Noah Smith tackles a grim historical calculus that most prefer to ignore: ranking the "monsters" of the 20th century not by who feels most evil, but by who posed the greatest existential threat to human life. In an era where history is often flattened into memes or ironic posters, Smith insists on the brutal necessity of distinguishing between regimes that merely misgovern and those built for total annihilation.
The Metric of Intent
Smith begins by dismantling the casual reverence for historical tyrants, noting how time sanitizes even the most horrific figures. He observes that "Genghis Khan killed tens of millions in his campaigns of conquest eight hundred years ago, but today he's more likely to be invoked as a joke, or an object of reverence, than as a monster." This fading of emotional power is a dangerous illusion. As Smith points out, "By the early 2000s, hipsters in my dorm were already hanging ironic Chairman Mao posters in their rooms," a cultural amnesia that obscures the reality of the Great Leap Forward.
The author's central thesis rests on a specific, often overlooked variable: intent. Smith argues that "Intent is an important factor to consider when ranking history's greatest monsters." He distinguishes between the 36-40 million deaths in Mao's Great Famine, which resulted from "foolhardy agricultural policies," and the deliberate extermination programs of other regimes. While Mao "kept [failing policies] in place to avoid losing face," Smith notes that "killing tens of millions of his own people was never Mao's plan." This distinction is crucial for understanding why some regimes are "palatable as an ally" while others are not.
Critics might argue that the line between "negligence" and "intent" is often blurry in totalitarian states, where the refusal to change a lethal policy is itself a form of intent. However, Smith's framework forces a necessary precision in how we assign historical responsibility.
The point of ranking evil regimes isn't to have fun marveling at the scale of human brutality — it's not like trying to figure out what the biggest dinosaur was, or whether Michael Jordan was better than LeBron.
The Architecture of Genocide
The commentary shifts to a stark hierarchy, placing Adolf Hitler and the Nazis at the apex of evil. Smith's reasoning is not merely about the Holocaust's scale, but its scope as a blueprint for global destruction. He writes, "The slaughter of 5-6 million Jews was deliberate, but it was only one part of Hitler's plans for genocide in Europe and Asia." The author highlights the "Hunger Plan," a Nazi strategy that "called for intentional mass famines to wipe out most of the people living in the USSR and East Europe."
Smith connects this to the broader context of World War II, noting that "Out of the 27 million Soviet citizens killed by the Nazis during World War 2, 19 million were civilians, and most of these probably died from hunger and disease." This aligns with the historical record of the Hunger Plan, which was designed to starve tens of millions to clear land for German settlement. Smith argues that "Hitler's regime was purpose-built for conquest and genocide — it could only keep killing or die."
This analysis reframes the Allied decision to support the Soviet Union. Smith asserts, "In this sense, the Holocaust, as horrifying as it was, was only the tip of the iceberg." He suggests that the "decision to ally with Stalin in order to defeat that unique menace was unquestionably the right one," because the alternative was a world where the Nazis' "unprecedented genocide" would have succeeded. The comparison to the Mongols is telling; Smith notes that while Genghis Khan and Timur killed millions, they did so "to subdue and rule, not to annihilate."
The Distributed Horror of Imperial Japan
Moving to the second tier, Smith examines Fascist Japan, describing a regime where "genocide had become their standard tool of conquest." He highlights the brutality of the invasion of China, where "14 million Chinese people" were killed, mostly through "deliberately starving them or slaughtering whole towns." Smith draws a chilling parallel to the Nazis, noting that the Japanese "used biological weapons to try to kill even more" and experimented on over 10,000 people.
What makes this section particularly insightful is Smith's analysis of the Japanese command structure. He argues that the atrocities were "not a result of official state ideology... like the Nazis' ideology of race war," but rather a "decentralized" phenomenon where "local commanders did atrocities all on their own." This distributed nature of the horror makes it harder to pin on a single "monster," yet Smith concludes that "collectively, Imperial Japan was the closest thing to the Nazis that existed in the 20th century."
The author also touches on the Khmer Rouge, ranking them third not by total numbers, but by the percentage of their own population they destroyed. "The Khmer Rouge slaughtered a fifth to a quarter of their populace, higher than anyone else on the list," Smith writes. He describes the "cold, systematic nature of the mass murder" as "second only to the Nazis," referencing the "Killing Fields" where soldiers would "dash babies' brains out."
The Limits of Internal Brutality
Smith places Stalin and Mao in the fourth and fifth spots, respectively, categorizing them as tyrants who "sat on their giant empire" rather than seeking global conquest. He notes that Stalin's "lack of world-conquering ambition made him palatable as an ally against Hitler." While Stalin's regime was "nightmarish" and responsible for 10 to 20 million deaths, Smith argues that his primary focus was "internal ideological and economic reorganization and maintaining his personal power."
Similarly, Mao is described as a leader who "viewed Chinese deaths as collateral damage in his power struggles." Smith emphasizes that while Mao's policies were "insane," he "wasn't much interested in conquest." This distinction is vital for understanding the geopolitical choices of the 20th century. As Smith puts it, "Sometimes real life forces you to choose between monsters."
A counterargument worth considering is that the "internal" focus of Stalin and Mao did not prevent them from exporting terror or engaging in proxy wars that caused massive suffering elsewhere. However, Smith's ranking holds up when focusing on the specific intent of total annihilation of external populations, a hallmark of the Nazi and Japanese regimes.
Hitler and the Nazis should thus stand as the undisputed all-time champion of evil. With an intentional body count of over 30 million, and plans to do even more, they were less like other historical tyrants and more like some kind of alien armada.
Bottom Line
Noah Smith's ranking succeeds by refusing to let the sheer scale of death obscure the specific intent behind it, forcing readers to confront the unique nature of regimes built for total annihilation. The argument's greatest strength is its historical grounding in the "Hunger Plan" and the "Hunger Plan" of the Nazis, but its vulnerability lies in the difficulty of measuring the "intent" of decentralized atrocities like those in Imperial Japan. Ultimately, the piece serves as a grim reminder that in the calculus of history, the difference between a tyrant and a monster often comes down to whether the goal was to rule the world or to empty it.