Superb deconstruction of Courtois's bad faith methodology. That margin of error for China alone (23 million) is genuinely wild and reveals how lazy the scholarship was. My grandparents survived through the Great Leap famine period, and while it was brutal, the narrative of systematic genocidal intent is way overblown compared to what actually happenedthere.
I think you don't really work with demographic data and never tried to calculate excess mortality for historical events, especially in the places with bad quality of populational statistics.
23 millions for 1b country is not wild at all with the quality of data that existed at the moment of time. The differences between estimates in the literature depending on the methods and assumptions are still 10-20m.
The Chinese population censuses and population estimates are still inconsistent as for now and have large errors. It means that you can't get a projected population from a previous census at the time of current one with an acceptable margin of error. For the most recent one, it led to an error around 10% if you try to interpolate from the past to the current one, it's 100 million, a lot of them children (as in the mortality above), it's obviously a pretty big margin of error
She is normally awful misinformed and probably just copied it from some other places. For example, she thinks that that communal dinning halls as a reason are "anti-communist propaganda" while most authors think that it's either a primary or secondary reason for the Great Famine including a major revisionist demographers like Songlin Yang (who places its the casualties at 4m). He literally thinks that they were the major reason of the famine outside of the general zeal.
“
The Communist Wind and Communal Canteens Were the Primary Factors
The deaths in 1959–1961 were caused by many factors. Natural disasters resulted in a sharp decrease in per capita food production, which was exacerbated by embargos imposed by western countries.6 Exaggerated achievements provoked by unrealistic targets, resulted in excessive compulsory state purchases. These factors were all responsible for the premature deaths in the rural areas. But the really deadly factor was the communist wind, which gave birth to the “food supply system” and the “public canteen” systems, which lasted from the mid-1958 to the spring of 1961. If it had not been for the communist wind and big canteens, even the previously mentioned problems would not have resulted in such large numbers of deaths.”
Great post (although some of the text seems to be repeated), it's such a shame that the vast majority of those who hear the 100m figure will never bother to question it. It's become part of the circular anti-communist ideology that most of us in the West have grown up with: communism is evil because it killed millions of people, and the reason why we believe that it killed millions of people is its inherent evil. When all the media you have access to insists that this is true, and everyone you talk to about it looks at you like you're crazy for questioning it, the net effect is for most people not to question it.
So the widespread human rights abuses has not resulted in precisely 100 million deaths, could be more, could be less? We have an entire article focused on the number, not why it is so destructive to society. All you have to do is look at countries where masses flee from and what countries they go to. Full stop.
No system is perfect. But I can’t help but note that in the referendum in 1991, an overwhelming number of Soviet citizens by a wide margin voted to CONTINUE the USSR.
Capitalist democracies (U.S., Germany, Canada, Australia) are top destinations for refugees and economic migrants globally, including those fleeing communist regimes. But it really is not an academic exercise, it is a lived experience. When you have lived under both, you know the difference.
Many people who have lived under both, such as citizens of Russia old enough to remember the USSR, preferred living under socialism to capitalism: "More than 6-in-10 Russians consider it a 'great misfortune that the Soviet Union no longer exists,' according to a new Pew survey....Just 22% in Russia say ordinary people have benefited from the changes since 1991, while 57% say life is worse than it was under communism." And you call communist governance "destructive to society" yet it provided free/universal education and healthcare, cheap housing, affordable food, and in general a full complement of the basic necessities of life not available to people there prior to the Bolshevik Revolution or to people in capitalist countries then or now. In the heart of the capitalist world, the US, vast numbers of people live in dire poverty, lacking adequate food or even a roof over their heads despite living in the richest country in world history. Homelessness and hunger are nonexistent in China today, and whereas in the US millions of people have more than $10,000 in medical debt, medical debt has never existed in communist countries. It is for such reasons that most people who have lived under both prefer socialism to capitalism.
Capitalist democracies consistently outperform communist countries on HDI (Human Development Index), particularly at the highest levels, reflecting greater average prosperity, innovation-driven growth, and resource allocation toward human development outcomes. The highest HDI scores correlate with open markets, rule of law, and democratic institutions combined with social policies. However, some communist states (especially Cuba historically, and China/Vietnam recently) achieve strong outcomes in specific areas like basic health and education relative to their income levels, often outperforming similarly poor capitalist countries in those metrics. But sadly no communist country reaches "Very High HDI".
