more than anti-Stalin; it was wholesale anti-Left, unilaterally praising Conquest, endorsing his view that leftist intellectuals are idiots, and so on. The revert was out of order. My removal of the quotes may be controversial (which is why I left them in the article this time), but what exactly is wrong with the rest of my changes? Give some explanations before you revert, or at least something more than "I don't like your changes". In case you haven't noticed, I didn't remove factual statements. I merely rephrased them to be more neutral. And none of my changes said anything good about Stalin - I just tried to insert the idea that maybe, perhaps, Conquest is not quite 100% correct and his opponents are not all filthy scum. A number of people here don't seem to understand that there is a lot of middle ground between "Stalin was a great teacher and leader" and "all leftist intellectuals are idiotic communist sympathisers and Conquest is a godlike hero".
- Mihnea Tudoreanu

I find it rather outrageous that User:PMelvilleAustin has protected the article after reverting it to his own preferred version. Could he explain how this situation warrants ignoring the custom that article protection should not be done by a person involved in a dispute and should not show favoritism to one version or another? Everyking 16:10, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

*sighs*. Everyking i am A) not involved in this duspute and B) i reverted to the last version before Mihnea came along and started this discussion between him/her, Stan and Adam - the last version which had been there for any length of time. PMA 16:19, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
But you are, you had already reverted to Adam's version not long before. And then you did it again before right before protecting. Everyking 16:28, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Protection policy allows admins a certain amount of discretion as to which version to protect. In this case PMA did a standard thing by reverting and marking, then Mihnea re-reverted...
Perhaps if you actually read my first and second version of the article, you would have noticed that I did not re-revert; in fact, my second edit included the quotes which I had removed in my first edit, as well as a number of other changes. It was not a revert.

...which is evidence of unwillingness to cooperate with process, and lost any claim to the moral high ground. In a controversial edit, the onus is on the editor to justify the changes. Stan 16:39, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Funny. There I was thinking that Wikipedia policy involved first requesting comments, then conducting a survey, then requesting mediation, and only as a last resort asking an administrator to protect the page. Things sure have changed around here...
And by the way, WHAT process am I supposed to cooperate with? No clear objections have been made! (except in the matter of the quotes, which my latest edit had not removed) I don't even know WHAT I am supposed to justify. For a person who declares his hatred for Stalin, you sure seem to have learned a thing or two from good ol' Uncle Joe.
- Mihnea Tudoreanu
Reverting an edit that made the article more neutral and then adding a tag to it discouraging anyone else from trying to fix the problems isn't any sort of real "process" that anyone needs to cooperate with. In any case, PMA should not have been the one to protect, much less to protect after reverting it to his preferred (and absurdly POV) version. Everyking 16:46, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I only reverted after both Stan and Adam had raised questions about what Mihnea had done. I have no "preferred" version, Please do not infer things like that. I have Asperger's syndrome - because of it my mind processes things differently to "normal" people - check with me about what i was intending before inferring negative motives. PMA 17:00, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I suppose I could unprotect the article and revert it, then, since I have raised questions about what you have done and about Adam's rewrite of the article months ago? No, of course I wouldn't do such a thing, although evidently not everyone has such inhibitions. I do consider this an important article, however, and I don't want to see it protected on some silly POV version. Everyking 17:12, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
You could have if you'd kept your mouth shut :-), but you blew the chance when you took a side in discussion. Now you're stuck having to develop consensus, truly an awful fate I know. Stan 17:29, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'd be more than willing to "resolve the disputes on the discussion page" as soon as the opposing side mentions what is actually disputed. So far, all I've seen are ambiguous generalities. That's why we're not going anywhere. Stan and Adam have not elaborated on their objections, so the discussion is stagnating because we don't know what we're supposed to be discussing. - Mihnea Tudoreanu
OK then, I mentioned that you deleted the "extensively-researched" adjective for The Great Terror, which is both true and conveys that the book is not just another political screed. Why didn't you answer me about that on the first go-round? I didn't mention it just to use up space on the hard disk. Stan 17:29, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Again, if you had actually read my second edit, you would have noticed that I conceded your point and left the "extensively-researched" adjective intact. Whoops. ;) - Mihnea Tudoreanu
Great! I didn't notice that. That's why massive edits like yours are not recommended; hard to discuss each one individually. Stan 20:49, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To take just one little example, look at this paragraph:

