# Stalin vs Hitler:Who Killed More Human Beings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 11, 2003, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704 "2003-07-11T13:54:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/1 "2003-07-11T13:54:02Z")
Based on my understanding of 20th century history, Stalin was by far the worst murderer of humans. Consider this: -when he came to power (in 1924, upon the death of Lenin) , Stalin immediately began the murder of the “old bolsheviks”. In this warm-up for later purges, Stalin probably killed as many as 50-60,000 people. Later, in the late 20’s, he engineered the Ukrainian famine (basically ordering the army to seize the Ukrainian farmer’s grain crop-perhaps 3 million people died of famine in this one (N.S. Kruschev acknowledges this in his autobiography). Then came the purges of the early 1930’s-when most of the officers of the Red Army were killed and imprisoned…perhaps another million lives, plus survivors sent to the Siberian death camps as well. Then comes WWII-another million lives lost in the war with Finland, and finally war with Germany-perhaps 12 million Red Army soldiers and civilians lost because of Stalin’s blunders! Against this we have Adolf Hitler…who killed a piddling 6 million (plus his war dead). Who WAS the worst? ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/2 "2003-07-11T14:02:16Z")
I think you should differentiate between intentional and systematic mass slaughter vs. stupid political/military/economic decisions that led to deaths. Also, you should include deaths caused by war, whether of military or of civilians, and regardless of whether the deaths are on the side that started the war. Using the above criteria, who is responsible for Soviet deaths in WWII? Hitler, for starting the war, or Stalin, for making stupid military decisions that led to more deaths than necessary? What about deaths that were carried out by Stalin but were led up to by events that would not have taken place if not for the war started by Hitler? Falling into this category IMO would be the North Caucasian deportations and the executions of returning Soviet POWs. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/3 "2003-07-11T16:13:18Z")
[The master speaks](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/021018.html): > [@](#): > > These numbers come from R.J. Rummel, a political scientist at the University of Hawaii who studies mass killing. Rummel’s genocide figures are more inclusive than some–in fact, he prefers the term “democide,” which he defines as “the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder.” Genocide is killing due to ethnicity, religion, or other “indelible group membership,” whereas politicide is murder for political reasons. Democide excludes deaths due to war (36.5 million between 1900 and 1987) and reckless but not purposely murderous government policies–for example, the loss of over 20 million Chinese during the famine of 1959-'62, which was caused by the failure of the Great Leap Forward. > > Defining terms this way puts the Nazi slaughter in perspective. The following are Rummel’s 12 most murderous regimes (from his article in the Encyclopedia of Genocide, 1999): (1) USSR, 62 million deaths, 1917-'87; (2) People’s Republic of China, 35 million, 1949-'87; (3) Germany, 21 million, 1933-'45; (4) nationalist China, 10 million, 1928-'49; (5) Japan, 6 million, 1936-'45; (6) prerevolutionary Chinese communists (“Mao Soviets”), 3.5 million, 1923-'49; (7) Cambodia, 2 million, 1975-'79; (8) Turkey (Armenian genocide), 1.9 million, 1909-'18; (9) Vietnam, 1.7 million, 1945-'87; (10) Poland, 1.6 million, 1945-'48; (11) Pakistan, 1.5 million, 1958-'87; (12) Yugoslavia, 1.1 million, 1944-'87. Three additional “suspected megamurderers,” as Rummel puts it, are North Korea, 1.7 million deaths, 1948-'87; Mexico, 1.4 million, 1900-'20; and czarist Russia, 1.1 million, 1900-'17. > > Rummel goes on to identify the top nine killers: (1) **Joseph Stalin, 43 million dead, 1929-'53** ; (2) Mao Tse-tung, 38 million, 1923-'76; (3) **Adolf Hitler, 21 million, 1933-'45** ; (4) Chiang Kai-shek, 10 million, 1921-'48; (5) Vladimir Lenin, 4 million, 1917-'24; (6) Tojo Hideki (Japan), 4 million, 1941-'45; (7) Pol Pot, 2.4 million, 1968-'87; (8) Yahya Khan (Pakistan), 1.5 million, 1971; (9) Josip Broz, better known as Marshal Tito (Yugoslavia), 1.2 million, 1941-'80. (Emphasis added) ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/4 "2003-07-11T16:26:39Z")
\*\*Dewey, \*\* any word on the composition of the Hitler/Stalin figures you cite? i.e. who gets blamed for which WWII-era deaths? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/5 "2003-07-11T16:35:57Z")
Check the notes: Rummel isn’t even counting war deaths. These are “atrocity” deaths, almost always domestic. Nasty business… ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/6 "2003-07-11T16:50:50Z")
Yeah, but my question is really about what are considered “deaths due to war.” ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/7 "2003-07-11T16:51:38Z")
