Examples of dictators that were/are comparable or worse than the Nazis

[Tooting Carmen]

One of the unquestioned received opinions of our age is that the Nazis were a uniquely evil regime, either because of the number of people they killed or because of their beliefs/ideology. Yet is this true? Here is a list of dictators and regimes that, imo, were at least in relative if not in real terms as bad if not worse than the Nazis. N.B. They appear in no particular order.

(1) Soviet Union (especially but by no means exclusively under Josef Stalin)

Estimated to have killed between 15-30 million people, due to a mixture of man-made famines, executions and purges. While most of the worst atrocities occurred under Stalin, there were plenty of others that occurred under the other Soviet leaders too. As for their beliefs/ideology: is discriminating against and killing people for their social class really less reprehensible than doing so because of their ethnicity?

(2) Maoist China

Estimated to have killed between 50-100 million people, again due to a mixture of man-made famines, executions and purges. It was as class-obsessed and totalitarian as the Soviet Union; the main difference is they focused more on collective farms and countryside rather than collective factories and cities.

(3) Khmer Rouge

A much more extreme and insane version of Maoist China (if that is even possible!) Estimated to have killed between 1.5-3 million people through disease, starvation and execution, akin to around one quarter of Cambodia's population. Anyone who wasn't ethnically Khmer, had money or even wore glasses was in danger. They also threatened and attacked neighbouring countries, eventually triggering the Vietnamese to invade and overthrow them.

(4) North Korea

A hermit state where the various Kims who have ruled it live lives of exceptional luxury while the people starve. Anyone (except probably the very well-connected) caught in possession of a foreign film or TV programme is automatically imprisoned or killed. The gulags there are estimated to have at least 100,000 inmates, and there are regular reports of people being tortured, raped, beaten and starved (and those are just the ones who survive!)

(5) Suharto's Indonesia

Came into power due to a mixture of Islamists and Capitalists (who said God and Mammon don't mix?) The CIA in particular assisted the initial coup, where between 500,000 and 1 million real or suspected Communists were killed. Furthermore, ten years later the invasion of East Timor, just weeks after gaining independence from Portugal, killed a similar number of people. Its radical right-wing programme of mass privatisations and welfare cutbacks benefited the Indonesian elite, but not really the masses.

(6) Mengistu's Ethiopia

Came into power due to a Soviet and Cuban-backed coup that overthrew the Emperor Haile Salassie. They directly murdered at least 100,000 people, and also to a considerable extent engineered the 1980's famines in order to eliminate dissident ethnic and political groups.

(7) Idi Amin's Uganda

Came into power due to a British-backed coup that overthrew the left-leaning Milton Obote. Yet ironically, after initially appearing to be friendly towards Western Capitalists (especially the British, of course), he then out of a whim expelled the South Asian population, turning the West against him and tilting him towards the USSR and Libya instead. Was extremely corrupt and lawless, and is estimated to have killed at least 100,000 people due to ethnicity, tribe or political beliefs. He also threatened neighbouring Kenya and Tanzania, triggering the latter to invade Uganda and finally overthrow him.

(8) Macias Nguema's Equatorial Guinea

A surprisingly little-known regime in the (nowadays) oil-rich West African nation. He came into power just after the country gained independence from Spain, winning the country's first and only free election. Essentially an African version of the Khmer Rouge, where around 30% of the population was killed or exiled, and where foreigners and intellectuals were killed or deported.

(9) Guatemala under its military regimes

Between 1954 and 1985, Guatemala mostly was ruled by military dictatorships, but they were all to varying degrees characterised by racism, repression, mass killings and (most notably) they were the first Latin American regime to regularly use forced disappearances against opponents. The military leaders between them possibly killed 150,000 people, although the most notorious of all were arguably Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia and Efrain Rios Montt.

