TIL the founder of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, was responsible for the deaths of over 65 million people, making him the most prolific killer of the 20th century.

submitted by aThievingStableboy from heritage.org

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[–]JulienMayfair 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I looked this up recently and found a figure of between 35-45 million, but it is true that Mao is likely the single individual responsible for the most human deaths not simply in the 20th century, but in all human history. The only debate is if you look at all deaths in WWII on all sides, which is higher, but Mao is by far the number one mass killer of his own people when a country is officially "at peace."

[–]aThievingStableboy[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

staetdd

[–]JulienMayfair 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It's also been the case that Chinese records have only slowly been made available to people researching this question. For decades, China kept the data from the outside world.

[–]Chipit 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The archives were slowly being pried open when Xi Jinping slammed them shut. We won't know the truth for another generation or longer.

The main way we have of knowing how many people were killed by communists is looking at what world population growth should have been, and looking at the gap.

[–]sodomytron 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

is that inductive reasoning?