Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Quote

In examining any dictatorship, there are two good tests. Firstly, what is the relation between the rulers and the proletariat or common people? Are the rulers members of the proletariat, as they would have you believe? Do they even identify their interests with those of ordinary citizens? The truth seems to be that, no matter where you find them, the so-called proletarian dictatorships are actually controlled by a small elite who ordinarily lose little sleep in worrying about the rights of the common man. Secondly, have the proletariat any effective say in what the rulers do? In the proletarian dictatorships I am familiar with, ordinary people enjoy little or no control over their Government or over their own lives and futures.


Page 162 - Publications - Mission for my Country (1961)


In examining any dictatorship, there are two good tests. Firstly, what is the relation between the rulers and the proletariat or common people? Are...

In examining any dictatorship, there are two good tests. Firstly, what is the relation between the rulers and the proletariat or common people? Are...