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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soviet-run peace movements in the West

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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 keep. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Soviet-run peace movements in the West

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Soviet-run peace movements in the West (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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First of all, I know that this article was listed on AFD not too long ago. Please see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 September 24 for an explanation of why it is now being re-listed.

Fundamentally, the problem with this article is that it is a clear violation of WP:SYNTH, not to mention WP:NPOV. For the most part, the sources are not talking about "Soviet-run peace movements in the West", the ostensible subject of the article. Instead, they discuss cases where the Soviet Union is believed to have provided funding and/or exercised undue influence in various Western peace organizations. The 1983 Time article, for instance, specifies that the groups in question "would, in many cases, reject the financial help if they knew the source." Other sources simply are not reliable; for instance, one is a book from Regnery Publishing, a far-right publishing house that is best known for the release of fringe literature (e.g. Unlimited Access, which claims that the Clintons hung crack-pipes on the White House Christmas tree). Regnery does not have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" as required by our verifiability policy.

The fundamental problem with this article can be best expressed with an analogy. It would not be difficult to find reliable sources discussing contributions received by U.S. Congressmen from various industry groups. It would also not be difficult to find reliable sources expressing concern that corporations have too much influence on the U.S. political process. But if someone took all this together and made an article called Corporate-owned Congressmen in the United States, it would be rapidly deleted as an example of improper synthesis and POV-pushing. This is essentially the same thing, and should be deleted for the same reason.

Note that this issue has been discussed on the Eastern European mailing list. Canvassing happened during the last AFD and is likely to happen again. The closer should take this into account. *** Crotalus *** 20:47, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. The article is well referenced, particularly to the core work: Richard Felix Staar, Foreign policies of the Soviet Union, Hoover Press, 1991, ISBN 0817991026. The article should probably be renamed, and this can be discussed on talk. As the nominator notes, the subject is "cases where the Soviet Union is believed to have provided funding and/or exercised undue influence in various Western peace organizations", and the subject is notable and referenced. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:51, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Staar isn't a scholar. He works for a right-wing think tank, not a university, and there is no evidence that his work has "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." The entire thrust of this book was to emphasize how powerful, malevolent, and dangerous the USSR is. The book was published in 1991. You do the math. I read the same pages cited in the article and came upon the following statement: "A major objective under Gorbachev is to isolate the United States from its NATO allies by proposing the formation of a common European house comprising both West and East Europe, including the USSR, but in the long run excluding the United States." Again, this was published in 1991, when Gorbachev's biggest "objective" was trying to stop the USSR from completely disintegrating. *** Crotalus *** 21:01, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This debate has been linked from Wikipedia:WikiProject Eastern Europe/Noticeboard.

  • Keep and rename to something like "Soviet-funded" or "Soviet-supported". The subject of Soviet influenced organizations is certainly encyclopedic, and there are reliable sources for that. Not sure whether I'd characterize Regnery as unreliable, but for the sake of argument, assume that it is. In that case, there are still other reliable sources. Sorry, the Hoover Institution is a reliable academic organization, respected by many who aren't themselves crazed by leftwing ideology. We consider the New York Times a reliable source, despite its editorial POV. Time and Newsweek, and The New Yorker, too. It's pretty clear that plenty of sources exist. Reconsideration (talk) 21:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • A cursory search for Richard Felix Staar on both Google Books and Google Scholar shows nothing but his own works. There is no evidence that he is taken seriously by anyone in the academic community. If this is going to be discussed as a real phenomenon and not a conspiracy theory, then there should be some evidence of mainstream support. Staar's book fails the "fact-checking and accuracy" test. *** Crotalus *** 21:11, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Try Richard F. Staar, looks much better. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:27, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • A cursory search of the article's own Notes section gives a link to a Time magazine article from the '80s. It clearly is reliable and it clearly discusses Soviet support for Western groups. I looked it up. Check it out: Using national Communist parties or recognized Communist-front organizations like the World Peace Council, the Kremlin has been able to channel funds to a host of new antiwar organizations that would, in many cases, reject the financial help if they knew the source. [1] And on the next page of the article: For several years, Danish intelligence monitored numerous secret meetings between Arne Petersen, a Danish peace activist and writer, and three KGB agents. According to the Danish Ministry of Justice, the KGB promised to help finance advertisements officially sponsored by Petersen and signed by prominent Danish artists who wanted Scandinavia to be declared a nuclear-free zone. In November 1981, Norway expelled a suspected KGB agent who had offered bribes to Norwegians to get them to write letters to newspapers denouncing the deployment of new NATO missiles. [2] So we have a reliable source for "Soviet-supported". You can't seriously doubt that there are reliable sources out there for this. Reconsideration (talk) 21:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • And CNN is a reliable source: From an interview with a former KGB agent: ... The [KGB] programs -- which would run all sorts of congresses, peace congresses, youth congresses, festivals, women's movements, trade union movements, campaigns against U.S. missiles in Europe, campaigns against neutron weapons, allegations that AIDS ... was invented by the CIA ... all sorts of forgeries and faked material -- [were] targeted at politicians, the academic community, at [the] public at large. ... [3]I don't find this nomination credible. Reconsideration (talk) 21:45, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The article cites Soviet defectors Lunev and Kalugin's statements on the KGB's funding of campaigns and running of conferences, but they are vague. The best of a clutch of bad sources is Frederick Staar, who had access to FBI reports to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Despite their access to key documents, these authorities do not name any major peace organisation that was run by the Soviet Union. US intelligence sources are also cited; they mention the total sum that is supposed to have been put into western peace movements by the Soviets but they do not name a single organisation either.

