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People's Republic Of Tyranny
alt title(s): Peoples Republic Of Tyranny
Sir Humphrey: East Yemen, isn't that a democracy?
Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office: Its full name is the Peoples' Democratic Republic of East Yemen.
Sir Humphrey: Ah I see, so it's a communist dictatorship.
— Yes Minister

"The difference between a republic and a people's republic is a lot like the difference between a jacket and a straitjacket."
— Ronald Reagan

When The Empire tries to masquerade as The Federation, it will often adopt a progressive-sounding name in the process. But often it will go overboard, unable to restrain its own sense of self-importance. While the true federations around it will usually possess simple, unassuming names - The Federation, The Republic, etc. - the Peoples Republic Of Tyranny will call itself the People's Republic, or (if they're really evil and oppressive) the People's Democratic Republic. Indeed, the more words implying freedom the name sports, the more oppressive it is likely to be.

Some regimes will continue this Theme Naming to important buildings and organizations. As a corollary, be wary of any movement, government, or country that is casually referred to by its leaders as "Glorious."

Note that "People's Republic" is itself redundant, given that 'republic' (from Latin res publica, "(government is a public issue") already contains a reference to the people. So a People's Republic is a "People's People's Issue." This is an example of how the Peoples Republic Of Tyranny can also be spotted by its love of the Department Of Redundancy Department. The addition of "Democratic" ("People's Power") takes the whole thing Up To Eleven (see North Korea below).

Arguably a form of Newspeak. A subtrope of Super Happy Fun Trope Of Doom. Definitely Names To Run Away From Really Fast if you can. Given what these governments tend to have at their disposal, however, that's a pretty big "if."

This trope, most often Truth In Television, is becoming more common in fiction as time goes on. That may be due to the fact that it is a relatively recent (and increasingly popular) invention in Real Life. A government that claims to be democratic, even when it's not, is at least implicitly agreeing that democracy is a good thing... or maybe just that others seem to think that democracy is a good thing and they try to blend in for political camouflage reasons.

Historically, most non-democratic governments quite openly declared democracy to be evil, because the only proper way to rule a country was through the absolute power of a divinely-appointed king or divinely-appointed president-for-life, for example. A People's Republic of Tyranny is not like that. It's a dictatorship that is, on some level, ashamed of being a dictatorship. This requires the rather unusual combination of an authoritarian government that justifies itself by appealing to a democratic ideology, or at least to the will of the people (as opposed to, say, the will of God or the Mandate of Heaven). The Soviet Union was arguably the first country of this kind in the modern era, but, with the near-universal acceptance (after WW 2) of the idea that democracy is a good thing, everyone started doing it.

Of course, they might just be cultivating themselves as a Villain With Good Publicity. That, or they actually believe their society is genuinely democratic, even more so than (so called) real democracies.

Examples

Comic Books

Film
  • Lampshaded in Lord Of War.
    Yuri: Every faction in Africa calls themselves by these noble names - Liberation this, Patriotic that, Democratic Republic of something-or-other. I guess they can't own up to what they usually are: a federation of worse oppressors than the last bunch of oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves freedom-fighters.

