Talk:Totalitarianism/Archive 5

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Deletion of Pinochet

It was Pinochet that threw people out of planes cuz they were leftists, that came to government by overthrowing a democratically elected government, that turned country more authoritarian day by day. The deletion of *Pinochet (did a typo in undo message) from that photo is a bigoted attempt to whitewash neoliberalism. --Comrade-yutyo (talk) 17:44, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

The problem is that your views do not have consensus:

• Joseph Stalin currently states: "his regime has been described as totalitarian".
• Adolf Hitler currently states: "the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933 which began the process of transforming the Weimar Republic into Nazi Germany, a one-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism."
• Mao Zedong currently states: "He ruled China through an autocratic and totalitarian regime".
• Benito Mussolini currently states: "Mussolini had established dictatorial authority by both legal and illegal means and aspired to create a totalitarian state."
• North Korea currently states: "North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship, with an elaborate cult of personality around the Kim dynasty."

All of the above descriptions appear to be well-sourced, non-controversial, and backed by long-standing consensus at each respective article. However:

• Neither Augusto Pinochet nor Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990) currently use the word "totalitarian." (Even if you were to edit them right now, you would have to provide reliable sources in order for the material to be verifiable.)

Your edit summaries—"Whitewashing of Neoliberal free market capitalism as an authoritarian tendency."; "PINOCHET WAS TOTALITARIAN. REVERTED UNCONSTRUCTIVE IMAGE CHANGE."; "bigoted attempt to whitewash neoliberalism"—conflate authoritarianism with totalitarianism, and seem to suggest that your purpose here is not merely to summarize reliable sources, but rather to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Thus, your unsupported assertion that "PINOCHET WAS TOTALITARIAN" could just as easily be read as "PINOCHET WAS A BAD MAN." However, for the purposes of this article, what matters is not if Pinochet was a bad man or did bad things, but rather how he is described by reliable sources.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:45, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

As predicted, Comrade-yutyo has decided not to engage with my comments above, but has made drive-by WP:TENDENTIOUS edits bordering on vandalism to Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990) in which he inserts the "totalitarian" label ([1], [2]). Examining his two sources:

• One is a designated "Opinion" column in The Guardian by writer and political activist George Monbiot ([3]). Per WP:RS, this column cannot be used for such a statement in wikivoice because "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (invited op-eds and letters to the editor from notable figures) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." In the column, Monbiot mentions that "Buchanan's programme is a prescription for totalitarian capitalism," but there is no suggestion that Pinochet's Chile was a totalitarian regime.
• The second source, a critique of Friedrich Hayek in the non-profit openDemocracy ([4]), is even more problematic. The author writes:

"For Hayek, the second, continental tradition of liberalism advanced by writers such as Voltaire and Rousseau points in a fundamentally different direction. There is a straight line from it, to what he labels, the totalitarian politics of the French revolution and modern socialism. ... To promote positive freedoms, that is, to try to shape society to enable individuals or groups or social classes, is to start down the road of totalitarianism. ... [Wealth redistribution policies] according to Hayek, represent the first steps towards totalitarianism. ... [Hayek wrote] 'It is at least possible in principle that a democratic government may be totalitarian and that an authoritarian government may act on liberal principles'. ... 'I have not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende.' Hayek later described Allende's administration as the only totalitarian government in Latin America. He couched his defence of Pinochet in a broader context of supporting democracy only insofar as it contributes to the formation and maintenance of a liberal market order: 'In Modern times there have of course been many instances of authoritarian governments under which personal liberty was safer than under democracies'."

• In other words, Hayek supported Pinochet's authoritarian rule as a counterbalance to what Hayek perceived as a slide to totalitarianism under the previous Chilean President Salvador Allende, which is nearly the opposite of what Comrade-yutyo wrote. While openDemocr--Comrade-yutyo (talk) 21:24, 9 March 2022 (UTC)acy is critical of Hayek, the author makes no allegation that Pinochet was himself a totalitarian ruler.

