Statistics from a century of death

Mao more lethal than Hitler, Stalin Expert Says
A noted expert in calculating the number of deaths caused by authoritarian regimes says the late Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-tung's policies and actions led to the deaths of nearly 77 million of his countrymen, surpassing those killed by Nazi Party founder Adolf Hitler and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin.

R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science and a Nobel Peace Prize finalist who has published dozens of books chronicling so-called "democide," or death by government, said the new Chinese figure – nearly double his previous estimate of about 38 million – was based on what he believes was Mao's duplicity in China's great famine of 1958 to 1961.

[…] Mao's butchery "exceeds the 61,911,000 murdered by the Soviet Union 1917-1987, with Hitler far behind at 20,946,000 wiped out (from) 1933-1945," he said.

The Chinese communist leader's toll is higher than the 34.1 million combat deaths in "all wars between 1900 and 1987," including World Wars I and II, Vietnam, Korea, and the Mexican and Russian Revolutions.

[…] In all, Rummel estimates about 174 million people were killed during incidents of democide in the 20th century, "of which communist regimes murdered about 148 million," he said, adding, "Communists overall have murdered four times those killed in combat."
(Read the whole thing here.)

All of which pales before the estimated 945,000,000 abortions committed between 1920 and 2005 (courtesy of the Johnston Archives). Interestingly, 608 million are estimated to have taken place in the communist People’s Republic of China and USSR. We have a long way to go to overtake them in Satan’s hierarchy, but I am confident that government and industry are hard at work to close the death gap.

There’s much ado about the possibility of new plagues and pandemics caused by emerging infectious diseases. Who needs them? We are quite capable of meting out mass death on our own, without recourse to lower life forms.