Literature
  • Tom Kratmann specifically points this out in a Desert Called Peace when he writes a paragraph that goes something like this: People's Republic means dictatorship. Democratic Republic means oppressive and corrupt dictatorship. People's Democratic Republic means really oppressive and corrupt dictatorship with genocidal ambitions.
  • The People's Republic of Haven from the Honor Harrington universe fulfils this trope from the beginning of the series, through one revolution, and only ends up moving away from this trope after the second revolution, when it drops the "People's".
    • The trope is somewhat lampshaded in the series when someone in Manticore complains that public opinion in the Solarian league backs Haven because it's a republic while Manticore is a kingdom, and of course republics are all democratic while kingdoms are autocratic, right?
  • In the Sword of Truth 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.
  • Mocked in The Daily Show's America: The Book, which contained a chart demonstrating how as the Congo's "Inherent Lies in Name" had increased, so had its oppression level. It also used extrapolation to figure out that at sometime in the near future Congo will renamed to the "Shiny Happy People's Democratic Republic Of Congo" and that its oppression level (currently "genocidal") will be raised to "hide".
  • Every non-United States country we hear about in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is the "People's State of (Fill in the Blank)". Of course, they are all 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 to not go well.
  • Used to an extent in the Thursday Next series which has a People's Republic of Wales which has a president for life and has opened a free trade zone in the manner of China. England itself in the series might count, as it is a republic rather than a monarchy, and although it isn't really markedly Socialist, it is fairly Orwellian and dominated by a Mega Corp.
  • Pick a Star Wars book that mentions the Empire. ANY book. It was originally formed to, according to Palpatine, form a "safe and secure society." Instead, racism and male chauvinism run rampant, planets are blown up, civilizations are forcibly brought down to barbarism, and anything that apparently does not celebrate the virtues of the Empire is brought down by force, such as, in one of the graphic novel series "Star Wars: Empire," a play is interrupted by stormtroopers for being "anti-Imperial in nature." Most of these crimes are blamed on the Rebellion, even when all of the evidence is against them. And people BELIEVE IT.
    • Arguably justified, at least from the Empire's point of view, as not all Rebel cells are above committing out-and-out terrorist attacks and other atrocities (one notable example was a Rebel group releasing inmates from a maximum security prison into the Imperial Palace on Coruscant during the general chaos caused by news of the Emperor's death at Endor, resulting, predictably, in an orgy of rape and murder). It's worth noting, too, that both the Republic that preceded the Empire and the one that replaced it are really "Republics" in name only, and only demonstrably better from the average citizen's point of view in that they're *slightly* less likely to blow up your planet at random. Corrupt and inept bureaucracy and murky political dealings are still the order of the day.
  • Poul Anderson's "Withit's Collegiate Dictionary," from There Will Be Time, contains the following definition:
    Republic: A country whose government is chosen not on a basis of heredity or riches but by the electorate, from whom political power grows. People's Repulic: One in which the electorate consists of a gun barrel.
  • 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.
  • Space Captain Smith has two. As its name suggests the Democratic Republic of New Eden is a hellish theocratic tyranny. Then there is the Greater Galactic Happiness, Friendship and Co-operation Collective which is run by demented sadistic lemming-men intent on conquest.

Live Action TV
  • Yes Minister used the example in the page quote, among others.
  • In the 2007 Flash Gordon, Ming's authoritarian state is called "The United Peoples of Mongo."
  • Whenever the Mission Impossible team was off to Europe, it was usually operating in the People's Republic of Something.
    • That must've been Eastern Europe.
      • Of course. Western Europe was on OUR side (even France).
  • In one episode of QI, Jimmy Carr joked that countries describing themselves as 'the Democratic Republic of...' rarely live up to their name. Conversely, a country describing itself as 'the Fascist Junta' should be respected for it's honesty.
  • Possible aversion on Angel—the Groosalugg is exiled from Pylea once it becomes (as Gunn described it) "some kind of people's republic". Although this is a reference to what often happens in the sort of failed revolution that often produces people's republics (ie, old revolutionaries are branded traitors for disagreeing with the faction that wins), we never find out what Pylea is now like.

Radio

Video Games
  • The Commonwealth in Red Faction II. A commonwealth being essentially a republic, this one is nevertheless ruled by a dictator, then by another after a coup. The player can remedy this.

Web Comics
  • A Miracle Of Science has the People's Republic of the Moon, which isn't actually all that bad; it's a drab grey place, but then it was Luna to start with. It's Venus, with no such nominative pretensions, that you really have to watch out when travelling to.
    • The hammer-and-crescent flag suggests that the Moon is, or at some point was, openly Communist. If it was founded by post-1990 communists, they may have given democratic communism a go, and gotten the same result as many other "democratic" communists — same poverty, but only half the oppression.
  • Order Of The Stick #698 has a map including a place called "People's Democratic Dictatorship".

