Who Killed More? Mao, Stalin, or Hitler? 

So who was most ruthless, in your opinion? Mao, Stalin, or Hitler? Also, I literally read Morning Brew almost every day. And yes, that's how I really found out about the Will Smith slap. Sign up for free here: cen.yt/mbmrbeat

While the numbers may not be as high as these 3, I'd add Leopold II of Belgium as one of the most ruthless murderers for his atrocities in the Belgian Congo.

What makes Hitler unique is that he was a less "successful" dictator than the other two. His reign of terror was dominated by a failed war that ultimately resulted in his own death, leaving many of his most horrifying ambitions unfulfilled. There is less ambiguity about Stalin and Mao, by contrast. They ruled for a long time and we have a good sense of how bad they were. We don't know how bad Hitler could have been.

Another thing to keep in mind about Hitler is this. He was losing the war, he could have used the extra hands from the SS to fight on the collapsing front lines. Instead of trying to salvage his situation and save his war effort, he doubled down on the killings and had the camps double their efforts. He literally decided that his genocide needed to keep going even when losing the war. If that's not the most evil thing a dictator can do, I don't know what else.

My great grandfather, a victim of Repression of 37-38. Probably died not even from a direct order from Stalin, but just his general policies on “enemies” to the regimes that were studiously carried out by his henchmen in various Republics across USSR

I’d also add Pol Pot, who oversaw the killing of about a quarter of the Cambodian population during the Khmer Rouge

Ranked by ruthlessness: 1. Hitler (killing some people for existing, and is open with his party about that) 2. Stalin (very sinister and killed people for doing anything slightly wrong) 3. Mao (most deaths due to horrible mismanagement) Edit ~15 months later: This ranking just referring to the three in the video. There are obviously other beyond horrible, murderous dictators, like Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Macias Nguema. I would also consider King Leopold II, specifically over the Congo ""Free"" State.

Great video! I must comment and show my appreciation for your emphasis on empathy and being sure to conceptualize how large these numbers are. Thank you.

Love how he’s trying explain empathy to us lol

If you go by proportions, Genghis Khan is still the heavyweight champion. All he had was cavalry with bows,lassos,lances,and swords.

The fact that Hitler was able to kill that many people in that short a span is terrifying. Keep in mind that Stalin and Mao had power for much longer, had hitler’s reign of terror been longer his kill count would’ve been as well. He wouldn’t have stopped at Jews, Slavs, communists and the disabled he would’ve expanded his genocide.

Pol Pot was also one of the most ruthless dictators!

Mr.Beat, can we get a full release of killing is wrong?

The terrifying thing is, if Hitler had reigned longer over Germany, how much deaths would have been caused by him? Because remember, most of those kills happened in the span of 5 years.

Sadly, Stalin's mindset of "a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic," is still used, consciously or not to this day. Take the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, for example. Each death that was reported initially, they mentioned the person's gender and age, but as time went on and the number of Fatal outcomes from contracting Covid skyrocketed, these Fatal outcomes were mere numbers: "Last week [insert number here] died after a positive test for Covid-19,"

Learning about such dark times of history I realise how lucky I am and my family, relatives and friends are just to be born in a peaceful country and a peaceful time. I am not very religious but I hope and pray that it will continue for the sake of our children. With the wrong person in power of any country, things can so easily change.

great vid! but something in common is 2 of those dictators had something in common (ideology) difference in how too implement it but comes from the same fountain

The number of kills may not be as high as Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin but in my opinion, Pol Pot, the fascistic Maoist-communist dictator of Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979 is one of if not the most ruthless dictator in history, his atrocities were endless and utterly heartless, he literally abolished currency, started the super Great Leap Forward which started a massive famine in Cambodia, forcefully evacuated people from cities to the labor camps in the countryside, turned teenagers into mass murderers, destroy intellectualism by killing the smart and making everyone either a peasant or a soldier, massacre ethnic minorities and the religious and last but not least, unleashed one of the most brutal genocide in history on his country where around one fourth of the Cambodian population of eight million people were killed in a span of just 4 years, most of them either starved to death or be brutally tortured or killed in the absolute worst ways possible in the Killing Fields. Pol Pot’s legacy is one of nothing but terror, he left behind a shattered country which today is filled with landmines, mass graves, unexploded bombs, traps, a young population, a deeply scarred history and a mostly ruthless and authoritarian government in Cambodia.

6:34 To be clear, the person next to Stalin isn't Leon Trotsky but Mikhail Kalinin, the first Presidium of Supreme Soviet.

I feel like Leopold II and Hirohito should also be mentioned

Good video tx

Hitler had the least amount of time out of the three. If he had been able to continue his reign, his dark ambitions would likely led to death counts closer to if not exceedng Stalin and Mao. On a similar note, Hitler mostly aimed to kill people he considered as 'others', where as Stalin and Mao were responsible for killing mostly their own people.

