# Is North Korea the only Communist country to have had hereditary rulers?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-north-korea-the-only-communist-country-to-have-had-hereditary-rulers/639686
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 2, 2012, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-north-korea-the-only-communist-country-to-have-had-hereditary-rulers/639686 "2012-11-02T17:30:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2012, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-north-korea-the-only-communist-country-to-have-had-hereditary-rulers/639686/21 "2012-11-04T05:17:54Z")
That’s just it. Nepotism is hardly limited to less developed countries.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2012, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-north-korea-the-only-communist-country-to-have-had-hereditary-rulers/639686/22 "2012-11-04T06:24:18Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> None of those are communist states, and Indira Gandhi didn’t “inherit” the premiership of India from her dad.
She would never have been PM if she had not been Nehru’s daughter and Rajiv would not have been PM if he had not been her son.
The term for this is “Dynasty politics”.
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### Author:  [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2012, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-north-korea-the-only-communist-country-to-have-had-hereditary-rulers/639686/23 "2012-11-04T09:21:03Z")
The longtime communist leader of Bulgaria, [Todor Zhivkov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todor_Zhivkov), gave his son and especially his daughter a head start in their political career. His son, however was a playboy and enjoyed the good life. Zhivkov’s daughter [Lyudmila](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Zhivkova) was a member of the politburo and minister of culture. She was quite a colorful figure and died young under suspicious circumstances.
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### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2012, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-north-korea-the-only-communist-country-to-have-had-hereditary-rulers/639686/24 "2012-11-05T15:24:47Z")
> [@AK84](#):
>
> She would never have been PM if she had not been Nehru’s daughter and Rajiv would not have been PM if he had not been her son.
>
> The term for this is “Dynasty politics”.
The operative word being “Dynasty”. Generally, it simplifies things; as I said, it’s a known “brand”, and it it solves any arguments that might degrade into open civil war otherwise (as happened with the Congress party when the legitimacy became more questionable). Many next-to-important people would rather work for child of A, and keep their position, than risk that B or C becomes leader and _their_ friends instead get all the cushy jobs.
This is why it worked for 5,000 years and why it often keeps working this way whether they are a Sultanate, a kingdom, a people’s republic, or a parliamentary democracy.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-north-korea-the-only-communist-country-to-have-had-hereditary-rulers/639686/25 "2012-11-05T15:29:45Z")
> [@AK84](#):
>
> She would never have been PM if she had not been Nehru’s daughter and Rajiv would not have been PM if he had not been her son.
Certainly. But that’s not the same as inheritance. George W. Bush would never have been POTUS if not for who his father was, but nobody would say he inherited his position.
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### Author:  [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-north-korea-the-only-communist-country-to-have-had-hereditary-rulers/639686/26 "2012-11-05T18:50:50Z")
People like to talk about our political dynasties but they never last for more than two generations. There aren’t any Washingtons, Jeffersons, Roosevelts, or even Kennedys on the horizon likely to win the Presidency. Last time I heard of an Adams he was on American Idol(JD Adams, direct descendant of John and John Quincy).
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### Author:  [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-north-korea-the-only-communist-country-to-have-had-hereditary-rulers/639686/27 "2012-11-05T19:26:52Z")
The great-great-grandson of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Carl-Eduard von Bismarck, was a member in the German parliament some years ago. He was dubbed “Germany’s laziest member of parliament” because he hardly ever bothered to show up when the parliament was in session. He has since left politics.
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### Author:  [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-north-korea-the-only-communist-country-to-have-had-hereditary-rulers/639686/28 "2012-11-06T04:21:34Z")
> [@md2000](#):
>
> Humour is lost on some…
Not on me, I thought that post in which you presented irrelevant information in a misleading way was hysterical 😃
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-north-korea-the-only-communist-country-to-have-had-hereditary-rulers/639686/29 "2012-11-06T14:15:41Z")
> [@adaher](#):
>
> People like to talk about our political dynasties but they never last for more than two generations. There aren’t any Washingtons, Jeffersons, Roosevelts, or even Kennedys on the horizon likely to win the Presidency. Last time I heard of an Adams he was on American Idol(JD Adams, direct descendant of John and John Quincy).
“Political families” are not an uncommon thing. In the USA it’s something that’s more common at the level of local or state politics – Landrieus in Lousiana, Cardins in Maryland – though it is seldom as thorough a situation on the scale and scope of the Daleys in Chicago, where during the interregnum between father and son the Daley Machine was still churning along fine in the background and there’s always a Daley in some important office or another.
The Adamses did not return to presidential politics after John Q, but remained “Important Influential People It’s Good To Know” for a couple of generations, ditto the Kennedys (with the interesting phenomenon of the younger generation of Kennedys mostly having dropped out of elected office themselves by the time Ted died).
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