From: Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls
The Black Book of Communism (in my opinion the best scholarly work on the subject) seems to vote for Hitler as the answer to the question of who's worse, Hitler (25M) or Stalin (20M).
Also, remember Hitler ruled for a shorter period of time thus making the Hitler directed death toll much worse.
I suppose that the 20th century death tolls in some sense are unknown.
Here is the problem. Stalin had punishment battalions whose job was to clear minefields (laid by Germans) by linking hands and walking over them. Over and over.
Were the deaths of those poor men (many just cut off by the maneuvers of the German Army, or the cowardice of other Russian units) the fault of Hitler, who started the war, or Stalin, whose policies sent them to their death?
In like manner, Mao's bloodiest toll was from the famines of the "Great Leap Forward" and the foolishness of the "Cultural Revolution". Was that his fault, or the fault of the frightened minions who followed and exaggerated his orders far to excess?
Yes. All are guilty. Certainly Hitler and Stalin had much more in common, in ideology and means, than you would get by reading the history books in highschool now.
Now Chang Kai Check was a thug who made good. He was once a small time enforcer for a drug dealer "Big Eared Tu". After Chang made good, the US pressured him to cut back on the drug trade. Big Eared Tu was, as a small irony, appointed as the Chinese Nationalist official responsible for stopping the drug trade.
Then throw in the people that died when Stalin and Hitler combined to make war on Poland and Finland.
AVERAGE: Of the 17 estimates of the total number of victims of Stalin, the median is 30 million.
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/tyrants.htm
Question: Who was the Bloodiest Tyrant of the 20th Century?
Answer: We don't know.
That's probably the saddest fact of the Twentieth Century. There are so many candidates for the award of top monster that we can't decide between them. Whether it's Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong or Iosif Stalin is, quite frankly, anybody's guess.
Ok, that's interesting, BUT, to me a guy who killed 10 is just as bad as the guy who killed 20. The GuLAGs, the dekulakification of Russia, the government engineered droughts, the building of the White Canal, the purges, etc., are just as bad as the Nazi racial purification inspired death camps.