Web Original

Western Animation
  • Transformers Generation 1 has the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbombya, led by Supreme Military Commander, President-for-Life, and King of Kings Abdul Fakkadi. The horribly offensive stereotyping provoked Casey Kasem to quit the show.

Real Life
  • The People's Republic of China plays this very straight, and used to play it even straighter in the past.
    • Similarly, the Republic of China (now just Taiwan) was essentially a military dictatorship during its rule over mainlaind China prior to the Maoist takeover, and remained a one-party state in Taiwan until the late '90s.
  • The Senate and Roman People (Senatus Populesque Romanus, or SPQR) retained its original name once it became The Empire, even though the Emperor had complete control over the senatus's decrees.
    • Even the Byzantine Empire maintained claims of being the Roman Republic. They probably weren't fooling anyone.
    • The elections "by the free men of Rome" weren't quite as simple as all that, either. The citizens of Rome were divided into discrete economic brackets, and their votes were weighted according to wealth — with the wealthier groups counting for more, of course. Since they also cast the votes in descending order of wealth chronologically, a majority was usually reached before the largest and poorest groups even got to have their say. Ah, republic.
    • Similarly with the Athenian Republic.
      • Not to mention you only got the vote if you were a "free citizen". Meaning women, slaves/servants, foreigners, non-residents, criminals and other low-lifes did not have to apply, which was most of the demographic.
  • Generally, any country with 'Democratic' in its name isn't democratic, at least as we know it. Rule by "the population" (demos) can mean pretty anything, whether by a bunch of rich people directly voted for by the masses (as in 'real' democracies) or by a small cabal claiming to act on behalf of "the people."
  • The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the single most repressive regime on the face of the Earth. Better known as North Korea.
  • The Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its neighbor to the north, the Republic of the Congo, isn't much better off.
  • The People's Republic of Northern Virginia, as the state's more conservative southern inhabitants originally called it. They meant it as an insult; now people on Northern Virginia have turned it around and use it proudly.
    • More or less the same with the "People's Republic of Vermont"; there was even an admiring history of Bernie Sanders' career up to 1990 called "The People's Republic."
    • Also, the "Democratic People's Soviet Republic of Canada," often used by hard-line conservatives when bashing USA's more liberal neighbors.
      • Please, we prefer "Soviet Canuckistan".
    • Don't forget the "People's Republic of Kalifornia".
    • Due to being one of most liberal cities in one of the more liberal states in the union, Cambridge Massachusetts is often called "The People's Republic of Cambridge," in jest. And sometimes in official documents. It has a Marxism-themed bar.
    • Boulder, Colorado gets the "People's Republic" nickname, being the most liberal area in a (usually) red state.
    • Berkeley and San Francisco and by extension most of the Bay Area in California sometimes get this treatment, even though California is considered to be a deep blue state. They're just that much blue-er than the rest of the state.
    • Don't forget The People's Republic of Madison, a derisive nickname for the liberal capital of Wisconsin. Note that some people took this heart, resulting in news site Madison.com making their ads basically revolutionary communist propaganda in style and changing their logo to a red star.
    • Ann Arbor is yet another example, often referred to by other Michiganders as the "People's Republic of Ann Arbor".
    • One traditionally left-wing Oxford University college is usually nicknamed "The People's Republic of Wadham".
    • Three of Ohio's major universities, Ohio State (OSU) in Columbus, Ohio University in Athens, and (recently "reorganized") Antioch College, are often referred to as "People's Republics" due to their almost defiant "progressivism" in a largely "red" state. In fact, the schools themselves consider the appellation a compliment, although in Antioch's case, the local opinion is that it less resembles a "People's Republic" than Cloud-Cuckoo Land mentally. (A popular bumper sticker in the area around Antioch says, "Forget Visualizing World Peace- Visualize Using Your Turn Signals".)
  • The Soviet satellite German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR), often also called East Germany, up until the reunification of Germany in 1990. (For reference, both the former Allied Occupation Zones, West Germany and the eventual reunified Germany were officially the Federal Republic of Germany, or Bundesrepublik Deutschland).
  • Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Albania all had some variant of "People's" (as in "People's Republic") in their official names when they were Communist countries. Upon making the transition to democracy, they all removed the word "People's" from their respective names.
  • Yemen, mentioned in the page quote, was until 1990 divided into North and South, not East and West (a rather lazy Lawyer Friendly Cameo on the part of the writers, although the geography was more East-West). South Yemen was the "People's Democratic Republic of Yemen". Yes, a Communist dictatorship, with Islamic flavoring. Surprising after the Soviet Union's atheist focus.
  • Even the Soviet Union itself counts, which was titled the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Though technically true (republic and democracy are not the same thing) it is not the most honest of names.
    • Its modern-day successor, the Russian Federation, could also be considered an example: It is ostensibly a federal republic of semi-sovereign states along the lines of the US and this was actually more or less the case in the chaotic Nineties. Today, thanks to Comrade President Prime Minister (thank you very much) Vladimir Putin, power remains largely concentrated in Moscow, with the chief executives of the federal units appointed directly by the president.
    • "Soviet" is the Russian word for "council." The term Soviet Union implies a union of states ruled by (democratically elected) councils. That was the original intention, but, needless to say, it did not quite turn out that way. And let's not even get into the word "socialist" — which may or may not be an accurate description of the USSR, depending on how you define it.
      • Officially, the USSR was always run by the Soviets, headed by the Supreme Soviet (at some point the official "Head of State" of the USSR was the entire Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, rather than its chairman or the General Secretary). However, it was widely known that the Supreme Soviet was there just to rubber-stamp the decisions of the Politburo (the core of the Communist Party) and that the local Party branches were more powerful than the local Soviets. Perhaps, the USSR was a Soviet state in the same way as the UK is a Kingdom.
  • Let none forget the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya! The ordinary word for republic in Arabic is "jumhuriya"; "jamahiriya" is a neologism based on pluralizing the "public" part to mean "masses," according to the link. "We-Public" might be the best equivalent, though I don't know if it sounds as silly in Arabic as that does in English.
    • According to the CIA World Factbook and the Information Please Almanac, the preferred translation of "Jamahirayah Arabiyah Islamiyah Libya" (preferred by the Libyan government, at least) is the Libyan Arab Islamic State of the Masses (!)
  • Subverted by the Most Serene Republic of San Marino which is an actual parliamentary republic despite sounding like a generic Ruritania.
    • Oldest republic in the world, founded by Saint Marinus himself.
    • Venice, before becoming part of France (later Austria, and eventually Italy), was also a Most Serene Republic.
  • While not technically an example, the Holy Roman Empire did include all the important political buzzwords of its day without any of them managing to be true. While it claimed to be the legitimate continuation of the Western Roman Empire under Christian rule, it was actually a loose coalition of feuding states that paid at best lip service to the nominal emperor, did not actually control Rome, and were in constant conflict with the Catholic Church.
    • In short, as Voltaire put it, "The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, Roman or an empire." But it was "The". It's not entirely misleading.
      • Interestingly, several cities which were part of the Empire were actually Republics.
    • It has to be pointed out that the extent to which the term "Holy Roman Empire" was incorrect did vary over time. Given that "Empire" is defined, among less relevant definitions, as either "a political unit having an extensive territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled by a single supreme authority" (aka, a really fucking huge centrally-governed country), or "a state ruled by an emperor", (check) it was in fact an Empire for most of its existence. When it wasn't in conflict with the Papacy, the Holy part could be claimed as accurate as well. The Roman part, well that one may be a bit more difficult to justify.
  • The Republic of Zimbabwe actually started with that name, even when it wasn't failing economics forever.
