Political cleansing of population is eliminating categories of people in specific areas for political reasons. The means may vary from

forced migration Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, g ...

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...

Politicide

Politicide is the deliberate physical destruction or elimination of a group whose members share the main characteristic of belonging to a political movement. It is a type of political repression and one of the means which is used to politically cleanse populations, with another means being

. It may be compared to

or ethnic cleansing, both of which involve the killing of people based on their membership in a particular

racial A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...

or ethnic group rather than their adherence to a particular ideology. ''Politicide'' is used to describe the killing of groups that would not otherwise be covered by the

Genocide Convention The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was ...

. Social scientists

Ted Robert Gurr Ted Robert Gurr (February 21, 1936 – November 25, 2017) was an American author and professor of political science who most notably wrote about political conflict and instability. His widely translated book ''Why Men Rebel'' (1970) emphasized t ...

and

Barbara Harff Barbara Harff (born 17 July 1942) is professor of political science emerita at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. In 2003 and again in 2005 she was a distinguished visiting professor at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide S ...

use ''politicide'' to describe the killing of groups of people who are targeted not because of their shared ethnic or communal traits but because of "their hierarchical position or political opposition to the regime and dominant groups." Harff studies genocide and politicide, sometimes shortened as ''geno-politicide'', in order to include the killing of political, economic, ethnic and cultural groups. Manus Midlarsky uses ''politicide'' to describe an arc of large-scale killing from the western parts of the Soviet Union to China and Cambodia. In his book ''The Killing Trap: Genocide in the Twentieth Century'', Midlarsky raises similarities between the killings of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

and Pol Pot. Under the

, the

crime of genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lati ...

generally applies to mass murder of

ethnic An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

rather than

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

social group In the social sciences, a social group can be defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties ...

s. Protection of political groups was eliminated from the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

resolution after a second vote because many states, including Stalin's

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, anticipated that clause to apply unneeded limitations to their right to suppress internal disturbances. Scholarly study of genocide usually acknowledges the United Nations omission of

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

and political groups, and uses mass political killing datasets of

democide Democide is a term coined by American political scientist Rudolph Rummel to describe "the intentional killing of an unarmed or disarmed person by government agents acting in their authoritative capacity and pursuant to government policy or high ...

, and genocide and politicide, or geno-politicide. Killings by the Khmer Rouge in

Democratic Kampuchea Kampuchea ( km, កម្ពុជា ), officially known as Democratic Kampuchea (DK; km, កម្ពុជាប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ ) from 5 January 1976, was a one-party totalitarian state which encompassed modern-day Camb ...

have been labeled genocide or

autogenocide Autogenocide is the arbitrary or ideologically inspired mass murder of a country's citizens by a country's government. In an autogenocide, the perpetrators and the victims of the mass murder are members of the same ethnic group. ''Auto'' comes fr ...

, and the deaths under Leninism and Stalinism in the Soviet Union, and

Maoism Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

in Communist China have been controversially investigated as possible cases; the

Soviet famine of 1932–1933 The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

and the Great Chinese Famine during the Great Leap Forward have been controversially "depicted as instances of mass killing underpinned by

genocidal intent Genocidal intent is the '' mens rea'' for the crime of genocide. "Intent to destroy" is one of the elements of the crime of genocide according to the 1948 Genocide Convention. There are some analytic differences between the concept of intent under ...

Typical reasons

Some groups attempt to eliminate the base of support for political opponents such as insurgents. This happens in many countries with high levels of

insurgency An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irr ...

such as Colombia. It may be a means for and referred to as pacification.

Politicide

Typical reasons

See also

References

Further reading