Democide is a term created by political scientist R. J. Rummel in order to create a broader concept than the legal definition of genocide. Genocide, for example, does not take into account government murder for political or ideological reasons. It is defined as large-scale murder by a government, similar to a genocide or ethnic cleansing. The twentieth century has seen massive democides motived by various ideologies such as abortion rights, some atheistic, some religious, some Communist, some Fascist, including the Holocaust.
- The Great Purge of the Soviet Union was the largest purge in a series of purges lasting eighty years (1917-1997), which left over 60 million people dead.
- The Holocaust by Nazi Germany was a democide.
- Operation Keelhaul. Estimated two million Soviet POW's repatriated to the Soviet Union exterminated beginning 1945.
- The Peoples Republic of China under the Chinese Communist Party is estimated at 78 million. 
- In Iraq Saddam Hussein, the former dictator, was hanged 12/29/06 for his crimes against humanity, his killing of hundreds of thousands of his fellow countrymen. 
- In Iran, the Islamic regime of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeni (1970-1989) is believed to have killed some 30,000 political prisoners in 1988.
- The Khmer Rouge-instigated murder in Democratic Kampuchea (now Cambodia) caused the death of 1/3 of the Cambodian population.
The are examples of unjustified murders by governments which do not qualify as democide. For example, the dissappearados of Chile under Augusto Pinochet constituted thousands of people murdered, often for their non-criminal association with communist terrorists. This is an excellent example of the abuse of powers that occurs under oligarchies.
- Repatriation — The Dark Side of World War II, Part 3, by Jacob G. Hornberger, April 1995. Retrieved from the Future of Freedom Foundation, August 21, 2007.
- R.J. Rummel, Reevaluating China's Democide to be 73,000,000, November 20, 2005.
- Death by Government,By R.J. Rummel, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994.
- Islamic "Democide" in Iran, Amil Imani, New Media Journal, May 24, 2007.
- U.S. - Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs, Joint Commission Support Directorate (JCSD) The Gulag Study, February 11, 2005; "The sheer volume of this information lends credence to the fact that U.S. servicemen were detained in the Soviet prison camp system following World War II, and during the Korean, Vietnam, and Cold Wars." Retrieved from U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personal Office (DPMO) http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/sitemap.htm Spetmeber 15, 2007.