Obviously, it is best not to elect any potential dictators or facilitate their rise to power.
But let’s assume the dictator has chosen the usual route, using the support of fellow military types or rising high in the ranks of the secret service.
You will have to marshall a lot of people power to topple those guys. The experience of students and other advocates of democracy in Tiannamen Square was of brutal suppression and an effective news blackout.
The lasting image in the free world is of a man refusing to get out the way for a convoy of tanks as he carried his shopping bags. In China no one has any recollection of those days of protests by pro democracy demonstrators and the bloody reaction of the Communist rulers to clear Tiananmen Square using tanks.
Vladimir Putin follows in the same vein by banning opposition, poisoning anyone perceived as a threat and denying any critical comments about corruption and human rights abuses.
Stalin was the master of terror and the tight control over his party by establishing a wide web of informants and dedicated thugs to keep everyone under the party leader’s thumb.
Concentration camps may be used by dictators if the opposition becomes too numerous. Stalin had his gulags, the British locked up their Boer enemies and their families, Hitler murdered Jewish people in their millions in camps around Eastern Europe and China has its reeducation camps to control large Muslim communities.
Heroes can create a stir, but martyrdom doesn’t usually topple dictators. The hunger strike may capture the hearts of fellow freedom lovers, but it has a slow reaction among the general public.
Margaret Thatcher stood firm in her claim that the IRA hunger strikers were criminals and should not be given political status. Ten deaths later that demand was accepted by a subsequent Tory government.
The emphasis has to be on information control and allies. Mandela served 27 years in prison, but the campaign against apartheid and the demand for his release never waned. The campaign against sporting links with racist South Africa was surprisingly effective.
Perhaps that is the key message, never give up. If your cause is just and your support is strong, it might take decades to win the day.
Armed struggle rarely works. Dictators usually have more weapons and military personnel, as well as effective infiltrators and informants. Cuba was an exception, Castro and Guevara were well organised and, crucially, had the support of Cuba’s population
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