During the Second Shanghai Incident, civilians were killed in the densely populated residential area of Zhabei in Shanghai, where fierce urban combat raged between Japanese and Chinese forces after August 1937.

 　　This is one of the historical documentary photographs taken during the Second Shanghai Incident that erupted in 1937. It dates from the period after August 1937, when fierce urban combat raged between Japanese and Chinese forces. It is believed to be the “Zhaobei” district within Shanghai, where residential homes were densely packed, or a surrounding residential area. The bamboo fence in the background was a common enclosure for private homes in Shanghai at the time.

　　As part of photographs taken by foreign correspondents present in Shanghai at the time, Japanese military photographers, or Chinese recorders, some are still preserved in historical archives both domestically and internationally. The reason for so many bodies piled together is that indiscriminate bombing and shelling during the Shanghai Incident involved bomber attacks and naval gunfire directed at urban areas, resulting in the simultaneous deaths of large numbers of civilians who could not evacuate in time.

　　Alternatively, some view these as records of sites where residents accused of “spying” or similar charges in areas turned into battlefields were gathered by the Japanese military and killed. In fierce alleyway combat, people trapped in the narrow lanes (li-long) frequently became caught in the crossfire of gun battles. These photographic records reveal the horror of modern warfare, where the city itself becomes a battlefield, not just a conflict between soldiers. The people lying on the ground were civilians living their daily lives there, and these images continue to convey how war can destroy individual lives in an instant.

In the 1930s, Joseph Stalin deliberately caused a famine in the Soviet Union to force peasants onto collective farms. Farming families suffered greatly, and millions died of starvation, primarily in Ukraine and southern Russia.

    In the 1930s, Joseph Stalin deliberately caused a great famine in the Soviet Union to force peasants onto collective farms. Farming families suffered greatly, with millions dying of starvation, primarily in Ukraine and southern Russia. In the early 1930s, Stalin forcibly pushed through radical socialist policies in the Soviet Union. Central to this was the collectivization of agriculture. 

   Land and livestock owned by individual farmers were consolidated into state-managed collective farms (kolkhozes), placing agricultural production under state control. This policy was coercive, ignoring the will of the peasants. Many farmers were persecuted as “kulaks” (wealthy peasants), had their property confiscated, and faced exile or execution. In Soviet society at the time, peasants were the group most directly and severely abused by state policy.

    This process triggered the Great Famine. Agricultural products were excessively requisitioned by the state, leaving almost no food in the villages. Freedom of movement and trade was also restricted, preventing people from even escaping starvation. This famine was a man-made disaster caused by policy.

   The family of the late President Mikhail Gorbachev also suffered its effects directly. From his childhood, he personally experienced the violence of state power and the reality where ideals were prioritized over human lives and dignity. His later pursuit of “socialism with a human face” and reform policies, along with his critical stance toward the authoritarian regime, was deeply influenced by these childhood experiences.

Dead German soldiers at the Battle of the Somme. The British fired over a million shells at the German trenches for five days. Most escaped harm by digging very deep dugouts (German spy planes had seen men getting ready to attack) but this dugout suffered a direct hit.

   The bodies of German soldiers killed by direct artillery hits in the trenches littered the field at the Battle of the Somme. British forces fired over a million shells into German trenches over five days. Most were spared in deeply dug trenches. The Battle of the Somme, raging from July 1 to November 19, 1916, was one of the most devastating battles of World War I. During these four and a half months of fighting, the British lost over 400,000 soldiers, the French 200,000, and the Germans approximately 450,000. Both the British and French armies considered gaining a mere 15 kilometers of territory a victory, but the cost was immense.

   Before the Battle of the Somme, British generals assured their soldiers, “The artillery bombardment will annihilate the enemy German forces, so by the time you reach the battlefield, the enemy will be gone.” On the first day of the Somme, 20,000 British soldiers were killed and 35,000 wounded. General Haig ordered further attacks, and the same tragedy repeated itself each time. In September, 50 tanks were deployed. Twenty-nine broke down before reaching the battlefield, and the rest quickly became bogged down in the mud. By the end of the fighting, the British and French armies had lost 620,000 men, while the Germans lost 450,000. The Allied advance at the front lines amounted to a mere 15 kilometers.

  The death toll during World War I was staggering. Approximately 9 million people died in total. This equates to over 5,000 deaths per day over more than four years. About 1 million of those dead were soldiers from the British Army and the British Empire. Millions more were wounded, suffering lifelong physical and mental scars. In Britain, British generals were blamed for the immense sacrifice of British soldiers. They were seen as incompetent, indifferent fools responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths. Field Marshal Douglas Haig, who commanded the army from 1915 to 1918, was particularly criticized and called “Slaughterer.”

During the Battle of Moscow on the Eastern Front of World War II, in January 1942, the body of an unidentified German soldier lay in the snow-covered wasteland outside Moscow, as a Soviet T-34/76 tank passed by.

　　During the Battle of Moscow on the Eastern Front of World War II, in January 1942, the body of an unidentified German soldier lay in the snow-covered wasteland outside Moscow, as a Soviet T-34/76 tank passed by. This was a Soviet propaganda photograph showing a Soviet T-34/76 tank crossing the snowy wilderness beside the body of a German senior sergeant who had been killed in action.

　　The frozen corpse of the German soldier lay there. Completely stiff and flat as a board, an expressionless face, lying by the roadside, where crows, dogs, wolves, or other animals waiting to devour him lay in wait. A mass of corpses, utterly unwanted by anyone, lay frozen to death, nameless, beside what Russians called the “road” and Germans called merely the “direction” – the same road the superhuman German soldier had marched thousands of kilometers to reach. 

　　The Battle of Moscow raged from October 1941 to January 1942. The German army could only advance to within 20 kilometers of Moscow, suffering over 300,000 casualties. From the start of the war in June 1941, approximately 2.5 million Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner within six months, with nearly 700,000 captured during the first few weeks of the Battle of Moscow. By year's end, approximately 2 million prisoners had died due to German negligence. Beginning in December 1941, the Soviet forces counterattacked, inflicting a major defeat on the German army.