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In the Criticisms of communist party rule article the first sentence in the "Loss of life" section simply places the death toll in the "tens of millions." Something similar could be a possible solution for the lede as it seems there will be a constant edit war over definitive estimates (i.e. 21-70 million). So perhaps something like this could be a solution: "Scholars believe that millions, perhaps tens of millions, lost their lives in various episodes of mass killing." Surely few would dispute that at the very least millions were killed by Communist regimes collectively, no? I can think of three citations for this already, Valentino (his range is in the tens of millions), Rosefielde (communism's internal contradictions "caused to be killed" approximately 60 million people), and Naimark ("...Stalinist Russia, Mao's China, and Pol Pot's Cambodia - where millions of these country's own citizens were killed in campaigns of mass murder..." 2010, p. 5) I'm sure others could be used. Actual estimates could be placed in the appropriate sub-sections that pertain to individual episodes of mass killing (i.e. red terror, great purges, land reform, etc). I'm not sure if something like this has been suggested before, and don't feel like reading over previous discussions. Thoughts on this? (italics mine of course)-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 14:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
You are trying to combine several different things.
Note to TFD: while I won't edit the article, because of the threat of the major editors to unite to have me banned from Wikipedia if I do, I do follow it. You're in danger of losing your sense of humor. A50000's comment was obviously a joke. Rick Norwood ( talk) 13:03, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
So how about something like this for the lede:
The killing of a large numbers of non-combatants has occurred in certain states, including some that have declared adherence to some form of Communist doctrine. The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. It is believed that millions, perhaps tens of millions, lost their lives in various episodes of mass killing by these regimes. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach in calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. (Insert citations where necessary)
It seems to me this would revolve some of the issues being discussed here, and will hopefully prevent future edit wars.-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 13:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
So, a first try for a lede:
Mass killings under Communist regimes occurred during the twentieth century with the number of victims estimated between ?? million and 100 million.[with sources for high and low estimates] The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Estimates of the number of killings vary widely: for these three countries ranging from 21 million to 70 million.[nb 1] There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries.
Higher estimates of the killings include deaths during civil wars, mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, famines and land reforms. Lower estimates exclude deaths, for example, from famines because government policy errors and management mistakes may have caused more deaths than intentional killings.
In either case, some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide.
Smallbones ( talk) 15:01, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Mass killings under Communist regimes during the twentieth century resulted the estimated deaths of between ?? million and 100 million people.[with sources for high and low estimates] The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Estimates of the number of killings vary widely: for these three countries ranging from 21 million to 70 million.[nb 1] There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries.
Higher estimates of the killings include deaths during civil wars, mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, famines and land reforms. Lower estimates exclude deaths, for example, from famines because government policy errors and management mistakes may have caused more deaths than intentional killings.
In either case, some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide.
Really, we need to be clear as to what constitutes 'mass killing'. Obviously we do not mean the execution of people who were guilty of the crimes they committed (no matter how minor), but those people who were innocent, and were killed, (shot, bayoneted, hanged, or whatever), by the ruling communists.
Those deaths where communist ideology may or may not have been the non-proximate cause, should not be included. If they are, then to be consistent there would be a good argument for considering the deaths of WWI, WWII, and the 13 million children who starve to death each year now, all 'capitalist' mass killings.
Lets look at the PRC, where the biggest numbers of so called 'mass killings' are alleged to have happened. Those executed during the entire time of the Mao years, amount to, at a maximum, 3 or 4 million (Phillip Short, Mao a Life, page 632). The GLF deaths, were unintended consequences of ill-conceived policies, exacerbated by the uniform policies applied over a huge geographical and diverse area. It is absurd to say that Mao launched the GLF intending that it would fail. Absolutely absurd. Some may argue he did not do enough to mitigate its effects when they were brought to his knowledge. But that still does not constitute murder. After all no one accuses the British of 'murdering' 20 million Indian famine victims at the end of the 19th Century (out of a population at the time of 200 million), even though these deaths, like the Great Leap deaths, were victims of poor planning, and inadequate relief measures during the mass dyings. Furthermore the peak year of deaths of the Great Leap (1960), saw the worst climatic conditions in a whole century. People killed by these conditions, again, should not be counted under 'communist mass killings.'
Killings are these. Where someone, by order of those in power in communist regimes, kills or executes someone, and that person was WRONGLY killed.
The fact is many of those executed by Mao (and by Stalin) were guilty of the crimes they were accused of. But lets say then, 1/4 were innocent (actually more likely 1/20 were innocent). Then Mao's actual killings of innocent people (ie deaths ordered and intended by him) were something of the order of 500,000?
Most of the deaths of the Cultural Revolution were from factional infighting, few from direct executions ordered by Mao. In fact when things did start to get out of hand Mao sent the PLA in to restore order. Furthermore in an interview with Edgar Snow in 1970, Mao regretted the excesses. He admitted that things had got out of hand with factional infighting, and that the army had suffered 'thousands of casualties' when restoring order. Mao said the struggle should be carried out by 'reasoning, not coercion or force'. Mao also deplored the maltreatment of 'captives.' So Mao here was admitting to problems with the CR in 1971. http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=MEAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=%27life+magazine%27+edgar+snow+mao&source=bl&ots=vBLON6FIwN&sig=10-XalKTNMsUroBHQWmYAJcDZPY&hl=en&ei=O2gZTZC-I8aycMzZ5J8K&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB0Q6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=cambodia&f=false
If Mao and Maoism is responbible for all deaths that occurred in a revolution he launched (and yes, the CR was obviously - a 'revolution'), and that revolution was for ideological purposes, not to kill people, then saying most of the deaths during the CR were 'mass killings' is as ridiculous as saying Bush and Blair are guilty of 'mass killings' of Iraqis and Afghans who werer 'collateral' damage in their invasions of those two places. Or should all the deaths of the American Revolution be attributed to 'mass killings' under Washington?
Of course not.
Philip Short's estimate is reliable. Three or four million executions over the course of Mao's reign. Assuming 1/4 were innocent, we can say one million victims of 'mass killing' under Mao, over 26 years.
Including the part about 'cannibalism' is so ridiculous and outrageous (even MacFarquahar would say so), that perhaps it is good to include it. It just shows that these fanatical anti-communists like Mr Griffin here, are willing to stoop at anything to make their point. That is because they really don't have a strong argument.
But again. Let's all agree upon what constituates 'mass killing'.
Philip Short's Mao - a life
http://www.amazon.com/Mao-Life-Philip-Short/dp/0805066381
Prairespark ( talk) 04:48, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Some states that have declared adherence to some form of Communist doctrine have killed significant numbers of people or facilitated their untimely deaths. The highest death tolls that have been documented the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. It is widely believed that millions, perhaps tens of millions, lost their lives in various episodes of mass killing by these regimes. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions that took place during the mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, and land reforms but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach in calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. Some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide.
-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 05:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
"I'd like to propose that Prairespark's 'contributions' to this talk page be deleted as a violation of talk page usage, on the basis that they are (a)
WP:OR, and (b)
WP:CB."
Coming to an agreement on what constitutes 'mass killing' is surely a legitimate area for discussion.
As China allegedly plays such a big role in these 'mass killings', discussing what the final numbers should be for China, should also be a legitimate area of discussion.
As for 'facilitating untimely deaths' - sure. As long as Mr Griffin, would believe that Bush and Blair are also 'mass killers' for facilitating the 'untimely' deaths of up to one million Iraqis. If he does not, then he should apply the same standard to alleged deaths under communism.
How about:
It has been alleged that some states that have declared adherence to some form of Communist doctrine, have killed significant numbers of people or facilitated their untimely deaths. The highest death tolls that have been alleged are for the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Some scholars, mostly Western, claim that millions, perhaps tens of millions, lost their lives in various episodes of mass killings by these regimes. Killings have also been alleged, albeit on a much smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions that took place during the mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, and land reforms but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach towards calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. Some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide, others may not. Other scholars will also point to fact that these allegations often reflect the ideological bias of those making the allegations, and that if a consistent definition of 'mass killing' were applied across the board, regardless of the ideology of the regime concerned, communist 'mass killings', on a proportionate, and even absolute basis, would not be significantly higher, and would perhaps even be lower than those carried out by the Western democracies.
--
Prairespark ( talk) 05:37, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
"I'd like to propose that Prairespark's 'contributions' to this talk page be deleted...." I second that."
I thought this was the type of thing you people accused us of....hmmmm how very 'Stalinist' of you Mr Griffin! Prairespark ( talk) 09:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
By the way I will also be pushing for deletion of references to 'cannibalism' under the Cultural revolution section. Bringing in anectdotes of single criminal incidents, which were not related to the cultural revolution at all, even less ordered by the communst leadership is mischievous and should be considered vandalism. It is the equivalent of bringing up say, Jeffrey Dahmer, in a hypothetical article on American capitalism to attack American capitalism. Or making My Lai the centrepiece of an article on Richard Nixon.
Prairespark ( talk) 02:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Well, certainly the case of the sharebroker who several years ago in the US, lost his money, and then went home in humiliated rage and killed his kids with a hammer, had something to do with capitalism. So we should perhaps include that particular case in the Wikipedia article on capitalism? AndyTheGrump - not even MacFarquhar draws such a long bow.
Prairespark ( talk) 09:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Note this part of the article:
"Rosefielde also notes that "while it is fashionable to mitigate the Red Holocaust by observing that capitalism killed millions of colonials in the twentieth century, primarily through man-made famines, no inventory of such felonious negligent homicides comes close to the Red Holocaust total."
R J Rummel has recently revised his estimate for 20th Century colonial democide up from 870,000 to a minimum of 50 million. It was only recently that King Leopold's slaughter of Congolese (10 to 20 million victims) was brought to his attention.
Rummel compares the crimes of colonialism to the Gulags. He states "I’ve reevaluated the colonial toll. Where exploitation of a colony’s natural resources or portering was carried out by forced labor (in effect slavery of a modern kind), as it was in all the European and Asian colonies, then the forced labor system built in its own death toll from beatings, punishment, coercion, terror, and forced deprivation. There were differences in the brutality of the system, the British being the least brutal and Leopold and the French, Germans, and Portuguese the worst. We all know what the Soviet gulag was like. These colonizers turned Africa into one giant gulag, with each colony being like a separate camp." http://democraticpeace.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/exemplifying-the-horror-of-some-european-colonization%E2%80%94leopolds-congo/
Rummel's claim seems reasonable - this makes colonialism at least as murderous as communism. Note that part of the reason for communisms high absolute toll is the large populations of Russia and China. The proportion of the population killed should also be considered.
Some mention should be made of the murderous of colonial democide, to provide an alternative perspective from that of Rosefielde's.
Prairespark ( talk) 13:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Rummel includes the 50 million colonial democide figure, not only in a blog, but on his webpage summarising 20th century democide. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
I do find it interesting that people emphasise the 100 million victims of communism, yet do not take into account that the USSR and China especially had very large populations. There were simply more people to kill - or ill-conceived policies would automatically cause large numbers of deaths. Surely what also needs to be taken into account is the proportion of the target population decimated.
If proportion of the population is taken into account then the crimes of King Leopold in the Congo would certainly exceed anything that Mao and Stalin got up to, as well as the American genocide of Phillipinos, with 600000 to a million civilian deaths - out of a population of about 7 million.
It should also be noted also that the excess deaths of the GLF famine were measured relative to very low mortality rates which the communists had achieved in the first decade of their rule (and for which they had drawn much praise). In fact the death rate of 25 to 30 per thousand during the worst year of the GLF (ie 1960) was not that much higher than the 24 per thousand mortality rate in India and other developing nations of the time, and was in fact less than the death rates of many of the years in China before 1949. But 25 deaths per thousand over the 11 deaths per thousand achieved in China previously did mean a lot of excess deaths. To provide context it should be mentioned that overally mortality did decline significantly during Maos rule (even during the period of the Cultural Revolution) and life expectancy doubled- in spite of the tragic setback of the GLF. The results of this are obvious. The increase in population under Mao (the most rapid population rise in Chinese history) was seven times the percentage increase of the 27 years leading up to 1949. Yet fertility declined under Mao -thus the only explanation for the doubling of the population under Mao, is dramatic declines in mortality.
Prairespark ( talk) 18:37, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, Rummel seems to be completely unreliable. For instance Jung Chang's biography of Mao has been roundly panned by China scholars, yet Jung Chang is the only reason why Rummel revises upwards China's democide total, based only on Chang's utterly dishonest arguments.
Maybe we should consign all of Rummel's work to the proverbial dust bin.
There were no 30 or 40 million deaths from starvation in the GLF famine. There were about 25 million excess deaths, relative to the very low mortality rates that the communists had achieved in the first decade of rule. There was only one year where the mortality rate exceeded the level of 1940s China. And that was 1960 (mortality of 44 per thousand), a year of massive flooding and the most atrocious climatic conditions in a whole century. In the other years, Judith Banister (the doyen of China demographic studies) has found mortality rates (around 25 per thousand) at about the same level as those in India, Indonesia, and other developing countries of the time. Jung Chang to max out her excess deaths calculation assumed a 1% mortality rate (10 in 1000) for 1957. In fact this was the crude death rate of the US at the time - obviously a ridiculous figure for China. The actual number of GLF deaths that can be directly attributable to famine, if excess deaths are calculated relative to the levels to pre-revolutionary China, and India, Indonesia etc at the time is something of the order of 4 to 5 million.
There is convergence of evidence with other sources. Look at life expectancy trends for China, India, Egypt, South Africa, Indonesia, and South Korea from 1960 to today. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy+china#met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:CHN:IDN:IND
Two significant things from the trends. 1. The life expectancy of Chinese in 1960, the year of supposedly the worst famine in all of human history, was higher than that of India and Indonesia. Again the excess deaths were calculated relative to very low levels just prior to the leap. 2. The years of the Cultural Revolution saw perhaps the greatest jump in life expectancy in the history of the PRC. Fully a decade of life expectancy was added, ie a one year increment in life expectancy for each year of the Cultural Revolution. Far from a holocaust, the Cultural Revolution period was the most successful in all of Chinese history, in raising life expectancy and literacy, in spite of its may excesses which we all know of.
In fact far from being a murdering tyrant, Mao presided over the most rapid decrease in mortality, in consequentially the greatest rate of increase in life expectancy in all of documented history. This is the subject of an ongoing Stanford University study. http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/research/health_improvement_under_mao_and_its_implications_for_contemporary_aging_in_china/
And by the way I'm not Jacob Peters. Anyone with even a modicum of Chinese historical knowledge will be able to guess correctly the inspiration behind 'prairespark'.
Prairespark ( talk) 04:12, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
It will take a year or two, but Dikotter's work will soon be going the way of Rummel's - to the dustbin (or at least it should).
I have not the time nor space to go into all the things wrong with his work in any great detail, but just three points:
1. As with Jung Chang, Dikotter assumes an unbelievably low annual mortality leading up to the GLF of 1% (and unwittingly credits the communists with having reduced mortality even more than the communists credit theselves - Banister has a death rate of 3.8% in 1949), to max out his excess death count. Like I said previously 1% is completely unbelievable - it's about the same as the United States at that time and not that much higher than the US mortality rate of 0.84% today. The typical mortality rate in the developing world in the late 1950s was 2 to 3 per thousand.
2. Dikotter, from reviewing the archives of public security organs, that violence must have been widespread during the GLF. He offers absolutely no statistical calculation of this. One would suspect if one went to the police archives of any country in the world, one would naturally be faced with pages and pages of documented violence - its just common sense that this is so. However even Dikotter says this violence was not orchestrated from the top, rather violent excesses were in fact recorded by people at the bottom and these reports were passed to the top in an effort to keep the leadership apprised of what was going on. Some of the acts of violence, as well as famine deaths, were found out by investigatory teams sent out by Beijing to find out the true picture of what was going on. So obviously the violence (which was probably less than the violence in an average American city) was not ordered from the top. By recounting incidents of random violence, Dikotter conscripts the reader into his point of view - and by the final chapter when he presents his 'analysis' of the death toll, the reader will be loathe to challenge him on his 'facts.'
3. Dikotter's fraudulent misuse of a picture of a begging child from a 1946 famine (not an 'official' famine) on the cover of his paperback edition, is not only an appalling act of intellectual dishonest, but also essentially racist. His attitude is 'any starving asian will do'. He has been taken to task by Adam Jones (the renowned Canadian genocide scholar) for this. Adam Jones says on his website "may I also suggest that the very extensive airbrushing, replacement/grafting of background, colourization and so on of the original image is curiously reminiscent of communist practice under Mao and Stalin?" http://jonestream.blogspot.com/2010/10/did-dikotter-misrepresent-famine-image.html
Dikotter's fraudalent use of this image and other famine images from pre-revolutionary China can be seen on videos he appears in to discuss the famine: http://web.mac.com/dikotter/Dikotter/Interviews.html
Dikotter elsewhere, and in fact in his book, says there are no non-propaganda images of the GLF, yet he fills his book cover and videos with famine images from old China. Again, just utterly dishonest.
Prairespark ( talk) 04:34, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
There may be no photographs of outright starvation. For example my wife's grandfather died during the leap from illness - probably prematurely from malnutrition. That is altogether different from the whole place looking like Belsen or Auschwitz (although specific parts of China might well have). China at the height of the GLF would have looked little different to India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, or Egypt of the time. The only year in which conditions were truly exceptional was 1960, due to extensive flooding.
The image used on his book is no doubt fake, if you follow the link provided by Jones, and in Dikotter's book itself, on the first page of the photographs section, there is a note in small print saying that no non-propaganda images of the period have been found, at least by him to date. Dikotter again confirms this in this newsweek article. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/26/mao-s-great-famine.html
Therefore Dikotter must know full well that the images he uses for his book cover and videos are not from the GLF. But obviously he does not care. They have emotional impact and help him get his point across.
Again any intelligent person could not fail to note that the excess deaths are calculated against very low assumed initial rates of mortality. This maximizes the excess death count. But the most widely respected mortality rate for 1949 is 38/1000 by Judith Banister - a typical figure for developing nations of the time. Dikotter, and Chang by using a ridiculouse 1957 figure of 10/1000 unwittingly give credit to the communists for reducing death rates in less than ten years by 28 deaths per thousand! So surely Mao, if he is to be condemned for the credit of excess deaths during the GLF, to be fair he should be credited for the deficit in deaths from 1949 up to the GLF, which would surely outweigh even Dikotter's outlandish figure of 45 million (in fact a very rough calc puts the lives saved from 1949 to 1958 due to a reduction in the death rate to around 90 million).
The fact is Mao's overall record should be looked at. And it seems that all the data, the demographic data agree on one thing. China's population exploded (increasing at about 3 to 4 times the rate in Mao's time) of the 3 decades leading up to 1949. Why is this? All the evidence points to falling fertility during Mao's time. So the only possible reason for the doubling of population under Mao is a dramatic reduction in mortality. The fastest rate of increase in life expectancy happened under Mao and is currently the subject of an ongoing Yale University study. http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/research/health_improvement_under_mao_and_its_implications_for_contemporary_aging_in_china/
Other authors have estimated that had China had the mortality rates of India, Indonesia, or other developing countries of similar GDP during Mao's time, there would have been 100 million more excess deaths. These facts are easily verifiable, with the data that is readily at hand to Western researchers. Even the most anti-communist of scholars do not dispute the data.
But when it comes to communism, it seems rhetoric and emotion override any objective analysis of the actual data.
I'm sure if someone comes out tomorrow and says Mao killed 200 million, people would just swallow it as fact.
Prairespark ( talk) 06:07, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
A simple analysis:
I am not the first to point this out. We use Judith Banister's CHINA'S CHANGING POPULATION, which is widely considered the most authoritative work on China's population. The figures presented below are adjusted from the official rates by Banister, to take into account underreporting of deaths.
Year Deaths per thousand among the population
1949 38
1950 35
1951 32
1952 29
1953 25.77
1954 24.20
1955 22.33
1956 20.11
1957 18.12
1958 20.65
1959 22.06
1960 44.60
1961 23.01
1962 14.02
1963 13.81
Note that the Famine years are considered to be 1958 to 1961. However it would be a mistake to say that the conditions of 1958,59, and 61, were famine years. If so why not the years 1949 to 1954 when mortality rates were actually higher than 1958, 59, and 61?
So you can see the famine, except for 1960, is a statistical construct.
Compare the death rates of the 1959 to 61 with the mortality rates of India at the same time (Fig 16.3): http://envfor.nic.in/divisions/ic/wssd/doc2/ch16.htm
You can see that in the late 1950s, India's mortality was about 22/1000. That is more or less the same mortality rate as Banister's figures for 1958, 59, and 61. The single outlier is of course 1960. Here is something else that is interesting. If India was at 22 deaths per thousand, yet not considered to be in famine, why not China?
Let's go back a bit further. Look at China in 1949. Banister puts mortality at 38 deaths per thousand. Yet 1949 is not considered as a famine year by any researcher, nor are any of the years of the late 1940s. So for our purposes lets consider 38/1000 as the norm for pre-revolutionary China (it was actually probably a lot higher).
If we then take 44.6 deaths - 38 = 6.6 excess deaths per thousand in China in 1960.
6.6 deaths per thousand * 650 million / 1000 = 4.29 million deaths.
Thus the actual famine deaths, taking 38 per thousand mortality as the threshold between famine and non-famine, would give 4.29 famine deaths in China associated with the GLF. Such a famine of course would be a typical size one in China, with 5 million deaths claimed for a 1930s famine in China. Of course proportionally it would have less impact because China's population in the 1930s was around 450 million, whereas by 1960 it was around 650 million.
That is the fair way to look at the figures. Far from the greatest famine in history, the GLF famine should perhaps be considered the greatest REVERSAL in history - because up to the GLF the communists were doing so well in reducing mortality. And they came back on track after the famine.
Prairespark ( talk) 06:52, 31 December 2010 (UTC) -- Prairespark ( talk) 06:52, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
An incredible amount of OR does not really affect what RS sources state - which is what WP editors are required to use. As for assuming that a rate of 38/M is "normal - that is past credulity indeed. And if one wishes to do mortality comparisons, the ages of death are important considerations - there is no doubt, apparently, that the early years of PRC saw a very large number of deaths due to war/rebellion/political reasons, and that 1958 - 1961 saw large numbers of death officially attributed to famine (noting regions which were heavily affected, and deaths by age cohort). It is not up to us to do the calculations when RS sources have done so. We are not to
know facts not easily determined in sources.
Collect (
talk) 07:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
"As for assuming that a rate of 38/M is "normal - that is past credulity indeed."
But 38/thousand would quite likely normal, especially when we consider that this was the average rate of mortality in India in the 1920s (not considered a famine period). And unlike India, China went through foreign invasion and political upheaval on a huge scale in the 1930s and 1940s - something that India escaped. The Chinese government also did not have effective control of the entire country for many decades. It was the unity that the communists gave China, that started to move the country ahead. Note also that pre WWI Russia had average mortality of around 33 per thousand.
In any case 38/1000 for 1949 is the best estimate by researchers to date. I think we have to accept the figure.
Anecdotally, my grandparents in southern China (a relatively rich area) were relatively well off. In the 1930s and 40s my father and his siblings were born. Of eight children born, 3 died in early childhood. This was for a relatively prosperous land-owning and educated family. One can only surmise the actual mortality rates for the entire country - they would have been absolutely horrendous - in fact probably at or even exceeding 1960 GLF proportions.
Interestingly Life magazine (where Dikotter stole the picture of the starving boy for his cover) clearly shows horrendous famine in nationalist China in 1946. The link is here. The title is 'Millions are starving in the once-rich rice bowl". http://books.google.com/books?id=81QEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=1946,+china,+famine,+child&source=bl&ots=PipWY2aPx-&sig=EaQQV01IVdN85DLlZ2yLdbGYQc0&hl=en&ei=HiyhTPq-BcvFswaM6p3wAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=1946%2C%20china%2C%20famine%2C%20child&f=false
Yet, incredibly no researcher considers 1946 a famine year!
The 38/1000 is all too believable.
In fact the reason why so few Chinese hold the GLF against Mao is probably because for them it was nothing unique. The conditions in prerevolutionary China were every bit as bad.
The important thing to note however that the GLF was the only famine to afflict New China. The overall record for Mao's time, is the most dramatic decline in mortality rates in history, saving tens of millions of lives, when compared to the performance of other developing countries.
As for an academic study addressing some of the points I have made above, I refer you to Utsa Patnaik: “On Famine and Measuring ‘Famine Deaths.’” Thinking Social Science in India: Essays in Honour of Alice Thorner. Ed. Sujata Patel, Jasodhara Bagchi, and Krishna Raj. New Delhi: Sage, 2002. Prairespark ( talk) 07:39, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
"And if one wishes to do mortality comparisons, the ages of death are important considerations - there is no doubt, apparently, that the early years of PRC saw a very large number of deaths due to war/rebellion/political reasons, and that 1958 - 1961 saw large numbers of death officially attributed to famine"
That is true. And famine, according to many researchers, hits the very young and elderly the worst. But look at infant mortality for China in 1960 vs India. Both are at 150 / 1000. Yet China is in famine and India is not?
China infant mortality rate, 1960: http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?IndicatorID=25&Country=CN
India infant mortality rate, 1960: http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_imrt_in&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=infant+mortality+rates+china#met=sp_dyn_imrt_in&idim=country:CHN:IND
Prairespark ( talk) 07:55, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Mass killings under Communist regimes during the twentieth century resulted in the estimated deaths of between ?? million and 100 million people. The highest death tolls have been documented in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Estimates of the number of killings vary widely: for these three countries ranging from 21 million to 70 million. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions that took place during the mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, and land reforms but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach in calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. Some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide. (Insert citations where necessary)
-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 14:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
C.J. Griffin said: "so I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish here with your diarrhea of the mouth." Moderator - is this considered a civilised way to carry out a debate?
C.J. Griffin said: "You spend alot of time trashing Dikotter, yet there is not one review that I have seen which disputes any of the key points in Dikotter's book."
True. They also praised Jung Chang's book to the skies when it first came out. Give it another year or two. By then those with a sincere interest in the topic will note its myriad misrepresentations. It certainly has a more scholarly veneer than the Jung Chang tome. But I confidently predict it will follow the latter work to literary and scholastic oblivion all the same.
