HKG3

I think morpeth is talking about the scale of things.

I hope Novocastrian is not suggesting that any event without European death is less important.

morpeth

The estimates I don't think have been as well researched as the Holocaust, and a lot depends on methodology employed, but a quick search showed following estimates.

After the release of Mao the Unknown Story, Rummel became convinced that the Chinese government was directly responsible for the famine, thus increasing his original estimate by 38,000,000 (Rummel 2005). 1,000 R.J. Rummel originally estimated China's body count between between the years of 1949-1987 to be 35,236,000 (Rummel 1994). This excluded 38,000,000 million that died of famine during the Great Leap Forward.
Land reform and the suppression of counterrevolutionaries
The first large-scale killings under Mao took place during land reform and the counterrevolutionary campaign. In official study materials published in 1948, Mao envisaged that "one-tenth of the peasants" (or about 50,000,000) "would have to be destroyed" to facilitate agrarian reform.[108] Actual numbers killed in land reform are believed to have been lower, but at least one million.[107][109]The suppression of counterrevolutionaries targeted mainly former Kuomintang officials and intellectuals suspected of disloyalty.[110] At least 712,000 people were executed, 1,290,000 were imprisoned in labor camps and 1,200,000 were "subject to control at various times."[111]
The Great Leap Forward
Benjamin Valentino says that the Great Leap Forward was a cause of the Great Chinese Famine and ………[112][112] In Mao's Great Famine, historian Frank Dikötter writes that "coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the very foundation of the Great Leap Forward" and it "motivated one of the most deadly mass killings of human history."[113] His research in local and provincial Chinese archives indicates the death toll was at least 45 million, and that "In most cases the party knew very well that it was starving its own people to death……..[114] Dikötter estimates that at least 2.5 million people were summarily killed or tortured to death during this period.[115]
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Sinologists Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals estimate that between 750,000 and 1.5 million people were killed in the violence of the Cultural Revolution, in rural China alone.[116] Mao's Red Guards were given carte blanche to abuse and kill the revolution's enemies.[117] For example, in August 1966, over 100 teachers were murdered by their students in western Beijing alone

morpeth

Yes I was talking about the scale, and I think Novocastrian simply pointing out that my post could have been taken to refer to Chinese dying in the Holocaust - I should have said more Chinese were killed under communism than Jews/Gypsies/Poles/Russians etc during the Holocaust

The main thrust of my comments were simply regardless of Putin's actions we may condemn, strategically my opinion is the US and the UK may have to consider the merits of closer relations with Russia, just as Nixon and Kissinger opened up relations with China notwithstanding China's own track record in killings and human rights abuses.

Novocastrian

My was directed not at your statistics but at your deplorable syntax.

No Chinese people died in the Holocaust as far as I or the history books are aware. Muddled grammar implies muddled thinking, such as that which might lead some to the idea that Putin isn't too bad or that Donald Trump is sane and a serious candidate to be be POTUS.

morpeth

Already stated I should have written the sentence better.

My point simple that the Chinese communist regime committed despicable acts yet Kissinger and Nixon saw it in the strategic interests of the US to open up and advance relations with China. I don't think it is muddled to consider whether it is in the long-term interests of the US and the UK to improve the relationship with Russia.

I am not a psychologist nor have studied psychology enough to determine whether Trump is sane. Perhaps unfairly, my impression is he may be suffering early signs of dementia.

scot47

Editha


I think I have read a great many more books than you. I suspect that you rely on "The Daily Express" for your information !




I will continue to campaign to have Mr Blair arraigned as a war criminal.

Editha

There is no need to be gratuitously insulting. I've never read the Daily Express in my life!

I'm not going to get into a competition with you about how many books we've read either.

Regardless of Blair's alleged war crimes, or China's track record on human rights, Putin is undoubtedly both a war criminal and a common or garden murderer. He also has designs on territory which is not only in Europe, but also protected by NATO. This makes his brinkmanship in Europe very dangerous for us all.

Novocastrian

Each of the regimes that you mention have committed despicable acts in the last 50 years.

Editha and scot47 are currently arguing about books.

Have you read 1984?

holly_1948

Well you sound an awful lot like The Daily Express for someone who doesn't read it!
Trump is indeed a loose cannon and there is no predicting what may happen if he takes power. Most likely he would be assassinated by the Deep State.
Clinton, on the other hand, is rather predictable with her "I came, I saw, they died" philosophy. With her in power it is near certain we will all die in a nuclear winter.

Editha

What exactly do you disagree with about what I'm saying? Because it isn't clear to me.

I was originally taking issue with the suggestion that we should pursue friendlier relations with Russia, because China is some kind of threat.

Russia does actually pose a very real threat to European security right now. This isn't some kind of right wing fantasy. To be unaware of it, you have to have not been reading the news, and I don't mean the tabloids.

Editha

For reading you could start with Edward Lucas's The New Cold War.

Lucas is a senior editor at the Economist, not a Daily Express reporter.

Luke Harding, a Guardian reporter, has a new book: A Very Expensive Poison.. I've not read it yet, but it has a good review in the Times Literary Supplement.

scot47

Putin, and the majority of the Russian people, is - quite rightly - suspicious of NATO which has been in an expansionist phase over the last 30 years.

Editha

I also recommend the works of the late Anna Politkovskaya. Like Litvinenko, she met the fate of so many of Putin's critics.

Editha

What exactly do you think Putin is suspicious of? NATO is a defensive pact. Be specific.

holly_1948

edited - on second thoughts I am getting too far off topic for the choice of forum