I’m getting ready to watch the biography of Pol Pot. This week has been absolute power week. For some reason I am fascinated by these tales of dictators and their exploits. Never having lived in an opressive society, it baffles me that so many people would put up with so much shit.
Come as your favorite deposed dictator.
It is surprising how much “shit” people will put up with. In the dictatorship situation it’s a widely varying combination of brutal suppression and propaganda. The harder a dictator plays the fear card the less effort is required in the propaganda area. Humans everywhere appear to be highly susceptible to the “cult of personality”, eagerly elevating individuals to a more divine status. In dicatatorships there is almost always portraits of the dictator everywhere. When the iron boot is well planted on their necks the citizens tend to go into a frenzy trying to outdo each other in the loyalty demonstration department.
I just borrowed the book “Stalingrad” by Beevor from the local library. It’s a new book that was in all the bookstores last year. It’s about the battle of Stalingrad and it is an amazing story of the no quarter collision of the largest land armies the world has ever seen. It is an absolute vision of hell and the book reminds me why I don’t care for Stephen King’s books or other fictional horrors - historical and crime non-fiction always wins the horror prize hands down. Anyway, in the book, it’s very interesting to read about the two dictators and their differing styles: The paranoid, brutal, fanatical Stalin and the egotistical and somewhat mystical Hitler. How their propaganda and thought control policies ripple right down through their societies to the battle lines and how the soldiers and civilians are controlled and affected by their dictators is very scary stuff.
One could say that one of the greatest struggles of civilization is to escape “one man rule”. A military-like hierarchy can be an efficient and proper organization but, at some point in the power structure, controls must be imposed so that no one individual gains too much decision making power.
There are so many good history books you could read to learn about oligarchies (“government by the few”). “The Proud Tower” and others by Tuchman, “Nicholas and Alexandria” and “Dreadnought” by Massie. It’s Saturday morning and I’m tired of typing.