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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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On October 16 2026 04:06 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 03:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 16 2026 03:28 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. + Show Spoiler +World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII.
or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway. We have a winner. You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism. Result: It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer. Any more questions, Geiko, bomsterjohn, DarkPlasmaBall? I don't know enough about the topic in general, but why don't you engage with LightSpectra's answer? LS attempted to justify an "it depends" response with some key events and relevant numbers; if you disagree so vehemently with LS, it would make sense to dispute LS's rebuttal. What is LS not considering in the evaluation of your original statement? Since the question was given that some right-wing people will argue with you on Naziism's right-wing ideology, I think including one that left-wing people will argue with you about is absolutely appropriate. If they could admit to some best-estimate or point to the clear winner and give a range, I think they would have by now, but I will accept late answers. I don't think the cognitive dissonance between "acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" is a super common thing" and "It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer" can stay forever.
Sorry, but you never made the argument that left wing people pretend that communists are not left leaning. I was pointing out how a significant percentage of people on the right won’t even acknowledge that Nazi was a right wing ideology. You made some strawman that was slightly related that also wasn’t true.
And for what purpose would a center left person strawman my argument? We may never know.
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You did make it up, since I explicitly did not include the USSR among fascist states. You've reached the "just outright lying" stage of nonsense, I recommend taking a break from the Internet.
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On October 16 2026 03:50 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 02:58 r00ty wrote:On October 16 2026 02:31 LightSpectra wrote:
The Telegraph is reporting that the Houthis are 'days' from taking Taiz city. Presumably they'll be able to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait at that point, which chokes all of the maritime traffic going through the Suez, no?
Does anyone have a source to read up on or good reason on why the US under Trump is not supporting the Saudis with air strikes anymore? That's the least they could do and had been standard procedure. I've been wondering for weeks. Also regarding the rulers relationship with Trump and family. Is the supply chain really that strained already? That surely can't be. Do they want to keep the oil price as high as possible? I don't really get it. Anyway, so far it seems the Saudis alone with all their fancy equipment, but questionable morale might not be able to hold against battle-hardened fanatics with third hand equipment in sandals. The US, despite starting the war against Iran was not ready for war with Iran. Expensive planes got destroyed by drones on their airfields, bases in the region that normally supply the army have been heavily damaged. Logistics are disrupted to the point where carrier groups cannot be kept supplied. The US was, maybe still is, actually planning to abandon all its bases in the region and retreat to a single base within Israel. Because it can't defend anything from Iranian drones. Tons of expensive munition was wasted on target lists generated by Grok rather then military intelligence. Yes Trump has had to stop attacks because the US was running out of ordinance, at least locally. Patriot batteries were diverted from Korea to the Arabian peninsula in a completely useless effort to stop drone swarms. You say surely the US can't be that strained. And normally you would be right. But the current US administration really is this incompetent. They are this stupid. And no they don't want to keep the oil price high, in fact Trump is desperate to bring the oil price down because it will single handily cause a crushing loss for the Republicans in the upcoming midterms. All because Trump went to war with Iran because Netanyahu told him to.
Thanks. I tackle this from a standpoint of believing they can't be that stupid and hoping some form of competence is left amongst the top brass that has anything to say.
My honest opinion was always that a ground invasion of Iran is impossible. The Venezula style beheading operation was too cocky as they have been preparing for 40 years and had succession ready. After that failed it could only be a disaster.
Remember when they shipped an additional 18000 troops for nothing, laughable, Iran has a million the least.
It's still hard to believe. Unfortunately US voters and politicians don't really question enough where all that money for the military is going.
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Oh yay, we are discussing nazis again. Rivetting.
