[geofft]

"Whataboutism" is absolutely relevant, though. In order for the idea of mass killings under communism to be an intellectually honest one, the mass killings have to be at least correlated with communism, if not caused by it. If there's one other ideology that's committed atrocities, sure, I understand that that doesn't absolve communism. But if every ideology has, saying "We're only talking about this one" is actively misleading.

And the very article you link to acknowledges that, by comparing killings under communist regimes to killings under the Inquisition, to the Holocaust, and so forth, and by comparing deaths under famine in Communist countries to deaths under famine in the British empire.

Otherwise you might as well say "Look at this list of atrocities committed by men, I'm aware that women have committed atrocities too but that's not what we're discussing in this thread."

[narag]

In order for the idea of mass killings under communism to be an intellectually honest one, the mass killings have to be at least correlated with communism, if not caused by it.

Mass killings under communism is not an idea, it's a fact, isn't it?

Was it caused by communism in general or some persons in particular is debatable.

[geofft]

Yeah, I was a bit sloppy in my wording. The deaths are a fact; I am referring to the idea that "mass killings under communism" / "mass killings under communist regimes" is an appropriate descriptor - as well as the idea that "killings" is an appropriate descriptor for deaths from famine / poverty. (And yes, both of these are debatable ideas.)

[candiodari]

Mass killings are caused - in almost all cases in history - by disastrous economic performance preceeding them, and yes, including the Holocaust. But of course there are many cases, mostly further back, where economic disaster was caused by climate change or just a real natural disaster.

In many cases in the 20th century (arguably including that one) disastrous economic performance was caused by incompetent and corrupt central control of the economy, and then that caused massacres, essentially from Western Europe Eastward all the way the the pacific coast.

Say, what was the basic idea behind communism again ? Yeah I'm sure that version 2.0 will "skip" the incompetent and corrupt parts. Right. Otherwise it's not real communism.

Arguably corrupt and incompetent leadership is a fact of life and is the very core of what distinguishes theory from practice.