How Many People Did Communism Kill?

May 7th, 2010

When I posted about making May 1st Victims of Communism Day, I was not at all surprised that some on the left would get their knickers into a knot over the very idea. However, I was surprised that one left winger took exception not only to the date, but the idea that communists had killed millions of people at all. It was rather like coming face-to-face with a flat-earther or a Holocaust denier; you know such people exist, but you never expect to run into them in polite society. I thought such thinking had disappeared even on the left except among such hardcore dead-ender communist apologists as CPUSA or the Spartacist League (and, of course, Internet trolls). The only question today is not “did the communists kill tens of millions of people,” but “precisely how many did they kill?”

Since historical awareness of the sheer vastness of communism’s legacy of genocide seems to have faded, now would be a good time to review the extensive historical record of communism’s crimes against humanity.

In Death by Government, R. J. Rummel estimates the total Soviet death toll at just under 62 million. You can see the breakdown here. That breakdown shows 11.4 million deaths under Collectivization, which would include the Ukrainian Famine, also known as the Holodomor.

In Robert Conquest’s definitive The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (based on hundreds of sources of information, including dozens of interviews with famine survivors), he puts the total for the entire Collectivization/”De-Kulakization” period (including the Ukranian Famine, the Soviet suppression of the Kazakhs and the Crimean Tartars, etc.) at 14.5 million.

The Final Report of International Commission of Inquiry Into the 1932–33 Famine in Ukraine produced by The Stockholm Institute in 1990 came up with a total of 7.5 million.

The Black Book of Communism came up with a smaller total of 4 million for the Holodomor, and 2 million for Dekulakization, as well as a total communist death toll of 94 million (smack dab in the middle of the 85-100 million death toll estimate in the summary), broken down as follows:

65 million in the People’s Republic of China
20 million in the Soviet Union
2 million in Cambodia
2 million in North Korea
1.7 million in Africa
1.5 million in Afghanistan
1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
1 million in Vietnam
150,000 in Latin America
10,000 deaths “resulting from actions of the international communist movement and communist parties not in power.”

Rummel, by contrast, came up with the following estimates in Death By Government:

62.9 million in the Soviet Union
32.9 million in the PRC while in power, plus an additional 3.5 million killed by the communist Chinese before taking control
2 million in Cambodia
1.7 million in Vietnam
1.5 million post-WWII Poland
1 million in Tito’s Yugoslavia
plus a suspected 1.6 million in North Korea

If I added that up correctly, that comes out to 103.6 million people. (Rummel’s overall total for the 20th century includes murder and genocide carried out by non-communist regimes.)

In light of more recent scholarship, Rummel has adjusted his estimate of Mao’s victims upwards from 38,702,000 to 76,702,000. (Note: I do not own Rummel’s Statistics of Democide, which goes into considerable statistical detail concerning how he arrived at his estimates.)

In Jasper Becker’s Hungry Ghosts, he estimates Mao’s victims at 30-80 million.

Pretty much all the sources on the Khmer Rouge genocide give estimates in 1-3 million range, most around 2 million.

Ethiopia’s deposed Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam is one of the few communists actually convicted of genocide in a court of law.

In summation: Communism probably killed at least 85 million people, and might have killed as many as 140 million people.

I hope to have interviews with with of the most notable authors/historians on issues of communist genocide in the near future.

A Select Bibliography of Communist Genocide in the 20th Century

Below are some books I can recommend on the subject. Keep in mind that the edition I own is probably the first edition listed here, while the Amazon links go to more recent in-print editions.

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Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy | 60 Comments »

Round Rock School Board Elections Saturday, May 8

May 6th, 2010

Just a reminder to vote in the upcoming Round Rock ISD Election on May 8th if you live in the district. I haven’t been following the election that closely, but Holly Hansen at Smart Girl Politics has been all over it, so give her a read if you live in these environs. Austin residents will want to read up on other local races over at Blue Dot Blues. So edumacate yourself, and vote on Saturday!

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Posted in Austin, Elections | No Comments »

Which Left-Wing Media Outlet Deserves to Die First?

