Interesting government in the 20th century killed less people than boring deaths that were prevented by some "interesting" governments. Beyond that, the most major cause of death after poverty was war, specifically the attempted invasion of the USSR by Germany, which was really just a matter of realpolitik at the time (thus why the USSR proposed a defensive alliance with France and the UK before the Third Reich).

Just to take the Chinese example again - less people died due to Mao's atrocities in China than due to regular old poverty in India, despite them starting at the same spot.

We just have normalcy bias by the absolutely staggering amount of death that comes with poverty, whereas a comparatively smaller amount of death brought by a government that fixed the former is much more interesting.

> less people died due to Mao's atrocities in China than due to regular old poverty in India, despite them starting at the same spot

What is the source of that?

Note also that China had deaths both from poverty and Mao dictatorship.

Yes. Look at the UN death rates for India and China from 1960 to 1990.

Mao definitely had deaths both from poverty and inhuman atrocities. but way less death from poverty.

Can you link to this statistics confirming your claims?

I am quite suspicious and dubious about claim that Mao had any sort of positive effects that would balance his criminal incompetence and/or cruelty.

I am willing to be convinced by good source but ...

I don't mean to say that Mao is morally neutral or good or anything. I mean to remind people that the vast majority of suffering and death in the world is banal, and no one cares about it, because it's business as usual. Personally, I find Mao's management to be morally bad, because one wielding such great power must be compared not to the alternative but to what they could reasonably have done (which is better).

Here is the source : https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/Population/

For a more concise analysis : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jNJxQNxQKd3MbtAzn2Ji...

As you can see, the death rate in China was consistently lower than in India, and while it got close during the "Great Leap Forwards", China pulled ahead even farther once it was completed.

It is trickery with timescales. It is like saying for instance "Malaria killed more Jews than Adolf Hitler did!" ignoring that one has existed for millenia and the other didn't make it to 57.

No, I don't. I'm specifically referring to 1950-1980.

Both were government inflicted.