Some of the worst mass murderers in human history (Credits: fee.org)
History is marred by power-hungry people who killed tens of millions of people to satisfy their greed for power. It is funny how Hitler pops up in our heads when we talk about the deadliest mass murderers of history.
No one talks about Leopold II, Shiro Ishi, Idi Amin, and so many more ruthless despots who went overboard with mass assassinations.
1. Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong was a revolutionary Chinese communist leader. He was the leader of the People’s republic of china from 1949 till 1976. Mao’s ideology was to restore Chinese communism to its original state. He enforced his ideology over the masses. He initiated many unreasonable economic policies like the Great Leap Forward. He cemented the practice of slave labor throughout Laogai. Furthermore, Zedong’s political purges, such as the Cultural Revolution and race extermination through land reform, proved fatal. Mao is directly responsible for the murder of 70 million people.
2. Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan rose from humble beginnings. In 1206, Khan united nomadic tribes and reformed them into one Mongol tribe. Khan had a common purpose as every other despot to transform the Mongolian tribes into a world power. He had his eyes on China. He reshaped the geography of Earth. Genghis khan’s movement won him Eurasia, which constitutes modern-day Russia, China, Korea, Southeast Asia, Persia, India, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. The Genghis Khan Legacy continued for over 200 years. A whopping amount of 40 million people were brutally killed during the Mongolian era.
3. Chiang Kai-Shek
Chiang Kai-Shek was a political, military leader of the Chinese nationalist party, KMT (Kuomintang), from 1928 to 1949. Kai-Shek led a civil war against Mao Zedong in China due to differences of opinion. He was having a hard time keeping China at a pace with the modern world. Kai-Shek ignored China’s current needs; instead, he focused on fighting internal parties to rule China. However, Japan conquering China left Kai-shek’s attention divided between internal and external war. In 1946, the civil war between KMT and communists broke out, which increased the death toll to 18.5 million. Chiang’s ego led to a mass massacre.
4. Adolf Hitler
No mass murderer list is complete without the Nazi leader. Adolf Hitler was the leader of a Nazi Party who strictly believed in ethnicity and racial superiority. Hitler wanted German supremacy over the globe. He rose to power in 1933 as the chancellor of Germany. Hitler’s goal was as simple as taking over the world and as complicated as enslaving humans and mass murdering. The fuhrer led the holocaust that led the world in disbelief. He was vehemently anti-Semitic. He once said, “ultimate goal must be the removal of the Jews altogether.” In his speeches, he often promoted racial injustice and hatred among people of color and caste. World war II broke out in 1939. Hitler’s exaggerated efforts won him most of Europe. He killed 13.6 million people during the war until 1945 when the war ended. Jew Holocaust was one of the deadliest war crimes the Nazi party could commit.
5. King Leopold II
Belgian history celebrates Leopold II as a savior of their state; however, the literature speaks for itself. Leopold II was a despotic monarch who practiced his brutal ideologies on humans. Leopold II wanted an extended Belgian transformed into a World power. He planned to take over the globe. Starting from Britain, he immediately failed. However, he took advantage of the free state of Congo. King Leopold II is renowned for his war crimes for enslaving, mutilating, and massacring a total of 13 million Africans.
6. Hirohito
The leader of the Showa Era, Hirohito, was the devil of world war II. Hirohito knew no limits and no boundaries when it came to war. He plotted to conquer China which gave rise to the Sino-Japenese war. Many Chinese were brutally killed, women were raped, and children were slaughtered during the war. The U.S. tried to help china in this situation which led to the Pearl Harbor bombing and eventually Hiroshima-Nagasaki nuclear war. The Showa Era was all in all horrific warfare practice that killed 10 million people.
7. Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin ruled over the Soviet Union, now known as Russia, from 1927 to 1953. The Stalinist rule is considered one of the most ruthless dictatorships of all time. Stalin tried to inhibit the concept of agricultural exercise and promoted industrialization. This ideology is not wrong, but depriving people entirely of agro-practice and killing farmers for defying orders is brutal. Later, he initiated a movement in the 1930s called “The great purge” that revolved around the sick logic of killing anyone whom he felt was a political threat to him (history). During the 2nd World War, he signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler. However, later A war broke out between the two countries that ended up that caused the deaths of 2 million people. By 1950, he initiated his last battle against Korea. Stalin was responsible for 2 million deaths during his rule.
8. Young Turks
In 1908, the unionists and liberal parties joined hands against Sultan Abdul Hamid II’s monarchy and led a movement called the Young Turk revolution. The young Turk revolution proposed the idea of a constitutional government rather than a monarchy. They wanted to preserve Turkey. They believed in Turkish sovereignty and hence started ethnic cleansing that killed approximately 1.5 million Armenians, 0.3 million Assyrians, and 0.75 million Greeks.
9. Idi Amin
Idi Amin, better known as ‘the butcher of Uganda’, served Uganda as a President from 1971 to 1979. Amin was a perfect example of feeding milk to a snake. The former president of Uganda, Obote, nourished Amin until Amin was caught misusing the army budget. Amin revolted against Obote and overthrew him. Amin’s terrorized the Acholi and Lango tribes that were loyal to Obote. He expelled 50,000 of the Asian population and massacred 500,000 people for personal interests (Marco).
10. Benito Mussolini
Mussolini was the leader of the National Fascist Party of Italy who ruled from 1925 to 1945. The Italian politician’s goal was Italian supremacy. He wanted to extend Italian territories and implement totalitarian control over the nation and its economy. Mussolini sided with Hitler during world war II. He conquered ten countries during the war. Mussolini wanted to recreate Italy as the roman empire. It was coming true until 1945 when he surrendered to the Allied powers. He massacred a total of 400,000 people during world war II.
References“https://allthatsinteresting.com/idi-amin-dada”“https://www.biography.com/dictator/adolf-hitler”“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks”“https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/1939-07-01/strategy-chiang-kai-shek”“https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mao-Zedong”“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan”“https://www.biography.com/dictator/joseph-stalin”“https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benito-Mussolini”“https://www.history.com/topics/russia/great-purge”“https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/10-most-notorious-mass-murderers-in-human-history-bfd26f471aa3”
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