The Black Book of Communism
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According to French Professor Stéphane Courtois, writing in the introduction to The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (1997), approximately 100 million (94 million) deaths had resulted from Communism over its 85 year history [at the time of publication].
This includes 20 million deaths in the Soviet Union alone from causes such as
- execution of tens of thousands of hostages and prisoners without trial, and killing of hundreds of thousands or rebellious workers and peasants from 1918 to 1922
- the mass starvation of 1922 causing five million deaths due to "War Communism" policies
- the extermination and deportation of the Don Cossacks in 1920
- killing of tens of thousands in concentration camps from 1918 to 1930 (the Gulag system after 1930 caused millions of deaths)
- killing of 690,00 during the Great Purge
- deportation of 2 million kulaks and so-called kulaks) in 1930-1932
- deaths of 4 million Ukrainians and 2 million others during the mass starvation of 1932-1933 (the Holodomor)
- deportation of hundreds of thousands of Poles, Ukrainians, Balts, Moldovans and Bessarabians in 1939-1941 and 1944-1945
- deportation of the Volga Germans in 1941
- deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1943
- deportation of the Chechens in 1944
- deportation of the Ingush in 1944
The book also states
- 65 million deaths in the People’s Republic of China, many in the mass starvation associated with the "Great Leap Forward"
- 1 million in Vietnam
- 2 million in North Korea
- 2 million in Cambodia (one fourth of the population)
- 1 million in Eastern Europe
- 150,000 in Latin America
- 1.7 million in Africa
- 1.5 million in Afghanistan
- 10,000 by Communist parties not in power and the international Communist movement
