An 800-page compendium of the crimes of Communist regimes worldwide, recorded and analyzed in ghastly detail by a team of scholars.
The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression is a book that describes the history of repressions, both political and civilian by Communist states, including extrajudicial executions, deportations, and man-made famines that the book argues resulted from communist policies. The book was originally published in 1997 in France under the title, Le Livre noir du communisme : Crimes, terreur, répression. In the United States it is published by Harvard University Press.
The introduction, by editor Stéphane Courtois, states that that “…Communist regimes…turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government”. Using unofficial estimates he cites a death toll which totals 94 million, not counting the “excess deaths” (decrease of the population due to lower than the expected birth rate). The breakdown of the number of deaths given by Courtois is as follows:
20 million in the Soviet Union
65 million in the People’s Republic of China
1 million in Vietnam
2 million in North Korea
2 million in Cambodia
1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
150,000 in Latin America
1.7 million in Africa
1.5 million in Afghanistan
10,000 deaths “resulting from actions of the international communist movement and communist parties not in power.”(p. 4)
It explicitly states that Communist regimes are responsible for a greater number of deaths than any other political ideal or movement, including Nazism. The statistics of victims includes executions, intentional destruction of population by starvation, and deaths resulting from deportations, physical confinement, or through forced labor. It does not include “excess deaths” due to higher mortality or lower birth rates than expected of the population.
In other areas we can also see echoes of Communist-style mega-state power. U.S. officials today:
Encourage children to inform on their parents; encourage teachers, neighbors and friends to inform on others based on barest suspicions of wrongdoing.
Promulgate laws criminalizing everyday activities, and even discussion of certain outlawed activities.
Decree ever-harsher punishments for non-violent crimes (and harsher punishments yet when those laws fail to end the problem).
Allow secret trials in some cases (involving non-citizens suspected of political crimes).
Encourage widespread dependence on the state, with concomitant disconnection from family and community.
Belong to a professional political class rather than a citizen government.
Extend control over the basics of life (such as education, the food supply and health care).
Increase their control over industry (in our case, via regulation and subsidy, rather than outright ownership).
Promote constant “crises” as an excuse for seizing more power.
Foster a belief (now almost universally held) that no problem can be solved without federal intervention.