The Great Dictator

Charlie Chaplin directed and starred in The Great Dictator, a parody of Hitler and Nazi Germany was released in 1940 before the United States entered the war. This movie was Chaplin’s first feature-length talking movie. In the film’s final speech, Chaplin as the dictator gives an inspiring, non-fascist message. This utopian message is as relevant today as it was then. The subtitled video below is a montage of the final speech mixed with modern images.

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like help everybody if possible. Jew, Gentile, black man or white. We all want to help one another. Humans are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate or despise one another. In this world, there is room for everyone. And the good Earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate and has goose-stepped us toward misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but have shut ourselves in. Machinery that has given abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need happiness. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer. The very nature of these inventions cry out to the goodness in man, cries out for universal brotherhood and the unity of us all. Even now, my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. Those, who can hear me, I say, Do not despair. The misery that is upon is but the passing of greed and the bitterness of men who fear human progress. The hate of man will pass and dictators will die. And the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers, don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise and enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to think, what to do or what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder! Don’t give yourself to unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers, don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the 17^th chapter of Saint Luke, it is written, The kingdom of God is within Man. Not one man, nor a group of man, but in all man! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful. To make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power, let us unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give man a chance to work, that will our youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie, they do not fulfil their promise. They never will! They free themselves, but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world of science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!