Body Count
On Sept 27 I posted an essay on two revelations that I had concerning the Holocaust. In this post I would like to expand on this a bit, and show that the murder of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust was only a part of a pattern of horror that ran through the entire century.
During the Twentieth Century alone, nearly ONE HUNDRED MILLION people were murdered in the name of IDEOLOGIES, of which Naziism is but one example. It is often forgotten that the ideology responsible for the majority of this carnage was leftist-socialist-communist politics! And when I speak of 100 million deaths, I am referring ONLY TO NON COMBATANTS!
That figure does NOT include military and combatant deaths! The 100 million figure is comprised ONLY of innocent victims!
The body counts are as follows:
1) Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward”: 45 MILLION deaths (Source: Historian Frank Dikötter).
2) Joseph Stalin’s purges: 41 MILLION. (Source: historian I.G. Dyadkin)
3) Adolph Hitler’s “final solution” genocide of 6 million Jews (Source: Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust, 1985) and at least 6 million non Jews (Source: Berenbaum, Michael, A Mosaic of Victims, 1990) for a total of 12 million.
4) Cambodian Pol Pot’s “killing fields”: 2.2 MILLION dead. (Source: Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia).
5) The Hutu genocide of Tutsi in Rowanda: 1.2 million. (Source: Africa Recovery, Volume 12).
Totaling these appalling estimates, we arrive at 100.2 MILLION noncombatant deaths in the 20th Century due to ideologies.
Now it is clear that deaths under Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot fall into the leftist category. Hitler’s fascism, although sometimes referred to as “rightist” because, despite the moniker of “National Socialist Worker’s Party”, of his support for private property and refusal to take orders from Moscow, is also referred to, by some historians (Goldberg, Jonah, National Review, 5/5/2015), as leftist as well. If we include Naziism in the leftist category, we see that in the 20th Century there were 99 MILLION non combatant deaths carried out in fulfillment of leftist ideology. If we exclude Naziism, the figure becomes 87 MILLION non combatants whose blood is on the hands of leftists.
I’ve heard it argued by idealists that Mao and Stalin and Pol Pot were not “true” leftists (presumably due to their propensity to kill people)! The irony is, of course, that had any of these analysts had the opportunity to share this assessment with Mao, Stalin or Pol Pot, they would have been summarily executed. So much for idealism!
No, 87 to 99 million deaths at the hands of leftists last century can not be explained away, excused, or justified. And they SHOULD NOT BE FORGOTTEN. They should be remembered even when a well meaning (but clueless) college student brings a pamphlet to your door or a message to your computer. Or when national politicians (also clueless) try to invoke “class warfare”, or other leftist agendas. Like an anemic in front of Dracula, raise the 100 MILLION body count in front of you like garlic and ask them to leave!
(And, by the way, dear reader, if you think that the estimates given above may be exaggerated, then as a “thought experiment”, mentally cut them IN HALF….There!….Now does 50 MILLION unjustified deaths seem substantially better?….No?….I didn’t think so).