Who were the worst "villains" in history?

[Cory]

Abu Bakr al-Baghadi hasn't had power long, but the crimes of ISIS are already long and extreme (such as blowing up babies and burning POWS to death in cages, to name only a couple), and he seems to have personally partaken in some of it (like personally raping American hostages).

Wait, what?

Citation?

http://abcnews.go.com/International/isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-sexually-abused/story?id=33085923

Wow.

[Murica!]

I have a question to everyone.

Why does everyone seem to disregard Genghis Khan? I mean he killed 40 million people during a time when the world only had about 400 million people.

You would be right if you applied 20th and 21st century morality to the 12th century. The difference was back then anyone who had lots of power attempted to do what Genghis did  except they weren't successful so back then everyone would be considered equally as evil. Hitler and Stalin did their evil deeds in at time where a sense of morality was supposed to be there and which no one else tried to the same as they did.

2nd I dont think Genghis Khan wanted to commit genocide like Hitler, I think he just wanted to expand his empire.

I'm fairly certain that killing people was generally considered bad, even in the 13th(*) century.

[The Last Northerner]

26 posts (with a PUTIN shout-out no less) but no mention of Tojo, Matsui, or any Japanese war criminal.

Stay classy, Atlas.

[Jacobtm]

It's an interesting question, how do you define "villain"?

Is it just by amount of people killed?

If so, the order is:

1. Mao
2. Stalin
3. Hitler

But then, many people justify political violence if the ends justify the means. Mao and Stalin each killed several times more people than Hitler, yet for most "Hitler" would be the first name on their tongues if asked who the most evil person of all time was. Most assuredly this is partly because winners write the history books, and Stalin and Mao actually won, governed, and were able to propagate their ideology a bit. Further, the U.S., the ultimate winner in all this, was obviously allied with Communists against hitler, and while the U.S. and communists duked it out afterwards, communism is held in much higher regard among intellectuals than fascism today, so Hitler gets the worst of it despite Mao and Stalin being worse by the numbers.

I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on when political violence is justified. I'd expect most people don't cry for dead British soldiers from the American Revolution.

When do you think political violence is justified? Is your answer basically "when my side does it"?

[Cory]

But then, many people justify political violence if the ends justify the means. Mao and Stalin each killed several times more people than Hitler, yet for most "Hitler" would be the first name on their tongues if asked who the most evil person of all time was. Most assuredly this is partly because winners write the history books, and Stalin and Mao actually won, governed, and were able to propagate their ideology a bit. Further, the U.S., the ultimate winner in all this, was obviously allied with Communists against hitler, and while the U.S. and communists duked it out afterwards, communism is held in much higher regard among intellectuals than fascism today, so Hitler gets the worst of it despite Mao and Stalin being worse by the numbers.

When discussing this we must remember that the only reason Stalin/Mao killed more people then Hitler is because Hitler lost the war. The Holocaust as we know it would be nothing compared to Generalplan Ost.

When do you think political violence is justified? Is your answer basically "when my side does it"?

Yeah, basically. But to be fair this is everybody's real opinion. If the world was under the rule of some Nazi type government I'm pretty sure everybody here would agree that violence is necessary to remove it, and to liquidate the members of the regime post-facto.

[Crumpets]

I'm surprised only one person has brought up Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge killed about 2,000,000 people, about a quarter of the population of their country. The only thing that makes him different than Hitler or Stalin is that the latter two simply had more people to kill.

And although his death count is much lower than others' mentioned, I definitely consider Nicolae Ceaușescu to be a "villain" if only because his cruelty had basically no redeeming features.

[Why]

To be a mass murderer you need not only the desire but the opportunity to carry out that desire. Mao, Stalin, Hitler were able to have/create the opportunity but that does not mean those who do not get the same opportunity are not just as wicked in their desires.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Well the obvious trio - Hitler, Mao and Stalin; and their cronies and lieutenants - by sheer mass of people killed.

I would throw in the more tyrannical monarchs - William the Conquerer, King Leopald, Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar; the conquistadors like Cortes; Chiang Kai-Shek and Nicholas II whose regimes preceded the Communist atrocities; the obligatory classical monsters like Nero and Caligula, Pope Urban II and other such religious despots; Pol Pot; Talaat Pasha, Tojo , Franco et al.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

As for why Hitler is considered worse than Mao and Stalin? Partially it's due to more transparency of the Nazi regimes crimes. The Allies put as much effort as possible to expose the horrors they found as they marched into the death camps, while the Soviet and Chinese governments continued after their tyrants were deposed allowing more of a cover-up to take place.

But apart from that, the Nazi regime was different from Stalin and Mao's despotic rules. Unlike say the mauraders of the Red Army or the fatal incompetence of Chinese central planning, the Nazi regime transformed itself into a genocidal state with the express purpose of killing entire ethnic groups. That, coupled with Germany's aggressive territorial expansionism, really is a uniquely terrible move.