Talk:Polish Operation of the NKVD

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Title[edit]

This article could use a new title. The current one suggests Polish involvement in the NKVD. Appleseed (Talk) 21:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New name please[edit]

I strongly disagree with the name. The current name is beaurocratic euphemism to cover mass persecutions of Poles.

I think Extermination of Poles by NKVD is much better (100 000 guys killed) Cautious 09:21, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

According to the article the name seems to be one from an 3rd party source, better to use that name than to make one up. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not a good point. If I steal your watch and name this "Return of the appliance" you would cease name it "theft"? Cautious 21:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is a difference how things are called in newspapers and in scholar articles. You would not call a reseacrher from Memorial Society a Stalin sympathiser, would you? I strongly suggest you to read his book. His dispassionate tale is much more impressive than emotional epitets. And much more convincing, too. `'Míkka 01:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Polish operation of NKVD seems to be used by English historiography, see [1].-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is historian slang then. OK New proposal What is about NKVD liquidation operation against Poles —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cautious (talk • contribs) 10:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I thought this was an article about some kind of shadow control of the NKVD by the Poles. I think the title Polish Operation of the NKVD would be better. 66.214.187.229 (talk) 02:42, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mass murder[edit]

Cautious raised an important issue about some of the wording in the article Genocides in history article when writing on the article's talk page:

I don't understand why somebody claims following "In legal terms, the word "genocide" may not be appropriate, because there was no proven intent to destroy a specific national, ethnic, racial or religious group."
The good example is Soviet extermination of Poles 1937-1938. We have documented the whole operation directed for the ethnic group selected due to nationality. We have documented number of victims.

What else is needed to remove this false statement?? Cautious 09:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For something to be a genocide as defined under international law it is necessary to prove that there was intent to destroy specific types of groups. These groups,thanks to USSR diplomatic efforts, do not include social of class groups. There is also another important qualification "whole or in part". The intent is difficult to prove because there is not usually a clear paper trail of evidence. As it is unusual for it to be whole, the "in part" has to be defined and "in part" has a specific meaning under international law see Genocide#In part.

Claiming that any event is a genocide, unless it has been proven to be so in a court of law is complicated because of the complexity of the definition under international law and it is also highly controversial. So if Wikipedia is to make such a claim, it should only do so by quoting third party reliable sources which explicitly state that it was a genocide, otherwise it is WP:OR and against Wikipedia policy. If a third party is used then they may not use the international legal definition, but one of the other definitions as is done in the Australian genocide debate. Further because in this case it is controversial a balanced WP:POV should be given. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

111.000 Poles[edit]

According to discussion on forum.axis, not all from 111.000 were Poles. E.g. In 1937 there were 20.000 shot Poles and around 10.000 shot Russians, Latvians, Jews, Germans within "Polish operation", accused for cooperation, friendship, relations with Poles. Szopen (talk) 10:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is right. Here is what Timothy Snyder writes: In the largest of these, the “Polish Operation” that began in August 1937, 111,091 people accused of espionage for Poland were shot. In his book, Bloodlands.Snyder adds: Not all of these were Poles, but most of them were. Poles were also targeted disproportionately in the kulak action (...) By a conservative estimate some eighty-five thousand Poles were executed in 1937 and 1938. And here is what Nicolas Werth says in Unfortunately, we do not know exactly how many members of the diaspora nationalities were arrested, sentenced and executed, since not everyone arrested in the Polish Operation, for example, was a Pole or a Soviet citizen of Polish origin, [nor were all arrested Poles or Soviet citizens of Polish origin included in the Polish Operation.] The number 111 091 tells how many people were killed in the "Polish Operation", not how many ethnic Poles that were killed.Iselilja (talk) 19:41, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The new title[edit]

I find the new title rather dubious... All the sources in the article, with one exception (that yelds just 4 Google hits, and whose author is a conservative journalist), constantly refer to the events as the "Polish operation". Moreover, a simple Google Books search shows that "Genocide of Poles" is used to refer to the policies of Nazi Germany or their Ukrainian (anti-Soviet) collaborators, never to a policy of the Soviet Union. On the other hand "polish operation" is an established term. Since page move is a rather major edit, I bypassed the revert part of BRD, hoping we can reach an amiable solution. Thank you Anonimu (talk) 19:53, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The subject of this article concerns mostly people of the Polish ethnicity and background, that's why an online search in the Polish langugage yields more substantial results. For example, the phrase "Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim" a word-for-word translation from the English "Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union" can be found in dozens of bookstores as the title of a popular scholarly monograph by Dr Tomasz Sommer from the Polish Academy of Sciences, see: Księgarnia: "Rozstrzelać Polaków. Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim."

