Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jews and Communism (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Deleted - There is a clear and strong consensus that the current article is inappropriate for a variety of reasons included anti-semitic content and copyright issues. The consensus of whether it is possible to have a neutral non-synthesis article is less clear, so this AfD should not be seen as a judgement on the notability of the topic. However, I strongly encourage everyone to let the issue rest a while before considering recreation. There is no deadline and it seems unlikely productive editing can take place at this time. ThaddeusB (talk) 17:47, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Jews and Communism

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This page has its origin with Jewish Bolshevism, which discusses the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Communism is a Jewish plot aimed at world domination. That page is expressly limited to discussion of the conspiracy theory; Jews and Communism seeks to offer evidence that the conspiracy theory is in fact true. This page offers a pastiche of statistics, anecdotes, and cherry-picked sources to show that people with Jewish ancestry were involved in various aspects of Communism, with special attention to the secret police and (in previous versions) the execution of the Russian Tsar. It frequently goes out of its way to emphasize connections between people of Jewish ancestry and finance. Parts of the article and its sources appear to derive from an article [1] by a notorious holocaust denier [2].

The page is a mixture of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH in support of a WP:ATTACK on an ethnic group through a WP:FRINGE theory. To present the color of neutrality, occasional disclaimers are sprinkled to remind the reader that not all Jews supported Communism, and that Jews were sometimes persecuted by Communists; thus a WP:FRINGE theory finds its way into Wikipedia by acknowledging that not everyone believes the theory to be completely true. The information offered here can more effectively be presented (where warranted) in more natural contexts; if the religion of Karl Marx’s grandparents is notable, for example, it might be discussed in his biography rather than here. The tone of the page, and of its supporters on the talk page and elsewhere, is deeply disturbing and the page threatens to deeply embarrass the project.

Created on 27 February 2014 [3], Jews and Communism has been a magnet for controversy and edit wars. It has already been at AN/I twice [4][5], and was the subject of an 8000-word discussion on Jimbo’s talk page [6]. A previous AfD [7] was closed without consensus. Directly relevant precedents include the deletions of Jews and Hollywood [8] and Jews and Money [9]. Some (apparently) reliable sources can always be found for any conspiracy theory, but Wikipedia should not host pages of evidence for Antisemitic canards. MarkBernstein (talk) 14:49, 9 May 2014 (UTC) MarkBernstein (talk) 21:04, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per "Blow it up", "notability" and "fork". "Reasons for deletion" allows reasons not enumerated such as "Blow it up." In this case the article was written in a manner that appeared to be anti-Semitic and large portions have in fact been copied to the anti-Semitic Metapedia article on Jewish Communism. If the article could be justified, it would be best to delete it and start again.

The article fails notability because no books or articles have been written about the topic. In the few cases where the subject is mentioned in reliable sources, it usually contains the statement that no studies have been conducted on this topic. Of course there are various articles about Jews and Communism in different countries at different times, for example Jews under Communism in Stalin's Soviet Union or Communist Jews in the United States between the two world wars. But nothing links them, making the article implicit "synthesis".

The article is a "Point of view (POV) fork" of Jewish Bolshevism, also called "Jewish Communism", which is the conspiracy theory that the Jewish people are behind the Communist movement. "Jews and Communism" takes the evidence that is used in anti-Semitic literature without explicitly stating the conclusion found in conspiracy writing. It is similar to having a 9/11 article that lists all the problems in the official version, without explicitly stating that the official version is wrong. But as every polemicist knows, a selective presentation of evidence can lead readers to a conclusion. For example the website "Republican sex offenders" which accurarately listed known Republicans who were sex offenders, had the implicit message that Republicans were more likely to be sex offenders than Democrats.

TFD (talk) 21:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article is not a POVFORK, explicitly according to the standing consensus on the Jewish Bolshevism article. The above claim is deliberate, dishonest misinformation. The Four Deuces should be sanctioned for disruptive conduct. On the one hand he established that this content is a separate topic from Jewish Bolshevism [10] (to delete it there), on the other he has repeatedly pushed, over and over again, to have it deleted on grounds of being a "FORK" of that same article. That's really clear WP:TE with a goal to have the text deleted. And his repeated pushing of this point is WP:ICANTHEARYOU, as the user ignores, without fail, any posts that point out his own RfC at Jewish Bolshevism.

The argument regarding notability can be summarized as "even though there are hundreds of sources covering Jews and Communism, they focus on specific countries and therefore do not cover Jews and Communism". To say "no books or articles have been written about the topic" or that "no studies have been conducted on this topic" is dishonest, deliberate misinformation, and again an example of disruptive behavior.

The "nothing links them" argument can, in turn, be summarized as "because the sources do not say all Jews everywhere are Communists, we should delete this article". This article does not WP:SYNTH any conclusions, but merely goes into the topic of Jewish participation in Communist movements - precisely "in different countries at different times", as TFD puts it. That is not SYNTH under any definition.

Personally I can't imagine more contrived arguments. -- Director (talk) 08:59, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Essentially this is a WP:COATRACK for every Communist Jew of note, a POV nightmare because of its underplaying of the longstanding hostility between Jews/Judaism/Israel and Communists/Communist movements/Communist nations. Putting aside the rationalizations of its defenders concerning the scope of this article, what you have here is this: high school students will be googling "Jews and Communists," coming to this article, and getting this one-sided, incomplete, foul brew of WP:SYNTHESIS that in one of its earlier stages was proudly copied over to Metapedia. I don't believe the article has changed in any material way since then, nor do I believe that it is salvageable. Sure, we can retitle and reframe it, we can do the best we can with this trash. But when you come right down to it, this is just a variation on an odoriferous theme, very much akin to Jews and Hollywood [11] and Jews and Money [12], which disgraced Wikipedia until they too were deleted. Coretheapple (talk) 21:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, this is a valid article subject. Some points; 1) it is not an WP:ATTACK page (is it a crime to be communist? is it a crime to be Jewish?) 2) Not SYNTH, nor FRINGE, the subject is covered in well covered in scholarly literature. I advice to see http://www.cjh.org/videoarchivelist/1966 for some context. 3) No-one is saying that all/most Jews were communists, nore is there an argument that links communism to Jewish religion. 4) I was the first editor to express concerns about the initial versions of the page, but I think as rewriting have come along the quality has improved. Nevertheless, the WP:BATTLEGROUND attitudes have at times blocked qualititative progress. In my opinion we had a positive process until the recent canvassing. --Soman (talk) 21:50, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The theory that Communism is part of a Jewish plot for world domination is both anti-Communist and anti-Semitic. TFD (talk) 23:01, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - The point here would precisely be to separate between what is the anti-Semitic discourse (currently in the Jewish Bolshevism article) on one side, and the historical documented role of Jewish participation in the communist movement on the other. If we go ahead with deletion, we'll be back to square one with all material clogging up the Jewish Bolshevism article instead. --Soman (talk) 23:41, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What then would justify singling out Jews and Judaism (in relation to Communism)?

The relationship between Communism, race and religion is an interesting and notable one, but I don't see any legitimate reason for singling out Jews and Judaism rather than covering the relationship between (1) Communism and religion, and (2) Communism and race - covering a range of races and religions.

Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 13:12, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The relation between Marxism and religion is interesting, and we do have articles about that, but in this case we are not talking about the linkage between religous Judaism and communism. As per other communities, WP:OTHERSTUFF is not a valid argument in deletion discussions, but it has popped up often in the discussion on this article. We do have an article titled The Communist Party USA and African Americans. There could be other articles as well, albeit they would probably be more difficult to source. Notably most communist movements have been organized on territorial basis. It would be possible to write an article on Finnish participation in communist movements; in Finland, in Sweden, in the US, in Canada, in the Soviet Union, but I've never come across an equivalent to the vast literature as in the case of the debate on Jewish participation in communist movements. An article on Roma people and communism would definately be interesting, but I've never seen any WP:RS. Likewise, it would be very interesting to write an article on the Armenian participation in communist movements in Lebanon, Iraq, US, etc.. I wanted to write an article some time back on German communist movements in Eastern-Central Europe in the interbellum (in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Soviet Union, etc.), but never found good sources connecting the dots. --Soman (talk) 13:44, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the thoughtful response @Soman:, I think we're agreed that there is a very interesting article to be written about Marxism and religion!

(and another one about Marxism and race).

To clarify: my argument is not that described at WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST. That argument is primarily about relative notability, if I understand the essay correctly - e.g. There's an article on x, and this is just as famous as that. That is not what I'm saying.

Rather, I am arguing that: It is invidious to single-out one ethnic or religious group as primarily responsible for or in control of Communism, because that is a breach of WP:NPOV in that it does not accord with the vast majority of reliable sources.

Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 14:50, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I was the first editor to voice concerns about this article, almost immediately after it was created. In the old AfD, I argued that; "...this is a valid article subject, and there is a scope to build a good quality article around it. However, the present article presents the subject in a the most sensationalistic way possible. There is also no real lead nor context presented. [...] The present article is highly problematic, and the "x, y, z were Jews" arguments, if not directly antisemitic, abets an antisemitic narrative. The interesting aspect is not to list who was and wasn't Jewish in the communist movement, rather it would be of interest having an article dealing with the issue of 'why?' [...] My suggestion for a way forward would be that 1) DIREKTOR & PRODUCER could take a step back, as those comments seem mainly to fan the fire and that 2) a group of the other commentators on this page get together and work on a draft that would be less conspiratorial in its tone, less of a "Who's Who" of Jews in communist parties and more focused on Jewish communism as a movement with distinct characteristics and its role in contemporary history. The article title could be worked out in a consensus process and possibly different from the current 'Jews and Communism'.", and that remains my position. It is possible to write a decent article on this topic that in no way would argue that Jews as collective would be "primarily responsible for or in control of Communism". I think that Director remains a stumbling block to move ahead, s/he is the editor that retains the article structure which has the more sensationalistic focus. If s/he could withdraw from the article, at least temporarily, there is a scope for constructive development. --Soman (talk) 14:59, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Soman - I don't understand. What you are saying is exactly what I have said earlier and what the majority of the editors arguing here for blowing this [current] article up and starting over from scratch on a new one are saying. I am definitely willing to work with you on your suggestion #2 above, as long as the new article is not called "Jews and Communism, of course, but maybe "History of Jewish participation in revolutionary movements" or something like that. Regards, warshy ^(¥¥) 15:55, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am Finnish myself and it is well-known that Finnish immigrants in the United States and Canada filled the some of the most important roles in the communists movements in North America in the early 20th Century. That could indeed warrant an own article just like Jews and communism, and would in no way be an attack page. Just as Soman said, it's not a crime to be either communist or Jewish. The thought pattern here, as I see it, is that because some neo-Nazi minded people will find Jewish participation in communist movements interesting to further their own views, it would make that information 'questionable' even if it didn't contain any conspiracy claims. --Pudeo ' 16:38, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

- Soman, I'm not going to try and hound you about this, but did you actually watch those videos? I did, and they are not about "Jews and Communism". In fact, many of the speakers mention the Jewish Bolshevism conspiracy theory. Some do state that there was a section of people who had Jewish ancestry that were important in some revolutionary movements. There is absolutely no consensus that "Jews and Communism" is "well covered in scholarly literature". If anything, the opposite is stated. Also, we have an article called the Jewish left. You add that article with the Jewish Bolshevism and Eastern European Jews articles and you have 90% of the video content. Dave Dial (talk) 23:21, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yes, I watched the three video segments. Your representation/interpretation is clearly not correct. --Soman (talk) 23:41, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Break

