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Article milestones Date Process Result September 1, 2009 Peer review Reviewed April 1, 2018 Peer review Reviewed June 1, 2018 Peer review Reviewed

This article has a ton of problems. Here are a few:

1. The terminology section is bizarre; most of it is not necessary and provides information very similar to what is said later in the article. It seems like it is there just because it has always been there even though it lowers the quality of the article as a whole.
2. There is very little discussion about the scholarship on the association between mass killings and Communism, which is outlined in the RfC from three years ago. There is an acknowledgment of opposition to the term at the start of the proposed causes section, but it is disappointingly short. Then, the rest of the section is a list of possible causes without any consideration given to whether they explain something that actually actually exists. As I see it, something more akin to the Totalitarianism article, where the debate over the validity of the term is shown fully, would be much better. This would both make the article more complete and much more interesting.
3. The debate over famines section is simply confusing. It quotes one person to say that there is a consensus that the Holodomor was not a genocide, and then it quotes another person to say that there is a consensus that the Holodomor was a genocide. It seems vastly preferable to talk less about the Holodomor genocide question and simply link to the other article on the topic. This section somehow also fails to mention the Great Chinese Famine at all. Finally, "two African countries that claimed to be Marxist–Leninist" should not be included—such countries are almost always described as Communist or Marxist-Leninist. North Korea doesn't even call itself Communist anymore and it is still referred to as such.
4. There is a general NPOV issue. I think that anyone who reads this article can see that. You can really feel the editors' hatred of Communism, which simply should not be the case. The same is not true from the article on the Holocaust after all, whose horror is far less controversial.

Overall, there has got to be some sort of rewrite of this thing. I was just reading through the 2021 AfD, and stuff has really not gotten better. I don't believe that this article should be deleted, but it muddies a super interesting topic by being so bizarrely written. Despite all the edits that have gone into this thing, it has barely improved since even 2010. Porg656 (talk) 03:51, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, many people who were active on talk leading up to the RFC vanished afterwards, leading to much of it failing to be implemented. Compounding this is the fact that the article does require a degree of expertise; it's a sensitive subject which touches on an in-depth academic debate, where people need at least a basic grounding in the topic to know what sources to look for and how to weigh them. If you want to fix things you'll probably have to do it yourself; I would suggest starting by looking for sources that aren't currently in the article but ought to be, and by reviewing the article for sources that are currently given too much weight. But it's a big undertaking and I'd suggest doing it one piece at a time rather than trying to go for sweeping rewrites. --Aquillion (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Porg656, the article should reflect what reliable sources have written about the subject, in a way that best conveys that information to the reader according to Wikipedia policies. The terminology section is important to that end, as the first paragraph of that section explains. It's good that you want to improve the article, but that improvement must be based on the relevant sources and policies, not your personal opinions about what the end state should look like. This article has a long history of argumentation between editors, much of which could have been avoided with a sources-first approach. If you want to add something to the article, first find a reliable source for that addition. Likewise, if there is something in the article that you think should be removed, first check the cited source to see if it is supported as written. Saying that you want to add a particular thing before having a sourced basis for it ("There is very little discussion about the scholarship on the association between mass killings and Communism...") or remove something without understanding it ("The terminology section is bizarre; most of it is not necessary...") is a mistake that will end up wasting a lot of time and effort. AmateurEditor (talk) 23:26, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The problem with the terminology section is that most of what it says that is actually pertinent to the article as a whole is some variation on "[term] has been applied to communist regimes," with the sole exception of 'Red Holocaust' which is instead elaborated on in the form of various scholars saying that it perpetuates the Double Genocide myth. Every other term has its own article where it is defined with much more precision than what is laid out here. It is not necessary to list these terms in the terminology section because they are already listed at the start of the article. If there was more of a discussion of why different terms have been applied to mass killings under communist regimes, then maybe the section would actually be useful. However, as it stands, the terminology section is almost entirely bloat. Lastly, it is not relevant what reliable sources say here because I don't actually want to add information to the page or want to remove information from Wikipedia, I just don't think the overview of terminology is useful.

  I do want to apologize for rehashing the 15 years of edit warring, though. Porg656 (talk) 00:23, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No need to apologize. There is no single consensus term for these deaths, so it is important to describe which terms are used and why. The disagreement between sources on the best terminology to use is actually a significant part of the topic, with sources debating between the merits and applicability of various terms, so reflecting those sources per WP:DUE means including that in the article. The terms are also in the lead because they are in the body of the article, per WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY. Lastly, I assumed you also wanted to add to the article when you said "There is very little discussion about the scholarship on the association between mass killings and Communism...", which is why I mentioned finding a reliable source for additions first. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:51, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

• Anti PKI Literature.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:07, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where is "Mass killings under capitalist regimes?" as a counterbalance to this innately biased article? ~2026-12587-04 (talk) 00:21, 26 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mass killings under capitalist regimes (2nd nomination). Capitalism btw isn't a form of regime. It's an economic system practiced by various types of regimes, including Communist ones. TFD (talk) 01:10, 26 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Just chiming in, as someone who frequently converses (and argues, though not always) with a number of Communists and as someone who has actually read Das Kapital and other works by Marx and who identifies as a socialist, that TFD's comment is accurate.

The reason this article exists is because there is academic study of the topic of mass killings under communist regimes as a whole, so we have sources that can be used to tie together sources about specific mass killings under various communist regimes and the mass killings committed by specific communist regimes into an article.

We do not have such sources about 'capitalist regimes'. We have sources about individual mass killings under various 'capitalist regimes', and we have sources about the mass killings committed by specific 'capitalist regimes', but we have no sources which bring all of those killings under a single banner, the way we do with the topic of this article. Combining the sources we do have in a way that reliable sources do not represents WP:SYNTH and is not acceptable.

I would also add that 'capitalist regime' is a highly imprecise descriptor. When one says 'communist regime', we know something about the nature of the political system in place; namely that it administers the means of production in a centralized and planned manner. Which means it will have all of the necessary features to do so. We learn something about the nature of that regime when we call it communist.

So when we say 'capitalist regime', we know nothing about it except that it probably lacks such features (though capitalist economies are not entirely immune to central planning). Compare Communist state and Capitalist state for more information on this. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:15, 26 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]