Secret police, concentration camps, spies, torture... The dictators of the 20th century built their regimes of terror with bricks of violence, but that was not enough, they also developed the cult of personality, which became a tool more than useful to control everything, absolutely everything.”
Frank Dikötter, professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong, has studied in depth the phenomenon of the cult of great tyrants, which resulted in the omnipresence in the daily lives of citizens of leaders such as Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung or Duvalier.
Dictators is the result of these investigations, which also include Hitler, Ceaușescu and Mengistu. An essential book to know the history of the 20th century where Dikötter traces the biography of these eight autocrats who spread terror in their countries, massacred their opponents and, in all cases, led their people to economic ruin.
“The cult of personality was more effective than filling the streets with police, because the population loved or feared the leader so much that no one dared to leave the fold. People could denounce a neighbor, a friend or even a family member so as not to betray the great man, to maintain their attachment to the little father, the Führer, the Duce, the Supreme Leader..." explains Dikötter from Hong Kong. Kong in a videoconference interview with La Vanguardia.
The radio, the press, photography, cinema, major exhibitions... all the innovations that were implemented at the beginning of the 20th century were put at the service of the dictators. “Mussolini developed the gift of omnipresence, he used secret funds so that academic artists, painters, photographers, sculptors or writers would join his cause. His public appearances were choreographed, he turned his birthplace into a place of pilgrimage, he received thousands of letters and gifts every day... "
He was a pioneer in the art of cultivating the cult of personality, because “dictators learned from each other.” “The objective of every dictator was, after coming to power, to stay in power, and for that it was very useful for them to see how other similar regimes worked. "Hitler saw Mussolini and decided to do the same, because he knew it was the way to preserve absolute power."
But Hitler was not content to imitate. He went further. After reaching the German chancellery in 1933, “terror and propaganda advanced in unison.” “His portrait of him adorned every office, his words were present everywhere, his quotes and his slogans were published. Mein Kampf became a sacred book whose sales skyrocketed, its voice was constantly heard, children were indoctrinated in schools in the cult of the leader who had come out of nowhere to save the people. “Hitler even established a salute that honored his person.”
How did Hitler manage to equate himself to Germany itself? “He acted, he rehearsed his speeches, he offered a false sense of security to those who dealt with him. "He was a master of disguise, who hid his personality behind the image of a modest, gentle and simple man."
“The dictators of the 20th century were actors, great actors, who used their acting skills to their advantage to stay in power,” says Dikötter. They had other characteristics in common: “Chaplin painted Hitler as a whippersnapper, but neither he nor the rest of the dictators were stupid, because if they were they would not have been able to stay at the top for so long. They did share a personality trait, they didn't care what happened to other people. They were also manipulative and knew how to obtain information and how to use it,” he adds.
That kind of intelligence did not necessarily translate into wisdom. Some were “very ignorant, like Nicolae Ceaușescu,” who ruled Romania with a heavy hand between 1967 and 1989. “Ceaușescu, who was a shoemaker's apprentice, was imprisoned for political crimes in 1936. The rest of the inmates made fun of his lack of knowledge. culture, his stutter and his regional accent.” However, he eventually managed to “publish two volumes of his speeches that achieved great success and he presented himself to the Romanians as a child prodigy who had been born in poverty.”
Building a sweetened biography and writing a must-read book are other of the most effective cult of personality strategies. Kim Il Sung, supreme leader of North Korea between 1948 and 1994 and creator of a dynasty of dictators that still endures with his grandson Kim Jong Un, managed to turn himself into a “living legend.” He rewrote the past and in 1956 opened a revolutionary museum in Pyongyang where he erased the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China from history. "There were 5,000 square meters dedicated to Kim Il Sung's own anti-Japanese activities."
The Korean dictator gave birth to a new ideology, Juche thought. He had learned something from one of his former mentors, Mao Zedong, who led the People's Republic of China between 1949 and 1976, who sought a way to “establish himself as a theorist” and forced his people to “ study his thoughts.” “Mao's works, essays, poems, lectures, musings and slogans were published in circulations of millions of copies. Furthermore, newspapers and magazines gave wide circulation to his [supposed] wisdom.”
But Mao also used other tactics to support the cult of his personality: “His portrait appeared one day at the main gate of the Forbidden City and then in schools, factories, offices... everywhere. It was mandatory to sing hymns such as Mao is our sun and twice a year carefully choreographed parades were held.” The Chinese Supreme Leader knew how to use the people's veneration of him to intensify his regime of terror, since he "forced people to show proof of devotion by denouncing colleagues, friends, neighbors and family."
He had learned it from Stalin, who created “the image of a simple man who reluctantly accepted the adoration of millions of people” and sheltered himself in “a benign smile,” despite having deployed a regime of terror. Stalin became the little father through omnipresence, since he “was everywhere, from public parks or electric lights to postage stamps or the toponyms of streets and cities.”
Duvalier, a Haitian doctor who came to power by attacking the elite and defending the cause of poor villagers, used esotericism to build his personality cult, a weapon with which Mussolini had already threatened. Duvalier used voodoo to perpetuate himself in power. “Duvalier presented himself as a superior black considered a ‘Living Sun’ by blacks around the world.” Like his colleagues, he established a society of terror that ended up frightening him himself: “He led the life of a recluse. He was imprisoned in his own palace.”
Franco, Tito, Sukarno, Castro... the list of dictators is very extensive and there are still tyrants in the world such as Maduro or Putin, but Dikötter is convinced that regimes as bloodthirsty as those portrayed in Dictators "cannot be They will repeat, because although democracy may be receding in some places, history shows that these types of regimes so common in the 20th century are in decline today.