When I remove the phrase "bookstore" (Księgarnia) from my Google search (see above), but retain the same phrase in Polish, i.e. "Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim", I get a staggering 69,200 results. See "Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim" in Google search.

I would love to see what other editors think about the above statistics. — Stawiski (talk) 22:14, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually this article mostly concerns English-speakers (it's en.wikipedia after all), and the phrase is practically absent in the English speaking world. A simple filter to exclude on-line bookshops leaves a mere 97 hits if we excluded the words "buy", "order" and the Polish equivalents, and half of that if we also excluded "price" and Polish equivalent. The remaining links are: further online stores! (the books seems to have a good marketing), library catalogs entries for Sonners's book and some forums. Basically, it seems that, even in Polish, the term is exclusively used by Sonner. Moreover, a closer look shows that the publishing house, 3S Media, is actually owned by Sonner[ref], so per Wikipedia policy about self-published sources I'll have to remove any reference to it from articles(it can be used in the article about Sonner when it will be created). Anonimu (talk) 22:54, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tomasz Sommer is a doctor of sociology at PAN and, at the same time, the Editor-in-Chief of magazine Czas (not the owner of 3S Media). Foreign language WP:RS material is as good as all other references in English Wikipedia. The new WP:TITLE best reflects the article topic by identifying it unambiguously, in contrast to what the NKVD used to call it. That's why I renamed the article. However, feedback from a broader community in that regard would also be appreciated. — Stawiski (talk) 04:39, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The link I've provided identifies him as one of the owners of the publishing house... moreover, the website of the publishing house calls him a founder and finance director. This makes the book a self-published one, thus failing WP:RS - it has nothing to do with language. The new title uses an extremely politicised term to call a series events which do have an established English name: "polish operation" (all the sources in the article, except Sommer, call it that way).Anonimu (talk) 06:28, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
More feedback is still very much needed. For example, Marek Jan Chodakiewicz in his article for Rzeczpospolita uses the term: the greatest massacre of Poles in the times of peace ("największa rzeź Polaków w czasach pokojowych"). The choice of words, which would describe the topic of this article unambiguously is somewhat limited. Chodakiewicz writes further on: Unequivocally – according to definition by Raphael Lemkin – we're dealing here with the genocide ("Jednoznacznie więc – zgodnie z definicją Rafała Lemkina – mamy tu do czynienia z ludobójstwem"). See: 'Notes'. — Stawiski (talk) 16:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Since you asked for feedback, I have to support Anonimu's position. The Wikipedia policy on article names is WP:COMMONNAME, favoring the most common English name for an article's subject. According to Google Books, there are 674 results for "Polish operation" together with "Soviet" [2] and about 300 results for "genocide of Poles" [3] (describing the wartime actions of Nazi Germany and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army). Polish usage does not affect the policy of WP:COMMONNAME, but the name on Polish Wikipedia is also "Polish operation" (Operacja polska NKWD). P.S. I now see that Stawiski has been banned as a sockpuppet of Loosmark, who was first banned from the encyclopedia in 2010 before returning here as Stawiski and renaming the article. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 00:59, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All reliable sources use quotation marks, without exceptions[edit]

