Dictator

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Dictators, also known as autocrats, despots, or tyrants, are totalitarian absolute rulers with very few checks on their power. They tend to be brutally corrupt and repressive.

Despite being generally opposed as a method of government, dictatorships have support from across the world, although only when it suits people. The former Soviet Union, itself a highly authoritarian government for most of its history and a full-blown dictatorship under Stalin, supported dictators in its satellite, puppet, and client states. The United States has a history of supporting dictators when it is in their interests.

Contents

[edit] Examples of Dictators

These are all from the "modern" era; that is, the last hundred years or so.

[edit] Axis powers in WW2

  • Adolf Hitler - Germany
  • Francisco Franco - Spain (while technically unaligned, Spain leaned heavily towards Axis support in the war.)
  • Benito Mussolini - Italy
  • Emperor Hirohito General Hideki Tojo - Japan (Technically, WWII Japan was more of a military dictatorship, with the Emperor as figurehead, who deserves the benefit of the doubt.)
  • Ante Pavelić - Croatia
  • Philippe Pétain - Vichy France
  • Ion Antonescu - Romania

[edit] Soviet powers, satellites, and leftovers

  • Joseph Stalin - Soviet Union
  • Fidel Castro - Cuba
  • Islom Abdug‘aniyevich Karimov - Uzbekistan
  • Wojciech Jaruzelski - Poland
  • Erich Honecker - East Germany
  • Nicolae Ceauşescu - Romania
  • Saparmurat "Turkmenbashi" Niyazov - Turkmenistan

[edit] Europe

  • Josip Broz Tito - Yugoslavia
  • Enver Hoxha - Albania
  • Slobodan Milosevic - Serbia
  • António de Oliveira Salazar - Portugal
  • Aleksandr Lukashenko - Belarus Though his first election was democratic, there have been no free and fair elections since then, and all power has been consolidated into bat'ka (father).

[edit] Asia

[edit] South and Central America

Dictatorships in the Americas are a rather sticky subject for the apologists of American empire, as many of them were supported at some point or another by United States authority.

  • Augusto Pinochet - Chile
  • The Somoza family: Anastasio Somoza-García, and Luis and Anastasio Somoza-Debayle - Nicaragua
  • Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, and his son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier - Haiti
  • Fulgencio Batista and Fidel Castro - Cuba
  • Manuel Noriega - Panama
  • Alfredo Stroessner - Paraguay
  • Juan Vicente Gómez and Marcos Pérez Jiménez - Venezuela
  • Porfirio Díaz - Mexico
  • Ulises Heureaux and Rafael Trujillo - Dominican Republic
  • Getúlio Vargas - Brazil
  • Gustavo Rojas Pinilla - Colombia
  • Juan Domingo Perón and Jorge Rafael Videla - Argentina

[edit] Africa

[edit] Middle East

  • Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi - Iran
  • Ruhollah Khomeini; Ali Khamenei - Iran
  • Several generations of guys named "Saud" - Saudi Arabia (currently in power)
  • Saddam Hussein - Iraq
  • Bashar Al-Assad - Syria (currently in power)

[edit] Not quite dictators

  • Hugo Chávez - Venezuela (sought absolute power, but it was rejected by the Venezuelan people)
  • Hu Jintao - China (he is in charge of a highly authoritarian government, but doesn't have absolute power)
  • Vladimir Putin - Russia (almost, but just barely democratic enough to avoid the label) Lately, hiding behind the "democratic" curtain and pulling the levers.

[edit] Quotes

“ Your conscience might force you to vote Democratic, but in truth you want a Republican who will lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and RULE YOU LIKE A KING. ”

—Sideshow Bob

“ If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just as long as I'm the dictator. ”

—George W. Bush, December 18, 2000, emphasis added.[1]

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ↑ YouTube record or Bush saying it
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