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Check for Provide an accessible overview (
MOS:INTRO): Done
Major Point 1: Saint Petersburg and foreign visits: 1893–95 "Following on from his early life, during which he had become devoted to the cause of revolution against the Tsarist regime in the Russian Empire and converted to Marxism, Lenin moved to St. Petersburg. There he joined a revolutionary cell, and became a vocal advocate for Marxism within the revolutionary socialist movement. Entering a relationship with fellow Marxist Nadezhda Krupskaya, he toured Western Europe to build ties with other Russian revolutionary emigres and learn more about the international Marxist movement. Upon returning to Russia, he was arrested for sedition in 1895" (summarised well in the lead)
Major Point 2: Siberian exile: 1895–1900 "and exiled to Shushenskoye in the Minusinsky District of eastern Siberia for three years, where he devoted his time to translating and writing revolutionary texts." (not a concise summary of the corresponding section in the body)
Major Point 3: Munich, London and Geneva: 1900–05 "His exile over, in 1900 he moved to Western Europe, where he joined the editorial board of Iskra, the publication of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). Iskra's base was moved from Munich to London and then to Geneva, each time accompanied by Lenin. At the party's second congress, held in London in 1902, a major schism erupted between Lenin and his supporters (the Bolsheviks) and Julius Martov and his supporters (the Mensheviks); Lenin emphasised a strongly centralised party controlled largely by the leadership, whereas Martov accepted a wider party with more independence of thought." (summarised well in the lead)
Major Point 4: Revolution and aftermath: 1905–14 "Lenin returned to Russia briefly during the Revolution of 1905, but fled again when the Tsarist authorities defeated the revolutionary forces and cracked down on dissent." & "Living in Paris and then Krakow, he focused on internal conflict within the Marxist movement, opposing the ideas of the Mensheviks and Alexander Bogdanov; he penned Materialism and Empirio-criticism to counter his critics." (summarised well in the lead)
Major Point 5: First World War: 1914–17 "During the First World War, he relocated to Switzerland, where he argued that socialists should work toward converting that "imperialist war" into a continent-wide "civil war" in which the proletariat could overthrow the bourgeoisie. He summarised his thought in the book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and also re-interpreted Marxism on the basis of reading Hegelian philosophy." (summarised well in the lead)
Check for Relative emphasis: Done
Major Point 1: Saint Petersburg and foreign visits: 1893–95 "Following on from his early life, during which he had become devoted to the cause of revolution against the Tsarist regime in the Russian Empire and converted to Marxism, Lenin moved to St. Petersburg. There he joined a revolutionary cell, and became a vocal advocate for Marxism within the revolutionary socialist movement. Entering a relationship with fellow Marxist Nadezhda Krupskaya, he toured Western Europe to build ties with other Russian revolutionary emigres and learn more about the international Marxist movement. Upon returning to Russia, he was arrested for sedition in 1895" (the lead gives due weight as is given in the body)
Major Point 2: Siberian exile: 1895–1900 "and exiled to Shushenskoye in the Minusinsky District of eastern Siberia for three years, where he devoted his time to translating and writing revolutionary texts." (the lead does not give due weight as is given in the body)
Major Point 3: Munich, London and Geneva: 1900–05 "His exile over, in 1900 he moved to Western Europe, where he joined the editorial board of Iskra, the publication of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). Iskra's base was moved from Munich to London and then to Geneva, each time accompanied by Lenin. At the party's second congress, held in London in 1902, a major schism erupted between Lenin and his supporters (the Bolsheviks) and Julius Martov and his supporters (the Mensheviks); Lenin emphasised a strongly centralised party controlled largely by the leadership, whereas Martov accepted a wider party with more independence of thought." (the lead gives due weight as is given in the body)
Major Point 4: Revolution and aftermath: 1905–14 "Lenin returned to Russia briefly during the Revolution of 1905, but fled again when the Tsarist authorities defeated the revolutionary forces and cracked down on dissent." & "Living in Paris and then Krakow, he focused on internal conflict within the Marxist movement, opposing the ideas of the Mensheviks and Alexander Bogdanov; he penned Materialism and Empirio-criticism to counter his critics." (the lead gives due weight as is given in the body)
Major Point 5: First World War: 1914–17 "During the First World War, he relocated to Switzerland, where he argued that socialists should work toward converting that "imperialist war" into a continent-wide "civil war" in which the proletariat could overthrow the bourgeoisie. He summarised his thought in the book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and also re-interpreted Marxism on the basis of reading Hegelian philosophy."s (the lead gives due weight as is given in the body)
The Russian communist revolutionary and politician Vladimir Lenin began his active revolutionary activity in 1892, and continued till assuming power in the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Check for Format of the first sentence (
MOS:BOLDTITLE): Done
Check for Proper names and titles: Done
Check for Abbreviations and synonyms (
MOS:BOLDSYN): None
I'm glad to see your work here. I do have some insights based on the above checklist that I think will improve the article:
I think the lead can be improved in order to provide an accessible overview and to give relative emphasis for the Siberian exile: 1895–1900.
