Dictators And Authoritarian Leaders On Stamps

If such a topic has a thread, I could not find it. I hope to learn about and discover authoritarian leaders and dictators from history that I was not previously aware of.

Engelbert Dollfuss, dictator of Austria and leader of the Catholic Clerical Fascist Fatherland Front from 1932 until he was assassinated by members of the Austrian National Socialist Party in 1934. The stamp was issued after his death.

Jozef Tiso was a Catholic Priest and the dictator of the Slovak Republic from 1939 to 1945. He was a member of Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, a Clerical Fascist-National Socialist party created by Father Andrej Hlinka.



Father Andrej Hlinka, Catholic Priest and creator of Hlinka's Slovak People's Party. He was instrumental in the creation of the Slovak Republic, a puppet state subserviant to the third Reich. These first stamps were issued after his death in 1938, then commemorative stamps were issued by Czechoslovakia in 1991, and again by Slovakia in 2014.

Really? A thread about suspension of mail to the USA gets shut down for being political, but one you can post stamps depicting any leader you do not agree with and call dictator or authoritarian is factual?

Colonel Muammar Gadaffi served as the dictator of Libya from 1969 until his assassination in 2011. Libya under his rule was renamed to The Socialist People's Libyan Arab Republic Jamahiriya, and had a government and ecenomic system based on his own ideology called Third International Theory.

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 1906 – 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982. He also held office as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state) from 1960 to 1964 and later from 1977 to 1982.

Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks and victor of the Russian Civil War, first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 and the Soviet Union from 1920 until he died in 1924. This stamp design was issued after his death.

Sukarno (born Koesno Sosrodihardjo; 6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967.

Francisco Franco Bahamonde[e][f] (born Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general and dictator who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975, assuming the title Caudillo. This period in Spanish history, from the Nationalist victory to Franco's death, is commonly known as Francoist Spain or as the Francoist dictatorship.

Mobutu Sese Seko served as the second president of the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1965 to 1971, and from 1971 to 1997 as the first and only president of Zaire. He was known in media for his sense of fashion, most infamously often wearing a leopard skin side cap. In order to give himself a "God-like" appearance, he enforced that every television broadcast in Zaire start with him descending from the heavens. Historians have refered to him as "Afro-Fascist", however, he received support from communist governments, such as China, as he was viewed as an anti-capitalist, but also he received support from capitalist governments such as Belgium as he was viewed as an anti-communist.

I see Sukarno, so I post Suharto. He was the dictator of Indonesia from 1967 to 1998. He is most infamous for his "Red Purge", which involved his military killing suspected communists.

Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany during the Nazi period from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934.

Double-feature stamp from Paraguay depicting Alfredo Stroessner, who was the dictator of Paraguay from 1954 until 1989, the period being known as El Stronato. This stamp commemorates the visit of Juan Domingo Peron to Paraguay.

Juan Peron served as president of Argentina from 1946 until 1955, and again from 1973 until his death in 1974. He was the pioneer of the third positionist ideology refered to as Peronism, which was intended to appeal to far leftists and far rightists. He is infamous for helping escaped German war criminals evade capture.

In my opinion, this is a very nice stamp design.

Yeah, I don't think this topic is going to end well, but we'll leave it open for awhile to see if the posts stay on topic. Unfortunately, a dictator or authoritarian to one is possibly a hero to another.

Please only post comments related to actual issued stamps. Thanks.

Nice to see you are posting on the thread.

I think as long as it is limited to dead leaders, general history will have had time to digest the type of political government involved.



Always two (or more) sides to a coin. Back in the 1770s a bunch of farmers started to become terrorist from the British point of view and we know how that turned out.




And may I suggest, strongly, limit the stamps to depicting dead leaders, not current ones.

I know the US has the policy of not depicting anyone on a stamp unless they have passed (5 years ago?). Other countries don't necessarily have that policy, so this will be difficult to police.

I would like to point out that I have absolutely no bias in what I say or post. I have only posted historical leaders whose time in power has been described as authoritarian or a dictatorship historically. I have not given my opinions on anything, other than saying I think the Paraguay stamp is nice (which is why I have the whole set). I have not posted leaders with any ambiguity or subjectivity to the nature of their regime. I also feel that NSK's comment assumes a lot about my intentions for this thread. I have not praised nor criticised any of the leaders I shared here. I have not shown any bias towards left, right, or centre. I have posted historical figures who appear on stamps with the commonality of them being considered, historically, as dictators or authoritarian leaders.

This is a subject which fascinates me and I want to learn about more historical dictators, as mentioned in my first post.

Dictator: A ruler with total power over a country.
Authoritarian: Favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.