Throughout history, some leaders have abused their power to inflict large-scale human suffering upon millions of innocent victims.
Joseph Stalin
Creating a police state based on paranoia and distrust, Stalin abused the Soviet Union’s communist system to eradicate any sign of opposition.
Gulags, or labor camps in hostile environments such as Siberia, were used to imprison roughly 18 million Soviet citizens. Millions died in these camps from exhaustion, hunger, and freezing temperatures.
Adolf Hitler
No leader has epitomized pure evil in the last century more than Hitler. Ruling Nazi Germany in a totalitarian fashion, he instigated the Holocaust.
This was the genocide of 6 million Jewish people and millions of others; including Polish people, Romani people, disabled people, and political prisoners, in concentration camps designed expressly for that purpose.
Hitler’s aggressive foreign policies would plunge the world into war, killing between 50 and 85 million people.
Pol Pot
In just four short years, Pol Pot committed genocide against his own citizens in an attempt to modernize Cambodia.
In 1975, he expelled all citizens from cities to work in rural labor camps. Over half of Cambodia’s population would die in these labor camps due to overwork, disease and starvation.
Anyone who was seen as an “intellectual” was killed. This included teachers, engineers, doctors, and even people who wore glasses.
Mao Zedong
Taking China into communism, Mao enacted policies that would lead to some of the deadliest events in all of human history. During Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” movement, from 1958 to 1962, the country was pushed to industrialize.
What resulted was an artificially created famine caused by pulling too many farmers from the fields and incorrectly managing grain distributions. Between 15 and 55 million people died of starvation or abuse.
King Leopold II
Belgium’s King Leopold made his colony in the Congo into his own personal, and entirely private, kingdom. His rule was characterized by a violent dictatorship meant only to increase his profit margin from mining rubber and ivory.
Operating a private army, King Leopold forced natives into labor in the rubber trade. Villages that did not meet quotas were summarily attacked, with bodies often left dismembered as a warning to others.
Millions of people were killed during his rule.
Saddam Hussein
President Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq with an iron fist for nearly three decades. He used his secret police and military to attack, torture, disappear and kill thousands of political opponents every year.
In addition to killing hundreds of Kurds and forcing the exodus of countless more, he used chemical warfare against his own nation’s citizens in what is now known as the Halabja massacre.
Idi Amin
Idi Amin ruled Uganda with brutality and economically destabilized the country. He instituted policies that specifically targeted certain ethnic groups for extermination as well as political opponents.
Thousands were killed during his rule as he used his army and internal security forces to create a climate of terror and complete lawlessness.
Enver Pasha
Enver Pasha was a leader of the Ottoman Empire and a key player in the Armenian Genocide during World War I. Starting in 1915, Enver Pasha’s government began deporting and murdering its Armenian citizens.
Many Armenians were marched through the Syrian desert, where they were starved, abused, and murdered.
Hideki Tojo
Hideki Tojo was the Prime Minister of Japan during most of World War II. Under his leadership, Japan invaded most of Southeast Asia and northern China.
Tojo oversaw and allowed the use of forced labor by the Japanese and sanctioned the torture and murder of prisoners of war. As the war dragged on, his armies would also commit atrocities against civilian populations in an effort to break their resistance.
Mengistu Mariam
After taking control of Ethiopia, Mengistu Mariam ruled through a military junta called the Derg. From 1976 to 1978, Mengistu oversaw a period of mass killings known as the “Red Terror.”
Members of his secret police would kidnap and kill tens of thousands of political opponents using mass executions and torture. Mengistu further instituted policies that prevented food shipments from reaching populations who may have been aiding anti-government forces. This exacerbated a national famine.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.