How to Be a Dictator

Instead of waiting for the workers to gain class consciousness and overthrow capitalism, as Marx had suggested, a group of professional revolutionaries, organised along strict military lines, would lead the revolution and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat to engineer the transition from capitalism to communism from above, ruthlessly eliminating all enemies of progress. For Mengistu the collectivisation of the countryside may have been Marxist, but most of all it was a means to extract more grain from the countryside, allowing him to build up his troops.

In short, they were required to create the illusion of consent. Those who failed to play along were fined, imprisoned, occasionally shot

Ian Kershaw famously described Hitler as a ‘non-person’, a mediocre man whose personal characteristics could not explain his popular appeal. The spotlight, he believed, had to be turned on ‘the German people’ and their perception of him

Politics in a dictatorship begins in the personality of the dictator,’ wrote Mao Zedong’s doctor in a classic memoir

naked power has an expiry date. Power seized through violence must be maintained by violence, although violence can be a blunt instrument. A dictator must rely on military forces, a secret police, a praetorian guard, spies, informants, interrogators, torturers. But it is best to pretend that coercion is actually consent. A dictator must instil fear in his people, but if he can compel them to acclaim him he will probably survive

naked power has an expiry date. Power seized through violence must be maintained by violence, although violence can be a blunt instrument. A dictator must rely on military forces, a secret police, a praetorian guard, spies, informants, interrogators, torturers. But it is best to pretend that coercion is actually consent. A dictator must instil fear in his people, but if he can compel them t

Louis XIV was a master of political theatre, but all politicians, to some extent, rely on image. Louis XVI, a descendant of the Sun King, was sent to the guillotine after the 1789 revolution, and the notion of divine right was buried with him. The revolutionaries held that sovereign rights were vested in t

‘Is it better to be loved rather than feared, or vice versa