The two great ideologically driven genocides of the 20th century came from theories of human nature that were diametrically opposed, one of them carried out in the name of Marxism.

Judge as of 2002-01-01. The claim is that the two great ideologically driven genocides of the 20th century (understood as the Nazi Holocaust and the mass killings under Marxist-Leninist regimes such as Stalin's USSR, Mao's China or the Khmer Rouge) came from opposed theories of human nature: Nazi biological determinism and racial essentialism versus the Marxist view of human nature as shaped by society. True: historians and scholars broadly identify these as the leading ideological mass killings, one carried out in the name of Marxism, and describe their views of human nature as fundamentally opposed. Mostly true: the identification and contrast hold, but 'diametrically opposed' overstates it somewhat (e.g., scholars note shared features such as utopianism). Mixed: the identification is reasonable, but scholars are divided over whether the views of human nature were opposed. Mostly false: the ideologies' views of human nature are generally regarded as similar, or communist mass killings are not generally regarded as ideologically driven genocide in the way the claim implies. False: the evidence contradicts both the identification and the contrast.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 [PDF] Steven Pinker - The Blank Slate (The Modern Denial of Human ... Penguin Books / Viking (book text hosted on archive.org) · 2002 Own record

   “Marxists had no use for the concept of race, were averse to the notion of genetic inheritance, and were hostile to the very idea of a human nature rooted in biology.”

2. E2 Full text of "Black book of communism" Harvard University Press (1999 book, full text on archive.org) · 1999

   “Communist regimes did not just commit criminal acts (all states do so on occasion); they were criminal enterprises in their very essence: on principle, so to speak, they all ruled lawlessly, by violence, and without regard for human life.”

3. E3 Full text of "Black book of communism" Harvard University Press (1999 book, full text on archive.org) · 1999

   “But for the Khmer Rouge, as for the Chinese Communists, some social groups were criminal by nature, and this criminality was seen as transmittable from husband to wife, as well as an inherited trait.”

4. E4 [PDF] Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic ... New Left Review (review by Dylan Riley) · November 2007

   “The answer, for Mann, is ideology: Communist cleansing, Subcontinental partition and Indonesian repression were not carried out against an ethnically defined enemy.”

The independent evidence supports describing communist mass killing as ideologically driven and not aimed at an ethnically defined enemy [E2][E4]. However, no evidence item describes Nazi ideology or its view of human nature. The only source for the opposed-views contrast is the subject's own book [E1], and [E3] reports that the Khmer Rouge and the Chinese Communists treated some groups' criminality as an inherited trait. The evidence therefore does not settle the claim under the criteria.