One thing about Hitler that I don’t often hear mentioned when discussing his kill count is the lives of soldiers he took. He had an invaluable part in starting WW2 and can be considered largely responsible for the millions of soldiers who died in Europe during that period.

My Great Grandmother was in Gulag Camp. One of the soldiers in camp did terrible things to her.

Am I the only one who doesn’t know who “Mao” is?

Hitler: I've killed the most people Mao: Remember, there's always an asian better than you

Mr Beat kills boredom and ignorance, usually at the same time.

I don't know you but really appreciate your sense of respinsibility and conscience for the wellbeing of mankind👍

Thanks beat

I feel like Emperor Hirohito should be in the discussion. Not in terms of deaths, but just due to the sheer brutality employed by the Japanese army in places like Manila and Nanjing is truly frightening. Add Unit 731 to that, and you've got yourself one of the worst people in history

thanks you friend

Name a more iconic trio... I will wait.

My father always included Pol Pot when speaking of dictators and despots. His numbers were significantly lower than these three, and his time in power continued well into my lifetime which was my dad's point, dictators and despots are not a thing of the past. I grew up in the '80's pretty much, I graduated high school in '88 and the Soviet Union was the only thing we worried about. It was easy to think Hitler was the last of the truly brutal dictators but Pol Pot was going strong until the '90's. We didn't learn about that in school however. I'm grateful my dad was interested in world events. The education system in the US is really lacking. Thank you for presenting the educational content that you create, Mr. Beat. We need more like you.

Wait a second, “Killing is only called murder when it is illegal, and murder is illegal pretty much everywhere.” That would be circular reasoning, this man must be a murderer 🤨

Killing is bad (accidently steps on a bug)

Fun Fact: Pol Pot killed so much during his reign, the life expectancy for Cambodia in 1977 was 18-19 yrs old

I had my US history EOC today, and the only reason I'm confident I did well is probably because of this channel.

short answer : mao

It feels like the data reference for the video is as good as finding a gypsy on the street and asking for it, and then starting to make a video, with no reference on multiple fronts.

The first minute of this video is definitely going to get tweeted by the Mr. Beat out of context Twitter account

Hitler was the loudest. Stalin was the most persistent Mao was the quietest

I like Mr Beat but it’s hard to find information on him because of Mr Beast. If I search up your name I find a bunch of stuff about the latter.

I think i can understand people's respect toward Mao Zedong. I am an Indonesian, we used to have a dictator named Suharto (a dictator your nation helped created). During his reign Indonesia was entering its red scare phase, millions of communists although mostly suspected communist died in the hands of the military. Then the government passed the bill to brand the I.D card of Communist and suspected Communist descendants so that their children and grand children wont be hired in business, can't become a civil servant, all and all just straight up having less rights compared to other average Indonesian. Thankfully his downfall was not so violent like Sadam Hussein. Suharto ruled Indonesia for 32 years and was a close friend with the U.S a lot of Indonesian hates him, many older generation are nostalgic about his reign especially his strong policies on crime, but every Indonesian regarded him as a National hero why? This is because he fought against the Invading Netherland and Japanese forces back during the Indonesian revolution. Indonesia have a saying that "A person is a hero not because of what he did, but because he have done his service to the country". In Suharto case, "what he have done" is the massacre and later ruthless capitalism and the never ending nepotism. And "his service for the country" was fighting back the Netherland, British, and Japanese Invaders and thus helping to create the Indonesian republic. To be fair our first president Sukarno, just before Suharto also done a lot of violence but people give him a pass because during his rule Indonesia was very unstable since it just gained its independence and the Invaders are still looking to take back their colony. Sukarno was the one who read the Indonesian proclamation of Indepence he is also the closest to the USSR and friends of North Korea and it was reported that Nelson Mandela respected Sukarno since both of them voiced their utter distaste toward apartheid regimes both in Africa and the Netherland's East Indies colony. Both Sukarno and Suharto are our national heroes. Sure we wouldn't want these people to take power since their policies are often harmful in some way but in time of crisis you just can't pick and choose who is going to become the liberator of the nation. Mao Zedong was loved because he created the PRC a fought back against the very brutal and cruel occupation of the Japanese invaders and the violence military dictatorship of the Kuomintang he did his duty. Joseph Stalin was loved because despite his tyrannical rule he still lead the Soviet Union to victory against fascist Germany. Things are not so simple in here. America just got lucky that their first revolutionaries are taking over an already well established settlements with their enemies are of the same background and ethnic as they are (so sorry for the native american though, they deserve better president than George Washington and whoever started the manifest destiny). Some nation had to liberate themselves from Apartheid regime, the absolute hell that is the Japanese occupation, and had to endure the Imperialism of a racist empire like Germany, Italy, Japan, British, Netherland, and Belgium until some brave soul came to power who are brave enough to fight them back only to find out that their policies were not so great when they are in power. Nonetheless people who helped to abolish colonialism and fight against the Japanese empire and Nazi Germany are still worthy of the title "hero".