Josef Joffe, editorial page editor and a columnist at the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, reviewed Reflections on a Ravaged Century in the New York Times Book Review. Joffe observed that "terror was intrinsic to both totalitarianisms, though many in the West still deny the twinship of Stalinism and Hitlerism... So-called right-wing intellectuals like Conquest... did not have an easy time in the academy during the 1970s and '80s when 'anti-Communist' became an epithet and moral judgments about the 'evil empire' became, well, 'judgmental.' Now, a decade after the empire's demise, and with ever widening access to party and state archives, it turns out that those 'Cold Warriors' were right, while many of their opponents look like unregenerate apologists."

Mihnea tried to change it to say Joffe commented, but this was reverted back to observed, which plainly asserts the truth of Joffe's comment. This is, however, a very extreme and controversial comment, for in it he argues that Stalinism and fascism are twin systems, and that those who disagree with such a claim are in denial (and to top off the absurdity, he seems to imply that only people in the West would deny it). Joffe goes on to claim that the "Cold Warriors" like Conquest were right all along and that their opponents look like "unregenerate apologists". Again, the article endorses all this nonsense with the word "observed". Please, explain to me why anyone would revert to a version including such a thing. Everyking 19:55, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Um, "observed" and "commented" are synonyms in this usage; see OED, section IV.10.b for "observe", in fact part of the definition says "to comment (on)". I'd be curious to know why you think the word "observed" has any additional meaning here. Stan 20:49, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
But it is not merely to comment, it is to note something with an implication of truth; one observes something that exists. Why do you think it was changed to begin with? Everyking 21:11, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If you have no dictionary to back you up on that, then you're just giving us an erroneous personal interpretation of the word, a misconception perhaps shared with Mihnea. Stan 05:35, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think it is pretty clear that it has said connotation. You can disagree if you like and use the word however you want, but I'm still going to change it so that others will not draw from it the "wrong" meaning. Everyking 13:51, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
It has no such connotation, you're simply wrong about that. Replacing with a synonym is not a problem, but if your understanding of the English language is so divergent from what the rest of us use, that makes all of your edits in need of additional scrutiny. Stan 15:55, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Cool, you can scrutinize my illiterate edits all day long. Everyking 16:11, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I make no comment on the reversion and protection issues above, which I didn't participate in. I retract the word "restalinise," which was ill-considered. Mihnea Tudoreanu asks me to identify matters of fact which his edit removed from the article:

  • He changes "gradual Communist takeover of the country [Bulgaria]" to "gradual transition to Communist rule." This is a distortion of what happened. The Communists took over the country with the backing of the Soviet occupation forces, and executed Petkov who undoubtedly would have won a free election.
The only thing I was trying to do was to remove the rather inappropriate term "takeover". In my newest edit, I've replaced it with "rise of Communism". I hope that is more acceptable.
  • He changes "helping Tatiana to escape from the Communist regime" to "He left Bulgaria in 1948, together with Tatiana." This clearly changes the statement of fact. If he thinks the original statement is false, he should cite a source.
My intention was to make the statement more neutral, but I will concede this point.
  • He changes "Although the university-based left [of the 60s] was not controlled by Communist parties loyal to the Soviet Union—as has been the case in the 1930s—it was still broadly infused with the mystique of the Russian Revolution" to "Although the university-based left was not connected to any Communist parties loyal to the Soviet Union, it usually regarded the Russian Revolution in a positive light." This changes a true statement to a false one. I said the left was not controlled by the CPs, which is true, but he says it was not connected to the CPs, which in a significant number of cases (Angela Davis, for example) is false.
It was my impression that the phrase "although the university-based left [of the 60s] was not controlled by Communist parties loyal to the Soviet Union..." carried the implication that Soviet control of the university-based left could have been a real possibility in the 60's, which is false. But, at any rate, this sentence belonged to a section that has been moved to another article since you raised your objection, so this point is pretty much closed.
  • He changes "another exhaustively researched piece of scholarship, exposing for the first time the full story of the collectivisation" to "another famous book, dealing with the collectivisation", which removes a statement of fact and replaces it with a fatuous cliche, which is not in any case true: Harvest of Sorrow is not nearly as "famous" as The Great Terror.
I concede this point. The phrase "exhaustively researched" stays in.
  • He changes "in which millions of peasants died of starvation or through deportation to labour camps" to "which caused millions of deaths both directly and indirectly," which changes a precise statement to an imprecise one, which has the effect of understating what actually happened. (what does "both directly and indirectly" mean anyway?)
I probably had a good reason for that edit when I made it two months ago, but I seem to have forgotten it in the interim. :) So, again, I will concede this point.
  • He changes "He [Conquest] called the outright denial of the collectivisation famine by many in the west "an intellectual and moral disgrace on a massive scale." to "He accused them of denying the full scale of the famine, attacking their views as "an intellectual and moral disgrace on a massive scale." But they did not "deny the full scale of the famine", they followed the Soviet official line that there was no famine. Does Mihnea Tudoreanu know the story of Malcolm Muggeridge, who was the Manchester Guardian correspondent in Moscow? He sent home an eye-witness account of the famine, which the editor refused to publish on the grounds that the Soviet embassy had officially informed him there was no famine.

