Targeting of Populations in the 20th Century

The 20th century saw extremist regimes wield radical ideologies to target and eliminate specific populations, resulting in some of history’s most egregious human rights violations through genocide, ethnic violence, and mass atrocities. Extremism refers to beliefs so intense they justify extreme actions—like violence or oppression—often fueled by nationalism (exalting one’s nation above others), racism (deeming certain races inferior), or political grievances (resentment over power or status).

Emerging in turbulent times—like post-World War I chaos or colonial collapse—these regimes used state power to persecute groups seen as threats or “undesirable,” such as ethnic minorities, political foes, or social outcasts. This targeting wasn’t sporadic; it was systematic, aiming to reshape societies by erasing entire communities, leaving a legacy of trauma and moral reckoning.

These acts relied on orchestrated mechanisms of control and destruction. Leaders exploited propaganda—biased messaging—to dehumanize targets, rallying public support or apathy; Nazi Germany vilified Jews as economic parasites, Rwanda’s Hutu extremists labeled Tutsis as traitors. State machinery—laws, police, militaries—enforced policies, from forced deportations to mass executions.

Examples span the century: 

• The Ottoman Empire’s Armenian Genocide (1915–1923)

• Stalin’s Soviet famines (1930s)

• Nazi Germany’s Holocaust (1941–1945)

• Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge killings (1975–1979)

• Rwanda’s 1994 slaughter. 

Each used ideology—whether racial purity, class struggle, or ethnic supremacy—to justify atrocities, showing how targeting populations became a tool of power across regions and eras.

The consequences were staggering, reshaping societies and global ethics. The Holocaust, killing 6 million Jews, epitomized this horror, exposing industrial-scale murder and spurring the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, which defines genocide as acts to destroy a group based on ethnicity, religion, or race. Millions died beyond World War II: 

1.5 million Armenians

3–7 million Ukrainians

2 million Cambodians

800,000 Rwandans. 

Survivors faced displacement—Armenians scattered globally, Rwanda’s Tutsi rebuilt a fractured nation—and cultural loss, as languages and traditions vanished. These atrocities forced the world to confront state-sponsored violence, yet denial (Turkey on Armenia, Soviets on Ukraine) and slow intervention (Rwanda) revealed persistent failures, making the century a grim testament to humanity’s capacity for targeted destruction.

The Armenian Genocide (1915–1923)

Historical Background

The Armenian Genocide unfolded during World War I (1914–1918) as the Ottoman Empire, a sprawling multiethnic state ruled by Turks since the 14th century, targeted its Armenian Christian minority amid war and internal decline. By 1915, the Ottoman government, led by the Young Turks—a nationalist faction that seized power in 1908—viewed Armenians, numbering about 2 million, as a security risk, suspecting their loyalty leaned toward Russia, an enemy in the war. This paranoia, stoked by decades of ethnic tensions and Armenian calls for equality, triggered a campaign of mass killings and forced deportations. Ordered by leaders like Interior Minister Talaat Pasha, the policy aimed to eliminate Armenians from eastern Anatolia (modern Turkey), marking one of the first modern genocides and reshaping the region’s demographics.

This paranoia, stoked by decades of ethnic tensions and Armenian calls for equality, triggered a campaign of mass killings and forced deportations. Ordered by leaders like Interior Minister Talaat Pasha, the policy aimed to eliminate Armenians from eastern Anatolia (modern Turkey), marking one of the first modern genocides and reshaping the region’s demographics.

Villages were torched, churches razed—90% of Armenians in Anatolia perished, estimates ranging from 1 to 1.5 million by 1923. Survivors, often women and children, were assimilated or fled, creating a diaspora. The Ottoman state confiscated Armenian property, erasing their economic footprint, while wartime chaos masked the scale from global eyes.

Legacy

The Armenian Genocide’s legacy is one of loss and contention. The April 24 arrests, now commemorated as Genocide Remembrance Day, launched a catastrophe that shrank Armenia’s population from 2 million to a few hundred thousand in Turkey by war’s end. Survivors rebuilt in places like Syria and the U.S., preserving a rich culture—think Armenian script and churches—but losing their ancestral homeland. Turkey, successor to the Ottomans, denies the “genocide” label, calling it wartime tragedy, straining ties with Armenia and delaying justice; over 30 nations recognize it as genocide. The event spurred early human rights discourse—coining “crimes against humanity”—and foreshadowed later ethnic cleansings, proving how war and nationalism could annihilate a people while the world watched.

