Which dictator would you rather live under?
- Thread starter RandomFloridian
- Start date
ππ²ππππ°π²πΌπ³π³πΌπΌt
Gone Fishin'
There are better dictators to live under as both rule over underdeveloped states, the former gets occupied and the latter engages in some brutal colonial wars I would rather not want to get sent on
Franco? You mean that fascist reactionary dictator who opressed mionorities like Basques and Catalans. He too ruled with strict iron fist with his secret police and used Catholic Church.. There was really few of rights and life was pretty harsh. And Spain remained poor and backward. I ratherly would had lived on Brezhnev's Soviet Union and even that wasn't nice place to live.
Norman Thomas, the American socialist leader, said he didn't like the New Deal because it reminded him of Mussolini's Corporate State.
I honestly don't know for sure how voluntary the Italian corporate state was. Pretty sure, though, that no one was ever forced against their will to enroll in a WPA camp.
Think I'll echo a couple of the above posters here, and go with Tito. Not only did he seem to fall a bit more clearly on the "benevolent" side as far as dictators go, but I've always found the economic system he created intriguing... and it seemed to work fairly well. He was probably the one person who could've held an essentially artificial creation like Yugoslavia together (did a much better job at that than the preceding monarchy), and I think it could be fairly said that the country was in better shape by the end of his regime than it ever had been before. Unfortunately his system started unraveling soon after he was gone though...
Besides, the man had style... anybody that would send Uncle Joe a note informing him that if he didn't stop sending assassins to Yugoslavia, he'd "send a man to Moscow, and only have to send the one..." Cojones, man... cojones!
For second pick, I'd go with Ataturk, but only if I were ethnically and linguistically Turkish... otherwise it could get a little problematic.
As for Salazar, my grandfather lived in Lisbon for a couple years in the waning days of the Estado Novo, and he said it wasn't that bad... of course, his experience as a foreign national there to help in setting up a capacitor manufacturing plant were probably a bit different from that of the average Portuguese citizen...
Besides, the man had style... anybody that would send Uncle Joe a note informing him that if he didn't stop sending assassins to Yugoslavia, he'd "send a man to Moscow, and only have to send the one..." Cojones, man... cojones!
For second pick, I'd go with Ataturk, but only if I were ethnically and linguistically Turkish... otherwise it could get a little problematic.
As for Salazar, my grandfather lived in Lisbon for a couple years in the waning days of the Estado Novo, and he said it wasn't that bad... of course, his experience as a foreign national there to help in setting up a capacitor manufacturing plant were probably a bit different from that of the average Portuguese citizen...
Every dictator oppresses people, itβs practically a requirement for being a dictator.
RandomFloridian
Banned
To be fair Greece was a relatively stable country compared to other dictatorships from 1936-1940 and Portugal's coloanal wars only started to really take off during the 1960's, also Portugal was one of the few European countries in mainland Europe that managed to escape WW2.
Although now that I think about it Mustafa Kemal AtatΓΌrk or GetΓΊlio Vargas might be a better dictator to live under compared to Salazar and Metaxas, because their countries were never invaded (Excluding the Turkish war for independence) and their countries rarely if ever went to war under their rule.
If I had no choice but to live on mainland Europe during WW2, Portugal would be pretty high up on the places I would want to be. (Other than Sweden and Switzerland)
Chiang Kai-shek, I guess? Then again, I'd be a leftist Kuomintang faction supporter, rather than the right wing. I'm an ethnic Croat, so under Mussolini, I'd face trouble. Stalin created a paranoid state where loyal Communists got tortured and killed. Of unlisted ones, I think Fidel Castro definitely wasn't too horrible, and helped Cubans in some ways.
Can we try Huey Long? Seriously though, for most of the Other options we would need to think about if we are as we are now or if we and are families are the equivalent in that country. If our current nationalities, then we might want to try for something in Latin America. Though I guess we donβt have the experience with death squads and secret policework the Rat Line immigration services would be looking for.
So, as a left-leaning ethnic Croat, what's your opinion of Tito? Just out of curiosity....