In conclusion, Comrade-yutyo (an avowed Marxist and critic of Liberalism) feels strongly that "PINOCHET WAS TOTALITARIAN."; however, no reliable sources appear to agree with that label. When pressed to substantiate the validity of the label, Comrade-yutyo provided an opinion column and an analysis by a non-profit, neither of which were written by authors with any known expertise on Chile. More importantly, neither source describes Pinochet's government as "totalitarian," although openDemocracy is critical of Hayek for using the concept of totalitarianism to defend ostensibly milder repression under authoritarian regimes. In Wikipedia parlance, the sources failed verification. Assuming good faith, Comrade-yutyo should acknowledge his error, while Pinochet should be removed as a non-representative lede image for this article (even according to the critics of totalitarianism as a concept).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:42, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

• It hasn’t shown up yet, but I have removed Pinochet from the collage. Comrade-yutyo’s edits were clearly WP:GREATWRONGS and WP:POV and not meant to promote an academic understanding of what this term actually refers to. Dronebogus (talk)

Its your problem that you can't agree with sources that tell totalitarian to a dictator who threw people out of planes only because he supported free markets. If Pinochet would be a leftist than he would be called totalitarian of totalitarians. You cite that there is no reliable sources for such because the status quo of the world today is capitalism, which Pinochet enabled in his country. If we lived in Stalinist dictatorship then the neutral source would be Stalin not being authoritarian. If you cite anti-communist conservatives for Stalin, Mao etc then you should be able to cite leftists for Pinochet. --Comrade-yutyo (talk) 21:03, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Sure, if you provide a reliable leftist source that isn’t the two above, which have been discounted for completely reasonable criticisms. Which you haven’t. The article states totalitarianism involves controlling the private sphere, and/or a government-planned economy, ergo free markets are incompatible with totalitarianism even if every other aspect lines up. Dronebogus (talk) 21:11, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

You tell it yourself. You whitewash Pinochet because he was a capitalist. If he was a socialist, he would be the worst! THIS is a violation of Wikipedia's neutrality as totalitarianism is a civic issue, not economic! I am reverting your changes now. I will report you if you whitewash Pinochet again. --Comrade-yutyo (talk) 21:24, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

•  Administrator note: Dronebogus, I don't understand. The infobox image clearly displays Pinochet. Regardless, again, do not remove comments of users with whom you are in dispute (diff). Stop trying to browbeat your content opponent (citing WP:REFUSINGTOGETIT, etc., as the basis for removal). If you do this again, you will be sanctioned. There will be no further warnings. El_C 22:58, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I was looking at the infobox image that was in display for years, not the new one. Not sure to what extent the spirit of WP:ONUS was accounted for wrt the new image replacing the older one (haven't read all the above), but may as well put it out there (i.e. longstanding versus contending version). Anyway, fully protected 4 days. Please treat one another with respect. If at an impasse on the article talk, use a WP:DRR like an WP:RFC. Thanks. El_C 23:11, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

@El C: Pinochet was added by Comrade-yutyo recently. You can see it in the file history here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_totalitarian_leaders.jpg They did not provide sourcing, which started the above argument. As can be seen they provided sources that were rejected, and instead attacked the opposition. That is what I am complaining about. Dronebogus (talk) 23:12, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Oh! Comrade-yutyo, did you just overwrite the original image on Commons? Because that would be bad. El_C 23:14, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Pol Pot

Adding Pol Pot (while he is an awful dictator that committed crimes and was authoritarian) is bad faith by showing 4 left-wing figures opposed to 2 right-wing ones. Also taking to account that some people didn't want to see Pinochet because he was not referred as totalitarian by "reliable sources", the same also applies to Pol Pot who was a minor historical figure different from Hitler and Stalin.