The Holodomor (1932–1933)

Stalin’s Collectivization Policies

Under Joseph Stalin’s rule in the Soviet Union, policies targeting Ukrainian peasants in 1932–1933 triggered the Holodomor, a man-made famine that killed millions, reflecting the brutal cost of his vision for a communist state. Stalin, in power since the late 1920s, launched collectivization in 1928—merging private farms into state-controlled collectives—to fund industrialization and consolidate control over the USSR’s vast rural population.

Ukraine, the “breadbasket” producing 40% of Soviet grain, resisted; peasants burned crops rather than surrender them. In retaliation, Stalin’s regime requisitioned grain at gunpoint, setting impossible quotas—12 million tons in 1932—leaving villagers with nothing. This wasn’t mere policy failure; many historians argue it was genocide, aimed at crushing Ukrainian nationalism and dissent.

Consequences

The Holodomor’s toll reshaped Ukraine and Soviet history. The 3–7 million deaths—some villages lost 90% of residents—weakened Ukrainian identity, a goal Stalin pursued to secure Moscow’s dominance; survivors faced trauma and silence, as the USSR suppressed memorials. Post-1991, independent Ukraine recognized it as genocide, a view backed by over 20 countries, though Russia calls it a shared Soviet tragedy. Economically, collectivization fed urban factories—steel output doubled by 1937—but at a human cost: mass graves and emptied lands. The famine exposed Stalinism’s extremes, influencing Cold War views of communism and fueling Ukrainian resilience, a legacy still debated as a calculated act of annihilation or a brutal misstep.

The Cambodian Genocide (1975–1979)

Radical Ideology

The Cambodian Genocide (1975–1979), under the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot, turned a nation into a killing field as the regime pursued an agrarian utopia, targeting “enemies” in a radical communist purge. Seizing power on April 17, 1975, after a civil war, the Khmer Rouge—born from 1960s Marxist insurgency—aimed to erase capitalism and Western influence, forcing 2 million from Phnom Penh into rural labor camps to toil as peasants.

Execution

Intellectuals (teachers, doctors), minorities (Cham Muslims, Vietnamese), and ex-officials were marked for death, seen as threats to a classless society. Over four years, 1.7 to 2 million—25% of Cambodia’s 8 million people—died from execution, starvation, or disease, a brutal testament to ideology run amok.

The genocide’s methods were savage and relentless. Cities emptied overnight—Phnom Penh’s evacuation left hospitals abandoned; urbanites, dubbed “new people,” faced harsher treatment than rural “base people.” Tuol Sleng, a former school turned prison, tortured and killed 20,000. Confessions extracted under beatings preceded mass graves called “killing fields,” like Choeung Ek, where 17,000 were bludgeoned to save bullets. Forced labor—12-hour days on rice paddies—yielded little; rations dwindled to a spoonful daily, felling millions to malnutrition. Pol Pot’s slogan, “To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss,” justified the slaughter, while propaganda boasted self-reliance, hiding the collapse from outsiders.

The Rwandan Genocide (1994)

Background

The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 turned a small East African nation into a slaughterhouse over 100 days, as extremist Hutu leaders orchestrated the massacre of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu amid decades of ethnic strife. Rwanda, a Belgian colony until 1962, saw Tutsis (15% of 8 million) historically favored over Hutus (85%), breeding resentment fanned by colonial ID cards splitting the groups.

Post-independence Hutu rule flipped power, exiling Tutsis; by 1990, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) fought back, sparking civil war. The April 6, 1994, assassination of Hutu President Juvénal Habyarimana—plane shot down, blamed on Tutsis—ignited the genocide. Hutu extremists, wielding nationalism and fear, unleashed militias like the Interahamwe to kill, aiming to eradicate the Tutsi “threat.”

Aftermath

The genocide’s end came with RPF victory, but its wake was ruinous. On July 4, 1994, the RPF captured Kigali, halting the slaughter; 2 million Hutus fled to Zaire (now DRC), fearing revenge. Rwanda lost 10% of its people; orphans—300,000—and widows rebuilt amid grief. The 1998 International Criminal Tribunal convicted 61 leaders—radio’s role earned propagandists life sentences—while “gacaca” courts tried 1.2 million locally, blending justice with reconciliation. Globally, the UN’s failure spurred the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine (2005), yet Rwanda’s ethnic scars linger—Hutu-Tutsi tensions simmer. The genocide not only devastated a nation but exposed humanity’s inertia, cementing radio’s deadly legacy as a tool of hate.