How about the following -
Mass killings under Communist regimes during the twentieth century have been alleged to result in the estimated deaths of between ?? million and 100 million people. The highest alleged death tolls have been documented in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Estimates of the number of killings vary widely: for these three countries ranging from 21 million to 70 million. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions that took place during the mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, and land reforms but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach in calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. Some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide. However other scholars have cautioned against taking a one-sided approach to the issue, and to see the issue in a wider context. For example Gao (2007) suggested that the Great Leap Forward did in fact have its own logic and rationality, and that its terrible effects came not from malign intent on the part of the Chinese leadership at the time, but instead relate to the nature of rule at the time, and the vastness of China as a country. Gao says "..the terrible lesson learnt is that China is so huge and when it is uniformly ruled, follies or wrong policies will have grave implications of tremendous magnitude". Others have suggested that while China did undoubtedly experience large numbers of famine deaths in the years 1958 to 1961, this toll has to be evaluated in light of the otherwise overall impressive achievements of Maoist China in dramatically improving life expectancy. Gao (2008) also quotes estimates that the Maoist revolution gave an estimated net positive value of 35 billion extra years of life to the Chinese people. Li (2008) has produced data showing that even the peak death rates during the Great Leap Forward were in fact quite typical in pre-Communist China. Li (2008) argues that based even on the average death rate over the three years of the Great Leap Forward, there were several million fewer lives lost during this period than would have been the case under the normal mortality conditions of pre-revolutionary China. (Insert citations where necessary)
--
Look forward to everyone's comments.
Book references as follows:
http://www.amazon.com/China-Demise-Capitalist-World-Economy/dp/158367182X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293857013&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Gao-Village-Rural-Modern-China/dp/0824831926/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293857041&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Chinas-Past-Cultural-Revolution/dp/074532780X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293858302&sr=8-1
Prairespark (
talk) 05:13, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Absolutely ridiculous. Minqi Li, and Mobo Gao are not fringe academics at all. Left wing perhaps. But not fringe. In fact Dikotter is far more 'fringe'. Firstly he is bankrolled by the Chiang Chingkuo foundation (sort of like getting paid by Glen Beck to write a biography of Obama), has come out and said that there was nothing wrong with the British forcing opium onto the Chinese, and Japanese imperialism should not be condemned 'root and branch.' Talk about fringe!
Yet here we have Mobo Gao, an honest writer from rural China who actually lived through the Great Leap Forward, (and has conducted field studies on his village) and had siblings die in it, and Minqi Li, a former dissident and political prisoner in China - and their views, according to Griffin, are 'fringe'.
Yet Dikotter, who knows little about China outside a history textbook (he even gets the character for 'tomb' (mu) mixed up with 'wood' (also mu) - something an eight year old Chinese would not trip up on - refer article by Jonathan Mirsky), and yet because he is a Westerner, praised by other Westerners, his word on China counts for more than that of Minqi Li and Mobo Gao? What a transparent and disgusting display of academic imperialism by Griffin.
Westerners of course understand more about Chinese than the Chinese themselves! Yet, if we had a Chinese academic from say Gansu province, who learned english to a moderate level, resided in the USA for 10 years, and he wrote a biography of say, Andrew Jackson, how much respect do you think it would get from the academic community? Very little of course. Because people would rightly note that simply from 10 years in the country, that would still not be enough time to pick up the cultural context, nuances and subtleties, and understand the motives of Andrew Jackson.
Yet anytime a Westerner says anything about China, his word is taken as gospel over that of a Chinese. The hypocrisy, and yes borderline racism of Griffin is as despicable as it is transparent.
Prairespark ( talk) 05:57, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you TFD! :)
When are we going to get a decision on the lede - and implement?
Prairespark ( talk) 06:04, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Radical? To who? Mobo Gao's work would in fact align with the views of most Chinese on Mao. Minqi Li is a well respected economist.
If they are radicals or fringe, what in heaven's name is Dikotter - who praises drug use and colonialism?
Jung Chang's book has been thoroughly debunked by all serious China scholars - even you know that Mr Griffin. Chen Yizi has close ties with the Falun Gong movement (as flakey a group as you ever will find), and Yang Jisheng, if you read his other works, has a clear political agenda. His dad died during the GLF, as he keeps on going on about? Yeah - was it one of the 'excess' deaths? He never says so. Three of my aunts died in childhood in pre-revolutionary China under Chiang. Does that mean that I can write a biography damning Chiang Kaishek and have it free from criticism? Of course not.
In any case the article is already chock full of people of Mr Griffin's ideological disposition. Very well. Can we, in the interests of fairness, try and inject some balance by including Mobo Gao, and Minqi Li's work?
Or do all sources have to get with Mr Griffin's agenda?
Prairespark ( talk) 06:49, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. In fact if Griffin is still not happy, I can go to Maurice Meisner, Chris Bramall, Lei Feigon, as well as Banister, Eggleston, all Western writers who can substantiate what Li and Gao say. I thought it would be good to include a left-wing Chinese perspective.
In fact there are also recent Yale and Harvard studies which back up what I have written (and Gao and Li's points) - especially the stuff about life expectancy and literacy.
Prairespark ( talk) 06:58, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Basically the quotes of Li and Gao that I have included are not all that outlandish. Here are two recent studies - one by Yale University, the other a Harvard Study which more or less back up the stuff I have included in the lede:
An ongoing Stanford Universy study on Maoist China's phenomenal achievement in doubling life expectancy: http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/research/health_improvement_under_mao_and_its_implications_for_contemporary_aging_in_china/
Furthermore a group of Harvard researchers have made a compelling case that the reason for China economically outperforming India over the past three decades is related to the health achievements of modern China. An excerpt from the article:
"However, the authors note, China's economy has exploded, expanding by 8.1 percent per capita per year on average between 1980 and 2000, while in the same time period India saw a sustained growth rate in income per capita of 3.6 percent--a rate that, while rapid by the standards of most developing economies, is modest compared to China's. What accounts for the difference? Part of the answer, the HSPH team suggests, is that dramatic demographic changes in China began decades before those in India. After 1949, China's Maoist government invested heavily in basic health care, creating communal village and township clinics for its huge rural population. That system produced enormous improvements in health: From 1952 to 1982, infant mortality in China dropped from 200 to 34 deaths per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy rose from 35 years to 68. And under the government's family planning program, fertility rates dropped by half, from six births per woman in 1970 to three as of 1979." http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/review/rvw_summerfall06/rvwsf06_bloom.html
Is that good enough Mr Griffin?
And also - ff you want to, look up Judith Banister's work - 'Chinas Changing Population' - widely considered the most authoritative work in the West on China's population. Crunch through the numbers yourself - you will find what Li says about mortality is true.
Prairespark ( talk) 07:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, both Dikotter and Yang have had access to the archives - does not stop them being charlatans - anyone who believes China had a 'normal' death rate of 1% in 1958 in order to max out the 'excess' death count (the same as the US and Canada at the time, while India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Vietnam, Kenya, etc had death rates 2to 2.5%) are either incredibly stupid, or agenda driven fanatics. Or are they secret admirers of Mao? Because if it was 3.8% in 1949 (as Banister has it, and the accepted level for pre-revolutionary China) then a drop to 1% by 1958 is an astounding achievement on the part of the Maoist government. So Mao and socialism should get credit for saving huge number of lives before 1958?
But never mind all this. By all means include Dikotter, Yang, Chen etc. But in the interests of fairness, I propose we also include Mobo Gao and Li Minqi.
Fair deal?
Prairespark ( talk) 07:20, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
"This user thinks Chairman Mao Zedong is the most evil person to have ever lived"
I thought it would be perhaps King Leopold. He killed about 25% of the population of the Congo (Pol Pot killed 21%) and in absolute numbers killed almost twice as much as Pol Pot(4 million compared to 2.1 million for Pol Pot). Yet statues of him still abound in Belgium.
Also the Americans wiped out out about 1.4 million Phillipinos out of 9 million during the Phillipines American war. If Mao killed at that rate he would be responsible for close to 110 million deaths. So perhaps it should be McKinley or Ted Roosevelt or whoever it was in charge at the time who are the most evil men in history.
Prairespark (
talk) 09:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes. Well who cares what a couple of Englishmen who can't even speak chinese properly think. Just like you call Stalin a tyrant - yet over 50% of Russians don't think badly of him. And most Chinese revere Mao. That is what is important.
And yes Mao did make the point about nuclear war. And most here agree with him. Just like you would fight to the death for your country England or whatever, I believe Mao was correct in saying what he said. What was he going to do? Just roll over and say yes Sir to the United States - we will do you what you want because you have the bomb? Of course not. Chinese are proud of Mao for sticking up to the Americans.
Killing 40 to 70 million ---what a joke ---then other developing countries like India killed over 100 million. You check the mortality rates year by year. Or perhaps you are innumarate and lack the capability to do the figures. Check out all the demographic profiles the life expectancy stats. Chairman Mao was in fact the greatest humanitarian in history.
Yet all Griffin comes up with is some argument from authority --two Western sources say Mao is the world's most evil man, so he must be. Never mind the CHinese peasants who build shrines to him, hang his portraits etc -- their opinions count for nothing.
Now Griffin. Why is Mao the most evil man over say, King Leopold? If it because Mao is chinese, and it gives your tiny mind full of orientalist prejudice a little thrill?
And if anti-communist polemics go into the lede, Gao and Li should also. The points they make are reasonable, and backed up even by research at Stanford and Harvard. Period.
Prairespark ( talk) 18:56, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you AmateurEditor for posting the reminder on my talk page. Although I agree that significant steps have been done towards a consensus, I still believe that the article needs in some work. In this my posts I focus only on the lede. In my opinion, the lede of the article devoted to such a sensitive topic should contain only indisputable facts and no assertions (which belong to the main article). Concretely, the fact that must be reflected are:
I fail to see why this article became an condemnation of Communist regimes instead of one that simply explores the various incidences of mass killings. It contains a large amounts of speculation, and cherry-picked opinions and quotes of selected academics that provides an incomplete picture. For example, both the articles on the Holodomor and the Great Chinese Famine gave perspectives of scholars that contested the notion that these are deliberate killings, and yet their views are not covered here at all. These incidences are quite different from cases such as the Cambodian Genocide, which was found by a court of law to be deliberate genocide. In contrast, the article on Anti-communist mass killings simply lists the various incidences without any commentary.
In consideration, I think the article could need a rewrite, include the perspectives of the authors who contest the mass killings labels, minimize the quotes and commentaries, and focus on factual evidence such as the death numbers, media reports etc. I also believe that some of the material, especially third party, commentary would find a better home at Criticisms of communist party rule. 60.242.159.224 ( talk) 10:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the previous contributor. I believe this article should be junked - I mean its just ridiculous - are we going to have an article on say, Buddhist mass killings, Catholic mass killings, Capitalist mass killings, Feudal mass killings etc. It's just completely absurd that this article should exist at all - unless one is an anti-communist agenda driven fanatic, like Mr Griffin.
If the article must exist, perspectives must be provided from all sides of the issue, not just those who pass muster with Mr Griffin.
Prairespark ( talk) 15:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Regardless of whether Prairespark is a sockpuppet or not, he has made some excellent points. I think his edits some justification and in fact improve the article because they show both sides of the debate. Wikipedia is not a place for C. J. Griffin to simply push his own ideological agenda. An encyclopedia article simply serves to point out the facts and then present the different interpretations of those facts which are out there. It is not a place for cold war pamphleteers like C. J. Griffin.
I do think the cannibalism part of the article under Cultural Revolution should be taken out - as this was an extremely rare event, (out of a population of 800 million, and was not condoned by the Central authorities, less alone ordered by them. Furthermore it is well known that the vast majority of the deaths in the Cultural Revolution came about through factional infighting, the casualties were basically battle casaulties, not victims of mass execution. Hence I do not believe that reference to the Cultural Revolution belongs in the article at all. The Great Leap Forward also does not need mentioning. The famine was unintended, and if one considers it to be a communist 'mass killing', then using the same standard Churchill is a mass killer because of the Bengal famine, and Nehru is a mass killer because of the millions of Indians who died of hunger and disease under him, over and above in numbers those who died under the socialist system in China.
However for the time being I will just remove the Cultural Revolution section, and replace the lede with what prairespark proposed above.
Whether or not the Great Leap Forward remains in the article can be determined by further debate.
Paramanami ( talk) 09:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
The external link to the Global Museum on Communism [4] should be removed from this article because it fails external links. See Links normally to be avoided:
The most obvious reason not to include is (19) - the site has its own article and the link should be there. (2) applies because the site is not scholarly or neutral. (13) applies because the site is not directly about mass killings under Communist regimes.
The issue was brought to the EL noticeboard before. [5] The editor who restored the deletion of this link stated that it "seems a proper external link - does not fail WP:EL for sure". [6] He appears to have forgotten the previous discussion.
TFD ( talk) 02:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Try citing the EL standards: Is the site content accessible to the reader? Is the site content proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.)? Is the link functional and likely to remain functional? To which the answers are all "yes." The site is not commercial, not a "fan site", and in fact represents an organization chartered by Act of Congress, presenting factual material to readers. Further, this has been discussed many times now, and the result has been the same every single time. The site is not only government sanctioned, it has information relevant to the article. Which, oddly enough, is the primary criterion for an external site! Unless, of course, you assert that an organization charted by the Congress is offering intentionally misleading material? But that was already dismissed in the past - so there is no leg to stand on there. The Global Museum on Communism is a project of the non-profit, non-partisan Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, established by an Act of Congress on December 17, 1993 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. seems fairly reputable, I would say.
Collect (
talk) 02:47, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Apparently this material:
Has nothing to do with this article. Nor does this:
Nor does this:
None of this has any relevance to this article. Eh? Collect ( talk) 03:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
The link is entirely relevant to this article and as such I have restored it. Tentontunic ( talk) 08:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Should the article Mass killings under Communist regimes contain an external link to the Global Museum on Communism website? TFD ( talk) 23:19, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
I am unaware of any scholars calling the 1956 Hungarian Revolution a communist mass killing. But Darkstar1st is asserting that it was.
Were the Hungarian killed in the Soviet response to Hungary's violent revolution victims of a mass killing?
