Does God exist?

Dexter Sinister

Dexter Sinister

Unspecified Specialist
Oct 1, 2004
10,168
539
113
Regina, SK
talloola said:
Of course you are right...
Click to expand...
I knew that... :toothy7:
I was only making the point that, there is no fault, in the 'person', to either
believe or not, it is one's right to do as one thinks.
I don't accept the view that my 'non' belief is a fault.
Click to expand...
I agree entirely, people can think whatever they like, but they're not entitled to require anyone else to agree with them, and that's the major fault in religious belief. For people who think they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, it's an easy step to deciding they have not only the right, but the duty, to interfere in other people's lives to bring them the "truth." The history of religion is full of horrible examples of that, ideology isn't far behind, if indeed it's behind at all, and that's essentially why I'm so combative about religions and ideologies. If people can't justify their positions with good evidence and sound logic, they've got nothing.
 
M

mikemac

Nominee Member
Oct 13, 2008
82
2
8
Canada
Dexter Sinister said:
I knew that... :toothy7:

 The history of religion is full of horrible examples of that, ideology isn't far behind, if indeed it's behind at all, and that's essentially why I'm so combative about religions and ideologies.
Click to expand...

Lethal Politics: Soviet
Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917

By R.J. Rummel

New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1990


Truth is tough
---- O.W. Homes. The Professor at the Breakfast-Table

CONTENTS

Chapter 1. 61,911,000 Victims: Utopianism Empowered 1917 to 1987

  • [*]Figure 1.1. Range in Soviet Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 1.1. Overview of Soviet Democide (Most Probable Estimates)
    [*]Figure 1.2. Democide Components and Soviet War/Rebellion Killed 1917-1987
    [*]Figure 1.3. Democide Components and Soviet War/RebellionKilled, by Percent of Violent Deaths 1917-1987
    [*]Figure 1.4. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Table 1.2. Comparisons of Soviet Democide
    [*]Figure 1.5. Comparisons of Soviet Democide
    [*]Table 1.3. Comparison of Soviet Annual Democide Risk to War and Commonplace Risks
    [*]Figure 1.6. Annual Risk of a Soviet Citizen being Murdered by His Own Government in Comparison to Some Other Risks
    [*]Appendix 1.1
    • Table 1.A. 61,911,000 Victims: Totals, Estimates, and Years
    [*]Appendix 1.2
    • Table 1.B. Soviet Transit, Camp, and Deportation Death Rates
    • Table 1.C. Democide Totals under Different Camp/Transit and Deportation Death Rates
Chapter 2. 3,284,000 Victims: The Civil War Period 1917 to 1922

  • [*]Figure 2.1. Range in Civil War Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 2.1. Civil War Period Democide and Other Killed
    [*]Figure 2.2. Democide Components and Soviet War/Rebellion Killed 1917-1922
    [*]Appendix 2.1
Chapter 3. 2,200,000 Victims: The NEP Period 1923-1928

  • [*]Figure 3.1. Range in NEP Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 3.1. NEP Period Democide
    [*]Figure 3.2. Democide Components for Civil War and NEP Periods
    [*]Figure 3.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 3.1
    • Table 3.A. 2,200,000 Victims During the NEP Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 4. 11,440,000 Victims: The Collectivization Period 1928-1935

  • [*]Figure 4.1. Range of Collectivization Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 4.1. Collectivization Period Democide
    [*]Figure 4.2. Democide Components for Three Periods
    [*]Figure 4.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 4.1
    • Table 4.A. 11,440,000 Victims During the Collectivization Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 5. 4,345,000 Victims: The Great Terror Period 1935-1938

  • [*]Figure 5.1. Range of Great Terror Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 5.1. Great Terror Period Democide
    [*]Figure 5.2. Democide Components for Four Periods
    [*]Figure 5.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 5.1
    • Table 5.A. 4,345,000 Victims During the Great Terror Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 6. 5,104,000 Victims: Pre-World War II Period 1939 to June, 1941

  • [*]Figure 6.1. Range in Pre-World War II Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 6.1. Pre-World War II Period Democide
    [*]Figure 6.2. Democide Components for Five Periods
    [*]Figure 6.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 6.1
    • Table 6.A. 5,104,000 Victims During the Pre-World War II Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 7. 13,053,000 Victims: World War II Period June, 1941 to 1945

  • [*]Figure 7.1. Range in World War II Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 7.1. World War II Period Democide
    [*]Figure 7.2. Democide Components for Six Periods
    [*]Figure 7.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 7.1
    • Table 7.A. 13,053,000 Victims During World War II Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 8. 15,613,000 Victims: Post-War and Stalin's Twilight Period 1945-1953

  • [*]Figure 8.1. Range in Post War Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 8.1. Post War and Stalin's Twilight Period Democide
    [*]Figure 8.2. Democide Components for Seven Periods
    [*]Figure 8.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 8.1
    • Table 8.A. 15,613,000 Victims the Postwar and Stalin's Twilight Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 9. 6,872,000 Victims: Post-Stalin Period 1954-1987

  • [*]Figure 9.1. Range in Post War Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 9.1. Post-Stalin Period
    [*]Figure 9.2. Democide Components for All Periods
    [*]Appendix 9.1
    • Table 9.A. 6,872,000 Victims During the Post-Stalin Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Appendix A. Methodology: Principles, Procedures, and Definitions See the similar Appendix to China's Bloody Century, 1991.
References
Name Index
Subject Index


