Two things before we get started. First, this video is sponsored
in part by Morning Brew. Second, this video is also
part of a collaboration called Project Dictator. You really ought to check out all the videos for
it in the playlist in the description of this video. Uh, but first, watch this video ok? Are
you watching? Listening’s fine, too. Oh, and a word of warning, this video is about killing.
I’m Mr. Beat And let the record stand
that I’ve never killed anyone. Not even once.
You do believe me, don’t you?
Anyway, I think killing is wrong. I even wrote a song called “Killing Is Wrong.” (starts dancing)
Yeah I dance to my own songs.
Most of us couldn’t even imagine ourselves ever killing another human being,
also known as homicide. We tend to view killers as bad. No,not the band The Killers. They’re
great. We view people who kill others as bad. And yet, people justify killing all the time.
In fact, capital punishment, or the government killing someone as punishment for a crime,
is legal in dozens of countries around the world.
Killing is only called “murder” when it’s illegal.
And murder is illegal pretty much everywhere.
In fact, if you murder someone, you could get killed for it as punishment. Wait a second…
But it’s not always so simple. We often kill in order to save lives.
There’s killing as self-defense. There’s a term called “manslaughter,” which means
killing someone without meaning to. Like, perhaps it was an accident. But there’s also
“voluntary manslaughter,” in which someone killed someone else on purpose,
but it was in a crazy circumstance that would cause a reasonable person to fear for their life.
For example, if someone is attacked on the street and, defending themselves, they kill the attacker.
Killing is also legal in war.
Sure, we’ve made laws to limit violence on civilians,
or folks who are not soldiers in the armed services. But otherwise…(Full Metal Jacket clip)
Even in war, nearly all of us have to be trained to kill. It’s not something most
of us are comfortable doing, even if our own life might be immediately in danger. Today,
we are both horrified by and fascinated by serial killers, or killers who murder three or more
people. We fear terrorists and mass shooters. We wonder…how could these people do such evil acts?
And yet, throughout history, there have been humans directly responsible for the
killing of not just one person, or even a few people, but MILLIONS of people.
When we think about world leaders who have killed the most people, three often immediately come to
mind: Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945,
Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953,
and Mao Zedong, the dictator of China from 1949 until his death in 1976. Indeed,
there are strong arguments that they are the worst three mass murderers in human history.
That said, it’s more complicated than just statistics. The numbers
don’t tell the whole story, and the three were not equally ruthless.
For example, Adolf Hitler is, in my opinion, the most ruthless
of the three. ----
The WAY Hitler orchestrated genocide, or the deliberate and systemtatic destruction of a group,
is well documented and arguably the most blatant. His most infamous genocide was the Holocaust,
which was the murder of around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe during
World War Two. It’s estimated that over just one three-month period during the war, Hitler oversaw
the killing of more than 1.3 million Jews. Hitler also oversaw the killing of more than 1.5 million
Romani people. He oversaw the killing of people with disabilities, homosexuals, Poles, Russians,
Jehovah’s Witnesses, and those sympathetic to socialism and communism. The vast majority of
the people killed under Hitler’s watch were civilians, and they were killed quickly.
Now, we will never know the exact number of people
these dictators killed. Historians can only estimate based on the limited records they have.
Based on that, Hitler was responsible for the deaths of between 16 and 20 million
people. ---
In my opinion, Joseph Stalin was almost as ruthless as Hitler. However, not nearly as many
people killed under Stalin’s rule were explicitly murdered. According to the historian Stephen
Wheatcroft, Stalin oversaw around 1 million straight up murders, but the vast majority
of deaths under his rule were due to neglect. For example, some estimate that as many as 12 million
people died in Stalin’s Gulag, or system of labor camps set up throughout the Soviet Union. These
camps were hell on earth, where people literally were worked to death. In 1942, nearly 1 out of
every 4 prisoners died in one of these camps. One Soviet politician, named Andrew Vyshinsky, once
wrote about the conditions: “Among the prisoners there are some so ragged and lice-ridden that
they pose a sanitary danger to the rest. These prisoners have deteriorated to the point of losing
any resemblance to human beings. Lacking food…they collect [trash] and, according to some prisoners,
eat rats and dogs.” In the Great Purge of 1937 alone, Stalin was responsible for the deaths of up
to 1.2 million people as he hunted down anyone who still might be sympathetic to his old political
rival, Leon Trotsky. As many as 7 million more people died due to a famine caused by Stalin’s
collective farming policies in the early 1930s. Many were Ukrainians. Today historians call it
the Holodomor, or Terror-Famine, which empahsizes how this was a human created problem that Stalin’s
policies caused. Another up to 1.5 million unnecessarily died in another Soviet famine
that Stalin could not only have prevented, but also could have ended. And of course,
there were the judicial executions and straight up massacres of Stalin’s political opponents.