Please respect Wikipedia core policy guidelines. Poeticbent talk 04:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is very clear that these articles are using scare quotes, but in no way is it the official name of the event, nor should scare quotes be used in an article title. The following sources do not use quotation marks:
There are indeed exceptions. WP:TITLE calls for naturalness and consistency: scare quotes are not a natural part of article titles, and there is also Greek Operation of NKVD and German Operation of the NKVD. (And it also calls for precision and conciseness, so the parenthetical years are unneeded because there are no other articles about Polish Operations at other times). None of the three foreign language articles use the unnecessary quotation marks. Reywas92Talk 01:44, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The basic problem is that without the quotation marks (and yes, they may be scare quotes but this is an instance where such usage is totally justified) the title of the article is grammatically misleading. "Polish Operation" is the subject. Polish Operation of the NKVD has "Operation of the NKVD" as the subject with "Polish" serving as a modifier. This is incorrect. I don't see anything in WP:MOS which precludes usage of quotation marks in a title, especially when such are warranted.
With regard to "Greek Operation of the NKVD", all that means is that there is another article which has a similar problem. It *should* be "Greek Operation" of the NKVD. I noticed that that article went through several moves and removes as well. Your "German Operation of the NKVD" is a red link.VolunteerMarek 02:05, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But your second example still makes perfect sense. Indeed, it *is* an operation of the NKVD. What kind of operation? A Polish operation, an operation having to do with the Polish. I don't want to play around with genocide, but if I as an American were to have an operation regarding Canadians, it could certainly be called a Canadian Operation, and calling it a "Canadian Operation" instead doesn't tell a reader a damn thing about it. Besides, the purpose of quotation marks is not supposedly clarify what an adjective modifies. This is actually a very weak example of scare quotes because meaning is completely unchanged by adding them. I have absolutely no idea what is implied by their use, a description is required. No. It is a plain old Greek Operation. The link is German operation of the NKVD, a redirect, but the article correctly omits quotation marks. Reywas92Talk 03:40, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly enough, you Reywas92 have included in your samples above – unintentionally, I suppose – the case of Polish operation which actually was a genuine Polish operation (Akcja Polska, without quotes) in the Lemko Region. It was the action of the Polish government to restore order among Lemko Rusyns who wanted to sepatate from the Polish state. This was the only genuine Polish operation we can speak of in the interwar years. Just like in the case of "Polish death camps" (meaning, built in Poland), "Polish operation" has nothing to do with scare-quotes, and everything to do with the NKVD secret language. Therefore, the only logical alternative to quotation marks, would be to call our article The Polish Operation of the NKVD (emphasis mine). Please see what the links above reveal upon closer inspection.

  1. Simon Sebag Montefiore: the Polish operation
  2. Anne Applebaum: the Polish operation
  3. Sarah Davies, James Harris: the Polish operation
  4. Norman M. Naimark: the Polish operation
  5. Timothy Snyder: the Polish operation
  6. Encyclopedia of Mass Violence: the Polish operation, etc.

The only exception among the examples quoted by Reywas92 (above) in the native Polish website: IPN (from Poland) Poeticbent talk 04:49, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 28 February 2017[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved to Polish Operation of the NKVD. (non-admin closure) TonyBallioni (talk) 19:12, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Polish Operation of the NKVD (1937–38) → Polish Operation of the NKVD (1937–1938) – According to our MOS:DATERANGE policy guideline: the range's end year is given in full always. Two-digit ending years can be used where space is limited; which is not the case here. Poeticbent talk 16:31, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink).  — Amakuru (talk) 16:53, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - the long format isn't usually necessary for adjacent years. Doesn't add any value.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:53, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The idea is, we follow the policy rather than insist on making exceptions where there's no pressing need for them.
Note: A change from a preference for two digits, to a preference for four digits, on the right side of year–year ranges was implemented in July 2016 per this RFC. Poeticbent talk 17:30, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. And I support the policy, for general clarity. It seems the operation ran for 15 months, so I don't see exceptions that might allow for two-digits on the right. – Reidgreg (talk) 22:40, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - considering there's no other similarly named article on WP, so no need to disambiguate, are the dates needed at all? Are there other events referred by reliable sources as "Polish Operation of the NKVD" that may require future disambiguation? Anonimu (talk) 23:03, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to Polish Operation of the NKVD per Anonimu. No need to disambiguate here. Jenks24 (talk) 09:57, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Recent edits[edit]