  • Though generally played for laughs, The People's Republic of Cork has expanded enough for T-shirts of Che Guevara to become relatively popular. The kicker is that Cork is merely a county in the south of Ireland (though it does have the second largest city in the country, discounting Belfast).
  • Peculiarly subverted by the People's Republic of Bangladesh, which manages to actually be a functioning democracy between coups and coup-like situations. It has never changed its name.
  • Democratic Kampuchea, headed by the benevolent and democratically elected beloved leader Brother No. 1, aka Pol Pot. The ultimate example as it was pretty much High Octane Nightmare Fuel incarnate.
  • Under the Cromwells, England was officially a "Commonwealth" - i.e. a republic - despite being an autocracy in practice little different from the monarchy it had replaced. Coins were even issued bearing Cromwell's head and a Latin inscription which stood for "Oliver by the Grace of God and the Republic, Protector of England, Scotland, Ireland & Etc", the "& Etc" referring to the (monarchist) claim to France. In the British Channel 4 drama The Devil's Whore, which covered the English revolution and its aftermath, this was made anvilicious by having Cromwell walk through Parliament carrying an orb whilst the Parliamentarians rose to their feet and shouted "God save the Lord Protector!". Whether this actually happened, I've no idea.
    • It did, sort of. Firstly, it was the Protectorate which was little different from the monarchy (technically Commonwealth would still apply, but it helps to restrict that to the period of the Rump Parliament ruling in 1649-1653). It is true very few people in the post Charles I state actually were fervent republicans, the others just grasped a system to defend the decisions they had taken for practical and religious reasons. At first the Protectorate was still closer to the almost republic of the Rump in style, but when more civilians gained influence, widening support it reverted to a pseudo monarchical system under a powerful Head of State aided by two house of Parliament. Cromwell was then invested a second time as Lord Protector in a very royal seeming coronation, and the office was always referred to as His Highness. Given most of the country and even the politicians in the Protectorate were happy with monarchy (Parliament wanted Cromwell just to accept the Crown already. They offered twice), it is not surprising the socially conservative Protectorate adopted the trappings.
    • Res publica (quite literally "things of the public") is perhaps best translated by the English word "commonwealth."
  • In a very Orwellian scene, the short lived (and allegedly American-supported) dictatorship that ruled Venezuela between the 11th and 12th of April 2002 issued a decree called the "Act Constituting the Government of Democratic Transition and National Unity" which abolished the Supreme Court, the National Assembly, and dismissed all the governors and mayors elected during the previous (Chavez) administration, while their supporters chanted 'Democracy, Democracy!'
    • Between his consolidation of the state media and his recent adjustment to the Venezuelan constitution that allows him to run for President as many times as he wishes (among other things), Chavez is increasingly appearing to have autocratic tendencies, as well. Additionally, he renamed (or at least spearheaded the movement to rename) the country the "Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela", in line with this trope.
  • Variation: Rhodesia and South Africa actually used this trope as an excuse to fund the RENAMO 'rebels' in The People's Republic of Mozambique, even though the targets of the 'rebels' were the people of Mozambique more so than the government. Originally the excuse for helping terrorism was that guerrillas against South Africa were using Mozambique as a safe haven, but after the Mozambique's President had agreed to oust said guerrillas, South Africa continued to support RENAMO until South Africa's own government was overthrown.
  • This was inverted with some anti-Bolshevik independence movements in Russian Civil War, who named their state's People's or Democratic Republics to distinguish themselves from competing Soviet Republics.
    • Ukrainian People's Republic
    • Crimean People's Republic
    • Kuban People's Republic
    • Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, which split into the
      • Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
      • Democratic Republic of Armenia
      • Democratic Republic of Georgia
  • The name of what is traditionally the main right-wing political party of the Netherlands literally translates to "People's Party for Freedom and Democracy". A more radical, highly controversial and rather nationalist offshoot of said party has since overtaken it in terms of popularity. Said offshoot is called the "Party For Freedom".

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