Crimes against humanity under Communist

regimes
2 Romania

Crimes against humanity have occurred under various

communist regimes. Actions such as forced deportation,
terror,[1] ethnic cleansing, and the deliberate starvation
of people such as during the Holodomor and the Great
Leap Forward have been described as crimes against humanity.[2][3] In the 2008 Prague Declaration on European
Conscience and Communism it was stated that crimes
committed under communism were often crimes against
humanity, according to the denition developed in the
Nuremberg Trials, and that the crimes committed under
communism and National Socialism were comparable.[4]
Very few people have been tried for these crimes, although Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have passed laws
that have led to the prosecution of several perpetrators
for crimes against the Baltic peoples. They were tried for
crimes committed during the Occupation of the Baltic
states in 1940 and 1941, and during the reoccupation
after the war. There were also trials for attacks by the
Peoples Commissariat for Internal Aairs (NKVD) on
the Forest Brethren.[5]

In a speech before Parliament, President of Romania

Traian Bsescu stated that the criminal and illegitimate
former communist regime committed massive human
rights violations and crimes against humanity, killing and
persecuting as many as two million people between 1945
and 1989[10][11] The speech was based on the 660 page
report of a Presidential Commission headed by Vladimir
Tismaneanu, a professor at the University of Maryland.
The report also said that the regime exterminated people by assassination and deportation of hundreds of thousands of people, and highlighted the Piteti Experiment.[12] Gheorghe Boldur-Lescu has also said that the
Piteti Experiment was a crime against humanity,[13] and
Dennis Deletant has described it as
An experiment of a grotesque originality
.... (which) employed techniques of psychiatric abuse designed not only to inculcate terror
into opponents of the regime but also to destroy
the personality of the individual. The nature
and the enormity of the experiment ... set Romania apart from the other Eastern European
regimes.[14]

Cambodia

3 North Korea
Three victims of the Gulag system in North Korea with
the aid of the Citizens Coalition for Human Rights of abductees and North Korean Refugees have attempted to
bring Kim Jong-il to justice. In December 2010 they led
charges at The Hague.[15] The North Korean gulag system
has led to an estimated death toll of between 380,000 and
over one million which would qualify as either genocide
or a crime against humanity. The NGO group Christian
Solidarity Worldwide has stated the gulag system appears
to be designed specically to kill a large number of the
populace who are labelled as enemies or who have a differing political belief.[16]

There is a scholarly consensus that the Cambodian genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot in
what became known as the killing elds was a crime
against humanity.[6] Legal scholars Antoine Garapon,
David Boyle and sociologist Michael Mann and professor of Political Science Jacques Semelin believe the
actions of the Communist Party of Kampuchea are
best described as a crime against humanity rather than
genocide.[7] In 1997 the co prime ministers of Cambodia
sought help from the United Nations in seeking justice
for the crimes perpetrated by the communists during the
years 1975 to 1979. During the month of June that same
year Pol Pot was taken prisoner during an internal struggle within the Khmer Rouge and was oered to the international community. However, there were no countries
willing to seek his extradition.[8] The policies enacted by
the Khmer Rouge led to the deaths of one quarter of the
population in just four years.[9]

4 China under Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong was the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, which took control in 1949, until his death in
1

REFERENCES

bolically decided to abstain from eating meat in honor of

those who were suering.[19]

September 1976. During this time, he instituted several

reform eorts, the most notable of which were the Great
Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. In January
1958, Mao launched the 5-year plan, the latter part of
which was known as the Great Leap Forward. The plan
was intended to expedite production and heavy industry
as a supplement to economic growth, similar to the soviet
model, and the dening factor behind Maos Chinese
Marxist policies.
Mao spent ten months of 1958 touring the country in
order to gain support for the Great Leap Forwards and
inspect the progress that had already been made. What
this entailed was the humiliation, public castigation and
torture of all who questioned the leap. The ve-yearplan rst instituted the division of farming communities up into communes The Chinese National Programme
for Agricultural Development(NPAD) began to accelerate their drafting plans for the countries industrial and
agricultural outputs. The draft plans were initially successful as the Great Leap Forwards divided up the Chinese workforce and production soared (albeit briey).[17]
Eventually the planners developed even more ambitious
goals, such as replacing the draft plans for 1962 with
those for 1967, and the industries developed supply bottlenecks and could not meet the growth demands. Rapid
industrial development came in turn with a swelling of
urban populations. In 1959 due to the furthering of collectivization, heavy industry production and the stagnation of the farming industry that did not keep up with
the demands of population growth in combination with
a year of unfortunate weather in farming areas, only 170
million tons of grain were produced, far below what the
population needed. Mass starvation ensued, and was only
made worse by 1960, as even less grain was produced at
144 million tons.[18] The government instituted rationing,
but between 1958 and 1962 it is thought that around
10 million people died of starvation alone. The famine
did not go unnoticed, Mao was fully aware of the major
famine sweeping the countryside but rather than try to x
the problem, he blamed it on counterrevolutionaries who
were hiding and dividing grain [19] Mao even sym-

