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Dictators by Picture

Can you identify these people who have been frequently described as dictators?
Keep in mind, that in some countries, the family name comes first
Quiz by JGElias
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Last updated: December 1, 2019
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First submittedAugust 24, 2018
Times taken38,395
Average score60.0%
Rating4.10
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mf3
+116
Level 87
Dec 1, 2019
For some reason, "Winnie the Pooh" didn't work for that next-to-last one.
IsleAuHaulte
+9
Level 89
Dec 1, 2019
The very last one looks exactly like some smarmy actor or character who was always smiling smugly. I cannot place him.
joeythelemur
+7
Level 84
Dec 2, 2019
I want to like this 1000x. :-)
kleeduardo
+3
Level 52
Feb 10, 2020
I came here to say the same thing!
brandybuck96
+3
Level 83
Jul 13, 2020
I was so fixated on Winnie-the-Pooh I couldn't remember his actual name at all.
ValterFerreira
+4
Level 65
Jul 20, 2020
It happened the same with me. There's something wrong here, because Winnie the Pooh's photo is there, I am sure.
Evaristo
+3
Level 62
Mar 21, 2022
Poor Muricans. Not even their huge army and their extreme cruelty destroying countries for economic reasons will prevent peaceful China from taking their hegemonic place in the world.
Ilikemapsalot
+2
Level 29
Mar 24, 2022
I can't even tell if your joking
TheKindCowboy
+4
Level 55
Mar 21, 2022
-16,000 social credit score.
IsleAuHaulte
+16
Level 89
Dec 1, 2019
I absolutely did not recognize Franco without his giant making-up-for-something-small military hat. Makes home look like a giant (what he's trying to make up for) head.
Quizmaster
+49
Level ∞
Dec 1, 2019
I feel like any self-respecting dictator should have at least two of the following:

  • A mustache

  • A funny hat

  • Military decorations, the more the better
Tramp
+13
Level 76
Dec 1, 2019
I think Idi Amin took the crown for the last requirement. He was about 80% medal by the end of his rule.
Arp2600
+4
Level 86
Dec 2, 2019
Bokassa I is my favorite.
WillemLAif
+2
Level 76
Dec 2, 2019
A special hand gesture?
kalbahamut
+8
Level 82
Dec 2, 2019
does a ludicrous comb-over and bone spurs count for the last two?
HBK97
+1
Level 75
Feb 9, 2020
I second kalbahamut's proposals
JWatson24
+4
Level 71
Feb 10, 2020
Don't forget tiny hands
kalbahamut
+2
Level 82
Feb 19, 2020
and how much does a golden face make up for gold medals?
OldSailor
+12
Level 90
Dec 1, 2019
Many of these gents truly thought they were ushering in a socialist paradise. Too bad for the world that history judges by results, not intentions.
Arp2600
+4
Level 86
Dec 2, 2019
Not even one. Maybe Brezhnev but I don't think so.
KanzazKyote
+8
Level 87
Dec 3, 2019
Incorrect. Mao absolutely thought he was, and then was corrupted by power. Same with maybe Mugabe, not sure though.
cmountenay
+27
Level 86
Dec 2, 2019
Others (Pinochet, Suharto, Mobutu, Franco) were promising to rid their country of leftists and make it great again.
KanzazKyote
+7
Level 87
Dec 3, 2019
Thank god for that. Imagine how they would have turned out if the leftists took charge. Spain had a good economy, look at them now....

Also, I'm pretty sure Mobuto was not anti-left but anti-anything-against-him. He chummed up with the CCP real fast when the West left him.

Djilas
+7
Level 82
Dec 3, 2019
Economy isn't everything, for starters.
hwes
+18
Level 85
Dec 3, 2019
Spain was the back water of Europe by the 19th century. It wasn't until Franco died that the economy opened up and some progress was made. Franco led a stagnant economy one of the poorest in Europe even the communist east were better off.

