Lethal Politics

by R.J. Rummel

While there are estimates of the number of people killed by Soviet authorities during particular episodes or campaigns, until now, no one has tried to calculate the complete human toll of Soviet genocides and mass murders since the revolution of 1917. Here, R. J. Rummel lists and analyzes hundreds of published estimates, presenting them in the historical context in which they occurred. His shocking conclusion is that, conservatively calculated, 61,911,000 people were systematically killed by the Communist regime from 1917 to 1987. Rummel divides the published estimates on which he bases his conclusions into eight historical periods, such as the Civil War, collectivization, and World War II. The estimates are further divided into agents of death, such as terrorism, deportations, and famine. Using statistical principles developed from more than 25 years of quantitative research on nations, he analyzes the estimates. In the collectivization period, for example, about 11,440,000 people were murdered. During World War II, while the Soviet Union had lost almost 20,000,000 in the war, the Party was killing even more of its citizens and foreigners-probably an additional 13,053,000. For each period, he defines, counts, and totals the sources of death. He shows that Soviet forced labor camps were the major engine of death, probably killing 39,464,000 prisoners overall. To give meaning and depth to these figures, Rummel compares them to the death toll from'major wars, world disasters, global genocide, deaths from cancer and other diseases, and the like. In these and other ways, Rummel goes well beyond the bare bones of statistical analysis and tries to provide understanding of this incredible toll of human lives. Why were these people killed? What was the political and social context? How can we understand it? These and other questions are addressed in a compelling historical narrative. This definitive book will be of interest to Soviet experts, those interested in the study of genocide and violence, peace researchers, and students of comparative politics and society. Written without jargon, its statistics are confined to appendixes, and the general reader can profitably read the book without losing the essence of the findings, which are selectively repeated in the narrative.

Genres: Politics, History

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Cliff M · Rating 4 out of 5]

A shocking analysis and exposé of the campaign by Lenin (then Stalin) to murder as many of their fellow citizens in Russia as possible. The author, R.J. Rummel’s (conservative) estimate is that between them they killed over 50 million in cold blood and another 10 million in ‘conflicts’ (when groups of people decided to fight back rather than just turn up for their appointment to be shot). To these 60+ million murder victims can be added the numbers of Russians killed by the German army during WWII (though Stalin still managed to kill far more of his own people than the Germans during this period. He was never going to be outdone…).

If the book had been written as a work of fiction it would have been criticised for being too far-fetched. But it is not a work of fiction; all if it really happened and it happened in (relatively) plain sight. Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev admitted what had happened over the previous 37 years and started a process of de-Stalinisation, only to be replaced after eleven years by a hard liner who was more of a fan of Stalin’s methods. The book ends with one million innocent Afghan civilians being killed in the 1980’s in yet another campaign of terror by Russia (though this time the cruelty had a geopolitical aim: to gain access to the Persian Gulf).

Survivors of the camp system such as the Nobel prize winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn say that Rummel’s figures are an underestimate, even though they are mind boggling (more then the entire populations of most European countries). Rummel himself agrees that his statistical methods and choices produce conservative results, but he didn’t want to be accused of exaggerating for political or ideological reasons. And it this area of statistical methods that means you have to tread carefully when recommending the book, for it is not written in the pop-history style we have grown used to in the 2000’s (though neither is it a dry academic tome). There are a lot of tables in the book and a lot of explanations as to why the author chose the mid-point here, and the low point there. He also points out assiduously where other researchers and survivors disagree with his lower estimates. Some readers might not like this stuff, but what I would say is that all of the information in the tables is also described in a breezy, plain English, summary style in the text and therefore you can get away with not even looking at the tables. Similarly, the author spares us the horror stories that he could have told. A book describing one atrocity after another would have been impossibly heartbreaking to read, even though it deserves to be written. For that is the reality of Lenin and Stalin: not numbers, atrocities….

Finally, I would say Rummel does a good job of describing the madness of Lenin and Stalin. Eg when describing their campaigns of genocides against farmers (Marxists are typically city dwellers, and as such think that food appears by magic in shops ). Eg on realising that he could no longer feed the population because he had obliterated the farming community, Stalin’s solution was to murder a third of the population so that the food he could buy and import in exchange for exports (typically heavy, machined goods) would be sufficient to feed the people who remain. Though this is one of the most hatefully stupid pieces of logic ever used by the leader of a country, it was subsequently copied (and quoted) by his fellow Marxist Robert Mugabe when Mugabe was president of Zimbabwe. And that is why this book matters: not just to identify and commemorate those innocent people who died at the hands of Marxist tyrants in Russia and the countries it occupied, but also because the madness has continued to this day (Mao then Mugabe then Chavez, and now Starmer). We must all learn from our history in order to avoid repeating it, but none of this was taught to me in high school and I don’t think that was an oversight or a coincidence as all of my teachers were members of a UK teaching union that is unashamedly Marxist / Maoist.