May 5th, 2010

Today the Washington Post announced that it was putting money-losing news magazine Newsweek up for sale. You may remember Newsweek‘s decision a couple of years ago to remake itself as a liberal opinion magazine (something ably lampooned by the indispensable Iowahawk). Since then, Newweek has managed the amazing feat of actually losing readers faster than most legacy media.

Of course, that brings up an interesting question: Which left-wing news outlet would you most like to see go out of business first? To that end, I’ve created a poll:

The Washington Post just announced they’re putting Newsweek up for sale. Which left-wing media outlet deserves to go out of business first?
CBS News
Los Angeles Times
MSNBC
Newsweek
New York Times
National Public Radio
Salon
Time
Washington Post
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Vote away, good reader, vote away!

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Posted in Media Watch | 3 Comments »

Today is Victims of Communism Day

May 1st, 2010

The fine folks over at The Volokh Conspiracy have come up with the brilliant idea of making May 1st Victim’s of Communism Day. If the victims of a brutal ideology that killed over 100 million people doesn’t deserve a memorial day, then who does?

Here’s an Amazon carousel widget featuring a small selection of books on victims of communist oppression.

More on estimating just how many people communism killed on R. J. Rummel’s Democide page.

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Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy | 3 Comments »

“A BLT, another Spaten, and a high chair for my wife.”

April 27th, 2010

Both Molly Norris, the original cartoonist who came up with Draw Mohammed Day, and Jon Wellington, the creator of the Facebook page dedicated to it, have dropped out of the effort. Funny how Los Angeles Times writer Jimmy Orr never seems to have thought to ask the single most obvious question about their change of heart: Have you received any death threats from Muslim extremists, and is this why you changed your mind? You would think that would be an obvious question to ask when dealing with Islamic extremists, but evidently the question is not of particular interest to those fabled watchdogs in the media.

However, just because the originator pulled out doesn’t mean that Draw Mohammed Day is canceled. After all:

Bloggers made of sterner stuff have picked up the idea and run with it, including:

I plan on contributing my own modest graphic skills to the endeavor. Moreover, I think we should go beyond individual efforts and ask every single professional cartoonist to participate. I encourage you to write your favorite cartoonist and ask them to join in.

And, as he so frequently does, Chris Muir’s Day by Day nails the dismount (and is the source of the blog title).

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Posted in Jihad, Media Watch | 2 Comments »

Give Up on Giving Peace a Chance

April 26th, 2010

I’ve noted the irrational nature of believing in the “Middle East Peace Process” before. Now former Presidential adviser (and former peace process true believer) Aaron David Miller has penned an article demolishing the Middle East peace process for the delusion and sham it is.

Some choice quotes:

Etymologists tell us that the word “religion” may come from the Latin root religare, meaning to adhere or bind. It’s a wonderful derivation. In both its secular and religious manifestations, faith is alluring and seductive precisely because it’s driven by propositions that bind or adhere the believer to a compelling set of ideas that satisfy rationally or spiritually, but always obligate.

And so it has been and remains with America’s commitment to Arab-Israeli peacemaking over the past 40 years, and certainly since the October 1973 war gave birth to serious U.S. diplomacy and the phrase “peace process” (the honor of authorship likely goes to a brilliant veteran State Department Middle East hand, Harold Saunders, who saw the term appropriated by Kissinger early in his shuttles). Since then, the U.S. approach has come to rest on an almost unbreakable triangle of assumptions — articles of faith, really. By the 1990s, these tenets made up a sort of peace-process religion, a reverential logic chain that compelled most U.S. presidents to involve themselves seriously in the Arab-Israeli issue. Barack Obama is the latest convert, and by all accounts he too became a zealous believer, vowing within days of his inauguration “to actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as Israel and its Arab neighbors.”

Like all religions, the peace process has developed a dogmatic creed, with immutable first principles. Over the last two decades, I wrote them hundreds of times to my bosses in the upper echelons of the State Department and the White House; they were a catechism we all could recite by heart. First, pursuit of a comprehensive peace was a core, if not the core, U.S. interest in the region, and achieving it offered the only sure way to protect U.S. interests; second, peace could be achieved, but only through a serious negotiating process based on trading land for peace; and third, only America could help the Arabs and Israelis bring that peace to fruition.

