Who knows? According to what source would that be, and who does that include?
Well, according to mainstream media, more than Hitler.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
That is the reason I am asking. You hear this all the time, but no one ever brings up any numbers.
That's a rather meaningless question. He probably did not kill anyone personally - at least after he was done with his bank robbing in early 1900s top raise money for the cause.
A better question would be - how many people did Stalin cause to be killed on the margin? For all we know, if Trotskly and/or Bukharin got the power, the death toll would have likely been much greater.
Do we count the "old revolutionaries" that Stalin exterminated as counting against him, or for him? Did the murderers that inflicted communism and collectivication on the country deserve anything better?
Do we count the people killed directly, like those polish officers, and those who expired in jails and camps? Probably a few million. Do we count the starved Ukrainians? Few more million. If we believe that Stalin was instrumental and indisplensable in preparing WWII, do we count all the victims?
The answer may be from a lot of lives saved to a dozen million to 100+ million. Whatever you prefer.
Yea and if Mother Theresa gained power the toll would have been considerably less.
So the margin is exactly the number he killed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
There are the numbers on the article :)
I'm not sure that HE killed anyone...
I don't know how many people Stalin killed, but I was flipping through cable TV propaganda the other day and came across Stalin: Man of Steel on the History Channel. It was actually a pretty good analysis of how power corrupts and collectivism is mass murder. Throughout the whole documentary Stalin is ordering his subordinates executed, rounding up intellectuals to be executed, sending his armies on suicide missions, and basically doing what communists do. Then at the end some historian says, "Oh well, that was just Stalin being Stalin and he made Russia a superpower so it was all worth it." Incredible.
Then at the end some historian says, "Oh well, that was just Stalin being Stalin and he made Russia a superpower so it was all worth it."
That's pretty much official Russian history now under Putin.
He no doubt kept a stock of catamites on hand for this express purpose.
Contrary what people have claimed here, Stalin did kill personally a lot of people in the 1890s and 1900s while as a terrorist bandit he was collecting money for the arising bolshevik party and making bank robberies and exploding bombs. Whether he shot his second wife Nadezha Alliluyeva in 1932 is debatable but academic consensus seems to be against it, although inconclusively.
Maybe I can narrow it down for you, he killed more than Lincoln but less than Mao.
Layano:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism There are the numbers on the article :)
Indeed there are. So does this strike anyone as "more than Hitler"?
That article is so lame. They throw around "capitalist" as if free association and mercantilism are the same thing. Good job leftists. Good job.
thelion - that article looks really interesting. Is there a way to get it other than paying for the journal, or through JSTOR?
A quote from the wikipedia article:
"Critics have argued that capitalist countries could be held responsible for a similar number of deaths. Noam Chomsky, for example, writes that Amartya Sen in the early 1980s estimated "the excess of mortality" in India over China due to the latter's "relatively equitable distribution of healthcare resources" at close to 4 million a year. Chomsky therefore argues that, "suppos[ing] we now apply the methodology of the Black Book and its reviewers" to India alone, the "democratic capitalist experiment" since 1947 has caused more deaths than in the entire history of Communism everywhere."
Someone needs to explain to Noam Chomsky that "democratic capitalist" is an oxymoron. I haven't studied the history of healthcare in India, but I am 100% sure that its failures, like all failures in healthcare, were due to government intervention not capitalism. Aren't we lucky in America that Obama is making sure we have "relatively equitable distribution of healthcare resources."
Political repressions about 1,5 mil
Famine 1932-1932: in Ukraine 4-9 mln, in other parts of USSR – about 2 mil
Famine 1946-1947: about 1 mln in Ukraine, about 0.5mln in other parts of USSR
Plus unknown number of indirect victims of deportations (people were dying in trains or because of cold climate)
Plus a lot of victims of murderousmilitary tactics during WWII (many people were sent to the front without any weapons)
Plus victims of interventions: Poland, Baltic countries, Finland
Any examples? Or if you have a source?
Vladimir Rezun i.e. Victor Suvorov: Inside the Soviet Army
Read it.
