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No communist country or governing body has ever been convicted of genocide. No communist individuals have been found guilty of genocide as defined by the UN convention, nor have communist citizens been convicted by genocide as defined by any court. Charges of genocide have been brought against a Khmer Rouge leader. One conviction for genocide has been obtained against a communist leader, Ethiopian [[Mengistu Haile Mariam]];<ref>Tsegaye Tadesse. [http://www.redorbit.com/news/international/512182/verdict_due_for_ethiopias_exdictator_mengistu/ Verdict due for Ethiopia's ex-dictator Mengistu] [[Reuters]], 2006</ref> Ethiopian law is distinct from the UN and other definitions in that it defines genocide as intent to wipe out political and not just ethnic groups. In this respect it closely resembles the distinction of politicide.<ref name=RGP/>
No communist country or governing body has ever been convicted of genocide. No communist individuals have been found guilty of genocide as defined by the UN convention, nor have communist citizens been convicted by genocide as defined by any court. Charges of genocide have been brought against a Khmer Rouge leader. One conviction for genocide has been obtained against a communist leader, Ethiopian [[Mengistu Haile Mariam]];<ref>Tsegaye Tadesse. [http://www.redorbit.com/news/international/512182/verdict_due_for_ethiopias_exdictator_mengistu/ Verdict due for Ethiopia's ex-dictator Mengistu] [[Reuters]], 2006</ref> Ethiopian law is distinct from the UN and other definitions in that it defines genocide as intent to wipe out political and not just ethnic groups. In this respect it closely resembles the distinction of politicide.<ref name=RGP/>

===Soviet serial killers===
* '''[[Sergey Golovkin]]''' - known as "Fisher" or "The Udav" (The "[[Boidae|Boa]]") killed and butchered 11 boys in [[Moscow]] area (1986-1992). Sentenced to death.
* '''[[Vladimir Ionesyan]]''' - known as the "Ubijtsa iz Mosgaza" ("The Killer from Moscow Gas Company", as he pretented to be a worker of this company) killed 5 people and robbed their apartments in Moscow and [[Ivanovo]] (1963-1964). Sentenced to death.
* '''[[Vasiliy Kulik]]''' - known as ''The Irkutskiy Monstr'' ("The [[Irkutsk]] Monster") killed and raped 13 people (young boys and girls as well as elderly women) in [[Irkutsk]] (1984-1986). Sentenced to death.
* '''[[Sergei Ryakhovsky]]''' - known as "The Potroshitel iz Balashikhi" ("The [[Balashikha]] Ripper") killed 19 people (2 teenage boys and several elderly women and men) in Moscow area (1987-1993). Sentenced to death.
* '''[[Andrei Chikatilo]]''' - AKA "The Rostov Ripper" and "Hannibal Lecter", a name given to him by the Russian public after the character in the popular American film [[The Silence of the Lambs (film)|The Silence of the Lambs]], which came out around the time of his arrest; killed 56 women and children throughout the many countries of the former Soviet Union before being arrested, convicted, and executed in [[1994]].
* '''[[Valeriy Asratyan]]''' - known as "The Rezhissior" ("The Movie Director") killed 3 and raped dozens women in Moscow (1988-1990). Sentenced to death.
* '''[[Anatoly Slivko]]''', known as "Vlad Carthas" - this may be a reference to the infamous 'Vlad the Impaler'- Convicted of the sexual murder of seven boys. Sentenced to death.


== Communist ideology and genocide ==
== Communist ideology and genocide ==

Revision as of 16:36, 24 September 2009

Mass killings under Communist regimes is a phrase that refers to the physical extermination of a population carried out under communist regimes, which may or may not be considered genocide.[1][2]

The term has been used to describe mass killings in the former USSR,[3] Democratic Kampuchea, and Ethiopia,[4] while countries such as the People's Republic of China and Yugoslavia,[5][6] have been accused of engaging in such activities. Among historians, estimates of the mass killings by communist regimes vary between 60 to 100 million people.[7]

While Ethiopia's former ruler Mengistu has been convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by an Ethiopian court, and the highest ranking surviving member of the Khmer Rouge has been charged with those crimes,[8][9][10] no communist country or governing body has ever been convicted of genocide.[citation needed]

The U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide excludes political groups as certifiable victims of the Crime of Genocide. Scholars like Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn's have therefore suggested an alternative definition to the term Genocide: "a form of one sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator."[11]

Definition

Main articles: Genocide definitions, Genocide, Politicide, Crime against humanity, and War crimes

While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."[12]

Almost all of the definitions of genocide agree upon two key factors: the legal definition of intent,[13][14][15][16] and actual physical harm.

The majority of scholars disagree about two other key requirements for inclusion in the definition: the type of harm, and against whom it is perpetrated. The first draft of the Convention, adopted in 1946, included political killings, but pressure from the Soviet Union led to its deletion.[17]

Many scholars have created definitions of genocide that add elements which are not included in the international definition.[18] Leo Kuper has argued that it should include political groups.[19] Scholars such as Ted Robert Gurr and Barbara Harff[20] use the term politicide to distinguish politically motivated mass killings from other forms of genocide.

