DEMOCIDE AND GENOCIDE:
One of the more interesting threads on H-Diplo that I was involved with was a debate with Tom Nichols and Judith Klinghoffer over whether Stalin’s use of Terror qualified as genocide. Class-based Communist terror, like Stalin’s De-Kulakization and Collectivization campaigns are not included under the Genocide Convention definition of genocide because in the aftermath of WWII Soviet diplomats were very well not going to agree to any language that implicated their supreme leader in the ultimate crime against humanity. Nevertheless, the convention represented a significant improvement over the international response to the Armenian Genocide after WWI when nothing much was done or even acknowledged. Hitler in fact, is known to have remarked ” Who remembers the Armenians ? ” which demonstrates the impact on future monsters when the internatational community fails to react to such atrocities.
All of this has been a preface to an interesting website on Democide by RJ Rummel. Check it out.
