This is a political philosophy puzzle that has troubled human society for thousands of years: when a dictatorship maintains tight control over the military, media, and economic lifelines through thought control and violence, internal change is almost doomed to be high-risk and low-success. Historical experience repeatedly proves that there is no clean, low-cost, and replicable plan to overthrow dictatorship. If we temporarily set aside emotions and only look at historical outcomes, the general paths to overthrowing dictatorship are indeed concentrated in a few types. Their repeated appearance is not due to lack of imagination, but because power can only break at specific nodes.

The first type, internal elite coup.

This has the highest success rate and the fastest speed, but the weakest sense of justice. When external sanctions, diplomatic isolation, or war pressures begin to threaten the overall interests of the ruling group, or when the dictator himself clearly loses control, the system often activates a “self-preservation mechanism.” A coup is not a revolution but a way to stop losses.

It should be added that the reason this path has a high success rate is not because the planners are smarter, but because it occurs within the violence system itself. It almost does not touch social structures, so it hardly addresses structural problems. That’s also why regimes after a coup often quickly restore repression, merely changing faces.

The second type, non-violent non-cooperation.

This is the path with the highest moral evaluation, but the most dependent on conditions and the easiest to underestimate the failure costs. The success of non-violence has never depended on numbers but on whether it can shake the obedience chain of those executing violence. Strikes, protests, and economic non-cooperation serve to continually raise governance costs until insiders begin to hesitate.

But history also clearly shows: once rulers judge that “the political cost of shooting is lower than the cost of compromise,” non-violence will quickly fail. At this point, continuing non-violence is more a moral choice than a practical strategy.

The third type, negotiated transition.

This is the least destructive but the most narrowly applicable path. Negotiation does not mean the dictator suddenly becomes enlightened, but that the continued rule is no longer rational. It almost only occurs when two conditions are met simultaneously: first, the opposition already poses a substantial threat; second, the ruling group still has a safe exit expectation.

This also explains why highly personalized, high-risk purges of dictatorship almost never end through negotiation. For them, compromise does not reduce risks but may accelerate destruction.

The fourth type, civil war and armed conflict.

This is the most costly, irreversible, and easiest to lose control of. It is often not a “choice” but a structural result after all other paths fail. Once violence becomes the main tool of the game, political goals are quickly replaced by military logic, and state capacity disintegrates.

History repeatedly proves that civil war is better at destroying the old order but rarely automatically generates a new one. The ultimate cost is almost always borne by civilians who are least involved in the power struggle.

The fifth type, external military intervention.

This is the most immediately effective but the most uncontrollable in the long term. External forces can remove regimes but cannot generate legitimacy for a society. When the original state structure is destroyed and a new political consensus has not yet formed, power vacuums are often filled by violence, proxy politics, and long-term instability. On the level of international law and realpolitik, this path almost inevitably involves legitimacy disputes.

The sixth type, decapitation or “surgical” actions.

This is a technical variation of the fifth path, attempting to directly remove the highest nodes of power with minimal military cost. Its potential advantage is reducing the risk of full-scale war, but the premise is that the regime is highly dependent on individuals rather than institutional networks. Once power has been de-personalized, decapitation actions are likely to cause only short-term chaos rather than structural change.

Therefore, the ultimate answer history consistently provides is: overthrowing dictatorship is not a technical question of “whether there is a smarter way,” but a real-world question of “who bears the costs.” The differences among paths are not abo