The Black Book of Communism

The Black Book of Communism

Cover of the first edition
Author	Stéphane Courtois (ed.) Nicolas Werth Jean-Louis Panné () Andrzej Paczkowski Karel Bartošek () Jean-Louis Margolin () Ehrhart Neubert* Joachim Gauck* (*German edition)
Original title	Le Livre noir du communisme
Country	France
Language	French, English, German
Subject	Communism, Totalitarianism
Publisher	Harvard University Press
Publication date	6 November 1997
Published in English	8 October 1999
Media type	Print
Pages	912
ISBN

The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression is a 1997 book edited by Stéphane Courtois, who includes contributions by several European academics documenting a history of repressions, both political and civilian, by Communist states, including genocides, extrajudicial executions, deportations, and artificial famines. The book was originally published in France as Le Livre noir du communisme: Crimes, terreur, répression by Éditions Robert Laffont. In the United States it is published by Harvard University Press. The German edition, published by Piper Verlag, includes a chapter written by Joachim Gauck. The introduction was written by Courtois. Historian François Furet was originally slated to write the introduction, but was prevented from doing so by his death.

The book's title was chosen to echo the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee's Black Book, a documentary record of the Nazi atrocities by Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman.

In the introduction, editor Stéphane Courtois states that "Communist regimes... turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government." According to Courtois, the death toll amounts to 94 million. The breakdown of the number of deaths given by Courtois is as follows:

Courtois writes that Communist regimes are responsible for a greater number of deaths than any other political ideal or movement, including Nazism. The statistics of victims includes deaths through executions, man-made hunger, deportations, and forced labor.