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On October 16 2026 04:20 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 04:06 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 16 2026 03:28 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. + Show Spoiler +World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII.
or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway. We have a winner. You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism. Result: It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer. Any more questions, Geiko, bomsterjohn, DarkPlasmaBall? I don't know enough about the topic in general, but why don't you engage with LightSpectra's answer? LS attempted to justify an "it depends" response with some key events and relevant numbers; if you disagree so vehemently with LS, it would make sense to dispute LS's rebuttal. What is LS not considering in the evaluation of your original statement? Since the question was given that some right-wing people will argue with you on Naziism's right-wing ideology, I think including one that left-wing people will argue with you about is absolutely appropriate. If they could admit to some best-estimate or point to the clear winner and give a range, I think they would have by now, but I will accept late answers. I don't think the cognitive dissonance between "acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" is a super common thing" and "It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer" can stay forever. Sorry, but you never made the argument that left wing people pretend that communists are not left leaning. I was pointing out how a significant percentage of people on the right won’t even acknowledge that Nazi was a right wing ideology. You made some strawman that was slightly related that also wasn’t true. And for what purpose would a center left person strawman my argument? We may never know. I don't see how you can arrive at "significant percentage," but maybe there exist polls I haven't seen yet. I'd say just the right-wing-fringe of MAGA and some alt-right types would believe it. But, if we're using a very expansive definition of significant in "significant percentage won't even acknowledge" then I'll use the same on the left-wing dissembling instead of recognizing that Communist Russia and China killed more people than Naziism even did, and the number isn't even close. I would like to thank the examples in this thread, both of the refuse to answer and dissembling type, for making the point. This is purely coming from an observational standpoint of the most glaring things that each wing refuses to recognize.+ Show Spoiler +For American right-wingers, I'd add the 2020 election was not stolen.
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I asked Claude and he said that generally deaths due to far left regimes were considered higher than deaths due to fascist regimes in the 20th century. He also said it depends how you count ww2 deaths and whether you include famines or not.
I asked him if the nazi party was left wing and he said no.
So I think one side has more of a leg to stand on than the other.
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On October 16 2026 05:12 Geiko wrote:
I asked Claude and he said that generally deaths due to far left regimes were considered higher than deaths due to fascist regimes in the 20th century. He also said it depends how you count ww2 deaths and whether you include famines or not.
I asked him if the nazi party was left wing and he said no.
So I think one side has more of a leg to stand on than the other.
Yeah, but have you considered that you are French, and Claude is also French (why else would it have a French name?), so of course it is going to agree with you?
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On October 16 2026 05:09 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 04:20 Billyboy wrote:On October 16 2026 04:06 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 16 2026 03:28 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. + Show Spoiler +World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII.
or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway. We have a winner. You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism. Result: It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer. Any more questions, Geiko, bomsterjohn, DarkPlasmaBall? I don't know enough about the topic in general, but why don't you engage with LightSpectra's answer? LS attempted to justify an "it depends" response with some key events and relevant numbers; if you disagree so vehemently with LS, it would make sense to dispute LS's rebuttal. What is LS not considering in the evaluation of your original statement? Since the question was given that some right-wing people will argue with you on Naziism's right-wing ideology, I think including one that left-wing people will argue with you about is absolutely appropriate. If they could admit to some best-estimate or point to the clear winner and give a range, I think they would have by now, but I will accept late answers. I don't think the cognitive dissonance between "acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" is a super common thing" and "It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer" can stay forever. Sorry, but you never made the argument that left wing people pretend that communists are not left leaning. I was pointing out how a significant percentage of people on the right won’t even acknowledge that Nazi was a right wing ideology. You made some strawman that was slightly related that also wasn’t true. And for what purpose would a center left person strawman my argument? We may never know. I don't see how you can arrive at "significant percentage," but maybe there exist polls I haven't seen yet. I'd say just the right-wing-fringe of MAGA and some alt-right types would believe it. But, if we're using a very expansive definition of significant in "significant percentage won't even acknowledge" then I'll use the same on the left-wing dissembling instead of recognizing that Communist Russia and China killed more people than Naziism even did, and the number isn't even close. I would like to thank the examples in this thread, both of the refuse to answer and dissembling type, for making the point. This is purely coming from an observational standpoint of the most glaring things that each wing refuses to recognize. + Show Spoiler +For American right-wingers, I'd add the 2020 election was not stolen.
I mean we’ve had multiple discussions on this site with different people claiming the Nazis were left and zero claiming communists are right. If you talk to MAGA people it will come up.
Not sure what your goal here as a center left person. Do you think no one on the right believes the Nazis were communists?