Besides that, I think the article looks excellent. Midnightblueowl, please feel free to strike out any recommendation from this review which you think will not help in improving the article which is our main aim here. All the best, --Seabuckthorn♥22:52, 18 February 2014 (UTC)reply
Under normal circumstances, the footnotes for
Early revolutionary activity of Vladimir Lenin are more than adequate. I would recommend - and I personally do this as a matter of course in all my recent articles - is to provide the direct quotation of the passage from which the editor has summarized and paraphrased the material in the article. It takes a few minutes to include a citation of this kind, and it seems prudent, and considerate, to provide Service's material, as it pertains to the article, "on demand", as it were. Would that be too much trouble?
36hourblock (
talk)
00:19, 2 April 2014 (UTC)reply
I think that that is an interesting idea,
36hourblock, however in this case it has the major disadvantage of exponentially increasing the length of the article in question, which is something that we should fundamentally avoid, as per Wikipedia policy. It would also take many, many hours to do, which I personally think would be much better spent improving other articles on Wikipedia, including those on Lenin. I think also that we should distinguish between Service's historical studies of Trotsky (which have been heavily criticised for factual innacuracy) and Lenin (which have not; see Lenin: A Biography). Service has of course devoted a significantly larger part of his life to the study of Lenin, only devoting his attentions to Stalin and Trotsky at a later date in his career. Thus, his work on Lenin (although certainly politically slanted in a very anti-socialist direction) is a lot more factually trustworthy than his work on Trotsky. For these reasons I personally would advise against the reforms to the referencing that you suggest. All the best,
Midnightblueowl (
talk)
15:04, 20 April 2014 (UTC)reply
You appear to have misapprehended my request. No change to the body of the article is necessary. Merely provide the passage from each Service citation (perhaps a few sentences or so), that support a dozen of so footnotes. This would hardly entail a large investment of time: you possess the source material, do you not?
To your second point, I would only repeat that Service has been charged, by reputable sources, with misrepresenting historical events regarding Leon Trotsky, a revolutionary associate of Lenin. If you deem Service worthy as a source, so be it. But I strongly urge you to provide extended quotations that support your material in the article. As I pointed out, my footnotes in recent articles provide this courtesy, and my sources have not, to my knowledge, come under scrutiny by mainstream historians for engaging in misrepresentations and omissions.
36hourblock (
talk)
00:12, 22 April 2014 (UTC)reply
I am responding to a third opinion request for this page. I have made no previous edits on
Early revolutionary activity of Vladimir Lenin and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The
third opinion process is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes.
The addition of "a few sentences" to each of a dozen citations can easily mount up, and such additions do tend to make references sections appear cluttered. One or two, yes, if there are very special reasons, but I think a dozen would be over the top. Citations identify sources; they don't save us a trip to the library.
The main thing, though, is that adding such text wouldn't significantly address the real issue here, which is how much weight should be given to Service's book. That's a question that should be addressed by experts, so I would suggest inviting watchers of the main article
Vladimir Lenin, and members of the Wikiprojects listed at the top of this page, to join the discussion. A further resort could be to
WP:RSN, perhaps.
(For future reference, please note that requests at WP:3O should link, not to the article, but to the talk page section where the discussion is taking place.)
Stfg (
talk)
10:56, 24 April 2014 (UTC)reply
Dear Stfg - If you want to call in the "experts", be my guest.
I'll give you an example of what I'm requesting. It's easy, "clutters" nothing, and no "trip to the library" - Midnightblueowl owes it to the editor who requests it, especially under these unusual circumstances.
@
36hourblock: that was rude, and you seem to have misunderstood the purpose of WP:3O. WP:3O is a general service, not one where you can expect people knowledgeable in your topic area to be present, and it's not one where you can call upon other editors to come along and get deeply involved. I'm not going to call in the experts, or otherwise to dig in deep here; this is your discussion, not mine, and it's up to you how you proceed from here. A condition of giving a 3O is that we haven't been involved with the article or the participants before. I am well aware of what these quotations look like, and the example below doesn't change my view. Copy-pasting from sources is an unusual special measure, which would be copyright violation if we were to overdo it. Moreover, copy-pasting selected passages isn't a sound way to assess the utility of a source. I don't consider that it's called for here. Please remember to sign your posts. Regards, --
Stfg (
talk)
00:41, 25 April 2014 (UTC)reply
It may be helpful to add that the reason I think you need "experts" to look at this is that evaluating the utility of a given source really requires familiarity with the broader literature on the subject. That isn't something you'll get from WP:3O request, but is something you'll probably get from the talk pages I mentioned. Also, you didn't ask for just or or two quotations, which might be justified for source verification, but a dozen, which I feel is well over the top. --
Stfg (
talk)
01:08, 25 April 2014 (UTC)reply
These evasions are quite useless to addressing my simple request, a request that is in no way "unusual" or "over the top".
@
36hourblock: I'm not sure why you would choose to assert that I "owe it to the editor who requests it [i.e. yourself]" to make the changes which you believe are necessary; that is simply not the case. I don't owe you anything. I agree with
Stfg's statement that your comments toward them has been rude, and I personally also feel that your attitude to myself has been equally discourteous. Simply because we have not agreed with your proposed changes to the article (which you insist that I implement in my own time) does not give you permission to behave in this manner.
Midnightblueowl (
talk)
19:41, 1 May 2014 (UTC)reply