Editing Democide (section)

== Estimates ==

In his estimates, [[Rudolph Rummel]] relied mostly on historical accounts, an approach that rarely provides accuracy compared with contemporary academic opinion. In the case of Mexican democide, Rummel wrote that while "these figures amount to little more than informed guesses", he thought "there is enough evidence to at least indict these authoritarian regimes for megamurder."<ref name="Mexican Democide">{{cite book|last=Rummel|first=Rudolph|year=2003|orig-date=1997|chapter-url=https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP11.HTM|chapter=Statistics of Mexican Democide: Estimates, Calculations, and Sources|title=Statistic of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900|edition=hardback|location=Charlottesville, Virginia; New Brunswick, New Jersey|publisher=Center for National Security Law, School of Law, University of Virginia; Transaction Publishers, Rutgers University|isbn=9783825840105|access-date=31 August 2021|via=Power Kills}}</ref> According to Rummel, his research showed that the death toll from democide is far greater than the death toll from war. After studying over 8,000 reports of government-caused deaths, Rummel estimated that there have been 262 million victims of democide in the last century. According to his figures, six times as many people have died from the actions of people working for governments than have died in battle. One of his main findings was that democracies have much less democide than authoritarian regimes.<ref name="Harff 2017"/> Rummel argued that there is a relation between political power and democide. Political mass murder grows increasingly common as political power becomes unconstrained. At the other end of the scale, where power is diffuse, checked, and balanced, [[political violence]] is a rarity. According to Rummel, "[t]he more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom."<ref name="The Freeman 1997">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/FREEMAN.INTERVIEW.HTM|title=An Exclusive Freeman Interview: Rudolph Rummel Talks About the Miracle of Liberty and Peace|magazine=The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty|issue=47|date=July 1997|access-date=2 November 2021|via=Power Kills}}</ref> Rummel argued that "concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth."<ref>{{cite book|editor-last1=Jacobs|editor-first1=Steven|editor-last2=Totten|editor-first2=Samuel|year=2002|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g26NmNNWK1QC|title=Pioneers of Genocide Studies|edition=1st hardback|location=New Brunswick, New Jersey|publisher=Transaction Publishers|page=170|isbn=9780765801517}}</ref>

Rummel's estimates, especially about Communist democide, typically included a wide range and cannot be considered determinative.<ref name="Harff 1996"/><ref name="Harff 2017"/> Rummel calculated nearly 43 million deaths due to democide inside and outside the Soviet Union during Stalin's regime.<ref name="The Freeman 1997"/> This is much higher than an often quoted figure in the popular press of 20 million, or a 2010s scholarly figure of 9 million.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Snyder|first=Tymothy D.|date=27 January 2011|url=http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/01/27/hitler-vs-stalin-who-was-worse/|title=Hitler vs. Stalin: Who was worse?|magazine=The New York Review of Books|access-date=25 November 2021}}</ref> Rummel responded that the 20 million estimate is based on a figure from [[Robert Conquest]]'s ''[[The Great Terror (book)|The Great Terror]]'' and that Conquest's qualifier "almost certainly too low" is usually forgotten. For Rummell, Conquest's calculations excluded camp deaths before 1936 and after 1950, executions (1939–1953), the forced [[population transfer in the Soviet Union]] (1939–1953), the deportation within the Soviet Union of minorities (1941–1944), and those the Soviet [[Red Army]] and [[Cheka]] (the [[secret police]]) executed throughout Eastern Europe after their conquest during the 1944–1945 period. Moreover, the [[Holodomor]] that killed 5 million in 1932–1934 (according to Rummel) is also not included.<ref>{{cite web|last=Rummel|first=Rudolph|date=26 April 2005|url=https://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/2005/04/how-many-did-stalin-really-murder.html|url-status=dead|title=How Many Did Stalin Really Murder?|website=Freedom's Peace|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071026035903/https://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/2005/04/how-many-did-stalin-really-murder.html|archive-date=26 October 2007|access-date=2 December 2021}}</ref> According to Rummel, forced labor, executions, and concentration camps were responsible for over one million deaths in the [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea]] from 1948 to 1987.<ref>{{cite book|last=Rummel|first=Rudolph|year=2003|orig-date=1997|chapter-url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP10.HTM|chapter=Statistics of North Korean Democide: Estimates, Calculations, and Sources|url=https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE5.HTM|title=Statistic of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900|edition=hardback|location=Charlottesville, Virginia; New Brunswick, New Jersey|publisher=Center for National Security Law, School of Law, University of Virginia; Transaction Publishers, Rutgers University|isbn=9783825840105|access-date=2 December 2021|via=Power Kills}}</ref> After decades of research in the state archives, most scholars say that Stalin's regime killed between 6 and 9 million, which is considerably less than originally thought,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wheatcroft|first=Stephen G.|date=March 1999|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-Secret_Police.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070704065523/http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-Secret_Police.pdf |archive-date=2007-07-04 |url-status=live|title=Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: The Comparability and Reliability of the Archival Data. Not the Last Word|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|publisher=Routledge|volume=51|issue=2|pages=340–342|doi=10.1080/09668139999056|jstor=153614|quote=For decades, many historians counted Stalin' s victims in 'tens of millions', which was a figure supported by Solzhenitsyn. Since the collapse of the USSR, the lower estimates of the scale of the camps have been vindicated. The arguments about excess mortality are far more complex than normally believed. R. Conquest, ''The Great Terror: A Re-assessment'' (London, 1992) does not really get to grips with the new data and continues to present an exaggerated picture of the repression. The view of the 'revisionists' has been largely substantiated (J. Arch Getty & R. T. Manning (eds), ''Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives'' (Cambridge, 1993)). The popular press, even ''TLS'' and ''The Independent'', have contained erroneous journalistic articles that should not be cited in respectable academic articles.}}</ref> while Nazi Germany killed at least 11 million, which is in line with previous estimates.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Snyder|first=Timothy D.|date=10 March 2011|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/03/10/hitler-vs-stalin-who-killed-more/|title=Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Killed More?|magazine=The New York Review of Books|access-date=1 September 2021}}</ref>