Only one individual has been found guilty of genocide under the UN definition of genocide (CPPCG), and one state has been found guilty of a breach of international law regarding genocide. In 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found mayor Jean-Paul Akayesu and Prime Minister Jean Kambanda guilty of genocide. Serbia was found not guilty of direct involvement in genocide during the Bosnian war,[21] but in breach of international law by failing to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, and for failing to try or transfer the persons accused of genocide to the ICTY, in order to comply with its obligations under Articles I and VI of the Genocide Convention.[22][23]

No communist country or governing body has ever been convicted of genocide. No communist individuals have been found guilty of genocide as defined by the UN convention, nor have communist citizens been convicted by genocide as defined by any court. Charges of genocide have been brought against a Khmer Rouge leader. One conviction for genocide has been obtained against a communist leader, Ethiopian Mengistu Haile Mariam;[24] Ethiopian law is distinct from the UN and other definitions in that it defines genocide as intent to wipe out political and not just ethnic groups. In this respect it closely resembles the distinction of politicide.[20]

Soviet serial killers

  • Sergey Golovkin - known as "Fisher" or "The Udav" (The "Boa") killed and butchered 11 boys in Moscow area (1986-1992). Sentenced to death.
  • Vladimir Ionesyan - known as the "Ubijtsa iz Mosgaza" ("The Killer from Moscow Gas Company", as he pretented to be a worker of this company) killed 5 people and robbed their apartments in Moscow and Ivanovo (1963-1964). Sentenced to death.
  • Vasiliy Kulik - known as The Irkutskiy Monstr ("The Irkutsk Monster") killed and raped 13 people (young boys and girls as well as elderly women) in Irkutsk (1984-1986). Sentenced to death.
  • Sergei Ryakhovsky - known as "The Potroshitel iz Balashikhi" ("The Balashikha Ripper") killed 19 people (2 teenage boys and several elderly women and men) in Moscow area (1987-1993). Sentenced to death.
  • Andrei Chikatilo - AKA "The Rostov Ripper" and "Hannibal Lecter", a name given to him by the Russian public after the character in the popular American film The Silence of the Lambs, which came out around the time of his arrest; killed 56 women and children throughout the many countries of the former Soviet Union before being arrested, convicted, and executed in 1994.
  • Valeriy Asratyan - known as "The Rezhissior" ("The Movie Director") killed 3 and raped dozens women in Moscow (1988-1990). Sentenced to death.
  • Anatoly Slivko, known as "Vlad Carthas" - this may be a reference to the infamous 'Vlad the Impaler'- Convicted of the sexual murder of seven boys. Sentenced to death.

Communist ideology and genocide

The connection between ideology and genocide has been suggested by some authors. John N. Gray in the book Post-Liberalism: Studies in Political Thought observed "that the political creation of an artificial terror-famine with genocidal results is not a phenomenon restricted to the historical context of Russia and the Ukraine in the Thirties, but is a feature of Communist policy to this day, as evidenced in the sixties in Tibet and now in Ethiopia. The socialist genocide of small, "primitive" peoples, such as the Kalmucks and many others, has been a recurrent element in polices at several stages in the development of Soviet and Chinese totalitarianism". Gray goes on to state "that communist policy in this respect faithfully reproduces classical Marxism, which had an explicit and pronounced contempt for "small, backward and reactionary peoples - no less than for the peasantry as a class and a form of social life".[4]

George Watson, in his book The Lost Literature of Socialism, cites an 1849 article by Friedrich Engels published in Marx's journal Neue Rheinische Zeitung,[25] as evidence that "The Marxist theory of history required and demanded genocide for reasons implicit in its claim that feudalism, which in advanced nations was already giving place to capitalism, must in its turn be superseded by socialism. Entire nations would be left behind after a workers' revolution, feudal remnants in a socialist age, and since they could not advance two steps at a time, they would have to be killed. They were racial trash, as Engels called them, and fit only for the dung-heap of history."[26] According to Watson, "In the European century that began in the 1840s, from Engel's article of 1849 down to the death of Hitler, everyone who advocated genocide called himself a socialist, and no exception has been found."[27]

Cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity

Cambodia

Main: The Killing Fields
Skulls of victims of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.

Sociologist Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as "the purest genocide of the Cold War era".[28]

The Killing Fields were a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Vietnam War.

At least 200,000 people were executed by the Khmer Rouge[29] (while estimates of the total number of deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including disease and starvation, range from 1.4 to 2.2 million out of a population of around 7 million).[30]

Democratic Kampuchea experienced serious hardships due to the effects of war and disrupted economic activity. According to Michael Vickery, 740,800 people in Cambodia in a population of about 7 million died due to disease, overwork, and political repression.[31] Other estimates suggest approximately 1.7 million and it is described by the Yale University Cambodian Genocide Program as "one of the worst human tragedies of the last century."[32] Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia suggests that the death toll was between 2 and 2.5 million, with a "most likely" figure of 2.2 million. After 5 years of researching some 20,000 grave sites, he concludes that "these mass graves contain the remains of 1,112,829 victims of execution."[31]

In 1997 the Cambodian Government asked the United Nations assistance in setting up a genocide tribunal.[33][34][35] The investigating judges were presented with the names of five possible suspects by the prosecution on 18 July 2007.[33] On 19 September 2007 Nuon Chea, second in command of the Khmer Rouge and its most senior surviving member, was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, but not charged with genocide. He will face Cambodian and foreign judges at the special genocide tribunal.[10]

