The megadeaths of Liberalism

[dennisr]

The AWL of all people did a great series in their mag Workers Liberty on this (well on Indonesian Communism,) about 10 years ago.

The CWi publication was not bad: http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/Indonesia/00.html ( indonesia - an unfinished revolution )

"The CIA, not known as a humanitarian organisation, itself wrote, "In terms of the numbers killed, the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the twentieth century".
Within four months between half a million and a million people, the cream of the working class, the best and brightest of Indonesian society, were slaughtered. The culmination of the PKI's two-stage theory of revolution was vicious counter-revolution with no stages! But what was most incredible about the whole situation was that the PKI, the third largest Communist Party in the world, with 20 million supporters, was wiped out virtually without resistance."

 

[butchersapron]

The CWi publication was not bad: http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/Indonesia/00.html ( indonesia - an unfinished revolution )

Cheers, will give that a read. Amazing just how little of this appears in western left-wing popular imagination - given how astonishing what happened (and not just the massacre) was.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Al-Jaz docu about a docu on the slaughter of Indonesian communists says up to 3 million killed.

Sorry for the megabump but the documentary featured there is now online here with english subs, I'm gonna watch it tonight: http://www.movshare.net/video/d512eccc607f3

 

[butchersapron]

Fair few here. Go through the whole 86 of them.

Have a read of this excellent review article too.

 

[Idris2002]

I missed this one. . . when did the BB of Communism cite Nazis?

 

[yield]

How British colonialism killed 100 million Indians in 40 years
aljazeera Opinions. 2 Dec 2022

This system drained India of goods worth trillions of dollars in today’s money. The British were merciless in imposing the drain, forcing India to export food even when drought or floods threatened local food security. Historians have established that tens of millions of Indians died of starvation during several considerable policy-induced famines in the late 19th century, as their resources were syphoned off to Britain and its settler colonies.

Colonial administrators were fully aware of the consequences of their policies. They watched as millions starved and yet they did not change course. They continued to knowingly deprive people of resources necessary for survival. The extraordinary mortality crisis of the late Victorian period was no accident. The historian Mike Davis argues that Britain’s imperial policies “were often the exact moral equivalents of bombs dropped from 18,000 feet.”

Our research finds that Britain’s exploitative policies were associated with approximately 100 million excess deaths during the 1881-1920 period.

 

[CNT36]

I read that article the other day . They seemed to take an arbitrary year to mean normal rather than taking a longer view to compare with the time under imperialism. I haven't read the original research though so perhaps it's explained. It will still be a sickeningly high number.