"'...every leader has to make compromises; otherwise he'd set everybody against him and get nothing accomplished.'" (p. 83)
Poul and Karen Anderson present a perfect example in Gratillonius who is neither a trader like Nicholas van Rijn nor an intelligence officer like Dominic Flandry but a king presiding over an assembly. See The Council Of Suffetes.
Two historical examples are cited:
Lincoln had foolish Cabinet members and leatherheaded generals (apparently);
there were Stalinists and anti-Stalinists in the Soviet Union.
An "anti-Stalinist" might be either a would-be dictator or an opponent of dictatorship. The latter had to be eliminated to make way for power struggles between the former.
9 comments:
It all depends on the political culture.
Stalin didn't have to compromise once he'd established his position -- which he did by accepting the dull administrative posts in the Communist party.
This gave him control over appointments; he used that to build up a patronage network of loyal clients; and he used that to defeat Trotsky and his other opponents.
It helped that the Bolshevik party had always been a tightly centralized dictatorship disciplined by terror.
Once he got control of the levers he first purged (sent to the Gulag or killed) just about everyone who wasn't beholden to himself; then he repeatedly purged the remainder, to keep everyone frightened.
During the age of "High Stalinism" in the 1930's, the supposedly most powerful men in the USSR would literally sweat and tremble with fear and sometimes vomit when waiting for an appointment with Stalin. They knew he could kill them on a whim -- have their entire families tortured and killed too.
And sometimes he did, for no particular reason but that 'it's time' (he repeatedly purged and killed the heads of the secret police on that basis) except to maintain the atmosphere of terror.
And Stalin died of natural causes, in bed, and in power. Repression works; but it doesn't work in moderation. If you want to rule by terror, you have to -terrorize-.
Kaor, Paul!
As a GENERAL rule I agree leaders have to make compromises, both to prevent everybody from becoming their enemies and in order to get SOMETHING accomplished. Unless, of course, a leader wants to rule thru terror and repression, as Lenin and Stalin had done.
Yes, Lincoln had to work with frustrating cabinet ministers and boneheaded generals. He was an example of the kind of leader discussed in the quote from SHIELD. And any attempt by Lincoln to rule like a dictator thru a Jacobin style Reign of Terror would probably have ended with the permanent breaking up of the US. Nor do I think Lincoln had it IN him be so cruelly ruthless a la Lenin and Stalin.
Sean
An aside: by the time Stalin died, there was not one single member of the Politburo who was taller than he was... and Stalin was only 5ft6.
Incidentally, in democratic systems nearly all politicians are taller than the average.
That second fact is downright peculiar.
We are not conscious of voting for people taller than us. How much politics is unconscious?
People seem to associate tallness (and unusual good looks) with virtue, trustworthiness and power. Television and subsequent visual media have made this relevant in electoral politics -- previously people experienced politicians mostly through their words.
Indeed. There is political wisdom in the combox as well as quoted in the post.
Kaor, Paul!
Recall any pictures you have seen of the US Presidents of the past 40 years. All of them: Reagan, the first Bush, Clinton, the second Bush, Obama, Trump, were tall men. But I would not say they were all HANDSOME. But I think Stirling was right.
Sean
Sean,
Not all HANDSOME, agreed!
Paul.
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