Anti-communist mass killings
Large-scale killings of people targeted for alleged or actual communist affiliations, often carried out by states or anti-communist forces.
Indonesian mass killings of 1965–1966: A wave of killings in Indonesia targeting alleged communists and their supposed supporters after the September 30 Movement. A major case in which the army and allied groups killed hundreds of thousands.
Death squad: A clandestine armed group that carries out targeted killings, often with state support or tolerance. Death squads carried out killings while obscuring official responsibility.
Cold War: A global rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies from the mid-1940s to 1991. The rivalry made communist affiliation a security threat in many states.
Transitional justice: Legal and political measures societies use to address human-rights abuses after conflict or authoritarian rule. It frames efforts to investigate killings and hold perpetrators accountable.
Genocide: Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The legal definition centers protected-group destruction, not communist affiliation alone.
Guatemalan genocide: The mass killing and persecution of Maya people by Guatemala’s military during the civil war, especially in the early 1980s. Counterinsurgency framed as anti-communism accompanied mass violence against Indigenous communities.
Political purge: The systematic removal, imprisonment, or killing of people considered disloyal to a ruling power or movement. Purges transformed anti-communist campaigns into mass arrests and executions.
Anti-communism: Political opposition to communist ideas, movements, governments, or institutions. Anti-communist beliefs supplied the political rationale for targeting suspected communists.
Enforced disappearance: The state-linked abduction or detention of a person followed by concealment of their fate or whereabouts. Disappearances extended repression and obstructed families’ efforts to learn what happened.
Politicide: The intentional destruction of a substantial part of a group defined by political identity or opposition. This term captures political-group targeting that genocide law does not cover.