Between 260 and 300 million people were killed by their own governments in the 20th century.
The tally of battlefield fatalities in both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam only comes to ~34 million.
Mao Zedong was responsible for ~73 million alone. Stalin managed ~61 million, and Hitler, between 20 and 23 million. These numbers do not count those who died on battlefields. These are the victims of purges, ethnic cleansing, forcible “population controls,” and gulags.
Other notable democides:
- East Pakistan/Bangladesh: 3/71-12/71, 1,000,000-3,000,000
- Cambodia: 4/75-1/79, 1,900,000-3,500,000
- Rwanda: 4/94-7/94, 500,000-1,000,000
- Turkey/Armenia: 1909-1918, 1,883,000
- Yugoslavia under Tito: 1944-1987, 1,072,000
- North Korea: 1948-1987, 1,563,000
(Numbers from Barbara Harff, “No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder since 1955.” American Political Science Review 97.1 (Feb 2003): 57-73.)
In contrast, the Crusades are estimated at an even one million, and the French Revolution at 263,000.
Of course, these sorts of things only happen in totalitarian societies, right? In case you’re thinking it can’t happen here, consider that more than 12 million native Americans died in the name of Manifest Destiny, and 15 million Africans were killed in the course of the American slave trade.
And while you’re at it, before you throw on that oh-so-trendy Che Guevara t-shirt, remember that he presided over the political exectutions of at least 400 “enemies of the Cuban state” and helped form a regime whose murder tally runs well over 10,000.
The common thread to all the major state genocides of the 20th century is that the subject peoples were disarmed by their governments in every case. When the government has all the weapons, they have a license to trample any human rights they choose. We’re still primates by our nature, and might does make right.
A civilized government trusts its citizens with the means of self defense. Anything else is oppression waiting to happen.
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?”
— A. Solzhenitsyn
(Thanks again to Oleg Volk for the picture.)
One thought on “Perception”
I am not going to go into too much detail here …. but I had the opportunity to travel and visit locations on this earth where mass executions took place. I understand that in some of these locations, the people were left defenseless. In others, they were tricked. Owning any kind of a self defense mechanisim, whether its a firearm or security system, doesn’t always protect individuals. I am curious, in your perspective, what is the pentultimate means of self-perserverance? I would be very interested to read a post on this subject :)