The discussion on adding Pinochet instead to equate totalitarian figures to 3-3 grew so much controversy so, to sustain an equal representation without further escalating the discussion, its maybe possible to only have 4 figures (2 right-wing and 2 left-wing).--Comrade-yutyo (talk) 10:10, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Nobody except an admin can address that now. The page is locked. Dronebogus (talk) 15:24, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Pol Pot, unlike Pinochet, is widely regarded as totalitarian in reliable sources. In fact, Ben Kiernan (one of the leading specialists on Cambodia in English) writes in The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79 (p. 464) that "Despite its underdeveloped economy, the regime probably exerted more power over its citizens than any state in world history. It controlled and directed their public lives more closely than government had ever done." [emphasis added] Regardless, ideological "balance" is scarcely relevant to selecting a representative lede image; even (or perhaps especially) anti anti-communist critics—who hold that "totalitarianism" is an inherently biased, anti-communist construct—would never concede that Pinochet is in any sense a representative example of the concept.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:37, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Anyways, adding more left-wing figures to the image seems like a deliberate attempt to show leftism as an authoritarian tendency that "allegedly has more totalitarian figures," while objectively figures like Pinochet and Franco also did stuff that can compete with the stuff done by Stalin, Mao etc. If we want equilibrium, we can also cut Pol Pot and Kim Il Sung so there would be equal amounts of left-wing and right-wing totalitarians (Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini). While I agree Pol Pot and Kim Il Sung are awful totalitarian dictators, their current adition makes left-wing figures 4 compared to 2 right-wing figures, creating a false anti-leftist illusion in favor of right-wing politics.--Comrade-yutyo (talk) 20:01, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

You don’t seem to actually understand what “totalitarian” means. It is NOT just a synonym for dictatorship. But more importantly you are expected to provide reliable sourcing that supports your claims. Dronebogus (talk) 18:25, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Also, have you ever heard of the golden mean fallacy? Dronebogus (talk) 18:28, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 13 March 2022

Economist image caption should be updated as the svg file now reflects the 2021 Index. Also change references in caption to reflect 2021 Democracy Index where appropriate. Thanks. Mr. Lechkar (talk) 23:19, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

 Not done this page is no longer protected and may be edited as appropriate. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:17, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Citations should not simply be links to Google books

That's entirely inappropriate. We should not have to click on a link to find out what the book was, its publisher, authors/editors, page numbers, date published, etc., all of which are required. Both the reverted version and the current version as I write have the same problems. See WP:CITATION and Help:Referencing for beginners. Doug Weller talk 13:30, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• 19982e6c85 (2).jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:51, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Dans la médecine blocked as sockmaster, sockpuppet DaEditorz also blocked

Doug Weller talk 14:55, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Lenin

Addition of Lenin as the founder of the first totalitarian state is not referenced with reliable objective sources. --Comrade-yutyo (talk) 09:49, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

@Comrade-yutyo yes it is. Which source don't you like? Doug Weller talk 10:21, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Comrade-yutyo, we’ve been over this general topic with Pinochet, you can’t just get rid of or add content in articles because you like or don’t like it. At this point you are seriously cruising for a topic ban. Dronebogus (talk) 16:23, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

@User:Doug Weller In the last month we have had several suspected sockpuppets beginning with DaEditorz and followed by unregistered ips that have continued to remove this top sourced information which includes Oxford and Princeton. Its obvious the addition of Lenin is simply against their own opinion and bias. I requested page protection and to my surprise it was denied. I guess we have to accumulate a few more vandal attempts- there was another yesterday that even removed the sentence about mussolini..Foorgood (talk) 16:59, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

@Foorgood You're clearly politically biased and adding Lenin instead of Adolf Hitler, the most famous totalitarian in world history, is absolutely absurd and perhaps shows where your sympathies lie - but I'm not implying anything! And Lenin led the first totalitarian state in world history? Not Robespierre? One of the many European absolute monarchs during the 1600 - 1800s? Lenin is really the first face you think of when you think of 'totalitarianism'? Not Stalin, who actually has near-unanimous agreement from the scholarly community that his rule was totalitarian? This is one of the most absurd edit wars I've ever seen. Dans la médecine (talk) 10:23, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

