Who was the most evil man in history?

[Fox Mccloud]

Poll coming...

Edit: Now vote!

Edit Edit: It's multiple choice, and public.

 

[superisis]

Is there any reason as to why Ho Chi Minh is on this list? I doubt that he qualifies with the rest of these people (well, save George W and J. Kerry, who are obviously not serious answers aswell).

Also:

Mussolini's first name is Benito.

Lenin's last name is spelled like I just spelled it (i.e. no double n).

By George W. Bush I suppose that you're indicating the current president and not his father.

Nkhita Kruschev name is spelled Nikita Khrushchev

P.S. I'm surprised that you didn't include more historical (i.e. non-20th century) figures. A favorite would be Vlad III Dracula (Vlad the Impaler), or perhaps Selim I (Selim the Grim).

 

[DexterJ]

The following people in my opinion should not be on the list:
Mussolini - ran a very corrupt, inefficient and ineffective dictatorship but in no way qualifies as 'the most evil man in history'. opponents of his regime were generally exiled to small italian islands. compared to some of the other people in the list this is fairly benign. probably the worst thing mussolini did was co-operate with Hitler in the destruction of Italian jewry - which almost all european (puppet) governments did. there are plenty of mid-20th century european dictator who were just as bad as mussolini.
I also agree Ho Chi Ming should not be on this list.
Dubya and Kerry should also not be on the list, unless it is a joke list in which case why are there serious answers?
Nikita Khrushchev I would also debate.
Idi Amin should be on the list.

 

[North King]

How can you judge people as inherently evil?

 

[Panda]

I'll vote for Stalin.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

you forgot Bin Laden...

Nobody is inheritly evil, we become Evil by our actions. Hitler was diffinitely the most evil man who has ever lived, but nevertheless, the cold, unfeeling murder of Stalin(When one person dies, its a tradegy, when many die, its a satistic) and Mao(The Ends justify the means) is very evil as well.

 

[DexterJ]

you can't, its a value laden term which can't be viewed objectively. Different people are going to think certain things are more 'evil' than others. It is in part going to boil down to political bias - especially when it comes to the modern era - those who lean to the right are more likely to belive that communism is more evil, those to the left would generally argue nazism.
How would you measure this evil and what makes one worse than another on this list? the death count - in which case Mao should be there with about 60million dead, however, a large number of these were due to unintentional famines so possibly not as bad as stalin and his terror famines (and many other crimes). Pol Pot, on the other hand had a much smaller body count, but he did manage to kill about 25% of the population, is this worse?

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

I disagree with you. Confusion on what is evil or not or denial or whether or not it exists is usually a sign that that person is lacking in character.

 

[Dreadnought]

OK, many people say Hitler was the worst. But think of this: Stalin killed as many (or more) of his own people than Hitler killed in the camps

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

yes, and he successfully hid it from the rest of the world for many years. The reason Stalin has never reached the infamy of Hitler is because he never invaded Europe, and Communism is generally much more subtle. It could be argued that they both(Hitler and Stalin) were equally as maliviolent, that they are just two sides to the same coin of vileness, and Its true.

 

[luiz]

Stalin and Pol Pot are the ones.

As for the traditional Stalin x Hitler debate, I say Stalin "wins" hands down. Hitler had a sense of morality. An extremely evil, distorted and even demented sense of morality, but he had one. Not Stalin. He had old friends killed for bogus reasons, something that Hitler never did. Stalin actually forced some of his close friends to sign the death sentence of their wifes, just to test their loyalty. That's as evil as it gets.

As for Pol Pot, he executed people for wearing glasses or getting married without letting the Party know.

Edit: I remembered another interesting episode of Stalin's life. He hated his son Yakov for no apparent reason, and his hatred was so intense that once Yakov tried to kill himself with a shot in the heart. But he missed the heart. When Stalin found him, bleeding, he said: "You can't even aim straight!".
During WW2, Yakov enlisted and fought with great bravery. He was captured by the germans and sent to a concentration camp. The germans proposed exchangin him for some german officer, and Stalin denied. Shortly after Yakov was executed. It should also be mentioned that Stalin's wife killed herself.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

I never knew those things about Stalin, although I've heard of the thing about Stalin's son.

