Death by Government examines democides (definition below) of one million or more in the 20th century and before. The author, R. J. Rummel, shows that totalitarian regimes commit most of the democides. The underlying principle is that the less freedom people have, the greater the violence; the more freedom, the less violence. Rummel says, "The problem is power. The solution is democracy. The course of action is to foster freedom."
To understand the book, it is worthwhile to remember the following definitions:
DEMOCIDE: the intentional government killing of an unarmed person or people, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder. Note: "demos" = people. "cide" (caedere) = kill
GENOCIDE: among other things, the killing of people by a government because of their indelible group membership (race, ethnicity, religion, and language).
POLITICIDE: the murder of any person or people by a government because of their politics or for political purposes.
MASS MURDER: the indiscriminate killing of any person or people by a government.
HOLOCAUST: a thorough destruction, especially by fire. A type of genocide.
Although the book examines democides (definition above) of one million or more in the 20th century and before, the rest of this review will focus on the ten worst democides in the 20th century.
We all know the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews. Most American do NOT know that the ten worst totalitarian governments murdered more than 136 million OTHER people during the 20th century. The following is a list of the ten governments responsible for all those deaths.
(* = about 2 million MURDERS)
Soviet Gulag (1917-87)
-Executions during collectivization, etc.
61,911,000
* ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Communist Chinese State (1949-87)
-Executions of landlords, peasants, etc.
35,236,000
** ***** ***** *****
Nazi State (1933-45)
-6 mil Jews, 5 mil Poles, 10 mil others
20,946,000
***** *****
Chinese Nationalist (1928-49)
-Purges of communists, etc.
10,214,000
*****
Japan's military (1936-45)
-Nanking massacre, etc.
5,964,000
***
Khmer Rouge (1975-79)
-Khmer Rouge kill 1/3 of all Cambodians
2,035,000
*
Turkey's Young Turks (1909-18)
-Slaughter of Turkey's Armenians
1,883,000
*
N. Vietnamese (1945-1987)
-S Vietnam's democide = 90,000.
1.670,000
*
Poland killed ethnic Germans
-8 million fled Poland (1945-1948)
1,585,000
*
West Pakistan (1958-87)
-E. Pakistan Hindus killed or expelled
1,503,000
*
TOTAL # Murdered = 142,000,000+