**Eva** – from the first paragraph: “Democide excludes deaths due to war (36.5 million between 1900 and 1987) and reckless but not purposely murderous government policies–for example, the loss of over 20 million Chinese during the famine of 1959-'62, which was caused by the failure of the Great Leap Forward.” Rummel only counts deliberate acts of genocide, mass murder, and political purges. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/8 "2003-07-11T17:00:25Z")
I read the notes. I guess it depends on what you consider “purposely murderous government policies,” then. Did Stalin intend for 25-50% of the Chechens, Ingush, Karachai, and Balkars to die when he rounded them up and deported them to Siberia and Kazakhstan? True, they weren’t shot or gassed, but they were dead as a direct result of a wartime government policy nonetheless. It’s pretty reasonable to expect that when you lock people up on trains going through the desert for 2 weeks with practically no food or water, some of them will die. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/9 "2003-07-11T19:27:25Z")
I know almost nothing about Chinese history. Did Mao do the same kind of mass purges as Stalin? IOW, how did he wind up killing so many people? I know a little about the Cultural Revolution, and the famine that resulted from the failure of the Great Leap Forward, but did Mao kill most of his victims during the war to overthrow the Nationalists? Please let me know if I should post this in General Questions. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/10 "2003-07-11T19:59:11Z")
There are some possible errors in Rummel’s work. For instance, the commonly accepted number for Stalin’s victims is roughly 20 million (Amis, Conquest) [although some credible sources say as much as 30 million], while who are these 4 million being pinned on Tojo? The Japanese forces in China killed about 10 million Chinese civilians, but those are not democidal deaths. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/11 "2003-07-14T11:51:58Z")
> [@](#): > > Did Mao do the same kind of mass purges as Stalin? IOW, how did he wind up killing so many people? I know a little about the Cultural Revolution, and the famine that resulted from the failure of the Great Leap Forward, but did Mao kill most of his victims during the war to overthrow the Nationalists? Mao tended to kill people more through utter apathy and monomania rather than malice and paranoia. He apparently thought everyone should love him completely and worship him as a near-God. Starvation, murder and cruelty towards political opponents, stifling of dissent, that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/12 "2003-07-14T12:25:13Z")
Hi, **smiling bandit** - Please understand that I am not questiong your word, but do you have any online resources that illustrate what you mean? I am trying to say “Cite?” in a non-confrontational way. TIA. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/13 "2003-07-14T17:01:59Z")
[This](http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao) should get you started, **Shodan.** ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/14 "2003-07-14T22:20:52Z")
Thank you for your kindness, **Daoloth**. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stalin-vs-hitler-who-killed-more-human-beings/187704/15 "2003-07-15T12:36:30Z")
I can understand that Rummel wanted to compare apples to apples, but there is a certain arbitrariness about the exclusion of deaths due to war. I doubt it’s much consolation that your death is not part of a “democide” if you’re killed in some lunatic would-be world conqueror’s bloody war of aggression. Hitler was directly responsible for the outbreak of continent-wide war in the European theater of World War II. (Much of the bloodshed in the Pacific theater would presumably have gone on even if Germany had not invaded Poland; in particular, the bloody Sino-Japanese conflict that preceded and later merged into the general World War was probably essentially independent of the rise to power of Hitler. The brutally waged Japanese war of aggression against China would also increase the numbers for Tojo et al.) Stalin was a ruthless opportunist, and always ready to bully some weaker neighbor if he could get away with it, but I don’t think he had the driving will to rearrange the map of Europe that Hitler had. If Hitler hadn’t touched off a general war, I don’t think Stalin would have done so. The millions of combat deaths on the Eastern Front, and the hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in bombed out cities across Europe, were essentially Hitler’s fault. I include in this Germany’s deaths as well as the Allied dead. I would also point out that any particular death could very well be ascribed to more than one dictator. The death of a single Red Army soldier might be charged against Hitler as murder, the result of his genocidal ambitions for “Lebensraum” in the East at the expense of the “Slavic mongrels”, and charged against Stalin as negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter on account of his criminal mishandling of the Soviet Union’s defenses (purging Russia’s generals on the eve of war, and allowing himself to be fooled by someone as manifestly untrustworthy as Hitler into letting down his guard). And of course, in many cases the deaths of Soviet soldiers could be counted against Stalin as sheer murder, and the same goes for the deaths of many German soldiers against Hitler.