[lbo-talk] Reevaluated Democide Totals for 20th C. and China

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Fri Dec 9 09:47:46 PST 2005


Years ago while in grad school -- In addition to philosophy, I was trained as a numbers cruncher by G. David Singer, Ron Ingelhart etc., in the Michigan polisci dept, the leading quant school -- I analysed Rummell's methodology. He's totally unreliable, uses right wing sources that exaggerate things that are bad enough already, doesn't evaluate them carefully, ignores conrary views, in short, is a ideologue.

I corresponded with Rummell for while politely but critically, he wrote back politely but implacably, he's impervious to criticism. I think his views need to be exposed. After Getty and Davies we know his figures for the USSR are absurd, even Conquest (representing the conventional wisdom) doesn't go that high, and he vastly underestimates Hitler's body count, which is at least 25 million in the USSR _alone_ -- leaving out Poland, etc. I can't believe his figures for China are any better.

jks

--- geert lovink <geert at desk.nl> wrote:


> > Asia Pacific Research Online, Canberra, Australia.
> >
> > Rummel, Rudy J. 2005. Reevaluated democide totals
> for 20th C. and
> > China (a note sent to
> > 21,000 email addresses on Tue, 29 Nov 2005).
> Department of Political
> > Science, University
> > of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, US.
> >
> > Extract: "Many scholars and commentators have
> referenced my total of
> > 174,000,000 for
> > the democide (genocide and mass murder) of the
> last century [Rummel,
> > Rudy J. 1991. China's
> > Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since
> 1900. Transaction
> > Publishers.
> > ISBN: 088738417X - ed.].
> >
> > I'm now trying to get word out that I've had to
> make a major revision
> > in my total due to two books.
> > One is Wild Swans: Two Daughters of China by Jung
> Chang, and the other
> > is Mao: the Unknown Story
> > that she wrote with her husband, Jon Halliday. I'm
> now convinced that
> > that Stalin exceeded Hitler
> > in monstrous evil, and Mao beat out Stalin. [...]
> >
> > Now, I have to change all the world democide
> totals that populate my
> > websites, blogs, and publications.
> >
> > The total for the communist democide before and
> after Mao took over
> > the mainland is thus
> > 3,446,000 + 35,226,000 + 38,000,000 = 76,692,000,
> or to round off,
> > 77,000,000 murdered.
> > [...] This exceeds the 61,911,000 murdered by the
> Soviet Union
> > 1917-1987, with Hitler far
> > behind at 20,946,000 wiped out 1933-1945.
> >
> > For perspective on Mao's most bloody rule, all
> wars 1900-1987 cost in
> > combat dead 34,021,000
> > -- including WWI and II, Vietnam, Korea, and the
> Mexican and Russian
> > Revolutions. Mao alone
> > murdered over twice as many as were killed in
> combat in all these wars.
> >
> > Now, my overall totals for world democide
> 1900-1999 must also be
> > changed. I have estimated
> > it to be 174,000,000 murdered, of which communist
> regimes murdered
> > about 148,000,000.
> > Also, compare this to combat dead. Communists
> overall have murdered
> > four times those killed
> > in combat, while globally the democide toll was
> over six times that
> > number. - r.j.rummel."
> >
> > URL
>
http://www.ciolek.com/SPEC/rummel-on-democide-2005.html
> >
> > Internet Archive (web.archive.org) [the site was
> not archived at the
> > time of this abstract]
> >
> > Link reported by: T. Matthew Ciolek
> (tmciolek at coombs.anu.edu.au)
> >
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> > marginal]:
> > V.Useful
> > * External links to the resource [over 3,000 -
> under 3,000 - under
> > 1,000 - under 300 - under 100 - under 30]:
> > under 30
> >
>
--------------------------------------------------------------
> > Src: The Asian Studies WWW Monitor ISSN 1329-9778
> > URL http://coombs.anu.edu.au/asia-www-monitor.html
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> > - regards -
> >
> > Dr T. Matthew Ciolek
> tmciolek[use"@"]coombs.anu.edu.au
> > Head, Internet Publications Bureau, RSPAS,
> > The National Institute for Asia and the Pacific,
> > The Australian National University, Canberra,
> Australia
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> >
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