Mobutu took over a Congo that was started to assert itself and keep their mineral wealth -- the west was alarmed and supported Mobutu's takeover from Lumumba. Mobutu enriched himself and foreign corporations leaving the DRC as the mess it is today. Somehow I think the socialist Lumumba would've done a better job.

Pinochet and Suharto should;ve been tried at the The Hague for crimes against humanity.,

Quizmaster
+3
Level ∞
Dec 4, 2019
There's a commonly held belief, in certain quarters, that Congo would have been a great country if only Lumumba had survived. I am extremely skeptical of this narrative. But we'll never know. Certainly Mobutu was bad, but things have also been bad in the 20 years since he has been gone.
Karamchand
+18
Level 49
Feb 9, 2020
People like Kanzaz who support mass murderers because they murder people they don't like are really dangerous. Whatever your position the political spectrum, the most basic thing we have to agree on is that imprisoning and purging dissenters by the thousands is wrong, and that there is no end, economic or otherwise, that can justify that.
Karamchand
+11
Level 49
Feb 9, 2020
For context, I live in a country where we had several of these bloodthirsty anti-leftist dictatorships, so I know what I'm saying when I say they were no better and there was no more freedom than under most communist regimes.

It didn't help the economy one bit either, and they left us with a massive debt.

Baxtergrad
+3
Level 52
Feb 20, 2021
Things indeed would've been greater - the DRC would still be called Zaire, so the Republic of the Congo could just be called "Congo", and we wouldn't have those dumb debates anymore.
richiesyxx
+1
Level 72
Mar 21, 2022
Maybe Lumumba wouldn’t have made things better, maybe he would. But I have a feeling that, had he not been stitched up, Moise Tschombe could have made a decent go of things. He was the only one that seemed to realise that (evils of colonialism aside), Congo needed to retain a European presence. Not in the halls of power necessarily, but he needed educated and qualified people, such as doctors, engineers etc for the economy and infrastructure. He realised that he couldn’t directly replace the local gendarmes in Katanga and dismiss the Belgians, he instead retained them, kept them on good terms and had a plan to use them to train a new generation of Congolese police officers. There were functioning economies in Katanga (esp. copper and other minerals) and in Kasai (mainly diamonds) and no reason they should fail if left to their own devices when they chose to ‘secede from chaos.’ But states never approve, in case they get irredentists in their own countries. And so, bye bye Tschombe.
HBK97
+2
Level 75
Feb 9, 2020
Why associate socialism with those murderers?
Gildarts
+6
Level 57
Feb 12, 2020
I don't know, why would Stalin be a murderer?
BlackpilledAnglo
+7
Level 67
Mar 15, 2020
Beacuse socialism is responsible for the deaths of millions.
JWatson24
+13
Level 71
Mar 21, 2022
Authoritarianism is responsible for the death of millions. Both leftist dictators, like Stalin and Mao, and rightist dictators, like Hitler and Pinochet, have both presided over brutal regimes. Dictators aren't loyal to ideologies, only to their own power.
zer0cool
+1
Level 67
Feb 10, 2020
Tito would have been the best of any of them, for sure.
Nilles
+1
Level 51
Dec 2, 2019
Why does Zedong not work for Mao?
JGElias
+17
Level 55
Dec 2, 2019
Mao is the family name.
brandybuck96
+4
Level 83
Jul 13, 2020
^Likely because he was an effective monarch, known as Napoleon I. In the same way that the current UK monarch is known as 'Elizabeth' rather than 'Windsor'.
Algernon
+1
Level 72
Dec 2, 2019
Missed, four. Ashamed at myself for not getting The last one on the second row. The second one on the third row, I have heard of but I don't think I have seen a picture of him before. Although, that hat does look familiar. The last one on that row, I have never seen a picture of him as anything other than an old man so that threw me. If I had 10 seconds more I would have been able to Google the spelling of the first one on the last row, or my brain could have thought of the answer a bit quicker.

Good idea for a quiz though. There are plenty more dictators out there but I guess the problem is picking ones people will recognise.

SonjaStaahle
+1
Level 61
Feb 9, 2020
Great quiz, thx.

