Millions of people died in China during the Great Leap, with estimates ranging from 15 to 55 million, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest or second-largest famine in human history
More than the US? The country that maintained slaves for many generations, on land taken from slaughteted and genocided indigenous peoples? The country that is to this day actively supporting genocide purely to protect its economic interests via Imperialism?
Countless more. Do I really need to go on to illustrate just how evil the American Empire is, and why pulling a whataboutism to distract from this might be seen as insensitive?
I generally agree with you, but honestly, pro-China and pro-Soviet users talking about American deaths is whataboutism itself. I'm not saying they shouldn't, but it's rather glaring how much they avoid their own missteps.
Where was China or the USSR mentioned on this post? Purely in the comments section, and purely to assert that the US's crimes are not as bad.
This post isn't saying that the PRC and the USSR have never performed crimes. It isn't avoiding their missteps, the purpose of this post is to talk about by far the worst Empire. Saying that the PRC and USSR also have committed atrocities only serves to minimize US atrocities here.
Stalin's 20 million and Mao's 70 million both come from a book called 'The Black Book of Communism' where th authors tried to inflate all the numbers as much as possible to arrive at 100 million deaths under communism in the end. The really high numbers come from taking the difference between the population decades later and what the population would have been if the borth rate hadn't dropped (even though lower birth rates are an indication of better living standards).
Also, if you leave out the USSR's purges (Soviet archives revealed around 800k), almost all of the deaths come from 'man made famines'. Completely disregarding that in both China and Russia there have been famines all the time before their revolutions. Both countries were among the poorest and most backward in the world. No government on earth could have prevented all famines immediately. After some years after Mao's and Stalin's reorganizations of agriculture, famines were eliminated (except for during WW2). Life expectancy doubled within 30 years under communist China. Very quickly in the Soviet Union as well.
Of course you can argue about the governments having been able to do it better in hindsight, but even then the deaths certainly weren't cold blooded murder.
Considering this, you certainly won't arrive at the tens of millions of people killed just by the US military. Many, many more if you factor in indirect deaths (by embargoes, sanctions, refusing to allow other countries to produce their vaccines, etc.).
21 Comments
Rustmilian@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 2y
Death_Equity@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 2y
Mao almost certainly has the highest kill count and China talks about it as if that time period was just clumsy.
FoxyGrandpa@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2y
But the soviet union under Stalin had a very good attempt
Count042@lemmy.ml · 24 pts · 2y
That needs to be the British empire.
Anamana@feddit.de · 20 pts · 2y
Well how many people did the US kill? Any data on it?
dessalines@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 2y
It's hard to quantify, but the US instigated or had a hand in causing most of the largest mass-killing events of the twentieth century.
To give just a single example, the CIA was the main driver behind the anti-communist massacres in Indonesia in 1965. 500k-1M people killed.
Or operation Condor, another anti-communist CIA-led program in several latin american countries: about 60-80k people killed, and 400k imprisoned.
A larger list of US atrocities is here.
INHALE_VEGETABLES@aussie.zone · -15 pts · 2y
Yeah there is a lot of data
Edit: the down votes are yet another US atrocity
Anamana@feddit.de · 15 pts · 2y
Give?
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 2y
Some numbers I found for reference to compare.
More info on WWII
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin#Modern_estimates
retrospectology@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 2y
Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 2y
More than the US? The country that maintained slaves for many generations, on land taken from slaughteted and genocided indigenous peoples? The country that is to this day actively supporting genocide purely to protect its economic interests via Imperialism?
retrospectology@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y
Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 2y
You may want to look at the actual numbers, rather than relying on vibes.
retrospectology@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y
Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 2y
I'm not skipping over China. You're getting upset that someone is correctly calling out the United States.
Genocide of Indigenous Americans resulted in 4-8 million murders.
American slavery resulted in dozens of millions of deaths and forced labor.
The entirety of Iraqi infrastructurw returned to pre-industrial levels specifically to make the Iraqi state more liable to respond to US Demands on false pretenses.
260 million bombs dropped on Laos on mere suspicions of pro-Communist activity.
Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians murdered via napalm, agent orange, and raw gunfire.
Unwavering support for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians via a genocidal Aparthied regime
Many massacres of both North and South Koreans during the Korean War, installing a far-right dictator in the Republic of Korea who murdered his own citizens regularly
Unwavering support for a fascist, slave-owning regime in Cuba to protect US interests
Countless more. Do I really need to go on to illustrate just how evil the American Empire is, and why pulling a whataboutism to distract from this might be seen as insensitive?
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 2y
I generally agree with you, but honestly, pro-China and pro-Soviet users talking about American deaths is whataboutism itself. I'm not saying they shouldn't, but it's rather glaring how much they avoid their own missteps.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 2y
Where was China or the USSR mentioned on this post? Purely in the comments section, and purely to assert that the US's crimes are not as bad.
This post isn't saying that the PRC and the USSR have never performed crimes. It isn't avoiding their missteps, the purpose of this post is to talk about by far the worst Empire. Saying that the PRC and USSR also have committed atrocities only serves to minimize US atrocities here.
BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz · 1 pts · 2y
dessalines@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 2y
List of US atrocities.
crazyCat@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 2y
Where Stalin and Mao?
BachenBenno@feddit.de · 11 pts · 2y
Stalin's 20 million and Mao's 70 million both come from a book called 'The Black Book of Communism' where th authors tried to inflate all the numbers as much as possible to arrive at 100 million deaths under communism in the end. The really high numbers come from taking the difference between the population decades later and what the population would have been if the borth rate hadn't dropped (even though lower birth rates are an indication of better living standards).
Also, if you leave out the USSR's purges (Soviet archives revealed around 800k), almost all of the deaths come from 'man made famines'. Completely disregarding that in both China and Russia there have been famines all the time before their revolutions. Both countries were among the poorest and most backward in the world. No government on earth could have prevented all famines immediately. After some years after Mao's and Stalin's reorganizations of agriculture, famines were eliminated (except for during WW2). Life expectancy doubled within 30 years under communist China. Very quickly in the Soviet Union as well.
Of course you can argue about the governments having been able to do it better in hindsight, but even then the deaths certainly weren't cold blooded murder.
Considering this, you certainly won't arrive at the tens of millions of people killed just by the US military. Many, many more if you factor in indirect deaths (by embargoes, sanctions, refusing to allow other countries to produce their vaccines, etc.).
Facebones@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 2y
I'm a cereal killer Its a bad habit I killed Tony, Lucky Charms, and that silly rabbit