# Ruthless dictators put to death?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruthless-dictators-put-to-death/387250>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 9, 2007, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruthless-dictators-put-to-death/387250 "2007-01-09T03:13:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2007, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruthless-dictators-put-to-death/387250/21 "2007-01-09T22:17:55Z")

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[Julius Caesar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_caesar) was the first [dictator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_caesar) for life - in essence, he invented the job description followed by so many of the others.

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**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2007, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruthless-dictators-put-to-death/387250/22 "2007-01-09T22:50:04Z")

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[QUOTE=outlierrn]  
Also, was Lenin considered ruthless?  
[/QUOTE]

This is the advantage of having a successor who is even more of a ruthless, paranoid, bloodthirsty tyrant – history tends to judge you more kindly in retrospect. But there is no doubt that Lenin was utterly ruthless in his efforts to seize power and hold it in Russia. A brief excerpt from his "The Lessons of the Moscow Uprising”:

> [@](#):
>
> “We should have taken to arms more resolutely, energetically and aggressively; we should have explained to the masses that it was impossible to confine things to a peaceful strike and that a fearless and relentless armed fight was necessary. And now we must at last openly and publicly admit that political strikes are inadequate; we must carry on the widest agitation among the masses in favour of an armed uprising and make no attempt to obscure this question by talk about “preliminary stages”, or to befog it in any way. We would be deceiving both ourselves and the people if we concealed from the masses **the necessity of a desperate, bloody war of extermination, as the immediate task of the coming revolutionary action**.

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**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruthless-dictators-put-to-death/387250/23 "2007-01-10T00:02:42Z")

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[QUOTE=bibliophage]  
Hideki Tojo, the Prime Minister of Japan, was executed after WWII. He was ruthless enough, but calling him a dictator is iffy given that he served under Emperor Hirohito.  
[/QUOTE]

Tojo wasn’t a dictator, regardless. He had no near enough personal power.

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**Author:** ![blinkingblinking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@blinkingblinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blinkingblinking)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruthless-dictators-put-to-death/387250/24 "2007-01-10T05:05:47Z")

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[QUOTE=outlierrn]

Also, was Lenin considered ruthless?  
[/QUOTE]

He should be by anyone who has read even a little of the man.

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**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ruthless-dictators-put-to-death/387250/25 "2007-01-10T08:00:58Z")

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[QUOTE=blinkingblinking]  
He should be by anyone who has read even a little of the man.  
[/QUOTE]

well, that would exclude me, hence the question.

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