Number of Intentional Deaths In Communistic Countries

[asianboy]

I am interested about how many people had died under communism. As already suggested by the title, I am looking for the number of INTENTIONAL deaths, not the death caused by accidents such as famine, diseases, and bad government policies. The reason why I am asking this here is because I cannot seem to find some reliable sources. Most rabid Anti-Comunists say that at least 100 million people had died; the moderates tend to estimate 60-90 million deaths; and finally, most of the rabid commie's estimates are around 20-32 million.

In case you are wondering, I do not really trust the wikipedia page with all of its warnings. I was wondering if any of you guys can talke about your opinions and the evidence to support them.

Thank you

Edit: BTW, I won't really accept "The Black Book of Communism" as a reliable source.

[Sir Pignans]

I am interested about how many people had died under communism. As already suggested by the title, I am looking for the number of INTENTIONAL deaths, not the death caused by accidents such as famine, diseases, and bad government policies. The reason why I am asking this here is because I cannot seem to find some reliable sources. Most rabid Anti-Comunists say that at least 100 million people had died; the moderates tend to estimate 60-90 million deaths; and finally, most of the rabid commie's estimates are around 20-32 million.

In case you are wondering, I do not really trust the wikipedia page with all of its warnings. I was wondering if any of you guys can talke about your opinions and the evidence to support them.

Thank you

You mean people like stalin? Who murdered people?

Those sorts of statistics?

[asianboy]

You mean people like stalin? Who murdered people?

Those sorts of statistics?

Yes, I am looking for those.
Thank you

[Sir Pignans]

Yes, I am looking for those.

Ok, this might be more suited in the history forum?

But Stalin I think was generally thought to have killed 20 million people.

Hang on, I'll go looking for a source.

Well here's a site which confirms the 20 million figure for Stalin, I'm not sure how reliable it is though sorry.

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/stalin.html

[Il-Principe]

To quote the Livre du noir du communism ( black book of communism), communists are responsible for close to 100 million deaths.

- Soviet Union 20 million
- China 65 million
- Vietnam 1 million
- North Korea 2 million
- Cambodia 2 million
- Eastern Europe 1 million
- Latin America 150 000
- Africa 1.7 million
- Afghanistan 1.5 million
- Comintern and communist parties, who did not run a country 10 000

All in all close to 100 million deaths (German edition 2000. p. 16). According to editor Stephane Courtois the first place belongs to Cambodia, whose regime killed about a quarter of its population in about three and half years.

Imho 100 million are probably an exaggerated figure, although it's hard to say, what's the real number. Casualty figures are always extremely unreliable. Anyway whenever in power communists always established a murderous repressive regime.

[Mig el Pig]

To quote the Livre du noir du communism ( black book of communism), communists are responsible for close to 100 million deaths.

- Soviet Union 20 million

Don't know much about the others but the 20 million of Soviet Union is due to 'creative' accounting:
for example, 5 million of those 20 million died during the Famine of 1921. Which was after 6 and a half years of world war, 2 revolutions , a very brutal civil war, secession struggles and the westeren military intervension to support the Whites. (and famines already happened frequently before this endevor)

So we can't really put the blame solely on the ideology called Communism.

[Russ_Ace]

To quote the Livre du noir du communism ( black book of communism), communists are responsible for close to 100 million deaths.

- Soviet Union 20 million
- China 65 million
- Vietnam 1 million
- North Korea 2 million
- Cambodia 2 million
- Eastern Europe 1 million
- Latin America 150 000
- Africa 1.7 million
- Afghanistan 1.5 million
- Comintern and communist parties, who did not run a country 10 000

All in all close to 100 million deaths (German edition 2000. p. 16). According to editor Stephane Courtois the first place belongs to Cambodia, whose regime killed about a quarter of its population in about three and half years.

Imho 100 million are probably an exaggerated figure, although it's hard to say, what's the real number. Casualty figures are always extremely unreliable. Anyway whenever in power communists always established a murderous repressive regime.