PREFACE*

This book is part of a project on government genocide and mass killing in this century. The aim is to test the hypothesis that the citizens of democracies are the least likely to be murdered by their own governments; the citizens of totalitarian, especially Marxist systems, the most likely. The theory is that democratic systems provide a path to peace, and universalizing them would eliminate war and minimize global, political violence. This was the conclusion of my Understanding Conflict and War,1 and has been further confirmed by systematic, empirical tests since.2 In the process of that research, I discovered that governments have murdered millions of their own citizens, and that in some cases, the death toll may have actually exceeded that of World War II. To get some idea of the numbers involved, I surveyed the extent of genocide and mass killing by governments since 1900. The results were shocking: according to these first figures, independent of war and other kinds of conflict, governments probably have murdered 119,400,000 people, Marxist governments about 95,200,000 of them. By comparison, the battle-killed in all foreign and domestic wars in this century total 35,700,000.3
These monstrous statistics sharply reoriented my research. For over thirty years, as a political scientist and peace researcher, my research had focused on the causes and conditions of war, conflict, and peace. I had believed that war was the greatest killer and that nuclear war would be a global holocaust. Now I have found that aside from war the total killed by government was almost four times that of war. It was as though a nuclear war had already occurred.
Surprisingly few have recognized this. While much has been published on individual genocides, such as of the Jews or Armenians, and some general analyses have been done, as by Kuper4, virtually no research has been published on the total amount of genocide and mass murder among nations.5 The one exception is Elliot's Twentieth Century Book of the Dead, which arrives at a figure of about 100,000,000 killed in this century, including war. The work, however, omits many small genocides and is limited in its treatment of killing by Marxist governments.
For these reasons, with a grant from the United States Peace Institute, I undertook in 1988 a project to refine and elaborate my findings, to determine empirically the conditions and causes of government genocide and mass killing, and to assess the role of democratic versus autocratic institutions. The aim was to provide a comprehensive overview of such governmental murder, to test further whether the more democratic a nation, the more secure its citizens from such killing, and to publish the results in a major monograph.
Among the first studies undertaken was that of Soviet genocide and mass murder. This was a very difficult task, for while widely different estimates were available on such Soviet institutions as the labor camp, such polices as collectivization or the Red Terror, or such events as the deportation of Poles in 1939-1941, few experts had tried to systematically accumulate and total them over Soviet history. To my knowledge, there are only two major works in English attempting to tally the toll in some systematic manner.6 Robert Conquest gives a carefully accumulated total for the Stalin years (at least 20,000,000 killed)7; and in his samizdat translated into English, Dyadkin, a Soviet geophysicist, did a demographic analysis of excess Soviet deaths, 1926 to 1954, and concluded that Soviet repression killed 23,100,000 to 32,000,000 Soviet citizens over this 29-year period.8
Scattered here and there in one book or another are estimates of the number murdered. For example, Panin claims that 57,000,000 to 69,500,000 were killed, and says that estimates of authors in the West vary from 45,000,000 to 80,000,000 9; Solzhenitsyn mentions a 66,000,000 figure calculated by an ŽmigrŽ professor of statistics 10; and Stewart-Smith gives an estimate of 31,000,000 killed in repression 11. Like Dyadkin's, some estimates have been based on demographic analyses, as Medvedev's 22,000,000 to 23,000,000 total (1918-1953), or Dyadkin's aforementioned figures.12
For lack of a thorough statistical accumulation and analysis of Soviet genocides and mass murder from 1917 to recent years, I had to undertake at least a first effort in this direction. Initially, the result was to be a chapter in a monograph on 20th century genocide and mass killing. But it soon became clear that the Soviets themselves are responsible for so many genocides, and that so many different kinds of mass killings had occurred, that to unravel and present the detailed events and institutions involved and the related statistics would require a monograph itself. Thus this book.
To best present the historical details, statistical analyses, and various figures and sources, and yet to make the book readable and useful to various publics, I have divided the book in the following way. First, the statistical data, sources, and analyses have been separated from the historical when, what, and why of the estimates. This provides an explanation and understanding of the deaths being reported, and historical narrative for those uninterested in the statistical details, while also making available the statistical material for specialists. Second, rather than put all the statistics in one, huge appendix at the end of the book, an appendix has been prepared for each historical period, thus keeping the historical narrative and related statistical material together. Third, each historical period has been treated as a chapter, with the associated statistical appendix at the end. Finally, an historical overview and analysis and presentation of the final results was made the first chapter, which constitutes an executive summary. Its appendices sum up the statistical data, compares these to estimates in the literature, and simulates the result of altering some important assumptions.
I should note that there is a clear division in style between the appendices and the historical narrative. In the appendices I have tried to be as objective, neutral, and balanced in a conservative direction as possible, recognizing that we all have biases that work against our best intentions in surprising ways. The methodological appendix to this book spells out the principles and procedures guiding the preparation of the estimates and totals in the appendices.
However, in the narrative I have been less than dry and disinterested. I am clearly horrified by the nature and extent of mass killings being recorded; as a pacifist, I have been so overcome with emotion that at times I have had to put this work aside many times. Therefore, I did not restrain myself from peppering the narrative with adjectives like "monstrous", "horrible", and "evil", and liberally used irony and sarcasm as rhetorical weapons against this inhumanity. The style of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag seemed also appropriate here. But he wrote with a mission, and from the perspective of his own experience, and I am no Solzhenitsyn. Once I was able to unload myself onto a preliminary draft, I then thoroughly revised it, eliminating the more "egregious" adjectives and phrases. Nonetheless, a style remains which is more assertive, less "balanced", than some specialists and historians might desire. If this be so, then I can only say that it is to others I must leave writing with dispassion about the murder of tens of millions of human beings.
One final comment on the term murder. If anything may appear to display an anti-Soviet, less than professional bias, it may be the consistent accusation that the Soviets have murdered all these millions; and to use the term in the title of this book. I am doing this, however, because I believe the technical meaning of murder fits what the Soviets did. To murder someone means to unlawfully and purposely kill him, or to be responsible for his death through reckless and depraved indifference to his life (as in Soviet deportations or the labor camps). As established by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal after World War II, "crimes against humanity" consists of


murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connexion with any crime against peace or any war crime.13 With the Nazi invasion of Poland that began World War II, their massacre of Jews and others, deportation of civilians, atrocities in occupied territory, execution of opponents at home, and so on, were thus crimes against humanity. Similar acts by Soviet authorities during their own civil and international wars were also such crimes.
As for Soviet genocides, massacres of civilians, deportations, and the like, in time of peace, the Genocide Convention, passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948 covers much of that. By Article I:


The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.14
The Soviet representative, among others, successfully fought to limit the interpretation of genocide to national, religious, ethnic, and language groups.15 The massacre of political groups and opponents are purposely excluded. But a prior resolution of the General Assembly passed in late 1946 explicitly covers them. According to this resolution,


Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings....Many instances of such crimes of genocide have occurred, when racial, religious, political and other groups have been destroyed, entirely or in part.... The General Assembly Therefore, Affirms that genocide is a crime under international law which the civilized world condemns, and for the commission of which principals and accomplices--whether private individuals, public officials or statesmen, and whether the crime is committed on religious, racial, political or any other grounds--are punishable.16
All this covers what the Soviets did in killing their own or subject people. According to the international community, these were crimes against humanity. They were illegal. If ever the responsible actual or former Soviet officials were tried before an international tribunal for these crimes, they could be punished as murderers.
While trying to be as historically objective as possible, we also should not fear calling a murderer, a murderer; and murder, murder. 

NOTES

* This is a pre-publisher edited version of the preface in R.J. Rummel's Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990 1. Rummel (Understanding Conflict and War)
2. See Rummel ("Libertarianism and International Violence", "Libertarianism, Violence Within States, and the Polarity Principle", "Libertarian Propositions on Violence Within and Between Nations: A Test Against Published Research Results")
3. Rummel (1986, 1987, 1988).
4. Kuper (1981).
5. Melgounov (1925) and Maximoff (1940).
6. Conquest (1968, Appendix A). In a report written for the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary (1970), Conquest attempts to estimate the number killed since 1917, which he concludes would have to be over 22,000,000 citizens (p.. 25). This effort is much less systematic than op. cit.
7. Dyadkin (1983, p. 60). An assumed 20 million war dead for World War II and 40 thousand for the Soviet-Finnish War are subtracted from Dyadkin's figures.
8. Panin (1976, p. 93n).
9. Solzhenitsyn (1975a, p. 10).
10. Stewart-Smith (1964, p. 222). Includes the "1933-5" famine.
11. Medvedev (1979, pp. 140-141); from Soviet demographer M. Maksudov.
12. Solzhenitsyn (1973).
13. Falk, et al. (1971, p. 108).
14. Kuper (1981, p. 210).
15. Ibid., Chapter 2.
16. Quoted in Ibid., p. 23.

For citations see the Lethal Politics REFERENCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to the United States Institute of Peace for a grant to my project on comparative genocide, of which this book is a part. But in no way does this book necessarily represent the views of the Institute. I also wish to thank George Kent for his helpful comments on the draft of Chapter 1 and Ernest Lefever and Manfred Henningsen for causing me to reconsider and revise the narrative style. As in all my work, I owe many thanks to my wife, Grace, for her comfort, honesty, and thorough editing. I hasten to add, that I alone am responsible for the what follows.



-----------------------------------------------------


Enough said
 
M

mikemac

Nominee Member
Oct 13, 2008
82
2
8
Canada
Dexter Sinister said:
I knew that... :toothy7:

 The history of religion is full of horrible examples of that, ideology isn't far behind, if indeed it's behind at all, and that's essentially why I'm so combative about religions and ideologies.
Click to expand...

