Why aren't dictators MORE violent and brutal?

[No Wikipedia Cites]

Ok one of those 'almost too stupid to ask' questions I don't know, is why aren't dictators more brutal than they are?

I learnt the following factoids thanks to movies and references, for instance, Fidel Castro's first revolution was busted by Batista's army and Castro was sent to prison. Why not kill Castro? Then Batista would be partying in Havana Casinos right now. Why so nice to the communist insurgents? (I know that they gouged out the eye of one of Castro's men under torture, but somehow were too nice to actually kill the Castro boys).

Many of the Stalinist-era repression stories have people sent to the Gulag. Including later to be famous writers; but they survived to harm the government. Why not shoot Solstenitsin? Why so (relatively) nice with political prisoners?

I also remember that Stalin (or was it Lenin?) himself was arrested and sent to the Tsarist prison camps four times, but always escaped. Why was the Czar so nice? Why not put a bullet into Uncle Joe before he becomes the new Czar?

[MichaelEmouse]

Hindsight is 20/20. If Batista had known Castro was going to be the guy who overthrew him, he would have shot him. Same thing for the Russian revolutionaries.

But they didn't know that until Castro/Lenin were already well on their way to succeeding and there were many like them. To make sure to get every potential Castro or Lenin would have required killing a lot more people and probably running a Stalin-level of constant purging, which Batista and the Tzar may not have wanted to do.

Think of Hitler. He tried a putsch in 1923 and, if we had known what was going to happen next, it would have made sense to kill him. But in 1923, we didn't know Hitler was going to have the future he had; he was only some git who made a half-assed attempt at overthrowing the government.

[Ludovic]

Originally Posted by MichaelEmouse

Think of Hitler. He tried a putsch in 1923 and, if we had known what was going to happen next, it would have made sense to kill him. But in 1923, we didn't know Hitler was going to have the future he had; he was only some git who made a half-assed attempt at overthrowing the government.

Not necessarily. Many of the judges that caused him to be released very early rather than locked up forever or for at least a decade had right-wing sympathies. Whereas they threw the book at left-wing activists. So while they may have not wanted him to go as far as he did, the people who let him out didn't really mind his cracking down on liberal democracy.

So this wasn't really a case of "we didn't KNOW he was going to be a dictator", it was more of a case of "we didn't really believe he was going to be a dictator on his own terms."

[Tom Tildrum]

A live prisoner is a potential lever against the prisoner's family and colleagues, and sometimes can be flipped to be a spy for the government after release.

[Der Trihs]

Also, it's easier to get people to surrender if they think you might let them live. If they are sure you are going to kill them all on the other hand they are more likely to engage in resistance to the end no matter how hopeless it is - they've nothing to lose.

[Sailboat]

Originally Posted by Der Trihs

Also, it's easier to get people to surrender if they think you might let them live. If they are sure you are going to kill them all on the other hand they are more likely to engage in resistance to the end no matter how hopeless it is - they've nothing to lose.

In a more military context, this was the classic blunder the Wermacht made in Barbarossa. They took millions of prisoners at the start, but the abuse, neglect and outright murder of prisoners soon resulted in their enemies resisting with extraordinary bitterness rather than surrender.

Well, technically, that was their second classic blunder.

[handsomeharry]

Originally Posted by Ludovic

Not necessarily. Many of the judges that caused him to be released very early rather than locked up forever or for at least a decade had right-wing sympathies. Whereas they threw the book at left-wing activists.

I think that one of the greatest quotes I've read (although the sympathies it expressed are totally abhorrent) was when one of the police chiefs was quizzed, at the trial, as to whether or not there had been political assassinations, he answered "Yes, but not enough!"

[Jim's Son]

A dictator can have things backfire by killing an opponent and turn him into a martyr. Not quite the same thing but in the late 1960s there was an United Mine Workers labor official named Jock Yablonski who was in a political struggle with UMW president W.A. Boyle. Boyle wasn't satisfied with stealing an election from Yablonski, he hired people to kill Yablonski, his wife and daughter. The killers left a lot of clues, were soon caught, people were outraged and Boyle ended up getting three life sentences and dying in prison. People at the time remarked that alive Yablonski couldn't get people todo much but dead he had everybody anxious to help his cause.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_Yablonski

[Marley23]

People are often not that great at evaluating threats, and being a dictator arguably makes that worse because people can become afraid to telling you anything they think you don't want to hear. Besides, dictators can't run a whole country by themselves. They need to rely on other people, and if they are so brutal the people close to them start to get nervous that they're going to get killed, they may kill the dictator before the dictator can kill them.

[TriPolar]

I'll ask the OP: How much more brutal do you want? If a dictator kills everyone who hates him, he won't have anyone to dictate left in the end. So if you kill one 'troublemaker', it might create 2 more, that you then have to kill. Once you get down to some small number of people left alive, you better be a pretty well armed, eagle-eyed, and tireless dictator. Besides, the options aren't just prison and death. Slave labor leading to death is often preferred.

[lisiate]

Self preservation is my guess. Although there have been some pretty brutal dictators, I'd pick Idi Amin and Pol Pot as two of the most brutal since WWII. Who was the most brutal dictator in history? could be a good elimination game...

