<< I'm not denying that 5 million would be horrible. It would be. But it would also be different, in that it would suggest a fundamentally different conception of Stalin's regime as one that killed periodically, instead of one that used mass murder routinely and comprehensively in order to create an atmosphere of fear in its subject population - the essence of what totalitarianism is.>>
I don't know how you get that. Five million people IS "mass murder" used "routinely and comprehensively." What else could it possibly be? If I were arguing that it Stalin killed "only" 500,000, maybe. But five million is still unimaginably horrible. What difference does it make if it was 5 or 20? Can any of us comprehend what all that suffering really was like? In any case, my point is that arguing for a lesser number (as long as one really is not trying to substitute something absurdly low for tendentious purposes) is not and should not be considered politically motivated. It is possible to be objective about this. It is also possible to be wrong (in either direction). It isn't the number that is important. What is important is remembering that millions of people died in the Soviet Union for ideological purposes. Millions more died in China (and, if you consider the Taiping Rebellion of the 1860s, many many millions died back then). I tend to argue that the Holocaust was worse, because the Nazis really were concentrating primarily on a single, innocent group and went to unbelievable efforts to eradicate them; Stalin's violence, although equally horrible, was more diffuse, though no less awful for the people who suffered. If anyone wants to argue that I'm being a bit parochial, I can only plead nolo contendere in this case, or maybe even guilty. I'm Jewish, so it's only natural for me to consider Hitler worse than Stalin. Even someone who isn't Jewish can make a fair case for this, after all. Tom Beck "I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I didn't realize I'd also see the last." - Jerry Pournelle