Some of the major peace organisations in the Cold War were the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam, National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization), the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, Washington Peace Center, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, European Nuclear Disarmament, War Resisters International and the British Council for Peace in Vietnam. If they were run by the Soviet Union, why has no-one named them?

Three named organisations are said to have been funded by the Soviet Union: the World Peace Council, which was well-known as a Soviet-led organisation, and the virtually unknown Christian Peace Conference and International Institute for Peace.

This imprecision and lack of specificity in the sources, and the notable absence of any reference to any major organisation, makes them questionable. They do not provide a good enough basis for an encyclopaedia article, especially on a topic that is bound to be tainted by disinformation and black propaganda.

It is inherently unlikely that the Soviet Union could have run any western peace organisations, given what we know of them. Most were left leaning, but many of the leftists in them were New Left, Trotskyist or anarchist. They were fiercely anti-Russian and as such were hated by the Communist Party. It is doubtful that the KGB could have had any influence on them. The editors who have constructed this article seem to be unaware of such differences on the left.

Indeed, they seem to be unfamiliar with the history of western peace movements altogether. I had a lengthy exchange with Piotr on the question of Soviet influence on pre-war peace organisations in the UK, which he insisted he had evidence of. Despite my repeated questions, he could not name a single such organisation. If he knew anything about the subject he would know that the major organisation of the period, the Peace Pledge Union was, far from being run by the Soviet Union, a notorious apologist for Nazi Germany!

The one proven attempt at Soviet influence on a peace organisation was a dismal failure. Vic Allen, a Stasi spy, was a delegate to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's governing council and stood against Joan Ruddock for the chairmanship. His Stalinist rants were treated with ridicule on the council and he gained few votes.

The article includes a claim by Sergei Tretyakov that the Nuclear winter hypothesis originated in two articles faked by the KGB and then disseminated by them in the west. The claim is WP:Fringe. This is discussed at Nuclear Winter and Georgy Golitsyn, where it transpires that the alleged articles cannot be identified, that Tretyakov gets the chronology wrong and that there was friendly co-operation between US and Russian atmospheric scientists on the research that led up to Nuclear Winter. Golitsyn, an internationally respected scientist, was the originator of the theory in Russia. This casts doubt on Tretyakov's claims. User:Martintg and User:Biophys, two editors on the secret mailing list, promoted Tretyakov on the Nuclear Winter and Golitsyn talk pages and in this article. To that extent, the Nuclear Winter section in "Soviet-run peace movements" is a POV fork

If there is little evidence of Soviet influence, if it is inherently unlikely and if there are so few reliable sources, how did this article ever come to be written? Since the Second World War conservative ideologues (e.g. Julian Lewis and Vladimir Bukovsky) have presented the peace movement as a Russian tool. I suggest that this article was written to promote a conservative, anti-Russian and anti-peace movement POV.