You conveniently ignore why people leave their decimated countries for the US—that reason being that it was specifically the US that destabilized these countries. Anyone who pretends that the US is a democratic country needs to get a conscience and actually crack open some books. The US is a country founded on genocide, slavery, racism, misogyny, and land theft. And it is now the country that is most responsible for Israel’s genocide against Palestine. The words “democracy” and “the US” should never be used in the same sentence, except to expose why the US has never been a democracy, and is now flat-out fascist. And, of course, my comments also are applicable to all of the other western colonialist, land and resource thieving, war criminal, Western non-democracies. They’ve never seen a democracy, which serves its own people, not corporate interests, that they don’t want to destroy.
You conveniently ignored the facts that I just stated. But referring to your ideological tangent, America, like every country in history, has flaws and dark chapters. But we're also the greatest force for freedom and opportunity the world has seen—a constitutional republic built on individual liberty, rule of law, and self-governance. Calling it "fascist" or denying its democratic foundations ignores the elections, rights, and prosperity that draw people here legally from everywhere. There is a reason why when the United States adopts open boarders, 15-20 million people come here in only 4 years time. Oddly enough, it is why California is the most exited state in United States while at the same time it is the most geographically beautiful.
Craig - There simply IS no "society" in the Capitalist world. Unless each and every "member" of said Society has a PLACE, ie, employment and a living wage - then what we have doesn't meet the DEFINITION of a Society. Thatcher said it's a "market place" - ok, I'll accept that - but not "society".
The earlier stated fact remains true, Capitalist democracies consistently outperform communist countries on HDI (Human Development Index), particularly at the highest levels, reflecting greater average prosperity, innovation-driven growth, and resource allocation toward human development outcomes. The highest HDI scores correlate with open markets, rule of law, and democratic institutions combined with social policies. It is simple data, not my opinion.
Soviets lost millions to fighting German fascists. China lost millions to a mostly self generated famine in which Mao exported grain for profit while his people starved. Very capitalist of Mao.
Both systems kill both their own populations and others.
We live in and have always lived in a world where money and military strength determine more than ideology ever could.
Choosing left or right is a fun version of the oldest game in the book for those up above (divide and conquer). For those of us below, it is merely picking which shoe goes up your arse.
Marxist stalinist maoist - commumism isnt hard to understand in its basic form - a community run by the community for the community.
Giving it labels, just gives half the people something to fear.. “mao? Wasnt he a bad guy”
why dont we ever say “hitlerist” he was all about capital wasnt he? Socialism is how those above co-opted the message off communism for there own ends and to wave around as a voting sponge.
Hence you get 2 parties supposedly different - conservative (also a form off capitalism) versus socialism - yet made up off people from entirely the same backgrounds(above) vying for the same block off voters (those below) with varying degrees of bullshit, either way you end up with THE SAME PEOPLE in charge..
Yet we never just look at it for what the words mean -
CAPITALism is a system run by Capital for the benefit of those with Capital.
COMMUN(ITY)ism is a system run by the community for the benefit off the community.
To pretend capitalism could ever be for the benefit off the whole community is simply misidentifying or willfully misidentifying what it is, in its purest term.
Communism i believe in its basic form is about those below not those on the left.
They have co-opted it just to try gain power but as we see with all opposition parties once in power - the very same game, because they dont want to change it, why would they - theyve done quite well out off the system they just want there person running the show.
UnitedStates Of War, BaseNation researcher Dr. David Vine, BrownUniverity CostOfWar Project~ Post9/11, $189 BILLION Dollars INVESTED by ZioNaziDC in MassMurder-MassDestructionWar, has FORCED 38-60Million WarRefugees into Homelessness and murdered at least 4.5MILLION over 20 years between 2001 and 2021.
In the 1990ies, the archives of both the KGB and the CPSU were totally opened for a period of time.
And surprise, surprise… How many people died in GULAGs in almost 30 years from 1930 to 1957?
Around 1.6-1.7 million. By far the largest number of these, died during WW2 when even many Russians died of starvation and malnutrition.
And mind you, these are internal KGB numbers that they’d have no reason to lie about.