At Mass killing, I'm only finding a bunch of links to Genocide, Mass destruction, and Mass murder. How are mass killings defined? Was the Hungarian Revolution a mass killing? (If so, was the counter-revolutionary Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War yet another episode of mass killing?) Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 03:09, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Trying to step back from the increasingly heated discussion. The fact this comes up at all indicates how woolly and poorly thought out this article is. "Mass killing" is such a large, ill-defined category, it can arguably include killings of soldiers during wartime (which do or do not violate Geneva conventions), killing of civilians in your own country, and of civilians in other people's countries (in peace or in wartime). The most narrow useful definition for this article would probably be "killing of civilians in your own country" and would cover the allegations about the USSR, China, Cambodia, etc. Hungary (forgetting the not very useful "insurgency" concept) is an example of "killing civilians in someone else's country during a military invasion". If we keep the field this broad, then "Democracy and mass killing" would also include discussions of the bombings of Hiroshima and Dresden, use of pilotless drones, cluster bombs and huge munitions in Iraq and Afghanistan today and all that good stuff. In cases like this, the broader the article, the less useful it is. Such topics are probably better discussed in narrower articles. Genocides in history has problems of its own, but at least is not titled "Mass killings by governments". Jonathanwallace ( talk) 17:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
This is effectively a "nexus" article about the connection between Communism and murder, yet (as Andy points out in the previous section) skips any discussion of the actual connection, assuming we all understand it. A "nexus" article should illustrate that the connection itself is notable. That is why we don't have "Mass killings on Tuesdays". (See also the very funny Judaism and bus stops deletion discussion.) As it happens, the Communism/Mass killing nexus is notable, but the article never bothers to establish notability. It would become encyclopedic if recast as an article on the work of notable historians, sociologists etc. who have examined the Communism/mass killing nexus. Specific country examples would then come in through their work. There is no lack of such sources on many of the examples mentioned. FWIW, articles on "capitalism and mass killing", "democracy and mass killing" and so forth could be similarly sourced. History is "indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. " Gibbon. Jonathanwallace ( talk) 13:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
(Collect--I segregated this as a new section and made some hopefully nonsubstantive changes to my first comment to clarify that. Since you had already replied, I'm mentioning it because such edits are disfavored if they undermine the sense of the replies. I think I avoided that here.) Also wanted to mention that the article lede, "Study has been made of states that have declared adherence to some form of Communist doctrine, and have killed significant numbers of people or facilitated their deaths" is a perfect example of weasel words. Jonathanwallace ( talk) 13:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
I strongly object to this revert by Tentontunic [21].
Valentino does not state "some Eastern European and African countries". He writes that mass killings by communists occured "Eastern Europe and Africa." It's common knowledge that there were mass killings in the USSR (which can be taken to include various of Eastern European countries) and in Ethiopia, but nobody has been able to point out where else they occured. The article does not discuss any mass killings in Africa outside of Ethiopia; it's likely that Mengistu's Red Terror is the only example of mass killing under a communist regime in Africa.
But the word "some" is synonymous with "a few" and therefore strongly implies something to the effect that mutliple African regimes carried out mass killings. That isn't claimed by Valentino, and Tentontunic's (and AmteurEditor's) edits cannot perforce be regarded as a valid paraphrase. Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 21:48, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
I have restored Eastern European, for I am quite sure that the USSR contained quite a large chunk of it. Tentontunic ( talk) 20:59, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Anyone with the vaguest grasp of twentieth century history knows that this is the case. So why is Wikipedia pretending otherwise? Has it become so grotesquely propagandised by the totalitarian left? Jprw ( talk) 18:29, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
I encourage newcomers to read the talk page where this issue has already been discussed. Whereas the fact that tens of millions lost their lives prematurely under Communist regimes (mostly as a result of civil wars, famines or diseases) is indisputable, only small part of scholars characterise all these events as mass killings. As a rule, only such events as Kampuchean genocide, Great Purge, or Ciltural revolution are characterised as mass killings. However, they caused million, not tens of millions deaths. I already explained that on this talk page before. I suggest to self-revert the recent changes in the sentence quited above, and to discuss the lede on the talk page first. If the change will not be self reverted, I'll revert it, and any other attempt to restore the current wording without a consensus will be considered as edit warring.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 04:46, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Given the fact that almost ten million died in the enforced famine in the Ukraine alone (I presume that we can all agree that this qualifies as a mass killing) I would suggest that it is nonsensical and deeply misrepresentative to be discussing mass deaths under communism in terms of millions and not tens of millions. This is indisputable; therefore "Tens of millions lost their lives etc." should remain as being perfectly reasonable, accurate and non-problematic. From the introduction to Robert Conquest's Harvest of Sorrow:
Fifty years ago as I write these words, the Ukraine and the Ukrainian, Cossack and other areas to its east -- a great stretch of territory with some forty million inhabitants -- was like one vast Belsen. A quarter of the rural population, men, women and children, lay dead or dying, the rest in various stages of debilitation with no strength to bury their families or neighbours. At the same time, (as at Belsen), well-fed squads of police or party officials supervised the victims.
I can't believe that we actually need to be arguing this. Jprw ( talk) 08:15, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Was the famine in the Ukraine (let me remind you again, one single incident from 1932-33, which possibly claimed upwards of 10 million lives) under communism a mass killing or not? Jprw ( talk) 15:06, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Do you think the holocaust qualifies as a mass killing? Jprw ( talk) 17:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Then the deaths in the Soviet Death Camps (let's leave out China and North Korea for the moment) also qualify as a mass killing? Jprw ( talk) 06:02, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
They were in effect death camps, as you surely must realise. Just as the famine in the Ukraine was in effect a gigantic Belsen, supervised and facilitated by the State under direct orders from Stalin (he even admitted it to Churchill at Yalta). So the deaths in the Gulag, a system set up and supervised by the Soviet State, can also qualify as a mass killing. Or is it a case of "all deaths are equal, but some deaths are more equal than others" (i.e., if you die in a Nazi death camp you're part of a mass killing, but if you die in a Soviet death camp, you're not). Another question for you – do you think that holocaust victims who died from diseases brought on by malnutrition and poor sanitary conditions should not count among the 6 million who died? Jprw ( talk) 06:53, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 16:59, 12 February 2011 (UTC)The stories that subsequently came out of the prisons and camps show how much sadism and wanton cruelty there was on the part of the police interrogators, and within the camps, by the guards. As in Nazi Germany, the trips to the camps were themselves nightmares of overcrowding, famine, and thirst, with many perishing on the way. Nevertheless, these were not death camps as were the German ones, because there was no plan to systematically exterminate all the prisoners.
Gulag A History by Anne Applebaum (2003) is also an excellent and important overview of the Gulag system. To take one statistic from the book, it is estimated that between 1941-42 one quarter of the entire Gulag population starved to death. Millions were tortured, starved, and worked to death, the life expectancy was three months in some of the Siberian camps. They were to all intents and purposes death camps. The term Gulag has rightly come to mean a symbol of oppression and totalitarian power; how disturbing that some on this talk page seem so keen to ignore so many facts and accounts from the historical records. Jprw ( talk) 13:32, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
To avoid future arguments similar to those from the last posts of
Jprw,
Tentontunic, and other newcomers, let me reproduce some old arguments and sources I already presented on other talk pages.
Opening of formerly classified Soviet archives compelled most western scholars to re-consider their views on the Soviet history (Doing Soviet History: The Impact of the Archival Revolution
Author(s): Donald J. Raleigh Source: Russian Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 16-24) Currently, most scholars and political writers who write about Stalinist repressions use for their works a seminal article published in the American Historical Reviews by J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn, Viktor N. Zemskov. (Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence Author(s): J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn, Viktor N. Zemskov Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 1017-1049). To avoid accusation in OR, let me quote such a rightist and anti-Communist scholar as
Robert Conquest, who wrote:
Interestingly, these data, obtained based on the exhaustive analysis of declassified Soviet archives, have been carefully checked by other western scholars, including cross-check (comparison of the figures taken from local and central archives, analysis of the number of NKVD troops who guarded the camps, etc), who came to a conclusion that it would be highly unlikely that these figures were forged.
Based on these figures, Michael Ellman concluded that:
Now, in light of all said above, let me discuss the Applebaum's book and the interpretation of her conclusions made by Jprw. Firstly, by contrast to the authors quoted by me, Anne Applebaum is a political journalist. She never did her own archival studies and relied on the works published by others. In actuality, majority of figures she uses in her book were taken from the GRZ article (either directly, or indirectly, from the works of other scholars who used GRZ's data). For instance, she claimed that, according to official statistics, on January 1950, the Gulag contained 2,561,351 prisoners in a camps and colonies of the system [25]. Let's compare this figure with the data from the Getty, Rittersporn, Zemskov's article. According to them, there were 1,727,970 inmates in the Gulag camps and 740,554 inmates in colonies.
Taking into account that the GRZ article is an original work (Applebaum and all scholars cite this article) it is obvious that Appelbaum took GRZ's data, not vise versa. In other words, it is simply ridiculous to contrapose the data of Appelbaum (taken in actuality from the works of serious scholars) and the works of these scholars themselves.
Jprw writes (referring to Applebaum):
Getty writes:
In other words, we have the same facts, that have been represented quite differently: whereas Jprw makes a stress on the WWII time mortality (probably implying that the same events occurred during the whole period of Gulag history), GRZ write that that was an extraordinary period of the Gulag history, and that it was connected with desperate food shortage in the USSR as whole during that time. Obviously, the arguments that "Millions were tortured, starved, and worked to death..." is either Jprw's or Applebaum's inventions, because the only source of reliable information (the articles of serious scholars quoted above, as well as the works of Wheatcroft and similar scholars) contain no such figures.
Enough for today. I'll add more sources/quotes/references if needed.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 00:25, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Yes and please do not forget to add Conquest's reply to Wheatcroft which can be found here [26]. I'll leave you with one quote from it:
Throughout his piece, Wheatcroft is concerned to misrepresent and impugn my motives -- the traditional recourse of the sectarian. It would be hard, apparently, to explain to Wheatcroft that my early works on the Soviet Union were undertaken out of a wish to discover the facts. Academics, in the sense Wheatcroft intends, had not done so (and work by the leading Russianist, Sir Bernard Pares, and the leading social scientists, the Webbs, and most others, were valueless). I have avoided the abusive tone Wheatcroft has used against me, but I will not conclude without mention of an acquaintance who had attended a talk of his at the time the mass graves were being discovered, telling me that when she raised the subject, he dismissed it ("rather testily"!) as rumours. Yes, after all, bodies are not documents.
Jprw ( talk) 06:34, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Re the edit by Jprw on 18:10, 12 February 2011, see Mass killings under Communist regimes#Others. Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 18:15, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
On the other hand, much of the lead looks like a paraphrasing of the single source that you cite, which can't be satisfactory. Jprw ( talk) 06:21, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Another editor explained above why this article is POV and I am copying his comments below. Could editors please resolve this issue before removing the POV tag. TFD ( talk) 20:22, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, see that. The lede is still weaselly worded. An encyclopedia article should build from the central premise ("Communist regimes have a particular tendency to kill a lot of people") not justify it in passing after giving many examples. I'm also interested in the quality of the sources. I will spend some more time on it and will post suggestions here. Jonathanwallace ( talk) 13:27, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
I just added the according to whom? tag to the weasel worded lede ("Study has been made..."). In looking over the article, I then noticed the really remarkable assertion that Darwinism causes mass murder, sourced to Ann Coulter. Our official verifiability policy requires, "Exceptional claims require high-quality sources." Ann Coulter is not a reliable source for a historical link between belief in evolution science and mass murder. Jonathanwallace ( talk) 00:52, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
This article infers a connection between Communist regimes and mass killings, which is not explained. There is no discussion of who has made the connection, what connection they have made, or the level of acceptance of their views. /Accordingly it reads like cold war propaganda and is an embarrassment and a disservice to readers. Also, most of the sources do not directly address the subject but are written about events in individual countries. Much of the literature is taken from books that are either published outside the mainstream academic press or comparatively recent. Accordingly we cannot discern what level of acceptance they have in mainstream writing - in fact they probably have none. TFD ( talk) 03:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
(out) My apologies, we did discuss this book before but I forgot about it because it is obscure. This book is a reliable source for facts, including what other academics say. He says, "Western public culture is profoundly uncomfortable with the Red Holocaust. It is inclined toward denial because a communist state policy of mass civilian slaughter impugns the west's faith in reason, progress, harmony and justice.... For the same reason, it is prone to excuse the mote, and when all else fails, to sermonize. Many however, resist believing that this dismal outcome was fated, or that communists employed massive violence to build and spread their systems. This treatise challenges the notion that communist economy was ever sound...."
In other words, Rosefielde acknowledges that he is presenting a minority view. His book False Science: Underestimating the Soviet Arms Buildup. An Appraisal of the CIA's Direct Costing Effort, 1960-1985, for example, was standard neo-conservative fare, arguing about the imminent danger of the Soviet Union months before its collapse.
We cannot present minority views as consensus views. We cannot use the existence of minority views as a hook for a coatrack, which is what this article does.
What we should do is explain Rosefielde's views and the degree of acceptance they have received.