All together, Stalin was responsible for the deaths of between an estimated 40 and 60 million
people. If the 60 million figure is accurate, that would mean he was responsible for an average of 2
million deaths each year of his reign. ---
Mao Zedong was responsible for more deaths than any other person in history. That said,
Mao Zedong was probably the least ruthless of the three, in my opinion. He was still pretty
freaking ruthless. There is evidence that he was responsible for systematically killing between
4 and 6 million people through China’s so-called justice system and “reform through labor” camps.
All told, perhaps as many as 25 million died in these camps during Mao’s reign. Most killed
were so-called “counterrevolutionaries.” Some were sent simply because of their religion.
Most of the deaths he and his regime caused were by accident. His Great Leap Forward
campaign in the late 1950s and early 1960s was a complete and total disaster, especially the
…you guessed it…collective farming policies. Probably at least 30 million people died from
starving to death in what became known as the Great Chinese Famine. Yep, the Great Leap Forward
was quite the leap backward, causing the deadliest famine in history. However, it’s not easy to place
all the blame on Mao himself. A lot of other trends probably also contributed to the disaster.
And finally, there was the violence and chaos caused by Mao’s Cultural
Revolution. It’s possible that nearly 20 million people died during it.
All together, Mao was responsible for the deaths of between 60 and 80 million people. Incredibly,
millions still view Mao today as a hero, as someone who liberated China from imperial Japan
and imperialism in general, as someone who helped advance women’s rights,
basic healthcare, education, and literacy, and as someone who helped modernize China
into a leading world power. But 80 million people? Come on, man.
Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler-just the three of them- have possibly been directly
responsible for the deaths of up to 160 million people. To put that in perspective, all of Russia
currently has around 146 million people. So three people causing the deaths of 160 million people.
It’s really difficult to wrap your head around those numbers.
In fact, there’s this quote often attributed to Joseph Stalin…
“If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.”
Indeed, our brains have a hard time processing big numbers, and only looking at numbers can blind
us to the tragedy of each death. However, when each number represents a human life,
we ought to think about every person in OUR OWN life who we love.
I’m gonna guess that you probably love at least one other person. You probably love
several people actually. And if one of them died, it would be DEVASTATING to you. So
now multiply that by 130 million. Still can’t wrap your head around it, can you.
The bottom line is, we must do whatever we can to make sure people like Mao, Stalin,
and Hitler never come to power again.
Every morning, Twitter used to be my go-to place to see what was up. But as you probably already
know, Twitter can be a rotten, dirty place. Instead, now I start every day with Morning Brew.
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almost every single day for the past six months. I know this might sound unbelievable to most of you,
but I literally found out about the Will Smith Oscars slap…on Morning Brew. I’m not joking.
But there’s no reason not to subscribe to Morning Brew if you’re interested in business, finance,
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So Mao, Stalin, and Hitler are three of the most infamous dictators in history, but want to learn
about some lesser known dictators? Well, this video is part of a History Tuber collaboration
called Project Dictator. Every video we’ve made features videos about different dictators
throughout history. Check out the complete playlist in the description of this video.
Who was most evil? Stalin, Hitler, or Mao? Let me know in the comments below. Also,
did you know that you can help my channel in many different ways? In addition to obviously clicking
the like button and subscribing, you can share my videos with your grandma. I’ve noticed that
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