I reverted, as besides unexplained removal of sourced content -e.g. McDermott and Naimark - the content in the article severely misrepresented a BLP scholar - Michael Ellman - whose quite clearly presents both sides of the genocide/ethnic-cleansing issue and states there is no authoritative ruling here. Icewhiz (talk) 13:31, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No it doesn't. Stop making stuff up. Ellman is quoted correctly, although succinctly. That's why the word "maybe" is in there.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:34, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ellman is quoted to show as if he is supporting this viewpoint, while his writing does not support it - merely showing both sides. Now - why are you removing an expansion of Ellman? Why are you restoring a WP:SYNTH (and BLP vio as well) on the text on Montefiore? He doesn't "agree" with Ellman - he wrote his text 4 years prior, and says "mini-genocide" in passing (and not specific to the Polish context). Why are you objecting to Naimark? Martin? We generally use mainstream English language scholarship for topic such as these (as opposed to op-eds in right-wing media or "Polish Club Online"). Icewhiz (talk) 13:39, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There's no "BLP vio" on Montefiore. You're making stuff up. I don't know what SYNTH you're referring to. Ellman is quoted correctly and with DUE weight. I am not objecting to Martin, he's in there. What are you talking about? Naimark is talking about Great Purge in general and you're misrepresenting him. We use reliable sources, whether they're English or Polish. You know this, since it's been explained to you before, including by ArbCom.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:43, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Op-eds or tabloid interviews are not reasonable sources - particularly not from WP:FRINGE political figures. Montefiore doesn't "agree" with Ellman - he says something different - and he wrote his book prior to Ellman. Ellman is misrepresented - he quite clearly states why multiple scholars do not consider a genocide, and states there no authoritative ruling on the legal characterization - he certainly does not "assert" anything. Naimark addresses the Polish Operation and the great purge as a whole - stating it is hard to classify it as genocide. Why are you challenging McDermott ?
Ellman is NOT misrepresented. He says it was a genocide, in his opinion, but then lists some possible reasons why others may disagree. Montefiore does come to essentially the same conclusion. Naimark first discusses the Polish Operation, then switches to discussing the great purge. You're doing SYNTH.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:21, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is pretty much a consensus in the literature that "Ethnic" operations by NKVD were directed against specific ethnic groups, such as Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Karachais, and yes, Poles (as described on the page). So, I would agree with VM here. My very best wishes (talk) 20:57, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @My very best wishes: Certainly - Population transfer in the Soviet Union#Ethnic operations (see also Mass operations of the NKVD) - were an instance of ethnic cleansing (large scale killing, expulsion, and intimidation) per mainstream sources. Per most sources, however, they are not genocide (for several reasons - I suggest you read Ellman page 24 who enumerates why not (Ellman is one of the few who say "maybe" - while stating "there is as yet no authoritative ruling on the legal characterisation of the ‘Polish operation’ and the other ‘national operations’ of 1937 – 38"). This is evident both in the sources, and in the linked Wikipedia articles (not that Wikipedia articles are sources). I will further note that the "narrative" of this being a genocide (particular on the Polish operation - not others) - was added by a blocked sock - combined diff. The nature of some of the sources - e.g. Sommer - was challenged already back then - diff - "Sommer is self-published (he owns the publishing house), not a reliable source. also, he is foremostly known as a conservative journalist and eurosceptic politician". Do lock at the before and after versions of the sock edits. Icewhiz (talk) 05:02, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
One more time. It's is absolutely NOT TRUE that "Ellman page 24 enumerates why not". What Ellman does is say "It should be noted that there are other actions of Team-Stalin in the 1930s that might well qualify as genocide as defined in the UN Convention. In particular this concerns the ‘national operations’ of 1937 – 38. He then says that there are three possible reasons why someone might disagree with this assessment. He then freakin' REFUTES these possible reason. For example, he says that one may argue that the written order did not specifically target Poles. But, Ellman says, the NKVD knew what was meant by the instructions and that it was an order to kill people on the basis of their ethnicity. And so on.
It is therefore utterly dishonest to pretend that what Ellman does is "reject" the notion that this was a genocide. He is doing the very opposite by refuting arguments which reject this notion. He just has to list the arguments in order to reject them - Icewhiz takes this and pretends that because Ellman has to enumerate the arguments he rejects, then these must be Ellman's arguments. You really cannot get a more blatant misrepresentation of source and sophistry. Little stunts like these are exactly why Icewhiz deserves a topic ban from this and other topics.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:21, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As I stated above - "Ellman is one of the few who say "maybe"", - and he does indeed enumerate objections to such a classification: "There are three objections to treating the ‘Polish operation’ as genocide. The first is.... - in a long paragraph beginning in page 686, ending on 687, and concluding with "Since no legal tribunal to try the crimes of Stalinism has been established, there is as yet no authoritative ruling on the legal characterisation of the ‘Polish operation’ and the other ‘national operations’ of 1937 – 38.". He provides a partial rebuttal (implementation vs. the actual order) for objection 1. He does not refute nor endorse objections 2 and 3 - he describes them.Icewhiz (talk) 07:09, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • One can easily find academic sources that explicitly argue that ethnicity-based operations by NKVD in general were "genocide (for example, here), and that their Polish operations were genocide (for example, here). Note: these are scholarly academic sources. My very best wishes (talk) 04:08, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I would suggest you introduce both of those sources to the article (as a discussion on the legal point of whether this was genocide or ethnic cleansing). However there are also sources that contest this designation. When designations are contested - we don't state them in our own voice - we state that "X,Y, and Z consider this to be genocide, while A, B, and C do not.". Icewhiz (talk) 06:25, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
One can say that all genocide designations have been contested, (Holocaust denial and Armenian Genocide denial are most famous examples). Being contested does not mean much as we can see from these examples. Now, speaking about Ellman (the discussion above), I do not think the version you tried to fix misrepresented anything, but it is indeed difficult to summarize his "views". Here is my understanding. He is discussing the question if there is actually any qualitative difference between the genocide and presumably "other" cases of ethnicity-based mass murder ("ethnic cleansing"). He provides some arguments (probably suggested by other) how these cases could be distinguished, but these arguments do not hold under any reasonable scrutiny. What these arguments are in this specific example per Ellman? (1) The NKVD was killing not only Poles, but also peoples of other ethnicities. Yes, sure. Nazi did the same. (2) They failed to eliminate all Poles. Yes, sure. Nazi also failed to eliminate all Jews. (3) They did not have a stated goal and orders to eliminate or persecute all Poles. No, they actually did (just as as they had it with respect to Chechens and other ethnic groups). The NKVD executioners had no doubt who had to be eliminated. Actually, Ellman tells that all ethnic cleansings can be reasonably viewed as genocides, I think. My very best wishes (talk) 12:46, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrites[edit]