Lethal Politics: Soviet
Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917

By R.J. Rummel

New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1990


Truth is tough
---- O.W. Homes. The Professor at the Breakfast-Table

CONTENTS
Chapter 1. 61,911,000 Victims: Utopianism Empowered 1917 to 1987

  • [*]Figure 1.1. Range in Soviet Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 1.1. Overview of Soviet Democide (Most Probable Estimates)
    [*]Figure 1.2. Democide Components and Soviet War/Rebellion Killed 1917-1987
    [*]Figure 1.3. Democide Components and Soviet War/RebellionKilled, by Percent of Violent Deaths 1917-1987
    [*]Figure 1.4. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Table 1.2. Comparisons of Soviet Democide
    [*]Figure 1.5. Comparisons of Soviet Democide
    [*]Table 1.3. Comparison of Soviet Annual Democide Risk to War and Commonplace Risks
    [*]Figure 1.6. Annual Risk of a Soviet Citizen being Murdered by His Own Government in Comparison to Some Other Risks
    [*]Appendix 1.1
    • Table 1.A. 61,911,000 Victims: Totals, Estimates, and Years
    [*]Appendix 1.2
    • Table 1.B. Soviet Transit, Camp, and Deportation Death Rates
    • Table 1.C. Democide Totals under Different Camp/Transit and Deportation Death Rates
Chapter 2. 3,284,000 Victims: The Civil War Period 1917 to 1922

  • [*]Figure 2.1. Range in Civil War Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 2.1. Civil War Period Democide and Other Killed
    [*]Figure 2.2. Democide Components and Soviet War/Rebellion Killed 1917-1922
    [*]Appendix 2.1
Chapter 3. 2,200,000 Victims: The NEP Period 1923-1928

  • [*]Figure 3.1. Range in NEP Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 3.1. NEP Period Democide
    [*]Figure 3.2. Democide Components for Civil War and NEP Periods
    [*]Figure 3.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 3.1
    • Table 3.A. 2,200,000 Victims During the NEP Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 4. 11,440,000 Victims: The Collectivization Period 1928-1935

  • [*]Figure 4.1. Range of Collectivization Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 4.1. Collectivization Period Democide
    [*]Figure 4.2. Democide Components for Three Periods
    [*]Figure 4.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 4.1
    • Table 4.A. 11,440,000 Victims During the Collectivization Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 5. 4,345,000 Victims: The Great Terror Period 1935-1938

  • [*]Figure 5.1. Range of Great Terror Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 5.1. Great Terror Period Democide
    [*]Figure 5.2. Democide Components for Four Periods
    [*]Figure 5.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 5.1
    • Table 5.A. 4,345,000 Victims During the Great Terror Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 6. 5,104,000 Victims: Pre-World War II Period 1939 to June, 1941

  • [*]Figure 6.1. Range in Pre-World War II Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 6.1. Pre-World War II Period Democide
    [*]Figure 6.2. Democide Components for Five Periods
    [*]Figure 6.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 6.1
    • Table 6.A. 5,104,000 Victims During the Pre-World War II Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 7. 13,053,000 Victims: World War II Period June, 1941 to 1945

  • [*]Figure 7.1. Range in World War II Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 7.1. World War II Period Democide
    [*]Figure 7.2. Democide Components for Six Periods
    [*]Figure 7.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 7.1
    • Table 7.A. 13,053,000 Victims During World War II Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 8. 15,613,000 Victims: Post-War and Stalin's Twilight Period 1945-1953

  • [*]Figure 8.1. Range in Post War Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 8.1. Post War and Stalin's Twilight Period Democide
    [*]Figure 8.2. Democide Components for Seven Periods
    [*]Figure 8.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period
    [*]Appendix 8.1
    • Table 8.A. 15,613,000 Victims the Postwar and Stalin's Twilight Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Chapter 9. 6,872,000 Victims: Post-Stalin Period 1954-1987

  • [*]Figure 9.1. Range in Post War Democide Estimates
    [*]Table 9.1. Post-Stalin Period
    [*]Figure 9.2. Democide Components for All Periods
    [*]Appendix 9.1
    • Table 9.A. 6,872,000 Victims During the Post-Stalin Period: Sources, Calculations, and Estimates
Appendix A. Methodology: Principles, Procedures, and Definitions See the similar Appendix to China's Bloody Century, 1991.
References
Name Index
Subject Index


