30 Worst Atrocities of the 20th Century

The Hemoclysm ^ | Last updated June 2000 | Matthew White

[vannrox]

30 Worst Atrocities of the 20th Century

The Hemoclysm

"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it." -- Jack Handy

---

Year by year death toll of the century's atrocities:

---

The 30 or so worst bloodlettings of the Twentieth Century have (probably) been...

	Death Toll	Event	Dates
1	50,000,000	Second World War (Some overlap w/Stalin. Includes Sino-Japanese War and Holocaust. Doesn't incl. post-war German expulsions)	1937-45
2	48,250,000	China: Mao Zedong's regime. (incl. famine)	1949-76
3	20,000,000	USSR: Stalin's regime (incl. WW2-era atrocities)	1924-53
4	15,000,000	First World War (incl. Armenian massacres)	1914-18
5	8,800,000	Russian Civil War	1918-21
6	4,000,000	China: Warlord & Nationalist Era	1917-37
7	3,000,000	Congo Free State [n.1]	1900-08
8	2,800,000	Korean War	1950-53
9	2,700,000	2nd Indochina War (incl. Laos & Cambodia)	1960-75
10	2,500,000	Chinese Civil War	1945-49
11	2,100,000	German Expulsions after WW2	1945-47
12	1,900,000	Second Sudanese Civil War	1983-
13	1,700,000	Congolese Civil War	1998-
14	1,650,000	Cambodia: Khmer Rouge Regime	1975-79
15	1,400,000	Afghanistan: Civil War	1980-
15	1,400,000	Ethiopian Civil Wars	1962-92
17	1,250,000	Mexican Revolution	1910-20
18	1,250,000	East Pakistan: Massacres	1971
19	1,000,000	Iran-Iraq War	1980-88
19	1,000,000	Nigeria: Biafran revolt	1967-70
21	800,000	Mozambique: Civil War	1976-92
21	800,000	Rwandan Massacres	1994
23	650,000	French-Algerian War	1954-62
24	600,000	First Indochina War	1945-54
25	500,000	India-Pakistan Partition	1947
25	500,000	Indonesia: Massacre of Communists	1965-67
25	500,000	Angolan Civil War	1975-94
25	500,000	First Sudanese Civil War	1955-72
25	500,000	Decline of the Amazonian Indians	1900-99
30	365,000	Spanish Civil War	1936-39
31	350,000	Somalia: Civil War	1991-
?	Unknown	North Korea: Communist Regime	1948-

The totals here are subject to the usual margins of error. They also contain all varieties of atrocity: battle deaths, civilian casualties of war, democide, famine caused by the economic disruption, etc.

Although each of these is a distinct event, many are closely inter-related. Stalin (#3), Chiang Kai-shek (#7) and Mao Zedong (#2) were major players in World War Two (#1), which was clearly a sequel to World War One (#4). The Russian Civil War (#5), which paved the way for the rise of Stalin, was an integral outgrowth of World War One. The anarchy that swept China following the overthrow of the monarchy brought Chiang to power, put Mao in conflict with him, and encouraged the Japanese invasion. The fall of the Japanese Empire following World War Two left Korea up for grabs (#8), and Mao's army was among those who tried to grab it.

It's very possible, therefore, that future historians will consider these events to be mere episodes of a single massive upheaval -- the "Hemoclysm", to give it a name (Greek for "blood flood") -- which took the lives of some 155 million people. All in all, over 80% of the deaths caused by Twentieth Century atrocities occurred in the Hemoclysm.

It divides neatly into two parts -- Eastern and Western. The Eastern Hemoclysm began with the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in China in 1911 leading to 38 years of Civil War and a Japanese invasion. In 1949, the bloodbath of the interregnum gave way to a greater bloodbath as the Communists consolidated power under Mao (who died in 1976). When seen as a continuum, this phase of Chinese history was a 65 year nightmare which took some 75 million lives.

The first sparks of the Western Hemoclysm were the Balkan Wars (1912-13) which quickly ignited the First World War. This brought down four of the most powerful monarchies in Europe, leading to a power vacuum which was eventually filled by the Nazis in Germany and the Communists in Russia, who came into conflict during the Second World War. The death of Stalin in 1953 finally extinguished the Western Hemoclysm after the loss of some 80 million lives.

If it weren't for the fact that the Second World War is considered to be a single event, we could probably consider the Eastern and Western halves of the Hemoclysm to be distinctly unrelated pieces of history.

A series of events which may or may not be related to the Hemoclysm are the wars and massacres which ravaged Indochina from 1945 to 1980. The first of these (1945-54) was obviously spawned by the Second World War, and we can easily trace a chain reaction which led from this to the next and the next (#23-#9-#11); however, each subsequent war took it farther and farther from the central events of the Hemoclysm, so I have not included the 5 million Indochinese dead in the total.

---

Proportionality

If we're going to be pointing fingers of blame for the savageness of the Century -- and you know you want to -- raw numbers are probably not enough. There have been plenty of episodes of concentrated brutality that don't show up on the list above simply because the affected population is so small. Meanwhile, a major reason that Russia and China stand so prominently at the top of the list is that they have so many potential victims to begin with. Therefore, I've taken all the episodes of mass killing of the 20th Century and divided them by the population of the country that suffered the losses.