Delete. I argued to keep the previous article because I was sure that it could be repaired. Subsequent vociferous activism at the article, ownership preventing proper repair, shows my earlier position to be an impossible dream. I am sad to see this state of affairs, where blowing up the article is the best available option. Please blow it up to prevent the article owners from having this victory of POV over balance. Binksternet (talk) 22:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, I agree with everything the nominator has said. I compared the article from the Institute for Historical Review referred to with the original version of the WP article "Jews and Communism" and there is no question that the WP article simply copied large portions of the article by holocaust denier Mark Weber of the Institute of Historical Review. You can see the comparison at the article's talk page [13]. The article has been substantially altered since its original state but at its core it is straightforward anti-Semitic propaganda that should be removed immediately.Smeat75 (talk) 22:10, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - The arguments made above by the users for deletion are all strong and I support their assertions. The article has its roots in the Neo-Nazi forum Metapedia, with large segments copied and pasted from it, and the article still using many of the same sources. It also leans heavily on an article published by the Holocaust denial organisation and hate group the Institute for Historical Review. There is some consensus to ”fix” the article. However, relying on many of the same sources as a piece of anti-Semitic propaganda, I struggle to see how this is possible. There has also been an argument put forward that, seeing as antisemitic groups had attempted to depict Communism as part of the Jewish World Conspiracy in the past, there is due weight to have an article showing that. However, that article already exists at Jewish Bolshevism. I also want to state that I have no bias against Communism itself and own many books on the topic of Marxism. However, that does not change the fact that this potential link between the Jewish people and Communist history has been used as an excuse for violence against the Jewish people in antisemitic propaganda, something that this article, as well as the sister article on Metapedia, reinforces --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 22:20, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, anti-semitic WP:COATRACK. There is no causality between Jews and Communism, therefore the whole basis of the article being founded on blatant WP:SYNTH. The article is no more than a list of communists who were racially jews, but underlines a WP:FRINGE "connection" between jews and communism. GreyWinterOwl (talk) 22:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Parts of the current article can and should definitely stay on WP under at least two new articles that can be created utilizing this reliable material. But the name "Jews and Communism" and the history of the current article make it too close to the anti-Semitic canard article it is related to, and hinder further positive development of issues that do have a place on Wikipedia. The one I am personally interested in is the one that should retake some content of the current article from the perpective of Communist ideology and theory towards the Jewish religion and towards Jewish citizens of countries were Communist parties developed from the theory and became stronger. The second main article to be created from the blowing up of the current one could take the issue from the perspective of Jewish history and different views that developed within Jewish communities towards the new ideology and the developing political parties. warshy ^(¥¥) 22:50, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -This article was made because the creator was told the material he wanted to insert into the Jewish Bolshevism(of which this article is an obvious WP:POVFORK) article didn't belong in that article. So, the creator made this article. Which was copied almost word-for-word and source-by-source into the White Nationalist encyclopedia, Metapedia.

Comparison of Metapedia article sources to Wikipedia

Their article is named "Jewish Bolshevism". We already have an article called Jewish Bolshevism. It's about the Antisemitic canard blaming Jews for Bolshevism and the rise of Stalinism. We have those two articles too. We have dozens of articles concerning Communism.

History of communism History of Communist Romania, History of Communist Poland, History of Communist Bulgaria, History of Communist Albania, History of Communist Czechoslovakia, as well as articles about the history of Marxism, the Communist state, Revolutionary socialism, Trotskyism, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks and History of American Trotskyism

As well as dozens concerning Jewish people.

Eastern European Jews article is pretty vast. We also have articles about Jews in almost any nation. Jews of Poland, Jews of Germany, Jews of Spain, History of the Jews in Russia, Jews of Babylonia, Jews of Hungary, Jews of France, Jews of Italy, Jews of Greece, Cuban Jews, Jews of USA and more.

To connect all of these is synthesis and original research. As well as an attack page. No, not because Communism is 'evil'(although some do believe it is), but because attempting to correlate "Jews" with bringing about Bolshevism, and in turn placing the blame on them for both the rise of Nazism and Stalinism is. In other words, according to both before WWII and after WWII, attempts have been made to link "Jews" with Communism in order to convince people that it was not only their own fault that the Holocaust happened, but that they deserved it Ipso facto because of Stalinsm. So delete because it's synthesis, almost all of which is covered in other articles. To combine them into the "Jews and Communism" article is an attempt to legitimize the conspiracy theory. We have another article discussing the Jewish left, for those serious about wanting to contribute to an article at least partially about this topic. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 23:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As I wrote elsewhere, I am not commenting on the merits of our article. However, I tried to check the veracity of your claim that it was mostly copied from Metapedia and I don't see it at all. You have to look at the Metapedia article at the time our article was created (the version of Jan 14 which I can't link to), not at its present state. The original version of our article was entirely different. Only two of the sources of our article were mentioned in the Metapedia article, and one of those was cited for a different quotation. So your claim is not correct. Actually I think the present Metapedia article has been largely expanded by copying from our article, not the other way around. Zero^talk 14:19, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you are doing all this 'checking', why not make sure you read the post you are responding to first? I stated

"So, the creator made this article. Which was copied almost word-for-word and source-by-source into the White Nationalist encyclopedia, Metapedia."

Copied from our article into the Metapedia article. See? And you think that is a viable argument to keep it? I mean, come on. An article so antisemitic that it's words and sources are copied into a Neo-Nazi wiki? Oh boy! Dave Dial (talk) 15:45, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You are right that I misread you. I assumed you were making a point that would be valid if true, but you weren't. Meanwhile you misread me, as I did not ever present this as an argument for keeping our article. Zero^talk 01:15, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, so Zero, tell me this. After responding here and making a new paragraph with a "*Comment", practically stating "Aha! The editor who claims this is misleading us!", you weren't trying to give reasons to keep the article? It seems to me, that a more thoughtful approach would have been to ask me, or even re-read what I wrote before making those posts. And now to claim that since the material was copied into the Metapedia article, it doesn't matter, well that just takes the cake. An administrator that thinks that an article on Wikipedia about Jews copied almost word for word and source by source into a White Nationalist, Neo-Nazi wiki specifically designed to push antisemitic canards against Jews is not a valid argument, must have their reasoning skills and judgement questioned. That's for sure. I don't think I misread you at all. Your two reactions fit perfectly well into my reading of you. Dave Dial (talk) 01:57, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I don't give a fig what the folks at Metapedia think about our article. You, on the other hand, think that they get to decide for us whether our article meets Wikipedia standards. Perhaps we should invite them here, so that we can ask their opinion on other articles too so that we can act contrary to it? We aren't capable of deciding ourselves? In summary: no, your argument is not valid. We have rules and policies here in Wikipedia about the content of articles and compliance with those rules is the only thing that decides whether an article is good or not. Zero^talk 04:13, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You can invite your friends over there to edit here if you want, though I imagine they are already here under other aliases. They might find it hard to edit because we have policies against attack pages, POV forks, undue weight and fringe conspiracy theories. In case you are wondering, those are some of the policies a page about "Jews" on Metapedia would definitely violate. Which would correlate if the same page was here. Are you beginning to see the connection? I mean, I never thought one wouldn't see the connection. Unless one was purposely trying NOT to see the connection. Or perhaps trying to prove something wasn't true that wasn't even claimed? Are we having a hard time getting our motor running today? Dave Dial (talk) 04:36, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So you believe any source copied to this Metapedia invalidates the use of the source in Wikipedia? Shouldn't we instead check that those sources comply with Wikipedia guidelines of reliable sources? --Pudeo ' 20:57, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It seems odd that a site dedicated to defamation of the Jewish people would find this article about Jews worth copying onto their site. I assume that is because the way information was put together in the Wikipedia article furthered their views about Jews and Communism. TFD (talk) 01:32, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think an article about "Jews and Communism" that was copied, almost word for word and source by source, into a White Nationalist/Neo-Nazi wiki certainly raises ref flags. Big ole red flags that say, Antisemitic canard of Jewish Bolshevism. So yea, since the person who copied the article in Metapedia had to be an admin, verified by email(they are not a wiki 'anyone can edit'), it certainly invalidates the article in my eyes. I would think it would in most. Dave Dial (talk) 01:57, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's anyone's guess what some anonymous admin decides to in some fringe wiki. For instance, indeed use factual historical information about Jews in the communist movements (to combine with their own conspiracy views). Which in turn would mean that Wikipedia should not mention Jews and communism together at all because neo-Nazis might copy it? We should go by what is a reliable source, not by what might be copied to some wiki because that information becomes "contaminated". It's ridiculous that this is even being discussed. --Pudeo ' 03:23, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, false equivalencies and red herrings don't fly with me. I've heard it dozens upon dozens of times from people in the IHR. If you wish to believe(or project that you believe) that an article about "Jews and Communism" can be almost identical in words and sourcing from not only some IHR loon, but also the Neo-Nazi Metapedia, that's your prerogative. It ain't sellin' here. Dave Dial (talk) 03:50, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe that project. What I'm saying is that it's not relevant what is copied from Wikipedia. Wikipedia uses CC BY-SA 3.0 license, which means anyone can copy articles from here. Our guidelines on reliable sources make no mention that reliable sources would turn unusable, if they are copied to some other wikis. Get it? --Pudeo ' 13:53, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Break 2

Delete - basically I agree that (sorry to be lazy and copypaste TFD's words but it's put plainly and clearly) 'The article fails notability because no books or articles have been written about the topic. Of course there are various articles about Jews and Communism in different countries at different times, for example Jews under Communism in Stalin's Soviet Union or Communist Jews in the United States between the two world wars. But nothing links them, making the article implicit "synthesis".' Sayerslle (talk) 23:20, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
EmphaticDelete as pure WP:SYNTH. It is a very clever antisemitic attack article.--Galassi (talk) 23:57, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per TFD. The article seems to consist largely of synthesis, where it isn't directly derived from antisemitic sources. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:24, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, primarily for reasons of WP:AND. That is a perfectly sensible policy that clearly should apply here. I voted the first time to delete and none of the changes made to the page warrant changing my vote. I disagreed with the closing editor's decision to declare it no consensus and voted to overturn his decision on review, but the result again was no consensus. The discussion, in my opinion, has shown that at least two thirds or more of the editors commenting on this article believe it should be deleted. Obviously a unanimous vote will never happen. I agree with much of the comments above, particularly in regards to issues with POV Fork, OR, and copyvio. I have yet to see any kind of adequate response to WP:AND. As the policy very specifically notes, there is no article about "Islam and Terrorism." I fail to see why the same logic should apply, even more strongly, to this article. Quite frankly this episode suggests to me that there are issues with the core policies of the project that I hope are addressed. mikeman67 (talk) 01:23, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:27, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:27, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per TFD who's summed it up nicely!. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 01:42, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete If there is scholarly evidence that the religion/ethnicity of certain people was a major influence on communism, add it to Communism. If there is scholarly evidence that communism was a major influence on Jewish people, add it to Jews. Commentary on whether communism is part of a Jewish plot to control the world belong at some other website, or perhaps Jewish Bolshevism. The first section of the article starts 'The German philosopher Karl Marx, often regarded as the "father of Communism", was of Jewish ancestry on both sides'—so where is Germans and Communism, and what about Philosophers and Communism? Johnuniq (talk) 01:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Pure SYNTH. There may be sources that link Jews and Communism in the Soviet Union, but there are no sources that link Jews and Communism in general (in China for example). USchick (talk) 01:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep

As I said earlier. The article, just like the Jews in Hollywood article, is basically a factual description of the relationship, and its causes. There ,may be no specific causality between Judaism and Communism, but there is very much a causality between social and economic oppression, and participation in radical movements. The most oppressed will seek the most radical solution. At the beginning of the 20th century Communism was a viable option among revolutionary movements, though it was explicit from the start on that it was not compatible with any form of religious expression, or of national individuality.

To consider Jews and Communism only as an anti-Semitic canard is to condemn as a anti-semitic canard every possible expression or behavior of any Jews, for everything possible has been used against them. People who hate will seize on anything, and will associate the hated group with anything at all that is also the subject of hatred and prejudice. They will even use an association with something positive as an instrument of prejudice; "Jews and Music" will be used to imply that styles of entertainment some people may dislike are specifically Jewish, or alternatively, that the Jews are trying to subvert the profession. To refuse to discuss a topic because bigots have perverted it is dishonest, the triumph of inoffensiveness over honesty (and The encyclopedic approach is to consider the association between the many ethnic groups and the many aspects of society in an objective and historically sound perspective. There is no reason why anyone--in particular any Jew --should find anything shameful about the association of Jews and Communism in Russia, except the inability to foresee the future. Elsewhere, it becomes a question of the degree to which an individual felt economic oppression os the primary burden.

There is no SYNTHESIS in writing a general article. We need specific articles also, but there are commonalities across time and place. The determination of a people to redress its wrongs is a valid subject.