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On October 16 2026 05:12 Geiko wrote:
I asked Claude and he said that generally deaths due to far left regimes were considered higher than deaths due to fascist regimes in the 20th century. He also said it depends how you count ww2 deaths and whether you include famines or not.
I asked him if the nazi party was left wing and he said no.
So I think one side has more of a leg to stand on than the other.
Was this a joke? I see more and more people using AI as a source, especially by people trying to prove "flat earth". It is a very bad habbit, as they frequently lie, and can be easily manipulated.
There is even a word for people quoting AI in discussions: meat proxy. You are not the one talking, simply a human transporter of AI generated info. Why discuss with humans at all when AI can do it all for us?
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On October 16 2026 05:31 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 05:09 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 04:20 Billyboy wrote:On October 16 2026 04:06 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 16 2026 03:28 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. + Show Spoiler +World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII.
or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway. We have a winner. You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism. Result: It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer. Any more questions, Geiko, bomsterjohn, DarkPlasmaBall? I don't know enough about the topic in general, but why don't you engage with LightSpectra's answer? LS attempted to justify an "it depends" response with some key events and relevant numbers; if you disagree so vehemently with LS, it would make sense to dispute LS's rebuttal. What is LS not considering in the evaluation of your original statement? Since the question was given that some right-wing people will argue with you on Naziism's right-wing ideology, I think including one that left-wing people will argue with you about is absolutely appropriate. If they could admit to some best-estimate or point to the clear winner and give a range, I think they would have by now, but I will accept late answers. I don't think the cognitive dissonance between "acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" is a super common thing" and "It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer" can stay forever. Sorry, but you never made the argument that left wing people pretend that communists are not left leaning. I was pointing out how a significant percentage of people on the right won’t even acknowledge that Nazi was a right wing ideology. You made some strawman that was slightly related that also wasn’t true. And for what purpose would a center left person strawman my argument? We may never know. I don't see how you can arrive at "significant percentage," but maybe there exist polls I haven't seen yet. I'd say just the right-wing-fringe of MAGA and some alt-right types would believe it. But, if we're using a very expansive definition of significant in "significant percentage won't even acknowledge" then I'll use the same on the left-wing dissembling instead of recognizing that Communist Russia and China killed more people than Naziism even did, and the number isn't even close. I would like to thank the examples in this thread, both of the refuse to answer and dissembling type, for making the point. This is purely coming from an observational standpoint of the most glaring things that each wing refuses to recognize. + Show Spoiler +For American right-wingers, I'd add the 2020 election was not stolen. I mean we’ve had multiple discussions on this site with different people claiming the Nazis were left and zero claiming communists are right. If you talk to MAGA people it will come up. Not sure what your goal here as a center left person. Do you think no one on the right believes the Nazis were communists? I assume the division here was that they wanted to argue that government direction of the economy should be assigned "left" no matter what racial or socioeconomic groups it was done to benefit or deprive, but you'll have to link me the posts. I don't think this forum can seriously be said to have a representative group of right-wingers, as they number somewhere between 1:5 and 1:20, and Introvert isn't even pro-Trump. My point was only to bring up the most accessible, problematic issue on the left-wing, and I think I demonstrated that well enough to unconvinced people. You have to understand that right-wing and left-wing are not mirror images of each other. They struggle with different things, you struggle with different things, etc.
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On October 16 2026 05:38 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 05:31 Billyboy wrote:On October 16 2026 05:09 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 04:20 Billyboy wrote:On October 16 2026 04:06 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 16 2026 03:28 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. + Show Spoiler +World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII.
