The Black Book of Communism

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The Black Book of Communism is a controversial book by Stéphane Courtois et al., which claims to document how Communism has resulted in millions of deaths over a 85-year period. The book begins by making the assertion that the total number of these deaths was approximately 100 million. However, using the book's own numbers, only 90 million deaths are counted (see below). Furthermore, the majority of historians consider this 90 million figure to be vastly exaggerated.

Courtois includes 20 million deaths in the Soviet Union, which are claimed to be due to the following causes: executions of rebels during the Russian Civil War; the famine of 1922, (five million deaths); the deportation of the Don Cossacks in 1920; the Gulag; liquidation of 690,000 people (including many Communist Party members) during the Great Purge; deportation of 2 million kulaks in 1930-1932; the deaths of 4 million Ukrainians and 2 million others during the famine of 1932-1933; the deportations of Poles, Ukrainians, Balts and Bessarabians in 1939-1941 and 1944-1945; the deportation of the Volga Germans in 1941; the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1943; the deportation of the Chechens in 1944; and the deportation of the Ingush in 1944.

Most of these are disputable issues, for various reasons. For example, can the deaths during the Civil War be blamed on "the communists" or should they be seen as any other war casualties? Should the victims of the famine in 1922 be counted? How many of the people in the Gulag were actually guilty criminals? Were the deportations during World War 2 justified by the need to defeat Nazi Germany? In answering all these questions, the book consistently takes the most anti-communist position possible.

In addition to the 20 million in the Soviet Union, Courtois also includes 65 million deaths in the People's Republic of China; 1 million in Vietnam; 2 million in Cambodia (one fourth of the population); 1 million in Eastern Europe; 150,000 in Latin America; 1.7 million in Africa; 1.5 million in Afghanistan; and 10,000 "by Communist parties not in power and the international Communist movement". Critics have argued that many of these deaths are poorly documented.

The total number of deaths blamed on communism by the book is thus 90 million (92.36 million rounded to one significant digit). 65 million of them (70%) were allegedly caused by Mao Zedong, 20 million (22%) by Stalin, 2 million (2%) by Pol Pot, and 5.36 million (6%) by all other communist leaders put together.

Two of Courtois's co-editors, Nicolas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin, later distanced themselves from his introduction, saying that Courtois inflated the figures to arrive at his desired nine-digit total. Courtois has also come under fire for his assertion that Nazism was "better" than communism because the former supposedly killed "only" 25 million.

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