Most of my ancestors on one side of my family were Jews and Bolsheviks--at least up until a certain point in time, which varied. The ones in Europe were persecuted primarily as Jews; those in America primarily as Communists. DGG ( talk ) 01:58, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Das Judenthum in der Musik" (German: "Jewishness in Music", but normally translated Judaism in Music; spelled after its first publications, according to modern German spelling practice, as ‘Judentum’), is an essay by Richard Wagner which attacks Jews in general and the composers Giacomo Meyerbeer and Felix Mendelssohn in particular. It was published under a pseudonym in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (NZM) of Leipzig in September 1850 and was reissued in a greatly expanded version under Wagner’s name in 1869. It is regarded by some as an important landmark in the history of German anti-semitism." --Wikipedia [ Das Judenthum in der Musik ] MarkBernstein (talk) 02:15, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What are you talking about? All you have here are absurd accusations of antisemitism that have no connection in reality. -- Director (talk) 08:45, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The is, of course, the lede paragraph from Wikipedia’s page on Richard Wagner’s famous essay. As DGG had alluded here to the "innocent" topic of "Jews and Music", it seemed stunningly relevant. With regard to what you so politely called "absurd accusations of antisemitism that have no connection in reality" , I observe that, just a few hours after writing this, Director saw the newly-revealed source of the page and wrote on the article's talk page: "My sincerest apologies. Withdrawing support for the article. WP:TNT may in fact be the best option. If you'll excuse me, I feel like I need a shower." MarkBernstein (talk)

The article, just like the Jews in Hollywood article, is basically a factual description of the relationship, and its causes. That seems like a WP:BUTITSTRUE argument to me. The counter-arguments described at WP:BUTITSTRUE are pretty strong, WP:NPOV is particularly relevant in this case. Fact, even true facts, can be cherry-picked to give a false impression. I believe that's what the article in question does. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 13:17, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Mostly per TFD but also mikeman67.. it says something about this article's abhorrent quality that it met the qualifications of Metapedia. Flipandflopped (Discuss, Contribs) 02:12, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

WP:TNT could be an option here as well. The article was given a chance after the last nom, but seems to have only worked backwards in quality, followed by surges of constant edit warring. The subject matter would serve best as a section of an already existing page.. Flipandflopped (Discuss, Contribs) 17:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:TNT and also due to excessive WP:SYNTH. XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 02:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep for now~~ Delete. Not commenting on the merits of the article, but I think it is an abuse of the system to renominate an article for deletion so soon after a well-attended deletion discussion and well-attended deletion review. Added: While I still believe that, Nishidani's precise analysis of the content is convincing. The topic is reasonable, the present text is not. Either deletion or very extensive surgery is required. Zero^talk 03:58, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You mean the same AfD that over two-thirds of editors stated to delete the article as a WP:POVFORK and the closer instituted his own WP:SUPERVOTE and stated - "Oy vey" there was no consensus the article was a WP:POVFORK? Dave Dial (talk) 04:25, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's what Deletion Review is for. That happened already. It is improper to nominate an article over and over to try to get the result you want. The correct response to a failed deletion attempt is to work on improving the article. Zero^talk 04:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of fresh contributions to the article and the talk page, this isn't soon at all. When I checked on 6 May, I found that by the end of the AfD, just 8 editors had contributed to the article and just 5 to the talk page. Since then, 38 more had edited the article and 62 more the talk page. 48 people joined in the AfD (not counting the closing admin) and 59 people that didn't join in the AfD had (as of 6 May) made their first edits to the article or the talk page after the AfD closed. It's reasonable to expect many fresh voices here and fresh arguments informed by considerable discussion of policy, attempts to improve or rescue the article, research into the article's antecedents and more. NebY (talk) 10:02, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Same reason as everyone else, really: TNT, NPOV, and SYNTH. This article connects Jews to Communism in a way that reliable sources simply don't. Like someone else said, Jewish left would be the non-POVFORK version of this article. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 06:01, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
~~Strong keep~~. Delete per WP:BLOWITUP. I still think this is a potentially viable topic, and there certainly are many good, reliable sources about it, but given the very latest revelations that its actually copied in good part from a racist essay(!), there's nothing for it but TNT. My congratulations go out to Smeat75, and my heartfelt apologies to everyone who's been offended in any way by my defense of the article. I honestly feel nauseous after reading that comparison. In my defense - I did not know, and not knowing I did what I think any Wikipedian should: ignore his gut and defend the sources. As I said, I only wish this was brought forward sooner.

Sorry Coretheapple, but I just have to erase that entire post off the face of the AfD. Feel free to restore it if you feel its necessary as a matter of style. Note: below responses refer to my original post. -- Director (talk) 12:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well actually yes, striking out would be better, but the important thing is that you deleted all the rubbish you had previously written and have taken what is in my opinion a correct and principled position. Well done! Coretheapple (talk) 12:55, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I only compared the two articles yesterday so I could not have brought it forward any sooner. I must join Coretheapple in congratulating you, Director, for your integrity in changing your position.Smeat75 (talk) 13:06, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For someone who is eager to paint this situation as one in which an appeal to emotion is outbalancing rational application of policy, you sure did make a fair number of personalized accusations there that have very little to with analyzing the content directly for consistency with said policies and a whole lot more to do with villifying your opposition as either blind to the obvious or actively involved in subverting process in the massively inappropriate ways. I wonder if you have any evidence you would like to provide for your assertions that A) involved editors have been canvassing off-wiki (as every editor who has commented so far was previously involved with the article, related discussions or could easily have come as a response to the AfD posting), or B) that editors have shopped this content around antisemitic sites for no other reason than to discredit your work -- a theory that, let's be clear, suggests they were so concerned about the possibility of antisemitism that they decided to promote some antisemitism. These are not trivial accusations, and should not be made without some compelling proof. Nor is this the first time which you have made such massive leaps in assumption of bad faith. You have also quite clearly misquoted another editor, seemingly intentionally, when you implied that DD2K was attempting to "shame" voters in order to influence the outcome of this process, when a look at that diff clearly indicates he was talking about how the previous voters should be "ashamed" (copular version of the verb referencing past events) of that decision.

I would seriously consider redacting these elements of your post, as they greatly diminish how likely the rest of your assertions are to be credited as the products of a mind with reasonable perspective on the subject of this article and because your long chain of uncivil responses to those who disagree with you on this matter (and on this project in general) is in itself a problem as large as this article and one that is not going to go unaddressed much longer. Indeed, as an outside editor who has not gotten involved with the article and its content itself looking in, it's obvious to me that, despite the fact that you are this article's main architect and biggest advocate, you are also its greatest liability and the main reason it is back in AfD so quickly. I very nearly called out those editors who asked for the full protection to be lifted long enough for this AfD to be filled; I figured the least they could do was wait the three days until the protection expired to make the assessment that the situation was hopeless. Then I reviewed the talk page again. I've avoided posting a delete vote for a variety of reasons; on the one hand, many of the policies, guidelines, and essays quoted above (WP:SYNTHESIS, WP:POVFORK, WP:FRINGE, and WP:COATRACK in particular) are clearly relevant to the page as it stands now, to varying degrees. On the other hand, I think this is a subject that ought to be viable for Wikipedia, from a sourcing standpoint, if it were approached in the right way. Unfortunately, your approach to editing (and in particular, to discussion) is so coarse, adversarial, and bombastic, it is no wonder at all that WP:TNT is being invoked over and over again. Now, having escalated the situation to AfD, you still can't foresee how ill-advised it is to apply conspiracy theories to those on the opposing side of the issue, in the context where they are accusing you of supporting a conspiracy theory. And consequently, it makes no difference if you believe others set out with the goal of bringing this article back to the point of deletion through whatever disruptive means they could muster because, even if this uncivil supposition were to bear out as correct (and you have no reason to believe it is really, and less evidence still to ever begin to prove it), then you are still short-sighted as you've given them exactly what they needed to accomplish this end -- a hot temper and complete disdain for your fellow contributors when their opinion deviates from yours in the slightest. Even, apparently, in cases of an 18:3 consensus.

Note: On the other hand, editors commenting here should really stop focusing upon where the article has been replicated at. It's a completely empty argument, policy-wise and has little or no relevance as to assessing whether the content is consistent with our guidelines. Let's also remember that Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia which we actively encourage others to use at their discretion, up to and including complete replication; that hate-mongering nitwits are amongst that massive collection of people who utilize our works is to be expected, statistically and it doesn't say much as to our circumstances here. Snow talk 09:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why you're focusing on one offhand comment so much, rather than the whole issue here. I'd like to request that you redact you comment regarding me being this articles "main architect". To all intents and purposes, I didn't write a word of it. I will remove my comment re off-Wiki canvassing, since (as in virtually all instances) there's no evidence of it.

There isn't much to say beyond "no, its just not so". The article isn't SYNTH, by definition - because it follows sources (who do all the alleged "synth", which makes it not-synth). Its not POV, again by definition - because it follows reliable sources who wrote all the alleged bias. Its not a POVFORK, by definition, since the other article explicitly excludes non-conspiracy content. Its not a COATRACK because it doesn't say a word about anything other than its topic. Again and again one must point out that its the sources that cover this subject, and in this manner. And I stand by my statement that in deleting this article we're hurting our project's main function: presenting secondary references, faithfully and exactly.

But it's not one off-hand comment, is it? It's a sustained (and for you as a contributor, defining) pattern of behaviour and it's not merely incidental to these proceedings; a good number of editors voting for deletion above have expressed here or elsewhere that they were initially infavour of trying to salvage the article, but find the process completely unviable because of your involvement. You needn't waste too much time responding to me in terms of the policies I feel apply, because I've already stipulated that I didn't vote for deletion because I have a very mixed view about whether the article could be salvageable in theory. The focus of my comments here is to try to elucidate the procedural obstacle at work. That obstacle is in the form of an editor who thinks, despite being reminded constantly to the contrary, that is is acceptable practice to speculate as to the general ill-will or rational shortcomings of those who disagree with him without any kind of evidence whatsoever. I won't belabour the point any further as its relevance to the AfD itself does not warrant any more attention, at least not from me, but this this behaviour has got to stop and, regardless of the outcome of the AfD, if it does not, further community action with regard to you is necessary and inevitable. Snow talk 10:18, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The essays cited are, in essence, arbitrary. Someone wishing to delete this article based on perceived antisemitism, or haviing been told "its antisemitism!" will be inclined to interpret the policy as liberally as necessary to get rid of it, even if it means stretching them beyond all reason (as in POVFORK, for example). Such terms are powerful, and they should be. Which makes it all the more worthy of our anger when they're used like this. -- Director (talk) 09:58, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Director, you say "To all intents and purposes, I didn't write a word of it." It's not obvious what you mean by "To all intents and purposes." Please could you clarify by stating whether you were involved in writing or reviewing any of this material before it appeared as an article in mainspace on the English-language Wikipedia? NebY (talk) 10:18, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think I maybe wrote one sentence, and added three or four images. That's what I meant. I dislike your implication.

As for further discussion: I've expressed my position, and I'm done. If anyone here is wondering as to why I'm irritated (and I am), then imagine spending months in discussion on absolutely nothing. -- Director (talk) 10:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Director, this is exactly the behaviour that so many editors keep trying to get you to recognize; I don't see an implication in his post at all. That struck me as a very genuine inquiry for clarification that gave you every opportunity to formulate a response however you saw fit. And you chose to go with hostility and suspicion of an attempt to denigrate you with absolutely zero context to assume as much. Snow talk 10:27, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The implication seems to be that I wrote it on Metapedia, or that the content was taken from such a site. As that is the only known instance of this content appearing off the English language Wikipedia. I would like to see how you would respond to being implicitly accused of contributing to Nazi websites. And all I posted was "to all intents and purposes, I didn't write a word of it" - because I didn't. -- Director (talk) 10:34, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, the article on Metapedia has existed since the 7th of May 2010. It is definitely possible that the page creator used it as a template for this one --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 11:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Director says "The article follows sources to the letter." Substantial portions of the original article were copied word for word from an article on an anti-Semitic website by holocaust denier Mark Weber, see [14]. This has been reported to the Copyright problems noticeboard where an admin has offered an opinion that it is mis-cited text, that is, the WP article uses many of the same quotes and sources as the Weber article but never says where they were found.[15] Smeat75 (talk) 11:59, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@The Metapedia article is entitled "Jewish Bolshevism", and it was created apparently as a slanted copy of our own Jewish Bolshevism article. As was pointed out on Jimbo's talkpage, the metapedia article appears similar in some aspects to Jews and Communism, because content from our article was copied over there approximately one month after its creation. Or I should say parts of it were copied, just enough to introduce their slant. Copying Wikipedia articles and adding their spin - is what they do over there.

