The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression

Stéphane Courtois

Harvard University Press, 1999 - History - 858 pages

Already famous throughout Europe, this international bestseller plumbs recently opened archives in the former Soviet bloc to reveal the actual, practical accomplishments of Communism around the world: terror, torture, famine, mass deportations, and massacres. Astonishing in the sheer detail it amasses, the book is the first comprehensive attempt to catalogue and analyze the crimes of Communism over seventy years.

"Revolutions, like trees, must be judged by their fruit," Ignazio Silone wrote, and this is the standard the authors apply to the Communist experience-in the China of "the Great Helmsman," Kim Il Sung's Korea, Vietnam under "Uncle Ho" and Cuba under Castro, Ethiopia under Mengistu, Angola under Neto, and Afghanistan under Najibullah. The authors, all distinguished scholars based in Europe, document Communist crimes against humanity, but also crimes against national and universal culture, from Stalin's destruction of hundreds of churches in Moscow to Ceausescu's leveling of the historic heart of Bucharest to the widescale devastation visited on Chinese culture by Mao's Red Guards.

As the death toll mounts-as many as 25 million in the former Soviet Union, 65 million in China, 1.7 million in Cambodia, and on and on-the authors systematically show how and why, wherever the millenarian ideology of Communism was established, it quickly led to crime, terror, and repression. An extraordinary accounting, this book amply documents the unparalleled position and significance of Communism in the hierarchy of violence that is the history of the twentieth century.

Contents

• The Crimes of Communism: 1
• Paradoxes and Misunderstandings Surrounding: 39
• The Iron Fist of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat: 53
• The Red Terror: 71
• The Dirty War: 81
• From Tambov to the Great Famine: 108
• The Comintern in Action: 271
• The Shadow of the NKVD in Spain: 333
• Communism and Terrorism: 353
• Poland the Enemy Nation: 363
• Central and Southeastern Europe: 394
• Between Reeducation and Massacre: 457
• A Long March into Night: 463
• Crimes Terror and Secrecy in North Korea: 547
• The Impasse of War Communism: 565
• The Country of Disconcerting Crimes: 577
• Communism in Latin America: 647
• Ethiopia Angola and Mozambique: 683
• Communism in Afghanistan: 705
• Why?: 727
• Notes: 759
• Index: 823
• About the Authors: 857

About the author

Stéphane Courtois is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, and editor of the journal Communisme.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression
• Author: Stéphane Courtois
• Editors: Stéphane Courtois, Mark Kramer
• Translated by: Stéphane Courtois, Mark Kramer
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1999
• ISBN: 0674076087, 9780674076082
• Length: 858 pages
• Subjects: History / General; History / Modern / 20th Century / General; History / World; Political Science / Civil Rights; Political Science / General; Political Science / History & Theory; Political Science / Political Ideologies / Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism; Political Science / Terrorism