TFD ( talk) 02:46, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
Here is a link to Rosefielde's 1988 book False Science, published by Transaction Publishers where he outlines the " Team B" conspiracy theory about how the Soviet Union has surpassed the U.S. in military ability and the CIA is hiding the fact from the American people. Months later the Soviet Union collapsed. TFD ( talk) 03:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
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In the Criticisms of communist party rule article the first sentence in the "Loss of life" section simply places the death toll in the "tens of millions." Something similar could be a possible solution for the lede as it seems there will be a constant edit war over definitive estimates (i.e. 21-70 million). So perhaps something like this could be a solution: "Scholars believe that millions, perhaps tens of millions, lost their lives in various episodes of mass killing." Surely few would dispute that at the very least millions were killed by Communist regimes collectively, no? I can think of three citations for this already, Valentino (his range is in the tens of millions), Rosefielde (communism's internal contradictions "caused to be killed" approximately 60 million people), and Naimark ("...Stalinist Russia, Mao's China, and Pol Pot's Cambodia - where millions of these country's own citizens were killed in campaigns of mass murder..." 2010, p. 5) I'm sure others could be used. Actual estimates could be placed in the appropriate sub-sections that pertain to individual episodes of mass killing (i.e. red terror, great purges, land reform, etc). I'm not sure if something like this has been suggested before, and don't feel like reading over previous discussions. Thoughts on this? (italics mine of course)-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 14:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
You are trying to combine several different things.
Note to TFD: while I won't edit the article, because of the threat of the major editors to unite to have me banned from Wikipedia if I do, I do follow it. You're in danger of losing your sense of humor. A50000's comment was obviously a joke. Rick Norwood ( talk) 13:03, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
So how about something like this for the lede:
The killing of a large numbers of non-combatants has occurred in certain states, including some that have declared adherence to some form of Communist doctrine. The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. It is believed that millions, perhaps tens of millions, lost their lives in various episodes of mass killing by these regimes. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach in calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. (Insert citations where necessary)
It seems to me this would revolve some of the issues being discussed here, and will hopefully prevent future edit wars.-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 13:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
So, a first try for a lede:
Mass killings under Communist regimes occurred during the twentieth century with the number of victims estimated between ?? million and 100 million.[with sources for high and low estimates] The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Estimates of the number of killings vary widely: for these three countries ranging from 21 million to 70 million.[nb 1] There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries.
Higher estimates of the killings include deaths during civil wars, mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, famines and land reforms. Lower estimates exclude deaths, for example, from famines because government policy errors and management mistakes may have caused more deaths than intentional killings.
In either case, some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide.
Smallbones ( talk) 15:01, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Mass killings under Communist regimes during the twentieth century resulted the estimated deaths of between ?? million and 100 million people.[with sources for high and low estimates] The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Estimates of the number of killings vary widely: for these three countries ranging from 21 million to 70 million.[nb 1] There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries.
Higher estimates of the killings include deaths during civil wars, mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, famines and land reforms. Lower estimates exclude deaths, for example, from famines because government policy errors and management mistakes may have caused more deaths than intentional killings.
In either case, some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide.
Really, we need to be clear as to what constitutes 'mass killing'. Obviously we do not mean the execution of people who were guilty of the crimes they committed (no matter how minor), but those people who were innocent, and were killed, (shot, bayoneted, hanged, or whatever), by the ruling communists.
Those deaths where communist ideology may or may not have been the non-proximate cause, should not be included. If they are, then to be consistent there would be a good argument for considering the deaths of WWI, WWII, and the 13 million children who starve to death each year now, all 'capitalist' mass killings.
Lets look at the PRC, where the biggest numbers of so called 'mass killings' are alleged to have happened. Those executed during the entire time of the Mao years, amount to, at a maximum, 3 or 4 million (Phillip Short, Mao a Life, page 632). The GLF deaths, were unintended consequences of ill-conceived policies, exacerbated by the uniform policies applied over a huge geographical and diverse area. It is absurd to say that Mao launched the GLF intending that it would fail. Absolutely absurd. Some may argue he did not do enough to mitigate its effects when they were brought to his knowledge. But that still does not constitute murder. After all no one accuses the British of 'murdering' 20 million Indian famine victims at the end of the 19th Century (out of a population at the time of 200 million), even though these deaths, like the Great Leap deaths, were victims of poor planning, and inadequate relief measures during the mass dyings. Furthermore the peak year of deaths of the Great Leap (1960), saw the worst climatic conditions in a whole century. People killed by these conditions, again, should not be counted under 'communist mass killings.'
Killings are these. Where someone, by order of those in power in communist regimes, kills or executes someone, and that person was WRONGLY killed.
The fact is many of those executed by Mao (and by Stalin) were guilty of the crimes they were accused of. But lets say then, 1/4 were innocent (actually more likely 1/20 were innocent). Then Mao's actual killings of innocent people (ie deaths ordered and intended by him) were something of the order of 500,000?
Most of the deaths of the Cultural Revolution were from factional infighting, few from direct executions ordered by Mao. In fact when things did start to get out of hand Mao sent the PLA in to restore order. Furthermore in an interview with Edgar Snow in 1970, Mao regretted the excesses. He admitted that things had got out of hand with factional infighting, and that the army had suffered 'thousands of casualties' when restoring order. Mao said the struggle should be carried out by 'reasoning, not coercion or force'. Mao also deplored the maltreatment of 'captives.' So Mao here was admitting to problems with the CR in 1971. http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=MEAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=%27life+magazine%27+edgar+snow+mao&source=bl&ots=vBLON6FIwN&sig=10-XalKTNMsUroBHQWmYAJcDZPY&hl=en&ei=O2gZTZC-I8aycMzZ5J8K&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB0Q6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=cambodia&f=false
If Mao and Maoism is responbible for all deaths that occurred in a revolution he launched (and yes, the CR was obviously - a 'revolution'), and that revolution was for ideological purposes, not to kill people, then saying most of the deaths during the CR were 'mass killings' is as ridiculous as saying Bush and Blair are guilty of 'mass killings' of Iraqis and Afghans who werer 'collateral' damage in their invasions of those two places. Or should all the deaths of the American Revolution be attributed to 'mass killings' under Washington?
Of course not.
Philip Short's estimate is reliable. Three or four million executions over the course of Mao's reign. Assuming 1/4 were innocent, we can say one million victims of 'mass killing' under Mao, over 26 years.
Including the part about 'cannibalism' is so ridiculous and outrageous (even MacFarquahar would say so), that perhaps it is good to include it. It just shows that these fanatical anti-communists like Mr Griffin here, are willing to stoop at anything to make their point. That is because they really don't have a strong argument.
But again. Let's all agree upon what constituates 'mass killing'.
Philip Short's Mao - a life
http://www.amazon.com/Mao-Life-Philip-Short/dp/0805066381
Prairespark ( talk) 04:48, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Some states that have declared adherence to some form of Communist doctrine have killed significant numbers of people or facilitated their untimely deaths. The highest death tolls that have been documented the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. It is widely believed that millions, perhaps tens of millions, lost their lives in various episodes of mass killing by these regimes. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions that took place during the mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, and land reforms but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach in calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. Some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide.
-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 05:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
"I'd like to propose that Prairespark's 'contributions' to this talk page be deleted as a violation of talk page usage, on the basis that they are (a)
WP:OR, and (b)
WP:CB."
Coming to an agreement on what constitutes 'mass killing' is surely a legitimate area for discussion.
As China allegedly plays such a big role in these 'mass killings', discussing what the final numbers should be for China, should also be a legitimate area of discussion.
As for 'facilitating untimely deaths' - sure. As long as Mr Griffin, would believe that Bush and Blair are also 'mass killers' for facilitating the 'untimely' deaths of up to one million Iraqis. If he does not, then he should apply the same standard to alleged deaths under communism.
How about:
It has been alleged that some states that have declared adherence to some form of Communist doctrine, have killed significant numbers of people or facilitated their untimely deaths. The highest death tolls that have been alleged are for the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Some scholars, mostly Western, claim that millions, perhaps tens of millions, lost their lives in various episodes of mass killings by these regimes. Killings have also been alleged, albeit on a much smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions that took place during the mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, and land reforms but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach towards calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. Some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide, others may not. Other scholars will also point to fact that these allegations often reflect the ideological bias of those making the allegations, and that if a consistent definition of 'mass killing' were applied across the board, regardless of the ideology of the regime concerned, communist 'mass killings', on a proportionate, and even absolute basis, would not be significantly higher, and would perhaps even be lower than those carried out by the Western democracies.
--
Prairespark ( talk) 05:37, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
"I'd like to propose that Prairespark's 'contributions' to this talk page be deleted...." I second that."
I thought this was the type of thing you people accused us of....hmmmm how very 'Stalinist' of you Mr Griffin! Prairespark ( talk) 09:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
By the way I will also be pushing for deletion of references to 'cannibalism' under the Cultural revolution section. Bringing in anectdotes of single criminal incidents, which were not related to the cultural revolution at all, even less ordered by the communst leadership is mischievous and should be considered vandalism. It is the equivalent of bringing up say, Jeffrey Dahmer, in a hypothetical article on American capitalism to attack American capitalism. Or making My Lai the centrepiece of an article on Richard Nixon.
Prairespark ( talk) 02:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Well, certainly the case of the sharebroker who several years ago in the US, lost his money, and then went home in humiliated rage and killed his kids with a hammer, had something to do with capitalism. So we should perhaps include that particular case in the Wikipedia article on capitalism? AndyTheGrump - not even MacFarquhar draws such a long bow.
Prairespark ( talk) 09:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Note this part of the article:
"Rosefielde also notes that "while it is fashionable to mitigate the Red Holocaust by observing that capitalism killed millions of colonials in the twentieth century, primarily through man-made famines, no inventory of such felonious negligent homicides comes close to the Red Holocaust total."
R J Rummel has recently revised his estimate for 20th Century colonial democide up from 870,000 to a minimum of 50 million. It was only recently that King Leopold's slaughter of Congolese (10 to 20 million victims) was brought to his attention.
Rummel compares the crimes of colonialism to the Gulags. He states "I’ve reevaluated the colonial toll. Where exploitation of a colony’s natural resources or portering was carried out by forced labor (in effect slavery of a modern kind), as it was in all the European and Asian colonies, then the forced labor system built in its own death toll from beatings, punishment, coercion, terror, and forced deprivation. There were differences in the brutality of the system, the British being the least brutal and Leopold and the French, Germans, and Portuguese the worst. We all know what the Soviet gulag was like. These colonizers turned Africa into one giant gulag, with each colony being like a separate camp." http://democraticpeace.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/exemplifying-the-horror-of-some-european-colonization%E2%80%94leopolds-congo/
Rummel's claim seems reasonable - this makes colonialism at least as murderous as communism. Note that part of the reason for communisms high absolute toll is the large populations of Russia and China. The proportion of the population killed should also be considered.
Some mention should be made of the murderous of colonial democide, to provide an alternative perspective from that of Rosefielde's.
Prairespark ( talk) 13:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Rummel includes the 50 million colonial democide figure, not only in a blog, but on his webpage summarising 20th century democide. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
I do find it interesting that people emphasise the 100 million victims of communism, yet do not take into account that the USSR and China especially had very large populations. There were simply more people to kill - or ill-conceived policies would automatically cause large numbers of deaths. Surely what also needs to be taken into account is the proportion of the target population decimated.
If proportion of the population is taken into account then the crimes of King Leopold in the Congo would certainly exceed anything that Mao and Stalin got up to, as well as the American genocide of Phillipinos, with 600000 to a million civilian deaths - out of a population of about 7 million.
It should also be noted also that the excess deaths of the GLF famine were measured relative to very low mortality rates which the communists had achieved in the first decade of their rule (and for which they had drawn much praise). In fact the death rate of 25 to 30 per thousand during the worst year of the GLF (ie 1960) was not that much higher than the 24 per thousand mortality rate in India and other developing nations of the time, and was in fact less than the death rates of many of the years in China before 1949. But 25 deaths per thousand over the 11 deaths per thousand achieved in China previously did mean a lot of excess deaths. To provide context it should be mentioned that overally mortality did decline significantly during Maos rule (even during the period of the Cultural Revolution) and life expectancy doubled- in spite of the tragic setback of the GLF. The results of this are obvious. The increase in population under Mao (the most rapid population rise in Chinese history) was seven times the percentage increase of the 27 years leading up to 1949. Yet fertility declined under Mao -thus the only explanation for the doubling of the population under Mao, is dramatic declines in mortality.
Prairespark ( talk) 18:37, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, Rummel seems to be completely unreliable. For instance Jung Chang's biography of Mao has been roundly panned by China scholars, yet Jung Chang is the only reason why Rummel revises upwards China's democide total, based only on Chang's utterly dishonest arguments.
Maybe we should consign all of Rummel's work to the proverbial dust bin.
There were no 30 or 40 million deaths from starvation in the GLF famine. There were about 25 million excess deaths, relative to the very low mortality rates that the communists had achieved in the first decade of rule. There was only one year where the mortality rate exceeded the level of 1940s China. And that was 1960 (mortality of 44 per thousand), a year of massive flooding and the most atrocious climatic conditions in a whole century. In the other years, Judith Banister (the doyen of China demographic studies) has found mortality rates (around 25 per thousand) at about the same level as those in India, Indonesia, and other developing countries of the time. Jung Chang to max out her excess deaths calculation assumed a 1% mortality rate (10 in 1000) for 1957. In fact this was the crude death rate of the US at the time - obviously a ridiculous figure for China. The actual number of GLF deaths that can be directly attributable to famine, if excess deaths are calculated relative to the levels to pre-revolutionary China, and India, Indonesia etc at the time is something of the order of 4 to 5 million.
There is convergence of evidence with other sources. Look at life expectancy trends for China, India, Egypt, South Africa, Indonesia, and South Korea from 1960 to today. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy+china#met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:CHN:IDN:IND
Two significant things from the trends. 1. The life expectancy of Chinese in 1960, the year of supposedly the worst famine in all of human history, was higher than that of India and Indonesia. Again the excess deaths were calculated relative to very low levels just prior to the leap. 2. The years of the Cultural Revolution saw perhaps the greatest jump in life expectancy in the history of the PRC. Fully a decade of life expectancy was added, ie a one year increment in life expectancy for each year of the Cultural Revolution. Far from a holocaust, the Cultural Revolution period was the most successful in all of Chinese history, in raising life expectancy and literacy, in spite of its may excesses which we all know of.