Due to the widespread famine across the country there

were many reports of cannibalism and horric stories including that of a farmer from Hunan who was forced to
kill and eat his own child. When questioned, he said he
did it out of mercy. [20] An original death toll estimate
of the whole even ranged from 15-40 million. According to Frank Diktter, a chair professor for humanities at
the University of Hong Kong and author of Maos Great
Famine, a book detailing the Great leap forward and the
consequences of a strong armed economic reform, the
total death count of the famine between 1958 and 1962
was upwards of 45 million. Of the death count, 6-8%
of those who were killed prematurely by the government
were often tortured rst 2% committed suicide and 5%
died in Maos labor camps for those labelled as enemies of the people. [21] In an article from the New York
Times, Diktter also references severe punishments for
slight infractions such as being buried alive for stealing a
handful of grain or losing an ear and being branded for
digging up a potato.[22] Higher up the chain of command,
a chairman in an executive meeting in 1959 expressed
apathy to the widespread suering When there is not
enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let
half of the people die so that the other half can eat their
ll. [22]
Despite the major famine and the democide that killed
millions, Mao pushed on with his plans. In 1959, the defense of ministry, Peng Dehuai, suggested that Mao follow a more moderate approach to the Great Leap Forwards. Mao stripped him of his position and placed him
under house arrest. After this Mao developed a devout
group of high-ranking followers who were afraid of defying him. This supreme position and the failure to deviate
from a doomed ve-year plan ultimately brand Mao as
responsible to the crimes against humanity.

5 See also
Mass killings under Communist regimes
Communist terrorism
Camp 22
Yodok concentration camp
Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism

6 References
[1] Kemp-Welch pp42
[2] Roseelde pp6
[3] Karlsson pp5

[4] Arvanitopoulos pp245

[5] Naimark pp25
[6] Totten pp359
[7] Semelin pp344
[8] Lattimer pp214
[9] Jones pp188
[10] Shawl, Jeannie. Romania president says Communist
regime committed crimes against humanity. Jurist.

Karlsson, Klas-Gran.
Schoenhals, Michael.
Crimes against humanity under communist regimes
Forum for Living History. 2008. ISBN 978-91977487-2-8
Arvanitopoulos, Constantine. Reforming Europe:
The Role of the Centre-Right Springer 2010. ISBN
978-3-642-00559-6
Semelin, Jacques Purify and Destroy: The Political
Uses of Massacre and Genocide Columbia University Press (2009) ISBN 978-0-231-14283-0

[11] Clej, Petru (18 December 2006). Romania exposes communist crimes. BBC.

Lattimer, Mark. Sands, Philippe. (2003) Justice

for Crimes Against Humanity Hart Publishing ISBN
978-1-84113-413-0

[12] Smith, Craig S. (19 December 2006). Romanian Leader

Condemns Communist Rule. New York Times. Retrieved 12 September 2011.

Jones, Adam (2010) Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction Routledge ISBN 978-0-415-48618-7

[13] Boldur-Lescu pp22

[14] Deletant, Dennis (1995). Ceauescu and the Securitate:
coercion and dissent in Romania, 19651989. pp. 2933.
ISBN 978-1-56324-633-3.
[15] Gulag survivors demand trial of Kim Jong-il for crimes
against humanity. Asia News. 2 January 2010.

Totten, Samuel. Parsons, William S. Charny, Israel W. (2004) Century of genocide: critical essays and eyewitness accounts Routledge ISBN 9780-415-94430-4
Naimark, Norman M. {2010} Stalins genocides
Princeton University Press ISBN 978-0-691-147840

[16] Jones pp216

[17] Chan, Alfred L. (2001-06-07). Maos Crusade: Politics
and Policy Implementation in Chinas Great Leap Forward.
OUP Oxford. p. 13. ISBN 9780191554018.
[18] The Great Leap Forward - History Learning Site. History Learning Site. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
[19] Valentino, Benjamin A. (2005-12-08). Final Solutions:
Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century. Cornell
University Press. pp. 127132. ISBN 0801472733.
[20] A tragic episode of cannibalism during the famine of the
Great Leap Forward (Graphic Content)". China Underground. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
[21] Synopsis. www.frankdikotter.com. Retrieved 2016-0414.
[22] Diktter, Frank (2010-10-01). Maos Great Famine: The
History of Chinas Most Devastating Catastrophe, 19581962. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 88. ISBN
9780802779281.

Bibliography
Kemp-Welch A. Poland under Communism: a
Cold War history Cambridge University Press 2008.
ISBN 978-0-521-71117-3
Roseelde, Steven. Red Holocaust Routledge 2009.
ISBN 978-0-415-77757-5

8 External links
The Global Museum on Communism

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1

Text

Crimes against humanity under Communist regimes Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_against_humanity_under_

Communist_regimes?oldid=723957363 Contributors: Bearcat, Woohookitty, Noetica, Rjwilmsi, GnniX, Reo On, Anetode, Emijrp, Petri
Krohn, Anonimu, SmackBot, Gamnamu, Chris the speller, Smallbones, Ohconfucius, Collect, Venona, Ntsimp, Martin Hogbin, Headbomb, Fsol, Alexb102072, Nug, The Four Deuces, Jarble, Paul Siebert, AnomieBOT, I dream of horses, RjwilmsiBot, John of Reading,
Dewritech, Ejensyd, Helpful Pixie Bot, The Last Angry Man, Darkness Shines, Abezgauz, Pterosaur10, CsDix, Prinsgezinde, Loganallen97
and Anonymous: 7

9.2

Images

File:Marx_Engels_Lenin.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Marx_Engels_Lenin.svg License: CC

BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Jgaray
File:Merge-arrow.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Merge-arrow.svg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Red_Guards.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Red_Guards.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Scan of cover of non-copyright elementary school textbook from Guangxi 1971 Original artist: Villa Giulia

9.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0