His work on democide was embraced by liberals and realists alike, but also harshly. Rummel power kills, absolute power kills absolutely. Rummels corollary to lord actons dictum is power kills. Ethnic cleansing bleaches the atrocities of genocide. The problem of power, as rummel terms it, remains with us todayjust ask residents of angola, bosnia, chechnya, georgia, and rwanda, among many, many other lands. He claims 61 million excess deaths for the soviet period, the vast majority of which being pre1953. The statistics to prove these assertions have been assembled by prof. For the soviet union rummels estimates for democide are grossly inflated, to the point of absurdity. Article information, pdf download for democracy, power, genocide, and mass murder. Rummel coined the term democide for murder by government compare genocide, and his research claims that six times as many people died of democide during the 20th century than in all that centurys wars combined. The files also contain personnel records and financial information for defendants that should not be made public.
On this graphic, there is an ideology circle, where people killed by conflicts waged by us in the name of democracy amounts to about 14 million people. Rummel is recognized for his calculation of deaths caused by governments for which he coined the term democide. In addition, he gives a summary of the situation or the war that the numbers address. Rummel goes on to say that basically within some 70 years between. He was a man of many talents, and to some of his readers he may also have seemed to present. The value of this is the listing of each source, its estimate, and comments qualifying the estimate.
But the message is clear when it comes to forms of government, the freer it is, the less likely the government is to kill its own. Rummel does not include combat deaths and executions in his definition of democide. He presents the primary results, in tables and figures, as well as a historical sketch of the major cases of democide, those in. In power kills, he tied together his work on democracy and the various kinds of human conflict. During the 1980s and 1990s there were fairly bitter disputes within. The term was hardly known but soon caught on after the political scientist r. Rather, democide is best explained by the degree to which a regime is.
Death by government is a depressing, unnerving book. He spent his career assembling data on collective violence and war with a view toward helping their resolution or elimination. Thus, in order to have a government protect us from one death, we allow the government to kill hundreds of times more people than it saves. He presents the primary results, in tables and figures, as well as a historical sketch of the major cases of democide, those in which one million or more people were killed by a regime. Death by government rj rummel, who wrote the book, death by government states that prior to the 20th century. Thus, in order to have a government protect us from one death, we allow the government to kill. Even were we to have total access to all communist archives we still would not be able to calculate precisely how many the communists murdered. Separate volumes examined the soviet union 1990, china 1991, and nazi germany 1992, before he summed it all up in death by government and statistics of democide 1997.
This new power principle is the message emerging from my previous work on the causes of war1 and this book on genocide and government mass murderwhat i call democide. We are going to have all these references listed as part. Rummels fourth book in a series devoted to genocide and government mass murder, or what he calls democide. From 1900 to 1987, state, quasistate, and stateless groups have killed in democide genocide, massacres, extrajudicial executions, and the like nearly 170,000,000 people. If our government oppresses than we citizens who vote for it and support it with our tax dollars and adherence to its lows, etc. Death by government genocide and mass murder since 1900. Rummel its horrifying that its both possible and necessary to parse different kinds of mass slaughter by governments.
According to the vietnamese governments national survey and assessment of war casualties 2017, there were 849,018 pavnvc military personnel dead, including combat death and noncombat death, from the period between 1955 and 1975. Death by government foundation for economic education. His study is filled with statistics and charts and graphs and is well documented. Attempting the impossible calculating capitalisms death toll.
Rummels five volume work understanding conflict and war is an ambitious, comprehensive theoretical approach to international as well as domestic conflict. Attempting the impossible calculating capitalisms death. Maintained by jennifer heming white contributor 46824467. It contains names, phone numbers, and other personal information of witnesses and victims. Rj rummel who argues that government power is a lethal plague that devastates human life and that government power is the best predictor back to index the forensics file the ld file 9 targeted killing of violence. Rummel redefined the term to include governments that also commit genocide, politicide, and even mass murder. Notes this is a prepublisher edited version of the preface in r. In fact, rummel is cited so often that even leftists use him see determinatenegations list. Rummel but was well known in the profession as rudy. Case studies and quantitative analysis show that ethnic, racial, and religious diversity, economic development, levels of education, and cultural differences do not account for this killing. Rummels numbers, after a while, become too numbing.
And this is the probable estimate, the high figure is 115m. Pdf the comparative analysis of mass atrocities and genocide. For this very reason, it should be read in history classes not just across america, but around the world. The numerous case studies are a mizture of carefully wrought.
Rummels understanding conflict and war ucw predicted that the work would not have the immediate impact that one might. Regardless, death by government, is an essential piece of the puzzle to understand the primary fact of the twentieth century. It provides a substantial theoretical as well as epistemological basis for the democratic peace proposition, which has received a lot of attention in recent years. Rummel argues that in the last century totalitarian governments killed. Rummels book death by government 1994, about 110 million people, foreign and domestic, were killed by communist democide from 1900 to 1987. Summary and conclusions 20th century democide death by. Pdf rudolph rummel and i are both products of northwestern. Deceased prolific writer rudolph joseph rummel who wrote death by government was a professor of political science who taught at the indiana university, yale university and university of hawaii. Based on unit surveys, a rough estimate of 3040% of dead and missing were noncombat deaths. The case for human liberty and limited government has never been made more effectively than by this fearsome book.
I would just like to read a few things from the first chapter of death by government by mr. Having studied over 8,000 reports of government caused deaths, he concludes that there have been 262 million victims of democide in the last century. Historians tell us that during the 20th century perhaps as many as 200 million civilians were. Has the usa killed the most people in human history. This is an infographic of the main causes of death in the 20th century. He spent his career studying data on collective violence and war. Ending famine, poverty, democide, and war, nashville. First, it links all the relevant estimates, sources, and calculations for each of the case studies in death by government, and all additional cases of lesser democide for which data have been collected.
In death by government, rummel does not aim to describe democide itself, but to. Although nothing is beyond dispute in the social sciences, rummels view on the existence of a democratic peace has become the dominant view among contemporary researchers. Are rj rummels death toll estimates on democides of the. He no longer investigated only wars or deadly quarrels, but mass murder or death by government rummel, 1994. While recounting a punishing accumulation of atrocity stories, kill anything that moves advances four relatively straightforward arguments. In the 20th century, the death toll from genocide, massacres, forced starvation, expulsions and other atrocities is estimated to have exceeded 170 million. Naturalnewsblogs democide the murder of people by a.
War and democide author rudy rummel remembered hawaii. Rummel genocide history democide communism death killing 20th century libertarianism conservative. The subtitle of this book was democracy as a method of nonviolence. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read death by government.