Dictators Archives

Dictators

Koftaesque

by Witold Szabłowski,Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones,

From an account told to Witold Szabłowski by Abu Ali, a former cook for Saddam Hussein. The story is included in Szabłowski’s book How to Feed a Dictator: Saddam Hussein,…

Please Clap

by Diana Bates, Ling Yuan,

From descriptions of audience applause recorded in official transcriptions of speeches by Nicolae Ceausescu. They were included in a blog post published last year by Yuan Ling, a journalist. The…

The Communist Evolution

by Fidel Castro,

From a letter to President Roosevelt written by Fidel Castro in 1940. It is among a collection of letters to U.S. presidents that will be displayed in November at the…