Superb deconstruction of Courtois's bad faith methodology. That margin of error for China alone (23 million) is genuinely wild and reveals how lazy the scholarship was. My grandparents survived through the Great Leap famine period, and while it was brutal, the narrative of systematic genocidal intent is way overblown compared to what actually happenedthere.
I think you don't really work with demographic data and never tried to calculate excess mortality for historical events, especially in the places with bad quality of populational statistics.
23 millions for 1b country is not wild at all with the quality of data that existed at the moment of time. The differences between estimates in the literature depending on the methods and assumptions are still 10-20m.
The Chinese population censuses and population estimates are still inconsistent as for now and have large errors. It means that you can't get a projected population from a previous census at the time of current one with an acceptable margin of error. For the most recent one, it led to an error around 10% if you try to interpolate from the past to the current one, it's 100 million, a lot of them children (as in the mortality above), it's obviously a pretty big margin of error
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4557562
She is normally awful misinformed and probably just copied it from some other places. For example, she thinks that that communal dinning halls as a reason are "anti-communist propaganda" while most authors think that it's either a primary or secondary reason for the Great Famine including a major revisionist demographers like Songlin Yang (who places its the casualties at 4m). He literally thinks that they were the major reason of the famine outside of the general zeal.
“
The Communist Wind and Communal Canteens Were the Primary Factors
The deaths in 1959–1961 were caused by many factors. Natural disasters resulted in a sharp decrease in per capita food production, which was exacerbated by embargos imposed by western countries.6 Exaggerated achievements provoked by unrealistic targets, resulted in excessive compulsory state purchases. These factors were all responsible for the premature deaths in the rural areas. But the really deadly factor was the communist wind, which gave birth to the “food supply system” and the “public canteen” systems, which lasted from the mid-1958 to the spring of 1961. If it had not been for the communist wind and big canteens, even the previously mentioned problems would not have resulted in such large numbers of deaths.”
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-16-1661-7
Great post (although some of the text seems to be repeated), it's such a shame that the vast majority of those who hear the 100m figure will never bother to question it. It's become part of the circular anti-communist ideology that most of us in the West have grown up with: communism is evil because it killed millions of people, and the reason why we believe that it killed millions of people is its inherent evil. When all the media you have access to insists that this is true, and everyone you talk to about it looks at you like you're crazy for questioning it, the net effect is for most people not to question it.
The black book Is incredibly repetitive text. They make up numbers from whole cloth.
Very important work !! You're leaving the anti-communists TWISTING IN THE WIND !
There were three main issues: 1. Fungus infection 2. Weather conditions 3. Sanctions
So the widespread human rights abuses has not resulted in precisely 100 million deaths, could be more, could be less? We have an entire article focused on the number, not why it is so destructive to society. All you have to do is look at countries where masses flee from and what countries they go to. Full stop.
OHNOES! Not “widespread human right abuses”!
No system is perfect. But I can’t help but note that in the referendum in 1991, an overwhelming number of Soviet citizens by a wide margin voted to CONTINUE the USSR.
Capitalist democracies (U.S., Germany, Canada, Australia) are top destinations for refugees and economic migrants globally, including those fleeing communist regimes. But it really is not an academic exercise, it is a lived experience. When you have lived under both, you know the difference.
Many people who have lived under both, such as citizens of Russia old enough to remember the USSR, preferred living under socialism to capitalism: "More than 6-in-10 Russians consider it a 'great misfortune that the Soviet Union no longer exists,' according to a new Pew survey....Just 22% in Russia say ordinary people have benefited from the changes since 1991, while 57% say life is worse than it was under communism." And you call communist governance "destructive to society" yet it provided free/universal education and healthcare, cheap housing, affordable food, and in general a full complement of the basic necessities of life not available to people there prior to the Bolshevik Revolution or to people in capitalist countries then or now. In the heart of the capitalist world, the US, vast numbers of people live in dire poverty, lacking adequate food or even a roof over their heads despite living in the richest country in world history. Homelessness and hunger are nonexistent in China today, and whereas in the US millions of people have more than $10,000 in medical debt, medical debt has never existed in communist countries. It is for such reasons that most people who have lived under both prefer socialism to capitalism.
