Quotes About Dictatorship

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictator- ship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power

Arbitrary power [tyranny, dictatorship] is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness [lawlessness, anarchy]. — George Washington

While they (Thermidorians) were reproaching the Montangnards for having founded a dictatorship by suspending elections, they re-established elections, but were careful to make certain that they are 'rigged'. They came close to arriving at co-optation pure and simple. If they failed in future elections, they would maintain themselves through coups d'état that would restore dictatorship.

Amin is the shame of the whole world. The fact that he managed to rule so long and commit so many crimes was only possible thanks to the hypocrisy of the East and the West who were waging the Cold War for world domination.

Democracy is alive, and like any other living thing it either flourishes and grows or withers and dies. There is no in-between. It is freedom and life or dictatorship and death.

It is impossible to understand regime fall and survival in Latin America without examining changing normative views about democracy and dictatorship.

Robert Conquest once suggested that 'a curious little volume might be made of the poems of Stalin, Castro, Mao and Ho Chi Minh, with illustrations by A. Hitler.

we took the simple step of illegalising all opposition. And the autobahn to autocracy lay clear.

Judged by every standard which history has applied to Governments, the Soviet Government of Russia is one of the worst tyrannies that has ever existed in the world. It accords no political rights. It rules by terror. It punishes political opinions. It suppresses free speech. It tolerates no newspapers but its own. It persecutes Christianity with a zeal and a cunning never equalled since the times of the Roman Emperors.

Martin Meredith

Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force?

Even in the most favorable situations, radical authoritarian movements or coalitions aiming at a new dictatorship have great, normally insurmountable, difficulty in passing the "40 percent barrier.

A hurt body and mind aren't just like a dictatorship; they are a dictatorship. There is no tyrant as merciless as pain, no despot so cruel as confusion.

Jung Chang said that Mao ruled by getting people to hate each other: 'Mao had managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship. That was why under him there was no real equivalent of the KGB in China. There was no need. In bringing out and nourishing the worst in people, Mao had created a moral wasteland and a land of hatred.

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness. —NIELS BOHR

Così Hailè Selassiè non era un santo". Aaron Melchiades sollevò le sopracciglia, sospirò e disse: "Diciamo che se lo era non ce ne eravamo accorti". Poi aggiunse: "Sarà così anche per Mussolini. Rimpiangere i tiranni è molto più semplice che sopportarli".

Sin democracia –argumenta, por una vez argumenta, Vasconcelos– el resultado es la dictadura militar o burocrática: el caudillismo latinoamericano o el predominio de una casta burocrática, como en Rusia.

There's a strong message of divine righteousness in dictatorships. Every megalomaniac has to believe his actions are sanctioned by God.

He tells me that Filipinos are in jail because we Americans want a better world for ourselves. It's America that gives ammunitions to the dictator. He says, Your corporations can do whatever they want here as long as our government protects them from our discontents. It's you who will benefit from a Philippine dictatorship.

Signing off on the daily execution lists, Stalin was heard to remark: "Who is going to remember this riffraff in ten, twenty years' time? No one.

It's true that General Musharraf opposes my return, seeing me as a symbol of democracy in the country. He is comfortable with dictatorship. I hope better sense prevails.

Fascism is not an article for export.

Fascism is a religion. The twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism.

We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty