The Black Book of Communism

The human toll shows that there is a penchant for Communism to kill. This egalitarian philosophy includes a trait that promised to end class distinctions.

Sep 23, 2023

[T]he useful idiots, the leftists who are idealistically believing in the beauty of the Soviet socialist or Communist or whatever system, when they get disillusioned, they become the worst enemies. That’s why my KGB instructors specifically made the point: never bother with leftists. Forget about these political prostitutes. Aim higher. [...] They serve a purpose only at the stage of destabilization of a nation. For example, your leftists in the United States: all these professors and all these beautiful civil rights defenders. They are instrumental in the process of the subversion only to destabilize a nation. When their job is completed, they are not needed any more. They know too much. Some of them, when they get disillusioned, when they see that Marxist-Leninists come to power—obviously they get offended—they think that they will come to power. That will never happen, of course. They will be lined up against the wall and shot.
Yuri Bezmenov

This is the third edition of my essay about the Black Book of Communism. It first appeared online on September 9, 2002, then at Frederick, R. Smith Speaks on May 10, 2022.

Foreword

At the turn of the Century, I met a wealthy person who said, “Communism has good parts.” That encounter ignited my determination to embark on an in-depth exploration of the subject. While working toward this goal, I found The Black Book of Communism at a nearby bookstore. It became an essential part of my library. I consumed all 858 pages of its content in mere weeks.

Introduction

The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression was first published in France in 1997 as Le livre noir du Communisme. Academic circles consider it controversial. The English version, released in 1999 by Harvard University Press, has continued to evoke this “controversy.” This 858-page opus is one of those transformative books I read from cover to cover. Stephane Courtois wrote The Black Book of Communism. Mark Kramer and Jonathan Murphy translated it. Other authors include Karel Bartosek, Andrzej Paczkowski, Jean-Louis Panne, and Jean-Louis Margolin. These scholars are not the typical “red under every bed” mold. Instead, they document crimes by Communist regimes, showing their dedication to socialism.

The main editor, Stéphane Courtois, believes that Communism and Nazism had similar outcomes. He says both systems were better at causing mass killings than governing well. Nazism’s evil nature caused the genocide of six million people. Some sources suggest even more deaths. The 100 million Communist death tolls detailed in the book include:

Afghanistan - 1.5 million
Africa - 1.7 million
Cambodia - 2 million
China - 65 million
Eastern Europe - 1 million
International communists movement and parties not in power - 10,000
Latin America - 50,000
North Korea - 2 million
Soviet Union - 20 million
Vietnam - 1 million

The above death toll underscores a disturbing pattern of lethality within Communism. This ideology, which claimed to be equal, killed many people. In contrast, Nazism, while pursuing wealth redistribution, manifested as a racist doctrine. Communism did not discriminate based on race; it acted as an equal-opportunity agent of death.

One might wonder why the architects of Communism were not put on trial like the Nazis. Like the Nazis, the Communists committed atrocities everyone regarded as war crimes. The answer to this question remains elusive. Yet, the Western world contains books and other media that depict the horrors of Nazism. New ones come out often. In contrast, literature about Communist atrocities appears sparse.

Often, we hear the refrain highlighting the perils of hyper-capitalism. The chorus talks about past wrongs like slavery, mistreatment of natives, and imperialism. While no system is flawless, free markets, without cronyism, stand as a superior alternative to socialism. Communism, often labeled as a quasi-religion, lacks the qualities of a true faith. Some religious governments had cruel rulers who used religious texts to justify their actions. Even in the case of the Crusades, like all wars, there were undeniable excesses. To understand the balance sheet better, let’s look at one aspect: the Crusades. These holy wars lasted for over three centuries and resulted in the deaths of around two million people. In stark contrast, Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia orchestrated the murder of roughly the same number of individuals in a mere three years.

Some people say socialism is a less extreme version of Communism. Yet, the core principle underlying all these utopian ideologies remains consistent. Well-known utopias such as Plato’s Republic and Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1887) used force. A similar driving force motivated the Conspiracy of Equals during the French Revolution.

Pages 420 and 421 of The Black Book of Communism illustrate the honorific tactics used to break people. What people can do to others under the banner of an ideology is unimaginable. Please note that the following text may be among the most horrific you may ever read.

