Hi David, Those numbers according to “The Black Book of Communism” are a powerful introduction, but it would help to have an understanding of the population density and geography of those nations at that time in history to see what percentage of the population was lost.

Firstly understanding this history does require a reference back to the founding documents which are then interpreted and implemented by those in power, who are a minority on a spectrum of followers. This loss of life seems to result in a dual focus of economic division and concentration of state power. For the economic factors there is the flow on effect of having an entire society focused on the point of economic disparity, which results in hostility, because it is permissible to harm certain groups of people.

Of the ten measures that you mention, most refer implicitly or explicitly to the (nation) state which becomes the limit of peoples worldview with outsiders viewed as either hostile, or in most cases having the same attitudes as those within the system.
This limited view with only a collective outlook is an ideological combination of that combined focus which devalues individual human life by leaving out the other aspects of a fulfilling human experience, as opposed one which asks what an individual can contribute to society

Those figures say nothing about context or comparability.

For example, were the 1 million corpses in Vietnam caused by direct Communist actions or were they the result of the socialist-inspired but nationalist-driven wars of liberation, first from French colonialism and then from the American anti-communist invasion and occupation - all of which totalled approximately 2-3 million Vietnamese dead over 30 years.

Also, in China, many of those corpses were victims of famines caused by the failure of Communist economic plans. However, these figures are easily comparable to pre-Communist era famines, especially during the 1930s and the actions of Western imperialism in China during the late-19th and early 20th centuries.

Neither do the figures indicate the many millions who have died as a result of civil wars, in which right-wing governments are overthrown by left-wing coups and vice versa - left-wing governments' overthrown by Western-backed militias and destabilisation campaigns.

Even if these figures of 'communist corpses' were to be taken at face value - then compared to what??

Is there a corresponding body count of the corpses caused by 3 centuries of Western imperialism (1700s to 1970s) that dispossessed and killed millions; or the greed of 200 years of capitalism which created an underclass of non-people who died in their tens of millions from preventable diseases, famine and malnutrition, childbirth, overwork, and squalid sanitation and unsafe working conditions; ditto the many millions who died under fuedalism and centuries of power struggles between various monarchs and wannabe monarchs.

And let's face it - communism played no part in either WWI and II. These were both capitalist imperial power struggles that left a combined total of more than 80 million dead and 100s of millions of lives torn apart and displaced. (The moral justification of the Holocaust came AFTER the fact. At the time of WWII, the Allies knew very little and cared even less about what was happening to European Jewry.)

Killarney,

Don't you know that the reigning hegemony always absolves itself from the human facility for savagery.

If mass killings are inspired at the behest of Western colonialist or neoliberalist beckoning, they are exempt from calculation. Like the Indonesians who were targeted by the U.S. backed Suharto regime...or those Allende supporters who suffered a similar fate in Chile.

But...sssh....we don't talk about things like that on David's "Lets Thump Marxism" threads.

Dear Poirot,

In 1987 a meeting of former CIA people in Switzerland estimated that approximately 6,000,000 people have been murdered by US trained death squads and other US inspired actions against union leaders and others that the powers that be in tyrannies supported by the US wished to be rid of.

There is no mystery concerning those deaths. The victims were perceived as a threat to the power and profits of the ruling class.

There is also no mystery to the reason for the Nazi murders.

However, apologists for the Marxists like Eagleton claim that Marxist ideology has nothing to do with the murders perpetrated by Marxist entities. The article shows a direct connection between statements in the Manifesto and the murders. Why so many corpses, Poirot? What's your explanation for the murders?

Bugsy:
<The question then becomes: "Why were Marx's ideas on the state so difficult to implement accurately?">
How easy it is to pose stupid questions (sorry, but it is), and yet I'm expected to answer them?

To begin with the question alerts me that you know nothing of Marx's thought first-hand (yet you have the temerity to question it?). It was never a matter of "implementing" Marx's ideas. Marx saw revolution as inevitable given the dynamics of the system--that the human spirit would not ultimately be confined by the social constraints that maintained the means of production. He was wrong, I think, in that he underestimated the power of ideology, and humanity's capacity to reconcile itself to its fate. Perhaps he wasn't wrong, per se, and only his timing was out; time will tell, but I'm inclined to think his materialism was wrong, just as the materialism David Fisher promotes (scientism) is "wrong" in the sense that it will never capture the imagination of the masses.
Marx's rubric for humanity was based on purely materialistic conditions, the means of production, and that it ultimately superseded all else.
It makes sense; in a world of scarcity everything beyond survivalism is luxury. At the very least, though, Marx underestimated the tenacity of capitalism, and not necessarily ideology; we are only now coming to the point where ideology is tested by deteriorating material conditions.
At any rate, conditions for the revolution had to be ripe, and while Marx saw no harm in an avant-garde, the real revolution was an unstoppable event.
The radical movements we've seen have been ideological rather than materialistic, what's more pitted against the might of ascendant capitalism. Not left to develop as a rival in peace, but hounded, hunted and laid siege to at every turn--no wonder these premature ejaculations turned self-conscious and paranoid.
Marx's system was not predicated on ideology, but exigency and the human imperative to provide for itself.
The drudge classes are nothing if not long-suffering, but the system is losing it's capacity to maintain its preferential treatment and a minimum standard for the rest.

Dear Squeers,

You have called the article we are discussing names such as ignorant and populist. Now you accuse me of supporting scientism. There are a number of statements in the article which are cited from the Manifesto. From these statements the author of the article came to certain conclusions. You don't examine the arguments. You don't address what was written. You merely argue by adjective.

Now Bugsy is asking a stupid question. It is easy to argue by adjective. I have caught myself doing it and am trying to avoid it.

Murderous is not an uncalled for adjective for the various Marxist entities. I understand. It's difficult to defend the indefensible.

You accused Bugsy of not knowing Marx's thought first hand but having the temerity to question it. Neither you nor anybody else knows Marx's thought first hand even when he was alive. All we know is what he wrote. From what he wrote we can deduce he encouraged tyranny and murder.