The POV of several of the editors is revealed in the way they misquote their sources. Whether the misquotation is deliberate, or simply sloppy, it is impossible to say. For example, Staar says that some bodies were "closely associated" with the World Peace Council. This, in the article, was turned into "Soviet-run peace movements" being "supervised" by the WPC, a very different thing. Staar says that the Soviet Union sent delegates to international peace conferences. This was turned into the conferences being "affiliated " with communist front organisations, when Staar never suggested any such thing. (See this revision.) Marshall46 (talk) 23:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very long comment. Could you summarize? You state If there is little evidence of Soviet influence, if it is inherently unlikely and if there are so few reliable sources and then cast aspersions on "several of the editors". Do you mean editors in this discussion? I didn't misquote, I cut-and-paste quoted. The quotes I gave above establish that there is evidence from reliable sources stating that the Soviets influenced some peace groups. It's pretty simple. An NPOV article titled "Soviet-influenced peace movements in the West" rather than "Soviet-run" would be well sourced. The urge to delete doesn't seem to have a foundation in policy. In fact, to make it perfectly clear, I'm going to be bold and move the title. It can be changed back if there's no consensus for it. Reconsideration (talk) 00:15, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As requested, here is a summary of my argument
  • The sources are suspect because, despite their access to key documents, they do not name any major peace organisation in the west. The only organisations said to receive funding are the Soviet-run World Peace Council and two obscure bodies.
  • As the topic is is tainted by propaganda, we need better corroboration.
  • The leftists in peace organisations tended to be anti-Stalinist and hence resistant to Soviet influence. The one proven attempt (on CND) failed for that reason.
  • The section on Nuclear Winter is a POV fork.
  • The editors of the article distorted their sources to strengthen their POV.
Marshall46 (talk) 11:20, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Major organisations" like the African Workers' University, the Berlin Conference of Catholic Christians and the Esperantist Movement for World Peace? Yes, links to such organisations were removed because the article is about western peace movements and most of the organisations on that list are not peace movements. Marshall46 (talk) 18:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - documents a notable, observed phenomenon upon which reliable sources have commented extensively. Yes, may need a rename, and yes, some of the sources may have an ideological axe to grind, but the solution is to present relevant opposing viewpoints, not to get rid of the whole thing. WP:PRESERVE demands no less. - Biruitorul Talk 14:14, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - please don't move the article to new titles undiscussed on talk. There is consensus for a change from run to influenced, but there is no consensus to add "allegations of" to the title. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep there is some interesting things going on with this article, the Afd is titled "Soviet-run peace movements in the West" and the current title is something quite different, while there is no "Request for move" at the article talk page. Very inappropriate to have a different name than the Afd discussion lists. Before any Afd, the naming process should be finalized with correct request for moves, so we know what is exactly at Afd. A name and the resulting scope of the article is something that can be considered during Afd, so it should be settled first. Hobartimus (talk) 19:48, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • There's a discussion currently on the article talk page about the title. I thought my move reflected what the article actually says. Now Marshal's changed the name to a third title. I didn't think it would be disruptive, but perhaps I was wrong. Reconsideration (talk) 23:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Soviet funding and direction of western 'peace' movements is a well documented historical fact. The fact that certain editors would rather pretend this wasn't the case is neither here nor there. Nick mallory (talk) 13:33, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - We do need to be clear about what is meant by a western peace movement. It is well-known that the World Peace Council was funded and directed by the Soviet Union, but to that extent no-one ever regarded it as western. Two other organisations that Staar said had Soviet funding were not really western either: the Prague-based Christian Peace Conference and the pro-Soviet Esperanto Movement for World Peace, which was strong in Hungary and East Germany. All that is left is the International Institute for Peace, which I don't know anything about, but is hardly the basis for an article making such strong claims as this one.
I suspect that there is confusion here between Soviet front organisations, like the WPC and its affiliates, and the western and non-aligned peace movements of the cold war period, which were not Soviet influenced. In the 1950s they attempted to co-operate with the World Peace Council, but there was a major rift in 1962 at a WPC-organised peace conference in Moscow. The following year, forty western organisations, including some of the major peace groups of the period, set up the International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace as a non-aligned alternative to the WPC, to which Soviet delegates were not invited.
So what this article is about is not Soviet influence on western peace movements, but the WPC and its affiliates. These are probably the bodies that Lunev refers to when he talks about Soviet manipulation of the peace movement, and these are the organisations mentioned by Staar. That should be put in the article on the World Peace Council, which takes too much from the organisation's own website and needs improvement. Marshall46 (talk) 15:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've added links to several sources, including books by prominent historians, on the article's talk page [4]. Please take a look - it is ineed a well documented historical fact, not something supported only by "scurrilous right wing presses" etc.radek (talk) 01:40, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- when it's said someone works for a "right-wing think tank" I'd expect something a bit more extreme. Hoover is a well-respected institution. Regnery is definitely conservative, but it's pretty solid. The crack-pipe Christmas tree charge was in a book written by a former FBI agent. As I remember the story, the White House Christmas tree was decorated with items donated by supporters. Most presidents have a few oddball supporters. It's not at all surprising that Clinton would have a lot of them. -- Randy2063 (talk) 01:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep--There have been tons of documents released by the FSB/KGB supporting this. There are likely other references which were not uncovered by the editors. Da'oud Nkrumah 07:08, 6 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dnkrumah (talk • contribs)
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.
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