Romania was also quite innovative. The Securitate, the Romanian secret police, used all the classic methods of torture during their interrogations: beatings, blows to the soles of the feet, hanging people upside down, and so forth. But in the prison built in the 1930s in Pitesti, about 110 kilometers from Bucharest, the cruelty far surpassed those usual methods. The philosopher Virgil Ierunca recalls: “The most vile tortures imaginable were practiced in Pitesti. Prisoners’ whole bodies were burned with cigarettes: their buttocks would begin to rot, and their skin fell off as though they suffered from leprosy. Others were forced to swallow spoonfuls of excrement, and when they threw it back up, they were forced to eat their own vomit.”
These tactics were part of a program of “reeducation.” Romania was probably the first country in Europe to introduce the methods of brainwashing used by the Communists in Asia. Indeed, these tactics may well have been perfected there before they were used on a massive scale in Asia. The evil goal of the enterprise was to induce prisoners to torture one another. The idea was conceived in the prison in Pitesti. The experiment began in early December 1949 and lasted approximately three years. It resulted from an agreement between the Communist Alexandru Nikolski, one of the chiefs of the Romanian secret police, and Eugen Turcanu, a prisoner who had been arrested in 1948 because of his role as a student organizer for the fascist Iron Guard in 1940-41.
After arriving in prison, Turcanu became the head of a movement called the Organization of Prisoners with Communist Beliefs, or OPCB. The goal of the organization was the reeducation of political prisoners, combining study of the texts of Communist dogma with mental and physical torture. The hard core of reeducators consisted of fifteen hand-picked detainees, who first had to make contact with other prisoners and win their confidence.
According to Virgil Ierunca, reeducation occurred in four phases. The first phase was known as “exterior unmasking.” The prisoner had to prove his loyalty by admitting what he had hidden when the case had been brought against him and, in particular, admit his links with his friends on the outside. The second phase was “interior unmasking,” when he was forced to denounce the people who had helped him inside the prison. The third phase was “public moral unmasking,” when the accused was ordered to curse all the things that he held sacred, including his friends and family, his wife or girlfriend, and his God if he was a believer. In the fourth phase, candidates for joining the OPCB had to “reeducate” their own best friend, torturing him with their own hands and thus becoming executioners themselves. “Torture was the key to success. It implacably punctuated all confessions, between sentences. You couldn’t escape the torture. You might perhaps be able to shorten it, if you admitted the worst horrors. Some students were tortured for two months; others, who were more cooperative, got away with a week.”
Eugen Turcanu devised especially diabolical measures to force seminarians to renounce their faith. Some had their heads repeatedly plunged into a bucket of urine and fecal matter while the guards intoned a parody of the baptismal rite. One victim who had been systematically tortured in this fashion developed an automatic response that went on for about two months: every morning, to the great delight of his reeducators, he would plunge his own head into the bucket.
Turcanu also forced the seminarians to take part in black masses that he orchestrated himself, particularly during holy week and on Good Friday. Some of the reeducators played the part of choirboys; others masqueraded as priests.
Turcanu’s liturgy was extremely pornographic, and he rephrased the original in a demonic fashion. The Virgin Mary was called “the Great Whore,” and Jesus “that cunt who died on the cross.” One seminarian undergoing reeducation and playing the role of a priest had to undress completely and was then wrapped in a robe stained with excrement. Around his neck was hung a phallus made of bread and soap and powdered with DDT. In 1950 on the Saturday before Easter the students who were undergoing reeducation were forced to pass before the priest, kiss the phallus, and say, “He is risen.”

The Big Lie

The progressive left in America and legacy media ignore the historical realities of American Communism. This deliberate omission is an instance of a hate crime. It also includes ignoring Soviet espionage during the Cold War. When people twist the truth and fail to recognize the terrible things done by Communist regimes, this type of hate crime occurs. Works like The Black Book of Communism get little attention on American campuses. Communist governments and revolutionaries caused the deaths of about a hundred million people. Communist China alone accounts for 65-millon million deaths. More recent research points to 70 million.1

Terror remains a prominent tool for exerting political control in contemporary China. Mao’s ideology still influences China today. The harsh attacks on the Uyghur people and the mistreatment of the Falun Gong movement are noticeable. The COVID-19 lockdown measures imposed on provinces are also part of this influence.

Mao created a communist system in China, influenced by Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. This system still hurts many people. The criminal enterprise kills people without caring about their value as human beings.