Adam 03:04, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, and your argument might have been true for the 1930's, but the book you're talking about was published by Conquest in 1986. I don't think western intellectuals were denying the famine at that point.
That's pretty much all the things that were bothering me. Stan 05:35, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, I've answered them - albeit with a slight delay of 2 months (what can I say? I was busy on about a hundred other pages...). I hope the dispute has been (or will soon be) resolved. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 16:57, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Evidence of PhD

I haven't been able to find evidence of Conquest's possession of an advanced degree. Where is this documented? --Jim Abraham 10:03, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Stop contributing to the right wing bias, Adam.

I included the section of Controversy in the Robert Conquest article. The section had no value judgment and was absolutely objective. You removed it and introduced a pedant, arrogant and baseless comment on how it was anti-Conquest. This is absolutely preposterous. The tiny section only included accurate information on how there was a controversy around his book, which is absolutely true. If there's anyone who is contributing to a bias, be it right or left wing it is you. Your comments reflect utter ignorance on the subject, while many important historians such as Arch Getty have reviewed the man's works. I will await a coherent, humble and informed response from you.

I will continue to remove badly-written rubbish from this and other articles. To say that Conquest's work is "controversial" is a stupid and banal cliche which is already made quite apparent in the article. If you have some quotes from critics of his work, then quote them. Adam 00:31, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Ridiculous

"Some Communists continue to deny the claims made in The Great Terror, despite their vindication by Russian and other historians following the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening of the Soviet archives. In an attempt to discredit Conquest's work, communist writers accuse him of relying on "Nazi collaborators, émigrés, and the CIA," and characterize his work with British intelligence and the Foreign Office as "production of anti-Soviet propaganda." One communist critic of Conquest is Ludo Martens, whose book Another view of Stalin is available online."

A) Not only communists dispute Conquest's claims
B) Among those who disagree with Conquest, it is widely believed that the opening of the archives refutes Conquest, not "vindicates" him.

This paragraph also strikes me as attempting to characterize the opposition to Conquest's work as being politically based, when in fact it is based on serious historical study, with a political basis being either secondary or nonexistent (as there are many anti-communist scholars who dispute Conquest's work). Everyking 23:46, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

People on this page have been lecturing me for two years now about all these historians who have refuted Conquest's work based on the Soviet archives. They have yet to provide any evidence for this contention. I have repeatedly said, if these works exist, then let's have some citations. None have been produced. Of course the opening of the archives has allowed the correction of various points in Conquest's books - although surprisingly few given the material he had access to in the 1960s. But the basic theses of The Great Terror and Harvest of Fear have never been successfully challenged. There are arguments in both directions about the number of deaths in both cases, but this is a matter of interpretation about which greater precision is probably not now possible. The central facts - that there was a state-induced famine in which millions died, followed a purge in which millions more died - stand unchallenged, and vindicated in voluminous detail by the Soviet archives. Everyking is quite wrong to say that there are "many anti-communist scholars who dispute Conquest's work," if by this he means that they dispute the basic arguments of Conquest's two major books. Who are they? What have they published? What are their arguments? Adam 00:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The amount of leftist bias on Wikipedia is incredible. I wonder if a scholar who documented Hitler's genocide would get this kind of disgusting treatment; perhaps we should revise Lord Bullock's biography to dispute his account of Nazi Germany with the claims of Nazis and fellow sympathizers receiving equal weight?