The Metapedia article is a slanted, butchered version of our articles, and not vice versa. You gentlemen really ought to do others the courtesy of checking the dates before you start with the despicable accusations. Or does it matter, really, as long as you get to shout "antisemitism!!" a bit more? -- Director (talk) 12:00, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, Director, a style point. If you decide that anything you yourself write in this discussion is, in retrospect, "despicable," I suggest that you use ~~strikeouts~~ rather than just deleting, as you did when you removed this reference to a fellow editor's religious background after I had already responded to it with a suitable (I think) expression of astonishment. Coretheapple (talk) 12:19, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did not object to the religion, but I did object to pushing a religious POV, which is something this project has much trouble with. But kudos on managing to imply that so cleverly. And in a completely unrelated discussion. -- Director (talk) 12:25, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah yeah, whatever. My point is. ~~Strike it out.~~ Something tells me that, given your Crockett-at-Alamo tone, you're going to need to be doing a lot of striking out in this discussion. You may want to begin with Snow's suggestions above. Coretheapple (talk) 12:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@"you're going to need to be doing a lot of striking out in this discussion". You may be quite right about that. I just read Smeat's thread, and I'm feeling a bit nauseous. -- Director (talk) 12:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am not talking about the metapedia article, please read what I wrote. "Substantial portions of the original article were copied word for word from an article on an anti-Semitic website by holocaust denier Mark Weber, see [16]. This has been reported to the Copyright problems noticeboard where an admin has offered an opinion that it is mis-cited text, that is, the WP article uses many of the same quotes and sources as the Weber article but never says where they were found.[17]" The original WP article "Jews and Communism" used an article by holocaust denier Mark Weber as the source for most of its quotes and material to do with Russia, look at the first link.Smeat75 (talk) 12:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, what are you saying exactly? Please clarify, because I offered to post an AfD myself if this article did in fact copy antisemitic sources. Was the quoted text written by someone else, or did it in fact come from the cited source? -- Director (talk) 12:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Have you looked at the first link? The original version of the WP article used many of the same quotes as the Weber article and slightly re-phrased numerous passages,the Weber article was obviously where they were found but it is never cited, take a moment to look at [18] and you will see what I am saying exactly.Smeat75 (talk) 12:32, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's good enough for me. I only wish you discovered that a few months prior. -- Director (talk) 12:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And just to be clear, the version of the article Smeat75 used for comparison had been written by one editor, Potočnik. (Two other editors had made minor edits.) TFD (talk) 16:26, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment : That is obviously a controversial but fully encyclopaedic topic if studied properly.
1. Jonathan Frankel & al., Dark Times, Dire Decisions: Jews and Communism, Oxford University Press, 2005
About the authors: Jonathan Frankel, Eli Lederhendler, Peter Y. Medding, and Ezra Mendelsohn, who teach Jewish history, society, and politics at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. (source)
About the book: The newest volume of the annual Studies in Contemporary Jewry series features essays on the varied and often controversial ways Communism and Jewish history interacted during the 20th century. The volume's contents examine the relationship between Jews and the Communist movement in Poland, Russia, America, Britain, France, the Islamic world, and Germany. (source)
2. André Gerrits, The myth of Jewish Communism: A Historical interpretation, Peter Lang (publisher), 2005.
About the author: he is Professor of Russian History and Politics at the University of Leiden (source)
Content: in a long and carefull introduction, he writes pp.8-10: Few historians would deny that "Jewish Communism", a variant of "Jewish World Conspiracy", has been one of the most powerfull and destructive political myth in early-20th century Europe. (...) Jewish communism was a powerful and persistent myth [b]ased on (...) anti-communism and anti-semitism. (...) [So], given the historical impact of Jewish Communism, remarkably little research has been conducted on the [real] subject [because of] too many political, emotional, ethical and empirical questions for historians to blithely raise the subject. (...) Many historians have preferred not to deal with the uncomfortable, uneasy and unexploited "element of truth". Anyway, he writes : "there may have been few communists among the Jews in East Central Europe, but Jews were overrepresented among the communists and initally at least, conspicuoulsy so.". In the 10 next pages, the author reports all the cases of the myth of the "Jewish Communism". P.23, he asks "Was there ever anything like Jewish Communism" ?. He argues and then concludes that "there may have been quite a few communists of Jewish descents, but there were considerably fewer Jewish Communists, ie Jews whose communism was conscuously Jewish. On the whole, whoever, the relationship between Jews and Communism seem to have been far more complex than either proponents or opponents to the myth tended to believe". On next 10 pages, he reviews publications, taking care to remind that it is a "conspiracy theory" but giving several notions that should be studied (and have been studied by scholars) in the context the "equations" of Jews and Communism.
My suggestions:
- The article should be written in fitting the structure of Gerrits' book, ie with a warning at first lines of the lead reminding this refer to a former "conspiracy theory" and then in reporting the different notions that deserve to be studied in scholarly context
- We check in 3 months if the article evolved in the right way without these. If so, we keep the article and if not, we delete it in concluding wikipedia is not mature enough to deal the topic.
(edit) Reading recent additional comments and thinking about the different accusations, I would increase delay from 3 months to 6 months with a topic-ban on this article to all contributors who came on this talk page (I included, why not.) in order to give a chance to this article.
Pluto2012 (talk) 10:47, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The editor says on p. 8, "The truth is that, as of today, there is still no study examining the overall history of Communism and the Jews." The book does not seek to redress that but instead contains a number of case studies by different writers about Jews and Communism in different countries at different times. And we have an article about "Jewish Bolshevism" (also called "Jewish Communism)." In any case this source was brought up at the last AfD, and is used in the article. TFD (talk) 16:05, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It must be noted that Pluto2012's behavior is very odd and suspicious: First a decides to all of a sudden revert himself on the actual article ([19]), and then he deletes traces of his participation in talk page discussions by removing his username ([20] - is that even allowed?), saying he "prefer[s] staying away". And now he makes this long comment which is obviously in favor of keeping the article. Something is just not right. Yambaram (talk) 23:03, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderful. It seems there is a consensus to rewrite an article based on scholarly publication on the topic and in taking the highest care of the controversy around the topic.

I left that "talk page" because of the agressivity of so called "contributors" who were accusing everybody all around of antisemitism. It seems you are just one of them. Pluto2012 (talk) 05:30, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why just Jews and Judaism?

Why not Roman Catholicism, or Islam?

Why not Anglo-Saxons or Inuit?

IMO an interesting article(s) about Communism, race and religion could certainly exist.

Cherry-picking things which relate to Jews/Judaism and ignoring the rest looks like an WP:ATTACK.

Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 13:26, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You should ask to the authors of both these publications. Anyway, I have the feeling that there may be some studies about the links between "Catholicism and Extreme-Right movments" and I am confident there are studies between Islam and Integrism. The phenomenon was even given a name. As soon as it is dealed with WP:RS sources and in taking care of WP:NPoV, WP:Fringe and WP:BLP, that is a topic that could be studied on wp. Pluto2012 (talk) 05:33, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Break 3

Delete Per above, Jews and Communism study arises in reaction to and/or study of the conspiracy theory. It seems unfortunate, at present, why we exclude the above material mentioned by Pluto2012 from the conspiracy article in a Historiography section. We should recognize both the interest in scholarship to study the sociological/historical phenomenon and its relation to the "taboo"[21] of such study, given the background of the conspiracy theory, and we should also recognize that such scholarship is developing. That seems the most "mature" way for Wikipedia to handle the scholarship at present, and in the future perhaps some sort of spin-out article(s) may be contemplated. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:54, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This nomination seems too soon after the previous AFD and DRV and so seems contrary to our deletion policy, "It can be disruptive to repeatedly nominate a page in the hope of getting a different outcome." The topic just needs to be approached in a dispassionate, neutral and scholarly way. For example, see the article on Communism by Marci Shore in The Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture. This demonstrates that the topic is notable and that it can be written about in an encyclopaedic way. The rest is then a matter of ordinary editing per our editing policy. Note, for comparison, the recent AFD about History of Jews in Kurdistan. That article writes about Jews in a particular context and was snow kept. Here we have a different context which seems more controversial but, per WP:CENSOR, the extra heat is insufficient reason to suppress t he topic. Andrew (talk) 12:06, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- It is not problematic to renominate an article once after the previous AfD ended in no consensus, especially when subsequent discussion failed to resolve the issues. Rlendog (talk) 13:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - Indeed, the discussion on the talk page has very recently brought to light that this article originated in an anti-Semitic website, a shocking revelation that only just a few minutes ago cause the article's greatest defender to change his !vote in this AfD and advocate deletion of the article. It's always good to get more eyes on an article, and that is what happened to this one. There was more discussion, and over time it became apparent that this article simply was not defensible or salvageable. Coretheapple (talk) 13:52, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - A development on the article's talk page does not justify starting another, separate discussion here. The problem from the start seems to been that partisan editors have been trying to use AFD as a means of forcing their views on how the topic(s) should be edited. But AFD is not cleanup and so should not be used as a means of extending and complicating editorial discussions. From the outset, the nay-sayers have contended that this is a content fork. Per Wikipedia:REDUNDANTFORK, "If the content fork was unjustified, the more recent article should be merged back into the main article.". There has therefore always been a clear alternative to deletion. Per our editing and deletion policies, deletion debates should be last resort, not a tactical weapon in an edit war. Note the recent moratorium on move requests in another protracted case where consensus has proved elusive. My !vote stands. Andrew (talk) 14:04, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      - To call the discovery of this article's origins - a notorious anti-Semitic rag - a "development" must count as the understatement of the wiki-year. Coretheapple (talk) 14:18, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrew Davidson: How about the views of those of us who have not been here From the outset? There's quite a lot of us. IMO our views are no less valid because of what some other editor said or didn't say on the topic before we were aware of it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who had no idea this article existed until they saw it on ANI. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 13:32, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You don't mention that the recent moratorium was on the occasion of a twelfth RM, perhaps because that would have made it seem irrelevant to this second AfD. Surely in all your years of arguing against deletions as Colonel Warden, you have developed better tactics? NebY (talk) 13:35, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This vexatious issue has been shopped around numerous forums and noticeboards. Even this AFD has an extensive talk page now. One section there lists all the similar AFDs for this topic and there seem to be nine of them. This list was compiled by Balaenoptera musculus, who seems very well-informed for someone who has not been here from the outset. Andrew (talk) 07:11, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry you find this attempt to remove hate literature from Wikipedia "vexatious". Did you check that list? The overall result was four deletions, one merge and one keep. Do you consider those deletions disruptive? NebY (talk) 14:23, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion makes the pages and their article history harder to read and this makes it difficult to comment upon the details of those cases. But an additional factor in some cases seems to be that the nominators were subsequently banned. Anyway, the usage vexatious is a technical one, as in vexatious litigation; see also double jeopardy. As for the literature, I myself added three sources to the article. Do you consider these hateful? Andrew (talk) 21:27, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Beinin, Joel (1990). Was the Red Flag Flying There?: Marxist Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Egypt and Israel, 1948-1965. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520070363.
Gavron, Daniel (2000). The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780847695263.
Hen-Tov, Jacob (1974). Communism and Zionism in Palestine: The Comintern and the Political Unrest in the 1920s. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 9781412819978.

