Talk:Anti-cosmopolitan campaign

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1948?[edit]

It began in 1946. 86.148.226.121 (talk) 20:20, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Failed verification and WP:RS issues[edit]

Womtelo,

The content is "has been widely described as a thinly disguised antisemitic purge", so any cited source would need to support this content. I checked the sources and did not find anything that would support this. Would you quote the specific passage from the source that you think supports this statement?
Blumenthal is a working paper by a grad student. Working papers are similar to a preprint and are not usually peer reviewed, while a grad student typically does not meet WP:SPS requirements.

(t · c) buidhe 17:45, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted your edits again.

It doesn't look like you checked the sources you added. Labendz' dissertation is under embargo and there is nothing in the publicly available abstract that supports the content.
PhD dissertations are not necessarily reliable.

(t · c) buidhe 20:41, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Where do you see that Labendz' dissertation is under embargo? Anyway, it is just one reference among hundreds. Are you trying to dispute the notion that the anti-cosmopolitan campaign was antisemitic in nature? This is a well-known historical fact. What is your agenda here? -- Womtelo (talk) 21:15, 15 November 2023 (UTC).[reply]

Womtelo Any sources that you cite need to directly support the content, or else it's WP:Original research. It doesn't matter what an editor's opinion is, they need to provide the sourcing, or their edits should be reverted. I'm still waiting for the quotes from the sources that verify the content. (t · c) buidhe 21:18, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The quote you provided doesn't alleviate my concern about failed verification. This article is not about the cosmopolitan trope but a specific campaign, and the quote says nothing about whether the interpretation is "widely described" (t · c) buidhe 21:47, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On page 55 Labendz doesn't mention the anticosmopolitan campaign at all and on 56 he only makes one oblique reference to it. This is not a suitable source to cite nor does it support the content. (t · c) buidhe 21:50, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So, what is the point that you are disputing? You're not being clear. Are you claiming that the Anti-cosmopolitan campaign was never antisemitic? This does not square with all the evidence, and the academic consensus. Why do you want to challenge these well-established facts? -- Womtelo (talk) 21:59, 15 November 2023 (UTC).[reply]

My concern is that the sources that you are citing don't support the content of the article. (t · c) buidhe 23:15, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Of course they are. But you haven't answered my question: Why are you disputing the well-known fact that the anti-cosmopolitan campain was a case of antisemitism? Everyone knows it was, and there are hundreds of articles and books to prove it. You clearly are pursuing a personal agenda, and I find that quite concerning. -- Womtelo (talk) 23:22, 15 November 2023 (UTC).[reply]

Wikipedia isn't interested in what editors claim to be true, but what we can verify in reliable sources. Believing a statement is true is not a substitute for providing reliable sources that support the content. (t · c) buidhe 23:31, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If I can help clarify, it doesn't seem that buidhe is disputing the fact but is rather asking for further verification because currently there are 4 citations next to the claim "has been widely described as a thinly disguised antisemitic purge" and of the two that I am able to access (Blumenthal [1] and Labendz [2]) only the Blumenthal source uses the words "thinly veiled antisemitic trope." The other 3 sources need to make a similar statement in their sources saying that it's widely described as... xyz, even if it's a well known fact, otherwise it's considered original research, which includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources.

