A tyrant's first battlefield is to rewrite history. Most notable were the political purges of Joseph Stalin. The Soviet government erased figures from Soviet history by renaming cities — such as the Imperial capital of St. Petersburg to Petrograd and Leningrad and Stalingrad — and eradicating memories of czarist rule. Stalin's historical revisions also included changing photographs and history books, thereby distorting children's learning within educational establishments.

Leaders of ISIS and the Taliban have called the recent U.S. trend of angry mobs destroying statues "inspiring but a bit amateur," and agreed to send advisers to Antifa and other far-left groups on how to erase historical artifacts. "Destroying all art, culture and history from previous eras is obviously constructive," said ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi. "But they've got to do it in a more dramatic way. We beheaded statues with a sword.