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The human rights violations were particularly intensive during the regimes of [[Stalin]] and [[Mao Zedong|Mao]], but started immediately after the [[Russian revolution]] during the regime of [[Lenin]]. Most prominent are deaths due to executions, forced labor camps, [[genocide]]s of certain ethnic minorities, and mass starvations caused by either government mismanagement or deliberately. The exact number of deaths caused by these regimes is somewhat disputed, but the historical research shows at least tens of millions and several overviews give a number close to one hundred million deaths [http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat8.htm]. Yakovlev, the researcher with the best access to the Soviet achieves, have recently stated that the Communists killed at least 30-35 millions in the Soviet Union alone. Some particularly brutal episodes were the [[Holodomor]], the [[Great Purge]], the [[Great Leap Forward]], and [[The Killing Fields]].
Yakovlev is especially critical of the treatment of millions of children of claimed political opponents. Children of former Imperial officers and peasants were held as hostages and sometimes shot during the [[Russian Civil War]]. The children of soldiers who surrendered during WWII could be punished. Some children followed their parents to the [[Gulag]]s, where their mortality rate was especially high. In [[1954]] there were 884,057 "specially resettled" children under the age of sixteen. Others were placed in special orphanages run by the secret police in order to be reeducated, often losing even their names, and were considered socially dangerous also as adults. {{ref|
Other criticisms concern the documented lack of [[freedom of speech]], religious and ethnic [[persecution]]s, and systematic use of [[torture]]. The Communist states had strict restrictions on [[emigration]], the most prominent example being the [[Berlin Wall]]. Many used an extensive network of civilian [[informants]] to spy on their own population. This created a society where no one could trust other citizens, who might report real or fabricated criticism of the Communist system to the [[secret police]]. In some Communist states it was common practice to classify internal critics of the system as having a mental disease, like [[sluggishly progressing schizophrenia]] - which was only recognized in Communist states - and incarcerate them in [[mental hospitals]].
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