Even History’s Worst, Most Dispicable Dictators and Despots Managed to Do at Least One Thing Right

Madmen, tyrants and dictators

For example, according to Alter-Gilbert's view of history,19th century Turkish Sultan Abdul Aziz may have been a self-indulgent and decadent tyrant whose whims nearly bankrupted the decaying Ottoman Empire, "but he was big on economic stimulus. He employed a harem of several hundred concubines, a retinue of four hundred musicians, five hundred grooms, two hundred zookeepers, and several thousand additional personal attendants who performed such exalted functions as clipping his toenails and curling his beard. He encouraged modernization by acquiring both steamships and locomotives – a well-intentioned gesture but for one small oversight – his country was devoid of both sailors and train tracks."

Madmen, tyrants and dictators

Ugandan president Idi Amin was a monster who has been accused of genocide and even cannibalism. Amin's rule was characterized by human rights abuse, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is estimated by international observers and human rights groups to range from 100,000 to 500,000. However, observes Alter-Gilbert, he earned the gratitude of British manufacturers because of his fondness for anything made in England, including planeloads of Scotch whiskey and English ale. He created a considerable financial boon for a number of British manufacturers and exporters with enormous orders of impressive-looking military and civilian decorations manufactured by the bushel, which Amin magnanimously passed out like candy.

Madmen, tyrants and dictators

World War II era Hungarian fascist Ferenc Szálasi was a power-hungry, intensely hated and self-serving Nazi puppet who turned the Kingdom of Hungary into a client state of Adolf Hitler. Under his rule, the Germans resumed the deportation of the Jews. However, Szálasi did organize his so-called "International Ghetto for Hungarian Jews" on the pretext that the country was suffering from a critical shortage of wartime manpower and couldn't spare any Jewish workers. Then he allowed a number of foreign diplomats such as Raoul Wallenberg to give passports to ghetto residents, protecting them from deportation, infuriating the Germans. During Szálasi's 163-day rule, the Nazis looted Hungarian cattle, machinery, wagons and industrial raw materials and drafted thousands of elderly Hungarian men and young boys to battle the liberating Allies -- and Szálasi was executed when the Nazis fell. However, it cannot be ignored that while 15,000 Hungarian Jews were deported, Szálasi's ghetto ploy saved thousands from extermination in German death camps.

Madmen, tyrants and dictators

"Unrelentingly vainglorious and opportunistic Mexican strongman Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana," writes Alter-Gilbert, author of Desktop Digest of Despots and Dictators, shamelessly declared himself “dictator for life” and brutally imposed himself on his countrymen for 22 years while holding the office of the presidency eleven separate times. His cruelty provoked the citizens of the province of Tejas to revolt and declare the Republic of Texas – which he attempted to crush in the notorious massacre of the Battle of the Alamo. "But," notes Alter-Gilbert, "Santa Ana also must be credited with inadvertently assisting the invention of chewing gum, which was created by American entrepreneur Thomas Adams while experimenting with a ton of chicle he had procured from Santa Ana with hopes of finding a substitute for rubber."