Those nombers probibly include all the forign enimeys comunist fought off, for example Ho chi mihn hated the idea of killing his own people and his men killed 1/2 mill americans so that should make up most of the caualtys. (sos for spelling, I h8 dislexia)

[Deadly Virus]

*Ahem*

[dogukan]

The communism in many of the said regimes is very arguable anyways. The purpose of socialism is government serving to the people. Not people serving for the state. Thats fascism.

[Panzerbear]

Communists introduced whole bunch of reforms that led to mass starvation on the countryside. its not like commies were intentionally killing people left and right for their own personal enjoyment. the most bloodbath was usually committed during civil wars and revolutions. the rest are very approximate numbers.

[Jingles]

I believe the number of executions under Stalin ranges from 700,000 confirmed to over a million estimated. Not 20,000,000.

[Panzerbear]

I believe the number of executions under Stalin ranges from 700,000 confirmed to over a million estimated. Not 20,000,000.

well, correct, the actual deaths administered by Stalin's direct orders were at about ~900,000 range.
the 20 million came from the estimate of the total deaths of political repressions, starvation, gulags, forced evacuations, and whole bunch of other things initiated by Stalin's regime during 25 years.

quite frankly, nobody ever bothered to separate the victims of Stalin's regime from regular people who died from a heart attack during his time in power. if you were a thief or a rapist who was thrown into a gulag cell, then you are automatically labeled as dissident... but this is beside the point. the situation with mass starvation and utter disregard to human lives in China and Cambodia were much much worse.

[Jingles]

Also, lol @ two things: The black book of Communism which was written by far-right Ukrainians (oh my, now that's a balanced source if ever I saw one ¬_¬), and how people like to throw Cambodia in as an example. They were so far from Communism that they were actually supported by the United States, and got their asses invaded by Vietnam. I mean seriously, there's commies, and then there's just total crackpots.

[Il-Principe]

What makes you think that the Red Khmer were not a communist party/movement? Care to elaborate?

And what author of the black book of communism is

a) Ukrainian

and/or

b) far-right?

Are you sure that you don't talk about a completely different book? Hint: Do you think the book was named "La livre noir du communism, because all the authors were far-right Ukrainians?

[wilpuri]

I am interested about how many people had died under communism. As already suggested by the title, I am looking for the number of INTENTIONAL deaths, not the death caused by accidents such as famine, diseases, and bad government policies.

Some famines and what you call "bad policies" were intentional, like in the case of the Ukranian famine.

Also, lol @ two things: The black book of Communism which was written by far-right Ukrainians (oh my, now that's a balanced source if ever I saw one ¬_¬), and how people like to throw Cambodia in as an example. They were so far from Communism that they were actually supported by the United States, and got their asses invaded by Vietnam. I mean seriously, there's commies, and then there's just total crackpots.

The Khmers had initially the support of much of the Western leftist intelligentsia.

[Vermelho_Steele]

@Asianboy: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm
Hope it helps.

The communism in many of the said regimes is very arguable anyways. The purpose of socialism is government serving to the people. Not people serving for the state. Thats fascism.

The ultimate fact of the matter is that many of these people saw themselves as commie's and were trying to establish communist ideology into practise. They tried to create a Marxist heaven on earth and the results were anything but heavenly.

[Jingles]

My bad, wrong book. There's been a few with similar titles. The one in question is still visibly right wing, however. It spends almost as much time attempting to disprove Marxism as it does actually discussing "victims", it tries to equate Communism with Nazism, and opens with the ridiculous line that communism "turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government." The book is a piece of shite, nay, propaganda.

As for the Khmer, they went against everything that Marx and/or Lenin ever taught or wrote about. They emphasised the urbanisation of society and the growth of the urban proletariat. The Khmer did the exact opposite. Like I said, they were out of line enough for neighbouring communist Vietnam to invade and put a stop to it, and even more chillingly, out of line enough for the United States to support them against Vietnam.

[Il-Principe]

I repeat my question:

What of the authors are far-right? I've the distinct feeling that you didn't read the book and that you're talking about about a completely different book. And where does the book equate Nazism and communism? Stephane Courtoius mentions shortly in his foreword similarities between communist and national socialist repression politics. Besides that National Socialism is only mentioned in the book when the two ideological systems meet historically.