You should accept spelling variations of names of Brezhnev and Assad.

rupturedccno1
+2
Level 64
Feb 9, 2020
I think your last photo is incorrect. I believe it is a Mexican drug lord called Guzman or El Chapo.
kalbahamut
+9
Level 82
Feb 9, 2020
Did you even bother looking this up?
riverdale
+3
Level 44
Mar 21, 2022
El Chapo was also a dictator
BobFitz
+5
Level 72
Feb 9, 2020
Chaing Kai Shek was not a dictator
Chutney
+17
Level 62
Feb 9, 2020
yes he was
Lapronite
+1
Level 77
Apr 2, 2020
he was?
KevinTheCat
+1
Level 67
Jun 14, 2022
yes
Baxtergrad
+1
Level 52
Jan 27, 2021
Whom?
JWatson24
+5
Level 71
Feb 10, 2020
The amount of time I try typing Gaddafi any time he shows up on a quiz before finally giving up and using Google to figure out how to spell his name
Ssssss
+6
Level 69
Feb 10, 2020
Castro but not Batista? Hmmmm.
nerdalert
+3
Level 85
Nov 9, 2020
Bautista isn't nearly as infamous as Castro. And they're not going to pick two people to represent Cuba. But we appreciate the effort to defend a murderous racist dictator that people literally took inner tubes across shark infested waters to flee.
maur85
+4
Level 72
Sep 11, 2021
"They're not going to pick two people to represent Cuba". And yet we have two Chinese (three if you count Chiang Kai Shek) and two Soviets. There was no reason not to add Batista. Not by that logic anyway
hikikomori
+2
Level 57
Mar 21, 2022
china has a much longer history and is much bigger than cuba
TheKindCowboy
+1
Level 55
Mar 21, 2022
Not to mention China is much more influential.
Nadirj
+1
Level 72
Sep 6, 2023
Why racist??
danvan
+2
Level 44
Feb 11, 2020
Anyone else see a similarity between that photo of Mussolini and Taika Waititi? Jojo Rabbit follow up anyone?
dorindai
+1
Level 77
Jul 4, 2020
How come you didn't mention Idi Amin?
ValterFerreira
+1
Level 65
Jul 20, 2020
Why wasn't Winnie-the-Pooh accepted?
BigGeographyGuy
+5
Level 63
Feb 11, 2021
Why is Xii Jinping mentioned as a dictator here? I thought he was president of China.
pkerr116
+13
Level 73
Feb 21, 2021
Um, exactly.
Findlay
+1
Level 82
Mar 21, 2022
Your point?
PatoPotato
+1
Level 52
Oct 19, 2021
I could not remember the order of the h and the z in Brezhnev, as much as I hate Hitler and Stalin, at least I can spell their names.
Yourbae
+1
Level 43
Nov 5, 2021
add winnie the pooh as option for jinping
Koopa
+4
Level 77
Dec 24, 2021
I was expecting to see Saloth Sâr (AKA Pol Pot).
Edpycho
+24
Level 54
Mar 21, 2022
Please add Putin to this rogue's gallery, he fully deserves this and more.
Smokebasics
+11
Level 70
Mar 21, 2022
lukashenko too
swisscheesy
+8
Level 70
Mar 21, 2022
You forgot Putin.
Daugilas
+9
Level 65
Mar 21, 2022
Please add Vladimir Putin to this list
AlexThirkell
+3
Level 75
Mar 21, 2022
Caesar or Sulla would be interesting additions, having actually held the office of dictator. Not sure how many photos there are of them though.
SaorAlba
+4
Level 63
Mar 21, 2022
Is it just pure coincidence that almost anyone branded a dictator has dared to stand against the US empire?
tbolt
+6
Level 76
Mar 21, 2022
Please tell us the benefits of living under a dictator versus a freer society.
KevinTheCat
+1
Level 67
Mar 21, 2022
No? Even on this list there are plenty of America-friendly people (Pinochet, Mobutu, Chiang). Also Hitler was very anti-america. He though it was jewish-controlled. does that not make him a dictator because he dared to stand up to American hegemony?
kalbahamut
+4
Level 82
Mar 21, 2022
No, it is not a coincidence. The US is often called the leader of the free world for a reason. The US is arguably the world's oldest democracy. It's obviously not a perfect country, and doesn't always perfectly represent its own values, but, still, American values include things like democracy, representative government, freedom (of the press, of expression, or religion, to criticize the government... not just an empty word), equality and human rights. Autocrats and dictators are challenged by all of these things. They are usually corrupt and criminal and to stay in power must suppress dissent, often brutally. They tend to get along well with each other because they believe in dealing directly with other people like themselves.. the Putins, Dutertes, Yukashenkos, Erdogans, Kims, Castros, Assads, (and others, some of whom I cannot name on this site) all tend to get along and understand one another. And they resent the US and other open and democratic countries allied with the US...
kalbahamut
+2
Level 82
Mar 21, 2022
... for trying to encourage them to do more to respect human rights, or crack down on corruption, or have free and fair elections. Things that corrupt dictators obviously don't want to do. So, no, not a coincidence at all that these countries "stand up" to the US... i.e... they use the US as an external bogeyman upon which they blame all of their country's problems to divert attention away from their own failures as leaders and try to keep the people united and hating something foreign, lest the common people realize that the real problem is much closer to home.

