History PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny / Literature

* In the ''SwordOfTruth'' series, the fortress city of the royal line that rules D'Hara is called the People's Palace. The name actually fits, in a weird way: The entire structure's design is that of a power spell, meant to sap energy from spellcasters on the grounds and give it to the ruling Rahl. The spell form, though, is "drawn" with all the people moving through the palace, so without them, it would be powerless.

--> [[{{REM}} Shiny Happy People's]] Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lies in name: 5. Oppression level: [[DontAskJustRun hide]].

** ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'': Averted with Oceania, which is never given a pre-title at all. As [[spoiler:O'Brien]] explains in the third-act GrandInquisitorScene, the Party has no illusions about what they are or [[{{Dystopia}} what kind of society they are creating]]. Since "Ingsoc" is short for English Socialism, and Orwell himself was an avowed socialist, Oceania might have been at least nominally a republic at first, though the Ministry of Truth has since been ruthlessly eliminating all evidence that freer forms of government ever existed.

** ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'': Averted with Oceania, which is never given a pre-title at all. As [[spoiler:O'Brien]] explains in the third-act GrandInquisitorScene, the Party has no illusions about what they are or [[{{Dystopia}} what kind of society they are creating]]. Since "Ingsoc" is short for English Socialism, and Orwell himself was an avowed socialist, Oceania might have been at least nominally a republic at first, though the Ministry of Truth has since been ruthlessly expurgating all evidence that freer forms of government ever existed.

** ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'': Averted with Oceania, which is never given a pre-title at all. As [[spoiler:O'Brien]] explains in the third-act GrandInquisitorScene, the Party has no illusions about what they are or [[{{Dystopia}} what kind of society they are creating]].

** The Foundation itself becomes this by the end of the book, due to corruption and inefficiency, until it is shaken up by [[OutsideContextVillain The Mule]].

* ''{{Literature/Foundation}}'': In the book ''Foundation and Empire'', you have the Republic of Korell, which is for all intents and purposes a one-man state ruled by an extremely repressive and vicious ruler named Asper Argo, who styles himself as {{Main/Just the First Citizen}} and assures visitors that he is called the [[Main/BlatantLies "Well-Beloved"]]. It is also wretchedly poor, has a [[Main/StateSec Secret Police]] and the infrastructure, like the population, seems poor and underdeveloped. The main character of the story, Hober Mallow, sourly notes that for such a beloved man, his house (which is more like a Palace) is unnaturally well-defended, heavily fortified and has a large complement of guards.
** The Foundation itself becomes this by the end of the book, due to corruption and inefficiency, until it is shaken up by [[Main/OutsideContextVillain The Mule]].

* ''Literature/TheOrphanMastersSon'', a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about live in the CrapsackWorld known as the [[UsefulNotes/NorthKorea Democratic People's Republic of Korea]].

* In a ''SplinterCell'' novel, Sam Fisher muses that, as a rule, the level of a country's dictatorship is directly proportional to the number of democratic descriptives in its name.

* PoulAnderson's "Withit's Collegiate Dictionary," from ''There Will Be Time'', contains the following definition:

* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'': In the backstory, the Republic of Haven becomes the ''People's'' Republic of Haven when it makes its legislature hereditary and becomes a BreadAndCircuses welfare state, and keeps the name when it undergoes a revolution and becomes an unholy mix of [[TheFrenchRevolution Revolutionary France]] and [[DirtyCommunists Communist Russia]]. It only gets better after a ''second'' revolution, where it drops the "People's". The trope is [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] by William Alexander, Lord of the Manticoran Exchequer, when he complains that public opinion in the Solarian League backs Haven because it is a republic while Manticore is a kingdom, and the people of the Solarian League assume that a republic must be a democracy while a kingdom must be autocratic. Later on, Havenite Secretary of War Thomas Theisman muses that he ''really wishes'' he could just have Arnold Giancola, the guy he ''knows'' is behind the resumption of the shooting war with Manticore, taken behind a shed and shot, but specifically notes they have to do everything by the book to show they are not the ''People's'' Republic of Haven anymore.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' had the old Valyrian Freehold, despite its name its very much TheEmpire, and it practiced slavery just as much as the old Ghiscari Empire it supplanted.

