You know what? No. Fuck this. I’m sick of clueless young Westeners undermining the deaths under communism to further their argument. My parents lived trough this shit. My grandparents lost half their families during Mao’s reign, were sent to labour camps and beaten and worked half to death and I’m sick people like you ignoring their lives in favour of some cheap argument to prop up communism.

You can argue against capitalism and I won’t say a word against it - but if your argument is based on the idea that communism is somehow the “lesser evil”, thereby completely disregarding the government-sanctioned genocide, famine, violence and oppression that actual people suffered, then you can take several fucking seats - especially if you’ve never experienced that violence, never lost family members to that violence and never seen first-hand what it drives people to.

Because you’re using statistics from over 500 years and across the globe (60 countries going by your stats) to compare to the death toll of what occurred over 50 years and in 11 countries.

95 million is an extremely all-inclusive number and it’s been debated about the historical accuracies and how broadly covers. Even so, a majority of that number is spread out to a few countries in under fifty years.

Now obviously, more than eleven countries have been communist states - but going by the ‘95 million’ statistic, most of the these numbers are split between China under Mao, USSR under Stalin and Cambodia under Khmer Rouge. The rest are rough estimates from about 262 000 to 1.1 million which were under North Korea, East Germany, Romania, Hungary, North Vietnam, Ethiopia.

Communism may have killed less, but the death toll is far more saturated. To break this down a bit. Coming second to none is China:

an estimate of 42 million died in China during the three-year famine of 1958-1961. unofficial estimates vary between 23 mil. (Peng) to 46 mil. (Chen), but the closest and most recent estimate is about 45 million by Dikötter, who included deaths from suicide, militia executions and violence.

unofficial estimates vary between 23 mil. (Peng) to 46 mil. (Chen), but the closest and most recent estimate is about 45 million by Dikötter, who included deaths from suicide, militia executions and violence. sidenote: according Yang Jisheng, who estimated 30 million dead from famine, another estimated 40 million ‘failed to be born’, making about 70 million in population loss.

sidenote: according Yang Jisheng, who estimated 30 million dead from famine, another estimated 40 million ‘failed to be born’, making about 70 million in population loss. This happened during 3 years. in one country.



and oh yeah, there was also another 92,000 Tibetans killed under Communist Government from Mao to current and another estimated 1.2 million died during the Cultural Revolution from labour camps, prisons, murders and executions (‘61-‘69).

Now, lets look at Russia, coming second place.

not including war casualty, 20-30 million died under Stalin from 1924-1953. Again, numbers vary - some estimates go as high 60 million.

Of those, 1.2 million were from the Great Purge of '36-39 (including invasion of Mongolia and purge of XinJiang because guess what, communism doesn’t magically erase a white dude’s sense of imperialism).

Then there were from gulags, deportation and ethnic cleansing (of Jews, Slavs, Romani, Poles, among others).

The rest were deaths from from famine from '26-'38. If we add deaths that occurred during deportations, POW died under care, and death in other Soviet countries during Stalin’s rule, then the average number gets closer to 30 mil.

Not to forget:

2.2 million were killed in Cambodia during Khmer Rouge’s rule, 1975-1979. Half were from famine/disease, half were executions.

were killed in Cambodia during Khmer Rouge’s rule, 1975-1979. Half were from famine/disease, half were executions. Red Terror in Ethiopia: 30,000-500,000 ('77-'78)

Collectivisation in Romania: 60,000 to 190,000 ('47-'64)

North Vietnam land reform: ca 172,000 (some estimates btw 200,000 to 500,000) ('53-'56)

North Korea has no an 'official’ number, but calculated deaths from 1948-87 were about 1 million. 240,000 to 420,000 people died as a result of the 1990s famine.

The death toll during Mao’s Famine during the Great Leap Forward would be an estimated 52,000 per day, going by 40 million death-toll estimates - and that from one country alone.

During Stalin’s Great Purge, executions were calculated to be 1000 per day.

And you want to compare this to a world-wide conglomerate?

And before you put words in my mouth, I’m not saying a damn thing in defense of capitalism.

You can denounce capitalism all you want, but you need take several steps back and reconsider if you’re going to do so on the backs of people who actually suffered through an oppressive, abusive, totalitarian regime by devaluing their suffering and using it as an example of how communism is the “"lesser evil”“ - especially if you have never lived through it, lost family members or felt the fear of such a regime.

Don’t attribute the death toll to Stalinism or Maoism or say it was 'wrong form’ of communism. You do not get to cherry pick your flavour of totalitarianism so that it suits your social stance. You do not get to undermine, appropriate and white-wash the human atrocities and genocides committed in the name of communism so that you can cover up the ugly underbelly of how these regimes will work, has worked and is currently working.

These are not statistics for you to brush under the mat so that communism can seem 'less evil’. People who deported, sent to labour camps, starved to death, sold out by the colleagues, murdered by their students are not collateral fucking damage for make-believe, Westernised idealistic communism.

(and another side-note: the Anti-communism cleansing in Indonesia had fuck-all to do with capitalism and everything to do with anti-Chinese sentiments. These were all tied in with the historical socio-politics at the time, such as the foreign policy of CCCP, the relationship and influence of the Chinese government under Zhou Enlai , and the state of Indonesia’s militarisation under Sukarno that was helped by China. To use their complicated and brutal political and social history that literally nothing to do with Western capitalism and everything to do with East Asian international relations to back your argument is really fucking imperialist.)