Interesting. According to your logic, China wouldn't be a communist country too, because Mao Tse Tung also emphasized the strength of the peasantry. Pol Pot was strongly influenced by Mao, absorbed his anti-city bias and took it to the extreme. Also you could see Lenin not as a true Marxist, because he started a revolution in a country, which clearly wasn't ripe for it. According to Marxist orthodoxy a country like Russia would have to go through industrialization first, before it could enter the communist phase. You see, we can play this game the whole day. Fact is that all 20th century communists deviated from Marxist orthodoxy and that you can consider them all as not "true" communists. Cambodia was a communist country, maybe not by the judgment of 19th century Marx, but certainly by the standards of the 20th century.

[Jingles]

I repeat my question:

What of the authors are far-right? I've the distinct feeling that you didn't read the book and that you're talking about about a completely different book. And where does the book equate Nazism and communism? Stephane Courtoius mentions shortly in his foreword similarities between communist and national socialist repression politics. Besides that National Socialism is only mentioned in the book when the two ideological systems meet historically.

What do you have to say to this little gem then?

"Two of the Black Book's contributors, Nicolas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin, sparked a debate in France when they publicly disassociated themselves from Courtois's statements in the introduction about the scale of Communist terror. They felt that he was being obsessed with arriving at a total of 100 million victims. They instead estimated that Communism has claimed between 65 and 93 million lives. They rejected his equation of Soviet repression with Nazi genocide. Werth said there was still a qualitative difference between Nazism and Communism. He told Le Monde, "Death camps did not exist in the Soviet Union", and "The more you compare communism and nazism, the more the differences are obvious."

taken from wiki.

Interesting. According to your logic, China wouldn't be a communist country too, because Mao Tse Tung also emphasized the strength of the peasantry. Pol Pot was strongly influenced by Mao, absorbed his anti-city bias and took it to the extreme. Also you could see Lenin not as a true Marxist, because he started a revolution in a country, which clearly wasn't ripe for it. According to Marxist orthodoxy a country like Russia would have to go through industrialization first, before it could enter the communist phase. You see, we can play this game the whole day. Fact is that all 20th century communists deviated from Marxist orthodoxy and that you can consider them all as not "true" communists. Cambodia was a communist country, maybe not by the judgment of 19th century Marx, but certainly by the standards of the 20th century.

No, according to my logic, Lenin was a Leninist, Mao was a Maoist, and Pol Pot was an idiot. Both Mao and Lenin although following different philosophies emphasise the continued urbanisation of the population. Lenin felt that the peasantry would have a junior role to play in the revolution, whilst becoming members of the proletariat themselves, and Mao taught that the peasantry and proles must work together with elements of the bourgeoisie to build a socialist society. Pol Pot sought to "de-urbanise" and turn the proles into peasants, the opposite of what other socialists sought to achieve. The Khmer represented an aberration of an aberration, and you'll have to look long and hard to find a communist these days that even remotely defends Pol Pot or the Khmer Rouge.

[asianboy]

What do you have to say to this little gem then?

"Two of the Black Book's contributors, Nicolas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin, sparked a debate in France when they publicly disassociated themselves from Courtois's statements in the introduction about the scale of Communist terror. They felt that he was being obsessed with arriving at a total of 100 million victims. They instead estimated that Communism has claimed between 65 and 93 million lives. They rejected his equation of Soviet repression with Nazi genocide. Werth said there was still a qualitative difference between Nazism and Communism. He told Le Monde, "Death camps did not exist in the Soviet Union", and "The more you compare communism and nazism, the more the differences are obvious."

Thanks for the quote, Jingle.

I apologize if this has caused any confusion, but I forgot to say that I won't really accept "The Black Book of Communism" as a reliable source. In my experience, this book was cited the most by rabid Anti-Communists.
This is why I am asking the question in this forum; I am looking for the other sources that I might not have been aware of.