The 25 highest percentages of national populations killed during periods of mass brutality:

If you look carefully at the chart with the intention of determining which race, religion or ideology has been the most brutal, you'll see a pattern emerge. It's quite a startling pattern, so I'd rather you find it by yourself. Go back and take a second look. I'll meet you at the next paragraph after I explain that, honestly, I did not manipulate the data. I simply took the most likely death toll (military and civilian) among the natives of each country (such as all the South Vietnamese -- ARVN soldiers, civilians and Viet Cong -- who were killed in the Vietnam War), and divided it by the population of that country (prewar). I didn't take, say, only the military dead, or only the victims of genocide. I didn't arbitrarily decide to split one horror into two in order to make each seem smaller (the only borderline case is that I calculated the Russians dead from WW2 and Stalin separately. A judgement call.), or eliminate countries of a certain size. No, I had no predetermined point to prove. I did the math and let the chips fall where they would. (Here are the raw numbers if you want to check behind me.)

That's why I was so startled to discover that there is absolutely no pattern to the chart. If I had simply picked 25 countries out of a hat, I could not have gotten a more diverse spread than we've got here. We've got rich countries and poor countries; industrial and agrarian; big and small. We've got people of all colors -- white, black, yellow and brown -- widely represented among both the slaughterers and the slaughterees. We've got Christians, Moslems, Buddhists and Atheists all butchering one another in the name of their various gods or lack thereof. Among the perpetrators, we've got political leanings of the left, right and middle; some are monarchies; some are dictatorships and some are even democracies. We've got innocent victims invaded by big, bad neighbors, and we've got plenty of countries who brought it on themselves, sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. Go on -- take a third look. Find any type of country that is not represented among the agents of a major blooding, and probably the only reason for that is that there aren't that many countries in that category to begin with (There are no Hindu or Jewish countries on the chart, but then, there's only one of each on the whole planet, and they're both waiting in the wings among the next 25.).

In a way, it's rather disheartening to realize that we can't smugly blame the brutality of the century on the Communists, or the imperialists, or the Moslem fundamentalists, or the godless. Every major category of human has done it's share to boost the body count, so replacing, say, Moslem rulers with Christian rulers, or white rulers with black rulers, is not going to change it at all.

---

to Table of Contents

Last updated June 2000

[Mason]

I found this a real good read in support of the 2nd Amendment.

But then, what isn't?

[Forgiven_Sinner]

I agree that humans are humans, ie evil; that's the premise of Christianity. Let's divide the slaughter between Christian involvement and no Christian involvement:

Non Christian:

USSR: Stalin's regime (incl. WW2-era atrocities) 20,000,000 (This doesn't seem to include the Ukranian political famine, which was 6-15 million by itself.)

First World War (incl. Armenian massacres 1-2 million) (WW I by itself could be considered a "Christian" war).

Holocaust: 6,000,000 various unwanted, mostly Jews.

Russian Civil War 8,800,000

China: Warlord & Nationalist Era 4,000,000

Congo Free State 3,000,000

Chinese Civil War 2,500,000

Second Sudanese Civil War 1,700,000

Congolese Civil War 1998- 14 1,650,000

Cambodia: Khmer Rouge Regime 1975-79 15 1,400,000

Afghanistan: Civil War 1980- 15 1,400,000

Ethiopian Civil Wars 1962-92 17 1,250,000

East Pakistan: Massacres 1971 19 1,000,000

Iran-Iraq War 1980-88 19 1,000,000

Nigeria: Biafran revolt 1967-70 21 800,000

Mozambique: Civil War 1976-92 21 800,000

Rwandan Massacres 1994 23 650,000

First Indochina War 1945-54 25 500,000

India-Pakistan Partition 1947 25 500,000

Indonesia: Massacre of Communists 1965-67 25 500,000

Angolan Civil War 1975-94 25 500,000

First Sudanese Civil War 1955-72 25 500,000

Decline of the Amazonian Indians 1900-99 30 365,000

Somalia: Civil War 1991- ? Unknown

North Korea: Communist Regime 1948-

Christian nation involvement

WW I - 15,000,000 I think the Christian nations must bear the blame for this one.

Korean War The North attacked the south and the world came to its defense.

2nd Indochina War (incl. Laos & Cambodia)

German Expulsions after WW2 I'm not familiar with this--were 1.7 million Germans killed?

Mexican Revolution 1910-20 18 1,250,000

French-Algerian War 1954-62 24 600,000

Spanish Civil War 1936-39 31 350,000

Conclusions: people are evil. Christianity seems to mitigate some of it. The death total and incident total seems less for the Christian nations.

[Mr. Bungle]

Funny, I thought global warming just had to be in there somewhere...

[cav68]

You beat me to it, I felt the re-election should be at least number 2.

[watchin]

I agree. It would seem that the author did in fact manipulate the data until he found a way to divert attention from the plainly obvious conclusion.

[Rightwing Canuck]

I don't believe there's ever been a Buddhist war.

In the 1500s Japan was engulfed in war, and they were Buddhist at the time, I do believe, though whether competing strands of Buddhism were a component of the wars I am ignorant.

[F16Fighter]

"Global warming" is just behind the unforgetable 'Clingon-Romulan War'...Good thing the 'Federation' stepped in or else this list would have been much worse...

[Nateman]

The degree to which socialism is actually carried out, regardless of the carrier belief which sustained it , predicts the death rate rather well. I suspect the degree to which capitalism and democracy is allowed to flourish would have an opposite correlation.

[rightisright]

I wonder why there is no account of the 1.5 Million Armenians (added to the several hundred thousand Greeks) exterminated in the Asia Minor Holocaust by the Turks between 1915-1923.