(10) Pinochet's Chile

Perhaps a more controversial choice than most other regimes listed, given that not that many people were killed (around 3000). However, it was said to be rivalled only by the Khmer Rouge in having the world's worst record for torture at the time, pioneering such methods as placing electrodes on men's testicles and shoving rats up women's vaginas, hence why he perhaps deserves to be on this list. Came into power due to a CIA-backed coup that overthrew democratically-elected Socialist Salvador Allende, totally reversing his policies and replacing them with a radical right-wing programme similar to Suharto's Indonesia. (See above).

(11) Taliban

Imposed a totalitarian Islamist regime where women were essentially kept as prisoners in their own homes, women's education and work were banned and, inasmuch as they could venture out in public at all, they had to be accompanied by a male guardian and wear a burqa. Even kite-flying was banned, let alone other minor pleasures. Executions were usually carried out in public and were imposed for the most minor of crimes and infringements. Also believed to have housed Al-Qaida and other similar militant groups.

(12) Saddam's Iraq

Killed at least 100,000 people in Iraq itself due to ethnic, religious or political reasons. Many more were jailed or exiled. It also threatened and invaded neighbouring countries such as Iran and Kuwait, and sent scud missiles to Israel.

(13) Saudi Arabia

Financed the Taliban into coming into power, allegedly finance ISIS, and their own regime isn't that much more moderate and liberal than the Taliban (although there are some reforms coming in - women are now allowed to drive!) Finances the promotion of Wahhabism around the world through mosques, imams and literature, which is the ideology that has spawned Al'Qaida, ISIS etc.

[Longbowman]

How are you not mentioning the Empire of Japan?

Anyhow, one or two of these were comparably awful (USSR, Khmer Rouge, Mao) but I don't think the Taliban even qualify as close to as bad. The Taliban were ultimately Afghan Islamist Nationalists who, yes, installed a regime I'd never want to live in, and, yes, deposed braver men like Ahmad Shah Massoud, but ultimately their repression isn't the same as the gulag system.

[Tooting Carmen]

How are you not mentioning the Empire of Japan?

Anyhow, one or two of these were comparably awful (USSR, Khmer Rouge, Mao) but I don't think the Taliban even qualify as close to as bad. The Taliban were ultimately Afghan Islamist Nationalists who, yes, installed a regime I'd never want to live in, and, yes, deposed braver men like Ahmad Shah Massoud, but ultimately their repression isn't the same as the gulag system.

If you are an Afghan woman or non-believer, I doubt you'd regard the Taliban as more humane and tolerant than the Nazis or Communists. And as far as empires are concerned, the Japanese were not really any worse than the various European empires, and only hypocrisy convinces us otherwise.

[Longbowman]

If you are an Afghan woman or non-believer, I doubt you'd regard the Taliban as more humane and tolerant than the Nazis or Communists. And as far as empires are concerned, the Japanese were not really any worse than the various European empires, and only hypocrisy convinces us otherwise.

If I personally got beaten to death by your brother, I'd probably personally dislike him more than I do Mullah Omar, but I wasn't. The Taliban didn't effect mass torture, rape, cannibalism (Japan), concentration camps (USSR, Germany), medical experimentations - they were equal opportunity Islamists who simply enforced their law.

Try this out.

You're half-Jewish and half-Chinese. Want to stay alive?

Nazi Germany: Run or you're going to a camp to be worked to death/gassed and possibly experimented on
Empire of Japan: Run or you're going to get killed/raped then killed and/or possibly experimented on or eaten
Afghanistan under the Taliban: Adhere to Islam

Pretending the Japanese conduct during WW2 where in a few years they killed over 20 million Chinese citizens amongst many others is comparable to any Western activity, but particularly any CONTEMPORARY western activity, is apologist delusion. Clearly you haven't studied any of the relevant historical periods.

[Tooting Carmen]

If I personally got beaten to death by your brother, I'd probably personally dislike him more than I do Mullah Omar, but I wasn't. The Taliban didn't effect mass torture, rape, cannibalism (Japan), concentration camps (USSR, Germany), medical experimentations - they were equal opportunity Islamists who simply enforced their law.

