Talk:Capital punishment in Russia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Russia Portal This page is within the scope of WikiProject Russia. If you would like to participate, please join the project and help with our open tasks.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale.
???	This article has not yet received an importance rating on the assessment scale.

This article was a translation of the Russian version; I rewrote it from scratch, adding much of the new information compiled from various sources. IgorSF 14:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Number of executions under Stalin

The article originally stated "tens of millions", which was reverted to "hundrends of thousands" with a comment of "impossible". While the precise number is not agreed upon by historians (different researchers place the number anywhere between half a million and 50 millions, a difference of two orders of magnitude), I don't see the reason to place the number at lowest range. See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin#Number_of_victims. Even the extremely biased pro-stalinist source[1] quotes the number of executions for 1937-1938 alone at 680,000, which would quite easily extrapolate to at least more than a million for the entirerity of Stalin's rule.

It's believable that executions were at about a million in total - but that falls under category of "hundreds of thousands", not millions. However, the "tens of millions" do not belong in this article, if anything, they belong in an article dedicated to informational warfare or propaganda. Don't forget that more people died in camps than were executed, and more people died from starvation (and assosiated diseases) due to excesses of collectivisation and forced resettlement than died in camps. Thus if we assume than "tens of millions" were executed (so, at least 20 million) - than we have over 20 million dead in camps and over 20 million dead from starvation - at least 60 million all together, which is completely absurd. For instance, various sources (I don't count biased cold war propaganda as sources, only works by people that either had access to the archives, or, at the very least, are prominent demographers) indicated the number of people that died in GULAG administered camps is around 1.6 million... With respect, Ko Soi IX 07:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, the Wikipedia article linked above states, as one of the concrete estimate, 1.5 millions of executions, which certainly falls into "millions" rather than "hundreds of thousands". The same article places the lowest bound (of any concrete estimates) at 800,000, and the upper bound at tens of millions. Saying "hundreds of thousand, and millions by some estimates" gives the appearance that hundreds of thousands is the most likely actual figure, whereas "millions" is probably too high of an estimate. Giving this impression with the evidence above is unfair to that evidence, because it gives the lowest estimate the perception of the average estimate.

I'd rather not engage in edit wars, so I will attempt to change the phrasing in a way that includes the possibility of less than a million executions.

Also, regarding the fraction of executions that were ordered by troikas: you reverted "many" to "some". Again, according to the link above - and recall again that this link is extremely biased TOWARDS Stalin - about two thirds of all sentences during those two years were passed by troikas, which qualifies not only as "many", but as "most", and definitely not as "some". I'd appreciate if you don't revert without at least giving appropriate explanation with citations, rather than guesses. IgorSF 09:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

As for "many" and "some" - that article deals mainly with POLITICAL executions, which were not the only ones. However, I think you are right, and the word "many" is a more accurate and neutral term than "some". My apologies. This being said, I disagree that 1.5 million is "millions" - how many millions are there - less than two - so it's not "millions", thus hundreds of thousands seem rather accurate. I think edit wars are pointless so I will not alter the article before I get a reply. With respect,Ko Soi IX 10:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC). PS. I don't like the POVed "extremely large"

Glad we agreed on many vs some. As for the executions, to avoid the hundreds of thousands vs millions discussion, I simply put the entire debated range in the article. Not only is this more precise (hundreds of thousands may refer to 200,000 in any case, which is lower than even the lowest estimates), but it's also less subject to POV allegation than either your former phrasing or my former phrasing. As for "exremely large", I would think that even 800,000 killed does qualify as such, if only because this was the single highest number of executions in all of Russia's history, and one of the single highest number of executions for a comparable period in world history. "Extremely" is a comparative term, representing the highest possible end of the spectrum. For example, according to [2], the annual number of death sentences during two years in 1980s was around 650. Even at 300,000 for each of 1937 and 1938, this number is 500 times higher than that average; in my view, this undoubtedly qualifies as "extreme". The absolute number of even 800,000 killed is very likely to be seen as "extremely large" by almost any independent observer. IgorSF 10:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that saying "extremely large" seems more misleading as opposed to "hundreds of thousands (millions, according to some researchers)". While I understand you logic, I don't think this approach is better. With respect, Ko Soi IX 11:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The word "many" may lead readers to believe that tens of millions are as valid a number as 800 000 (if not more valid, considering cold war lies). In reality, the lower numbers are supported by evidence from archives, while the medium range numbers are works of demographers with no such access (those numbers should also be presented), and the high range of "tens of millions" are works of propagandists... With respect, Ko Soi IX 21:55, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't agree with this reasoning. First of all, when several conflicting sources are available, making judgments as to which are probably correct and which are not, and especially marking the latter as "propaganda", consitutes POV. Even so, the lower end of the estimates was given in the above stalinism.ru source, which is definitely as far from neutral as a source can be.

I can see the reasoning for disagreeing with "extremely large" as POV, but "many", in the context of people executed over several decades, most of whom died over two years, is fully applicable even to 800,000, whereas "up to a million (millions according to some)" leads one to believe that "up to a million" is the most likely correct estimate - which, again, gives undue preference to lower end of the estimates over all others. IgorSF 06:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it does lead one to believe that "up to a million" is the most likely correct number - because unlike estimates it is based on declassified archives. I don't see no POV in labeling "tens of millions" as propaganda, because that is what it is. In Cambodia during the reign of Pol Pot about 1/3 of the population perished (including executions, but not limited to them). As you know, Cambodia didn't experience economic growth during that time. If one is to assume "tens of millions" as not propaganda, but something possible, than how do you explain the undeniable fact of economic growth in the USSR? I don't want to participate in a revert war, but so fat I'm not persuaded why we should refrain from using numbers from documents as opposed to cold war propaganda. With respect, Ko Soi IX 21:26, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The Camdodia analogy is at all not applicable. The number of executions and economic growth are not directly related; numerous people can be killed and economic can still grow. Moreover, if those people were not killed, the economy would grow even more. Your argument can, at most, be used to persuade someone that Stalin was a benevolent ruler who tried to do all he can for his country, and increased its economic potential if even at the cost of humans' lives. No matter how believable this argument may seem, and no matter how much closer to "propaganda" status it may be, it has nothing to do with the discussion regarding changes at hand.

In any case, a million - even 800,000 people dead - is still, to any reasonable observer, qualifies as "many", when the context is humans killed. The discussion is not whether Stalin was "good" or "bad" - it is whether "many" is a reasonable phrase to use given the information. Per WP:NPOV,

The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being the truth(...)

In this case, there are conflicting views about the number of executions, with the estimates ranging from 800,000 to tens of millions. Stating that the actual number was "up to a million", even with an "according to some" parenthesized expression, gives undue weight to a particular view - namely, the lowest estimate. Stating "many", on the other hand, does justice to all views, because - as mentioned above - even 800,000 killed human beings represents "many" to any reasonable person.

Your assertions that the lowest estimate is correct, and the higher estimate is incorrect, while certainly your right, qualifies as original research, and cannot be used to give one view the "correct" status. I'm not a fan of revert wars either, so I won't revert for a while to give us time to devise a compromise.