[Qin Shi Huangdi]

Originally Posted by lisiate

Self preservation is my guess. Although there have been some pretty brutal dictators, I'd pick Idi Amin and Pol Pot as two of the most brutal since WWII. Who was the most brutal dictator in history? could be a good elimination game...

Zhang Xianzhong, undoubtedly. He had the mindset of a serial killer while being dictator.

[lisiate]

Originally Posted by Qin Shi Huangdi

Zhang Xianzhong, undoubtedly. He had the mindset of a serial killer while being dictator.

I'd never heard of him, but he's certainly contender judging by his wikipedia page..

As for the 'quantity versus quality' question that's certainly a matter of opinion. None of the ancient contenders can come anywhere near the moderns in sheer number terms, but certainly match them (and may even exceed) them in qualtitative nastiness.

[Scholar Beardpig]

Originally Posted by Qin Shi Huangdi

Zhang Xianzhong, undoubtedly. He had the mindset of a serial killer while being dictator.

But the heart of a poet!

Zhang Xianzhong killed basically everybody in Sichuan, but he left behind a stele with an awesome poem on it. According to Wikipedia, it goes something like-a this:

天生萬物以養人
人無一善以報天
殺殺殺殺殺殺殺
Heaven brings forth innumerable things to help man.
Man has nothing with which to recompense Heaven.
Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.

[JRDelirious]

BTW: Stalin and Mao both died in their beds, in office, having pretty much cowed any remaining opposition into waiting for that rather than attempting a frontal challenge.

But other less-arbitrarily-deadly dictators managed to live long and prosper as well. Normally, you do not need to reach PolPot/Amin levels of terror to maintain control. You just need to provide enough examples of what are the fruits of disloyalty so that the majority of the population makes the rational choice to keep their heads down and try to live. Many regimes will also take the position that they'll rather not make you a martyr.

[handsomeharry]

Originally Posted by No Wikipedia Cites

Ok one of those 'almost too stupid to ask' questions I don't know, is why aren't dictators more brutal than they are?

I learnt the following factoids thanks to movies and references, for instance, Fidel Castro's first revolution was busted by Batista's army and Castro was sent to prison. Why not kill Castro? Then Batista would be partying in Havana Casinos right now. Why so nice to the communist insurgents? (I know that they gouged out the eye of one of Castro's men under torture, but somehow were too nice to actually kill the Castro boys).

Many of the Stalinist-era repression stories have people sent to the Gulag. Including later to be famous writers; but they survived to harm the government. Why not shoot Solstenitsin? Why so (relatively) nice with political prisoners?

I also remember that Stalin (or was it Lenin?) himself was arrested and sent to the Tsarist prison camps four times, but always escaped. Why was the Czar so nice? Why not put a bullet into Uncle Joe before he becomes the new Czar?

This is an excellent question. IIRC, Castro's first fling got some people killed...and he got off with something like, what, 4 years, or less? What would happen to somebody in the US now, that tried to pull that? A death sentence, for starters!
Strange times.

[AK84]

Very few people become absolute rulers of a country by being stupid, and what the OP suggests (the action, not the OP) is monumentally stupid. Most dictators are in fact very smart and quite politically savvy. Ultimatly their rule depends on the populace tolerating them enough to not want to overthrow them. Killing absolutely everybody or trying to is a good way to ensure that they do. Also bombing villages and strafing protestors tends to make you look bad even amongst your own supporters.

Much better to let people live and carry out actions under some sort of official cover. So Saddams gassing of his own people that the Americans love to recall, was not motivated (totally) by spite, but at least due to the fact that many locals were actively supporting the Iranians during a war. in the exact same Way many opponents of a regime commit enough acts to get them legitimately slammed under applicable laws.

[Boyo Jim]

Every dictator is a very special snowflake, and none are alike. There are at least two factors, um... dictating the level of brutality -- personal inclination and perceived "need" of it for survival purposes.

Stalin and Hitler seemed to really wallow in brutality, and would be brutal in any circumstances. But look at a guy like Assad in Syria today. Is he actually more brutal now than he was two years ago? His forces are certainly acting more brutally in the face on civil unrest, though as I understand it the Syrian government was never a model of sweetness and light in the best of times. Maybe Assad even feels bad about the "necessity" of being more brutal, or maybe he's taking some perverse joy because he now has an excuse to act out and indulge his darker impulses.

So I would ask the OP for a clearer defintion of what you understand as brutality. Many (maybe most) dictators don't get their own hands dirty, and they don't even see the brutality inflicted on the populace. They issue instructions to "maintain order", and sometimes they will later blame "overzelous" minions for excesses. Are they brutal too? How does their brutality compare to some other dictators who want to watch it happen, or even participate in it?

[Boyo Jim]

Does "more" brutal mean a larger volume of brutal behavior, or or brutality of a more serious nature? It's a quantity versus quality question.

[elfkin477]

OP, I urge you to get a hold of the video game Tropico. Have your dictator avatar be as brutal as possible, and see how your banana republic fares under that sort of yoke. See how long you stay in power, too.