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'Brilliant' NEW STATESMAN, BOOKS OF THE YEAR 'Enlightening and a good read' SPECTATOR 'Moving and perceptive' NEW STATESMAN Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, Ceausescu, Mengistu of Ethiopia and Duvalier of Haiti. 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. A tyrant who can compel his own people to acclaim him will last longer. The paradox of the modern dictator is that he must create the illusion of popular support. Throughout the twentieth century, hundreds of millions of people were condemned to enthusiasm, obliged to hail their leaders even as they were herded down the road to serfdom. In How to Be a Dictator, Frank Dik etter returns to eight of the most chillingly effective personality cults of the twentieth century. From carefully choreographed parades to the deliberate cultivation of a shroud of mystery through iron censorship, these dictators ceaselessly worked on their own image and encouraged the population at large to glorify them. At a time when democracy is in retreat, are we seeing a revival of the same techniques among some of today's world leaders? This timely study, told with great narrative verve, examines how a cult takes hold, grows, and sustains itself. It places the cult of personality where it belongs, at the very heart of tyranny.… (more)
User reviews
Reading these mini CVs invites comparison and conceptualisation – all share a relatively innocuous (failed or stunted) start, meteoric rise (often due to certain auspicious circumstances), attainment of a seat of power, immediate (or slightly delayed) start of a killing spree of potential competitors, hunting down potential opposition in cruel ways at a mass scale, reform of the constitutional State, and ultimately an often ignominious downfall in obscurity or hell. Becoming a dictator in the twentieth century was not a profession without risks – Mussolini and Ceausescu were both subjected to mob executions (25%), Hitler killed himself before the Russians did, Mengistu had to flee before the final downfall of his regime. That means only 50% of our famous sample died of natural causes (Mengistu could still follow).
There are differences in the kind of personality cult that these eight monsters established – Hitler, Mao and Ceausescu did not want statues of themselves placed whilst still in office. Some dictators were late in the game of establishing a personality cult (e.g. Mengistu only fell for the idea after being ululated by half a million of North Koreans during a visit to Pyongyang). But all of the eight in the course of their stint in office decided to go for some kind of hollow ideology or Thought, published in booklets, tomes, slogans and songs, and all of them engaged in some form of rewriting of the history of their nation which proved the inevitability and munificence of their rule.
Dikötter excels when he writes on home ground (Stalin and Mao’s contributions are well-informed and outright cynical at times). Mussolini and Mengistu’s contributions are somewhat eclectic and difficult to follow in terms of structuring. Overall this booklet leaves one desiring for more. More theory, more comparison, more profound thinking about the personality cult Dikötter almost casually introduces.
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Chapter 8, Mengistu, pgs. 186-206