All of that being said, there are dictators that have been friendly to the US or that the US worked with when they deemed it to be in their own interests or the best interests of international order. Those already pointed out, plus Suharto, and (at times) also Stalin and Noriega. Not to mention those not on the quiz such as the AlSauds, Khalifas, Thanis, Batista, the Shah, and numerous others. There are plenty.

hikikomori
+1
Level 57
Mar 21, 2022
stalin's "death of one man is a tragedy death of millions is a statistic" was an excuse not an insight
KevinTheCat
+1
Level 67
Dec 14, 2022
he actually never said that
GrammarBeane1
+1
Level 82
Mar 21, 2022
is it just me or does Mobutu's hat look like it's been photoshopped onto the picture?
becbob
+2
Level 69
Mar 21, 2022
you should add Putin's picture to this quiz
Klaas47
+1
Level 66
Mar 21, 2022
Assad looks like King Felipe of Spain

I was wondering why he is on that list.

Evaristo
+2
Level 62
Mar 21, 2022
You should add some USA presidents to this list. We all know that the democrats-republicans farce is just a bad joke.
kalbahamut
+2
Level 82
Mar 21, 2022
As bad as the last administration was and as much as he wished he could be a dictator, he still never was. The USA has its problems but it has never been a dictatorship, even if we accept the popular but hopelessly ignorant position that all Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same and so arguing about which is better or worse is pointless... or even if we want to believe without evidence that the country is really run by a shadowy cabal of elites pulling the strings... that still wouldn't make the country a dictatorship. Who is the dictator, then? A dictatorship is run by one single person without any real checks on his or her authority. Who is the dictator in the US? Joe Biden? Jeff Bezos? Oprah? The orange man at Mar-a-Lago? Who has complete and total unchecked authority? Dictator is a word with a specific definition. Not a meaningless pejorative.
Evaristo
+2
Level 62
Mar 21, 2022
Yes, both parties are exactly the same. Both parties are given money by the same people and they defend the same interests. If you can choose between two equal things, you have no election at all, so you have no democracty. Biden is a dictator just like other presidentes in this list that have won a farcical election.
kalbahamut
+2
Level 82
Mar 21, 2022
Okay so you don't understand what the word dictator means. In addition to being extraordinarily confused about other aspects of US politics. Fair enough. Good luck.
Evaristo
+2
Level 62
Mar 21, 2022
And you believe that your country is better than for example China. Good luck digesting political events from now on.
jmellor13
+2
Level 67
Mar 21, 2022
I have lived in the US and China. Yes, the US political regime is better than China's, and no, it's not even close.
Evaristo
+2
Level 62
Mar 22, 2022
I have lived in every country in the world for many years each. China is the best. Murica is the worst.

