Mass Murder: Communist Regimes Worst

CDR Salamander: 20th Century Deathcount

The latest issue of National Geographic has a solid write-up on mass murder (genocide) in the last century. Their graphic tells the story better than about anything.

Chew on it and think about a couple of things. (1) When you ask a Leftist about “Government mass murder” or “murderous dictators” who is most likely to come out of their mouth? Hitler, Pinochet, and somehow the US would most likely be in the top 5. The real hip will say “Guatemala.” What you won’t hear, beside the Hitler ref, is the ground truth (i.e. they couldn’t find China’s ocean of blood if it was poured down their baggy pants).

“Guatemala?” I think CDR Salamander forgot about the untold millions and millions murdered when the U.S. overthrew Iran’s Mossadegh in 1953. Now that’s genocide.

Comments

  1. Pigilito wrote:

    An excellent book on Stalin’s part in the millions of Soviet deaths is Martin (son of Kingsley) Amis’ Koba the Dread. It was written in part to show unreconstructed Leftist how bad Lenin and Trotsky were, but focuses on Stalin’s depredations.

    I can’t recommend it enough.

    Posted 06 Jan 2006 at 11:03 am

  2. Alon Levy wrote:

    Suharto killed 500,000 people in one month… per diem that’s not much less than the Ukrainian famine (10 million in 9 months), and more than the Holocaust (6 million in 4 years).

    By the way, as a -5.38/-8.82, I think I qualify as a leftist, and for the record, if you ask me to name the 20th century’s 5 worst mass murderers, I’ll easily name you Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, and then give the names of the next two mass murderers who’re on my mind. Depending on the day you ask me, I could name Pol Pot, Tojo, Kim Il Sung, Suharto, Chiang Kai-Shek, Lenin, and Ho Chi Minh.

    Also, while we’re at it, the graphic severely undercounts some murders, especially those caused by fascists. Somehow Hitler killed 11 million rather than 50 million people; somehow Stalin killed 20 million rather than 40 million people; somehow Suharto and the military regimes of Nigeria and Pakistan don’t get any labels even though Saddam, who killed far fewer people than they did, does.

    The rest of the article ranges from laughable to ridiculous. Rummel isn’t a credible source on anything; Death by Government has the annoying tendency of cherry-picking the highest possible death estimates for communist regimes and for Hitler, and lowest possible estimated for fascist regimes. Somehow he managed to achieve higher death-rate figures for communism than The Black Book of Communism.

    Posted 09 Jan 2006 at 10:31 am

  3. commissar wrote:

    Alon,

    Somehow Hitler killed 11 million rather than 50 million people; somehow Stalin killed 20 million rather than 40 million people;

    The article is about “genocide,” i.e. the systematic murder of civilians. AFAIK, the total casualties of WW2 are about 50MM, and the victims of the Nazi Holocaust 11-12MM (6MM Jews). Again, based my knowledge of the subject, Stalin’s “terror” within the Soviet Union was greater than the Nazi Holocaust. 20MM is one estimate. I’m not sure of your reference to 40MM; as above, that approximates total WW2.

    The article is not about per diem or monthly genocide rates.

    Posted 09 Jan 2006 at 11:31 am

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