Great Mustaches of the Twentieth Century Part 1 of 5: The Power Stache

Good facial hair is the ultimate sign of masculinity. Strength, intelligence, and success are all for naught if a man can’t grow a good swath of hair on his face. Growing just a mustache is a distillation of one’s facial hair growing abilities.  To quote a Russian proverb, “A man without a mustache, is like an egg with no salt.”

In the twentieth century, the men in power who had mustaches were either dictators or progressive republicans.  The progressive republicans were really a pre 1920s North American phenomenon, where as the dictators pretty much ruined facial hair world wide for holders of high office.

Vladimir Ilych Lenin

Led the Russian Revolution with his well groomed mustache.

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin

Stalin successfully alienated every intellectual in the world from a once popular Marxist philosophy and did it with a great mustache. Originally Stalin was good friends with another famous mustache, Adolf Hitler. They later battled it out on the eastern front over who had the better mustache and who could be the evilest dictator.

Adolf Hitler

A demonstration of how one man can ruin a particular style for all of history.  Hopefully the next evil dictator will wear hipster glasses.

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti

The fact that Saddam had a great mustache is often overshadowed by his participation in genocide, and by ‘participate’, I mean orchestrated as a dictator.  His beautiful lip hair is also overshadowed by his disheveled appearance after being yanked out of a hole by the US military.

Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy is known for his uber masculinity as a hunter and leader of the Rough Riders. His mustache on Mount Rushmore is likely the world’s largest sculptural depiction of a mustache.

William Howard Taft

Usually associated with being the fattest president, Taft was the last president to have facial hair, thus ending the facial haired precedent started by Abraham Lincoln.  On a sidenote, Charles Curtis, the 31st vice president, had a nice silver haired mustache for Herbert Hoover.

Venustiano Carranza de la Garza

Technically a goatee, Carranza’s mustache is hands down the best mustache of all twentieth century world leaders.

Consolation (the Cuban connection):

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz

Rocked a stache as a youngster but conquered Cuba with a beard.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara

Typically went bearded, but it was so shitty looking, that it can be easily mistaken for a mustache.