Ethiopia

Former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was convicted of genocide, imprisonment, illegal homicide and illegal confiscation of property[8] by an Ethiopian court for his role in the campaign he initiated and officially called "the Red Terror" in the late 1970s.[8][9] Amnesty International estimates that a total of half a million people were killed during the Red Terror of 1977 and 1978.[36][37][38] During the terror groups of people were herded into churches that were then burned down, and women were subjected to systematic rape by soldiers.[39] The Save the Children Fund reported that the victims of the Red Terror included not only adults, but 1,000 or more children, mostly aged between eleven and thirteen, whose corpses were left in the streets of Addis Ababa.[36] Mengistu himself is alleged to have killed political opponents with his bare hands.[40]

Accusations of genocide

Afghanistan

M. Hassan Kakar claims that during the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), "The Afghans are among the latest victims of genocide by a superpower. Large numbers of Afghans were killed to suppress resistance to the army of the Soviet Union, which wished to vindicate its client regime and realize its goal in Afghanistan. Thus, the mass killing was political."[41]

Evidence indicates there was a deliberate and systematic policy of killing civilians, in efforts called "counerguerilla" by Benjamin A. Valentino.[42] It was suggested that such incidents were too common and too methodical to have been the result of frustrated or unruly troops. David Isby concludes[43] that the decentralized guerilla form of Afghan resistance made the Soviets to wage the war "not just agaist the forces in the field, but against the people as a whole.[42] The Black Book of Communism claims that women were thrown naked from helicopters, and entire villages were razed in reprisal for the death of one Soviet soldier.[44][45] Evidence suggests that the Soviets used the tactics of terror and depopulation in the areas of high guerilla activity, to cut the guerilla off their support base. As a result, about 7 million (over 30%) of population was displaced, of which about 5 illion fled abroad, mostly to the bordering Pakistan.[42] By the time the Soviets withdrew in 1988, 1 to 1.5 million people had been killed, mostly Afghan civilians.[42] Recently mass graves of executed prisoners have been uncovered dating back to the Soviet era.[46]

Prior to the Soviet invasion, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan unleashed a wave of repression that resulted in the killing of 10,000 people linked to the former regime, including the former president and 17 members of his family, and the imprisonment of some 14,000 to 20,000 more.[42]

China

In China, it is alleged that Mao Zedong's policies and political purges, such as the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and Zhen Fan, Shu Fan movement, brought about the deaths of some 40 to 70 million people.[47][48]

In 1960, drought and other bad weather affected 55 percent of the cultivated land in China, while in the north an estimated 60% of agricultural land received no rain at all.[49] The Encyclopædia Britannica yearbooks from 1958 to 1962 also reported abnormal weather, followed by droughts and floods. Close planting, the idea of Ukrainian pseudo-scientist Trofim Lysenko.[50] had been implemented. The density of seedlings was at first tripled and then doubled again, according to the theory, plants of the same species would not compete with each other. In practice they did, which stunted growth and resulted in lower yields. Lysenko's colleague's theory encouraged peasants across China to plow deeply into the soil (up to 1 or 2 meters). They believed the most fertile soil was deep in the earth, allowing extra strong root growth. However, useless rocks, soil, and sand were driven up instead, burying the topsoil. Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, had reorganized the workforce; millions of agricultural worker had joined the iron and steel production workforce.

As a result of these factors, year over year grain production in China dropped by 15% in 1959. By 1960, it was at 70% of its 1958 level. There was no recovery until 1962, after the Great Leap Forward ended.[51]

According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths in this period. Unofficial estimates vary, but are often considerably higher. Yang Jisheng, a former Xinhua News Agency reporter who spent over ten years gathering information available to no other scholars, estimates a toll of 36 million.[52]

Professors and scholars of the famine, who do not use the word 'genocide' to describe it, but rather more neutral terms, such as "abnormal deaths", have estimated that they number between 17 million to 50 million. Some western analysts such as Patricia Buckley Ebrey estimate that about 20-40 million people had died of starvation caused by bad government policy and natural disasters. J. Banister estimates this number is about 23 million. Li Chengrui, a former minister of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, estimated 22 million (1998). His estimation was based on Ansley J. Coale and Jiang Zhenghua's estimation of 17 million. Cao Shuji estimated 32.5 million.

Tibet

According to The Black Book of Communism, the Chinese Communists carried out a cultural genocide against the Tibetans. Jean-Louis Margolin states that the killings were proportionally larger in Tibet than China proper, and that "one can legitimately speak of genocidal massacres because of the numbers involved."[53] According to the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration, "Tibetans were not only shot, but also were beaten to death, crucified, burned alive, drowned, mutilated, starved, strangled, hanged, boiled alive, buried alive, drawn and quartered, and beheaded."[53]

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

The first formal accusation using the term genocide came from the legations-in-exile of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in a submission in November 1947 to the UN, accusing the Soviet Union in the crime of genocide against those nations under the Soviet Occupation. However, no UN genocide convention was yet in existence. In the years that followed, opposition to the convention by the United States meant that such efforts were unsuccessful.[54] It has been estimated that around 169,250 Baltic citizens were murdered or deported by Soviet authorities.[55]

Since regaining independence in 1991 authorities in the Baltic states have started investigations, in Lithuania alone 91 proceedings have been initiated against perpetrators of Soviet repressions. Over a dozen cases have been tried, some have received suspended sentences and several have been imprisoned.

In Latvia signing a deportation order has been the grounds of charges in the crime of genocide. Accordingly Alfons Noviks, a former head of Soviet security Police serving a life sentence for the crimes committed including genocide died in prison in 1996. Others charges of genocide in Latvia have been made against Mikhails Farbuths, and Nikolai Tess.