or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway. We have a winner. You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism. Result: It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer. Any more questions, Geiko, bomsterjohn, DarkPlasmaBall? I don't know enough about the topic in general, but why don't you engage with LightSpectra's answer? LS attempted to justify an "it depends" response with some key events and relevant numbers; if you disagree so vehemently with LS, it would make sense to dispute LS's rebuttal. What is LS not considering in the evaluation of your original statement? Since the question was given that some right-wing people will argue with you on Naziism's right-wing ideology, I think including one that left-wing people will argue with you about is absolutely appropriate. If they could admit to some best-estimate or point to the clear winner and give a range, I think they would have by now, but I will accept late answers. I don't think the cognitive dissonance between "acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" is a super common thing" and "It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer" can stay forever. Sorry, but you never made the argument that left wing people pretend that communists are not left leaning. I was pointing out how a significant percentage of people on the right won’t even acknowledge that Nazi was a right wing ideology. You made some strawman that was slightly related that also wasn’t true. And for what purpose would a center left person strawman my argument? We may never know. I don't see how you can arrive at "significant percentage," but maybe there exist polls I haven't seen yet. I'd say just the right-wing-fringe of MAGA and some alt-right types would believe it. But, if we're using a very expansive definition of significant in "significant percentage won't even acknowledge" then I'll use the same on the left-wing dissembling instead of recognizing that Communist Russia and China killed more people than Naziism even did, and the number isn't even close. I would like to thank the examples in this thread, both of the refuse to answer and dissembling type, for making the point. This is purely coming from an observational standpoint of the most glaring things that each wing refuses to recognize. + Show Spoiler +For American right-wingers, I'd add the 2020 election was not stolen. I mean we’ve had multiple discussions on this site with different people claiming the Nazis were left and zero claiming communists are right. If you talk to MAGA people it will come up. Not sure what your goal here as a center left person. Do you think no one on the right believes the Nazis were communists? I assume the division here was that they wanted to argue that government direction of the economy should be assigned "left" no matter what racial or socioeconomic groups it was done to benefit or deprive, but you'll have to link me the posts. I don't think this forum can seriously be said to have a representative group of right-wingers, as they number somewhere between 1:5 and 1:20, and Introvert isn't even pro-Trump. My point was only to bring up the most accessible, problematic issue on the left-wing, and I think I demonstrated that well enough to unconvinced people. You have to understand that right-wing and left-wing are not mirror images of each other. They struggle with different things, you struggle with different things, etc.
You wrote many words to not answer a thing.
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I think the comparison should take into account the difference in population of the affected countries. China had a massive population during the Great Leap Forward, some 600M people.
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United States44386 Posts
On October 16 2026 02:36 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 01:30 Billyboy wrote:
I’ve always found it strange how people on the right won’t acknowledge that the Nazis were a far right party. You don’t hear people on the left pretending the soviets were right wing when they committed atrocities (tankies might pretend they were not atrocities).
Like just say, sure they were right wing and awful, we don’t support them or anything about them. But instead they try to pretend they were left. You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism. Left wing totalitarian movements win the body count in the 20th century (and it’s not even close), but boy do I hear a lot of dissembling instead of admitting that fact. It’s not just tankies that bring up capitalism as something right-wing and dissembling on the subject. I’m open to being proved wrong.
Left wing totals are juiced by China having the population of China tbf. A reasonable statistical approach would be the number of people they got killed out of the total people they had the opportunity to kill.
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On October 16 2026 05:32 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 05:12 Geiko wrote:
I asked Claude and he said that generally deaths due to far left regimes were considered higher than deaths due to fascist regimes in the 20th century. He also said it depends how you count ww2 deaths and whether you include famines or not.
I asked him if the nazi party was left wing and he said no.
So I think one side has more of a leg to stand on than the other. Was this a joke? I see more and more people using AI as a source, especially by people trying to prove "flat earth". It is a very bad habbit, as they frequently lie, and can be easily manipulated. There is even a word for people quoting AI in discussions: meat proxy. You are not the one talking, simply a human transporter of AI generated info. Why discuss with humans at all when AI can do it all for us?
I asked Claude whether I could reliably use him for these types of questions and he said I shouldn't trust him with precise figures or sources without checking but that he gets the general range and driving ideas behind the reasoning right more often than not.
On a more serious note, you guys should really learn how to use AI correctly and not dismiss AI answers automatically. Asking it what the general consensus amongst scholars is on a well documented topic will always get you a correct answer (correct being the answer will be the general consensus, not implying that the general consensus is correct). I challenge you to find a counter example to that.
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On October 16 2026 05:41 maybenexttime wrote:
I think the comparison should take into account the difference in population of the affected countries. China had a massive population during the Great Leap Forward, some 600M people.
