The Top 10 Modern Despots | ||||||
Rank | Despot Name | Position | Country | Period of regime | Deaths | Source |
1 | Mao Zedong | Chairman of the Communist Party of China | China | 1945 – 1976 | 44.5 to 72M | The Black Book of Communism – Stephane Courtois |
2 | Adolph Hitler | Fuhrer and Chancellor of Germany | Germany | 1934 – 1945 | 25 M | The Black Book of Communism – Stephane Courtois |
3 | Joseph Stalin | Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR | Soviet Union | 1946 – 1953 | 20 M | Stalin: Breaker of Nations – Robert Conquest |
4 | Vladimir Lenin | Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars | Soviet Union | 1917 – 1924 | 9 M | The Unknown Lenin -Richard Pipes |
5 | Mengistu Haile Mariam | President | Ethiopia | 1987 – 1991 | 1.2 M to 2 M | Revolution and Genocide in Ethiopia and Cambodia – Edward Kissi |
6 | Pol Pot | Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) | Cambodia | 1975 – 1979 | 1.5 Mil | The Pol Pot Regime – Ben Kiernan |
7 | Kim Il Sung | President of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea | North Korea | 1972 – 1994 | 600,000 to 1 Mil | Washington post.com |
8 | Idi Amin | President | Uganda | 1971 – 1979 | 300000 | MSN Encarta |
9 | Slobodan Milosevic | President | Serbia | 1989 – 1997 | 230000 | Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia – Louis Sell |
10 | Francisco Macias Nguema | President | Equatorial Guinea | 1969-1979 | 50,000 to 80,000 | Twentieth Century Atlas |
** The above list speaks about “modern despots” in living memory from 1900 onwards.
** Rankings are based on the number of killings (non-combatent deaths by decree or direct or indirect results of actions or policies of the despot during their regime).
1. For Mao Zedong, Twentieth Century Atlas quotes references from about 14 sources with varying figures, the median however is in the range of 45.75 to 52.5 million people killed.
2.The Black Book of Communism by Stephane Courtois is a saga about a history of repressions, both political and civilian, by Communist states, including extrajudicial executions, deportations, and artificial famines.The book also compares Communism and Nazism.
3. Robert Conquest is one of the better known authors on Russian history, specifically on the rule of Stalin and the Communist era.
4. Richard Edgar Pipes is an American scholar specializing in Russian history. A Professor of History, Emeritus, at Harvard University, Pipes was also the Director of Eastern European and Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council in 1981-82.
5. Revolution and Genocide in Ethiopia and Cambodia is the first comparative study of the Ethiopian and Cambodian revolutions of the early 1970s. One of the few comparative studies of genocide in the Third World, this book presents the positions of traditional genocide scholars.
6. Benedict F. Kiernan is the Whitney Griswold Professor of History, Professor of International and Area Studies and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University. The book is about How Pol Pot Came to Power, begins with the DPK takeover following the fall of the Lon Nol government. The book provides a detail account on systematic study of the Pol Pot regime.
9. Louis Sell offers an insider’s account on the life and times of Slobodan Milosevic, by covering both the domestic Yugoslav side of the collapse and the international interventions in the ensuing Balkan wars.
10. Twentieth Century Atlas gives an account of death tolls and casualty statistics for wars, dictatorships and genocides.
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