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Tyrants of the 20th Century
Purging vs. Co-opting Tyrants
By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"
History teaches us that there are two types of tyrants. Those who
preserve the structures and forces that carry them to power - and
those who, once they have attained their goal of unbridled
domination, seek to destroy the organizations and people they had
used to get to where they are.
Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Josip Broz Tito are examples of co-opting
tyrants. Though Hitler was forced to liquidate the rebellious
SA in 1934, he kept the Nazi party intact and virtually unchanged
until the end. He surrounded himself with fanatic (and self-serving)
loyalists and the composition of his retinue remained the same
throughout the life of his regime. The concept of Alte Kampfer
(veteran fighter) was hallowed and the mythology of Nazism extolled
loyalty and community (Gemeinschaft) above opportunistic expedience
and conspiratorial paranoia.
Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao are prime specimen of the purging
tyrant. Stalin spent the better part of 30 years eliminating not
only the opposition - but the entire Leninist-Bolshevik political
party that brought him to power in the first place. He then
proceeded to cold-bloodedly exterminate close to 20 million
professionals, intellectuals, army officers, and other achievers and
leaders on whose toil and talents his alleged successes rested.
Co-opting tyrants consolidate their power by continually expanding
the base of their supporters and the concomitant networks of
patronage. They encourage blind obedience (the Fuehrerprinzip) and
devotion. They thrive on personal interaction with sycophants and
adulators. They foster a cult-like shared psychosis in their
adherents.
Purging tyrants consolidate their power by removing all independent
thinkers and achievers from the scene, re-writing history in a self-
aggrandizing manner, and then raising a new generation of ambitious,
young acolytes who know only the tyrant and his reign and regard
both as a force of nature. They rule through terror and encourage
paranoia on all levels. They foster the atomization of society in a
form of micromanaged application of the tried and true rule
of "divide et impera".
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Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant
Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Central Europe Review,
PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International
(UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health
and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.
Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com
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