Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Poznań 1956 protests

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Not promoted --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 06:35, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Poznań 1956 protests[edit]

Nominator(s): Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me


A GA of mine about a strike that was suppressed with a military force in communist Poland. I'd appreciate comments on what needs to be done to make it A-class worthy. Thank you, Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 19:33, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Sorry, you asked about A-class... a lot of the reading in English still needs to be done for A-class, but the comments below were aimed firmly at getting this FAC (via A). Fifelfoo (talk) 00:37, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The volume of scholarly english language accounts needs to be expanded. Please let me know the quality of your library for obtaining some of these (offer of help):
    • T Kemp‐Welch "Khrushchev's 'secret speech'and polish politics: The spring of 1956" Europe‐Asia Studies, 1996 (JSTOR)
    • M Osa "Mobilizing Structures and Cycles of Protest: Post-Stalinist Contention in Poland, 1954-1959" Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 2001
      • who cites: Ladorski, Henryk. 1992. Niepokonani Poznań 1956 [The Unknown Poznan 1956]. Poznań: Zwiàzek Powstańców Poznańskiego Czerwca 1956, Druk. Pallotinum.
      • Machcewicz, Pawel. 1993. Polski Rok 1956 [Polish Year 1956]. Warsaw: Wyd. Mówia¸ wieki.
      • Osa, Maryjane. Forthcoming. Solidarity, and Contention: The Networks of Polish Opposition, 1956-1981. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
    • P Machcewicz… Rebellious satellite: Poland, 1956 2009 - Stanford University Press (BOOK REVIEW OF THE SAME: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14682745.2010.493714 )
    • T Kemp-Welch "Dethroning Stalin: Poland 1956 and its legacy" Europe-Asia Studies, 2006
    • FG Sanín Elite perceptions of workers, conflict and socialism: the case of Poland, 1956-1989 - Science & Society, 1995
    • J Granville From the Archives of Warsaw and Budapest: A Comparison of the Events of 1956 - East European Politics & Societies, 2002
    • AR Johnson Tinderbox: East-Central Europe in the Spring, Summer, and Early Fall of 1956 (review) - Journal of Cold War Studies, 2006
    • P Machcewicz Intellectuals and Mass Movements. The Study of Political Dissent in Poland in 1956 - Contemporary European History, 1997
    • D Li… The Polish Crisis of 1956 and Polish-Chinese. Relations Viewed from Beijing - PISM Series, 2007
    • (Primary, but English Primary:) HH Semmes Justice behind the Iron Curtain: Polish Lawyers Fight for the Criminally Accused - ABAJ, 1957 - HeinOnline
    • P Piotrowski Mapping the Legacy of the Political Change of 1956 in East European Art - Third Text, 2006 - Taylor & Francis
    • A Deighton 'A Different 1956': British Responses to the Polish Events, June–November 1956 - Cold War History, 2006 - Taylor & Francis
    • This: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=5171572
  • So I'm going to want to see more Machcewicz and Kemp-Welch for starters :) Granville does a bunch of sociological comparative Poznan vs Budapest 1956.
  • Then you'd need to look through the better ones of those for their citations :).
  • We also need to get rid of the Polish civic history and replace it with scholarly material. The 2007 translation was of mixed quality (readable English, but not brilliant prose by any stretch), and so I'd suggest hard copyediting by the lead editor, then a formal request for copyediting so your prose shines before FAC.
  • On content:
    • What about Social Democrats and other non-Bolshevik socialists? In Hungary in 1956 they survived at plant level despite the forced mergers and often became activists; I'd suspect similar structures in the underground of Poznan. Here the high quality secondaries will help!
    • In the Aftermath the effect on the Soviet Union, the longer term effects on the PUWP, the Gomulka thaw's use of the threat of force against Soviet troops, the comparison to Hungary and East Germany (in historiography) are underworked. The legal fall out needs to be better worked. If there is any data in the historiography on working class self-organisation 23-30 June this needs to be included. The narrative of the actual military conflict needs to be better worked in terms of identifying command, unit, order, movement, action and result (even if sketchy, at the moment the object and subject of sentences aren't clear due to needing clearer writing). The modern remembrance probably needs more finessed identification of the role of memory of the strikes. Oh yeah, and the aftermath in the West!
  • Good luck, this is a big one. About the best I can say is we need it, and the art is good! The general narrative structure is fine, though remember when reading the historiography to look for alternate structures and weights in the highest quality works. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:35, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Lots of good comments, thank you! This will definitely improve the article! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 01:14, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • The quality of sourcing, and the treatment of "1956" in general probably mean that you can justify "The events of 1956 in Poland" and "The events of 1956 in Central Europe" as articles from a scholarly base if you're interested in creating them in the long term. Many scholars like Granville treat this as a failed Central European Revolution (effectively)—correspondingly Zoltan Tildy. This is of course separate to Gormulka's appointment, the Poznan crisis, and the Hungarian revolution. But for now, those seem to be the most directly connected 1956 works. If you ping my talk page over christmas I'm sure I can find a citation from one of my Hungary 1956 tomes doing a comparison of Poznan and Budapest, and possibly try to make a copy of it available for research purposes. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:23, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments:
    • "independent course of 'local, national socialism' instead". (I think that the MOS would ask for double quotation marks here. There are other examples throughout the article that will probably need similar treatment);
    • there seems to be a mixture between US and British English variations. For example "Defense" and "armored" (US), but "Armoured", "Mechanised" and "labourers" (British), please make this consistent;
    • a second comma should probably be added here: "another IPN scholar, Stanisław Jankowiak" (after "Jankowiak");
    • a second comma should probably be added here: "Stanisław Hejmowski, the lawyer who defended them" (after "them");
    • something missing here: "the workers' demands were mostly of economic nature" (Perhaps try: "the workers' demands were mostly of an economic nature);
    • in the References, is this a typo: "Warswaw Voice" (I don't know, but should it be "Warsaw Voice"?);
    • the lead mentions 400 tanks, but I can't seem to find this in the body of the article;
    • the infobox mentions 30 AFVs, but I can't see this in the body (you mention 2 armoured personnel carriers and 30 vehicles, is this what the infobox is referring to?);
    • the infobox mentions 200-300 armed fighters, but this figure doesn't appear to be discussed in the body;
      • Infobox figures have been adjusted and referenced. Also, they are mentioned in lead. Is MoS fine with that, or should those numbers be added somewhere to no-lead section?
        • From reading WP:LEAD, I believe there is some leeway to allow mentioning minor information in the lead and nowhere else, but usually it is best to discuss everything that is in the lead somewhere in the body of the article. AustralianRupert (talk) 21:08, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • the lead says between 57 and 78 people were killed, but the infobox says between 53 and 78;
      • Doh. I'll need to get the book again to verify that. One is a typo, most likely, but which one? Other sources I have access to, so I'll simply replace it with one that confirms 57. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 13:32, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • the figure of 78 killed doesn't appear in the body of the article (I found the figure of 74, though, is this what you meant to have in the infobox and lead?)
    • the casualties for the security forces (8 killed) appear in the infobox, but don't appear to be discussed in the body of the article. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:55, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • G'day, I've had another look over this article. I have the following final points (some of which I missed last time, sorry):
    • this is a little unclear: "57 dead and about 600 wounded (including eight on the side of the government)". Specifically, "including eight" - eight what? Eight killed or eight wounded. My suggestion is to change this to: "57 dead and about 600 wounded (including eight killed and several wounded on the side of the government)";
    • in the lead the 13-y-o boy is mentioned but he is not mentioned in the body. If it is is significant enough to go in the lead, I feel it really should go in the body;
    • the number of tanks probably needs to be worked into the body somehow, as currently the reader doesn't really get a good idea of the scale of the forces deployed. 390 tanks is a lot of armour to send against protesters;
    • I really feel that you need to mention the armed fighters in the body somewhere. What were they armed with? What did they do?
    • this is only a minor issue, but currently your citations out not in numerical order. For instance: "and the situation changed dramatically.[7][8][6][1]". If you take this to FAC, they will probably say that you should re-order them like so: "and the situation changed dramatically.[1][6][7][8]". There are a number of examples of this, which might need attention;
    • "Many historians consider the Poznań 1956 protests to be an important milestone in modern history of Poland..." I wonder if you should specifically provide a couple of examples of historians that hold this view. For instance, "Many historians, such as John Smith and Mary Kafoops, consider the Poznań 1956 protests to be an important milestone in modern history of Poland...". The reason I say this is that "Many historians" is open to challenge per WP:W2W , so by providing examples you would be helping to mitigate this. AustralianRupert (talk) 22:52, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • G'day, I don't want to sound pushy, Piotr, but are you able to respond to my comments? I would be more than happy to support the article if these last couple could be addressed. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Sorry about that, 3k things on the watchlist is making me miss a lot. I need to fix that. In the meantime, I've decided to put improvement of this article on hold, primarily as Fifelfoo raised a lot of good points about the need to expand this, points which I don't feel I have the time or will to address however. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 05:23, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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