An update on the death toll from government action in the late, unlamented century.

Professor R. J. Rummel was kind enough to provide the details. His e-mail is quoted here in full.

I recently emailed you my reevaluation of the total democide for the PRC, which changed my estimated total for 20th Century democide. Sorry to say, I've had to make a new readjustment upward.This is occasioned by my study of King Leopold's democide in his Congo Free State. I published the details of this in my blog here:

http://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/2005/12/reevaluating-colonial-democide.html,

and followed that up with a docudrama -- what it was like to be a native in Leopold's Congo -- to give heart and feeling to the cold statistics. It is here (bottom of the page):

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DOCUDRAMAS.HTM

Note that democide is any murder by government, and includes genocide, politicide, massacres, mass murder, extrajudicial executions, assassinations, atrocities, and intentional famines.

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To recap: my estimates for democide in the last century were for China:

From my book, China's Bloody Century,

Mao/CCP Democide
1928-1937 = 850k
1937-1945 = 250k
1945-1949 = 2,323k
1949-1953 (totalization) = 8,427k
1954-1958 (collectivization) = 7,474k
1959-1963 (Famine/retrenchment -- famine itself not counted) = 10,729k
1964-1975 (Cultural Revolution) = 7,731k
1976-1987 (liberalization) = 874k
Total = 38,702k


Now, by virtue of my reevaluation of the 1958-1962 famine dead that I had not counted in the above (unlike many experts who did include it in PRC's toll), I have to add 38,000k to the above, which brings the total to a democide of 76,702,000.

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As to colonial democide:
My prior calculation of colonial democide for European colonizers = 870k
Estimate for democide in Leopold's Congo Free State = 10,000k, which is line with the estimates of others (listed in the my blog linked above)Including the Congo, my new estimate for colonial democide is 50,000k plus the original estimate of 870k


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World democide, old total 1900-1999 = 174,000k
New World total = 174,000k + 38,000k (new for China) + 50,000 (new for Colonies) = 262,000,000.

That's 260 million souls murdered because of politics, kiddies. Don't you think it's about time you got down on your knees and thanked God you live (and your parents and grandparents lived) in the good old imperfect US of A? And isn't it about time you started taking your right to vote more seriously?

Just to give perspective on this absolutely incredible murder by government, if all these bodies were laid head to toe, with the average height being 5', then they would circle the earth ten times. Also, this democide murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign and internal wars of the century. Finally, given popular estimates of the dead in a major nuclear war, this total democide is as though such a war did occur, but with its dead spread over a century.

Rudy Rummel
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Hawaii

There are a lot of ways to be on the side of the angels, kiddies. Professor Rummel has chosen to make certain the slaughtered innocents are not forgotten.

May God bless him in his invaluable work.