@Dans la médecine: Hello, welcome to Wikipedia, you seem to have found this page very quickly. I would like let you know that sockpuppetry usually is not permitted on Wikipedia. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 12:00, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

That's correct, vandal! According to 10 independent sources including Oxford and Princeton, (and I can get 10 more), Lenin preceded Hitler and Stalin to create the first totalitarian state- the Soviet union! Anything before that falls short of the complete definition of a totalitarian state!Foorgood (talk) 12:19, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

@Foorgood: Can you please assume a bit more good faith, and not accuse them of vandalism. Calling an editor a "vandal" without good evidence (which, if I had seen, I would have reported them already) is a personal attack, and I suggest you withdraw it. I don't know if they are engaging in sockpuppetry, and I see no evidence of vandalism, but it is considered a sign of sockpuppetry for someone to inexplicably show up at a talkpage like that, and so I took the opportunity to remind them that sockpuppetry is usually not permitted. Irrelevant now that the targeted editor is blocked as a sockpuppeteer anyway.Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 13:02, 19 May 2022 (UTC) edited 15:09, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

@Foorgood: Seems Doug Weller noticed the recent arrival too. Now both are indeffed. I guess that this settles the issue, unless anyone else has any objections. Personally, I'm inclined to think that the Lenin picture may have been better replaced by a picture of someone more readily associated with totalitarianism like Stalin, Hitler, or the proudly totalitarian Mussolini? Lenin may have been totalitarian, but Dans did raise the valid point that he isn't really the first person that comes to mind when one thinks of totalitarian leaders. Your choice though, as I'll buzz off now, cheerio. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 15:07, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Thankful for that- i will tone it down. I guess we can leave the photo out for now then since they all can fit in it. Hopefully no more suspected sock puppets return.Foorgood (talk) 15:20, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Summary in the lead

I would suggest such change [5] or moving the cited opinion to the body of the page. Yes, such opinion can be sourced and included to the body of the page with appropriate attribution, but this is hardly an appropriate summary of the content currently on the page. The lead suppose to be a summary of content. My very best wishes (talk) 13:55, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

USSR in post Cold War section

I think content related to the USSR should be combined to a separate subsection because all such materials are logically connected. My very best wishes (talk) 14:09, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

"Reliable" sources supporting the claim that Pinochet was totalitarian

I will add such sources under this section.--Comrade-yutyo (talk) 22:16, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• [6] --Comrade-yutyo (talk) 22:18, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• [7]--Comrade-yutyo (talk) 22:18, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• [8] --Comrade-yutyo (talk) 22:20, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• [9]--Comrade-yutyo (talk) 22:21, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

GRIN is a self-publishing platform so that source is not reliable. Can you provide specific quotations from the other sources? Cullen328 (talk) 22:30, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Human Rights Watch says that the CIA-funded right-wing newspaper El Mercurio denounced an initiative by left-wing supporters of Allende's Popular Unity government as "totalitarian" in April 1971, claiming it was "aimed at ensuring that only one version of what is happening in Chile prevails, the official one."
• The Tulsa Journal of Comparative and International Law (or here) says that the 1980 Constitution of Chile banned left-wing ideas that ostensibly "attack the family, or propagate ... a conception of the society, the State or the legal order of a totalitarian character or based on the class struggle."
• Salazar-Sutil 2010 refers in passing to Pinochet presiding over a "totalitarian system to silence opposition" marked by "civil-rights abuse[s] at a massive scale" in an analysis of the "memorable chants, songs, and rallying calls that surged during the latter part of the Pinochet regime." The author argues "that state-sponsored terror and disappearance during the Pinochet years did not efface the voice of the opposition, but on the contrary, it elicited a powerfully orchestrated political vocalization that was deployed performatively in the way of protest song and street chanting."