It won't give number's, but you'll get the idea of a forward army of "penal" battalions, followed by the military police, and then the regular army. Very few people surivived the penal battalions, and if they did, something else was found to get rid of most of them.
I know about the penal batallions. I was challenging Bodia to be more specific on his "weaponless" claim, since I know it is a figment of popular western imagination that has nothing to do with history.
I'm pretty sure that 12 million deaths is the accepted number of people directly killed by the Nazi regime. You could inflate the numbers to include all 50 million war casualties, but that would necessitate blaming the entire war on Germany, and ignoring the role of Japan, USSR, etc. Plus, blaming all war deaths on the Nazis would include even those killed by the Allies (e.g. Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.). 20 million seems to be the accepted number of people killed under Stalin. If one wanted to break down this number:
~7 million Ukrainians and Kazakhis killed during the Holodomor.
~1 million dissidents killed during the Great Purge.
~1 million Germans and Muslims killed during the forced deportations during the war.
~2 million Russian POWs killed during Operation Keelhaul (of course the Western Allies deserve a large part of the blame for delivering the victims in the first place)
~2 million Germans killed during the post-war expulsions from Eastern Europe
That right there is 11.5-16.5 million deaths in only the most notable instances of Soviet repression during Stalin's reign. So, even if one gives a low estimate for the death toll of major incidents, and assumes that nobody died in the USSR between 1929-1932, 1933-1935, 1936-1941, or 1946-1953, Stalin's death toll would only be marginally lower than Hitler's.
They story is that they didn't have enough rifles for everyone. They had the rear waves in an assault pick up the ones from the dead bodies.
There is no way to exact numbers because nobody was counting these things.
I'm pretty sure that 12 million deaths is the accepted number of people directly killed by the Nazi regime.
Oh really? Accepted by whom?
I have another. Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature who was ever seen. Her mother was excessively fond of her; and her grandmother doted on her still more. This good woman had a little red riding hood made for her. It suited the girl so extremely well that everybody called her Little Red Riding Hood.
I have not found evidence of weaponless either, so I agree with Marko on this.
In fact, they did have rifles for everybody. Soviet rifles cost much less to produce, because most features were not included. Same thing for heavy weapons. But they did not provide good weapons to penal companies.
The riflelessness comes from a movie, I think, Enemy at the Gates.
But penal battalions were outfitted very poorly by intent. Soviet weapons are not bad, and never were, taking into account the intended cheapness for quantity production. Has anyone watched today's Victory Day parade in the Red Square, for instance.
I know that Enemy at the Gates is not the source because my history teacher taught it 11 years ago.
Also, just out of curiosity, what is with your obsession with seeking to prove that the Nazis killed more people than the Soviets? Any sane person would see that both ideologies are wicked, thus what is your point if one totalitarian dictator killed more people than the other?
Have you stopped beating your wife shazam?
They was called "penal batalions". But men picked there were not criminals (mostly). For example during the so called "liberation" of Ukraine they picked to the penal batalions the most of men military age in many cities and villages: "you were in occupied territory, it means - traitors. You should be shot, but we'll generously give you the opportunity to atone for blood." So they gave them 2-3 rifles for 25-30 soldiers, other had to gain their weapons during the fight.
Watched yesterday first half of "The Soviet Story" movie: only during 1937-1941 because of political repressions in USSR were killed 11mln people!!!
So, I think, the total number of Stalin's victims was about 30mln people.
Fresh ironic video on this topic: http://bogdan-ua.livejournal.com/8293.html
Marko: That is the reason I am asking. You hear this all the time, but no one ever brings up any numbers.
People just gave you the numbers in this thread.
They turned out to be totally arbitrary and indefinite.
Are you satisfied with the answers, Marko? ;)
That's not a trustworthy source.
People just gave you the numbers in this thread. They turned out to be totally arbitrary and indefinite. Are you satisfied with the answers, Marko? ;)
Well I knew before that there are a gazillion different numbers being floated around. I think I am going to read the pertinent chapter of the Black Book of Communism, see how they reached their figure.
About that 11mln victims is talking Natalia Lebedeva, authoritative historian, who worked with archival documents. You can't find more truthworthy source.