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CAN NONVIOLENT STRUGGLE DEFEAT A DICTATOR? THIS DATABASE EMPHATICALLY
SAYS YES  
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George Lakey
October 15, 2025
Films for Action
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_ The Global Nonviolent Action Database details some 40 cases of mass
movements overcoming tyrants through strategic nonviolent campaigns.
Occasional actions that simply protest a particular policy or
egregious action aren’t enough. _

Hundreds of thousands demonstrating in Berlin on Nov. 4, 1989.,
Image: Wikimedia/Bernd Settnik

 

Can nonviolent struggle defeat a tyrant?

There are many great resources that answer this question, but the one
that’s been on my mind lately is the Global Nonviolent Action
Database [[link removed]], or GNAD, built by the
Peace Studies department at Swarthmore College. Freely accessible to
the public, this database — which launched under my direction in
2011 — contains over 1,400 cases of nonviolent struggle from over a
hundred countries, with more cases continually being added by student
researchers.

At quick glance, the database details at least 40 cases of dictators
who were overthrown by the use of nonviolent struggle, dating back to
1920. These cases — which include some of the largest nations in the
world, spanning Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America — contradict
the widespread assumption that a dictator can only be overcome by
violence. What’s more, in each of these cases, the dictator had the
desire to stay, and possessed violent means for defense. Ultimately,
though, they just couldn’t overcome the power of mass nonviolent
struggle.

In a number of countries, the dictator had been embedded for years at
the time they were pushed out. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, for example,
had ruled for over 29 years. In the 1990s, citizens usually whispered
his name for fear of reprisal. Mubarak legalized a “state of
emergency,” which meant censorship, expanded police powers and
limits on the news media. Later, he “loosened” his rule, putting
only 10 times as many police as the number of protesters at each
demonstration.

The GNAD case study
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how Egyptians grew their democracy movement despite repression, and
finally won in 2011. However, gaining a measure of freedom doesn’t
guarantee keeping it. As Egypt has shown in the years since, continued
vigilance is needed, as is pro-active campaigning to deepen the degree
of freedom won.

Some countries repeated the feat of nonviolently deposing a ruler: In
Chile, the people nonviolently threw out a dictator in 1931
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then deposed a new dictator in 1988
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South Koreans also did it twice, once in 1960
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in 1987
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(They also just stopped their current president
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seizing dictatorial powers, but that’s not yet in the database.)

In each case people had to act without knowing what the reprisals
would be.

EAST GERMANY’S PEACEFUL REVOLUTION

When East Germans began their revolt against the German Democratic
Republic in 1988, they knew that their dictatorship of 43 years was
backed by the Soviet Union, which might stage a deadly invasion. They
nevertheless acted for freedom, which they gained and kept.

Researcher Hanna King tells us that East Germans
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their successful campaign in January 1988 by taking a traditional
annual memorial march and turning it into a full-scale demonstration
for human rights and democracy. They followed up by taking advantage
of a weekly prayer for peace at a church in Leipzig to organize
rallies and protests. Lutheran pastors helped protect the organizers
from retaliation and groups in other cities began to stage their own
“Monday night demonstrations.”

The few hundred initial protesters quickly became 70,000, then
120,000, then 320,000, all participating in the weekly demonstrations.
Organizers published a pamphlet outlining their vision for a unified
German democracy and turned it into a petition. Prisoners of
conscience began hunger strikes in solidarity.

By November 1988, a million people gathered in East Berlin, chanting,
singing and waving banners calling for the dictatorship’s end. The
government, hoping to ease the pressure, announced the opening of the
border to West Germany. Citizens took sledgehammers to the hated
Berlin Wall and broke it down. Political officials resigned to protest
the continued rigidity of the ruling party and the party itself
disintegrated. By March 1990 — a bit over two years after the
campaign was launched — the first multi-party, democratic elections
were held.

Students lead the way in Pakistan

In Pakistan, it was university students (rather than religious
clerics) who launched the 1968-69 uprising that forced Ayub Khan out
of office after his decade as a dictator. Case researcher Aileen
Eisenberg tells us
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the campaign later required multiple sectors of society to join
together to achieve critical mass, especially workers.

It was the students, though, who took the initiative — and the
initial risks. In 1968, they declared that the government’s
declaration of a “decade of development” was a fraud, protesting
nonviolently in major cities. They sang and marched to their own song
called “The Decade of Sadness.”

Police opened fire on one of the demonstrations, killing several
students. In reaction the movement expanded, in numbers and demands.
Boycotts grew, with masses of people refusing to pay the bus and
railway fares on the government-run transportation system. Industrial
workers joined the movement and practiced encirclement of factories
and mills. An escalation of government repression followed, including
more killings.

As the campaign expanded from urban to rural parts of Pakistan the
movement’s songs and political theater thrived. Khan responded with
more violence, which intensified the determination among a critical
mass of Pakistanis that it was time for him to go.

After months of growing direct action met by repressive violence, the
army decided its own reputation was being degraded by their orders
from the president, and they demanded his resignation. He complied and
an election was scheduled for 1970 — the first since Pakistan’s
independence in 1947.

Why use nonviolent struggle?

The campaigns in East Germany and Pakistan are typical of all 40 cases
in their lack of a pacifist ideology, although some individuals active
in the movements had that foundation. What the cases do seem to have
in common is that the organizers saw the strategic value of nonviolent
action, since they were up against an opponent likely to use violent
repression. Their commitment to nonviolence would then rally the
masses to their side.

That encourages me. There’s hardly time in the U.S. during Trump’s
regime to convert enough people to an ideological commitment to
nonviolence, but there is time to persuade people of the strategic
value of a nonviolent discipline.

It’s striking that in many of the cases I looked at, the movement
avoided merely symbolic marches and rallies and instead focused on
tactics that impose a cost on the regime. As Donald Trump wrestles to
bring the armed forces under his control, for example, I can imagine
picketing army recruiting offices with signs, “Don’t join a
dictator’s army.”

Another important takeaway: Occasional actions that simply protest a
particular policy or egregious action aren’t enough. They may
relieve an individual’s conscience for a moment, but, ultimately,
episodic actions, even large ones, don’t assert enough power. Over
and over, the Global Nonviolent Action Database shows that positive
results come from a series of escalating, connected actions called a
campaign — the importance of which
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also outlined in my book “How We Win.”

As research seminar students at Swarthmore continue to wade through
history finding new cases, they are digging up details on struggles
that go beyond democracy. The 1,400 already-published cases include
campaigns for furthering environmental justice, racial and economic
justice, and more. They are a resource for tactical ideas and strategy
considerations, encouraging us to remember that even long-established
dictators have been stopped by the power of nonviolent campaigns.

_[GEORGE LAKEY
[[link removed]] has been active
in direct action campaigns for over six decades. Recently retired from
Swarthmore College, he was first arrested in the civil rights movement
and most recently in the climate justice movement. He has facilitated
1,500 workshops on five continents and led activist projects on local,
national and international levels. His 10 books and many articles
reflect his social research into change on community and societal
levels. His newest book is the memoir “Dancing with History: A Life
for Peace and Justice.”]_

_[Editor’s note: The opening sentence has been amended for
posterity.]_

_An earlier version of this article appeared in Waging Nonviolence
[[link removed]],
Jan. 8, 2025_

_Waging Nonviolence depends on reader support. Become a sustaining
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