Real Dictators is the award-winning podcast that explores the hidden lives of history's tyrants. Hosted by Paul McGann, with contributions from eyewitnesses and expert historians. New episodes available one week early for Noiser+ subscribers. You'll also get ad-free listening and exclusive content. To find out more about Noiser+, head to noiser.com/subscriptions. For advertising enquiries, email info@adelicious.fm Production: Joel Duddell, Ed Baranski, Miriam Baines, Tom Pink, George Tapp, Dorry Macaulay, Cian Ryan-Morgan, Anisha Devadasan, Joseph McGann. Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink. We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/real for £100 sponsored credit.
136 episodes transcribedThe walls close in on Hideki Tojo. The General turned Prime Minister takes hands-on control of the military, with catastrophic consequences. Emperor H...
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. The Pacific War is underway. In Tokyo, Prime Minister Tojo moves to take every significant government job for himself. Jap...
Major General Hideki Tojo takes command of the secret police - the Kempeitai. The Imperial Japanese Army invades China and terrorises the civilian pop...
General Hideki Tojo led Japan into World War Two and oversaw some of the most horrific war crimes in recorded history. Tojo did not hold absolute powe...
François Duvalier puts the finishing touches to his terrifying cult of personality. The President for Life declares himself an immaterial being - a sp...
Haitian dictator “Papa Doc” Duvalier crushes an attempted coup without mercy. Spooked by this near miss, Duvalier forms his own private militia called...
Just a few hundred miles south of Florida, across the Caribbean Sea, lies Haiti. From 1957 to 1971, this tropical island nation was ruled by a would-b...
Mao’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ sets out to purge the minds of an entire population. Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader himself leads a life of debauchery and...
Mao Zedong's Communists come down from the mountains to do battle with the Nationalists. After clinching victory, Mao is greeted by many as a hero. Bu...
In the centre of China’s capital city, Beijing, lies a corpse that no one dares remove. It’s been 44 years since Mao Zedong’s body was laid to rest in...
Stalin’s regime hits the rocks when Adolf Hitler launches Operation Barbarossa and invades Russia. Nazi tanks plough towards Moscow in a devastating a...
With the First World War underway, Stalin’s journey to dictatorship grinds into gear. After the War, Russia is turned upside down. Stalin thrives in t...
Joseph Stalin - the “man of steel” - was the party secretary who plotted a route to absolute power, becoming head of the Eastern Bloc and chief nemesi...
Installed as dictator, Kim Jong-il builds an all-powerful state that dominates the lives and minds of its people. North Korea is wracked by famine. Th...
Kim Jong-il has risen to become propaganda chief under the rule of his father. Now, he hatches an audacious plan to turn North Korea into a filmmaking...
Kim Jong-il built a rogue state with nuclear missiles trained on its enemies – all while living a life of the utmost luxury. In the first episode of R...