Sometimes, this dangerous system moves in quick steps. An example is the harsh crackdown on protestors in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The harmful effects of long-lasting policies, like the one-child policy, developed over time. Think about this the next time you see a “Made in China” label.

Meanwhile, collectivist (Marxist-Maoist-Leninist) academics in American colleges and universities ignore or reject this book’s content. But can we attribute this dismissal to poor scholarship by the authors? The answer is a resounding no. The Black Book of Communism relies on Soviet Union archives for research. European scholars documented crimes of twentieth-century Communism.

In their book Denial: Historians, Communism, and Espionage, American professors John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr reveal the truth about Communism. There are important people in America who support and defend Communist governments. These governments have committed murder. Haynes and Klehr call them “revisionists.” These people believe that America conceals its capitalist oppression. They argue that there is an aggressive imperialism behind democracy. Revisionists believe that collectivism represents people’s ideal hopes. American communists have always fought for social justice throughout our nation’s history.2

Specific American academic journals have gatekeepers who prefer a biased narrative. They are radical professors. Academic revisionists ignore new information from Moscow’s archives and the decoding of Soviet cables. Many influential people in the government were spies for the Soviet Union.

Among the most blatant revisionists are historians specializing in American Communism. Since 1992, Russian archives have provided evidence. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Venona Messages detailed corroborating information. Yet, some people still say that the Soviet Union never influenced the Communist Party USA, and other groups.

Capitalism vs. Communism

One of the criticisms often directed at Communism is the prevalence of state-sponsored violence and mass purges. Millions of people died in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, during Mao Zedong’s rule in China, and under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. These examples show that communist systems with concentrated power can become authoritarian. They also violate human rights.

Besides, some individuals seek to contest the validity of The Black Book of Communism. One person who believes that Communism caused fewer deaths than capitalism is Jason Unruhe, also called the “Maoist Rebel.” He says this without specific numbers, which contradicts his argument about the book not comparing things. It’s surprising. He makes this claim in his “documentary” video, The Black Book of Communism Debunked.

An Atheist-Marxist-Leninist named David King argues that capitalism caused 222,500,000 deaths. This person used historical events from 1492 to today to arrive at this outrageous figure. He included “Nazi oppression in Europe: (1938–1945).” Collectivists work hard to claim that capitalist decisions caused Nazi oppression. They justify their ideologies through systematic argumentation and discourse.

In a more thorough “commentary,” The Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons attacks the book on its Black Book of Communism Correction Battle website. As outlandish as the above anti-capitalist “sources” may be, such “thinking” permeates society and academia.

For years, people have debated whether capitalism and Communism have similar flaws. Yet, this idea needs to recognize the significant differences between these systems. While both have their drawbacks, capitalism, and Communism are not on equal footing regarding their impact on society. The advantages of capitalism include individual freedom, economic prosperity, and innovation. This disputes the idea that capitalism is as bad as Communism.

Individual Freedom

Capitalism and Communism differ in how they handle personal freedom, which is a significant distinction. Capitalism is an economic system. It relies on individualism, private property, and limited government intervention. In a society with capitalism, people are free to choose their jobs, investments, and what they buy. This freedom empowers individuals to pursue their ambitions, innovate, and create wealth.

Communism focuses on collective ownership, central planning, and limiting individual freedoms. Under communist regimes, the government controls citizens’ jobs, homes, and travel. Such limitations on personal freedom are a fundamental flaw of Communism that sets it apart from capitalism.

Economic Prosperity

Capitalism has a track record of promoting economic prosperity and growth. Capitalism fosters innovation, efficiency, and entrepreneurship by letting individuals and businesses compete. The desire for profit encourages people to work hard, invest, and create, leading to economic growth.

In most capitalist countries, people tend to have better living standards. They have more economic stability than communist nations. The United States, for example, has become one of the world’s largest economies thanks to its capitalist principles. Communist countries like the Soviet Union and North Korea had economic problems. They had trouble growing, lacked enough resources, and were not efficient.

Innovation and Adaptation

Capitalism’s competitive nature fosters innovation and adaptation. To compete and meet customers’ needs, businesses in a capitalist society must improve their products and services. Striving for new ideas has led to technological advances, healthcare, and other fields. These breakthroughs have improved the quality of life for billions of people.