Also the time period. The fascists were in charge around 1930ish to 1945. The USSR finished the Russian Civil War in 1922 and lasted until 1991. The PRC finished their civil war in 1949 and are still in power (although they haven't truly been communist as of at the latest 1989). Fascists causing a comparable number of deaths despite ruling smaller countries for a fraction of the timeframe makes them much deadlier per capita and per annum.
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On October 16 2026 05:59 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 05:41 maybenexttime wrote:
I think the comparison should take into account the difference in population of the affected countries. China had a massive population during the Great Leap Forward, some 600M people. Also the time period. The fascists were in charge around 1930ish to 1945. The USSR finished the Russian Civil War in 1922 and lasted until 1991. The PRC finished their civil war in 1949 and are still in power (although they haven't truly been communist as of at the latest 1989). Fascists causing a comparable number of deaths despite ruling smaller countries for a fraction of the timeframe makes them much deadlier per capita and per annum.
Why are we having some weird death-off?
Can't we all agree that Nazis are bad, Stalinists are bad, and Maoists are also bad? Maybe simply say that totalitarianism in general tends to end very badly, no matter the political dressings?
We don't have to decide if we want to live in Nazi Germany or Stalins USSR. We could choose to have countries which are not horrifyingly murderous dictatorships. That would be better than both of those by far.
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On October 16 2026 05:40 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 05:38 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 05:31 Billyboy wrote:On October 16 2026 05:09 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 04:20 Billyboy wrote:On October 16 2026 04:06 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 16 2026 03:28 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:
[quote]So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. + Show Spoiler +World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII.
or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway. We have a winner. You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism. Result: It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer. Any more questions, Geiko, bomsterjohn, DarkPlasmaBall? I don't know enough about the topic in general, but why don't you engage with LightSpectra's answer? LS attempted to justify an "it depends" response with some key events and relevant numbers; if you disagree so vehemently with LS, it would make sense to dispute LS's rebuttal. What is LS not considering in the evaluation of your original statement? Since the question was given that some right-wing people will argue with you on Naziism's right-wing ideology, I think including one that left-wing people will argue with you about is absolutely appropriate. If they could admit to some best-estimate or point to the clear winner and give a range, I think they would have by now, but I will accept late answers. I don't think the cognitive dissonance between "acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" is a super common thing" and "It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer" can stay forever. Sorry, but you never made the argument that left wing people pretend that communists are not left leaning. I was pointing out how a significant percentage of people on the right won’t even acknowledge that Nazi was a right wing ideology. You made some strawman that was slightly related that also wasn’t true. And for what purpose would a center left person strawman my argument? We may never know. I don't see how you can arrive at "significant percentage," but maybe there exist polls I haven't seen yet. I'd say just the right-wing-fringe of MAGA and some alt-right types would believe it. But, if we're using a very expansive definition of significant in "significant percentage won't even acknowledge" then I'll use the same on the left-wing dissembling instead of recognizing that Communist Russia and China killed more people than Naziism even did, and the number isn't even close. I would like to thank the examples in this thread, both of the refuse to answer and dissembling type, for making the point. This is purely coming from an observational standpoint of the most glaring things that each wing refuses to recognize. + Show Spoiler +For American right-wingers, I'd add the 2020 election was not stolen. I mean we’ve had multiple discussions on this site with different people claiming the Nazis were left and zero claiming communists are right. If you talk to MAGA people it will come up. Not sure what your goal here as a center left person. Do you think no one on the right believes the Nazis were communists? I assume the division here was that they wanted to argue that government direction of the economy should be assigned "left" no matter what racial or socioeconomic groups it was done to benefit or deprive, but you'll have to link me the posts. I don't think this forum can seriously be said to have a representative group of right-wingers, as they number somewhere between 1:5 and 1:20, and Introvert isn't even pro-Trump. My point was only to bring up the most accessible, problematic issue on the left-wing, and I think I demonstrated that well enough to unconvinced people. You have to understand that right-wing and left-wing are not mirror images of each other. They struggle with different things, you struggle with different things, etc. You wrote many words to not answer a thing. You weren't sure of my goal here, and I told you. It's obviously farcical to think that no one on the right believes the Nazis were communists, since I already told you that a fringe of MAGA and the alt-right believes that Nazis aren't right-wing. You have refused to answer on Nazi Germany vs Soviet Communism and Chinese Communism, calling it a "gotcha," so maybe you should start giving your opinion on whose deaths outnumber whose, or if it's simply too close to call in your opinion. I don't know why you would refuse to answer, but demand answers while doing so, except that you want to be dismissed as a troll but are too scared to come right out and say it.