In fact far from being a murdering tyrant, Mao presided over the most rapid decrease in mortality, in consequentially the greatest rate of increase in life expectancy in all of documented history. This is the subject of an ongoing Stanford University study. http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/research/health_improvement_under_mao_and_its_implications_for_contemporary_aging_in_china/
And by the way I'm not Jacob Peters. Anyone with even a modicum of Chinese historical knowledge will be able to guess correctly the inspiration behind 'prairespark'.
Prairespark ( talk) 04:12, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
It will take a year or two, but Dikotter's work will soon be going the way of Rummel's - to the dustbin (or at least it should).
I have not the time nor space to go into all the things wrong with his work in any great detail, but just three points:
1. As with Jung Chang, Dikotter assumes an unbelievably low annual mortality leading up to the GLF of 1% (and unwittingly credits the communists with having reduced mortality even more than the communists credit theselves - Banister has a death rate of 3.8% in 1949), to max out his excess death count. Like I said previously 1% is completely unbelievable - it's about the same as the United States at that time and not that much higher than the US mortality rate of 0.84% today. The typical mortality rate in the developing world in the late 1950s was 2 to 3 per thousand.
2. Dikotter, from reviewing the archives of public security organs, that violence must have been widespread during the GLF. He offers absolutely no statistical calculation of this. One would suspect if one went to the police archives of any country in the world, one would naturally be faced with pages and pages of documented violence - its just common sense that this is so. However even Dikotter says this violence was not orchestrated from the top, rather violent excesses were in fact recorded by people at the bottom and these reports were passed to the top in an effort to keep the leadership apprised of what was going on. Some of the acts of violence, as well as famine deaths, were found out by investigatory teams sent out by Beijing to find out the true picture of what was going on. So obviously the violence (which was probably less than the violence in an average American city) was not ordered from the top. By recounting incidents of random violence, Dikotter conscripts the reader into his point of view - and by the final chapter when he presents his 'analysis' of the death toll, the reader will be loathe to challenge him on his 'facts.'
3. Dikotter's fraudulent misuse of a picture of a begging child from a 1946 famine (not an 'official' famine) on the cover of his paperback edition, is not only an appalling act of intellectual dishonest, but also essentially racist. His attitude is 'any starving asian will do'. He has been taken to task by Adam Jones (the renowned Canadian genocide scholar) for this. Adam Jones says on his website "may I also suggest that the very extensive airbrushing, replacement/grafting of background, colourization and so on of the original image is curiously reminiscent of communist practice under Mao and Stalin?" http://jonestream.blogspot.com/2010/10/did-dikotter-misrepresent-famine-image.html
Dikotter's fraudalent use of this image and other famine images from pre-revolutionary China can be seen on videos he appears in to discuss the famine: http://web.mac.com/dikotter/Dikotter/Interviews.html
Dikotter elsewhere, and in fact in his book, says there are no non-propaganda images of the GLF, yet he fills his book cover and videos with famine images from old China. Again, just utterly dishonest.
Prairespark ( talk) 04:34, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
There may be no photographs of outright starvation. For example my wife's grandfather died during the leap from illness - probably prematurely from malnutrition. That is altogether different from the whole place looking like Belsen or Auschwitz (although specific parts of China might well have). China at the height of the GLF would have looked little different to India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, or Egypt of the time. The only year in which conditions were truly exceptional was 1960, due to extensive flooding.
The image used on his book is no doubt fake, if you follow the link provided by Jones, and in Dikotter's book itself, on the first page of the photographs section, there is a note in small print saying that no non-propaganda images of the period have been found, at least by him to date. Dikotter again confirms this in this newsweek article. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/26/mao-s-great-famine.html
Therefore Dikotter must know full well that the images he uses for his book cover and videos are not from the GLF. But obviously he does not care. They have emotional impact and help him get his point across.
Again any intelligent person could not fail to note that the excess deaths are calculated against very low assumed initial rates of mortality. This maximizes the excess death count. But the most widely respected mortality rate for 1949 is 38/1000 by Judith Banister - a typical figure for developing nations of the time. Dikotter, and Chang by using a ridiculouse 1957 figure of 10/1000 unwittingly give credit to the communists for reducing death rates in less than ten years by 28 deaths per thousand! So surely Mao, if he is to be condemned for the credit of excess deaths during the GLF, to be fair he should be credited for the deficit in deaths from 1949 up to the GLF, which would surely outweigh even Dikotter's outlandish figure of 45 million (in fact a very rough calc puts the lives saved from 1949 to 1958 due to a reduction in the death rate to around 90 million).
The fact is Mao's overall record should be looked at. And it seems that all the data, the demographic data agree on one thing. China's population exploded (increasing at about 3 to 4 times the rate in Mao's time) of the 3 decades leading up to 1949. Why is this? All the evidence points to falling fertility during Mao's time. So the only possible reason for the doubling of population under Mao is a dramatic reduction in mortality. The fastest rate of increase in life expectancy happened under Mao and is currently the subject of an ongoing Yale University study. http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/research/health_improvement_under_mao_and_its_implications_for_contemporary_aging_in_china/
Other authors have estimated that had China had the mortality rates of India, Indonesia, or other developing countries of similar GDP during Mao's time, there would have been 100 million more excess deaths. These facts are easily verifiable, with the data that is readily at hand to Western researchers. Even the most anti-communist of scholars do not dispute the data.
But when it comes to communism, it seems rhetoric and emotion override any objective analysis of the actual data.
I'm sure if someone comes out tomorrow and says Mao killed 200 million, people would just swallow it as fact.
Prairespark ( talk) 06:07, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
A simple analysis:
I am not the first to point this out. We use Judith Banister's CHINA'S CHANGING POPULATION, which is widely considered the most authoritative work on China's population. The figures presented below are adjusted from the official rates by Banister, to take into account underreporting of deaths.
Year Deaths per thousand among the population
1949 38
1950 35
1951 32
1952 29
1953 25.77
1954 24.20
1955 22.33
1956 20.11
1957 18.12
1958 20.65
1959 22.06
1960 44.60
1961 23.01
1962 14.02
1963 13.81
Note that the Famine years are considered to be 1958 to 1961. However it would be a mistake to say that the conditions of 1958,59, and 61, were famine years. If so why not the years 1949 to 1954 when mortality rates were actually higher than 1958, 59, and 61?
So you can see the famine, except for 1960, is a statistical construct.
Compare the death rates of the 1959 to 61 with the mortality rates of India at the same time (Fig 16.3): http://envfor.nic.in/divisions/ic/wssd/doc2/ch16.htm
You can see that in the late 1950s, India's mortality was about 22/1000. That is more or less the same mortality rate as Banister's figures for 1958, 59, and 61. The single outlier is of course 1960. Here is something else that is interesting. If India was at 22 deaths per thousand, yet not considered to be in famine, why not China?
Let's go back a bit further. Look at China in 1949. Banister puts mortality at 38 deaths per thousand. Yet 1949 is not considered as a famine year by any researcher, nor are any of the years of the late 1940s. So for our purposes lets consider 38/1000 as the norm for pre-revolutionary China (it was actually probably a lot higher).
If we then take 44.6 deaths - 38 = 6.6 excess deaths per thousand in China in 1960.
6.6 deaths per thousand * 650 million / 1000 = 4.29 million deaths.
Thus the actual famine deaths, taking 38 per thousand mortality as the threshold between famine and non-famine, would give 4.29 famine deaths in China associated with the GLF. Such a famine of course would be a typical size one in China, with 5 million deaths claimed for a 1930s famine in China. Of course proportionally it would have less impact because China's population in the 1930s was around 450 million, whereas by 1960 it was around 650 million.
That is the fair way to look at the figures. Far from the greatest famine in history, the GLF famine should perhaps be considered the greatest REVERSAL in history - because up to the GLF the communists were doing so well in reducing mortality. And they came back on track after the famine.
Prairespark ( talk) 06:52, 31 December 2010 (UTC) -- Prairespark ( talk) 06:52, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
An incredible amount of OR does not really affect what RS sources state - which is what WP editors are required to use. As for assuming that a rate of 38/M is "normal - that is past credulity indeed. And if one wishes to do mortality comparisons, the ages of death are important considerations - there is no doubt, apparently, that the early years of PRC saw a very large number of deaths due to war/rebellion/political reasons, and that 1958 - 1961 saw large numbers of death officially attributed to famine (noting regions which were heavily affected, and deaths by age cohort). It is not up to us to do the calculations when RS sources have done so. We are not to
know facts not easily determined in sources.
Collect (
talk) 07:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
"As for assuming that a rate of 38/M is "normal - that is past credulity indeed."
But 38/thousand would quite likely normal, especially when we consider that this was the average rate of mortality in India in the 1920s (not considered a famine period). And unlike India, China went through foreign invasion and political upheaval on a huge scale in the 1930s and 1940s - something that India escaped. The Chinese government also did not have effective control of the entire country for many decades. It was the unity that the communists gave China, that started to move the country ahead. Note also that pre WWI Russia had average mortality of around 33 per thousand.
In any case 38/1000 for 1949 is the best estimate by researchers to date. I think we have to accept the figure.
Anecdotally, my grandparents in southern China (a relatively rich area) were relatively well off. In the 1930s and 40s my father and his siblings were born. Of eight children born, 3 died in early childhood. This was for a relatively prosperous land-owning and educated family. One can only surmise the actual mortality rates for the entire country - they would have been absolutely horrendous - in fact probably at or even exceeding 1960 GLF proportions.
Interestingly Life magazine (where Dikotter stole the picture of the starving boy for his cover) clearly shows horrendous famine in nationalist China in 1946. The link is here. The title is 'Millions are starving in the once-rich rice bowl". http://books.google.com/books?id=81QEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=1946,+china,+famine,+child&source=bl&ots=PipWY2aPx-&sig=EaQQV01IVdN85DLlZ2yLdbGYQc0&hl=en&ei=HiyhTPq-BcvFswaM6p3wAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=1946%2C%20china%2C%20famine%2C%20child&f=false
Yet, incredibly no researcher considers 1946 a famine year!
The 38/1000 is all too believable.
In fact the reason why so few Chinese hold the GLF against Mao is probably because for them it was nothing unique. The conditions in prerevolutionary China were every bit as bad.
The important thing to note however that the GLF was the only famine to afflict New China. The overall record for Mao's time, is the most dramatic decline in mortality rates in history, saving tens of millions of lives, when compared to the performance of other developing countries.
As for an academic study addressing some of the points I have made above, I refer you to Utsa Patnaik: “On Famine and Measuring ‘Famine Deaths.’” Thinking Social Science in India: Essays in Honour of Alice Thorner. Ed. Sujata Patel, Jasodhara Bagchi, and Krishna Raj. New Delhi: Sage, 2002. Prairespark ( talk) 07:39, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
"And if one wishes to do mortality comparisons, the ages of death are important considerations - there is no doubt, apparently, that the early years of PRC saw a very large number of deaths due to war/rebellion/political reasons, and that 1958 - 1961 saw large numbers of death officially attributed to famine"
That is true. And famine, according to many researchers, hits the very young and elderly the worst. But look at infant mortality for China in 1960 vs India. Both are at 150 / 1000. Yet China is in famine and India is not?
China infant mortality rate, 1960: http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?IndicatorID=25&Country=CN
India infant mortality rate, 1960: http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_imrt_in&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=infant+mortality+rates+china#met=sp_dyn_imrt_in&idim=country:CHN:IND
Prairespark ( talk) 07:55, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Mass killings under Communist regimes during the twentieth century resulted in the estimated deaths of between ?? million and 100 million people. The highest death tolls have been documented in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Estimates of the number of killings vary widely: for these three countries ranging from 21 million to 70 million. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions that took place during the mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, and land reforms but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach in calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. Some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide. (Insert citations where necessary)
-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 14:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
C.J. Griffin said: "so I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish here with your diarrhea of the mouth." Moderator - is this considered a civilised way to carry out a debate?
C.J. Griffin said: "You spend alot of time trashing Dikotter, yet there is not one review that I have seen which disputes any of the key points in Dikotter's book."
True. They also praised Jung Chang's book to the skies when it first came out. Give it another year or two. By then those with a sincere interest in the topic will note its myriad misrepresentations. It certainly has a more scholarly veneer than the Jung Chang tome. But I confidently predict it will follow the latter work to literary and scholastic oblivion all the same.
