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"No dictator can rule through fear and violence alone. Naked power can be grabbed and held temporarily, but it never suffices in the long term. In the twentieth century, as new technologies allowed leaders to place their image and voice directly into their citizens' homes, a new phenomenon appeared where dictators exploited the cult of personality to achieve the illusion of popular approval without ever having to resort to elections. In How to Be a Dictator, Frank Dikötter examines the cults and propaganda surrounding twentieth-century dictators, from Hitler and Stalin to Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung. These men were the founders of modern dictatorships, and they learned from each other and from history to build their regimes and maintain their public images. Their dictatorships, in turn, have influenced leaders in the twenty-first century, including Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Using a breadth of archival research and his characteristic in-depth analysis, Dikötter offers a stunning portrait of dictatorship, a guide to the cult of personality, and a map for exposing the lies dictators tell to build and maintain their regimes." --… (more)
User reviews
There were many strategies for a
There are a lot of things that are repeated throughout the book. Most dictators in the book are ones from the 20th century, e.g. Hitler, Stalin, Il-sung, and Mao. It's interesting to read about because their strategies are now used by other dictators—or dictator wannabes—in the modern age, for example, Trump.
Dictators who lasted possessed many skills. Many excelled at hiding their feelings. Mussolini saw himself as Italy’s finest actor. In an unguarded moment Hitler, too, called himself Europe’s greatest performer. But in a dictatorship many ordinary people also learned how to act. They had to smile on command, parrot the party line, shout the slogans and salute their leader. In short, they were required to create the illusion of consent. Those who failed to play along were fined, imprisoned, occasionally shot.
There are a lot of interesting tidbits from the lives of the dictators, and they do intertwine. An example of this:
For the best part of a decade Stalin and Hitler had observed each other with a mixture of growing wariness and grudging admiration. ‘Hitler, what a great fellow!’ Stalin exclaimed after the Night of the Long Knives. Hitler, for his part, found the Great Terror deeply impressive. But Stalin had read Mein Kampf carefully, including those passages where its author promised to erase Russia from the map. ‘Never forget,’ Hitler had written, ‘that the rulers of present-day Russia are bloodstained common criminals. We are dealing with the scum of humanity.’
There are plenty of backstabbing sycophants throughout this book, most of them lending a hand in understanding that if you support an utterly corrupt demagogue who wishes to have complete control in hierarchical fashion—which is the structure for capitalist companies—you will perish; you will perhaps not go under because in a physical sense, but in a mental one.
To read of how dictators and their memory is preserved after they died is acutely interesting, as it says a lot of the ephemeral lives of dictators:
On 1 March 1953 Stalin was found lying on the floor, soaked in his own urine. A blood vessel had burst in his brain, but no one had dared to disturb him in his bedroom. Medical help, too, was delayed, as the leader’s entourage was petrified of making the wrong call. Stalin died three days later.
His body was embalmed and displayed, but crowds of mourners determined to catch a last glimpse of their leader ran out of control. Hundreds were trampled to death in the ensuing panic. After an elaborate state funeral on 9 March he was laid to rest next to Lenin. Tower bells were rung and salute guns fired.
Every train, bus, tram, lorry and car in the country came to a halt. Complete silence descended over Red Square. ‘A single sparrow swooped over the mausoleum,’ observed one foreign correspondent. An official announcement was made, then the flag slowly raised back to full mast. Eulogies came in from the beneficiaries of the regime, none more eloquent than those penned by Boris Polevoi and Nicolai Tikhonov, winners of the Stalin Prize. Millions grieved. One month after his funeral Stalin’s name vanished from the newspapers.
I found the parts about Hitler, Mussolini, and Ceauşescu to be the most interesting. Those guys were ultra-insane, and yet knew exactly how to manipulate (and take control over) the media. Just see how Mussolini was treated:
Great leaders also came to pay homage. Mohandas Gandhi, who visited twice, pronounced him ‘one of the great statesmen of the time’, while Winston Churchill in 1933 described ‘the Roman genius’ as ‘the greatest law-giver among living men’. From the United States alone, he received William Randolph Hearst, New York Governor Al Smith, banker Thomas W. Lamont, future vice-presidential candidate Colonel Frank Knox and Archbishop of Boston William Cardinal O’Connell. Thomas Edison called him the ‘greatest genius of modern times’ after a short meeting.
That also goes for Mao:
Mao’s cult, closely associated with Lin Biao and the People’s Liberation Army, was scaled back almost overnight. China moved even further away from the Soviet Union, turning instead towards the United States in 1972. Cities were spruced up for Nixon’s visit, with posters removed and anti-imperialist slogans toned down. Shanghai underwent a facelift. It took a small army of women to scrub out a huge slogan opposite the Peace Hotel proclaiming ‘Long Live the Invincible Thoughts of Chairman Mao’. New slogans appeared, welcoming the ‘Great Unity of the Peoples of the World’. All signs of the Chairman were removed from window displays. Thousands of statues were dismantled, discreetly sent off for recycling.
The Chairman, too, was primped and preened. His meeting with Nixon was a huge propaganda coup. The news sent shock waves around the world, as the balance of the Cold War shifted away from the Soviet Union. In Beijing, Mao gloated that the United States was ‘changing from monkey to man, not quite a man yet, the tail is still there’. He had reduced Nixon, the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, to a mere emissary seeking an imperial audience [...]
All in all, this book is interesting, enlightening, and seems very well-researched, but felt a bit repetitive towards the end. It's a good read for anyone who is keen to look into their history and for a Kardashian to take hold of their future in new ways.
What you gain from this, if you highlight/underline key sections, and make notes, is a kind of dictator's play book.
You do get an
What you don't get, and this is a pity, is an analysis of the conditions that allow dictators to grow.
All in all, an enlightening book.
That said, it's not a useless book and it was good to get past the usual Hitler and Mao, with profiles of Duvalier and Mengistu included. (The full set is Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il-Sung, Duvalier, Ceausescu, and Mengistu.)