While Comrade-yutyo deserves credit for finally providing at least one reference that satisfies WP:V, the single unsupported, offhand reference to a "totalitarian system" in Salazar-Sutil 2010 does not demonstrate that this description of Pinochet's regime is widely-accepted by the majority of reliable sources, let alone that it enjoys sufficient academic consensus to justify including Pinochet alongside Hitler, Stalin, and Mao as a representative lede image for our Totalitarianism article. (To the contrary, Salazar-Sutil seems to simply use "totalitarian" as a synonym for "repressive".)TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:05, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

In other words, two of the three sources say that the Pinochet faction was calling the Allende faction "totalitarian". That is the opposite of good evidence that the Pinochet regime was itself totalitarian. Cullen328 (talk) 21:26, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Nicolas Salazar-Sutil seems like an interesting fellow but he does not seem to have the expertise or reputation to make such a judgment. Cullen328 (talk) 21:36, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Wow, “give me explosions” “Never Been Human I am Bird”… very, ah, unique titles. Dronebogus (talk) 05:41, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• @Comrade-yutyo: I respect the effort, but it clearly seems like you’re quote-mining for evidence to fit your views and not adapting your views to fit the evidence, or at least dropping the WP:STICK and moving on. Dronebogus (talk) 05:47, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
• While certainly authoritarian and oppressive, that regime was not generally desccibed in sources as totalitarian (agree with TTAC). I doubt this regime belongs to this page. My very best wishes (talk) 01:38, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
• @My very best wishes: I think it is consensus that certainly a not insignificant portion of academia would consider Pinochet to be totalitarian, as far as my readings on Jstor indicated. I don't believe that there need to be complete consensus for information to be included, and if it is unreasonable to include differing opinions in academia then I must question why the claim about Lenin was added considering others believe that Mussolini created the first totalitarian regime. Apologies for using rollback though, I had meant to use huggle's manual rollback. Dark-World25 (talk) 15:25, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Leaving this for a minute aside, here is my edit. The removed para starts from "Saladdin Ahmed criticized Friedrich and Brzezinski's book". What book? There is no mention of such book neither in this nor in previous para? This is simply a ridiculous text. Now, please compare this removed paragraph with 5th paragraph in section Post-Cold war: [10] that cites nearly the same claim by same Saladdin Ahmed. This is a duplication. My very best wishes (talk) 15:54, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Also if you read whole paragraph starting from "In Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: ...", it does not make sense. Did Saladdin Ahmed argued that the regime by Pinochet was totalitarian or that it was not? And if the latter, then who said it was totalitarian? There is nothing on the page. This must be either rewritten or removed as confusing text. My very best wishes (talk) 16:07, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

I do not mind including something like "The regime of Pinochet was described as totalitarian [explanation why with references]". That would be fine. But the texts currently on the page about it are lacking any logic and not readable. My very best wishes (talk) 16:25, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

North Korea

The page does not mention North Korea:

• https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/14/north-korea-systematic-repression
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/north-korea-defectors/

I believe that the NK should be included in several places, it is above my skills.Xx236 (talk) 09:42, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Belarus

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/totalitarian-experiment-belarus/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/belarus-totalitarian-state-un-b1878451.html

Xx236 (talk) 10:09, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Russia

https://dspace.wlu.edu/handle/11021/32179

Hybrid T. https://carnegiemoscow.org/2022/04/19/putin-s-war-has-moved-russia-from-authoritarianism-to-hybrid-totalitarianism-pub-86921 Xx236 (talk) 10:13, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Evolution of the systems and geographic differences

Nazism changed 1933-1945.

Nazism was relatively liberal in Denmark, Nazi censorship was relatively liberal in France.

Xx236 (talk) 10:25, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

"lying about spying." is more than a 'split'

https://books.google.no/books?id=fBSbKS1FlegC&dq=Norman+Markowitz+rosenberg&hl=pl&source=gbs_navlinks_s Xx236 (talk) 07:53, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Kim Il-Sung

I agree that Kim Il-Sung is totalitarian, but it seems very strange to have his picture alongside Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler when the caption Compares them as examples of left and right totalitarianism. Maybe it is best just to include him in the body of the text. 2600:1003:B104:2638:B48E:4611:B9F:4A4B (talk) 23:17, 9 February 2023 (UTC)