As befitting a religious doctrine, there was little nuance.

He also points out that America has three much more pressing concerns in the Middle East, each of which is more important than the Arab-Israeli conflict:

First, there are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of Americans are in harm’s way and are likely to be for some time to come. Add to the mix the dangerous situation in Pakistan, and you see volatility, threat, and consequences that go well beyond Palestine. Second, though U.S. foreign policy can’t be held hostage to the war on terror (or whatever it’s now called), the 9/11 attacks were a fundamental turning point for an America that had always felt secure within its borders. And finally there’s Iran, whose nuclear aspirations are clearly a more urgent U.S. priority than Palestine. Should sanctions and/or diplomacy fail, the default position — military action by Israel or even the United States — can’t be ruled out, with galactic consequences for the region and the world. In any event, it’s hard to imagine Netanyahu making any big decisions on the peace process until there’s much more clarity on what he and most Israelis regard as the existential threat of an Iran with a bomb.

Read the whole thing, but keep one thing in mind: All in all, I think Miller is entirely too optimistic. He thinks some form of progress might still be made by American negotiators. I don’t.

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

April 25th, 2010

Here’s an event I can get behind: Everybody Draw Mohammed Day on May 20.

If you’re not up on Comedy Central’s cowardly censorship of the latest South Park episode, this Mark Steyn piece will get you up to speed, as well as being full of the usual Mark Steyn goodness.

Just in case you haven’t seen it, here’s Jon Stewart on The Daily Show on the controversy:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
South Park Death Threats
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

And, of course, this is obligatory:

Updated: The blackboard quote for tonight’s episode of The Simpsons was “South Park: We’d be standing beside you if we weren’t so scared.”

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Posted in Jihad | 4 Comments »

Carbon Offsets Offsets

April 24th, 2010

Heh.

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Posted in Global Warming | No Comments »

The “Mystery” of the Resilient Texas Economy

April 23rd, 2010

Daniel Gross on Slate and Mickey Kaus on his campaign website (he’s running against incumbent Barbara Boxer for the California Democratic Senate nomination) ruminate on why the Texas economy is so much more resilient than that of most states. Gross points out that Texas has successfully globalized our economy, that energy is more resistant to recessions than most industries, that high tech plays a bigger role than crude oil, and that the independent nature of the Texas Interconnect Grid meant Texas was able to deregulate its energy sector without having to play “mother may I” with the feds. Kaus argues that since Texas is a Right-to-Work state, we don’t have unreasonably powerful public sector unions to drive up budgets, and the lack of rigid work rules results in a more dynamic economy. All of which is true. However, being from the left, Gross and Kaus both miss one of the biggest reasons for Texas’ economic success:

Texas has no state income tax.

People want to move to Texas (and people already here want to stay) because we get to keep more of our own money. Not only does this make our economy more resilient during downturns, but it limits the size and scope of state government. Numerous studies have shown that high earners flee high-tax states for low-tax states. California and New Jersey’s loss is Texas’ gain. There’s a reason blue states are the ones hit hardest by the recession.

Liberals never bring this up because, well, big government and high taxes go hand in hand, and love of big government and its redistributionist policies are all the left have left these days. Even relatively sane anti-New Left liberals like Kaus want to believe that bigger government can improve people’s lives with the right reforms/cost controls/etc., which is why he favored the abomination that is ObamaCare.

Clueless liberals have been calling for a state income tax for decades. Indeed, when you see a newspaper editorial headlined with “Texas Needs a More [Equitable/Fair/Robust/Just] Tax System,” when you read it you see that what they want is an income tax, and what they really want is bigger government. It’s no wonder that when you look at the board of the pro-state income tax group Citizens for Tax Justice, their guiding board is filled with union cronies. State income taxes mean more money for public employee unions, which is why unions always push for higher taxes. (Are you reading, Mickey?)