Capitalist democracies consistently outperform communist countries on HDI (Human Development Index), particularly at the highest levels, reflecting greater average prosperity, innovation-driven growth, and resource allocation toward human development outcomes. The highest HDI scores correlate with open markets, rule of law, and democratic institutions combined with social policies. However, some communist states (especially Cuba historically, and China/Vietnam recently) achieve strong outcomes in specific areas like basic health and education relative to their income levels, often outperforming similarly poor capitalist countries in those metrics. But sadly no communist country reaches "Very High HDI".
You conveniently ignore why people leave their decimated countries for the US—that reason being that it was specifically the US that destabilized these countries. Anyone who pretends that the US is a democratic country needs to get a conscience and actually crack open some books. The US is a country founded on genocide, slavery, racism, misogyny, and land theft. And it is now the country that is most responsible for Israel’s genocide against Palestine. The words “democracy” and “the US” should never be used in the same sentence, except to expose why the US has never been a democracy, and is now flat-out fascist. And, of course, my comments also are applicable to all of the other western colonialist, land and resource thieving, war criminal, Western non-democracies. They’ve never seen a democracy, which serves its own people, not corporate interests, that they don’t want to destroy.
You conveniently ignored the facts that I just stated. But referring to your ideological tangent, America, like every country in history, has flaws and dark chapters. But we're also the greatest force for freedom and opportunity the world has seen—a constitutional republic built on individual liberty, rule of law, and self-governance. Calling it "fascist" or denying its democratic foundations ignores the elections, rights, and prosperity that draw people here legally from everywhere. There is a reason why when the United States adopts open boarders, 15-20 million people come here in only 4 years time. Oddly enough, it is why California is the most exited state in United States while at the same time it is the most geographically beautiful.
"But we're also the greatest force for freedom and opportunity the world has seen..."
No.
Craig - There simply IS no "society" in the Capitalist world. Unless each and every "member" of said Society has a PLACE, ie, employment and a living wage - then what we have doesn't meet the DEFINITION of a Society. Thatcher said it's a "market place" - ok, I'll accept that - but not "society".
The earlier stated fact remains true, Capitalist democracies consistently outperform communist countries on HDI (Human Development Index), particularly at the highest levels, reflecting greater average prosperity, innovation-driven growth, and resource allocation toward human development outcomes. The highest HDI scores correlate with open markets, rule of law, and democratic institutions combined with social policies. It is simple data, not my opinion.
Soviets lost millions to fighting German fascists. China lost millions to a mostly self generated famine in which Mao exported grain for profit while his people starved. Very capitalist of Mao.
Both systems kill both their own populations and others.
We live in and have always lived in a world where money and military strength determine more than ideology ever could.
Choosing left or right is a fun version of the oldest game in the book for those up above (divide and conquer). For those of us below, it is merely picking which shoe goes up your arse.
Marxist stalinist maoist - commumism isnt hard to understand in its basic form - a community run by the community for the community.
Giving it labels, just gives half the people something to fear.. “mao? Wasnt he a bad guy”
why dont we ever say “hitlerist” he was all about capital wasnt he? Socialism is how those above co-opted the message off communism for there own ends and to wave around as a voting sponge.
Hence you get 2 parties supposedly different - conservative (also a form off capitalism) versus socialism - yet made up off people from entirely the same backgrounds(above) vying for the same block off voters (those below) with varying degrees of bullshit, either way you end up with THE SAME PEOPLE in charge..
Yet we never just look at it for what the words mean -
CAPITALism is a system run by Capital for the benefit of those with Capital.
COMMUN(ITY)ism is a system run by the community for the benefit off the community.
To pretend capitalism could ever be for the benefit off the whole community is simply misidentifying or willfully misidentifying what it is, in its purest term.
Communism i believe in its basic form is about those below not those on the left.
They have co-opted it just to try gain power but as we see with all opposition parties once in power - the very same game, because they dont want to change it, why would they - theyve done quite well out off the system they just want there person running the show.
CAPITALISM KILLS ~ KILL CAPITALISM
UnitedStates Of War, BaseNation researcher Dr. David Vine, BrownUniverity CostOfWar Project~ Post9/11, $189 BILLION Dollars INVESTED by ZioNaziDC in MassMurder-MassDestructionWar, has FORCED 38-60Million WarRefugees into Homelessness and murdered at least 4.5MILLION over 20 years between 2001 and 2021.
https://www.davidvine.net/costsofwar.html