In the second half of the twentieth century, the last three dictatorships of Western Europe ended — the regimes of Franco in Spain, Salazar in Portugal and the "black colonels" in Greece. Their citizens ultimately preferred the democratic system to the authoritarian one. In his book, political researcher and journalist Alexander Baunov talks about how the dictatorships of these three countries tried to prolong their existence and ended, about the differences and similarities of this transition as a result of the peaceful transformation in Spain, the revolutionary events in Portugal and the military adventure in Greece, and about the people thanks to or in spite of whom this transition took place. Opponents of autocracies often give their own answer to the question of why authoritarian regimes manage to survive for a long time: because they keep on fear and force. Supporters of authoritarianism as a form of government respond in their own way: long-term regimes of personal power are held by the power of popular love. Time not only clarifies, but also obscures the course of events. It is necessary to distinguish the event from the myth about it. This book can be read as a documentary novel about how the two longest dictatorships in Europe, each of which lasted for 40 years, could not resist. To complete the picture, I am writing about their later and less durable imitator — the Orthodox dictatorship of the "black colonels" in Greece.