Here’s a handy breakdown of the differences between California and Texas. Note that it only covers up to 2007; since then, the economic and budgetary picture for California has only deteriorated.

To be sure, the lack of a state income tax isn’t a cure-all panacea; Florida and Nevada are hurting badly in The Great Recession, mainly because they were among the hardest hit in the housing bubble collapse. But Nevada’s estimated $1.24 billion 2010 deficit, and Florida’s $6 billion shortfall, look positively Utopian next to the yawning chasm of California’s $41.6 billion deficit.

Despite liberal contention to the contrary, it is low tax states that have low budget deficits, and high tax states that have the largest problems, and the lack of a state income tax is a big contributing factor to state budget discipline. That’s unlikely to change, even when the current recession ends.

Edited to add: Here’s a fine piece by Kevin D. Williamson that appeared in National Review on why Texas is doing so comparatively well. I had read it when it came out last year, but didn’t realize it was now available online. Well worth reading.

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Posted in Democrats, Economics, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »

Climategate Redux: A Look at the State of Play

April 19th, 2010

Between finishing my taxes and the House District 52 race, I’ve had precious little time to post updates on other issues, but despite my personal lacunae interesting developments in Climategate have been bubbling right along.

This piece in the Telegraph does a good job of covering some of the further revelations. One of the more interesting points:

“The first report centred directly on the IPCC itself. When several of the more alarmist claims in its most recent 2007 report were revealed to be wrong and without any scientific foundation, the official response, not least from the IPCC’s chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was to claim that everything in its report was ‘peer-reviewed’, having been confirmed by independent experts.

“But a new study put this claim to the test. A team of 40 researchers from 12 countries, led by a Canadian analyst Donna Laframboise, checked out every one of the 18,531 scientific sources cited in the mammoth 2007 report. Astonishingly, they found that nearly a third of them – 5,587 – were not peer-reviewed at all, but came from newspaper articles, student theses, even propaganda leaflets and press releases put out by green activists and lobby groups.”

And who would you get to provide an objective, disinterested analysis of IPCC claims? Why, obviously “chair of Falck Renewables, a firm that has wind farms across Europe, and chair of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, ‘a lobby group which argues that carbon capture could become a $1 trillion industry by 2050.'” Who else? That’s like asking G. Gordon Liddy to perform a dispassionate, objective analysis of Watergate.

You would think that Climategate, the failure of the last “cap and trade” bill, the deep unpopularity of ObamaCare, and the continued poor jobs situation would conspire to prevent Democrats from pushing a huge, job-killing, tax-and-spend global warming bill. You would be wrong. Under the bipartisan fig-leaf of the ever more RINO-ish Lindsey Graham, Harry Reid and company are getting ready to unveil Cap-and-Trade Junior. And they plan to do it in secret, without all those messy public committee meetings. There doesn’t seem to be any limit to how low congressional Democrats are willing to drive their poll numbers in order to get the government’s fingers into as many economic pies as possible before the reckoning comes in November.

The battle over cap-and-trade, and Climategate, is far from over. If you know anyone in South Carolina, they should be ringing Graham’s phone off the hook to oppose this. Speaking of which, here’s the contact information for Graham’s offices off his official website:

Washington Office
290 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Main: (202) 224-5972

Upstate Regional Office
130 South Main St.
7th Floor
Greenville, SC 29601
Main: (864) 250-1417

Midlands Regional Office
508 Hampton Street
Suite 202
Columbia, SC 29201
Main: (803) 933-0112

Pee Dee Regional Office
McMillan Federal Building
401 West Evans Street, Suite 226B
Florence, SC 29501
Main: (843) 669-1505

Lowcountry Regional Office
530 Johnnie Dodds Boulevard, Suite 202
Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464
Main: (843) 849-3887

Piedmont Regional Office
140 East Main Street, Suite 110
Rock Hill, SC 29730
Main: (803) 366-2828

Golden Corner Regional Office
124 Exchange Street
Pendleton, SC 29678
Main: (864) 646-4090

Here’s the email form: http://lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.EmailSenatorGraham.

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Posted in Global Warming | 1 Comment »

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