Come on, do you really think that this is a valid argument?

kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Mar 25, 2022
Did I say one thing about the US being "better" than any country? Again, I'm sorry for your staggering level of confusion.
raphus
+3
Level 65
Mar 21, 2022
Pretty sure Justin Trudeau should be shown here
Findlay
+1
Level 82
Mar 21, 2022
Not clever.
raphus
+1
Level 65
Mar 21, 2022
Was not intended to be clever
jmellor13
+4
Level 67
Mar 21, 2022
I get that this is the internet, so people feel moved to just spout whatever dumb comment comes to mind, but comments like this are especially loathsome. People who call the likes of Justin Trudeau dictators do such disrespect to people who actually suffer under dictatorships.
raphus
+1
Level 65
Mar 22, 2022
Please read the quiz description. I have heard Trudeau called a dictator many times from leaders of other countries even. I don't see anywhere it saying only brutal dictators.
Ssssss
+2
Level 69
Mar 22, 2022
Notwithstanding all the debates above about US-friendly dictators, I always see a particularly anti-Castro bias. Yes, a dictator, but seems wrong to only castigate him and never mention Batista whose corrupt dictatorship had to be overthrown.
Yukhan
+1
Level 50
Mar 22, 2022
Napoleon? Dictator? Come on. He was no more dictator than Alexander I or Francis II at the same time (and many others).
kalbahamut
+2
Level 82
Mar 26, 2022
Is there only allowed to be one dictator at a time in the world?
Night1224
+1
Level 32
Apr 7, 2022
While all of those rulers were definitely very authoritarian, Napoleon differed in that he was not of royal blood (or more accurately not of significant noble blood). He attained his power, not through "divine right" or inheritance, but military rank similar to Caesar (also widely regarded as a dictator).
jbro
+2
Level 68
Mar 22, 2022
Wheres Putin?
gerleps974
+3
Level 23
Mar 25, 2022
and bush ?
gerleps974
+1
Level 23
Mar 25, 2022
Napoleon Bonaparte was not a dictator
Night1224
+1
Level 32
Apr 7, 2022
Add Caesar and Ne Win
marjobro
+3
Level 66
Oct 16, 2022
My oh my... How worked up people can get over the choices that creators of quizzes make about whom or what to include!

KGElias describes this quiz perfectly, in just a few words: "Can you identify these people who have been described as dictators?" He/she does not say "Every one of these men are, indisputably, by anyone's definition, 'dictators' " nor "Every single one of these men are equally evil," nor "This is an inclusive list," nor "These were the worst dictators in world history," nor "Because I think the U.S.A. is perfect, I have excluded any North Americans from this quiz."

I am so old that I actually was around when many of these men were at work. I was 5 years old when Hitler died and knew, even before the extreme horrors of his reign were revealed, that his name was synonymous with evil. I remember learning about Mussolini and the particularly horrific details of his execution. I remember that we bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and that, even as a child, I felt compassion.

marjobro
+3
Level 66
Oct 16, 2022
I chose the title "Bridges of Understanding" for my speech at my high school graduation in1958 because Van Cliburn, an American contestant, had just won the 1st Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow. This was a huge, significant event because the "cold war" was in full bloom and no-one would have dreamed that this could happen. (When Russia invaded Ukraine, this event was excluded from the World International Music Competitions by unanimous vote.)

That the U.S. supported Pinochet is a cringe-worthy detail. He was a monster.

I was living in Panama when Torrijos came back with the treaty to return the canal to its country. A teacher friend of mine was one of the few actual fatalities of Operation Just Cause, when Noriega was captured.

If there is a point to all of this reminiscing it is simply that one must be careful in making generalizations. Also, enjoy what quizmakers do. I really appreciated seeing the pictures. What an interesting collection! Thank you!

leontodon
+1
Level 64
Nov 23, 2023
Could you please add the spelling "Brejnev" for Brezhnev? Maybe also the spellings in -ff instead of -v.
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