PREFACE*

This book is part of a project on government genocide and mass killing in this century. The aim is to test the hypothesis that the citizens of democracies are the least likely to be murdered by their own governments; the citizens of totalitarian, especially Marxist systems, the most likely. The theory is that democratic systems provide a path to peace, and universalizing them would eliminate war and minimize global, political violence. This was the conclusion of my Understanding Conflict and War,1 and has been further confirmed by systematic, empirical tests since.2 In the process of that research, I discovered that governments have murdered millions of their own citizens, and that in some cases, the death toll may have actually exceeded that of World War II. To get some idea of the numbers involved, I surveyed the extent of genocide and mass killing by governments since 1900. The results were shocking: according to these first figures, independent of war and other kinds of conflict, governments probably have murdered 119,400,000 people, Marxist governments about 95,200,000 of them. By comparison, the battle-killed in all foreign and domestic wars in this century total 35,700,000.3
These monstrous statistics sharply reoriented my research. For over thirty years, as a political scientist and peace researcher, my research had focused on the causes and conditions of war, conflict, and peace. I had believed that war was the greatest killer and that nuclear war would be a global holocaust. Now I have found that aside from war the total killed by government was almost four times that of war. It was as though a nuclear war had already occurred.
Surprisingly few have recognized this. While much has been published on individual genocides, such as of the Jews or Armenians, and some general analyses have been done, as by Kuper4, virtually no research has been published on the total amount of genocide and mass murder among nations.5 The one exception is Elliot's Twentieth Century Book of the Dead, which arrives at a figure of about 100,000,000 killed in this century, including war. The work, however, omits many small genocides and is limited in its treatment of killing by Marxist governments.
For these reasons, with a grant from the United States Peace Institute, I undertook in 1988 a project to refine and elaborate my findings, to determine empirically the conditions and causes of government genocide and mass killing, and to assess the role of democratic versus autocratic institutions. The aim was to provide a comprehensive overview of such governmental murder, to test further whether the more democratic a nation, the more secure its citizens from such killing, and to publish the results in a major monograph.
Among the first studies undertaken was that of Soviet genocide and mass murder. This was a very difficult task, for while widely different estimates were available on such Soviet institutions as the labor camp, such polices as collectivization or the Red Terror, or such events as the deportation of Poles in 1939-1941, few experts had tried to systematically accumulate and total them over Soviet history. To my knowledge, there are only two major works in English attempting to tally the toll in some systematic manner.6 Robert Conquest gives a carefully accumulated total for the Stalin years (at least 20,000,000 killed)7; and in his samizdat translated into English, Dyadkin, a Soviet geophysicist, did a demographic analysis of excess Soviet deaths, 1926 to 1954, and concluded that Soviet repression killed 23,100,000 to 32,000,000 Soviet citizens over this 29-year period.8
Scattered here and there in one book or another are estimates of the number murdered. For example, Panin claims that 57,000,000 to 69,500,000 were killed, and says that estimates of authors in the West vary from 45,000,000 to 80,000,000 9; Solzhenitsyn mentions a 66,000,000 figure calculated by an ŽmigrŽ professor of statistics 10; and Stewart-Smith gives an estimate of 31,000,000 killed in repression 11. Like Dyadkin's, some estimates have been based on demographic analyses, as Medvedev's 22,000,000 to 23,000,000 total (1918-1953), or Dyadkin's aforementioned figures.12
For lack of a thorough statistical accumulation and analysis of Soviet genocides and mass murder from 1917 to recent years, I had to undertake at least a first effort in this direction. Initially, the result was to be a chapter in a monograph on 20th century genocide and mass killing. But it soon became clear that the Soviets themselves are responsible for so many genocides, and that so many different kinds of mass killings had occurred, that to unravel and present the detailed events and institutions involved and the related statistics would require a monograph itself. Thus this book.
To best present the historical details, statistical analyses, and various figures and sources, and yet to make the book readable and useful to various publics, I have divided the book in the following way. First, the statistical data, sources, and analyses have been separated from the historical when, what, and why of the estimates. This provides an explanation and understanding of the deaths being reported, and historical narrative for those uninterested in the statistical details, while also making available the statistical material for specialists. Second, rather than put all the statistics in one, huge appendix at the end of the book, an appendix has been prepared for each historical period, thus keeping the historical narrative and related statistical material together. Third, each historical period has been treated as a chapter, with the associated statistical appendix at the end. Finally, an historical overview and analysis and presentation of the final results was made the first chapter, which constitutes an executive summary. Its appendices sum up the statistical data, compares these to estimates in the literature, and simulates the result of altering some important assumptions.
I should note that there is a clear division in style between the appendices and the historical narrative. In the appendices I have tried to be as objective, neutral, and balanced in a conservative direction as possible, recognizing that we all have biases that work against our best intentions in surprising ways. The methodological appendix to this book spells out the principles and procedures guiding the preparation of the estimates and totals in the appendices.
However, in the narrative I have been less than dry and disinterested. I am clearly horrified by the nature and extent of mass killings being recorded; as a pacifist, I have been so overcome with emotion that at times I have had to put this work aside many times. Therefore, I did not restrain myself from peppering the narrative with adjectives like "monstrous", "horrible", and "evil", and liberally used irony and sarcasm as rhetorical weapons against this inhumanity. The style of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag seemed also appropriate here. But he wrote with a mission, and from the perspective of his own experience, and I am no Solzhenitsyn. Once I was able to unload myself onto a preliminary draft, I then thoroughly revised it, eliminating the more "egregious" adjectives and phrases. Nonetheless, a style remains which is more assertive, less "balanced", than some specialists and historians might desire. If this be so, then I can only say that it is to others I must leave writing with dispassion about the murder of tens of millions of human beings.
One final comment on the term murder. If anything may appear to display an anti-Soviet, less than professional bias, it may be the consistent accusation that the Soviets have murdered all these millions; and to use the term in the title of this book. I am doing this, however, because I believe the technical meaning of murder fits what the Soviets did. To murder someone means to unlawfully and purposely kill him, or to be responsible for his death through reckless and depraved indifference to his life (as in Soviet deportations or the labor camps). As established by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal after World War II, "crimes against humanity" consists of


murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connexion with any crime against peace or any war crime.13 With the Nazi invasion of Poland that began World War II, their massacre of Jews and others, deportation of civilians, atrocities in occupied territory, execution of opponents at home, and so on, were thus crimes against humanity. Similar acts by Soviet authorities during their own civil and international wars were also such crimes.
As for Soviet genocides, massacres of civilians, deportations, and the like, in time of peace, the Genocide Convention, passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948 covers much of that. By Article I:


The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.14
The Soviet representative, among others, successfully fought to limit the interpretation of genocide to national, religious, ethnic, and language groups.15 The massacre of political groups and opponents are purposely excluded. But a prior resolution of the General Assembly passed in late 1946 explicitly covers them. According to this resolution,


Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings....Many instances of such crimes of genocide have occurred, when racial, religious, political and other groups have been destroyed, entirely or in part.... The General Assembly Therefore, Affirms that genocide is a crime under international law which the civilized world condemns, and for the commission of which principals and accomplices--whether private individuals, public officials or statesmen, and whether the crime is committed on religious, racial, political or any other grounds--are punishable.16
All this covers what the Soviets did in killing their own or subject people. According to the international community, these were crimes against humanity. They were illegal. If ever the responsible actual or former Soviet officials were tried before an international tribunal for these crimes, they could be punished as murderers.
While trying to be as historically objective as possible, we also should not fear calling a murderer, a murderer; and murder, murder.

NOTES

* This is a pre-publisher edited version of the preface in R.J. Rummel's Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990 1. Rummel (Understanding Conflict and War)
2. See Rummel ("Libertarianism and International Violence", "Libertarianism, Violence Within States, and the Polarity Principle", "Libertarian Propositions on Violence Within and Between Nations: A Test Against Published Research Results")
3. Rummel (1986, 1987, 1988).
4. Kuper (1981).
5. Melgounov (1925) and Maximoff (1940).
6. Conquest (1968, Appendix A). In a report written for the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary (1970), Conquest attempts to estimate the number killed since 1917, which he concludes would have to be over 22,000,000 citizens (p.. 25). This effort is much less systematic than op. cit.
7. Dyadkin (1983, p. 60). An assumed 20 million war dead for World War II and 40 thousand for the Soviet-Finnish War are subtracted from Dyadkin's figures.
8. Panin (1976, p. 93n).
9. Solzhenitsyn (1975a, p. 10).
10. Stewart-Smith (1964, p. 222). Includes the "1933-5" famine.
11. Medvedev (1979, pp. 140-141); from Soviet demographer M. Maksudov.
12. Solzhenitsyn (1973).
13. Falk, et al. (1971, p. 108).
14. Kuper (1981, p. 210).
15. Ibid., Chapter 2.
16. Quoted in Ibid., p. 23.

For citations see the Lethal Politics REFERENCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to the United States Institute of Peace for a grant to my project on comparative genocide, of which this book is a part. But in no way does this book necessarily represent the views of the Institute. I also wish to thank George Kent for his helpful comments on the draft of Chapter 1 and Ernest Lefever and Manfred Henningsen for causing me to reconsider and revise the narrative style. As in all my work, I owe many thanks to my wife, Grace, for her comfort, honesty, and thorough editing. I hasten to add, that I alone am responsible for the what follows.



-----------------------------------------------------


Enough said about atheist Marxists murderers.
 
talloola

talloola

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 14, 2006
19,576
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mikemac said:
Lethal Politics: Soviet
Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917
honesty, and thorough editing. I hasten to add, that I alone am responsible for the what follows.




-----------------------------------------------------


Enough said about atheist Marxists murderers.
Click to expand...
I would think so, but that has nothing to do with the fact
that there is , or isn't a god.
 
china

china

Time Out
Jul 30, 2006
5,247
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Ottawa ,Canada
DOES GOD EXIST ?