In Estonia the charges of genocide have been connected to Soviet deportations. In 1999 Vassilli Beshkv was convicted for an "intent to destroy in part a national group offering resistance to the occupation regime which was also a social group declared 'kulaks'"

In Lithuania the Viater and Kregzde case, the activities of the accused were qualified as genocide, but the case was discontinued due to the poor health of the accused.

In other cases against the surviving executors of Soviet repressions the courts in Baltic states have used the notion of the crime against humanity instead of the crime of genocide.[56]

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's Socialist Republic of Slovenia

Yugoslavian Communists have been accused by the Slovenian state of orchestrating genocide after World War II.[57] In Slovenia massacre sites are still being uncovered.[5][6]

In the mid 2000's, Slovenia charged Mitja Ribicic, former chief in the Yugoslavian security forces, under genocide laws for having carried out 234 summary executions in 1945-1946 against suspected Nazi collaborators.[57][58] Charges were not pursued against Ribicic.[6]

Soviet Union

A number of accusations of genocide have been levelled at the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union.

Decossackization

During the Russian Civil War, there was intense conflict between the Bolshevik Government and the "Don Army" of General Krasnov. White Cossacks initiated a civil war in the Don Region in late 1917. After the German occupation of Rostov on May 8, a puppet regime headed by Krasnov was formed in Rostov. Krasnov's forces then invaded Tsaritsyn, but were defeated. In the period that Krasnov's regime controlled the Don province, more than 40,000 people were executed.[59] Cossacks rebelled against the Krasnov regime, which helped the Red Army advance in the region in January 1919. The Soviet forces then retaliated against their defeated enemies through a policy of decossackization: the systematic elimination of the Cossacks of the Don and the Kuban as social groups.[60] The policy was established by a secret resolution of the Bol'shevik Party on January 24 1919, which ordered local branches to "carry out mass terror against wealthy Cossacks, exterminating all of them; carry out merciless mass terror against any and all Cossacks taking part in any way, directly or indirectly, in the struggle against Soviet power."[61] The Southern Front published instructions stating, "The main duty of stanitsa and khutor executive committees is to neutralize the Cossackry through the merciless extirpation of its elite. District and Stanitsa atamans are subject to unconditional elimination, [but] khutor atamans should be subject to execution only in those cases where it can be proved that they actively supported Krasnov's policies (having organized pacification, conducted mobilization, refused to offer refuge to revolutionary Cossacks or to Red Army men)" Before the White Cossacks seized power again in March 1919, revolutionary tribunals executed thousands of alleged counter-revolutionaries. In mid-March 1919 alone, Cheka forces executed more than 8,000 Cossacks.[62] In addition, entire villages were burned to the ground and the survivors deported.[63] After the revolt, the Soviet Government concluded that the decossackization was an error that contributed to counter-revolution. The Government then cancelled the policy later in 1919. However, after the retaking of the Crimea by Red Army, the Cossacks were subjected to terror once again, with 6,000 being put to death in October 1920.[62] Several historians, among them Orlando Figes[64], Donald Rayfield[65], Alexander Nekrich[66], R.J. Rummel[67], Shane O'Rourke[68], and Stéphane Courtois[69], conclude that decossackization amounted to genocide and involved numbers in the hundreds of thousands. But others, such as Peter Holquist and Andrei Venkov, conclude that it did not constitute an "open-ended program" of genocide.[70][why?] However, Holquist does claim that it shows the Soviet regime's "dedication to social engineering" and was a "ruthless" and "radical attempt to eliminate undesirable social groups."[71] The late Soviet historian Dmitri Volkogonov asserted that "almost a third of the Cossack population was exterminated on Lenin’s orders."[72] Historian Robert Gellately states: "the most reliable estimates indicate that between 300,000 and 500,000 were killed or deported in 1919-20."[63] In addition, more than 45,000 Cossacks were deported from the Terek province to Ukraine. Their land was distributed among pro-soviet Cossacks and Chechens.[73]

Deportations of ethnic minorities

The Soviet government during Stalin's rule conducted a series of deportations on an enormous scale which significantly affected the ethnic map of the USSR. Separatism, resistance to Soviet rule and collaboration with the invading Germans were cited as the official reasons for the deportations, rightly or wrongly. Deportations took place under extremely inhumane conditions, often by cattle truck, with hundreds of thousands of deportees dying en route.[74] Some experts estimate the number of deaths from the deportations could be as high as 1 in 3.[75][76] People from the following ethnic groups were forcibly resettled for various reasons: Volga Germans, Poles, Balts, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Koreans, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks. Large numbers of Kulaks, regardless of their nationality, were resettled to Siberia and Central Asia.[74] Regarding the fate of the Crimean Tatars, Amir Weiner of Stanford University writes that the policy could be classified as "ethnic cleansing". But it is concluded that the policy was not genocide because there was no intent to kill off the Crimean Tatars in an attack.[77] In the book Century of Genocide, Lyman H Legters writes "We cannot properly speak of a completed genocide, only of a process that was genocidal in its potentiality."[78]

The Holodomor genocide question

Main article: Holodomor genocide question
Child victim of the Holodomor.
Cemetery of Buzuluk, December 1921. This and other photos[79] of victims of Russian famine of 1921 as well as the Great Depression in the United States[80] have been used for visual effects[81] in publications and exhibits advocating a theory of intentional starvation of Ukrainian peasants in 1932-33.[82]Template:Full cite