The problem is that the leftists are right. You are mistaken. It's really quite simple. --62.255.232.1 23:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It is a typical, sometimes veiled, threat of the psuedo-rspectable far-right, to which our Adam seems to belong, that unless "we"(leftists,common liberals and subhuman jews) unquestioningly accept their lies as gospel, they will drop all pretences and adopt an upright nazi stance and start calling "our" own version of history(that at least 6,000,000 were murdered, and that it was not merely a handfull of gestapo and SS men who murdered them but a great horde including such cold war stalwarts as Conquest's Ukrainian-schauvinist future paymasters. or that the claim that millions of Ukrainians died in a planned famine is propagandistic nonsense) a myth. well sieg heil to the poor nullities, but the truth is neither negotiable nor can it be suppressed through such pathetic stabs at bulling.the sad simple and revolting fact is that robert conquest is nothing but a farcical charletan. against the backdrop of naive academic respect for the ussr, his soviet bashing polemics may have served as a usefull counterbalance at the time.however they posses no intrinsic historiographic value. no more than did claude cockborn pro-soviet ferrytales. with the cold war at an end, and more significantly with soviet archives increasingly accessible there is no excuse for clinging to the crass propaganda of cold war psuedo-scholary demagogues like conquest and his ilk, neither should we commit th sin of indulgence toward their unreformable worshippers like our pig-headedly close-minded adam

Let me remind you that the laws of defamation apply to Wikipedia, in relation both to Conquest and myself. Adam 01:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

adam, oh dear adam. I have recently been the victim of an attempt to have me blocked, on the nefarious grounds that i am a certain roitrs,whoever he may be . you wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you? well never mind about that. regarding your "reminder" about the laws on defamation. I can only note that the truth is an absolute defence in such matters. you have some respect for the truth don't you? it and its much sabotaged practitioners like myself are yours and your idol's eternal hindrance. I have also observed that you have deemed just to delete my addition to the article, you know which one, the one about criticism leveled at conquest by such scruplous historians like roberta manning, sheilagh fitzpatrick and other infidels who cannot avoid the lure of the archives when studing the soviet past- where is a concentration camp or a mere gulag when we need and crave one. could you perhaps resign yourself to democratic practices just long enough to examine them before lashing back so stalinistically by deleting? failing that you would have to vanish from the scene leaving it to those whose disapproval of stalinist evil has not led them ultra-rightist Phantasmagoria

I must grant you your due adam. once again I have been blocked on the pretext that I am roitr. you certainly are persistent

Thinks: what is this person talking about? Adam 00:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Challenge to Evil-Again

In view of some of the repellent gibberish that appears above I think it appropriate to repeat here a comment I left on the Great Terror talk page. It is as follows;

I really have to say something in response to the semi-literate nonsense-undated and unsigned-that appears above. Conquest's work is a brilliant condemnation of the horrors of Stalinism and the moral abdication-or blindness-of a whole generation of Western intellectuals. The only criticism I have is that he sees Stalin, perhaps, as uniquely malevolent, when Lenin, Trotsky and the rest of the Bolshevik gangsters were in every way as bad. "One death", Stalin said, "is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic". The truth of course, as anyone with any moral sense understands, is that a million deaths is a million tragedies. To try to argue that a lesser figure somehow makes the crime less heinous betrays the true rotteness at the heart of all Marxist thought. White Guard 01:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

External Links

I recently removed two of the external links:

User:Adam Carr put them back with the edit summary

there can be no objection to links to external sources critical of conquest, even if we think they are dead wrong

which is quite true. What I'm worried about is that those particular links violate WP:EL, particularly the bit about avoiding web pages containing "unverified original research" (item 2 under Links normally to be avoided). I'll leave it to other editors to make this decision.

Of course, the ideal solution is to find fully acceptable WP:Reliable Sources disputing Conquest's work; I'm astonished no-one has found any. Cheers, CWC(talk) 15:33, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Kiss-Ass Article

This article is devoid of scholarly criticism on Conquest's shoddy methods. J.Arch Getty discredited his work by showing that he uses memoirs and anecdotes instead of reliable evidence. Stephen Wheatcroft ridiculed his claims that the declassified Soviet archives have been shown to be "fraudulent'. Most importantly, this article is devoid of how his claims about the "artificial famine", "12 million deaths in the GULAG", etc have been utterly refuted. He claimed that 12 million died in the GULAG when the archives only show 1 million.

So provide some quotes and citations. Adam 03:04, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I posted this in February, and no-one has yet made any effective response:

People on this page have been lecturing me for two years now about all these historians who have refuted Conquest's work based on the Soviet archives. They have yet to provide any evidence for this contention. I have repeatedly said, if these works exist, then let's have some citations. None have been produced. Of course the opening of the archives has allowed the correction of various points in Conquest's books - although surprisingly few given the material he had access to in the 1960s. But the basic theses of The Great Terror and Harvest of Fear have never been successfully challenged. There are arguments in both directions about the number of deaths in both cases, but this is a matter of interpretation about which greater precision is probably not now possible. The central facts - that there was a state-induced famine in which millions died, followed a purge in which millions more died - stand unchallenged, and vindicated in voluminous detail by the Soviet archives. Everyking is quite wrong to say that there are "many anti-communist scholars who dispute Conquest's work," if by this he means that they dispute the basic arguments of Conquest's two major books. Who are they? What have they published? What are their arguments?

Adam 03:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

They have yet to provide any evidence for this contention.

Surely they would have referred to works by Zemskov and Popov which clearly refute what Conquest has disseminated. They are summarized by Russian historian Igor Pykhalov:

http://www.thewalls.ru/truth/repress.htm

They are summarized in English by scholars J.Arch Getty and Stephen Wheatcroft:

http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-Secret_Police.pdf

The bottom line is that Conquest said that 12 million died in the camps even though the declassified archives show that the figure was 1 million.

But the basic theses of The Great Terror and Harvest of Fear have never been successfully challenged.

Works published by J.Arch Getty, Gabor T. Rittersporn, and Robert Thurston refute Conquest's claims that the purge in 1937-38 was a premeditated plan by Stalin to inflict mass terror on the peoples of the USSR as a whole. In fact, the vast majority of those affected by the purges were elite sectors of the party, state, and burreaucracy who were a clear minority of the Soviet population. Evidence shows that local Communist secretaries were trying to get rid of rivals in order to secure their positions in 1937-38.

Plus, Conquest has slandered respectable intellectuals like Walter Duranty. Conquest put forth a selective quotation "all claims of a famine today are malignant propaganda" claiming that Duranty was trying to cover-up famine. In the very same article that Conquest cited, Duranty estimated that the food shortage as he called the situation resulted in 2 million dead. The Soviet archives proved Duranty correct all along.

"The Harvest of Sorrow" has been thoroughly refuted by Stephen Wheatcroft and RW Davies in their "Years of Hunger" and by Mark Tauger in a series of articles he's published in Carl Beck Papers and Slavic Review. Conquest claimed that the 1933 famine resulted because of excessive grain collections. Conquest also claimed that the 1932 harvest was no worse than previous years. Wheatcroft and Davies in their "Years of Hunger" expose this to be false:

USSR Grain production and collections, 1930-33 (million tons)
Year Production Collections Remainder Collections as % of production
1930 73-77 22.1 51-55 30.2-28.7
1931 57-65 22.8 34-43 40-35.1
1932 55-60 18.5 36.5-41.5 33.6-30.8
1933 70-77 22.7 47.3-54.3 32.4-29.5

