section_path: Legacy/Death toll
section_name: Death toll
paragraph_text: Death toll
  
  With a high number of excess deaths occurring under his rule, Stalin has been labelled "one of the most notorious figures in history". As the majority of excess deaths under Stalin were not direct killings, the exact number of victims of Stalinism is difficult to calculate due to lack of consensus among scholars on which deaths can be attributed to the regime. Stalin has also been accused of genocide in the cases of forced population transfer of ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union and the famine in Ukraine. Under Stalin, the death penalty was extended to adolescents as young as 12 in 1935.
  
  Official records reveal 799,455 documented executions in the Soviet Union between 1921 and 1953; 681,692 of these were carried out between 1937 and 1938. According to historian Michael Ellman, the number of deaths during the purge is 950,000 to 1.2 million. Archival data shows that 1,053,829 perished in the Gulag system from 1934 to 1953, though current historical consensus is that between 1.5 and 1.7 million died as a result of their incarceration. About 6.3 million people were affected by mass deportations between 1930 and 1952, of which an estimated 1 to 1.5 million died. Historian Stephen G. Wheatcroft and Ellman attribute roughly 3 to 3.5 million deaths to Stalin's regime. R. W. Davies estimate famine deaths at 5.5–6.5 million while scholar Steven Rosefielde gives a number of 8.7 million. In 2011, historian Timothy D. Snyder summarised that Stalin's regime was responsible for 9 million deaths, with 6 million of these being deliberate killings. According to Rogovin, 80–90% of the members of the Central Committee were annihilated.