This isn't a law court. If it was, your use of successful AfDs from 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2008 to seek dismissal of this AfD as vexatious would not escape with gentle mockery. Your mention of double jeopardy is apposite; UK law now provides for retrial, following the Macpherson Report on the inadequate investigation of a notorious hate crime - see Double Jeopardy#United Kingdom. I appreciate that you added three titles to the bibliography of a piece of a hate literature; you could also have added The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare): "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose." NebY (talk) 09:52, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The article started as WP:COPYVIO violation of anti-Semitc source. This article is clearly WP:POVFORK of Jewish Bolshevism it was created to justify anti-Semitic conspiracy theory by means of WP:SYNTH for example it use sources that have nothing to do with scope of the article:

- Pride, William; Hughes, Robert; Kapoor, Jack (2011). Business. Cengage Learning. p. 17.ISBN 053847808X.
- Raines, John (2002). Marx on Religion. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. pp. 15–16.ISBN 1566399394.

Maybe this article could be rewritten by using strictly scholarly sources that discuss the topic in depth like Pluto suggested but this version that started as rewrite of anti-Semitic article cannot be salvaged so it should be deleted

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Shrike (talk • contribs)

Delete with no prejudice towards recreation from scratch under new title. While subject of Jewish participation in 20th century European communist movements is probably an encyclopedic topic, it seems that neither title nor content of current article can serve as basis for a legitimate article on that topic.--Staberinde (talk) 13:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I am not convinced that the topic of the complex relationship between Jews and Communism is inherently non-notable or inappropriate, largely per DGG (but without the unfortunate analogy to Jews and Music which I believe was misinterpreted as a reference to Wagner's article). But this article isn't it, and given its history can probably never get there. So even if the topic is appropriate, WP:TNT applies. Rlendog (talk) 13:57, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Not an encyclopaedic topic and beyond rescue. The topic is not described by the title, which is too broad and breaches the advice in WP:AND: Titles containing "and" are often red flags that the article has neutrality problems or is engaging in original research: avoid the use of "and" in ways that appear biased.

The existence of books that use the title has been used to argue that this is an encyclopedic topic. A book's title and its topic and scope are frequently different: take Foucault's Madness and Civilization, Bosworth's Conquest and Empire or even Cartledge's Sparta and Lakonia, let alone Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, Sons and Lovers or Pride and Prejudice. A book's title is not automatically an encyclopaedic topic.

Google searches have been used to show that the phrase "jews and communism" can often be found; so can "useful contacts" or "women and children".

Various other titles have been suggested, some of which would more clearly identify a topic and some of which would also be problematic: Communism and the Jewish question, Communism in Jewish history, Historical communism and Jews, History of Jewish participation in Communist movements, Jews in the history of Communism, Jews in Communist history, Role of Jews in the rise and fall of Communism, Jewish experience of Communism, History of Jewish participation in European Communist movements.

But the unspoken topic of this article, especially as originally created with the opening words A near majority of Jews dominated the top ten to twenty leaders of the Russian Bolshevik Party's first twenty years and the Soviet Union's secret police was "one of the most Jewish" of all Soviet institutions. was Jewish responsibility for Communism and its evils. Deviations from that have been strongly resisted as outside scope, usually without defining the scope any more precisely but on one occasion as an article that lays out the association between "Jews and Communism". In this, the original article used flexible definitions of Jew and techniques of implying general guilt that were all too familiar from the history of anti-semitism.

It might be technically feasible to keep this article by agreeing a more focused topic, retitling this article accordingly, stripping out all tainted material and sourcing and writing the article afresh. That's just deletion by another name, except that it would retain the toxic early versions in the article history. No-one has yet presented a good reason to do that. NebY (talk) 14:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. The claim that our article was largely created by copying from Metapedia is not correct. The copying was done in the other direction. To see that, look at the Metapedia article in its version at the time our article was created. It's on the blacklist so I can't link to it, but go to the history and find the version of Jan 31. Hardly a word or a source in common. (I'm not commenting on the merits of our article, just disproving an error being repeated here.) Zero^talk 14:25, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- It was copied to Metapedia and from another racist rag, as was just acknowledged by one of the principal defenders of this article, who has changed his !vote from "strong keep" to "blow it up."[22] Coretheapple (talk) 14:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I've just checked and this is correct. That said, I would still be wary of any article involving the Jewish people that passes the Neo-Nazi censors at Metapedia, and it was unquestionably copied from the Institute for Historical Review source --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 14:32, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- No. If it had actually ORIGINATED from Metapedia, the article's vocabulary would have the likes of 'negroid' and 'fag' included. It's the fact that the article was able to pass the metapedia standards, which only allow content that is strictly racist or nazism-oriented. Flipandflopped (Discuss, Contribs) 15:41, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note - I will do my best to neutrally re-notify any and all editors who contributed to the original, first AFD nomination of the article in light of the new developments, and to garner more opinions on the matter. :) Flipandflopped (Discuss, Contribs) 15:52, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Response to Zero. Are you kidding me? You had to make a separate comment in addition to replying to my "Delete" rational, both of which make the same false accusations? For the record, no one on this AfD has claimed the article was copied FROM Metapedia. The claim made by me states
"So, the creator made this article. Which was copied almost word-for-word and source-by-source into the White Nationalist encyclopedia, Metapedia.
So I would appreciate a retraction from these accusations. As if an article being copied to an antisemitic Neo-Nazi website is somehow 'better' than visa-versa. In any case, as Smeat and Drowninginlimbo point out "it was unquestionably copied from the Institute for Historical Review" Dave Dial (talk) 17:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete (or split into something useful) This article is about three things; (1) Jews who happened to be communists, (2) anti-Semitism in socialist countries and (3) why so many Jews were attracted to communism.. Point one is meaningless, we don't have articles on Norwegians who happened to be communists (but we have categories for that...), second point, if this article is about antisemitism in the socialist states of Eastern Europe, lets move it to Antisemitism in the Eastern Bloc (we already have one on the Soviet Union; Antisemitism in the Soviet Union). Lastly, if this article is about why Jews were attracted to communism, we should create an article on Communism on nationality/ethnicity ... Classical Marxism was nondiscriminatory (which attracted discriminated groups throughout Europe to communism), this is an important topic (and which lacks an article).. However, what is clear is this; this article should either be deleted or given a clear topic, as it stands now its a mess. --TIAYN (talk) 16:10, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Coming from someone who argued last time to keep the article, it's been over a month since the original AfD and it's very clear that no progress can ever take place in order to correct the arguments that were made in the original AfD. Worse, the article grew into a monster with countless edit wars, countless noticeboard incidents, and endless arguments that did not mature into any realistic agreement. Is it a povfork? No, is it notable? Yes. Can we fix this article? unfortunately that's highly unlikely, maybe WP:TNT or if smaller more focused topics could survive but in its current state, this article has to go. --CyberXRef^☎ 17:02, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete (or ask someone to copy it into a sandbox for a totally overhaul for the following reasons)

I originally read this as antisemitic -'Jew' and 'Bolshevik' were interchangeable synonyms for some decades at least in Eastern Europe (William Brustein, Roots of Hate: Anti-Semitism in Europe Before the Holocaust,, Cambridge University Press, 2003 p.271)- and feel I should confirm my vote for deletion. DGG’s comments however have made me halt in what is an instinctive judgement, but one also based on several factors. There is a huge sunken history of whisper and prejudice behind this nexus and though the topic is well worth exploring, when every big shot from Hitler to Henry Ford created a cultural meme (Jew+Communism) that fed into the popular imagination over two or three continents with disastrous results, one can only broach the topic with particular caution. A caution lacking in this article. Some background for why I react this way. Howell Arthur Gwynne's The Cause of World Unrest, G. Richards,1920 came out just about the same time as Victor E. Marsden 's version of the Protocols and its thesis pushed the idea that

‘the Jewish Bolsheviks are today carrying out almost to the letter the programme outlined in the Protocols.’ (p.ix).

On p.131 that vicious screed has a list of fifty communists and their pseudonyms and the ‘real’ names (i.e Jewish) of most of them. Even Lenin’s mother is said to be of Jewish origins. This legitimized as a pseudo-documentary proof the kind of rumour-mongering lethally diffused throughout East Europe, well typified by the the following tripe:

Have you gone blind and can’t see who’s now ruling Russia? . .Trotsky, Sverdlov, Zinoviev and others: they are full-blooded Jews who have given themselves Russian surnames to trick the Russian people. Trotsky is called Bronstein, Zinoviev is really Liberman and so on. And it’s you who prefer to Yid Bronstein –Trotsky- to the Orthodox Tzar.’ Anonymous letter to the Soviet authorities quoted in Robert Service, Trotsky: A Biography, Palgrave/Macmillan 2010 p.276

and it has a very long history, well studied, and dismantled by scholarship, and hopelessly garbled by the numbers-game theorists of an enduring world conspiracy (now on Wall Street, when its capitalism, and once re Communism, Capitalism's antithesis. The Jews are everywhere, and always to blame. That background compels anyone interested in the topic to write it with a detachment, clarity and comprehensiveness that are wholly absent here. This article seems to be a WP:SYNTH list of Jews associated with Bolshevism that has utterly failed to provide either a narrative framework or a meaningful summary of the story.

It is inept. Though the sourcing tries to ground the topic in book research, it is throughout a patchwork of snippeted elements, many chosen apparently at random, without care taken to confirm or check what the wider literature says on each issue. Often, a check of sources reveal that the information conveyed is highly selective, and ignores much else in the sources bearing on the theme.
For example. One source is quoted for the remark

the mid-1920s, of the 417 members of the Central Executive Committee, the party Central Committee, the Presidium of the Executive of the Soviets of the USSR and the Russian Republic, the People's Commissars, 6% were ethnic Jews.

That kind of thing must be contextualized to make it meaningful. I.e. In the 1927 census, Jews constituted 4.34% of the 1,131,250 members of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. The slightly higher numbers in the upper echelons is wholly predictable from the fact that Jews constituted a notable part of the educated technocratic elites of most East European countries, and had an overpowering reason to put an end to 2,000 years of antisemitism through some utopian vision that promised to put an end to conflict itself for everyone (Trotsky's point:'The Jewish question, I repeat, is indissolubly bound up with the complete emancipation of humanity'.)

Its use of sources suggests blatant trimming to edge carefully modulated statements into outright facts. For example, Theodore Draper is cited for the view that

Jews made up about 15 percent of Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in the 1920s.

This is a palmary example of source manipulation: Draper is reported in the source as estimating that “perhaps as much as 15 percent of the party membership was Jewish,”(p.233). This also illustrates how topical googling without studying each point in extenso leads to the POV push in this article. Thus Harvey Klehr, Communist Cadre: The Social Background of the American Communist Party Elite, Hoover Press, ‎1978 pp.37-52 has a very nuanced statistically-based chronological analysis of Jewish representation n the party and its directive elite, showing considerable fluxes in representation. Whatever, it should have been pointed out that in contrast to the thesis made for the Russian section, Jews were not overwhelmingly represented among the founders of the American Communist Party.

It’s superficial:

‘There were few Jews in the peasantry, and in most countries they were virtually excluded from the landowning class’

Yet both Trotsky and Zinoviev came from land-holding farming families, and Jews were permitted by ukase since 1804 to purchase and work agricultural land. The ‘normalization’ attributed to Communism overlooks the fact that Jewish farming cooperatives had been actives throughout part of the empire for more than a century.

The essay keeps using the words ‘ethnic Jews’ regardless of the fact that outmarriage often constituted anything up to a quarter of marriages between Jews and their spouses (Czechoslavakia), and this nuancing is completely absent. Many of the figures here would have seen themselves as Russians for example. It was the system or the political culture which used ethnic categories. Trotsky himself declared he was a Russian, even when talking of Jewish problems (' have lived my whole life outside of Jewish circles. I have always worked in the Russian workers movement. My native tongue is Russian.' cited Schneier Levenberg, The Enigma of Soviet Jewry: Historical Background, Glenvil Group, 1991 p.366)
Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, and Grigory Sokolnikov were three of the seven members of the Politburo, an ad hoc organ for political supervision of the armed uprising.'

