The 20th century produced more dictatorships than any other century in history. Here are the major authoritarian regimes, their ideologies and consequences, explained to understand without oversimplifying.
Fascisms (1920-1945)
Benito Mussolini (Italy, 1922-1945). Founder of fascism. Takes power with the March on Rome in 1922. First model of modern totalitarian dictatorship. Allied with Hitler from 1936. Executed by partisans in 1945.
Adolf Hitler (Germany, 1933-1945). Chancellor in 1933, total dictator after 1934. Ideology: nationalism, antisemitic racism, territorial expansion (Lebensraum). Responsible for World War II, the Holocaust (6 million Jews killed), and over 50 million deaths total. Suicide in 1945.
Francisco Franco (Spain, 1939-1975). Takes power after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Conservative, Catholic, anti-communist regime. Longest European dictatorship of the 20th century (36 years). Dies of natural causes in office.
Antonio Salazar (Portugal, 1932-1968). Conservative authoritarian regime (Estado Novo). Longest Western European dictatorship after Franco. Indirectly overthrown by the Carnation Revolution in 1974.
Authoritarian communisms
Joseph Stalin (USSR, 1924-1953). Lenin’s successor. Forced industrialization, agricultural collectivization. Great Purges of the 1930s: between 700,000 and 1.5 million political executions. Gulags. Famine in Ukraine (Holodomor) killing 3 to 5 million. Total: 20 to 25 million deaths directly attributed to his regime.
Mao Zedong (China, 1949-1976). Founder of the People’s Republic. Great Leap Forward (1958-1961): 30 to 45 million famine deaths. Cultural Revolution (1966-1976): hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of lives broken.
Kim Il-sung and the Kim dynasty (North Korea, 1948-). Family dictatorship still running. Most closed country in the world. Major famine in the 1990s (600,000 to 2.5 million deaths).
Fidel Castro (Cuba, 1959-2008). Communist revolution 150 km from the United States. One-party regime. Lower death toll than other communist regimes but lasting economic and political deprivations.
Dictatorships of the Global South
Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-1979). Khmer Rouge. Attempt to erase modern society and return to pure agriculture. 1.5 to 2 million deaths out of 8 million inhabitants, a quarter of the population.
Augusto Pinochet (Chile, 1973-1990). Coup against Salvador Allende, backed by the United States. About 3,000 dead and disappeared, 30,000 tortured. Lost a referendum in 1988, democratic transition.
Mobutu (Zaire/DRC, 1965-1997). Thirty-two years in power. Massive economic plunder (kleptocracy). Died in exile after being overthrown.
Saddam Hussein (Iraq, 1979-2003). Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), Gulf War (1990-1991). Overthrown by the US invasion in 2003. Executed in 2006.
What they have in common
Three traits keep coming back.
Cult of personality. All systematized a staging of their own figure: portraits everywhere, official biographies, slogans, statues. Visual propaganda is central.
Single-party rule or personal power without checks. No legal opposition, rigged or canceled elections, controlled press, ever-present political police.
The construction of an internal enemy. Jews for Hitler, “enemies of the people” for Stalin, “intellectuals” and “exploiters” for Mao and Pol Pot, communists for Pinochet and Franco. This designated enemy justifies repression and cements the regime.
Why study these regimes
Three reasons.
To understand how democracies tip. None of these regimes came to power by external conquest. Most installed themselves via elections, coups, or revolutions. Understanding this tipping is learning to prevent it.
To grasp the human cost. The numbers are abstract. But 50 million deaths for World War II, 20 to 25 million for Stalin, 30 to 45 million for Mao: these numbers exceed understanding and force an effort of imagination to make them concrete.
To understand the 21st century. Many current tensions (China-Taiwan, Russia-Ukraine, Koreas) are direct legacies of 20th-century dictatorships.
For more, see our world history timeline and our article on the great battles of history. SAPIRO offers quizzes on historical figures with contextualized explanations.