Within the Soviet Union change in agricultural policies and severe droughts caused the Soviet famine of 1932–1933.[83][84][85][86] The famine was most severely in the Ukrainian SSR, which until 1930s enjoyed benefits of the Bolshevik policy of Ukrainization. A significant portion of the famine victims (3-3.5 million) were the Ukrainians. At the time, the Soviet government tried to suppress information about the famine and the Western powers demonstrated their indifference (in contrast to what happened during famines of 1921 and 1947). Some scholars have argued that the Stalinist policies that caused the famine may have been designed as an attack on the rise of Ukrainian nationalism, and thus may fall under the legal definition of genocide.[83][84][87][88][89]

in 2002 the Ukranian President Kuchma signed a presidential decree asserting that the famine of 1932-33 had in fact been 'genocide' against the Ukrainian nation. A parliamentary resolution in 2003 reiterated this view. In November 2006, the Ukrainian Parliament passed a bill branding the Holodomor an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.[90] As of March 2008, the Ukraine and between eleven and nineteen other governments.[91] The Russia government vehemently rejects the idea of the Holodomor as genocide., as well as in Ukraine which was accused of politicization of the tragedy, outright propaganda and fabrication of documents[80]

Economist Michael Ellman argues that the actions of the Soviet regime from 1930-34, from the standpoint of international criminal law, "clearly constitutes . . . a series of crimes against humanity" and perhaps even genocide, but only if a more relaxed definition of the term is adopted. Regarding the Kazakh case[clarification needed], Ellman believes this could be an example of ‘negligent genocide,’ but this falls outside the scope of the UN convention.[92]

Writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed in April 2008 that the accusation of the Holodomor being genocide was created decades later after the event and Ukrainian efforts to have the famine recognized as genocide is an act of historical revisionism that has now surpassed the level of Bolshevik agitprop.[93][94]

National operations of the NKVD

According to professor Michael Ellman, the National operations of the NKVD, which targeted "national contingents" (foreign ethnicities), such as Poles, Ethnic Germans, Koreans, etc, may constitute genocide as defined by the UN convention.[92] A total of 350,000 were arrested and 247,157 were executed.[95] Of these, the Polish operation appears to have been the largest, with 140,000 arrests and 111,000 executions out of a (Polish) population of 636,000. Stalin biographer Simon Sebag Montefiore concurs with this view, and referred to the Polish operation as 'a mini-genocide.'[96]

Persecution of Russian Orthodox Clergy

Regarding the persecution of clergy, Professor Michael Ellman states "...the 1937 – 38 terror against the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church and of other religions (Binner & Junge 2004) might also qualify as genocide as defined in the Convention (‘killing members of the group . . . with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a . . . religious group’)."[92] Citing church documents, Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev has estimated that over 100,000 priests, monks and nuns were executed during this time.[97]

Modern perspectives

Katyn 1943 exhumation. Photo by International Red Cross delegation.

In August 2007, Arnold Meri, a cousin of former Estonian president Lennart Meri, faced charges of genocide by Estonian authorities.[98] The trial was halted when Meri died March 27, 2009, at the age of 89. Meri denied the accusation, characterizing them as politically motivated defamation: "I do not consider myself guilty of genocide.", he said.[99]

In March 2005, the Polish Sejm unanimously requested Russia to classify the Katyn massacre, the execution of 21,768 Polish POW's and intellectual leaders by Stalin's NKVD, as a crime of genocide.[100] Alexander Savenkov of the Prosecutor's General Office of the Russian Federation responded: "The version of genocide was examined, and it is my firm conviction that there is absolutely no basis to talk about this in judicial terms."[101]

In regards to the Holodomor, officially Moscow recognizes that the famine took place, but refuses to classify it as an ethnic genocide.[102]

On 11 January 2006 it was reported that the Spanish High Court will investigate whether seven former Chinese officials, including the former President of China Jiang Zemin and former Prime Minister Li Peng participated in a genocide in Tibet. This investigation follows a Spanish Constitutional Court (26 September 2005) ruling that Spanish courts could try genocide cases even if they did not involve Spanish nationals.[103] The court proceedings in the case brought by the Madrid-based Committee to Support Tibet against several former Chinese officials was opened by the Judge on 6 June 2006, and on the same day China denounced the Spanish court's investigation into claims of genocide in Tibet as an interference in its internal affairs and dismissed the allegations as "sheer fabrication".[104][105]

Remembrance Day for the Victims of Communist Genocide is celebrated in Latvia on June 14.[106]

Laws against denial

Several Central European countries enacted laws which state "endorsing or attempting to justify Nazi or Communist genocide" will be punishable by up to three years of imprisonment.[107]

The Czech Republic has a law including a provision against denial of communist genocide. Article 261a of the amended constitution of December 16, 1992 states "the person who publicly denies, puts in doubt, approves or tries to justify Nazi or communist genocide, or other crimes against humanity of Nazis or communists will be punished by prison of 6 months to 3 years."[108]

