A military dictatorship, or a military regime, is a type of dictatorship in which power is held by one or more military officers. Military dictatorships are led by either a single military dictator, known as a strongman, or by a council of military officers known as a military junta. They are most often formed by military coups or by the empowerment of the military through a popular uprising in times of domestic unrest or instability. The military nominally seeks power to restore order or fight corruption, but the personal motivations of military officers will vary.
Polish dictator Józef Piłsudski and fellow military officers during the May Coup in 1926
Military dictator Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Empire was overthrown by a French military invasion.
A crowd during the end of the civic-military dictatorship of Uruguay in 1983
Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet and his Government Junta
A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no limitations. Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by a dictator, and they are facilitated through an inner circle of elites that includes advisers, generals, and other high-ranking officials. The dictator maintains control by influencing and appeasing the inner circle and repressing any opposition, which may include rival political parties, armed resistance, or disloyal members of the dictator's inner circle. Dictatorships can be formed by a military coup that overthrows the previous government through force or they can be formed by a self-coup in which elected leaders make their rule permanent. Dictatorships are authoritarian or totalitarian, and they can be classified as military dictatorships, one-party dictatorships, personalist dictatorships, or absolute monarchies.
Members of the Reichstag salute Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945
Benito Mussolini in the March on Rome that installed him as dictator in Italy
Soldiers occupy Seoul, South Korea as part of the May 16 coup that placed General Park Chung Hee in power
An assembly at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses in Moscow, Soviet Union