I think Salazar in Portugal began as a true believer, though he was reported to have said quite early on “unfortunately there are a lot of things that seemingly only I can do”, so how quickly things went from The System to The Man is up for debate.
I agree. There’s a world of difference between deliberate murder like the Holocaust and the Great Purge and unintentional deaths as a byproduct of apathy, incompetence and cold bloodedness like the Great Leap Forward and Year Zero.
I will kill you to get power vs. I will get power so I can kill you. Means vs. End.
Except there was plenty of violence and mass-murder involved in those famines, ita not like they were peaceful utopian societies who were too busy with group hugs and positive affirmations to remember to grow food. Even without the famine they would be significant crimes against humanity even if they never reached Holocaust levels.
Though the other thing about this comparison is Hitler did cause plenty of deaths by famine (that were a direct consequence of his invasion of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and his army’s actions there) and they are not included in most totals of the number of people he killed, if you include them then Hitler absolutely killed more people than Stalin (not Mao though, the Great Famine was inconceivably large)
Having had personal experience in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, in my opinion Robert Mugabe was a complete opportunist.
If we are going to stretch the definition of “dictator” to leader of a single party state. Ian Smith of Rhodesia fits the “true believers” but he did not have enough time to seriously entrench his power before the war ended his influence.
On the other hand, although I have less exposure, I think that Idi Amin in Uganda was a true believer; he was just unfortunately insane. But I think he believed his mad ideas.
eta, speaking of Africa, Leopold II of Belgium was pretty much a true believer, mostly based on his own over-confidence in his divine right to be a complete arsehole. Not a 20th century figure but his intervention needs critical reinforcement. One of the most evil events of the previous century. The Congo area has never recovered.
Qaddafi
Because the forced industrialization and collectivization of agriculture helped him stamp out or coopt groups that could form alternate power centers in the Soviet Union. Particularly, the “wealthy” peasantry (which often meant just owning a couple of cows and a few acres more than their neighbors) were dealt with brutally, either being thrown into labor camps or outright murdered. Trade unions were turned into instruments of the state. Stalin’s #1 ideology was protecting his own power.
That makes no sense and there is no evidence for that. The key point is we only know with hindsight that Stalin’s security apparatus was so powerful that no amount of famine and suffering would actually trigger his downfall. But that wasn’t clear at the time, and the failures of his radical policies did trigger plenty of uprisings. There is no way a purely opportunist dictator would have started a massive radical reworking of all aspects of the economy, knowing it would fail, cause massive famine and instability, just so he’d have an excuse to oppress his perceived enemies (like he ever needed an excuse for that). The lesson of all the previous revolutions (which all the Bolshevik leaders were incredibly well versed in) that the one reliable way to ensure you are not over thrown is to ensure your people have enough food.
I think it’s clear he did believe in those radical reforms on the basis of communist principles, hence why once he felt secure enough he decided to carry them out. Once they went south he was happy to use the Kulaks as a scapegoat, but that wasn’t why he initiated them to begin with.
True believer, abeit somewhat insane. He did have high hopes for a united African Union and worked hard at that. I presume he was planning to be the guy in charge.