Entire nations were ready to go to slaughter at their command. Unusual charisma, devastating crimes and an inscrutable secret of success. You haven't heard about these 10 facts from the lives of great dictators.
As always, all items in our TOP10 are based on articles published by "Curiosities". This time - those dedicated to tyrants and dictators.
The life stories of dictators are full of surprising facts because…
 | 10. | Leonid Brezhnev was murdered by the KGB. Yuri Andropov, the longtime head of the KGB, was most likely behind the death of the ailing leader of the USSR. Afraid of being sidelined, Andropov poisoned the gensek and then took his place (read more on this). |
 | 9. | Bloody Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada lived to see a quiet old age in exile. The tyrant responsible for the death of up to half a million Ugandans faced no punishment. After he was deposed, he found refuge in Saudi Arabia and went unpunished for 24 years, living in indescribable luxuries (read more on this). |
 | 8. | Alexander Lukashenka was considered one of the most democratic presidents in Eastern Europe. This is the term he was called when he won the 1994 elections. He gained the sympathy of the voters thanks to the fight against corruption and cutting himself off from the communist past. Back then, there was no sign that 20 years later he would become "Europe's last dictator" (read more about it). |
 | 7. | North Korean propaganda to this day maintains that Kim Il-sung was a great general during World War II and fought against the Japanese. In fact, the first leader of the communist paradise was in the Soviet Union from 1941. He commanded only one battalion there. His career took off only when he joined the NKVD Intelligence School in 1944 (read more about this). |
 | 6. | Benito Mussolini conquered Abyssinia (Ethiopia) thanks to financial machinations. Duce took advantage of the fact that Maria Theresa thalers were still used in the African state in the 1930s. The Italian dictator borrowed stamps from the Viennese museum and flooded the Ethiopian market with counterfeit coins. This caused massive inflation and drove the Emperor Hayla Selassie to bankruptcy (read more on this). |
 | 5. | The CIA ordered the assassination of one of his former lovers in 1960 by the CIA. The beautiful Marita Lorenz was to fly to Cuba and poison El Comandante. The Americans offered her two million dollars for the task. Eventually, the bomber changed her mind and instead of poisoning Castro, she spent an intoxicating night with him (read more on this). |
 | 4. | Alexander Lukashenka had a death commando at his service. Established in 1996, the Special Rapid Reaction Unit was responsible for the deaths of over 30 people. The list of victims includes many leading opponents who have disappeared without a trace. Their bodies were secretly buried in one of Minsk's cemeteries (read more about this). |
 | 3. | The leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, Vladimir Lenin, was a terrible mama's boy. His mother supported him for years, even after he passed his legal exams. When he was imprisoned, she brought him lunch every day. She was even ready to go with "little Volodya" to Siberia (read more about it). |
 | 2. | It was close and Saddam Hussein would have died in 1959 It was then that he took part in the completely unsuccessful attempt on the prime minister of Iraq, Abd al-Karim Kasim. All the conspirators, except Saddam, died or were captured. The shot Hussein managed to escape Baghdad only thanks to the female disguise (read more on this topic). |
 | 1. | Liberian dictator William Tolbert was dismembered alive and thrown to vultures to be eaten. A bloody tyrant who ordered to shoot people who went out into the street screaming for bread and water in 1980 fell victim to an attack. The attackers dismembered Tolbert, who was still alive, in bed. They took his insides out and threw them into the courtyard for the dogs and vultures to be eaten (read more about this) . |