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Mass deaths and atrocities of the twentieth century
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Philosophers and social scientists have frequently noted the propensity of humans to commit violent acts not only as individuals but as groups. The twentieth century is a legacy of the ability of humanity to engage willingly in acts of warfare and atrocity. The study of mass killing Since the 19th century various historians have investigated the number of deaths that could be attributed to warfare or ideology. In the 20th century Joel David Singer and Melvin Small analyzed conflicts and Singer argued in The Wages of War, that a conflict with a particular death toll is statistically related to time of events. In recent years there has been an increasing belief among those who study conflict and fatalities related to it, that civil wars in particular are related to measurable economic phenomenon, and the scale of conflict is related to the reach of these factors. Several researchers have adopted the term democide to refer to fatalities caused by government intention, calling it "murder by government", and they argue that wars should be included with genocide among totals of deaths caused by government action. Others, such as Gregory H. Stanton have adopted the term politicide. He argues that there are eight distinct phases to genocide or other mass killing: Classification, Symbolization, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Extermination and Denial. What he labels "Stage 7" conflicts are those with active killing, but that conflicts can cycle through Polarization, Preparation and Extermination repeatedly. His organization tracks killings since 1945 . The field of Peace studies has been the source for continuing work on deaths because of conflict or other state decision. Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm in The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914- 1991 (1994) wrote that 187 million people died in the "short 20th century" because of what he termed "government decision". Robert McNamara published a 1991 paper entitled "The Post-Cold War World: Implications for Military Expenditure in the Developing Countries" which estimated 40 million deaths in the developing economies since World War II. Estimates of mass killings Milton Leitenberg's estimate Milton Leitenberg, of the Center for International and Security Studies, published a 2003 paper which focused on the post war era, and gave very detailed estimates for all major conflicts between 1945 and 2000. His estimate for the total century is based on the following numbers: * World War I mortality, between 13 and 15 million. * The Russian civil war of 1918-1922 and the Polish-Soviet conflict towards its end, deaths of over 12.5 million in Russia alone. * The Chaco War, between Paraguay and Bolivia, 1928-1933, approximately 3 million deaths. * The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, 600,000 deaths. * Various colonial wars, approximately 1.5 million deaths. * World War II, deaths of between 20 and 23 million. * Wars/conflicts between 1945 and 2000, deaths of 40 million. * Soviet collectivization and "dekulakization" 16 million to 50 million, though some included in World War II totals in these estimates. * Deaths under Mao, between 16 million and 30 million. Adding in a variety of other pogroms and civil wars, he comes to a final estimate of 216 million. This does not include what he calls "structural violence": deaths in under-developed nations because of crime, poverty, environmental degradation, disease, malnutrition not part of famine, contaminated water and lack of available medicine. He estimates that this reached 17 or 18 million per year by 2000. Matthew White's estimates A self-described librarian named Matthew White has a website which some years ago collated estimates from a number of academic and other sources. Based on these estimates, White proposed his own estimates for death tolls from violence in the 20th century. In order to arrive at his estimates, White ignored figures at the extremes and basically averaged the most common estimates. In doing so, he arrived at what he felt was a conservative estimate of nearly 170 million lives lost to war and major atrocities in the last century. While "minor" atrocities and civil conflicts would add to the number, White's table, reproduced below, compiled only those conflicts whose death tolls are probably close to or exceed half a million people. It should be noted that White himself makes no claims to have any qualifications in a relevant field. Some academic estimates vary widely from White's estimates.
These figures include military casualties of war as well as civilian victims of democide, famine, and other hardships caused by the social and economic disruption which results from large-scale conflict. For conflicts which began before 1900 or ended after 1999, only those deaths within the 20th century are included. Disease Spanish Flu: 20 million, 1918-23 ( ) Smallpox: Up to 500 million in 20th Century ( ) See Also
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