Let us look at the question intelligently. I am not denying God - it would be foolish to do so. Only the man who does not know reality indulges in meaningless words. The man who says he knows, does not know; the man who is experiencing reality from moment to moment has no means of communicating that reality.
Belief is a denial of truth, belief hinders truth; to believe in God is not to find God. Neither the believer nor the non-believer will find God; because reality is the unknown, and your belief or non-belief in the unknown is merely a self-projection and therefore not real. I know believe and I know it has very little meaning in peoples life. There are many people who believe; millions believe in God and take consolation. First of all, why do you believe? You believe because it gives you satisfaction, consolation, hope, and you say it gives significance to life. Actually your belief has very little significance, because peoole believe and exploit, they believe and kill, they believe in a universal God and murder each other. The rich man also believes in God; he exploits ruthlessly, accumulates money, and then builds a temple or becomes a philanthropist.
The men who dropped the atomic bomb on Hirosh1ma said that God was with them; those who flew from England to destroy Germany said that God was their co-pilot. The dictators, the prime ministers, the generals, the presidents, all talk of God, they have immense faith in God. Are they doing service, making a better life for man? The people who say they believe in God have destroyed half the world and the world is in complete misery. Through religious intolerance there are divisions of people as believers and non-believers, leading to religious wars. It indicates how extraordinarily politically-minded they are.
Is belief in God "a powerful incentive to better living"? Why do we want an incentive to better living? Surely, our incentive must be our own desire to live cleanly and simply, must it not? If you look to an incentive you are not interested in making life possible for all, you are merely interested in your incentive, which is different from mine - and we will quarrel over the incentive. If we live happily together not because we believe in God but because we are human beings, then we will share the entire means of production in order to produce things for all. Through lack of intelligence we accept the idea of a super-intelligence which we call `God; but this `God', this super-intelligence, is not going to give us a better life. What leads to a better life is intelligence; and there cannot be intelligence if there is belief, if there are class divisions, if the means of production are in the hands of a few, if there are isolated nationalities and sovereign governments. All this obviously indicates lack of intelligence and it is the lack of intelligence that is preventing a better living, not non-belief in God.
People believe in different ways, but their belief has no reality whatsoever. Reality is what you are, what you do, what you think, and your belief in God is merely an escape from your monotonous, stupid and cruel life. Furthermore, belief invariably divides people: there is the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Christian, the communist, the socialist, the capitalist and so on. Belief, idea, divides; it never brings people together. You may bring a few people together in a group but that group is opposed to another group. Ideas and beliefs are never unifying; on the contrary, they are separative, integrating and destructive. Therefore the belief in God is really spreading misery in the world; though it may have brought you momentary consolation, in actuality it has brought you more misery and destruction in the form of wars, famines, class divisions and the ruthless action of separate individuals. So your belief has no validity at all. If you really believed in God, if it were a real experience to you, then your face would have a smile; you would not be destroying human beings.
Now, what is reality, what is God? God is not the word, the word is not the thing. To know that which is immeasurable, which is not of time, the mind must be free of time, which means the mind must be free from all thought, from all ideas about God. What do you know about God or truth?, You do not really know anything about that reality. All that you know are words, the experiences of others or some moments of rather vague experience of your own. Surely that is not God, that is not reality, that is not beyond the field of time. To know that which is beyond time, the process of time must be understood, time being thought, the process of becoming, the accumulation of knowledge. That is the whole background of the mind; the mind itself is the background, both the conscious and the unconscious, the collective and the individual. So the mind must be free of the known, which means the mind must be completely silent, not made silent. The mind that achieves silence as a result, as the outcome of determined action, of practice, of discipline, is not a silent mind. The mind that is forced, controlled, shaped, put into a frame and kept quiet, is not a still mind. You may succeed for a period of time in forcing the mind to be superficially silent, but such a mind is not a still mind. Stillness comes only when you understand the whole process of thought, because to understand the process is to end it and the ending of the process of thought is the beginning of silence.
Only when the mind is completely silent not only on the upper level but fundamentally, right through, on both the superficial and the deeper levels of consciousness - only then can the unknown come into being. The unknown is not something to be experienced by the mind; silence alone can be experienced, nothing but silence. If the mind experiences anything but silence, it is merely projecting its own desires and such a mind is not silent; so long as the mind is not silent, so long as thought in any form, conscious or unconscious, is in movement, there can be no silence. Silence is freedom from the past, from knowledge, from both conscious and unconscious memory; when the mind is completely silent, not in use, when there is the silence which is not a product of effort, then only does the timeless, the eternal come into being. That state is not a state of remembering - there is no entity that remembers, that experiences.
Therefore God or truth or what you will is a thing that comes into being from moment to moment, and it happens only in a state of freedom and spontaneity, not when the mind is disciplined according to a pattern. God is not a thing of the mind, it does not come through self-projection, it comes only when there is virtue, which is freedom. Virtue is facing the fact of what is and the facing of the fact is a state of bliss. Only when the mind is blissful, quiet, without any movement of its own, without the projection of thought, conscious or unconscious - only then does the eternal come into being.
 
MHz

MHz

Time Out
Mar 16, 2007
41,030
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talloola said:
The believers have their belief system, and the athiests
have their facts, that is the difference.
Click to expand...
Just what would those facts actually be that concretely show that God does not exist?
It would seem to be a conclusion based more on the denial of the existence of God only because that point cannot be concretely shown to be true. That is a long way from being a fact.
 
talloola

talloola

Hall of Fame Member
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MHz said:
Just what would those facts actually be that concretely show that God does not exist?
It would seem to be a conclusion based more on the denial of the existence of God only because that point cannot be concretely shown to be true. That is a long way from being a fact.
Click to expand...

Dexter is my guide, as he explains all of the scientific data, as I can't, and for me that
is proof, not belief.
The believers have 'no' proof at all, except the bible, which is just a book that a bunch of
men wrote many many years ago, and is an accumulation of their 'beliefs'.
In that era of life on this earth, people knew very little, and believed natural occurances
in the world were sent by some god, we now know that to be untrue, I will not live my
life according to their 'simple' thoughts.
You are just repeating what I said in my other post, you are discrediting scientific
proof, so, that is that, there isn't really anywhere to go from there, you think what
you want, that is your preogative.
 
scratch

scratch

Senate Member
May 20, 2008
5,658
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38
talloola said:
Dexter is my guide, as he explains all of the scientific data, as I can't, and for me that
is proof, not belief.
The believers have 'no' proof at all, except the bible, which is just a book that a bunch of
men wrote many many years ago, and is an accumulation of their 'beliefs'.
In that era of life on this earth, people knew very little, and believed natural occurances
in the world were sent by some god, we now know that to be untrue, I will not live my
life according to their 'simple' thoughts.
You are just repeating what I said in my other post, you are discrediting scientific
proof, so, that is that, there isn't really anywhere to go from there, you think what
you want, that is your preogative.
Click to expand...