In one thing I saw on the History channel, Stalin was also directly the one who ordered the executions of random citizenry for no reason.(And 5000 others, doesn't matter who)

In retrospec, Hitler hated certain groups of people(mostly Jews), while Stalin hated everyone else...except for himself.

 

[superisis]

Is it true, that myth about nobody touching Stalin's corpse for a week because they were afraid that he was not dead and that their disturbance would cause him to be furious.

 

[luiz]

Is it true, that myth about nobody touching Stalin's corpse for a week because they were afraid that he was not dead and that their disturbance would cause him to be furious.

Not exactly.
What happened was that when Stalin suffered the stroke and started to agonise, his employees could not call any doctors, because according to Stalin's rules only Beria had authorisation to call him a doctor. When after six hours they finally found Beria and told him that the room was quiet, Beria thought that Stalin was just sleeping and ordered to live him alone, since the dictator hated disturbs. Only 12 hours after that(18 hours after the stroke) the employees took the courage to enter the room, finding Stalin dead.

The great irony is that Stalin fell victim of his own paranoid security scheme, and had a long and lone agony.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

What would have happened if Stalin had'nt died?

 

[bombshoo]

I voted Hitler, but Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, and Kim Jung Il all come close..I personally think Hitler tops Stalin alittle bit, because he targeted certian groups. If you hate everyone your a jerk, if you target particular groups your a jerk and a bully. Stalin possibly had more evil done in the long run then, had Hitler won the war EVERYONE who was a jew, slav, gypsy, black, or asian would be dead or slaves.

Pol Pot, could very well have been the worst, but he fortunatly didn't have alot to work with. He had a small, already pretty poor country, with a small population. He did manage to kill off so many in the country, it has left a perminent dent though..Mostly for entirley no reason.

Mao- He was a self centered jerk like most dictators, but what makes him abit diffrent, he I think he honostly wanted to help...The Great Leap Forward, and Cultural Revolution were awful ideas, and millions upon millions died, but they took alot of work on his part to organize and put together..A really bad person does not use huge sums of his country's money (and even some of his own) on the people...Alot ended up dead, but I think he did have some good intentions...Except for the ones he killed to maintian power...but so many dictators have done that.

Kim Jung Il- Any guy who makes a video called "the nutritional value of grass" just so he doesn't have to divert money from giant parades to himself is just sick.

 

[DBear]

Karl Marx. If not for him, half the people would not be on the list--Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Kim Il Jong, Fidel Castro...

all deluded by a person who is to economics what Ptolemy is to astronomy.

 

[superisis]

Really? Karl Marx was one of the first to voice dissent to the unhampered captalism that kept most of the entire world in economic chains. His ideas are basically the foundation to the two largest political factions that exist today: Socialism and Social Democracy (for those americophone: Social Democrat = liberal).

To blaim Marx for the worst forms of communism and the worst freaks who supported communism, is the same as blaiming the holocaust on Friedrich Nietzsche.

 

[Steve Thompson]

Who on earth would call these people "evil"? I don't like or respect all of them obviously, but to use the word "evil" to describe any of them is just SO juvenile! But that's just me...

 

[Companiero]

You people are way out of line. How can you compare the evils of Hitler and Stalin? Hitler is by far the most evil thing history has ever seen. I mean as evil as it gets. Stalin killed his political opponents, which is something many governments would gladly do (most did and some still do; secret service and the like); Hitler killed for mare nationality, for the act of existance itself. Stalin on the other hand provided free housing, food and basic goods for the common folk, and Soviet Union witnessed a rapid economic growth during his reign. What luiz said about killing friends isnt a criterion by which I would judge evil. If Hitler had found political opponenets among close friends (i'm not sure if he hadnt), he would've killed them too. This is not to say I evaluate Stalin positively, but comparing him with Hitler is stupid. A result of the American myths about communism being as bad as Nazism.