Preserving here by providing this link. There's some c/e and a rewrite of the "Genocide characterization" section which I renamed to "Asessment". I took out Montefiore, as he provides a comment in passing; it's also unclear what a "mini-genocide" is. Tomasz Sommer, a journalist and author, is undue. "Among others" is original research & it's unclear who these "others" are and if sources are reliable. I also removed the liberal use of "genocide" terminology, as it does not align with RS, i.e. Category:Genocides in Europe. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:10, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with removals of several sources. However, the sourced opinions/views by both Simon Sebag Montefiore and Tomasz Sommer should be included per WP:NPOV. Passing or not does not really matter because author is notable historian, and there is no any policy-based reason to exclude journalists, especially when they do research and publish books on the subject. Also this source - was not it reliably published? We do have a page about the author, Marek Jan Chodakiewicz. I think his views must also be mentioned per WP:NPOV. My very best wishes (talk) 21:38, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. It would be better to propose removal of specific stuff on talk first. Also I note that this edit is very similar to [11]. Granted, even indef banned users can make valid points sometimes, and I don't want to poison the well, still, I think we should be rather careful with adding content that was/is supported by such users, particularly ones which are socking right and left right now. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:00, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that opinion of Sommer counts because he did research in this area. I disagree about Montefiore. People express personal opinions about many things and we cannot include each and every of them. IMO in an encyclopedic article only facts and opinions opinions about facts of experts on the subject count. Otherwise articles will turn into POV mess. Lembit Staan (talk) 16:22, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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