Well said, Lady of the Island.
 
talloola

talloola

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 14, 2006
19,576
113
63
Vancouver Island
scratch said:
Well said, Lady of the Island.
Click to expand...

A very rainy island today, but I am still going walking.

It is a challenge indeed to keep one's mind totally free of all
the pressures of religions, governments, advertisements, but
I have learned that, 'it can be done'. We have between our ears,
a very magical organ, and if we give ourselves the freedom to think well,
we can live our lives in a very comfortable and natural manner.
The intelligence we need to live that way, needs no education, just
insight and vision and the true desire to be free, whatever one wants
beyond that is 'iceing on the cake'.
 
talloola

talloola

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 14, 2006
19,576
113
63
Vancouver Island
china said:
DOES GOD EXIST ?

Let us look at the question intelligently. I am not denying God - it would be foolish to do so. Only the man who does not know reality indulges in meaningless words. The man who says he knows, does not know; the man who is experiencing reality from moment to moment has no means of communicating that reality.
Belief is a denial of truth, belief hinders truth; to believe in God is not to find God. Neither the believer nor the non-believer will find God; because reality is the unknown, and your belief or non-belief in the unknown is merely a self-projection and therefore not real. I know believe and I know it has very little meaning in peoples life. There are many people who believe; millions believe in God and take consolation. First of all, why do you believe? You believe because it gives you satisfaction, consolation, hope, and you say it gives significance to life. Actually your belief has very little significance, because peoole believe and exploit, they believe and kill, they believe in a universal God and murder each other. The rich man also believes in God; he exploits ruthlessly, accumulates money, and then builds a temple or becomes a philanthropist.
The men who dropped the atomic bomb on Hirosh1ma said that God was with them; those who flew from England to destroy Germany said that God was their co-pilot. The dictators, the prime ministers, the generals, the presidents, all talk of God, they have immense faith in God. Are they doing service, making a better life for man? The people who say they believe in God have destroyed half the world and the world is in complete misery. Through religious intolerance there are divisions of people as believers and non-believers, leading to religious wars. It indicates how extraordinarily politically-minded they are.
us a better life. What leads to a better life is intelligence; and there cannot be intelligence if there is belief, if there are class divisions, if the means of production are in the hands of a few, if there are isolated nationalities and sovereign governments. All this obviously indicates lack of intelligence and it is the lack of intelligence that is preventing a better living, not non-belief in God.

I agree with you China.

I think that all of the dictators, prime ministers, presidents .,
who bombed, etc. only connected that act to 'god' because they believe they will connect
to their people that way,and convince their people that is true, I think they did not
really believe that themselves, it is a political statement, as usual. It's too bad that
most of the people don't realize that, as it is just another form of advertising.
The highest religious positions in the world, are full of politicians, dressed in religious
robes, who are there for their own gains, and they use the 'people' to get what they
want.
Click to expand...
 
ahmadabdalrhman

ahmadabdalrhman

Electoral Member
Sep 14, 2008
379
4
18
www.watchislam.com
talloola said:
Dexter is my guide, as he explains all of the scientific data, as I can't, and for me that
is proof, not belief.
The believers have 'no' proof at all, except the bible, which is just a book that a bunch of
men wrote many many years ago, and is an accumulation of their 'beliefs'.
In that era of life on this earth, people knew very little, and believed natural occurances
in the world were sent by some god, we now know that to be untrue, I will not live my
life according to their 'simple' thoughts.
You are just repeating what I said in my other post, you are discrediting scientific
proof, so, that is that, there isn't really anywhere to go from there, you think what
you want, that is your preogative.
Click to expand...

??????????????????????

there is the quran !!!

the last word from the god !!!

read it In mid it the guide !!!

or

the read book from muslim ( the others say muzlim )

he is the danger ?? !!!
 
Last edited:
ahmadabdalrhman

ahmadabdalrhman

Electoral Member
Sep 14, 2008
379
4
18
www.watchislam.com
scratch said:
And........??????

scratch
Click to expand...

It's the lowest place on earth,

417 meters below sea level (about -1300 feet?). The Dead Sea

Roman and Sasanians fight in the The Dead Sea

the Dead Sea is In a lowest the land that in quran be fore 1400 old

{غُلِبَتِ الرُّومُ * فِي أَدْنَى الْأَرْضِ وَهُم مِّن بَعْدِ غَلَبِهِمْ سَيَغْلِبُونَ * فِي بِضْعِ سِنِينَ لِلَّهِ الْأَمْرُ مِن قَبْلُ وَمِن بَعْدُ وَيَوْمَئِذٍ يَفْرَحُ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ} سورة الروم.



[2] The Roman Empire has been defeated,

[3] In a closest the land : but they, (even) after (this) defeat of theirs, will soon be victorious,

[4] Within a few years. With Allah is the Decision. In the Past and in the Future: on that Day shall the Believers rejoice,

Ar-rum

أدنى in arabic have 2 = meaning : closest and lowest

then the other meaning is : -

The Roman Empire has been defeated,

In a lowest the land : but they, (even) after (this) defeat of theirs, will soon be victorious, :smile:


the battle was in The Dead Sea
and the battle between Roman and Sasanians here
 
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