How about the following -
Mass killings under Communist regimes during the twentieth century have been alleged to result in the estimated deaths of between ?? million and 100 million people. The highest alleged death tolls have been documented in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Estimates of the number of killings vary widely: for these three countries ranging from 21 million to 70 million. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. Some higher estimates of mass killings include not only murders or executions that took place during the mass elimination of political opponents, mass terror campaigns, and land reforms but also lives lost due to war, famine and disease. There are scholars who believe that government policies and mistakes in management contributed to these calamities, and, based on that conclusion add a considerable part of these deaths to the death tolls under their study. The validity of such an approach in calamities, such as those in Russia, China, and elsewhere has been questioned by others. Some of the killings may fit a definition of mass murder, democide, politicide, "classicide", "crimes against humanity", or loosely defined genocide. However other scholars have cautioned against taking a one-sided approach to the issue, and to see the issue in a wider context. For example Gao (2007) suggested that the Great Leap Forward did in fact have its own logic and rationality, and that its terrible effects came not from malign intent on the part of the Chinese leadership at the time, but instead relate to the nature of rule at the time, and the vastness of China as a country. Gao says "..the terrible lesson learnt is that China is so huge and when it is uniformly ruled, follies or wrong policies will have grave implications of tremendous magnitude". Others have suggested that while China did undoubtedly experience large numbers of famine deaths in the years 1958 to 1961, this toll has to be evaluated in light of the otherwise overall impressive achievements of Maoist China in dramatically improving life expectancy. Gao (2008) also quotes estimates that the Maoist revolution gave an estimated net positive value of 35 billion extra years of life to the Chinese people. Li (2008) has produced data showing that even the peak death rates during the Great Leap Forward were in fact quite typical in pre-Communist China. Li (2008) argues that based even on the average death rate over the three years of the Great Leap Forward, there were several million fewer lives lost during this period than would have been the case under the normal mortality conditions of pre-revolutionary China. (Insert citations where necessary)
--
Look forward to everyone's comments.
Book references as follows:
http://www.amazon.com/China-Demise-Capitalist-World-Economy/dp/158367182X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293857013&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Gao-Village-Rural-Modern-China/dp/0824831926/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293857041&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Chinas-Past-Cultural-Revolution/dp/074532780X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293858302&sr=8-1
Prairespark (
talk) 05:13, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Absolutely ridiculous. Minqi Li, and Mobo Gao are not fringe academics at all. Left wing perhaps. But not fringe. In fact Dikotter is far more 'fringe'. Firstly he is bankrolled by the Chiang Chingkuo foundation (sort of like getting paid by Glen Beck to write a biography of Obama), has come out and said that there was nothing wrong with the British forcing opium onto the Chinese, and Japanese imperialism should not be condemned 'root and branch.' Talk about fringe!
Yet here we have Mobo Gao, an honest writer from rural China who actually lived through the Great Leap Forward, (and has conducted field studies on his village) and had siblings die in it, and Minqi Li, a former dissident and political prisoner in China - and their views, according to Griffin, are 'fringe'.
Yet Dikotter, who knows little about China outside a history textbook (he even gets the character for 'tomb' (mu) mixed up with 'wood' (also mu) - something an eight year old Chinese would not trip up on - refer article by Jonathan Mirsky), and yet because he is a Westerner, praised by other Westerners, his word on China counts for more than that of Minqi Li and Mobo Gao? What a transparent and disgusting display of academic imperialism by Griffin.
Westerners of course understand more about Chinese than the Chinese themselves! Yet, if we had a Chinese academic from say Gansu province, who learned english to a moderate level, resided in the USA for 10 years, and he wrote a biography of say, Andrew Jackson, how much respect do you think it would get from the academic community? Very little of course. Because people would rightly note that simply from 10 years in the country, that would still not be enough time to pick up the cultural context, nuances and subtleties, and understand the motives of Andrew Jackson.
Yet anytime a Westerner says anything about China, his word is taken as gospel over that of a Chinese. The hypocrisy, and yes borderline racism of Griffin is as despicable as it is transparent.
Prairespark ( talk) 05:57, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you TFD! :)
When are we going to get a decision on the lede - and implement?
Prairespark ( talk) 06:04, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Radical? To who? Mobo Gao's work would in fact align with the views of most Chinese on Mao. Minqi Li is a well respected economist.
If they are radicals or fringe, what in heaven's name is Dikotter - who praises drug use and colonialism?
Jung Chang's book has been thoroughly debunked by all serious China scholars - even you know that Mr Griffin. Chen Yizi has close ties with the Falun Gong movement (as flakey a group as you ever will find), and Yang Jisheng, if you read his other works, has a clear political agenda. His dad died during the GLF, as he keeps on going on about? Yeah - was it one of the 'excess' deaths? He never says so. Three of my aunts died in childhood in pre-revolutionary China under Chiang. Does that mean that I can write a biography damning Chiang Kaishek and have it free from criticism? Of course not.
In any case the article is already chock full of people of Mr Griffin's ideological disposition. Very well. Can we, in the interests of fairness, try and inject some balance by including Mobo Gao, and Minqi Li's work?
Or do all sources have to get with Mr Griffin's agenda?
Prairespark ( talk) 06:49, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. In fact if Griffin is still not happy, I can go to Maurice Meisner, Chris Bramall, Lei Feigon, as well as Banister, Eggleston, all Western writers who can substantiate what Li and Gao say. I thought it would be good to include a left-wing Chinese perspective.
In fact there are also recent Yale and Harvard studies which back up what I have written (and Gao and Li's points) - especially the stuff about life expectancy and literacy.
Prairespark ( talk) 06:58, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Basically the quotes of Li and Gao that I have included are not all that outlandish. Here are two recent studies - one by Yale University, the other a Harvard Study which more or less back up the stuff I have included in the lede:
An ongoing Stanford Universy study on Maoist China's phenomenal achievement in doubling life expectancy: http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/research/health_improvement_under_mao_and_its_implications_for_contemporary_aging_in_china/
Furthermore a group of Harvard researchers have made a compelling case that the reason for China economically outperforming India over the past three decades is related to the health achievements of modern China. An excerpt from the article:
"However, the authors note, China's economy has exploded, expanding by 8.1 percent per capita per year on average between 1980 and 2000, while in the same time period India saw a sustained growth rate in income per capita of 3.6 percent--a rate that, while rapid by the standards of most developing economies, is modest compared to China's. What accounts for the difference? Part of the answer, the HSPH team suggests, is that dramatic demographic changes in China began decades before those in India. After 1949, China's Maoist government invested heavily in basic health care, creating communal village and township clinics for its huge rural population. That system produced enormous improvements in health: From 1952 to 1982, infant mortality in China dropped from 200 to 34 deaths per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy rose from 35 years to 68. And under the government's family planning program, fertility rates dropped by half, from six births per woman in 1970 to three as of 1979." http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/review/rvw_summerfall06/rvwsf06_bloom.html
Is that good enough Mr Griffin?
And also - ff you want to, look up Judith Banister's work - 'Chinas Changing Population' - widely considered the most authoritative work in the West on China's population. Crunch through the numbers yourself - you will find what Li says about mortality is true.
Prairespark ( talk) 07:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, both Dikotter and Yang have had access to the archives - does not stop them being charlatans - anyone who believes China had a 'normal' death rate of 1% in 1958 in order to max out the 'excess' death count (the same as the US and Canada at the time, while India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Vietnam, Kenya, etc had death rates 2to 2.5%) are either incredibly stupid, or agenda driven fanatics. Or are they secret admirers of Mao? Because if it was 3.8% in 1949 (as Banister has it, and the accepted level for pre-revolutionary China) then a drop to 1% by 1958 is an astounding achievement on the part of the Maoist government. So Mao and socialism should get credit for saving huge number of lives before 1958?
But never mind all this. By all means include Dikotter, Yang, Chen etc. But in the interests of fairness, I propose we also include Mobo Gao and Li Minqi.
Fair deal?
Prairespark ( talk) 07:20, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
"This user thinks Chairman Mao Zedong is the most evil person to have ever lived"
I thought it would be perhaps King Leopold. He killed about 25% of the population of the Congo (Pol Pot killed 21%) and in absolute numbers killed almost twice as much as Pol Pot(4 million compared to 2.1 million for Pol Pot). Yet statues of him still abound in Belgium.
Also the Americans wiped out out about 1.4 million Phillipinos out of 9 million during the Phillipines American war. If Mao killed at that rate he would be responsible for close to 110 million deaths. So perhaps it should be McKinley or Ted Roosevelt or whoever it was in charge at the time who are the most evil men in history.
Prairespark (
talk) 09:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes. Well who cares what a couple of Englishmen who can't even speak chinese properly think. Just like you call Stalin a tyrant - yet over 50% of Russians don't think badly of him. And most Chinese revere Mao. That is what is important.
And yes Mao did make the point about nuclear war. And most here agree with him. Just like you would fight to the death for your country England or whatever, I believe Mao was correct in saying what he said. What was he going to do? Just roll over and say yes Sir to the United States - we will do you what you want because you have the bomb? Of course not. Chinese are proud of Mao for sticking up to the Americans.
Killing 40 to 70 million ---what a joke ---then other developing countries like India killed over 100 million. You check the mortality rates year by year. Or perhaps you are innumarate and lack the capability to do the figures. Check out all the demographic profiles the life expectancy stats. Chairman Mao was in fact the greatest humanitarian in history.
Yet all Griffin comes up with is some argument from authority --two Western sources say Mao is the world's most evil man, so he must be. Never mind the CHinese peasants who build shrines to him, hang his portraits etc -- their opinions count for nothing.
Now Griffin. Why is Mao the most evil man over say, King Leopold? If it because Mao is chinese, and it gives your tiny mind full of orientalist prejudice a little thrill?
And if anti-communist polemics go into the lede, Gao and Li should also. The points they make are reasonable, and backed up even by research at Stanford and Harvard. Period.
Prairespark ( talk) 18:56, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you AmateurEditor for posting the reminder on my talk page. Although I agree that significant steps have been done towards a consensus, I still believe that the article needs in some work. In this my posts I focus only on the lede. In my opinion, the lede of the article devoted to such a sensitive topic should contain only indisputable facts and no assertions (which belong to the main article). Concretely, the fact that must be reflected are:
I fail to see why this article became an condemnation of Communist regimes instead of one that simply explores the various incidences of mass killings. It contains a large amounts of speculation, and cherry-picked opinions and quotes of selected academics that provides an incomplete picture. For example, both the articles on the Holodomor and the Great Chinese Famine gave perspectives of scholars that contested the notion that these are deliberate killings, and yet their views are not covered here at all. These incidences are quite different from cases such as the Cambodian Genocide, which was found by a court of law to be deliberate genocide. In contrast, the article on Anti-communist mass killings simply lists the various incidences without any commentary.
In consideration, I think the article could need a rewrite, include the perspectives of the authors who contest the mass killings labels, minimize the quotes and commentaries, and focus on factual evidence such as the death numbers, media reports etc. I also believe that some of the material, especially third party, commentary would find a better home at Criticisms of communist party rule. 60.242.159.224 ( talk) 10:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the previous contributor. I believe this article should be junked - I mean its just ridiculous - are we going to have an article on say, Buddhist mass killings, Catholic mass killings, Capitalist mass killings, Feudal mass killings etc. It's just completely absurd that this article should exist at all - unless one is an anti-communist agenda driven fanatic, like Mr Griffin.
If the article must exist, perspectives must be provided from all sides of the issue, not just those who pass muster with Mr Griffin.
Prairespark ( talk) 15:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Regardless of whether Prairespark is a sockpuppet or not, he has made some excellent points. I think his edits some justification and in fact improve the article because they show both sides of the debate. Wikipedia is not a place for C. J. Griffin to simply push his own ideological agenda. An encyclopedia article simply serves to point out the facts and then present the different interpretations of those facts which are out there. It is not a place for cold war pamphleteers like C. J. Griffin.
I do think the cannibalism part of the article under Cultural Revolution should be taken out - as this was an extremely rare event, (out of a population of 800 million, and was not condoned by the Central authorities, less alone ordered by them. Furthermore it is well known that the vast majority of the deaths in the Cultural Revolution came about through factional infighting, the casualties were basically battle casaulties, not victims of mass execution. Hence I do not believe that reference to the Cultural Revolution belongs in the article at all. The Great Leap Forward also does not need mentioning. The famine was unintended, and if one considers it to be a communist 'mass killing', then using the same standard Churchill is a mass killer because of the Bengal famine, and Nehru is a mass killer because of the millions of Indians who died of hunger and disease under him, over and above in numbers those who died under the socialist system in China.
However for the time being I will just remove the Cultural Revolution section, and replace the lede with what prairespark proposed above.
Whether or not the Great Leap Forward remains in the article can be determined by further debate.
Paramanami ( talk) 09:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
The external link to the Global Museum on Communism [4] should be removed from this article because it fails external links. See Links normally to be avoided:
The most obvious reason not to include is (19) - the site has its own article and the link should be there. (2) applies because the site is not scholarly or neutral. (13) applies because the site is not directly about mass killings under Communist regimes.
The issue was brought to the EL noticeboard before. [5] The editor who restored the deletion of this link stated that it "seems a proper external link - does not fail WP:EL for sure". [6] He appears to have forgotten the previous discussion.
TFD ( talk) 02:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Try citing the EL standards: Is the site content accessible to the reader? Is the site content proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.)? Is the link functional and likely to remain functional? To which the answers are all "yes." The site is not commercial, not a "fan site", and in fact represents an organization chartered by Act of Congress, presenting factual material to readers. Further, this has been discussed many times now, and the result has been the same every single time. The site is not only government sanctioned, it has information relevant to the article. Which, oddly enough, is the primary criterion for an external site! Unless, of course, you assert that an organization charted by the Congress is offering intentionally misleading material? But that was already dismissed in the past - so there is no leg to stand on there. The Global Museum on Communism is a project of the non-profit, non-partisan Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, established by an Act of Congress on December 17, 1993 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. seems fairly reputable, I would say.
Collect (
talk) 02:47, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Apparently this material:
Has nothing to do with this article. Nor does this:
Nor does this:
None of this has any relevance to this article. Eh? Collect ( talk) 03:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
The link is entirely relevant to this article and as such I have restored it. Tentontunic ( talk) 08:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Should the article Mass killings under Communist regimes contain an external link to the Global Museum on Communism website? TFD ( talk) 23:19, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
I am unaware of any scholars calling the 1956 Hungarian Revolution a communist mass killing. But Darkstar1st is asserting that it was.
