Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Commune (model of government)

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 no consensus. Although what becomes clear is that this needs serious cleanup if it is to be kept. Sandstein 11:10, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Commune (model of government)

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

No independent, reliable, secondary sourcing for the "commune as a model of government"; none in the last decade and none forthcoming. An article for revolutionary government would be scoped too wide for our purposes. While Commune (Marx) could link to his The Civil War in France (where he discusses the Paris Commune), it would not make sense to use this "model of government" article title for that purpose. No other suitable redirect or merge targets. czar 01:34, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. czar 01:34, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'm not unsympathetic to this nomination; given the article reads more as an essay with appearances of SYNTH, TNT might be the correct option. I'd be interested to hear others' views. However, as a topic, there's multiple analyses available that cover examples such as the Paris Commune, the Baku Commune, the Canton Commune, the Kwangju Uprising (the latter referred to as a commune) and the Chiapas Commune. The subject itself, the structure of insurrectionary political organization, should be differentiated from an intentional community. Of course there's an overlap here with Soviet (council). There is sourcing that could be used for an article but which would require treading a careful path not to end up in SYNTH. ... but not clear to me in its current form this can be rescued.

References

Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 03:38, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, DMySon (talk) 05:48, 19 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:SYNTH. Intentional community might be a redirect target, although that might be confusing rather than beneficial. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 22:47, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with cleanup Per what Goldsztajn has said. There's decent analysis published about this topic, but cleanup is required here. AusLondonder (talk) 15:17, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 12:22, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. There can be no doubt that this is a notable topic. So the only question is whether it is in such a poor state that TNT is called for rather than cleanup. I don't think that is necessary, language problems are fairly straightforward to deal with. My main criticism is that there is insufficient focus on the anarchist conception of the commune, for which I suggest Ruth Kinna's book The Government of No One: The Theory and Practice of AnarchismISBN 0141984678 would make a good starting point for sourcing. SpinningSpark 10:29, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Spinningspark@AusLondonder@Goldsztajn, sorry for not responding sooner. What sources are you referencing as giving "no doubt"? I've reviewed the above sources and there is no common concept of "revolutionary commune" about which we have enough sourcing to write an encyclopedic article. I have Kinna's book and every mention of "commune" is in reference to the Paris Commune (or Kropotkin, in reference to federations of self-governing municipalities in the model of the Paris Commune), but that goes back to my original point. Anything that warrants saying about the legacy of the Paris Commune as a model can be covered in the existing article's Legacy section and split out summary style when shown an overabundance of sourcing. Anything that warrants saying about Kropotkin's views on revolutionary government can be covered in his biography or The Conquest of Bread. Medieval communes are already covered. Temporarily reclaimed spaces are usually labeled temporary autonomous zones or liminal spaces. The question is what sourcing discusses a "commune model of government/revolutionary government" as a concept with dedicated coverage. I don't see it here and I'm curious where you do. I only see a lot of content that fits in other places and not a unified concept.

Source analysis

"Kropotkin's commune and the politics of history" covers Kropotkin's discussion of the Paris Commune as a model, from The Conquest of Bread (where any related commentary should be covered
the Brill encyclopedia is inaccesible to me but from what I see, it's covering the concept of commune (administrative division), not its Paris/revolutionary connotations
Kwangju Commune uses "commune" as a synonym for uprising and doesn't describe a revolutionary government
the rest do the same thing: besides cursory mentions of Oaxaca and Oakland Communes, there is no discussion of a revolutionary government, it's just a loanword that refers back to the Paris Commune (and should be covered as part of the Paris Commune's legacy) but does not refer to a common concept; by the same token, Canton Commune redirects to Guangzhou Uprising and there are plenty of others in Commune#Government and military/defense but again, they do not refer to a common conception of a revolutionary government beyond using the word "commune" as a dictionary definition
"The Commune Concept in Mao Tsetung Thought" refers to a "'commune state' or commune-type government" in reference to a "commune-type revolution as exemplified by the Paris Commune" (p. 63). There is a great section on "What Is a Commune?" which is the question we are asking in this discussion, and the answer is "a prototype of modern revolution" based on Marx's analysis of the Paris Commune (The Civil War in France). Note that this is Marx's own conception, so the only responsible place to discuss that is in its existing article. There is no distinct concept of a "commune" between Marx and Kropotkin and every uprising that has been called a Commune about which to write an encyclopedia article.

czar 23:22, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll come back to this for a longer response, but I see a difference between insurrectionary and revolutionary, the former being more time limited and less governmental, rather than organisational. Whether the sources justify that is a different thing. :) Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 22:43, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Per Nom and 力. -- Otr500 (talk) 04:34, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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.