Religion
In reply to the discussion: Historical proof of what has transpired in atheistic regime [View all]Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)Honestly, considering how free the Soviets were with data at the time, he was all but pulling the numbers out of his ass, but it's within the realm of possibility. I think Snyder and really all the more recent authors do a better job coming up with data to support an accurate (and lower) number, but that's only reasonable considering they had access to archival sources Conquest wasn't going to get in the middle of the Cold War. And personally I have no problem including Ukrainian cannibalism on Stalin's balance sheet.
Unsurprisingly, Conquest is something of a right-wing darling for having produced the highest estimates. Of course, they think he was far too low: http://www.distributedrepublic.net/archives/2006/05/01/how-many-did-stalin-really-murder/