Who was the most evil man in history?

[Lathesca]

OK, so Hitler killed one friend.
Stalin killed nearly all of his friends, including the ones that helped him alot during his exile years, like Kamenev. He also killed people plenty of people who were responsible for his rise to power, like Zinoviev, Bukharin, Rykov and so many others.

I was just trying to interject the fact that not only Stalin killed friends in your debate with someone else. I don't personally think it is particularly relevant to evility. And I won't argue that Hitler's killing was more arbitrary than Stalin's; Hitler was nothing like as paranoid, even at the end, when he only sacked the likes of Goering rather than kill them.
Perhaps, though, the ability to kill is not the only measure of evil. Stalin would kill more readily than Hitler, was clearly more ruthless and less indecisive personally. But Hitler put in process and oversaw a ruthless and organised killing mechanism; the 'banality of evil' maybe has a say here.

Possibly Stalin was more concerned with personal prestige and power, while Hitler, despite a certain confidence 'of the sleepwalker' in his own views, and the undoubted reliance of Nazism on the perception of his greatness, subjugated everything to an ideology that was to some extent apart from him. Not sure what that has to say about evil though!!

 

[budweiser]

I just read this whole thing and the main point about Stalin was only mentioned in passing; he was a extremely paranoid to the point of craziness. He was not a normal, rational functional human being. All of the deaths he caused were due to his personal paranoia and desire to retain power. I think it was because he had a bad childhood or something. What he did was bad, but he was more crazy than evil unless crazy makes you evil. But, he did everything he did to keep himself on top, not for the love of the party. Contrast to Hitler, whom I believe felt a certain fellowship and affinity for the german people of which he considered himself to be one. His actions were driven to promote a greater germany to the exclusion and misfortune of who ever was in the way. Sure, he hated jews. I'm not sure he always wanted to kill them all, that was the 'final solution'. In the last years of his life, he was kept pretty drugged up 24/7 so any decisions that were made were probably under the influence of drugs. History looks back and says these guys were evil, which I guess they were, but I think evil really means crazy. Well, technically evil means godlessness and you know all commies are godless. I'll stop rambling now.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

I judge people by their actions. And Stalin's actions saved far more people than they destroyed. This is the man who kept Hitler from conquering Russia.

And if Hitler had conquered Russia.... he would have Stalin look like a beautiful dream in comparison. He would have made Ghengis Khan look like Jesus.

 

[budweiser]

Stalin didnt save Russia, General Mud and General Winter did that. Stalin was ready to concede defeat during the first season of the campaing. He was in such shock after the initial losses that he locked himself in the basement of the Kremlin for two weeks and did nothing but drink vodka. When russian peace emmisaries were finally sent out, the germans, being virtually at the gates of moscow refused to treat with them. I guess they should have bargained.

 

[nonconformist]

I judge people by their actions. And Stalin's actions saved far more people than they destroyed. This is the man who kept Hitler from conquering Russia.

Stalin saved people?
*rubs eyes*

He saved people?
No way! Putting a bullet iinto a soldier cos he can't shoot straight isn't saving anyone.

 

[Jeff Yu]

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.

Yeah, Stalin was a bastard, alright. Hitler killed because he was start looning insane and motivated by idealogical reasons. Stalin killed in calculated judgements of cold blood. The guy didn't care about human lives at all as long as he got what he wanted. He didn't even care if he killed the right people as long as he caused fear and got his message through.

He once told Chiang Kai-shek that he would suffer no loyalty problems if he had the will to go and execute 5 million of his countrymen on disloyalty charges. "As for myself", he said, "I make sure anyone even remotely suspect is sent to the ministry of state security. Once there, their only way out is either the grave or Siberia."

Random mass purges, enforced quotas on monthly execution of "traitors", Siberian labor camps, Ukrainian famines, "penal battallions" of cowards and war prisoners used to clear minefields, mass population transfers and ethnic cleansing, murders and executions of Polish officers and intelligentsia, killing close friends and loyal supporters, Stalin did it all.

 

[Jeff Yu]

As for other names mentioned:

Hitler's an obvious duh, he's pretty high up there on the evil list.

Mussolini really doesn't deserve a place on the list. He really didn't do anything that much worse than the average tin-pot dictator, except maybe that he cooperated with the Nazis.

Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese nationalist, not a mass murderer. He didn't commit any mass crimes against humanity or anything, and Vietnam's communist regime is nowhere near as bad as some others.

Mao Zedong really wasn't that evil. He was a great military leader and had the charisma to lead people, but things went to hell the moment he got behind a desk and started making economic decisions.

In terms of numbers, Genghis Khan definitely ranks up there. His armies massacred millions, though it can be argued they did so out of necessity. He was very cruel and vile to his enemies, but extremely kind and generous to his own people and those who swore allegiance to him.

I don't see why Ivan the Terrible is up there, either. He tried to set a up a system to control the power of the nobility but they ended up getting out of hand and turning into murderous thugs. In comparative terms, the numbers aren't so high.

 

[Plotinus]

The sword passage is metaphorical.

What, you think Peter cut off a man's ear with a metaphor? Interesting theory!

No, I'm not going to go OT again. Honest.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Stalin saved people?
*rubs eyes*

He saved people?
No way! Putting a bullet iinto a soldier cos he can't shoot straight isn't saving anyone.

Well, his inflicting of ten million deaths allowed the USSR to gain the industrial capacity to avoid 100 million deaths.

 

[luiz]

What, you think Peter cut off a man's ear with a metaphor? Interesting theory!

No, I'm not going to go OT again. Honest.

Those passages are no related, and Jesus reprehended Peter for doing that, and then according to the Bible "glued" the ear back.

 

[bombshoo]

Actually Hitler did not kill Hess. He was shot down over England trying to start peace negotiations with them.

Hess lived longer then most Nazis, he wasn't even given the death penalty..He was locked up in Spandau Prison, until he was like 90, in 1989 then committed suicide..

 

[superisis]

What about Spear. Didn't he live for a long time too.

 

[Fox Mccloud]

Well, his inflicting of ten million deaths allowed the USSR to gain the industrial capacity to avoid 100 million deaths.

I'd say Stalin's would be more like somewhere from 20~30 million deaths, or even as high as 50 million. Some people might say that 20,000,000 deaths is pro stalin, so imagine only 10,000,000, you evil commie!

By the way, interesting link here: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/war-1900.htm

Also, on the same site: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/tyrants.htm

 

[YNCS]

The most evil man in history is my uncle Gordon. When I was a little boy, Gordon would tease me, pull my hair, pinch me, mock me in front of my cousins, and otherwise harrass and hurt me, while pretending he "was just playing" and "didn't really mean it." The man was a sadistical bully.

 

[LLXerxes]

Stalin
Hitler
Bush
Saddam
Nero

some of these people weren't "evil" but, "bad" like Ivan IV (the Terrible) and Ghengis Kahn.

 

[LLXerxes]

What about Ghengis Khan, he obliterated cities without great reason.

he was trying to create a trans contential trade route. trust me.

 

[Ramius75]

Well, evil men, there are everywhere, some got to power some dont. The more power they have, the more evil they can do. Whats evil ?? in my context here, its harming other humans.

From the list, i choose

Polpot - nothing beats this crap of human waste. Killing 1/3 of his own people, who can do that ?
Hitler - Killing of millions of jews, gypies, and many many others. including according for the death of millions of Russian.
Stalin - same as above
Saddam - killing of opponents and even son in law by eating his words.

Others
Military japan - WWII and warcrime against the Chinese, Korean, Southeast asians ,british and Australian. Including conducting biological weapon research on human.

Caligula, Commodos, Nero , And many many more Ancient, medeviel leaders.

All slaves owners in history, those that prosecutes the native indians. from Columbia, to cortez and from cortez to Andrew and so on and so forth.

George W Bush for his Invasion of Iraq.

Too many to mention anyway...

Edit: All hypocrites who dont practice what they preached. including some religions fanatics and leaders.

 

[bombshoo]

I completly forgot about Chiang...He is not evil I guess so much as just stupid...Alot of deaths in China from 1929-1970s was his fault, directly or indirectly...Had his regime not been so corrupt, he could have beat Mao and Japan with half the deaths.

 

[superisis]

he was trying to create a trans contential trade route. trust me.

Hitler was trying to create the third Reich... what's your point?

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

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.

I love that Ptolemy comparison.... , but you forgot Mao.......