World Net Daily reported that the body count from Mao’s reign of terror in China has been revised upward to 77 million by R. J. Rummel, a Nobel Peace Prize winning political scientist who had earlier estimated it at half that (38 million).

This augments Mao’s Guinness reputation as the worst mass murderer in history. His intentional killings, including policies that intentionally starved tens of millions of Chinese people, exceeded those of Hitler and Stalin. Deaths attributed to Mao’s democide (death by government) amount to over twice the total combat deaths in all wars between 1900 to 1987, including World Wars I and II.  Of 174 million killed in 20th-century incidents of democide, 148 million fell victim to Marxist regimes – four times the deaths by combat, estimated at 34.1 million.

Greatest mass murderer in history: Mao Zedong. He died wealthy and unrepentant.

Rummel, who has chronicled 20th century democides, said, “I’m now convinced that Stalin exceeded Hitler in monstrous evil, and Mao beat out Stalin.”  All three dictators were committed to scientific materialism congruent with the Darwinian principles of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest. According to an article by Answers in Genesis, Mao listed two of his favorite authors as Darwin and Huxley. In a quote attributed to the Chinese communist leader on Coral Ridge Ministries, Chairman Mao said, “Chinese socialism is founded upon Darwin and the theory of evolution.” Stalin became an atheist after reading Darwin, and Hitler, though from a different end of the political spectrum, based Mein Kampf on Darwinian principles of struggle and fitness. Such ideas had become very popular among leading German thinkers in the decades after Darwin’s Origin, as documented in historian Richard Weikart’s book, From Darwin to Hitler (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Visualize how long it would take to read the names of 77 million people. At one every five seconds, day and night, it would take over 12 years just to read their names, without even knowing who they were or the nature of their hopes and dreams – dreams that were strangled in prison, brutal work camps, torture or policy-induced famines. Add another 12 years for those killed under all the other communist leaders, and 3 years 4 months for Nazi deaths – a total of almost 28 years of reading name, after name, after name, day and night.  By contrast, reading the names of the 9/11 victims at this rate would take a little over four hours.

Some historians have speculated that Charles Darwin’s mysterious illnesses derived at least partly from stress and depression over the possible impact of his radical ideas (see Russell Grigg article). He once wrote, “It is like confessing to a murder.” (See PBS).

The most evil tyrants in world history have been communists, inspired by Marx and Engels, who were inspired by Darwin.

Darwinism was to Nazism and communism like fuel and spark to fire. Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il and his father and all communist despots past and present have been committed scientific materialists. They shut down churches and promoted atheism, exalted Darwinism and promoted evolutionary theory as the scientific rationalization for the state and the ethical justification for their brutal policies. John West on Evolution News reminded readers about Darwin’s own support of eugenics and racism, and accused the American Museum of Natural History of sanitizing this aspect of his life in their multi-million dollar Darwin exhibit (11/21/2005).

This is a stern reminder why the debate over creation vs. evolution matters. We are not talking about some minor issue for scientists and egghead philosophers to speculate about. Ideas have consequences, and as Richard Weikart demonstrated in a lecture worth watching (available from Access Research Network), the same Darwinian principles that motivated Hitler and the communists are alive and well among prominent evolutionary biologists today. Many university professors and evolutionary biologists are avowed Marxists. Let them witness the horrible results of their belief system, and then ponder the warning of Jesus, “every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.” (from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7).

Recommended Resource: Epoch Times TV is producing a multi-part history on “The Dark History of Communism.” Three episodes are currently available (subscription required). The first episode is a must-see!

As a follow-up to this entry, be sure to read “Horrors of Mao’s Darwinist Utopia Described” (9 October 2018), where some of the kinds of horrific deaths the 77 million victims suffered are detailed from official Chinese documents. Evil so brutal, heartless and widespread can only be described as demonic. Interestingly, Marx was fascinated with the occult and Satan.