Anti-Communism and the Hundreds of Millions of Victims of Capitalism

Figures & data

Table 1. War deaths attributable to capitalism, 1914–1945 (some of the wars are ongoing).

War	Dates	Maximum Reported	Geometric Mean*
World War I^a	1914–1918	30,000,000	23,568,559
Russian Civil War^a	1917–1922	9,000,000	6,708,204
Iraqi–Kurdish Conflict	1918+^b	320,100	210,784
Kurdish Rebellions in Turkey	1921+^b	100,000	100,000
Second Italo-Senussi War	1923–1932	40,000	40,000
Chaco War	1932–1935	130,000	100,000
Second Italo-Ethiopian War	1935–1936	278,350	278,350
Spanish Civil War	1936–1939	1,000,000	707,107
World War II	1939–1945	85,000,000	69,069,811
Totals		125,868,450	100,782,815
of which involving liberal democracies^a		39,000,000	30,276,763

^a Caused by or otherwise with direct involvement of liberal democracies.

^b Ongoing conflict.

*The geometric mean is an average used to make different data sets more comparable, in this case because of wide-ranging estimates per conflict. The geometric mean resembles the more widely used arithmetic average, except that values are multiplied instead of added and the root of the resulting product is taken according to the total number of cases.

Table 2. War deaths attributable to capitalism, 1945–1992 (many of the wars extend beyond 1992).

War	Dates	Maximum Reported	Geometric Mean
First “Indochina War”^a	1946–1954	400,000	400,000
Greek Civil War^a	1946–1949	158,000	158,000
Partition of India	1946–1947	1,500,000	464,398^b
Malagasy Uprising^a	1947–1948	89,000	35,000
Kashmir Conflict^a	1947+^c	110,000	93,808
La Violencia (Colombia)^a	1948–1958	194,700	193,697
Internal Conflicts in Myanmar	1948+^c	250,000	180,278
Arab–Israeli Wars	1948+^c	116,074	116,074
Indian Annexation of Hyderabad^a	1948	242,212	84,116
Jeju Massacre	1948–1949	30,000	30,000
Korean War^a	1950–1953	4,500,000	3,000,000
Algerian War^a	1954–1962	1,500,000	724,569
Nagaland Conflict^a	1954+^c	34,000	34,000
US War on Vietnam^a	1955–1975	4,300,000	3,144,837
First Sudanese Civil War	1955–1972	500,000	500,000
Congo Crisis^a	1960–1965	100,000	100,000
Guatemala Genocide^a	1960+^d	200,000	200,000
Angolan War of Independence	1961–1974	102,991	92,452
North Yemen Civil War	1962–1970	200,000	141,421
Mozambican Independence War	1964–1974	88,500	74,965
Insurgency in Northeast India^a	1964+^c	25,000	25,000
Colombian Civil War^a	1964+^c	220,000	220,000
Indonesian Genocide^a	1965–1966	1,000,000	1,000,000
Nigerian Civil War	1967–1970	3,000,000	1,732,051
Moro Conflict	1969+^d	120,000	120,000
Bangladesh Liberation War	1971	3,000,000	3,000,000
Ethiopian Civil War	1974–1991	1,500,000	866,025
East Timor Genocide	1975+^d	300,000	212,132
Angolan Civil War	1975+^d	504,158	504,158
Lebanese Civil War^a	1975–1990	150,000	134,164
Insurgency in Laos^a	1975+^d	100,000	100,000
Iran–Iraq War	1980–1988	1,100,000	564,041
Ugandan War	1981–1986	500,000	223,607
Second Sudanese Civil War	1983+^d	2,000,000	1,414,214
Sri Lankan Civil War	1983+^d	100,000	89,443
Somali Civil War	1986+^c	500,000	387,298
Lord’s Resistance Army War	1987+^c	500,000	223,607
Nagorno-Karabakh War^a	1988+^d	38,000	38,000
US War on Iraq (First Gulf War)^a	1990–1991	40,456	32,091
Algerian Civil War	1991+^d	200,000	93,808
Bosnian War^a	1991–1995	104,732	100,903
1991 Iraqi Coup Attempt^a	1991	235,000	141,333
Wars with 1000–25,000 deaths	multiple	146,902	146,902
Totals		31,999,725	22,246,796
of which involving liberal democracies^a		15,241,100	10,825,543

^a Caused by or otherwise with direct involvement of liberal democracies.