Well, all three of them were shot by the orthodox(Stalinist) Communist regime, and no note is taken of that. To the contrary we have an emphasis on the idea that ‘the majority of Jews were not affected by the Great Terror’ and ‘By early 1939, the Jewish proportion of people in the Gulag was "about 15.7 percent lower than their share of the total population.’ I hear in this the idea that the Jews created Communism and were saved from its savageries, an innuendo the authors fail to blunt by pointing out that not only Sokolnikov, Zinoviev and Trotsky were bumped off, but also numerous other senior Jewish/Old Bolsheviks like Lev Kamenev and Karl Radek (not to speak of the huge loss created by the murders of the greatest Russian poet of the 20th century Osip Mandelshtam or a writer of genius like Isaak Babel. There is nothing here either of the key fact that the internal critique of the Stalinist turn came from a notable number of Jewish dissidents, and they paid for it with their lives.

It is overwhelming focused on the Soviet Union, feeding cold-war prejudices melding hostility to that Empire with theses, widespread throughout Eastern Europe that the Jews were to blame for the disasters that hit so many nations.
Throughout Jews are singled out by their attributed ethnic background, as opposed to other groups who are identified by their geopolitical nationality. This is problematical. I.e.

'contained 101 members of which 62 were Bolsheviks and included 23 Jews, 20 Russians, 5 Ukrainians, 5 Poles, 4 Balts, 3 Georgian JewsGeorgians, and 2 Armenians.'

Note here that there were Jewish Russians, Jewish Poles, Jewish Balts, Jewish Georgians.

The Jews and Communism is a misnomer because this is about Ashkenazi Jews predominantly. Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews were not, with the small exceptions of the urban elites in Baghdad and Cairo, inclined to politics or Communism.
It’s written clumsily: Take a sentence like

(a) Slezkine claims that in June 1917, the number of Jewish Bolsheviks present at the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets was a minimum of 31 percent.

No one can know whether this means (Jewish Bolsheviks were 31% of the RCS, or whether 31% of registered Jewish Bolsheviks were present there. It’s not hard to guess what the drafter of that inept prose wanted to say, of course

(b)'Whether Jewish communism is to be considered as a 'Jewish' phenomenon as such remains a controversial subject.'

Again, that is a stupid sentence. I won’t explain why, because I expect anyone can see that at a glance. Such clumsy statements are not infrequent.
It can’t make up its mind whether to furnish the Bolshevism+Jews thesis with details or divagate into a Jews’ suffering under Communism (cf the section Persecution and emigration). This switches the narrative completely.
The article lines up blobs of material under thematic headings but lacks any compelling narrative sense. It should have been written by a draft that took André Gerrits’s The Myth of Jewish Communism: A Historical Interpretation, Peter Lang 2009 (used here once at the very end of the page) for the framework, and then, on the basis of such a structuring, worked through the subsidiary material to add flesh to the bones. It seems to have been written the other way round.
DGG has made however a very important point. There is nothing intrinsically anti-semitic in writing on Jews and Communism, and it deserves perhaps an article. My impression remains, however, that this version of the story fails the basic requirements for such an article, and therefore should be deleted (and, perhaps copied, and thoroughly reworked by independent hands in a sandbox until it looks absolutely disinterested in the politics of making a Jews+Communism nexus) Nishidani (talk) 17:38, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per arguments in the first nomination. This second nomination is way too early, during this short period it even went through a deletion review that didn't change the decision. No new arguments to remove it were presented, the "attack page argument" was one of the points listed in the closing statement of the first nomination. An article being in AN/I is not a deletion rationale. In fact, because of the controversy, the article has been improved through consensus. It seems this second nomination has more "votes" than the first one, despite being listed for a much shorter period, so it seems to be more of a "rally the troops" nomination. --Pudeo ' 20:46, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read any of the debate or just the votes? --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 21:00, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. --Pudeo ' 21:01, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Including this part? [23] --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 21:04, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in reply to your other point, the more controversial the article gets, the more people who see it. That is probably the rallying the troops sensation you are talking about --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 21:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That was new to me. Certainly a source by Mark Weber or the institute would not constitute a reliable source, but I don't see any such listed in article's references. I don't find the comparision between the two texts very convincing. The only parts that are word-to-word are direct quotes by historical figures, which is explained by the limited scope of this article (certain important quotes on the topic will be mentioned in any case). Have I missed something? --Pudeo ' 21:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

a source by Mark Weber or the institute would not constitute a reliable source, but I don't see any such listed in article's references well, no. That's sort of the point. The creator of the original article obviously used the Weber piece as the basis for the parts of the WP article to do with Russia but did not list the Weber piece as a source, merely relisted the sources given in the Weber piece.The only parts that are word-to-word are direct quotes by historical figures, which is explained by the limited scope of this article (certain important quotes on the topic will be mentioned in any case). The Russian revolutions are very well studied events and there must be many quotes to do with Jewish peoples' involvement, surely you don't really think it is mere coincidence that so many from the Weber piece reappear in the original version of the WP article. Lists of numbers of people by ethnic groups and other statistics have merely been very slightly re-worded or rearranged to a very small degree, the Weber piece is the obvious model.Smeat75 (talk) 03:34, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Rally the troops." I'd like to point out the the article’s few defenders keep alluding to this idea, and I want to be very cautious in my phrasing here. If one were, for example, an advocate of the views of the original version of the article [24], then you might be quite concerned that The Jews would all band together to vote on deleting this article. One hears such dreadful echoes. No doubt this is not what Pudeo meant, nor what Director meant above in a similar passage -- they're desperately hoping to appeal to an administrator to close in their favor despite an overwhelming contrary sentiment here. But as written the insinuation is hard to distinguish from its counterpart. MarkBernstein (talk) 21:10, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's simply based on my own Wikipedia experience - usually if a deletion discussion is lost - you will have people asking for their friends' or different Wiki-communities support for the next one. But it is irrelevant, if they they bring actual arguments, there's no harm in it and if they only bring simple 'votes', the closing admin won't take them into consideration. All's good. By the way, I don't feel very desperate, thank you. --Pudeo ' 21:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, per nom, and per my elaborated explanations at the article's first deletion discussion, which ended with a clear majority in favor of deleting it. Yambaram (talk) 21:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Subject matter is already discussed at Jewish Bolshevism (it's really the same thing, an article about "jews in communist movements", except one of the articles focuses on Nazi conspiracy). This article also advances the false view that Marxism-Leninism is or represents communism as a whole, and there is nothing which justifies for such an article to be created. There are no articles like "Black people and capitalism" or "White people and socialism". That's just nonsense. Zozs (talk) 21:19, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Nishidani has articulated my feeling about the article better than I ever could (at least without taking another history class). The article is hopelessly flawed, and indeed the premise of the title is flawed. It is certainly possible to write scholarly articles on the reciprocal interactions between some Jewish communities and progressive political movements in the 19th and early 20th century. Maybe it's even possible to do so on Wikipedia. But it's not possible if starting from a misleading premise and with an article largely influenced by anti-semitic screeds. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:01, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Quite correct on the former point in particular - see Jewish left, Jewish political movements, Labor Zionism, and Bundism, for some examples of instances of articles covering Jewish involvement in political movements on the far left when the subject is unambiguously a phenomena recognized by its own current of study reflected in historical resources and academia broadly (as opposed to sporadic, fairly synthesized associations). That's saying nothing of how Jewish involvement in communism, or any other political movement, can to some degree be treated in a large number of different articles concerning both the people and the movement. I suggest that those portions of this article which are worth preserving (I'd rather not speculate as to how much of the current content that includes, for concern of spawning another endless sub-debate), can be discussed in other articles without maintaining one which features an artificial discipline not reflected amongst academia or other valid sourcing. I'm surprised no one has brought up the especially relevant policy WP:NOTDIRECTORY, specifically the criteria of variation 6.: "Non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations, such as "people from ethnic / cultural / religious group X employed by organization Y" or "restaurants specializing in food type X in city Y". Cross-categories like these are not considered sufficient basis to create an article, unless the intersection of those categories is in some way a culturally significant phenomenon." Needless to say, the crux of this argument is that the article's small group of devoted proponents will say it is a culturally significant phenomenon, but from my view, I just don't see that it can be appropriately validated by sourcing. Certainly many sources will speak to the role of particular Jewish individuals and groups within the history of communism, but as I see it, in order for that policy to allow for such an article as the one in question, Jewish involvement would have to be seen to constitute a major historical subdivision of the ideology that is treated as a discrete phenomena well-acknowledged by hsitorical record and scholars int he field as such; I just don't see that as the case here. I still believe this subject is encyclopedic and has relevance to any number of articles, or at least certain claims within it do, but the associations being suggested by throwing all of this random information together in the current namespace is just not appropriate, at least, not as it's been done thus far. Snow talk 00:19, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:Snow Rise is absolutely correct in citing WP:NOTDIRECTORY, which I had overlooked and which is directly pertinent. A problem with the standard of "culturally significant phenomenon" in this instance is the voluminous antisemitic literature, as well as the voluminous anti-communist literature: if you look far enough, you're bound to find a source asserting "cultural significance". Notice how this article depends on sources 30, or 50, or even 70 years old? I should have cited WP:NOTDIRECTORY in the AfD, and would appreciate considering the AfD amended. MarkBernstein (talk) 02:57, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete with thanks to User:Smeat75 for the detective work. How horrible. JoeSperrazza (talk) 03:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete with no opposition to a thoughtful, scholarly, careful recreation, probably under a different name. The discovery by Smeat75 that the article originated with the work of a white supremacist Holocaust denier verifies the concerns about the article expressed by many editors including me for months. Thank you for that research. I find the arguments of Binksternet, Coretheapple, Dave Dial, Nishidani, and the nominator, MarkBernstein especially persuasive. I am not fond of citing WP:TNT but this applies well here, "While you can edit any page to fix the page content, you can't edit the associations and social history of a page". In this case, to quote Coretheapple, this article will always be tainted by the "foul brew" it has been. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:13, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Blow it up — There is a chance for a scholarly recreation, per WP:NUKEANDPAVE, but it is quite clear that the present article has origins in less than savoury places. RGloucester — ☎ 06:03, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. We have numerous policies and guidelines to support this article. We have peanut and butter articles as well as a peanut butter article. Jews and Communism have either crossed or hugged over millennia, I assume. Peanuts and butter have a combined article, thus Jews and Communism should as well.--Canoe1967 (talk) 07:31, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Oh my gosh. We have no article called Peanuts and butter. Don't you know that actual "butter" has absolutely nothing to do with Peanut butter? Also, Communism as discussed here has not existed for millenia. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete because even User Director (talk · contribs) says so [25], after all the WP:OWN behavior with such formidable implementation of reckless, self-defeating and self-destructive WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior that has not helped WP or anyone else for that matter. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 10:45, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your own disruptive behavior and edit-warring, not to mention your utter disregard for consensus - didn't help. -- Director (talk) 11:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Director the one/s who was/is/were doing the disruption was/is/were Potocnik and you, no one else. Potocnik (for those who don't know who that is, it's "PRODUCER" who has very recently changed his name) posted the article that is now revealed to have been directly imported from an outright hate site and then you who fought tooth and nail to defend it suddenly back off. Own up to your mistakes and apologize, that will make a bigger impression than blaming others (in this case blaming the victims) for your own failings because as you know in law claiming that "the devil made me do it" is not an excuse. You and Potocnic must share the blame for the fiasco. You also know full well that I worked to improve the article and added many sections that are still in right now to create a historical context and not a slant (what you euphemistically refer to as "scope") to smear the Jews. You know, the funny thing is that I was debating between keeping out of this new AfD as I mentioned at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive839#Oppose new AfD or DRV or perhaps at least voting for another "Merge and Redirect" to History of Communism (as I did at the 1st AfD) or to even "Keep and Rename" it to my preferred title of the "Role of Jews in the rise and fall of Communism", but once I saw that based on the new damning evidence that even you had changed your mind to a Delete I said to myself that if Director can do an about-face and now (for reasons best known to himself) says the article has to go, far be it from me to come along with my two pennies worth and suggest new and better ways to save what I thought was an important topic and I always took you seriously for that. So quit beating up on me yet again, and stop the tactic of attacking others when you don't get your way, or even more, when your hand is forced, and stick to figuring out how ludicrous it is for you to run away from all the damage you caused by fighting for the untenable and all its ensuing havoc, bitterness and divisiveness it has caused on WP. Sincerely, IZAK (talk) 12:48, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Izak, please. He apologized. He favors deletion now. What do want this guy to do, grovel? Come on. Coretheapple (talk) 15:36, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Much of this is really not germane to the AfD, which should stay confined to the narrow issues which regard the content and policy surrounding it. Behavioural allegations are not particularly relevant here except insofar as they can be said to be the cause for believing that the article cannot be improved because of them. And that can be said in a sentence or two. And in this case, that point is moot here as it he is clearly not going to be further opposing the deletion of the page, which given the overwhelming consensus and recent revelations, seems imminent. I'll be honest, I was not a fan of Director's approach on that talk page in particular -- I thought he was unduly combative, unreceptive to views in conflict with his own, and often less than civil. In similar circumstances in the future, I'd certainly hope he did things a little differently. But the thing is, I'm inclined to believe he probably would do things differently, and not just because he has said as much, but also because the pill for him at the end of all of this was obviously pretty bitter to him. Anything you say is going to be secondary to that anyway, and trying to get him to eat crow will probably just result in matters staying combative. Better to be conciliatory (or failing that, non-committal) and hope for the best. If Director ever shows battleground behaviour on that scale again, there's always administrative review. As a matter of fact, if that situation manifests itself again that anyone sees, let me know and I'll build the ArbCom case myself. But for the present time, let's remember that Director made a principled decision to change his position once new vital facts became available to us all. That proves that, strident and inappropriate as his actions could be, we can at least take it on faith (as we should anyway), that he was doing what he thought was right. Which means only his approach needs to change, not his motives. And it's easier to get a person to change their approach than their motive, broadly speaking. He's intelligent, so give him some space to digest the situation and maybe he'll come to the conclusions you'd want him to. But if you crowd him at this moment demanding he own up to things in exactly your terms, and I daresay the result is going to be less constructive for all of us. Snow talk 05:51, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Since I'm the only one with the spine or integrity to say what is patently obvious, Director did not make a "principled decision" to "change his position." Director is covering his tracks to draw attention away from the fact that as soon as someone attempted to make changes to the original article, which we now know was plagiarized from a white supremacist website, Director used his rollback privileges to undo those changes. Rolled back edits to an article he had not as of yet contributed to. Or so he says. Knowing full well that I would be reported by Director and possibly banned, I have always been completely straightforward and frank about what is going on here. I will continue to be so and have no interest in being polite or editing Wikipedia until the community figures out how to deal with editors like Director who abuse Wikietiquette in order to advance a racist agenda. I come here to edit articles on guitar effects, not conduct crusades against anti-semites. But this is just gross I and there's something seriously wrong with wikiculture to have let things go this far.--Atlantictire (talk) 05:49, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking as one who was nauseated by this article from the first time I laid eyes on it, and brought it to Jimbo's page, I view the most important priority as the content, not the behavior of the editors. That was only significant to the extent that it made the article worse and intimidated editors from improving it. The content, I'm glad to say, seems to be heading for deletion by overwhelming consensus. If there are future problems with editor behavior, they can be dealt with. Meanwhile, we are required to assume good faith.This isn't some kind of grand battle between warring factions that needs to be waged at every opportunity on a take-no-prisoners basis. By the way, I don't believe you've opined in this AfD yourself on the issue at hand. Coretheapple (talk) 12:22, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Atlanictire, bearing grudges is unseemely. If I recall you were blocked for consistently referring to me as a sockpuppet, and then again, rather ironically - for being a (checkuser-confirmed) sockpuppeteer yourself. Not a Heroic Defender of the Truth Against the Oppressive Machine, or whatever you've convinced yourself.

