Title: What Makes a Dictator? - How Dictators Work | HowStuffWorks
Headings: How Dictators Work
How Dictators Work
What Makes a Dictator?
Darth Dictator

Content: They usually rule autocracies, governments with a single self-appointed leader and no governing body to check his power. Often, dictators have totalitarian regimes, keeping their power through control of the mass media. Totalitarian dictators also use secret police and spy on the citizens of their state as well as restrict or completely remove their personal freedoms. Many of these dictators foster cultsof personality, a form of hero worship in which the masses are fed propaganda declaring their leader to be flawless (and in some cases, divine or divinely appointed). The North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung (father of Kim Jong-il) was essentially the sole subject of all forms of art created in the country. Schoolchildren were taught to give thanks to Kim Il-sung, the source of all of their blessings, as part of their training. Critics spoke of him as being megalomaniacal and extremely narcissistic. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was also full of statues, murals, posters and paintings bearing his image. Advertisement
circa 1944: Adolf Hitler gives the fascist salute at a parade.