In Ukraine, a draft law "On Amendments to the Criminal and the Procedural Criminal Codes of Ukraine" submitted by President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada, envisages prosecution for public denial of the Holodomor Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine as a fact of genocide of the Ukrainian people, and of the Holocaust as the fact of genocide of the Jewish people. The draft law foresees that public denial as well as production and dissemination of materials denying the above shall be punished by a fine of 100 to 300 untaxed minimum salaries, or imprisonment of up to two years.[109]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ White, James Daniel (2007). "Understanding genocide". Fear of persecution: global human rights, international law, and human well-being. Lexington Books. pp. 248–249. ISBN 0739115669. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ Lenṭin, Ronit (1997). Gender and catastrophe. Zed Books. p. 1997. Soviet and communist genocide and mass state killings, sometimes termed politicide, occurred in the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and the People's Republic of China {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ Deker, Nikolai K (1958). Genocide in the USSR: studies in group destruction. Scarecrow Press. p. 12. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ a b Gray, John. In Totalitarianism at the crossroads. Ellen Frankel Paul (Editor). Transaction Publisher, 1990
  5. ^ a b [1] TerrorismCentral Newsletter. May 29, 2005. Retrieved 15 August 2009.
  6. ^ a b c Štor, Barbara. "Post-War Killings: Enter the Bloody History". 2 April 2009. The Slovenia Times. Retrieved 14 August 2009
  7. ^ Valentino, Benjamin (2005). Final solutions: mass killing and genocide in the twentieth century. Cornell University Press. p. 275. ISBN 0801472733. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  8. ^ a b c "BBC, "Mengistu found guilty of genocide," 12 December 2006".
  9. ^ a b Backgrounders: Ethiopian Dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam Human Rights Watch, 1999
  10. ^ a b Staff, Senior Khmer Rouge leader charged, BBC 19 September 2007
  11. ^ Kent, Allen (2002). Encyclopedia of library and information science, Volume 72. CRC Press. p. 235. ISBN 0824720741. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  12. ^ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
  13. ^ "deliberate and systematic": Count 3 of the indictment of the 24 Nazi leaders: Sunday Times, 21 October, 1945
  14. ^ "deliberate destruction": Peter Drost (1959). Kolloquium: Der Völkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah The Crime of State, Volume 2. {{cite book}}: Check |url= value (help) p. 125.
  15. ^ "a structural and systematic destruction": Irving Louis Horowitz, 1976
  16. ^ "actualization of the intent": Steven T. Katz, The Holocaust in Historical Perspective, Vol. 1, 1994
  17. ^ Stalin, according to researchers Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, "was presumably anxious to avoid his purges being subjected to genocidal scrutiny."Robert Gellately & Ben Kiernan (2003). The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 267. ISBN 0521527503.
  18. ^ M. Hassan Kakar Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 University of California press © 1995 The Regents of the University of California. Kakar's definition of genocide is, "Genocide is a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator."
  19. ^ Leo Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century Yale University Press
  20. ^ a b Barbara Harff, "Recognizing Genocides and Politicides", in Genocide Watch 27 (Helen Fein ed., 1992) pp.37,38
  21. ^ "Serbia cleared of genocide, failed to stop killing". Reuters. February 26, 2007. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ Court Declares Bosnia Killings Were Genocide The New York Times, February 26, 2007.
  23. ^ ICJ:Summary of the Judgment of 26 February 2007 - Bosnia v. Serbia
  24. ^ Tsegaye Tadesse. Verdict due for Ethiopia's ex-dictator Mengistu Reuters, 2006
  25. ^ Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung, January 1849.
  26. ^ Watson, George, The Lost Literature of Socialism, page 77. James Clarke & Co., 1998. ISBN 0718829867, 9780718829865, 112 pages
  27. ^ Watson, George, The Lost Literature of Socialism, page 80. James Clarke & Co., 1998. ISBN 0718829867, 9780718829865, 112 pages
  28. ^ Theory of the Global State: Globality as Unfinished Revolution by Martin Shaw, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp 141, ISBN 9780521597302
  29. ^ Chandler, David. The Killing Fields. At The Digital Archive Of Cambodian Holocaust Survivors. [2]
  30. ^ Peace Pledge Union Information -- Talking about genocides -- Cambodia 1975 -- the genocide.
  31. ^ a b Sharp, Bruce (2005-04-01). "Counting Hell: The Death Toll of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia". Retrieved 2006-07-05. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  32. ^ The CGP, 1994-2008 Cambodian Genocide Program, Yale University
  33. ^ a b Doyle, Kevin. Putting the Khmer Rouge on Trial, Time, July 26, 2007
  34. ^ MacKinnon, Ian Crisis talks to save Khmer Rouge trial, The Guardian, 7 March 2007
  35. ^ The Khmer Rouge Trial Task Forc, Royal Cambodian Government
  36. ^ a b The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, pg 457
  37. ^ US admits helping Mengistu escape BBC, 22 December 1999
  38. ^ Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators by Riccardo Orizio, pg 151
  39. ^ Stephane Courtois, et al. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. pg. 692
  40. ^ Guilty of genocide: the leader who unleashed a 'Red Terror' on Africa by Jonathan Clayton, The Times Online, 13 December 2006
  41. ^ M. Hassan Kakar Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 University of California press © 1995 The Regents of the University of California.