Were the Hungarian killed in the Soviet response to Hungary's violent revolution victims of a mass killing?
At Mass killing, I'm only finding a bunch of links to Genocide, Mass destruction, and Mass murder. How are mass killings defined? Was the Hungarian Revolution a mass killing? (If so, was the counter-revolutionary Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War yet another episode of mass killing?) Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 03:09, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Trying to step back from the increasingly heated discussion. The fact this comes up at all indicates how woolly and poorly thought out this article is. "Mass killing" is such a large, ill-defined category, it can arguably include killings of soldiers during wartime (which do or do not violate Geneva conventions), killing of civilians in your own country, and of civilians in other people's countries (in peace or in wartime). The most narrow useful definition for this article would probably be "killing of civilians in your own country" and would cover the allegations about the USSR, China, Cambodia, etc. Hungary (forgetting the not very useful "insurgency" concept) is an example of "killing civilians in someone else's country during a military invasion". If we keep the field this broad, then "Democracy and mass killing" would also include discussions of the bombings of Hiroshima and Dresden, use of pilotless drones, cluster bombs and huge munitions in Iraq and Afghanistan today and all that good stuff. In cases like this, the broader the article, the less useful it is. Such topics are probably better discussed in narrower articles. Genocides in history has problems of its own, but at least is not titled "Mass killings by governments". Jonathanwallace ( talk) 17:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
This is effectively a "nexus" article about the connection between Communism and murder, yet (as Andy points out in the previous section) skips any discussion of the actual connection, assuming we all understand it. A "nexus" article should illustrate that the connection itself is notable. That is why we don't have "Mass killings on Tuesdays". (See also the very funny Judaism and bus stops deletion discussion.) As it happens, the Communism/Mass killing nexus is notable, but the article never bothers to establish notability. It would become encyclopedic if recast as an article on the work of notable historians, sociologists etc. who have examined the Communism/mass killing nexus. Specific country examples would then come in through their work. There is no lack of such sources on many of the examples mentioned. FWIW, articles on "capitalism and mass killing", "democracy and mass killing" and so forth could be similarly sourced. History is "indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. " Gibbon. Jonathanwallace ( talk) 13:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
(Collect--I segregated this as a new section and made some hopefully nonsubstantive changes to my first comment to clarify that. Since you had already replied, I'm mentioning it because such edits are disfavored if they undermine the sense of the replies. I think I avoided that here.) Also wanted to mention that the article lede, "Study has been made of states that have declared adherence to some form of Communist doctrine, and have killed significant numbers of people or facilitated their deaths" is a perfect example of weasel words. Jonathanwallace ( talk) 13:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
I strongly object to this revert by Tentontunic [21].
Valentino does not state "some Eastern European and African countries". He writes that mass killings by communists occured "Eastern Europe and Africa." It's common knowledge that there were mass killings in the USSR (which can be taken to include various of Eastern European countries) and in Ethiopia, but nobody has been able to point out where else they occured. The article does not discuss any mass killings in Africa outside of Ethiopia; it's likely that Mengistu's Red Terror is the only example of mass killing under a communist regime in Africa.
But the word "some" is synonymous with "a few" and therefore strongly implies something to the effect that mutliple African regimes carried out mass killings. That isn't claimed by Valentino, and Tentontunic's (and AmteurEditor's) edits cannot perforce be regarded as a valid paraphrase. Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 21:48, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
I have restored Eastern European, for I am quite sure that the USSR contained quite a large chunk of it. Tentontunic ( talk) 20:59, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Anyone with the vaguest grasp of twentieth century history knows that this is the case. So why is Wikipedia pretending otherwise? Has it become so grotesquely propagandised by the totalitarian left? Jprw ( talk) 18:29, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
I encourage newcomers to read the talk page where this issue has already been discussed. Whereas the fact that tens of millions lost their lives prematurely under Communist regimes (mostly as a result of civil wars, famines or diseases) is indisputable, only small part of scholars characterise all these events as mass killings. As a rule, only such events as Kampuchean genocide, Great Purge, or Ciltural revolution are characterised as mass killings. However, they caused million, not tens of millions deaths. I already explained that on this talk page before. I suggest to self-revert the recent changes in the sentence quited above, and to discuss the lede on the talk page first. If the change will not be self reverted, I'll revert it, and any other attempt to restore the current wording without a consensus will be considered as edit warring.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 04:46, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Given the fact that almost ten million died in the enforced famine in the Ukraine alone (I presume that we can all agree that this qualifies as a mass killing) I would suggest that it is nonsensical and deeply misrepresentative to be discussing mass deaths under communism in terms of millions and not tens of millions. This is indisputable; therefore "Tens of millions lost their lives etc." should remain as being perfectly reasonable, accurate and non-problematic. From the introduction to Robert Conquest's Harvest of Sorrow:
Fifty years ago as I write these words, the Ukraine and the Ukrainian, Cossack and other areas to its east -- a great stretch of territory with some forty million inhabitants -- was like one vast Belsen. A quarter of the rural population, men, women and children, lay dead or dying, the rest in various stages of debilitation with no strength to bury their families or neighbours. At the same time, (as at Belsen), well-fed squads of police or party officials supervised the victims.
I can't believe that we actually need to be arguing this. Jprw ( talk) 08:15, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Was the famine in the Ukraine (let me remind you again, one single incident from 1932-33, which possibly claimed upwards of 10 million lives) under communism a mass killing or not? Jprw ( talk) 15:06, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Do you think the holocaust qualifies as a mass killing? Jprw ( talk) 17:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Then the deaths in the Soviet Death Camps (let's leave out China and North Korea for the moment) also qualify as a mass killing? Jprw ( talk) 06:02, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
They were in effect death camps, as you surely must realise. Just as the famine in the Ukraine was in effect a gigantic Belsen, supervised and facilitated by the State under direct orders from Stalin (he even admitted it to Churchill at Yalta). So the deaths in the Gulag, a system set up and supervised by the Soviet State, can also qualify as a mass killing. Or is it a case of "all deaths are equal, but some deaths are more equal than others" (i.e., if you die in a Nazi death camp you're part of a mass killing, but if you die in a Soviet death camp, you're not). Another question for you – do you think that holocaust victims who died from diseases brought on by malnutrition and poor sanitary conditions should not count among the 6 million who died? Jprw ( talk) 06:53, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 16:59, 12 February 2011 (UTC)The stories that subsequently came out of the prisons and camps show how much sadism and wanton cruelty there was on the part of the police interrogators, and within the camps, by the guards. As in Nazi Germany, the trips to the camps were themselves nightmares of overcrowding, famine, and thirst, with many perishing on the way. Nevertheless, these were not death camps as were the German ones, because there was no plan to systematically exterminate all the prisoners.
Gulag A History by Anne Applebaum (2003) is also an excellent and important overview of the Gulag system. To take one statistic from the book, it is estimated that between 1941-42 one quarter of the entire Gulag population starved to death. Millions were tortured, starved, and worked to death, the life expectancy was three months in some of the Siberian camps. They were to all intents and purposes death camps. The term Gulag has rightly come to mean a symbol of oppression and totalitarian power; how disturbing that some on this talk page seem so keen to ignore so many facts and accounts from the historical records. Jprw ( talk) 13:32, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
To avoid future arguments similar to those from the last posts of
Jprw,
Tentontunic, and other newcomers, let me reproduce some old arguments and sources I already presented on other talk pages.
Opening of formerly classified Soviet archives compelled most western scholars to re-consider their views on the Soviet history (Doing Soviet History: The Impact of the Archival Revolution
Author(s): Donald J. Raleigh Source: Russian Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 16-24) Currently, most scholars and political writers who write about Stalinist repressions use for their works a seminal article published in the American Historical Reviews by J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn, Viktor N. Zemskov. (Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence Author(s): J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn, Viktor N. Zemskov Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 1017-1049). To avoid accusation in OR, let me quote such a rightist and anti-Communist scholar as
Robert Conquest, who wrote:
Interestingly, these data, obtained based on the exhaustive analysis of declassified Soviet archives, have been carefully checked by other western scholars, including cross-check (comparison of the figures taken from local and central archives, analysis of the number of NKVD troops who guarded the camps, etc), who came to a conclusion that it would be highly unlikely that these figures were forged.
Based on these figures, Michael Ellman concluded that:
Now, in light of all said above, let me discuss the Applebaum's book and the interpretation of her conclusions made by Jprw. Firstly, by contrast to the authors quoted by me, Anne Applebaum is a political journalist. She never did her own archival studies and relied on the works published by others. In actuality, majority of figures she uses in her book were taken from the GRZ article (either directly, or indirectly, from the works of other scholars who used GRZ's data). For instance, she claimed that, according to official statistics, on January 1950, the Gulag contained 2,561,351 prisoners in a camps and colonies of the system [25]. Let's compare this figure with the data from the Getty, Rittersporn, Zemskov's article. According to them, there were 1,727,970 inmates in the Gulag camps and 740,554 inmates in colonies.
Taking into account that the GRZ article is an original work (Applebaum and all scholars cite this article) it is obvious that Appelbaum took GRZ's data, not vise versa. In other words, it is simply ridiculous to contrapose the data of Appelbaum (taken in actuality from the works of serious scholars) and the works of these scholars themselves.
Jprw writes (referring to Applebaum):
Getty writes:
In other words, we have the same facts, that have been represented quite differently: whereas Jprw makes a stress on the WWII time mortality (probably implying that the same events occurred during the whole period of Gulag history), GRZ write that that was an extraordinary period of the Gulag history, and that it was connected with desperate food shortage in the USSR as whole during that time. Obviously, the arguments that "Millions were tortured, starved, and worked to death..." is either Jprw's or Applebaum's inventions, because the only source of reliable information (the articles of serious scholars quoted above, as well as the works of Wheatcroft and similar scholars) contain no such figures.
Enough for today. I'll add more sources/quotes/references if needed.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 00:25, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Yes and please do not forget to add Conquest's reply to Wheatcroft which can be found here [26]. I'll leave you with one quote from it:
Throughout his piece, Wheatcroft is concerned to misrepresent and impugn my motives -- the traditional recourse of the sectarian. It would be hard, apparently, to explain to Wheatcroft that my early works on the Soviet Union were undertaken out of a wish to discover the facts. Academics, in the sense Wheatcroft intends, had not done so (and work by the leading Russianist, Sir Bernard Pares, and the leading social scientists, the Webbs, and most others, were valueless). I have avoided the abusive tone Wheatcroft has used against me, but I will not conclude without mention of an acquaintance who had attended a talk of his at the time the mass graves were being discovered, telling me that when she raised the subject, he dismissed it ("rather testily"!) as rumours. Yes, after all, bodies are not documents.
Jprw ( talk) 06:34, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Re the edit by Jprw on 18:10, 12 February 2011, see Mass killings under Communist regimes#Others. Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 18:15, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
On the other hand, much of the lead looks like a paraphrasing of the single source that you cite, which can't be satisfactory. Jprw ( talk) 06:21, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Another editor explained above why this article is POV and I am copying his comments below. Could editors please resolve this issue before removing the POV tag. TFD ( talk) 20:22, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, see that. The lede is still weaselly worded. An encyclopedia article should build from the central premise ("Communist regimes have a particular tendency to kill a lot of people") not justify it in passing after giving many examples. I'm also interested in the quality of the sources. I will spend some more time on it and will post suggestions here. Jonathanwallace ( talk) 13:27, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
I just added the according to whom? tag to the weasel worded lede ("Study has been made..."). In looking over the article, I then noticed the really remarkable assertion that Darwinism causes mass murder, sourced to Ann Coulter. Our official verifiability policy requires, "Exceptional claims require high-quality sources." Ann Coulter is not a reliable source for a historical link between belief in evolution science and mass murder. Jonathanwallace ( talk) 00:52, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
This article infers a connection between Communist regimes and mass killings, which is not explained. There is no discussion of who has made the connection, what connection they have made, or the level of acceptance of their views. /Accordingly it reads like cold war propaganda and is an embarrassment and a disservice to readers. Also, most of the sources do not directly address the subject but are written about events in individual countries. Much of the literature is taken from books that are either published outside the mainstream academic press or comparatively recent. Accordingly we cannot discern what level of acceptance they have in mainstream writing - in fact they probably have none. TFD ( talk) 03:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
(out) My apologies, we did discuss this book before but I forgot about it because it is obscure. This book is a reliable source for facts, including what other academics say. He says, "Western public culture is profoundly uncomfortable with the Red Holocaust. It is inclined toward denial because a communist state policy of mass civilian slaughter impugns the west's faith in reason, progress, harmony and justice.... For the same reason, it is prone to excuse the mote, and when all else fails, to sermonize. Many however, resist believing that this dismal outcome was fated, or that communists employed massive violence to build and spread their systems. This treatise challenges the notion that communist economy was ever sound...."
In other words, Rosefielde acknowledges that he is presenting a minority view. His book False Science: Underestimating the Soviet Arms Buildup. An Appraisal of the CIA's Direct Costing Effort, 1960-1985, for example, was standard neo-conservative fare, arguing about the imminent danger of the Soviet Union months before its collapse.
We cannot present minority views as consensus views. We cannot use the existence of minority views as a hook for a coatrack, which is what this article does.
What we should do is explain Rosefielde's views and the degree of acceptance they have received.
TFD ( talk) 02:46, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
Here is a link to Rosefielde's 1988 book False Science, published by Transaction Publishers where he outlines the " Team B" conspiracy theory about how the Soviet Union has surpassed the U.S. in military ability and the CIA is hiding the fact from the American people. Months later the Soviet Union collapsed. TFD ( talk) 03:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
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