History's most Brutal Dictators?

[Traitorfish]

Well, we often don't know as much about the earlier dictators, and in general they weren't able to be as great a tyrant as the modern ones due to less technology.

I'd say that it's also because pre-modern dictators are often not percieved as "dictators", just as King or Emperors or whatever, who can be expected to go violently stomping around. It's only if the dictators actions are exceptional for our civilised, "modern" era that they are properly recognised.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it often seems that the only well-known, pre-modern dictators who are usually recognised as such are Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon Bonepart, while even the absolute monarchs who pre-dated them are just seen as "kings". They may be seen as "tyrants", but that always seems to refer to their methods rather than their position.

 

[Phlegmak]

Genghis Khan should have been on the list. Maybe some Roman Emperors too. Maybe Mohammad too. Napoleon shouldn't have been on the list. And there are many Husseins. If it was meant to be Saddam, the first name should have been specified.

 

[Rik Meleet]

I'd say that it's also because pre-modern dictators are often not percieved as "dictators", just as King or Emperors or whatever, who can be expected to go violently stomping around. It's only if the dictators actions are exceptional for our civilised, "modern" era that they are properly recognised.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it often seems that the only well-known, pre-modern dictators who are usually recognised as such are Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon Bonepart, while even the absolute monarchs who pre-dated them are just seen as "kings". They may be seen as "tyrants", but that always seems to refer to their methods rather than their position.

If Pol Pot, Mao, Hitler, Stalin, or anyone else on the OP's list would have been a king he would not have been a dictator thus not electable ?
I think that's missing the thought behind the poll, to be honest.

So a better thread-title would have been "History's most Brutal Leaders" ?

 

[Traitorfish]

If Pol Pot, Mao, Hitler, Stalin, or anyone else on the OP's list would have been a king he would not have been a dictator thus not electable ?

Well, no, I meant that people perceive a difference, whether or not one exists. Obviously, a dictator's a dictator regardless of what monarchic titles they give themselves.

 

[luiz]

And it should be mentioned that people did nominate kings, such as Leopold of the Belgians and Genghis Khan.

Edit: personally, my votes were based on the OP list. I would never have included Napoleon or Mussolini in such a list.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I chose Mao.

- minimum estimate for dead under rule: ~20 million (more than Hitler)
- maximum estimate for dead under rule: ~100 million (more than Hitler, Stalin, and the Black Plague combined)
- estimate for dead under "Great Leap Forward" (a big mistake): 20-30 million
- estimate for amount of culture killed during Cultural Revolution: too much.
- ancient cultures, reglions, etc. etc. etc. nearly destroyed during Cultural Revolution: ancient china, tibet, muslims in china, mongols, buddhists, confucianists, taoists, ancestral worshippers, muslims, christians, etc. etc. etc

 

[Virote_Considon]

-Pol Pot, without a doubt. From what I've heard, people who fled the country died in their sleep due to nightmares about the regime. I don't think that happened anywhere else...
-Stalin
-Mao
-Hitler
-Caligula
-Kim Il-sung
-Kim Jong II
-Ho Chi Minh
-Idi Amin
-Robert Mugabe
-Saddam Hussein
-Pinochet
-Hissène Habré

 

[challenger]

So: what makes a "brutal dictator" ?

I suppose that the definition of "brutal" relies on the nature, extent and deliberance of atrocities commited under his/her reign. For example, things such as relocating entire populations or redirecting rivers have been done throughout history without the intent to harm people, but the result was that people took up armed resistance, starved to death and whatnot. Whether the results were unforeseen or taken into account is something we will hardly ever be able to tell.
On the other hand, there are actions such as "ethnic cleansing", the goals of which are exclusively the harm and death of the victims. There is no "mistake" here, the result is always deliberate.

In my opinion, a "brutal dictator" is someone who inflicts deliberate harm and mistreatment on the people under his reign, while not allowing any sort of opposition to his "politics" (for lack of a better word) or giving any outlook that his reign will end with anything other than his own death. As to who was the worst of the lot... does it matter?

