Ranking list of most lethal regimes of the world history (victims, killings)

Your project is a worthwhile one but will take many hours of work to get a good estimate of the numbers. One has to define leader. Who was responsible for the death of Rowandans?
Do not forget the Armenians after WW I.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War  (17 million civilians killed)

Since you are ranking regimes rather than genocides, are you going to include deaths due to famine and disease? The number can go way up from the above if so.

To put it clear: I am biased and I just want information to support my claim, that communistic regimes account for the worst genocides in history.

Mikelfritz: your fringeworld suggestion is the link coming the closest to what I'm looking for.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/COUBLA.html

I would presume that this book has citations.  The blurb says "as many as 25 million in the former Soviet Union, 65 million in China, 1.7 million in Cambodia".

So, henrikatwork, you don't want the truth, you just want to be right? Judging by the list above, it would appear that you are essentially correct, although it doesn't appear to be something unique to communist countries.  What this list really says is that the real cause if mass death and destruction is ideology.

Ideology plus totalitarian power plus a disarmed populace.

>> What this list really says is that the real cause if mass death and destruction is ideology. <<

Not at all. Britain has an ideology, the U.S. has an ideology, hell, Switzerland has an ideology.


Communism is clearly the most evil and vile thing the world has ever known or experienced. That much is obvious to anyone that doesn't have a hard-code *leftist ideology*.

Of course not all ideologies will lead to mass murder. Pacificism is an ideology, but isn't likely to lead to mass murder. And contrary to your statement, communism is hardly the most "evil and  vile thing the world has ever known or experienced".   First, communism in and of itself is not evil, it is forcing ideologies on other people by violence that is evil. Second, it is only the scale that distinguishes communism on this list. Nor are the numbers accurately known. There have been ideologies that are far more evil. Probably the biggest reason the list is skewed toward communism is that it happens to be an ideology that has the necessary pre-requisites for mass killings at a time when the populations are large enough and the technology sufficiently advanced to allow the numbers to be as large as they are.  

>>  First, communism in and of itself is not evil, it is forcing ideologies on other people by violence that is evil. <<

Which is a pre-requisite of communism.  Forcing an ideology on people by violence is the sine qua non of communism.  [Help for blu: That means you can't have communism without it.]

No need to get condescending, I am well aware of what sine qua non means. We probably agree in principle as well, anyway. I just happen to distinguish between the ideology of communism and the reality of communist regimes of the 20th and 21st century. I also happen to disagree with the ideology of communism, but on different grounds than those for which I ifnd the communist regimes deplorable.

But, I also recognize that it is not inherent evil in the system that has led to the levels of atrocity we have seen in the recent past. I have no doubt that had the means and opportunity been available, many more ancient ideologies would have resulted in just as massive violence and murder.  Notice that the worst non-communist atrocities also have been recent. So, while I agree with the terms "evil and vile", I just find the term "most" in there to be a little extreme. It depends on the criteria used.

Communism is inherently evil, and must be so to put itself into place.  Marx and Lenin both admitted that.  One *must* be *brutal* to bring communism into effect anywhere.  No people will give up their land and property to the state without a deadly struggle of some sort.  That is simply a fact.  Any attempt to deny that reality just makes you look silly.

Thanks everyone for your input.

I'm not political, it's just that this annoying person I'm discussing with, has never ever been to a suburb and has a very low level of  real world understanding.

She's lived in Sweden for 2 months. I give you an example of her logic. "IT-technicians are so well paid in Sweden, much more than even medical doctors". I tell her it is not true, since the typical IT-guy will make 25-35/month and a medical doctor will typically make 30-70/month. She argues against me, using the massive empirical sample of two people she know - one medical doctor that graduated 3 months ago (her cousin) and one programming specialist (her other cousin's boyfriend).