Try this out.

You're half-Jewish and half-Chinese. Want to stay alive?

Nazi Germany: Run or you're going to a camp to be worked to death/gassed and possibly experimented on
Empire of Japan: Run or you're going to get killed/raped then killed and/or possibly experimented on or eaten
Afghanistan under the Taliban: Adhere to Islam

Pretending the Japanese conduct during WW2 where in a few years they killed over 20 million Chinese citizens amongst many others is comparable to any Western activity, but particularly any CONTEMPORARY western activity, is apologist delusion. Clearly you haven't studied any of the relevant historical periods.

Bengal famine; massacres of Punjabis, Mau Mau and Malays; extermination, genocide and subjugation of indigenous groups in the Americas and Oceania; Algerian War of Independence; King Leopold's rape of Congo; mass enslavement of Blacks...

And btw, the Taliban were notorious for torture and mass executions, and possibly raped 'fallen' women too.

[Longbowman]

Bengal famine; massacres of Punjabis, Mau Mau and Malays; extermination, genocide and subjugation of indigenous groups in the Americas and Oceania; Algerian War of Independence; King Leopold's rape of Congo; mass enslavement of Blacks...

The Belgian Congo, I grant you, was in Japan's league, but it was atypical, and when it was discovered there was uproar in the West.

Comparing famines (which happened all the time) and the massacres of...Malays? when? You mean that one village where two dozen people died? to the deliberate policy of mass rape and extermination that claimed over 20 million is disingenuous and verging on dishonest. Compare:

Malaysia: historically pro-British to the point my grandfather, amongst many others, served in their country on their government's request to combat ethnic Chinese communist insurgents - three times. Strong links to the UK and the British military, even today.

China: hates Japan and vice versa.

Even in the one example of British soldiers (a single platoon!) actually killing civilians, they spared the women and children...

And btw, the Taliban were notorious for torture and mass executions, and possibly raped 'fallen' women too.

'Possibly' and mass executions numbering in the scores, not the thousands, like Baba Yar.

[Sokoli]

No one kills his own people. It makes no sense. Neither Hitler did kill Germans.
These are absurdities spread by the west, and as Voltaire said "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

[Dandelion]

Not the Belgian Congo, but Congo Free State. While it is true that the economic exploitation and forced labour never truly ceased until 1960, all of the brutality that shocked the world happened during the Free State Period (1885–1908) when it was owned by Leopold II and not by the Belgian State.

However, mostly Belgians were responsible anyway (the Force Publique leadership consisted for 2/3th of Belgians). I guess it's a distinction without a difference, except that there were far fewer Belgians there at the time.

[Longbowman]

It took 7 posts for a retard to show up. 6 posts in a row without an idiotic comment. Not bad going in TA.

Rwandan genocide deniers are weird.

[Tooting Carmen]

The Belgian Congo, I grant you, was in Japan's league, but it was atypical, and when it was discovered there was uproar in the West.

Comparing famines (which happened all the time) and the massacres of...Malays? when? You mean that one village where two dozen people died? to the deliberate policy of mass rape and extermination that claimed over 20 million is disingenuous and verging on dishonest. Compare:

Malaysia: historically pro-British to the point my grandfather, amongst many others, served in their country on their government's request to combat ethnic Chinese communist insurgents - three times. Strong links to the UK and the British military, even today.

China: hates Japan and vice versa.

Even in the one example of British soldiers (a single platoon!) actually killing civilians, they spared the women and children...



'Possibly' and mass executions numbering in the scores, not the thousands, like Baba Yar.

The Bengal famine (much like the Irish potato famine before it, for that matter) was at least in part engineered by the British in order to gain access to the local crop (in this case, rice), regardless of the fact it meant many people could not feed themselves in the process. And the slave trade, along with the exterminations of Native Americans and Tasman islanders between them killed many millions. (And even those who weren't killed were still heavily subjugated and repressed).