Authoritarian regimes that emerged from violent conflicts such as civil wars, wars of independence, genocides and coups, appear to be more successful at repressing nonviolent protests than authoritarian regimes without experience in violent conflict. How do legacies of violence enhance regime durability? This study contends that legacies of violence increase the possibility that an authoritarian regime can stay in power even when faced with an uprising. Legacies of violence provide certain mechanisms that enhance cohesion and increase the level of participation in support of the regime during a crisis. The findings of this study are based on the comparative analysis of the Rassemblement Constitutionnel Democratique (RCD) of Tunisia and the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF). While the former regime had no experience in violent conflict, the latter emerged from a brutal liberation struggle in which several thousand perished. The RCD regime collapsed in 2011 in the wake of massive nonviolent protests, but ZANU PF succeeded in repressing nonviolent protests for more than three decades. The study also examines the regimes of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda as secondary cases. However, the study acknowledges that legacies of violence do not last forever; they fade due to generational turnover. Nonviolent protests are more likely to succeed when legacies of violence erode and the regime's cohesion is undermined. Data for this research was collected through content analysis of archival records, news reports, audio-visual materials from credible sources and autoethnography.