** In his 1946 non-fiction essay "Politics and the English Language", George Orwell argued that in political discourse, the terms "fascism" and "democracy" had lost all meaning, as "fascist" now meant "any nation, policy, or action the speaker opposes," while "democratic" now meant "any nation, policy, or action the speaker supports." Listen to any "debate" between (American) political pundits or speeches by political leaders and you'll often find Orwell was right; in fact, you could say Orwell anticipated GodwinsLaw by decades.
*** "Socialist" has become the new catch-phrase by the right wing in regards to any nationalized products or services that capitalists believe should be provided by for-profit private corporations.
** In ''AnimalFarm'', the Farm declares itself a republic years after it has turned into a totalitarian state, so that it can have one-candidate elections.

* While The United Human Federation (which is a lie from the start since in only controls the inner planets) in Dani and Eytan Kollin's ''Unincorporated'' series starts out fairly democratic, in fact it starts by increasing the franchise by granting it to anyone who joins the military, it becomes less as the series progresses. By the final book a cabinet member admits that they are well on the way to becoming a socialist state and perhaps even a communist one, even though they started out, [[CrapsacharrineWorld on the surface at least]] as a libertarian paradise.

* Inverted on the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''. Ephebe, the only democratic nation, is headed by a Tyrant. Yes, the Tyrant is regularly voted out of office.[[hottip:+:This also calls back to ancient Greece, when 'tyrant' a ruler via unconventional means such as populist coup, not inheritance or election, before it picked up its modern connotation.]]

* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'': In the backstory, the Republic of Haven becomes the ''People's'' Republic of Haven when it makes its legislature hereditary and becomes a BreadAndCircuses welfare state, and keeps it when it undergoes a revolution and becomes an unholy mix of [[TheFrenchRevolution Revolutionary France]] and [[DirtyCommunists Communist Russia]]. It only gets better after a ''second'' revolution, where it drops the "People's". The trope is [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] by William Alexander, Lord of the Manticoran Exchequer, when he complains that public opinion in the Solarian League backs Haven because it is a republic while Manticore is a kingdom, and the people of the Solarian League assume that a republic must be a democracy while a kingdom must be autocratic. Later on, Havenite Secretary of War Thomas Theisman muses that he ''really wishes'' he could just have Arnold Giancola, the guy he ''knows'' is behind the resumption of the shooting war with Manticore, taken behind a shed and shot, but specifically notes they have to do everything by the book to show they are not the ''People's'' Republic of Haven anymore.

* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'': At the start of the series, The People's Republic of Haven has a revolution where the trope is given full scope. It only gets better after a ''second'' revolution, where it drops the "People's". The trope is [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] by William Alexander, Lord of the Manticoran Exchequer, when he complains that public opinion in the Solarian League backs Haven because it is a republic while Manticore is a kingdom, and the people of the Solarian League assume that a republic must be a democracy while a kingdom must be autocratic. Later on, Havenite Secretary of War Thomas Theisman muses that he ''really wishes'' he could just have Arnold Giancola, the guy he ''knows'' is behind the resumption of the shooting war with Manticore, taken behind a shed and shot, but specifically notes they have to do everything by the book to show they are not the ''People's'' Republic of Haven anymore.

--> Sub-saharan Africa's largest nation has grown more oppressive over the decades, and its names has kept pace.

* ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'': Every non-United States country we hear about in Ayn Rand's novel is the "People's State of (Fill in the Blank)". Of course, they are all [[StrawDystopia oppressive, poverty-stricken hellholes]]. Argentina and Chile are stated to have been non-People's States countries, and others are suggested to exist. The transitions seem both inevitable and [[StuffBlowingUp to not go well]]. In Chile's case, the transition comes midway through the book, as just one more step the world is taking towards universal communism.

* ''AtlasShrugged'': Every non-United States country we hear about in Ayn Rand's novel is the "People's State of (Fill in the Blank)". Of course, they are all [[StrawDystopia oppressive, poverty-stricken hellholes]]. Argentina and Chile are stated to have been non-People's States countries, and others are suggested to exist. The transitions seem both inevitable and [[StuffBlowingUp to not go well]]. In Chile's case, the transition comes midway through the book, as just one more step the world is taking towards universal communism.