Jacob Peters

Response

  • Thanks for those links, which as can be seen are the first anyone has posted in response to my request above. I'm glad we can now debate the issue rather than just trade accusations. Since Pykhalov is in Russian he is no use to me, but I will certainly read the other two. I see that the Wheatcroft article is a rejoinder to a Conquest response to an earlier Wheatcroft article. Could we have links to Wheatcroft's first article and Conquest's response?
  • You refer to "Conquest's claims that the purge in 1937-38 was a premeditated plan by Stalin to inflict mass terror on the peoples of the USSR as a whole." Conquest did not say that. The Great Terror shows clearly that, as you say, "the vast majority of those affected by the purges were elite sectors of the party, state, and burreaucracy who were a clear minority of the Soviet population." But in a party-state ruled command economy, that elite, still amounted to millions of people, particularly when the cultural elite and the military elite, and all their families, are included. Adam 05:01, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Career

I removed the sentence stating that "Conquest is sometimes disparagingly referred to as a "mere journalist", so it is important to note that he is a professionally qualified historian, despite not having had a conventional academic career." It's unecessarily defensive. OK, it's important to note his qualifications - and we've noted them. We don't need to explain why it's important by citing unnamed critics. If there's specific criticism of Conquest (e.g. a source in which someone actually calling him a "mere journalist"), then his qualifications could be reiterated in response. MastCell 00:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Weasel words

The following sentence contains weasel words: "Conquest is sometimes disparagingly referred to as a "mere journalist", so it is important to note that he is a professionally qualified historian, despite not having had a conventional academic career. (Indeed, in 1994 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.)" Who exactly is it that dispagaringly refers to Conquest as a "mere journalist"? I tagged this with "citation needed", but User:Jacob Peters removed the tag with an edit summary claiming I was "blind" and that it was fully sourced. OK, fine - then please be so kind as to remove the weasel words and attribute the disparaging comment. Otherwise, it looks like a strawman and reinforces the generally less-than-encyclopedic tone of this article. Merry Christmas. MastCell 05:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Attention Jacob Peters

Your first edit to this article is to delete this:

The book was based mainly on information which had been made public, either officially or by individuals, during the Khrushchev Thaw in the period 1956-64. It also drew on accounts by Russian and Ukrainian émigrés and exiles dating back to the 1930s, and on an analysis of official Soviet documents such as the Soviet census.

And replace it with this:

The book was based mainly on anecdotal information by memoirists.

This statement can only result either from ignorance or dishonesty. Either you have not read Conquest or you are deliberately misrepresenting him. In either case this edit is unacceptable, and makes all your other edits unacceptable also. So I have reverted them, and will continue to do so.

I have Conquest's reference pages open in front of me. I select at random Chapter 7 (Assault on the Army). I see 195 references. They include articles from the Soviet press (both from the 1930s and the 1960s), Soviet works published during the Khrushchev thaw (eg, Dubinsky, Grossman), including encyclopaedias, transcripts of party congresses, statements by Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders during that time, trial records and other documents from the 1930s made public in the 1960s, statements by Soviet dissidents (particularly Yakir), and western academic works (eg Sullivant, Deutscher, Erickson). In other words Conquest used the best sources available to him at the time of writing. They are not perfect, and he doesn't claim they are. Conquest himself discusses the problem of sources in his preface. He says "Researchers in the USSR are not in a position to discover or publish the full truth. Until they can, this account must continue to do duty." He thus acknowledges the limitations of his work. But to dismiss all his sources as "anecdotal information by memoirists" is just plain untrue, indeed slanderous, and totally discredits any subsequent criticisms you have of this article. Adam 08:56, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

It would appear that User:Jacob Peters has been blocked yet again, so a response may not be forthcoming. MastCell 23:31, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Hitchens article

I've added an external link to a good article by Christopher Hitchens in the Wall Street Journal last Sunday. It has details which probably could be added to the article — eg., the limericks. Cheers, CWC(talk) 04:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Pro-Stalinist

Why isn't Robert Conquest mentioned to be pro-Stalinist??? I read his book Stalin: Breaker of Nations, in it he mentions his admiration for Stalin. He mentions that Stalin has killed 5 to 7 million people(this is actually inaccurate, the real number is two million), but he still considers Stalin to be a great innovator and hero of the 20th century.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.100.202.239 (talk • contribs) 19:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

May be worth re-reading that book. MastCell 16:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
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