  42. ^ a b c d e Valentino, Benjamin A (2005). "Counterguerrilla Mass Killings: Guatemala and Afghanistan". Final solutions: mass killing and genocide in the twentieth century. Cornell University Press. p. 217-219. ISBN 0801472733. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  43. ^ As cited by B. Valentino, p. 218
  44. ^ Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 pp. 718-719.
  45. ^ R. J. Rummel. Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917. Transaction Publishers, 1990. ISBN 1560008873 p. 224
  46. ^ In pictures: Afghan mass grave BBC, July 5, 2007
  47. ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 631. ISBN 0805066381.; Chang, Jung and Halliday, Jon. Mao: The Unknown Story. Jonathan Cape, London, 2005. ISBN 0-224-07126-2 p. 3; Rummel, R. J. China’s Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 Transaction Publishers, 1991. ISBN 0-88738-417-X p. 205: In light of recent evidence, Rummel has increased Mao's democide toll to 77 million. See also: "Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm". Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century. Retrieved 2008-08-23.
  48. ^ Fenby, Jonathan. Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present. Ecco, 2008. ISBN 0-06-166116-3 p. 351"Mao’s responsibility for the extinction of anywhere from 40 to 70 million lives brands him as a mass killer greater than Hitler or Stalin, his indifference to the suffering and the loss of humans breathtaking."
  49. ^ Asia times online
  50. ^ The People's Republic of China 1949-76, second edition, Michael Lynch (London: Hodder Education, 2008), p. 57
  51. ^ "What caused the great Chinese famine?" (PDF). 2000-01-01. Retrieved 2009-05-14.
  52. ^ "A hunger for the truth: A new book, banned on the mainland, is becoming the definitive account of the Great Famine.", chinaelections.org, 7 July 2008
  53. ^ a b Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 pp. 545-546.
  54. ^ WEISS-WENDT, ANTON (2005). "Hostage of Politics Raphael Lemkin on "Soviet Genocide"" (PDF). Journal of Genocide Research (7(4)): 551–559. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  55. ^ Simon Sebag Montefiore. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, Knopf, 2004 ISBN 1-4000-4230-5 p. 334
  56. ^ McCormack, T. "Soviet genocide trials in the Baltic states, the relevance of international law". Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law - 2004. pp. 388–409. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  57. ^ a b [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4581197.stm Man on Slovenia genocide charges] BBC News
  58. ^ [ Walter Laqueur, Black hundred: the rise of the extreme right in Russia‎, p.195
  59. ^ Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 p. 98
  60. ^ Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev. A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia. Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-300-08760-8 p. 100
  61. ^ a b Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 p 99-100
  62. ^ a b Robert Gellately. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe Knopf, 2007 ISBN 1400040051 pp. 70–71.
  63. ^ Orlando Figes. A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924. Penguin Books, 1998. ISBN 014024364X p. 660: "However, it must be said in Denikin's defense that he was responding to what can only be called a war of genocide against the Cossacks. The Bolsheviks had made it clear that their aim in the northern Don was to unleash ‘mass terror against the rich Cossacks by exterminating them to the last man' and transferring their land to the Russian peasants. During this campaign of 'decossackization', in the early months of 1919, some 12,000 Cossacks, many of them old men, were executed as "counter-revolutionaries' by tribunals of the invading Red Army."
  64. ^ Donald Rayfield. Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him Random House, 2004. ISBN 0375506322 pg 83: "Sometimes a whole ethnic group was declared White and genocide took place. Iona Iakir, a famous Red Army general, had 50 percent of the male Don Cossacks exterminated, and used artillery, flamethrowers, and machine guns on women and children."
  65. ^ Mikhail Heller & Aleksandr Nekrich. Utopia in Power: The History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Present. Summit Books, 1988. ISBN 0671645358 p. 87: "The suppression of the Don Cossack revolt in the spring and summer of 1919 took the form of genocide. One historian has estimated that approximately 70 percent of the Don Cossacks were physically eliminated."
  66. ^ R. J. Rummel. Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917. Transaction Publishers, 1990. ISBN 1560008873 p. 2.
  67. ^ Soviet order to exterminate Cossacks is unearthed University of York Communications Office, 21 January 2003
  68. ^ Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 pp. 8-9: “The policy of "de-Cossackization" begun in 1920 corresponds largely to our definition of genocide: a population group firmly established in a particular territory, the Cossacks as such were exterminated, the men shot, the women, children and the elderly deported, and the villages razed or handed over to new, non-Cossack occupants. Lenin compared the Cossacks to the Vendée during the French Revolution and gladly subjected them to a program of what Gracchus Babeuf, the "inventor" of modern Communism, characterized in 1795 as "populicide."
  69. ^ Holquist, Peter, "A Russian Vendee: The Practice of Revolutionary Politics in the Don Countryside, 1917-1921." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1994.
  70. ^ Peter Holquist. "Conduct merciless mass terror": decossackization on the Don, 1919"
  71. ^ Dmitri Volkogonov. Autopsy of an Empire: The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime. Free Press, 1998. ISBN 0684871122 pg 74
  72. ^ P.M. Polian, Against Their Will, p. 60, 2004
  73. ^ a b Boobbyer, Phillip (2000), The Stalin Era, Routledge, ISBN 0767900561 p. 130
