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Many of those arrested after Kirov's murder, high-ranking party officials among them, also confessed plans to kill Stalin themselves, albeit often under duress. [32] The validity of these confessions is debated by historians, but there is consensus that Kirov's death was the flashpoint at which Stalin decided to take action and begin the purges.
According to historian Stephen Wheatcroft, approximately 1 million of these deaths were "purposive" while the rest happened through neglect and irresponsibility. [2] The deaths of at least 5.5 to 6.5 million [14] persons in the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 are sometimes, though not always, included with the victims of the Stalin era. [2] [15]
In 1994, Rummel's book Death by Government included about 110 million people, foreign and domestic, killed by communist democide from 1900 to 1987. [62] This total excluded deaths from the Great Chinese Famine of 1958–1961 due to Rummel's then belief that "although Mao's policies were responsible for the famine, he was misled about it, and ...
The NKVD recorded that between 26 and 27 million Soviet citizens had been killed, with millions more being wounded, malnourished, or orphaned. [479] In the war's aftermath, some of Stalin's associates suggested modifications to government policy. [480] Post-war Soviet society was more tolerant than its pre-war phase in various respects.
[6] [17] In 1987, Rudolph Rummel's book Death by Government Rummel estimated that 148 million were killed by Communist governments from 1917 to 1987. The list of Communist countries with more than 1 million estimated victims included: China at 76,702,000 (1949–1987), the Soviet Union at 61,911,000 (1917–1987),
At the height of the famine, 28,000 people were dying daily, even as food and grain continued to flow to Russia. “Parents take whatever they find to their children, but they die themselves,” a ...
The first Party purge of the Joseph Stalin era took place in 1929–1930 in accordance with a resolution of the XVI Party Conference. [4] Purges became deadly under Stalin. More than 10 percent of the party members were purged. At the same time, a significant number of new industrial workers joined the Party.
"Many testimonies from Stalin's contemporaries speak of the possible poisoning of the leader of the Soviet nations by agents of Western influence," Malinkovich said, according to the report.