I consistently maintained this article isn't antisemitic, and stated that if it was show to be using any inappropriate sources, I'd nominate it for deletion myself. When Smeat75 did provide evidence, the AfD was already up and I could only change my vote to delete, but I would have nominated myself. My point is, I'm acting consistently with my long-held position. I am in no way "covering" anything. -- Director (talk) 15:48, 13 May 2014 (UTC

Director, you flatter yourself. It's not so much a grudge as it is a willingness to state plainly that if rules can be so readily employed to serve the objectives of a very determined bigot, then maybe we need to examine how these rules are enforced. Never having interacted with either you or Producer before, I stated that the article appeared to have been created by an "Anti-Semitic crank" and was tattled on by Producer and blocked for it. You proceeded to repeatedly taunt me about this and threatened to once again have me punished in a similar fashion. Just as you're doing in this discussion.

Personally, it's more important to me to have admins who are willing to take a little bit more time to investigate complaints such as yours before acting on them. Maybe get a better sense of the context, take into account the behavior of the person making the complaint--whether they're honestly attempting to collaborate or tattling to eliminate someone whose edits they dislike. Seek input from others editing the controversial article. Be a little less touchy if their actions are not automatically complied with when they don't. I'm far more disappointed in how the admins have handled this than I am with you. You're just a symptom.--Atlantictire (talk) 17:42, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Break 4

Comment (tending to Delete). I guess I can can more or less repeat what I said last time round and/or what others have said above: the page leaves an unpleasant impression. That's not enough to kill it, but the fact is that it seems focused on proving a link and constructing an argument by stringing together examples that are claimed to be part of the topic. Prima facie, that is WP:OR or, more precisely, WP:SYNTH. I'm not sure that such "relationship" and "comparison" pages, whose titles usually consists of two genuine topics connected with the word "and", are ever of much value or can ever escape from being caught up in WP rules against original research. Yes, this topic is arguably one of legitimate and fleetingly recorded academic enquiry, but you can pretty much find sources for any such juxtaposition if you look hard enough. In this specific case, we have the bonus flaw that even if the intention is not anti-Semitic, the result invariably comes across that way. N-HH talk/edits 12:32, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per WP:NOTCASE. Having a separate article could mislead readers to believe that Communism is connected to Jewish people which would be incorrect and wrong.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 14:33, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom.

The article's thesis that Communism was created and controlled by 'Jews', 'the Jews', or a witchhunted list of individuals with Jewish ancestors, is entirely inconsistent with WP:NPOV, WP:WEIGHT, WP:ATTACK and WP:FRINGE (WP:AND is also relevant).

We have Jewish Bolshevism which describes the anti-semitic canard; we don't need an article which proclaims the canard as fact.

The complex relationship between Communism, race and religion is an interesting and legitimate field of study, certainly notable and encyclopaedic - singling out Jews, as this article does, is certainly not the right way to address it.

Nuke it from orbit.

Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 19:32, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The changes since the last AfD did little to improve this obviously tendentious synthesis, so I reiterate my original position. Anonimu (talk) 19:43, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. To avoid WP:SYNTH and WP:COATRACK problems, this article should be split into several articles on clear-cut topics ("Jews and RSDWP", "Bundism", "Jews and Comintern", "Jews and Soviet secret police", "Jews and American communist movement" etc). --DonaldDuck (talk) 03:23, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As I see it, the synthesis happens at the "and", which basically invites people to google and assemble (or rather amass) facts without context. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:38, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why specifically and only Jews? Why not "Catholics and Soviet secret police"? IMO the proposed series of articles merely reinforces the canard that there is some special and definitive link between 'Jews' and Communism, as opposed to the relationship between people of other races or religions, and Communism. I'd be fine with an article about "Religion and Communism" or "Race and Communism", if we don't have them already. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 13:38, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, we are here to build an encyclopedia, to claim that is topic does not belong here is ridiculous. The relationship between the Jewish people and communism is long documented, historical, and academic. WP:COATRACK is an argument for clean up not deletion. Since the beginnings of communism, Lenin has made direct references to the Jewish people and later they were persecuted by Stalin, all historical. The influence and relationship between this two groups is undeniable. Valoem ^talk ^contrib 14:23, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a group of people anywhere to whom Lenin did not make direct reference? MarkBernstein (talk) 14:46, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We have Doctors' plot already. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 15:12, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are we saying that Jewish relationship with Communism is trivial and not of historical significance? That is simply not true we can always expand this article and remove any bias. Valoem ^talk ^contrib 16:35, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's why a plurality of people who have proposed a deletion of the article have also suggested WP:TNT. Yes, the subject at hand could be viable for inclusion as a section of another article, or in some other way though the current article and it's subject matter are far from being up to WP standards.. the title in it self creates a synthesis. An honest, neutral, proper article detailing the relationship between Jewish People and communism would be appropriate - NOT an article stemming from the works of an adamant Holocaust Denier; an article which passes the standards of other wikis that only accept strictly anti-jewish content (Metapedia). Since the last afD nomination, it has been clearly demonstrated by the constant edit-warring and lack of constructive repair that the article in it's current form has no chance of thriving to meet standards.. yes, the topic could fit in on wikipedia, but the article in it's current state is irreparable. Flipandflopped (Discuss, Contribs) 18:00, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In fact the connection between the Jewish people and the Communist movement is trivial, except in conspiracy theories and that is well covered in "Jewish Bolshevism", also called "Jewish Communism." There is for example no source that puts together the relationships between Ethiopian Jews and the Communist Workers' Party of Ethiopia and between the Jews of New Zealand and the Communist Party of New Zealand. Similarly there were people of Welsh ancestry involved in Communist parties in the UK, U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc., but no authors have written a narrative of Welshmen and Communism. If I am wrong then please present a source. TFD (talk) 19:12, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

TFD's standard, though the article cannot meet it, is still too low. Isolated historians or sociologists or conspiracy theorists may write about anything. What we'd need to see for the encyclopedia is a consensus connection, at least within a subset of people who study and write about the subject. For example, nearly every historian of the American Civil War will deal in some way with its connection to slavery; that connection is clearly notable. Somewhere, there may well be a study of Midwives in the American Civil War, but most treatments of the American Civil War do not particularly discuss midwives and most treatments of midwives do not particularly discuss the American Civil War. It's not enough to show that someone, somewhere, once thought there might be a connection, but in point of fact it's quite difficult to show that anyone, anywhere, shows much of a connection untainted by Jewish Bolshevism. MarkBernstein (talk) 20:36, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense. You're hoping to introduce an arbitrary bar this article must meet: there must be a "consensus" in the scientific community for a "connection" or else you can always claim this is inappropriate because the sources are "isolated"? Right? Well those are just words, and that's not how this works. If you claim they are WP:FRINGE (which is the wikilawyering translation) you must demonstrate that with sources, not your own judgement. Your example is completely off: if there actually were a large, comparable body of work done on "Midwives in the American Civil War" (as there of course isn't), then we'd be perfectly justified in creating an article on that subject.

Now, I'm not supporting this article in its current form, but its very hard to AGF with the way you're arguing. You give the impression of profound personal bias in your approach. This is a tertiary source. If secondary sources cover a subject - we can have an article about it. That's pretty much the bottom line. To argue that we shouldn't requires very, very good reasons, well grounded in policy. -- Director (talk) 21:38, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is the first time I've been accused of bad faith for paraphrasing WP:FRINGE. Director , please see the admonition to IZAK above, written in your defense; it applies here as well. You and I have agreed on little enough that you really shouldn't see bad faith, much less complain about it, in an observation with which we both essentially agree. As you know, I'm not the only person to express the opinion that this behavior is headed for ArbCom; when that seemingly inevitable event occurs, interested parties might look at the preceding 6 (!) edits for another taste of the WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior this user had indulged so frequently in this article, and which are amply documented in the nomination above. But let's leave all this to another day: our job here is to WP:TNT an article which we all now agree is derived from anti-semitic cant. MarkBernstein (talk) 23:13, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We do not agree that this article is WP:FRINGE, that was my point. I don't think you're being deliberately disruptive or anything of the sort, but I do believe your conduct does not reflect the reality in the sources. I was trying to be honest, you seem to "have it in" for the topic, I don't know. If this article is FRINGE, you ought to demonstrate that with references. Simply saying its FRINGE or claiming that the sources are "isolated" isn't worth much. My position is WP:BLOWITUP: I do not believe the premise of the article is contrived given what we have.

The article is going away, and as I said, I don't have any plans to recreate it myself - ArbCom is unlikely to take a dead case. Its best to stop talking about it altogether, it can only raise tensions. -- Director (talk) 00:39, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this notion. It seems pretty certain that deletion is going to happen now, so the best plan of action is to let events take their course, and keep an eye out for any attempts to recreate the article with recycled content in the future. Further arguments between editors who have now both voted delete probably aren't serving to help matters much --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 00:54, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Cut. The. Crap. Director wants to WP:BLOWITUP the article because it would destroy evidence of his connection to the thoroughly discredited Producer/Potočnik, should anyone care to conduct a competent sockpuppet investigation. Don’t you dare blow it up until that happens.