 

[JohnRM]

Close, between Stalin and Mao, but most of Mao's killing was due to incompetence rather than actual intent to kill people.

Pol Pot is a close third.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

I voted Mao, for the same reasons as luiz. Having caused, directly and indirectly, the deaths of 70 MILLION Chinese citizens amounted to about half the population of China during the late years of his reign (and in PEACETIME!!). NONE of the Mao-made disasters were due to accident or incompetence; he desired only three things while in power: the Bomb, the rise of China as a superpower, and not losing control. He was determined to achieve these, no matter the cost to his country.

Human life meant nothing to him. He went through four wives, none of which he had any true love for. He once told his supporters how he would have loved to inflict methods of torture used for Soviet-style interrogations on his father. He did not bat a tear for the death of his elder son. And even on the deathbed of his mother, the one person he had any compassion for, he could not attend without selfish intent.

Incompetent? He had the audacity to challenge Stalin as de facto ruler of all Communist countries, and bent the newcomer Khrushchev's authority like a paperclip. Not only that, but he constructed such a strong personality cult, the Chinese government still calls itself the "children of Mao".

Mao's picture over Tiananmen Square would be like Germany hanging a picture of Hitler in the Reichstag... only much, much worse.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

pol pot
stalin
mao

 

[Traitorfish]

...he desired only three things while in power: the Bomb, the rise of China as a superpower, and not losing control.

Well, essentially, those are all three roads to the same thing- power.

 

[dwaxe]

It's most definitely Hitler and Stalin. Mao comes in third.

 

[kioras]

I would have to say that Tamerlane should be in the running.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamerlane

Kioras

 

[Heretic_Cata]

It was actually a woman. Elizabeth Bathory was one of the most demented people I have ever read about...

But she was only a countess - not a queen. So she doesn't count in the discussion.

Vlad was actually Wallachian, I think, and only later did he get conflated with Transylvania.

Yep. I never did understand why Transylvania was chosen as the land of Dracula instead of Wallachia. (ok - maybe because it sounds nicer and is more mountainous&forested)

 

[skallben]

Who the hell is "Voldemort" ?

 

[Julian Delphiki]

He who should not be named! Voldemort is Harry Potter's nemesis.

 

[Mirc]

But she was only a countess - not a queen. So she doesn't count in the discussion.

Yep. I never did understand why Transylvania was chosen as the land of Dracula instead of Wallachia. (ok - maybe because it sounds nicer and is more mountainous&forested)

(click the smiley)

I've never understood that either, really. My guess was that a more Latin name sounds more like an "old mistery" thing.

 

[Elrohir]

I say Pol Pot in general, but Mao, Stalin and Hitler were all pretty close in the running.

In company like that, I don't see why Napoleon or Mussolini are even up there. Neither Napoleon or Mussolini were particularly nice men, but they weren't mass murderers. (Mussolini has some blame for being complicit in the Holocaust, but his guilt is not anywhere near Hitlers)

He may be talking about Vlad the Impaler (Dracula). He did in fact impale people, and is rumored to have drunk their blood (thus the whole vampire thing).

But when compared to Hitler or Stalin or Mao, Vlad wasn't that bad. (Although I would definitely say that he was much worse than Napoleon or Mussolini) I mean impaling 20,000 people on stakes as a negotiating tactic is pretty brutal, but compared to a couple million dying in Auschwitz or the Siberian gulags, it's small change. And the majority of his victims, at least, were Ottoman prisoners of war* - executing your enemies soldiers is bad, but not as bad as murdering a couple million of your own civilians.

 

[Mirc]

I mean impaling 20,000 people on stakes as a negotiating tactic is pretty brutal

I didn't know fantasy books were considered historic sources these days...

Sorry but this is extremely stupid, he learned the impaling technique while he grew up in the Ottoman Empire, where it was MUCH more widely used! Much more! He managed to stop Ottoman expansion into Europe while being the ruler of a country that was about 15 times smaller than the Ottoman Empire... The impaling legends are all only myths inspired by Bram Stoker.