It also seems that the other issue is that the Blumenthal source may not be a reliable source per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, which says to use care when using dissertations as Some of them will have gone through a process of academic peer reviewing, of varying levels of rigor, but some will not. If possible, use theses that have been cited in the literature; supervised by recognized specialists in the field; or reviewed by independent parties. Eucalyptusmint (talk) 02:01, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here from NORN. SCHOLARSHIP issue Blumenthal is probably reliable given its use in other academic sources[3][4](there's likely more as I only did a quick check).
Northwood's "Antisemitism and the American Far Left" is available for preview on Google books, pages 162 - 163. It's makes clear the trial was antisemitic in nature, but doesn't say it was an antisemitic purge.
The forth reference "From Anti-Westernism to Anti-Semitism" is available through JSTOR so is accessible if you have access to the Wikipedia Library, but I don't have time at the moment to read the whole article, so can't pass comment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:04, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ActivelyDisinterested thanks for your comment but this article is not about a trial. Perhaps you're confusing it with the Slansky trial? (t · c) buidhe 21:30, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I was working on looking for uses of Blumenthal work ("Fourteen Convicted, Three Million Condemned: The Slansky Affair and the Reconstitution of Jewish Identities After the Holocaust"), and then went onto reading pages 162–163 "Antisemitism and the American Far Left" which is about the trial and associated events. The Anti-cosmopolitan campaign isn't mentioned on pages 162–163, it's talking about those events but doesn't use the name or call it an antisemitic purge (although it does say the events were antisemitic). The work is available through Cambridge Core, also through Wikipedia Library. I'm going to read that section and comment again. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:44, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In relation to "From Anti-Westernism to Anti-Semitism", the journal article available through JSTOR, it's subtitled "Stalin and the Impact of the 'Anti-Cosmopolitan' Campaigns on Soviet Culture" and states Eventually, the victims of the anti-Semitic purges were rehabilitated, but this almost always occurred posthumously and in a perfunctory manner. So it does support "antisemitic purge". -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:50, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So "Fiends in Human Form" (chapter 6 of "Antisemitism and the American Far Left"), is talking about the events covered in the article as the Anti-cosmopolitan campaign, that purges happened, and that they were antisemitic. However it never states that the Anti-cosmopolitan campaign was an antisemitic purge, let alone a thinly disguised one. Sorry about the earlier confusion my mind jumped tracks along with the text. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:57, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've also tried to search and look at other sources available online and it seems that those sources aren't consistently referring it as an antisemitic purge. @Womtelo would you be able to share any additional sources you've come across that have referred it as that? Otherwise, one thing that is consistent that many of the sources [5] p. 327, [6], [7] p.49, [8] p.25, and the few above are stating is that the anti-cosmopolitan campaign also turned into an antisemitic campaign. So to better reflect what the sources are stating the sentence could be reworded as the following, "The anti-cosmopolitan campaign was an anti-Western campaign in the Soviet Union which began in late 1948 and has been widely described as a campaign with antisemitic overtones." Thoughts? Eucalyptusmint (talk) 20:40, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would support that if you strike "widely described". I think it may be true but I haven't found sources that verify it. An alternate wording based on some of the sources could be "The anti-cosmopolitan campaign was an anti-Western campaign in the Soviet Union which began in late 1948. As the campaign went on it increasingly targeted Soviet Jews" (t · c) buidhe 20:58, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

hi, I think the proposal by Eucalyptusmint is good. The word “antisemitic” should be printed, rather than a euphemistic wording “increasingly targeted Soviet Jews”. There is ample consensus in the literature, that the anti-cosmopolitan campain ['ACC'] was always antisemitic in nature, from the very beginning; so it is not even accurate to present it as a later evolution of the campaign over time. The reason is simple: cosmopolitan was used as a synonym of Jew -- as confirmed by hundreds of publications. In that sense, the "anti-cosmopolitan campaign" was, in fact, antisemitic by definition. (This explains why the ACC is almost always mentioned in books, or papers, or sections, whose titles include “Soviet antisemitism”. In that sense, “widely described” seems accurate to me.) By the way, thanks to Eucalyptusmint for his bibliographical search, among so many references. -- Womtelo (talk) 21:19, 17 November 2023 (UTC).[reply]

Hi womtelo, I was going by the sources cited by Eucalyptusmint which indicated that the targeting of Soviet Jews increased from 1949. I don't have an opinion as to whether using the word "antisemitism" explicitly would be helpful, but whatever wording is used needs to be based on reliable sources and not your personal opinion about these historical events. (t · c) buidhe 21:25, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. This is why I am not mentioning my opinion, but the scientific literature on these matters. -- Womtelo (talk) 22:02, 17 November 2023 (UTC).[reply]

You're going to need to cite specific sources. "The scientific literature" is not WP:Verifiable as I've been telling you all along. (t · c) buidhe 22:10, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The current sources all state quite clearly that these events were antisemitic in nature. Whatever the wording ends up being that bit is easily verifiable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:46, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

agree with ActivelyDisinterested and seems there's a possible consensus for the suggested sentence if it's reworded to "The anti-cosmopolitan campaign was an anti-Western campaign in the Soviet Union which began in late 1948 and has been described as a campaign with antisemitic overtones." Eucalyptusmint (talk) 02:59, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]