The question of "killed" vs. "responsible for the death of" are two different questions with different implications. If Stalin is responsible for the deaths of the Holodomor, then the argument can be made for Irish Potato Famine of the late 1840s and the Bengali famine during WWII being millions of deaths the British government is responsible for. This isn't a defense of Stalin, but pointing out the ambiguity of these metrics when applied to Western Powers don't look particularly great either-- it's just hidden more by the fact that we just swap out our heads of government more often.

"Killing is wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for killing. Like badwrong, or badong. Yes, killing is badong. From this moment, I will stand for the opposite of killing: Gnodab."

My great-grandfather was killed by Mao during the "Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries" in 1951.

Nope. When I think of mass murderers and genocide-era, I think it King Leopold of Belgium in the DRC 🇨🇩 He killed 8-10 million people in the early 1900s

I would like to remind those seeking to judge who is evilest base on who killed the most that to quantify the evil of the perpetrators is to degrade the suffering endured by the victims. Body count does not inform us to the evil that humanity can perpetrate against itself.

You should definitely take a look at dictators who the US replaced with other dictators, like Pinochet, because I’ve been seeing a lot of ‘history’ channels which downplay the atrocities committed by one of the sides, for some sort of ideological reason.

Please include Churchill also.

mister beat the Pol Pot of RU-vid

Great video. Thanks Mr. Beat!

Also, I think it is an injustice to blame state terrorism on one single man. The systematic or accidental killing of people, through murder or neglect, CANNOT be the sole responsibility of one single person. It took the cooperation of hundreds of thousands if not millions of other people to make such events possible. They too are to be responsible, even if not at the same level as those with power, those with influence

Harry Truman racked up a lot of kills too.

Mr beast?

When you realize Hitler was Austrian and Stalin was Georgian.

I’d love to see a video of Leopold II. Horrible, atrocious, evil ruler that should be in conversation with these 3 evil rulers as well. Great video as always Mr. Beat!

Mr. Beat once slaughtered a whole island in the East Indies.

0:50 Yeah I dance to my own songs lmfao this guy is a menace

I used to watch your videos like 6 years ago and I remember when you had a very small amount of subscribers and I saw this in my recommended today and I was surprised you were still making content. Great job.

One honorable mention by me would be gengis khan and his mongol successors who killed an estimated 10% of humanity

I read the title as who killed mao? Stalin or Hitler? Lmao

6:33 The one picture below is really of Trotsky, but the picture above is not of Trotsky, sitting next to Stalin in the picture is Mikhail Kalinin🙂

3:28 I hate to be a smart-ass, but Stalin did not become the dictator of the USSR until after Lenin died in 1924.

you forgot to add two more cruel rulers who are in the same class as Queen Vitoria of Great Britain and Leopold II of Belgium

ThIs ViDeO Is PrO-CaPiTaLiSt PrOpAgAnDa!

video starts at 1:06

This was very insightful and informative with no bias thank you much for this video

Lol man Mr. Beat is so underrated. In 0:47 in and already lol’ing. Wish this dude would have taught my history class, would have paid attention much more.

You are vastly under estimating Stalin. “He didn’t directly kill them.” He sent people to Siberia without shelter, without shoes, and without sufficient clothing to keep them warm. Literally, if you didn’t construct a shelter to live in after he sent you there, you were going to die. It was “naked and alone” the Siberian addition. This was a death sentence and it was intended as such. Men, women children, the elderly it didn’t matter. If you were even suspected of speaking ill of the regime you were sent to Siberia to die.

On the photo on 6:32 isn’t Trotsky but Mikhail Kalinin who looks quite similarly

you also have to consider that Mao and Stalin reigned longer and controlled larger countries than Hitler

the fact churchill isn't mentioned he the biggest murderer

Hitler:I’m insane, I’m proud. Stalin:What did you just say about me? Mao:Oopsies!

For all these dictators you can also take in the deaths caused by the wars they fought

The camps Mao had were called Laogais, which is something referenced in Avatar the Last Airbender

thank you mr beat this was very educational

I love the information, the video is just great as well as your content thank you for making me love history!!!!

I think this discussion once again proved that dictators are more efficient.

Hitler, Stalin and Leopold show that it doesn't matter what side of the political compass you lie in, monsters can emerge from any of them

Another interesting way of comparing history's tyrants is madness. A metric that can shade light on perhaps less well known but still horrible dictators like Francisco Macías Nguema or Francois Duvalier, who are often overlooked in "worse dictators" tier lists thanks to having caused a comparatively small number of deaths.