Communism stifles innovation due to its centralized planning and lack of market competition. When the government controls the economy, people and businesses lose the drive to be creative. They can’t enjoy their efforts.

Modern Manifestation

In the context of the prevailing cancel culture and concerns about the influence of Marxist ideologies in the United States, the following passages from The Black Book of Communism offer a sobering reminder for individuals who engage in cogent thinking:

Page xv – “. . . Communists . . . usually compelled their prey to confess their ‘guilt’ in signed depositions thereby acknowledging the Party’s line’s political ‘correctness.’. . .”

Page xvi – “In the twentieth century, however, morality is not primarily matter of eternal verities or transcendental imperatives. It is above all a matter of political allegiances. This is, it is a matter of left verses right, roughly defined as the priority of compassionate equalitarianism for the one, and as the primacy of prudential order for the other. Yet since neither principle can be applied absolutely without destroying society, the modern world lives in a perpetual tension between the irresistible pressure for equality and the functional necessity of hierarchy.”

Page 513 – “The Cultural Revolution (China 1966 – 1976) . . . was a moment when extremism seemed almost certain to carry the day, and when the revolutionary process seemed solidly institutionalized, having swept through all the centers of power in a year. But at the same time, it was a movement that was extremely limited in scope, hardly spreading beyond the urban areas and having a significant impact only on school children.”

Page 515 – “The Cultural Revolution gave birth to an abundant literature of great interest and quality, and there are many eyewitness reports available from both the victims and their persecutors.”

Page 519 – “Red Guard tactics were sadly similar all over the country . . . Everything began on June 1, 1966, after the reading out on the radio of a dazibao (a notice in large characters) by Nie Yuanzi, who was a philosophy teacher . . . The notice called for a ‘struggle’ and demonized the enemy: ‘Break the evil influence of revisionists, and do it resolutely, radically, totally, and completely.”

Page 531 – “[Mao] found himself faced with a cruel and inescapable dilemma: chaos on the left or order on the right.”

Page 649 – Fidel Castro and “new laws . . . abrogating civil liberties by limiting the rights of citizens to meet in groups.”

Analysis

If you want to understand the dangers of Communism and Socialism, read The Black Book of Communism. Failing to comprehend this monumental threat to humanity is a disservice to ourselves and society.

This book is indispensable but demanding. Its challenge lies in the density of information and the profound weight of its subject matter. Yet, it will unveil the unvarnished truth about Communism, a revelation that may evoke sadness, despair, and anger. History tends to repeat. We must face and comprehend what happened to avoid the biggest tragedy of the 20th century. Communism caused more suffering than any other ideology in history, and the extent of that suffering is astonishing. It is surprising how little most people know about it. This book examines the terrible crimes committed by Communist governments in their quest for a perfect world.

This book maintains a high degree of academic integrity. The authors indicate that statistics are unclear or there are many explanations. They also provide evidence for what the authors believe is the most likely explanation. If you seek a light or uplifting read, you won’t find it here. This book is extensive, intricate, and sometimes rather tedious.

Recently, those who once supported the Communist USSR are saying, “Russia, Russia, Russia.” Significant changes in politics, the economy, society, and foreign policy define the shift from the USSR to modern Russia. Mother Russia faces challenges in governance, economy, human rights, and international relations. The USSR’s lasting impact and Russia’s changes still affect its global position.

The war in Ukraine has brought together an unexpected mix of people: progressives, neo-conservatives, and others who may not know all the facts. The common thread binding this amalgamation is financial interests.

Afterword

Ultimately, readers can consider the evidence and perspectives in The Black Book of Communism and conclude Communism’s history and meaning. The book articulates a forceful stance, but one among many accounts that have aimed to grapple with this complex and contested ideological tradition over time.

Analyzing various subjects, to be honest, we must recognize downsides. The neo-con involvement in Central America in the 1980s and ongoing COVID-1984 psy-ops are two examples of many instances of corruption under crony capitalism. It is a metastasized capitalism and has grown enormously, almost like fascism. It’s important to note that select people become ultra-rich through crony capitalism like Bill Gates. Many of these elitists exhibit psychopathic traits, revealing their authentic selves and concealed motives.3 📕

Additional Reading

Books

Online Articles

Frederick R. Smith Speaks essays

I warmly encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber if you have the means. Regardless of your choice, your support is deeply appreciated. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your invaluable support!

Upgrade to Paid