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On October 16 2026 05:49 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 05:32 Slydie wrote:On October 16 2026 05:12 Geiko wrote:
I asked Claude and he said that generally deaths due to far left regimes were considered higher than deaths due to fascist regimes in the 20th century. He also said it depends how you count ww2 deaths and whether you include famines or not.
I asked him if the nazi party was left wing and he said no.
So I think one side has more of a leg to stand on than the other. Was this a joke? I see more and more people using AI as a source, especially by people trying to prove "flat earth". It is a very bad habbit, as they frequently lie, and can be easily manipulated. There is even a word for people quoting AI in discussions: meat proxy. You are not the one talking, simply a human transporter of AI generated info. Why discuss with humans at all when AI can do it all for us? I asked Claude whether I could reliably use him for these types of questions and he said I shouldn't trust him with precise figures or sources without checking but that he gets the general range and driving ideas behind the reasoning right more often than not. On a more serious note, you guys should really learn how to use AI correctly and not dismiss AI answers automatically. Asking it what the general consensus amongst scholars is on a well documented topic will always get you a correct answer (correct being the answer will be the general consensus, not implying that the general consensus is correct). I challenge you to find a counter example to that. I'd trust it to get right an academic subset of medians of the range of deliberate deaths + famines from the 3 sides I selected and come close to 3:1 favoring communist ideology, but I would look at its links for things like attributing all started wars to exactly one side (maybenexttime rightly points out that communist russia signing an actual neutrality pact prior to the Nazi invasion of Poland, whether or not he's right that WW2 doesn't even happen without it).
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On October 16 2026 06:21 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 05:59 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 05:41 maybenexttime wrote:
I think the comparison should take into account the difference in population of the affected countries. China had a massive population during the Great Leap Forward, some 600M people. Also the time period. The fascists were in charge around 1930ish to 1945. The USSR finished the Russian Civil War in 1922 and lasted until 1991. The PRC finished their civil war in 1949 and are still in power (although they haven't truly been communist as of at the latest 1989). Fascists causing a comparable number of deaths despite ruling smaller countries for a fraction of the timeframe makes them much deadlier per capita and per annum. Why are we having some weird death-off? Can't we all agree that Nazis are bad, Stalinists are bad, and Maoists are also bad? Maybe simply say that totalitarianism in general tends to end very badly, no matter the political dressings? We don't have to decide if we want to live in Nazi Germany or Stalins USSR. We could choose to have countries which are not horrifyingly murderous dictatorships. That would be better than both of those by far.
I think they're all bad. dyhb brought it up as some bizarre whataboutism.
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On October 16 2026 06:21 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 05:59 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 05:41 maybenexttime wrote:
I think the comparison should take into account the difference in population of the affected countries. China had a massive population during the Great Leap Forward, some 600M people. Also the time period. The fascists were in charge around 1930ish to 1945. The USSR finished the Russian Civil War in 1922 and lasted until 1991. The PRC finished their civil war in 1949 and are still in power (although they haven't truly been communist as of at the latest 1989). Fascists causing a comparable number of deaths despite ruling smaller countries for a fraction of the timeframe makes them much deadlier per capita and per annum. Why are we having some weird death-off? Can't we all agree that Nazis are bad, Stalinists are bad, and Maoists are also bad? Maybe simply say that totalitarianism in general tends to end very badly, no matter the political dressings? We don't have to decide if we want to live in Nazi Germany or Stalins USSR. We could choose to have countries which are not horrifyingly murderous dictatorships. That would be better than both of those by far. Apparently we can't agree if the Nazis killed more than the Soviets and Chinese Communists, but I count at least three people that thought that was just as easy of a question as the others. Stalin and Mao aren't deserving of any special consideration for their past actions that elevated their totals well above Hitler's, regardless of how many people in modern day will hem and haw about it when asked. I consider the question closed, and the degree of dissembling and refusal to answer as sufficiently established.
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EPT
