• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    17 hours ago

    The Black Book of Communism was debunked by its own writers. Conquest was described as obsessed with reaching 100 million, and to do so he included Nazis killed during World War II, non-births as deaths, made up numbers, dramatically exaggerated existing events, and more. Citing the 100 million number in the modern day when even those that helped invent that claim have since denounced it isn’t particularly historically truthful.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        13 hours ago

        Independent scholars across China, the USSR, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and North Korea all documented millions upon millions upon millions of deaths from engineered famines, purges, forced labor camps, and political executions.

        Who are these “independent scholars?” No modern historian using data from the soviet archives, or other such reputable source, believes that there were “engineered famines” in socialist countries. Famine existed, and was in all cases a common phenomenon pre-socialism, ended by the communists. The highest plausible death total from purges in the soviet union is around 700,000, though actual analysis shows that this number is simply those condemned to death, when it was common for the soviets to walk back death condemnations, meaning total executions is far below. The majority of deaths in socialist prisons came from starvation during World War II, when the Nazis took Ukraine, the USSR’s bread basket.

        Adding on to this, Cambodia’s “agrarian communism” isn’t recognized by the overwhelming majority of Marxists as actually socialism. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge denounced Marxism, and they worked with the US Empire, being stopped by the Vietnamese communists.

        To the contrary, millions of deaths from engineered famines have been proven by capitalists, such as the Bengal Famine by Churchill. Churchill had this to say:

        I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.

        There is also the capitalist Nazi Germany, which inflicted the holocaust, murdering tens of millions in around a decade.

        Whether the exact total is 60 million, 80 million, or more, the sheer magnitude is confirmed far beyond the Black Book.

        The sheer magnitude is confirmed to have been far less both in ratio and in total than capitalism.

        Facts: Communist governments were responsible for mass mortality on a historic scale.

        To the contrary, communist governments have been responsible for mass uplifting in life expectancy and poverty eradication on a historic scale. From the USSR:

        To the PRC:

        Communists have been responsible for doubling life expectancy, tripling literacy rates, eradicating poverty, rapidly improving production and distribution, democratizing society, and far more.