Communism Death Toll

Over 100 million dead in various genocides, classicides, democides, politicides, mass deportations, reigns of revolutionary terror, engineered famines, etc.

• Red Terror, Russian SFSR, 1918-1922: 100,000 to 200,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Decossackization, USSR, 1919-1933: 10,000 to 500,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Hungarian Red Terror, Hungarian Soviet Republic, 1919: 370-590 executed (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Povolzhye famine, Russian SFSR, 1921-1922: 5 million deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Turkestan famine, 1919–1922: 400,000–750,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Dekulakization, USSR, 1929-1933: 530,000 to 600,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Gulags, USSR, 1929-1953: 1.2-1.7 million deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Population transfer, 1930-1952: 800,000–1,500,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Deportation of Koreans, 1937: 16,500-50,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Deportation of the Volga Germans, 1941: 42,823-228,800 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Deportations from Lithuania, 1941-1952: 28,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Deportations from Estonia, 1941-1951: unknown number of deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Deportation of the Karachays, 1943: 13,100—19,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Deportation of the Kalmyks, 1943: 16,017–16,594 deaths, between 17 and 19 percent of their total population (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush, 1944: 123,000–200,000 deaths or between 1/4 and 1/3 of their total population (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Deportation of the Balkars, 1944: 7,600 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Deportation of the Crimean Tatars, 1944: 34,000 to 110,000 deaths, between 18 and 46 percent of their total population (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Deportation of the Meskhetian Turks, 1944: 12,589 to 50,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Famine, USSR, 1932–1933: 6.4-12.5 million deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Goloshchyokin genocide, USSR, 1931–1933: 1.5-2.3 million deaths or between 38 to 42 percent of all Kazakhs (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Ukraine Terror-Famine, USSR, 1932-1933: 3.5 million deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab)), Genocide? (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Great Terror, USSR, 1936-1938: between 950,000 and 1.2 million deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Mass operations of the NKVD (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
    • Repression of Anti-Soviet elements, 1937-1938: 386,798 executed, NKVD Order #00447 (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
    • Polish Operation, 1937-1938: 111,091 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab)), NKVD Order #00485 (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
    • Latvian Operation, 1937-1938: at least 16,573 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
    • German Operation, 1937-1938: 41,898 deaths, NKVD Order #00439 (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
    • Harbin Operation, 1937: 30,992 deaths, NKVD Order #00593 (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
    • Greek Operation, 1937-1950: 15,000-50,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Repressions in Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic, 1937-1939: 20,000-35,000 (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Spanish Red Terror, 1936: 38,000 to 72,344 killed including 6,832 Roman Catholic Priests (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Repression of Polish citizens, USSR, 1939-1946: 150,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Katyn massacre, USSR, 1940: 22,000 (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Leftist Errors (Yugoslav Red Terror), Eventual Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 1941: 1000+ deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Purges in Serbia, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 1944-1945: at least 55,973 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Forced labor of Hungarians, USSR, 1944-1955: 200,000 perished (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Socialist Republic of Romania, 1945-1989: between 500,000 and two million deaths (BBC (opens in a new tab))
• Augustów roundup, Polish People's Republic, 1945: 2000 executed (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Land Reform Movement, People’s Republic of China, 1946-1953: 200,000 – 5,000,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Famine, USSR, 1946-1947: 500,000 to 2 million (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, PRC, 1950-1953: 1-2 million executed (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Land Reform, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1953-1956: 15,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Hungarian Uprising, Hungarian People's Republic, 1956: ~3000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Tibetan uprising, PRC, 1959: 85,000-87,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Great Chinese Famine, PRC, 1959-1961: 15-55 million deaths, making it the largest famine in human history (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Cultural Revolution, PRC, 1966-1976: hundreds of thousands to 20 million deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Red August, 1966: 10,000+ according to official CCP 1985 statistics, massacred in and around Beijing by the Red Guard (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab)), including the Daxing Massacre where 325 were killed (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Violent Struggle, 1966-1968: 300,000-500,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Guangxi Massacre, 1967-1976: 100,000-150,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Inner Mongolia incident, 1967-1969: 20,000-100,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Cleansing the Class Ranks, 1968: 0.5-1.5 million deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Banqiao Dam failure, PRC, 1975: 85,600 to 240,000 (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Cambodian Genocide, Democratic Kampuchea, 1975-1979: 1.5-2 million deaths or a quarter of the population (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Prison 21: 18,133 killed (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
  • Killing Fields: 1.7-2.5 million killed (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Qey Shibir (Ethiopian Red Terror), Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia or the Derg, 1976-1977: 30,000 to 750,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Pul-e-Charkhi prison, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, 1978-1979: 27,000 political prisoners executed (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Soviet–Afghan War, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, 1979-1989: 562,000 to 2,000,000 deaths or 6.5%–11.5% of the population (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Ethiopian Famine, Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia or the Derg, 1983-1985: 200,000–1,200,000 deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Tiananmen Square Massacre, PRC, 1989: estimates vary from hundreds to several thousand deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Arduous March, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, 1994-1998: 240,000 to 3.5 million deaths (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Naxalite–Maoist insurgency, Republic of India, 1997-2018: 6,035–8,051 civilians killed (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))
• Uyghur genocide, PRC, 2014-present: unknown (Wikipedia (opens in a new tab))