Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks

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 redirect‎ to Russian Civil War#Anti-Bolshevik movement. And subsequently merge as appropriate from the history. The arguments against retention are stronger. They make the argument that the article violates WP:SYNTH. The "keep" opinions do not address or refute this, but argue that the topic is notable. But because that is not the reason for which deletion is sought, these arguments are beside the point and must be discounted. Sandstein 12:51, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks[edit]

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Over the years of occasionally editing this article and trying to find sources for expanding it, I've come to the conclusion that the scope of this article is almost entirely synthetic.

The article started its life as "Third Russian Revolution", which is a term that was used by anarchists of the time (particularly the Makhnovshchina and Kronstadt rebellion) to claim legitimacy for their revolts against the Bolsheviks. But since then, the article's title was changed to the much more vague "Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks", a term I haven't seen used in any sources. This vague title has given way to some pretty bad scope creep, lumping together dozens of different (and sometimes opposing) movements that share little in common other than their supposed left-wing politics and their anti-Bolshevik orientation. (E.g. it currently implies a connection between the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and later uprisings by Left SRs and anarchists, both of whom supported the assembly's dissolution)

If anybody has ideas for how to retool this article into something a bit more focused, and sources that could help with that, then I'd be happy to hear them. But as it stands, I unfortunately don't see a reason to keep this article around. I'm not sure how it can be effectively cleaned up and I don't think there's any good targets for redirect. Short of narrowing it back to the "Third Russian Revolution" scope, I'm not sure how this article can be improved. Grnrchst (talk) 09:19, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: History, Military, and Russia. Grnrchst (talk) 09:19, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Armenia, Belarus, Georgia (country), and Ukraine. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 09:48, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I guess I may be ignorant here, but it doesn't seem like the issue of synthesis here is insurmountable. While it's certainly true that all left-wing movements (or indeed, all right-wing movements) do not share common alliance with one other, it seems like an obviously meaningful category to me. Although, looking through your edit history, it seems you may be more well-read in this area than me, so if you say that the contents of this article are really too disparate to reconcile in a single article, perhaps you are right. That said, if this is the case, I think it would be very much possible to retool the article to just be about the Third Russian Revolution; whether or not such a thing happened (clearly it didn't happen successfully) it's clear that a lot of stuff happened, and that that was a meaningful concept which people talked about and advocated for, et cetera. I think what you mentioned would be a good idea. Reworking it back to the "Third Russian Revolution" would narrow its scope to something that jp×g 05:01, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The issue is how does one categorise what constitutes a "left-wing uprising"? Both "left-wing" and "uprising" are vaguely defined here. The SRs were to the right of the Bolsheviks, Chernov himself wanted them to constitute a force against "despotism of the left and the right", and they ended up joining the White movement anyway. Is that enough to be "left-wing"? As for "uprising", does this just mean anyone that opposed the Bolsheviks in one way or another? Because the Georgian government certainly wasn't friendly with the Bolsheviks, but they never rose up against them either, they were already independent before the Red Army invaded.

The term "Third Revolution" has a narrower definition, as it was almost exclusively used by the Makhnovists and Kronstadters to refer to a revolution that would transform Russian society into a libertarian socialist one, not a reaction that would bring it back to before the October Revolution (i.e. the Constituent Assembly's goal). Even by its broadest and most synthetic definition, used by Murray Bookchin, such a "third revolution" is limited to the actions of the Makhnovshchina, Tambov Rebellion and Kronstadt Rebellion. Yet all of these are relegated to the "other revolts" section at the very end of the article. (He also gives some lesser nods to the Left SR uprising and Workers' Opposition, but ends up concluding that neither were truly "revolutionary") If one were to make a "Third Russian Revolution" article, it would be almost entirely different from this one.

But past talk page consensus already decided that this article shouldn't use the "anarchist slogan"/"propaganda term" and should instead be synthetically defined as "left-wing uprisings", which has resulted in it becoming a complete mess. Hence why I'm here. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:10, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What would be the best target for an overview of this content? Perhaps a section of Bolshevism related to counter-movements (i.e., what the target of anti-Bolshevism would be)? czar 10:48, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 13:57, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: No suggestions on keep or delete yet. CastJared (talk) 16:49, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Merge sourced content to Russian Civil War § Anti-Bolshevik movement, answering my own question above. This section heading looks like the natural inheritor of this overview content, which can be greatly summarized without loss of fidelity. The article isn't about a discrete event but a series of loosely connected events, making the case for a summary section rather than a lengthy topical rehash. czar 04:41, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd support this merger proposal. -- Grnrchst (talk) 18:14, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why would you delete this page? It provides crucial insight into the early ussr and leftist dissent in soviet russia post russian revolution, if it needs better sourcing or formatting or rewriting or anything add notes to do that rather than outright delete it? There isnt a reason given? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.114.108 (talk) 09:25, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: There’s plenty of verifiable sources, that support this article, plus it pass the notability guidelines. So, don’t understand the idea of merging or even deleting. Frankly, Islamism’s Hizb ut-Tahrir should be one with this deletion discussion instead. (Due to not, passing the guide lines) — 216.49.130.15 (talk) 18:58, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We consider each article on its own merits. There are obviously sources for the disparate events grouped under this heading but the question is what sources justify this grouping? If it's only a loose affiliation between these events, the parent article could sufficiently contain the overview, as it currently does. czar 12:31, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Both articles needs better citations, that don’t violate WP:COI. 216.49.130.15 (talk) 22:47, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris ^talk! 23:40, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: A notable article, but could be made more concise. Also, I disagree with Grnrchst in saying that SRs, which were to the right of the Bolsheviks, should not be listed as part of this page on left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks were a far-left movement. By the same token, can nobody ever be an anti-Stalinist leftist given that they would be perceivedly more right wing than him should they oppose forced collectivisation? That's not to say though that this article couldn't do with some cleaning up though. Also the mention of the propagandistic term of "Third Russian Revolution" should be pushed down to the bottom of the lead section. It is propaganda, after all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oak Pencil (talk • contribs) 12:17, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
216.49 and @Oak Pencil: The question is what reliable sources describe this grouping as independently notable from disparate reactions in the Russian Civil War altogether. What sources show left-wing anti-Bolshevik uprisings to be covered as a group rather than unrelated events as part of the larger timeline? This overview of could be adequately covered in the parent section, linking to all of the same breakout articles, without any loss of fidelity. czar 12:31, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how it meets GNG at all to be honest. There isn't significant coverage of "left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks" in any of the reliable sources I have available to me. I can't find anything that links all of these disparate (and often opposing) events together, much less something that conceives of them in a way that warrants its own article. I find it quite odd that issue has been taken with the "propaganda term", when that term is covered extensively in reliable sources, while this grab-bag collection of random happenings with a made-up title is seen as notable without any clear demonstration of its notability. If people that want to keep it could prove that its scope isn't synthetic, that would be fine, but I haven't yet seen anything to support this article's continued existence. -- Grnrchst (talk) 18:21, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Merge per Czar - Basically a WP:SYNTH POVfork. No doubt there were left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks, what's missing is any source that links them all together like this. We have number of articles like this (e.g., Afghan conflict that combines the Soviet war and the American war into a single conflict for some reason, and Iraqi conflict that does the same thing with the US war and the war against ISIS) and all they do is serve to combine the same content in two or more articles into one with no additional material except maybe some WP:FRINGE POV. FOARP (talk) 20:07, 25 May 2023 (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.