Who were/are the most underrated dictators of all time?

[Bouncy Ball]

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. I would have a complex too, if I had to dress up like that.

[Bouncy Ball]

2. Hey!

He dressed to the LEFT.

[lenidog]

3. Tito

wastly underated managed to keep the Russians and Americans out and kept his onw people from killing each other. The worst dictator quality wise has got to be Mussolini. He is practically a parody of a dictator.

[Nitrogenica]

4. Handsome Dick Manitoba

http://www.thedictators.com/

[democracyindanger]

5. Norton I

Emperor of the United States of America and Protector of Mexico

[jobycom]

6. Fidel Castro

Castro's done pretty well flipping off the mightiest empire the world has ever seen for forty years. And with a higher literacy rate and lower infant mortality rate than that empire. The standard of living sucks, of course, but that's to be expected under dictators.

[Bouncy Ball]

9. AND all while just being 90 miles southwest of Florida

thumbing his nose at us right under our noses!

[Undercover Owl]

7. Pol Pot

That Pol Pot was one twisted guy.

[6000eliot]

8. Get a load of "little Napoleon"

It's no wonder he had a complex.

[WMliberal]

10. Nur ad Din

Everyone gives ALL the credit to his nephew, but there would have been no Saladin without him.

[norml]

11. Stalin

Most 20th Century wrap-ups have a quota: one inhuman monster and that's all, so they go with Hitler. Stalin didn't even make Time Magazine's 100, except as a footnote to Hitler.

Now, I'm not saying that I like the guy, nor am I going to get into that stale old argument over who was worse, Hitler or Stalin (Hitler was. Reason: Stalin was maxxed out, but Hitler was just getting started. Left unchecked, Hitler would have gotten even worse.), but the fact is that Stalin cast a much wider shadow over the Century than Hitler did. He started sooner, lasted longer, and throughout most of the era that the two dictators shared, Stalin controlled more people.

In fact, Stalin unifies the century far more effectively than any other single theme. Usually, Hitler is treated as the hub of the 20th Century. Not only is the rise of Nazism and the Second World War always discussed in enormous detail, but earlier events like the First World War and the Great Depression are treated as mere causes of Hitler's emergence. The problem is, the Century loses its unity once the war clouds settle. The post-war era just sort of sputters along aimlessly.

Using Stalin as the century's linchpin keeps the Second World War at the Century's core and keeps the First World War as a necessary precursor, but it also binds the Russian Revolution and the rise of Mao to the major flow of history, rather than treating them as isolated sideshows. It brings the Cold War into the main narrative as a natural outcome of earlier events, rather than as a sudden break in history.

(Yes, earlier I called the Cold War overrated, but overrated is not the same as unimportant.)

And one final depressing note, while Hitler makes a much better morality play (After inciting the mob and riding electoral success to become leader of a free (until then) democracy, he committed unparalleled atrocities and was taken down by the wrath of a unified world in a final apocalyptic fury.), Stalin is more typical of tyrants throughout history. He lurked in the shadows, manipulated his way to the head of a pre-existing autocracy, consolidated power brutally and died peacefully in bed, undefeated, unpunished.

[NNadir]

13. I don't know if it's true, but they say Kruschev, Beria and Molotov

smothered Stalin, when he was paralyzed by a stroke. It is said they found him lying in a pool of his own pee and that he had terror in his eyes all the time until they killed him.

I am also aware of accounts of the serial rapist, torturer and murderer Beria on his knees begging for his life when they shot him.

It is small punishment, given the gravity of their crimes, but something nonetheless.

Hitler couldn't hold a candle to Stalin; though it's not often reported, since Stalin was on the winning side of the war. According to Radinsky, Stalin was planning to attack Hitler when Hitler attacked him and Stalin, at the time of his death was also planning agressive nuclear war against the United States.

It is amazing that Hitler gets all the press. Hitler was an enormous evil, but next to Stalin, he was strictly small time.

[Deja Q]

12. Arnold J Rimmer

:D

[barb162]

14. Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao

millions of deaths