And before he starts in with the tu quoques, after being blocked for noticing the anti-semitism and sockpuppetry did I create a sockpuppet to notice it just a little bit more? Yes I did. Director is better at this than I am, so I’ll leave it to him to find the examples.--Atlantictire (talk) 13:18, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But there was already a sockpuppeting case a while back and it showed no connection. Wasn't the evidence you speak of available then? Coretheapple (talk) 13:56, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Atlanticire, unless you can verify your claims, you need to learn to stop throwing out such harsh accusations. If such accusations were true, both Director and Potočnik could face a ban. Do not make serious accusations pertaining to a fellow editor's social stature so lightly. Just because Director has contradicting views to yours about this article doesn't mean he's an ultimate wikivillain guilty of committing every crime known to man. A serious issue with this article is that no one seems to remember adhere to WP:NPA on both sides of the argument, drastically reducing the effectiveness of any attempts to improve the situation. Flipandflopped (Discuss, Contribs) 14:07, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Atlantictire, surely the most important thing about WP is that the readers should not be given false or slanted information by the articles. While that article is onsite, people might still be reading it and giving it some credence, it needs to be removed as soon as possible. I don't think Director and Producer are the same person and I never did, it would not be very clever to create two accounts with such similar names. I do think you were very badly treated by the whole system but if you keep making sockpuppet accusations you are likely to be blocked again which would be a shame. I totally agree with the comment on this page" Quite frankly this episode suggests to me that there are issues with the core policies of the project that I hope are addressed. mikeman67 (talk) 01:23, 10 May 2014", I don't know where the best place to discuss this systemic failure will be, but that is an issue for after this foul article has been nuked.Smeat75 (talk) 13:43, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and given the wretched nature of this article and the toxic talk page, I can see how people can be provoked to say the wrong thing. This is not the place to discuss that, however. Coretheapple (talk) 14:05, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Uh Oh Here I Go With Another Blatant Sockpuppet Accusation: I dunno. Their writing styles and content contributions are indistinguishable. They're from the same city in Croatia and share a strong interest in Balkan nationalism and Jews. Most damningly, a whole lot more progress would have been made on the article under discussion had they not been so precise in coordinating undoing other editors' work. Either they're sockpuppets or they're psychic.

It seems pretty logical that someone who would A.) create and spend weeks defending an article lifted from a racist conspiracy site, and B.)put a ridiculous amount of effort into mastering Wikipedia points of order would C.) make the effort to figure out how to conceal his/her sockpupptry, at least so far as IP addresses are concerned.

If you think I give a flying toot about being blocked on account of this rule-fetishist/content oblivious lunacy, then maybe I'm failing to make myself clear.--Atlantictire (talk) 14:06, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh... I just thought of something else. The hair trigger tendency to complain to various admin boards without first attempting to discuss the behavior with the editor they report. It's this "Ah-ha! You did something I can get you in trouble for!" that reflects a preference for monopolizing articles rather than collaborating. They both do it, both using the same rationals and tactics, and it's something I've only ever encountered with Director and Producer/Potočnik.--Atlantictire (talk) 15:44, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh hello, Atlantictire. I take it your block for sockpuppeteering has expired? Oh, yes, I remember - you were blocked for calling others sockpuppets while being a sockpuppeteer yourself. Right.

Kindly cut it out or you will be reported again. If you don't care, imagine how little I do. -- Director (talk) 15:53, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How about no. The "others" I've been blocked for calling sockpuppets are yourself and Producer/Potočnik. You go ahead and report me, since it only proves further how you share this tendency with Producer/Potočnik, and how good you are at making threats and abusing the admin process to get your way.--Atlantictire (talk) 16:27, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can't believe you've still got the nerve to go around calling others socks, when checkuser says they're not - and you are. I've got to admit, tgat's something I've never seen on this project. -- Director (talk) 19:48, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Believe it. I guess you missed the part where I fully acknowledged creating a sockpuppet so that I could notice your bigotry and sockpuppetry just a little bit more. I have nothing to hide. I was blocked for calling Producer a bigot. Guess how that turned out? If you think your threats will scare me from saying things that are true, you've failed to notice that I'm punk as fuck. If these nice people want to confuse your revolting attempts to cover your ass with contrition, that's their problem. There's "assuming good faith" and then there's being a chump and a sucker. Nice try, tho.--Atlantictire (talk) 04:27, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Valoem:"Are we saying that Jewish relationship with Communism is trivial and not of historical significance?"

No.

It's an interesting and notable subject but that does not exempt it from WP:WEIGHT, WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE or WP:BUTITSTRUE.

Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 11:58, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, but without prejudice to future articles per WP:TNT and the solution suggested by TFD (the original nominator for deletion) for a future article whose scope is defined by the actual reliable sources (such as the entry in the Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture). I for one plan to start an article on Communism in Eastern European Jewish history, without any of the material that was in the first version of the Jews and Communism article.--Pharos (talk) 21:06, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Agree with TFD that "the connection between the Jewish people and the Communist movement is trivial". Bus stop (talk) 12:31, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. per IZAK. --Yoavd (talk) 13:27, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, per nom. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 13:34, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete without salting, in order to blow it up and start over, as per existing arguments. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:40, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I don't think I've got anything new to add. I agree with Pharos and TFD in particular. Dougweller (talk) 20:52, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Snow Delete All the policy reasons have been stated very well above. The only thing I have to add is that this article is an embarrassment to Wikipedia. I am One of Many (talk) 07:13, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - This article is weird, weird, weird. Looking over the early history of the article makes it look weirder. This article looks like a Wikipedia:Coatrack and quacks like a Coatrack. Without looking at it too deeply I'm going to assume it is a Coatrack. And, for an WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument, I'm pretty sure we'd have trouble finding pages that linked other ethnicities/religions to particular forms of government (e.g. Christianity and Facism). Given that this delete discussion seems to be trending towards 10 to 1 in favor of deletion, might I humbly suggest we snow this one? NickCT (talk) 15:36, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning towards delete -- An article on this topic would not necessarily be out of bounds, but I'm disturbed by the fact that after all the controversy and editing on the article, there's only rather oblique allusion to some of the most relevant and important historical factors, such as that in late Tsarist Russia, Jews were in the unique position of being both highly-oppressed and highly-educated, and so were naturally disproportionally over-represented in just about every dissident intellectual or political current that wasn't anti-Jewish and/or focused almost exclusively on peasants or Christianity. Unless this article is bulked up with better or clearer explanations of some of the reasons why it's not too surprising in many cases that Jews would be over-represented in not-yet-in-power Communist parties, but that there's no real evidenced in most cases that Jews within Communist parties in power saw their main goal as furthering Jewish interests or ideologies, I'm kind of leaning towards delete.... AnonMoos (talk) 16:01, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and salt

Wikipedia shouldn't be the place for stupid racist crap to be sprayed about. Jtrainor (talk) 17:22, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: by my count, the article currently stands at 50 for delete and 7 for keep (those 7 not including Director and Zero, who changed their votes). Flipandflopped (Discuss, Contribs) 17:48, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Flipandflopped: WP:NOTDEMOCRACY. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:16, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

While we are discussing the votes, I think it is worth mentioning that none of the people who have sustained their Keep vote have made any arguments in apology for the heavy plagiarism from the Institute for Historical Review source --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 19:21, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just trying to avoid a "no consensus" ruling again, like it was the first time. Obviously, what the community thinks of the article isn't the only factor (like the fact that the majority of the content is not free content in the first place) but still, we're pretty close to a consensus at this point.. Flipandflopped (Discuss, Contribs) 10:14, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nuke and pave - Article is heavily plagiarized on top of all the other concerns. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:16, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
delete and redo... copyvio. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 23:48, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per many of the arguments cited above. I'm amazed it survived AFD the first time to be honest. Calidum ^{Go Bruins!} 02:14, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per above. Woeful article and I find it hard to believe its lasted so long.Nickm57 (talk) 08:31, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as copyvio. --Dweller (talk) 11:52, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the article but move elsewhere all the information that can be saved. Even after a quick perusal it is difficult to believe the article was written in bona fide, because there is extensive use of OR to create links between facts in order to get to precise conclusions. In view of the heavy plagiarism, omnipresent OR and the general NPOV tone of the article I am also suprised that this article has been in WP for such long time. Silvio1973 (talk) 14:09, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if that is possible to do publically without having it come up in search engines. I believe admins can still view and even restore previously deleted articles but I imagine the only solution would be to save a local copy [26] --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 14:15, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is actually a really easy thing to do, just place Template:NOINDEX on top, and Google won't see it. It would seem possibly a useful thing to preserve so that we can ensure that bad bits aren't recreated, and also any good bits can be recovered.--Pharos (talk) 17:32, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep First of all the article has been blanked out and it isn't clear what we are opposing. I looked at an old version and I don't see the attack on Jews. Perhaps it was removed at that point. There seems to be a number of reliable sources but I didn't check the whole list to see if others should be removed. The article should be trimmed to 1/3 its size. It's a legitimate topic but requires constant vigilance, which may be a problem given our limited manpower. If that's the case it may be better to merge (or split and merge) the article into a more general article on the demographics of communist movements and plight of religious members under communism. Jason from nyc (talk) 15:01, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Wikipedia is not designed for propaganda purposes, particularly when the propaganda is a non-notable, anti-Semitic rant plagiarized from the hate wiki Metapedia. The article, as it currently stands, needs to go. As for recreation, I am extremely hesitant as this does not appear to be notable. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 15:29, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I believe this is a clearly encyclopedic topic. I also believe that deletion of this article as it currently sits is inevitable. I declare my intention to create a properly titled and sourced article on the topic at some future date. Carrite (talk) 18:25, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Given the bias and copyright issues, delete per WP:TNT. But this is clearly a valid topic for an article. One that needs to be done carefully, but it can be done. Hobit (talk) 19:29, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as WP:COATRACK. -- The Anome (talk) 20:23, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:POVFORK, WP:ATTACK, WP:COPYVIO, WP:AND, WP:NPOV, WP:SYNTH, WP:FRINGE, etc... This is simply a seriously crap "article" for more reasons than I could be bothered to list. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:36, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Do not salt. Given a better editorial process - the process we usually have, this article ought to be fixable without deletion even from its biased beginnings. But there should at the very least be a way to survey all the Communist regimes (e.g. pieces of Jews in the Soviet Union, History of the Jews in Russia) and summarize events. I think it is of substantial interest to study how it is that Communist regimes start off promising freedom but then becoming bigoted, as is true not only for Jews but for the seemingly very different situation of gays. I have to say, there are times when it seems like Wikipedia has a bit of a streak of Communism itself... Wnt (talk) 11:51, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete A collection of quotes, which only have in common to accuse an alleged "prominence of Jews" for antisemitism; like e.g. "The prominence of Jews in the revolution and early Weimar Republic is indisputable, and this was a very serious contributing cause for increased anti-Semitism in post-war years" [27], Rosenkohl (talk) 12:17, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Don't know enough to have to have a GO/NOGO opinion and not willing to study, but in any event do not salt. Comment is, does not look anti-Semitic or racist to me, and please be careful about throwing words like that around. To say that Jews were involved with Russian Bolshevism to a disproportionate or interesting degree is ant-Semitic if you're Tsarist. Otherwise, given the totality of the situation, it's praise, and you don't have to be a Bolshevik (I'm not) to see that. If one was to make the claim "In pre-revolutionary Russia, Jews tended to be disproportionately represented among and only among the reactionary or quasi-reactionary (Kadet) elements" that would be deprecatory. I don't know if there's a connection between Jews and Communism that's worth describing and sourced or not, but I sure hope so as it would show intelligence and civic concern on the part of the Jewish community. (Again, not a Communist myself, might have been one in 1916 Russia though.) Herostratus (talk) 17:38, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Action following deletion and/or as well as deletion

[copied to talk page, as discussed] Follow this link [28] USchick (talk) 21:10, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.