This “three great dictators” question is so flawed. And I’m unsure what sources Mr Beat is using, but I think he’s seriously overestimated Stalin’s impact and underestimated Hitler’s. Estimates of excess mortality under Stalin are much more accurate since the Soviet archives were declassified in the ‘90s. Wikipedia is far from perfect but there’s a good article on “Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin” that gives an estimate of about 9 or 10 million preventable deaths. Roughly 3 million from the Gulag system and Great Purge, and 7 million from famines. I don’t know how Mr Beat reached 40 to 60 million. Also I find it strange to gloss over the *25 million* soviets and 1 million Western Allies killed by Hitler’s aggressive war machine. Just the death toll inflicted in Operation Barbarossa is larger than Mr Beat’s estimate. My estimate for Hitler is about 42 million killed in only a few years: Holocaust (6 million), occupation of Poland (5 million), operation Barbarossa (25 million), western allies (1 million), German soldiers killed (5 million). I think it’s reasonable to include German soldiers killed as Hitler’s responsibility since he threw them into a preventable aggressive war. Also this doesn’t include what hitler WOULD HAVE DONE had he won the war… Anyway, maybe I just dislike this whole discussion of “the three Great dictators”. Why not include Hirohito? His war machine killed about 24 million people in a few years (19 in China, 4 in Indonesia, 1 in Indochina). Why not include King Leopold the Second? His rubber terror killed perhaps 10 million Congolese in the early 20th century. Why not include various British Administrations/ Indian Viceroys who oversaw the starvation of tens of millions of Indians in the late 19th century? Why not mention Thomas Midgley, Jr., who invented leaded gasoline responsible for perhaps 100 million deaths (Veritasium just put out a great video of this so it’s on my mind!). And so on. I guess i just think people should broaden their horizon from just Hitler, Stalin, Mao. Plus, I dislike reducing the complexity of the world down to just a few numbers/ death statistics as if that’s the way to make sense of history (mr beat did kind of acknowledge this). Anyway, I usually really like Mr Beat’s stuff! Edit: thanks for corrections saying responsibility for Japanese actions in wwii lies more with the military leadership than with Hirohito. Fair point.

Mr beat be the pickle Mr beast

Pol pot was very cruel too

I've seen most estimates of the Gulag system resulting in 1,6 to 1,7 million deaths which amounts to around 10% of those who went through it. Attrocious but a far cry from this estimate. May I ask what source you got it from?

Currently living and teaching at a university in China (although planning to return to the US soon), and one thing that often shocks me, along with the general veneration of Mao (a given), is how often I hear my students speak of Hitler in glowing terms. (I usually get about one or two in every class, and they speak openly with no protest from their peers.) I suppose that when you're educated to revere one dictator and ignore his mass-murdering flaws, it's easier to excuse the others, too.

What’s mind blowing is that these things started less than 100 years

No Pot? Come on, Beat. Now you gotta do a vid about and give shout-out to the Dead Kennedys. 🎉

I'm proud of you, Mr Beat, not killing anyone, not even once

Excellent, entertaining and informative video.

6:29 the guy on the left is Kalinin not Trotsky

King Leopold II has entered the chat.

I love your videos, and I know you're usually really accurate. But I have to point out, the current FBI definition of a serial killer only requires 2 victims, with a cooling off period in between. And props for showing some of the more obscure serial killers in your graphics!

What about winston churchill? I'd be interested in seeing that, someone who we don't often think of in that way in western society, but churchill was bloody. Outside of ww2, bengal famine and general conflict in india led to millions of deaths

Hitler : Mass genocide of civillians who are jewish. Stalin : Starvation and killings of people who disagreed. Mao : Starvation and war.

6:36 could you provide a source for this? The only sources reference the holodomor and that was 1933-1934 and it was only 1.2 million that died and that was due to a world wide drought and not stalins policy

You should have also talked about Gengis Khan and Tamerlane, both Mongols who killed more people than Hitler.

Mr Beat out of curiosity have you ever looked into the current status of the Romani people of Europe? We hear about them also being victims in the Holocaust as mentioned in this video but here in the US most of us don't really know that much about them. I found out however that in Europe that attitudes towards them are extremely negative. Some countries like Italy had polls taken where like over 80% of the population dislikes them and on the internet that conversation is even worse with how blatant the language is which is pretty concerning

you could share this video with your grama; kinda ironic considering that my finger slipped and I accidentally casted the video to her TV; needless to say, she was ABSOLUTELY PISSED! She said" GET THIS OFF MY TV RIGHT NOW ELSE IM GOING TO GET RID OF ALL YOUR TVS!"

I would argue that Mao was more brutal than Stalin, or, at least much crazier.