^b Calculated from estimates reported in Brass (2003, 75; fn 7) and in “Partition of India” Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Independence,_population_transfer,_and_violence; accessed 27 December 2020).

^c Ongoing conflict.

^d Official conclusions to the conflicts extend beyond 1992. They date to 1996 for the Guatemala Genocide, 2019 for the Moro Conflict; 1999 for the East Timor Genocide; 2002 for the Angolan Civil War; 2007 for the Insurgency in Laos; 2005 for the Sudanese Civil War; 2009 for the Sri Lankan Civil War; 1994 for the Nagorno-Karabakh War (resumed and ended in 2020); 2002 for the Algerian Civil War.

Table 3. All war deaths attributable to alleged “communism” (several of the conflicts are ongoing).

War	Date	Maximum Reported	Geometric Mean
Hungarian Revolt	1956	3,722	3,722
Cuban Revolution	1959	5,000	5,000
Naxalite-Maoist insurgency	1967+^a	13,812	13,812
Colombian conflict	1964+^a	220,000	220,000
CPP-NPA-NDF rebellion	1969+^a	43,000	35,917
Ethiopian Civil War	1974–1991	1,500,000	866,025
Cambodia Genocide	1975–1979	3,000,000	3,000,000
Angolan Civil War	1975–2002	504,158	504,158
Kurdish–Turkish conflict	1978+^a	45,000	45,000
Soviet–Afghan War	1979–1989	2,000,000	1,095,445
Internal Conflict in Peru	1980+^a	70,000	70,000
Xinjiang Conflict	1960+^a	1,000	1,000
Totals		7,405,692	5,935,044

^a Ongoing conflict.

Table 4. Comparison of war-related deaths between capitalism, its liberal democratic variant, and alleged “communism,” 1914–2020.

System	Dates	Years	Maximum Reported	Geometric Mean	War Deaths per Year
					Maximum Reported	Geometric Mean
Capitalism	1914–1992	78	157,868,175	123,029,611	2,023,951	1,577,303
of which involving liberal democracies			54,241,100	30,276,763	500,000	388,164
“Communism”	1914–1992	78	7,405,692	5,935,044	94,945	76,090
Capitalism	1992–2020	28	11,282,808	8,002,219	402,957	285,794
of which involving liberal democracies			2,032,603	1,029,372	169,384	85,781

Table 5. War deaths attributable to capitalism since 1992.

War	Dates	Maximum Reported	Geometric mean
Sierra Leone Civil War	1991–2002	300,000	122,474
Burundian Civil War	1993–2005	300,000	300,000
Rwandan Genocide	1994	800,000	800,000
First Congo War	1996–1997	800,000	447,214
Second Congo War	1998–2003	5,400,000	3,674,235
Ituri Conflicts	1999–2003	60,000	60,000
US/NATO Terror War^a	2001+^b	1,260,000	585,423
US War on Afghanistan^a	2001+^b	61,603	53,949
US War on Iraq^a	2003–2011	461,000	190,000
Darfur War	2003+^b	300,000	300,000
Kivu Conflicts	2004+^b	100,000	100,000
War in NW Pakistan	2004–2017	78,946	60,165
México “Drug War”^a	2006+^b	250,000	200,000
Boko Haram Insurgency	2009+^b	51,567	51,567
Syrian Civil War	2011+^b	570,000	570,000
Iraqi Civil War	2014–2017	200,000	197,500
Yemeni Civil War	2015+^b	91,600	91,600
Wars with 1000–25,000 deaths	multiple	198,092	198,092
Total since 1992		11,282,808	8,002,219
of which involving liberal democracies^a		2,032,603	1,029,372

^a Caused by or otherwise with direct involvement of liberal democracies.

^b Ongoing conflict.

Brass, Paul R. 2003. “The Partition of India and Retributive Genocide in the Punjab, 1946–47: Means, Methods, and Purposes 1.” Journal of Genocide Research 5 (1): 71–101.

 Google Scholar