  74. ^ In one estimate, based on a report by Lavrenti Beria to Joseph Stalin, 150,000 of 478,479 deported Ingush and Chechen people (or 31.3 percent) died within the first four years of the resettlement. See: Kleveman, Lutz. The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia. Jackson, Tenn.: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003. ISBN 0871139065. Another scholar puts the number of deaths at 22.7 percent: Extrapolating from NKVD records, 113,000 Ingush and Chechens died (3,000 before deportation, 10,000 during deportation, and 100,000 after resettlement) in the first three years of the resettlement out of 496,460 total deportees. See: Naimark, Norman M. Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001. ISBN 0674009940. A third source says a quarter of the 650,000 deported Chechens, Ingush, Karachais and Kalmyks died within four years of resettlement. See: Mawdsley, Evan. The Stalin Years: The Soviet Union 1929-1953. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2003. ISBN 0719063779. However, estimates of the number of deportees sometimes varies widely. Two scholars estimated the number of Chechen and Ingush deportees at 700,000, which would have the percentage estimates of deaths. See: Fischer, Ruth and Leggett, John C. Stalin and German Communism: A Study in the Origins of the State Party. Edison, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2006. ISBN 0878558225
  75. ^ Conquest, Robert. The Nation Killers. New York: Macmillan, 1970. ISBN 0333105753
  76. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=KStML5rSbQ4C&pg=PA223&dq=crimean+tatars+genocide+soviet+collaborate&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
  77. ^ Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons, Israel W. Charny. Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views. Garland, 1997 ISBN 0815323530 p. 120
  78. ^ http://www.sevastopol.su/world.php?id=5713
  79. ^ a b http://www.regnum.ru/news/1138393.html
  80. ^ In Search of a SOVIET HOLOCAUST A 55-Year-Old Famine Feeds the Right By Jeff Coplon Village Voice (New York City), January 12, 1988
  81. ^ Dr. Hennadii Boriak, Director General of the State Committee of Archives in Ukraine «The Ukrainian Famine of 1933: Sources and Source Publications»
  82. ^ a b Dr. David Marples, The great famine debate goes on..., ExpressNews (University of Alberta), originally published in Edmonton Journal, November 30, 2005
  83. ^ a b Stanislav Kulchytsky, "Holodomor of 1932–1933 as genocide: the gaps in the proof", Den, February 17, 2007, in Russian, in Ukrainian
  84. ^ С. Уиткрофт (Stephen G. Wheatcroft), "О демографических свидетельствах трагедии советской деревни в 1931—1933 гг." (On demographic evidence of the tragedy of the Soviet village in 1931-1833), "Трагедия советской деревни: Коллективизация и раскулачивание 1927-1939 гг.: Документы и материалы. Том 3. Конец 1930-1933 гг.", Российская политическая энциклопедия, 2001, ISBN 5-8243-0225-1, с. 885, Приложение № 2
  85. ^ 'Stalinism' was a collective responsibility - Kremlin papers, The News in Brief, University of Melbourne, 19 June 1998, Vol 7 No 22
  86. ^ Peter Finn, Aftermath of a Soviet Famine, The Washington Post, April 27, 2008, "There are no exact figures on how many died. Modern historians place the number between 2.5 million and 3.5 million. Yushchenko and others have said at least 10 million were killed."
  87. ^ Yaroslav Bilinsky (1999). "Was the Ukrainian Famine of 1932–1933 Genocide?". Journal of Genocide Research. 1 (2): 147–156. doi:10.1080/14623529908413948.
  88. ^ Stanislav Kulchytsky, "Holodomor-33: Why and how?", Zerkalo Nedeli, November 25—December 1, 2006, in Russian, in Ukrainian.
  89. ^ Jan Maksymiuk, "Ukraine: Parliament Recognizes Soviet-Era Famine As Genocide", RFE/RL, November 29, 2006
  90. ^ 19 (according to Ukrainian BBC: "Латвія визнала Голодомор ґеноцидом"), 16 (according to Korrespondent, Russian edition: "После продолжительных дебатов Сейм Латвии признал Голодомор геноцидом украинцев"), "more than 10" (according to Korrespondent, Ukrainian edition: "Латвія визнала Голодомор 1932-33 рр. геноцидом українців")
  91. ^ a b c Michael Ellman, Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 Revisited Europe-Asia Studies, Routledge. Vol. 59, No. 4, June 2007, 663-693. PDF file
  92. ^ Nobel winner accuses Ukrainian authorities of 'historical revisionism' Russia Today Retrieved on April 10, 2008
  93. ^ Solzhenitsyn, Alexander (2008-04-02). "Поссорить родные народы??". Izvestia (in Russian). Retrieved 2008-11-27.
  94. ^ Simon Sebag Montefiore. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, Knopf, 2004 ISBN 1-4000-4230-5 p. 229
  95. ^ Simon Sebag Montefiore. Stalin. The Court of the Red Tsar. Vintage Books, New York 2003. Vintage ISBN 1-4000-7678-1 page 229.
  96. ^ Alexander N. Yakovlev (2002). A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia. Yale University Press. p. 165. See also: Richard Pipes (2001). Communism: A History. Modern Library Chronicles. p. 66.
  97. ^ Estonian charged with Communist genocide International Herald Tribune, August 23, 2007
  98. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7978111.stm
  99. ^ Polish government statement: Senate pays tribute to Katyn victims – 3/31/2005
  100. ^ Russia Says Katyn Executions Not Genocide
  101. ^ Helen Fawkes Legacy of famine divides Ukraine BBC News 24 November 2006
  102. ^ Spanish courts to investigate if a genocide took place in Tibet.
  103. ^ World in Brief: Lawyers take China to court in The Times, 7 June 2006
  104. ^ Alexa Olesen China rejects Spain's 'genocide' claims in The Independent 7 June 2006
  105. ^ Remembrance Day for the Victims of Communist Genocide
  106. ^ Is Holocaust denial against the law? Anne Frank House
  107. ^ Michael Whine, Expanding Holocaust Denial and Legislation Against It Institute for Global Jewish Affairs
  108. ^ "Public denial of Holodomor Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine as genocide of Ukrainian people to be prosecuted", December 12, 2007

References and Further reading

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