There exists a myth in Western societies that individuals have strong philosophical and ideological convictions against dictatorships. It is comforting to think that within oneself and one’s neighbours sits a moral arbiter ready to cast out the impulses that made possible history’s worst tragedies. The disheartening reality, however, is that in most people lurks a deep temptation toward unrestrained forms of government. Dictatorships are not reviling; they are seductive.
The democratic era has reshaped much of the Western (and non-Western) world, but for most of history—with notable exceptions—the West has been defined by autocracy and oligarchy. Delve beneath the surface and there is a historical, ideological and intellectual well from which the impulse toward dictatorship springs.
Defensive instincts make the modern individual cry that the recipe for past tyranny was in non-transferable historical circumstances, rather than in the minds and passions of people. While it is true that autocracies are formed in specific socio-political, economic, religious and geopolitical contexts, one discounts the human component at considerable risk. The aim of this work is to examine select historical events and literature to suggest that the impulse toward dictators is not transient or superficial but a deep autocratic undercurrent in the Western mind.
Minds and Passions in History
Russia
Russia experienced two revolutions in the year of 1917, known as the February and October Revolutions. The first replaced the Czar, Nicholas II, with a Provisional Government (lasting but 8 months) and the second replaced the Provisional Government with Bolshevik rule.1 It is common today to think that the Bolshevik revolution, led by Vladimir Ulyanov (known as Lenin), removed Nicholas II from power and ended the reign of the Czars, a factual error of significant meaning. In truth, Lenin was not even in Russia when the Czars fell.
When Nicholas II abdicated his throne in 1917, the Duma—a legislative body created by Nicholas in 1905—assumed control of Russia and created the Provisional Government.2 The Provisional Government then planned an election to form a Constituent Assembly,3 a body that when formed would “organize a permanent constitutional government.”4 This is the peaceful process toward a constitutional democracy that the Bolsheviks interrupted when they seized control of government in October of 1917. Interestingly, they allowed the election to occur, and with over thirty political parties on the ballot the Bolsheviks placed second with 24% support.5
It is worth noting that 76% of Russians voted against the Bolsheviks. However, considering the party had seized government shortly before the election, and considering that the 76% of opposing votes were split between many parties,6 this was a strong result for the Bolsheviks. More insightful still is that the assembly formed by the election was viewed “by a large segment of the Russian people as not being really necessary to fulfill their desires in this era of revolutionary development.”7 Lenin described the assembly as a “deceptive form of bourgeois-democratic parliamentarism,” and it was soon discarded.8
The Bolsheviks did not displace a dictatorship; they displaced—with considerable support from the people—a government and a process working toward democratic reform. Consider too that the transition from Czarist Russia to the Provisional Government was peaceful while following the Bolshevik takeover Nicholas II and his entire family were murdered and Russia devolved into a civil war that lasted for years.9
Germany
Forgive the tromp through familiar grounds, but the short-lived Weimer Republic—the German democracy formed after the First World War—is an important case study. Through the republic’s short life, Hitler’s National Socialist party grew (with some gains and some losses) until the breakwater year of 1932. In this year, the Nazi Party became the most popular party in Germany by winning more seats than had ever been won by a single party in the German Parliament (then called the Reichstag)—though still only winning a plurality of seats rather than a majority.10
Circumstances in Germany after the First World War were primed for political radicalization. At Versailles, the Allied powers sat the blame for the war squarely on German shoulders, a decision that undermined the ability of Germany to rebuild and form stable government. The cost of reparations was devastating, as the Treaty of Versailles required Germany to bear financial “responsibility…for…all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war.”11 Germany struggled to make the required reparation payments, causing France and Belgium to invade and occupy industrial areas of the Ruhr in response.12 These factors and others resulted in hyperinflation and economic hardships in the years following the war—all made worse by the the global economic recession of 1929. This is the environment in which Nazism grew and these were the problems Hitler promised to solve.
One might partially excuse German citizens by pointing to the volatile domestic circumstances and to the fact that Hitler was elected to the Reichstag rather than put there by force. While it is true that German voters may not have known just how anti-democratic Hitler would become, they still gave a parliamentary plurality to a man who had attempted a coup d’état in 1923 and written openly of his perspectives in Mein Keinf in 1925 and 1927. Two of the other main parties in the 1932 election (the Social Democrats and the Centre Party) even publicly warned about the risk of dictatorship that Hitler would bring with him to the Reichstag.13
Germans, however, wanted to cast off the crushing weight of Versailles and reclaim safety, stability and status. Circumstances were dire and existing institutions were not achieving these ends, so an infant republic was neglected for a leader who promised that nothing would stop the remedying of all German ails.
While many differences exist, similarities to Russia fifteen years earlier are apparent. In both cases, citizens were not bulwarks against tyranny. In both cases, democratic institutions were neglected to pursue more authoritarian paths because tyrants were viewed as the best vehicle for achieving outcomes desired by the people. It may be true that certain times and circumstances provide good soil for democratic impulses, but it is clear that people are capable of providing good soil for tyrannical impulses given the right external circumstances.
Rome and Athens
No discussion of republics morphing to dictatorships would be complete without at least cursory mention of Rome. The story of Gaius Julius Caesar is so impressed upon Western minds that it does not warrant extensive retelling. Broad strokes will suffice here.
Caesar was a Roman general and political figure. His military successes were many and he increased the power and size of the republic considerably. Marching his army, the 13th Legion, over the Rubicon river14 in Northern Italy is one of the most iconic and impactful moments in Western history. Civil war followed and Caesar emerged the victor and became a Roman dictator.15 Caesar would have been influenced by his uncle, Gaius Marius, and the infamous Lucius Cornelius Sulla16 —who himself had taken his army to Rome in 88 BC,17 following which the republic’s first civil war erupted in 87 BC.18
The end of the civil war resulted in Sulla’s ascension to the position of Roman dictator—a position not used in 120 years—and unprecedented for the republic was the lack of a predefined time constraint on the position.19 When Caesar came to power years later, he extended this principle by adopting the role of dictator for the duration of his life. Though he was murdered in 44 BC by Senators concerned by the autocratic threat to the republic, his nephew and heir Octavian would later become the first Roman Emperor (known as Caesar Augustus) after complex maneuvering against enemies and rivals resulted in his unchallenged power.20 There are a few points to be made here.
Appian—the ancient Greek historian writing in the 2nd century—observes that the people of Rome were not ecstatic about the start of the process toward tyranny (i.e., Sulla’s dictatorship without limit), but they “accepted it out of sheer necessity.”21 This echoes what occurred in Greece years earlier. Boak, writing in The Classical Journal, discusses the end of Athenian democracy prior the end of Rome’s. He explains that the embrace of dictatorial power occurred because of “the political change that had come over the Greek world in which the older political organizations were unable to cope with external and internal disorder.”22
In both the case of Rome and Greece, then, we see a theme reprise: competency in achieving political and social goals is of paramount importance (often above liberty) and democracy is not considered well-suited to times of extreme turmoil.
Consider, too, the stories of Rome that are deeply embedded in Western memories today and what insight this provides about modern culture. The story of Julius Caesar still fascinates, intimately involving (though not all discussed here) Pompey, Marc Antony, Cleopatra, and Augustus. Few people alive today would find foreign these ancient names, such is the impact they have had on our stories. Of particular note is the manner in which they are remembered. Julius Caesar and Augustus are not immortalized as great villains who destroyed the Roman republic and ushered in an era of tyranny. They are lionized as giants who forged boldly new ground for their civilization. They are great men in our literature and perhaps the most remembered of all Roman leaders.
Yet who remembers the name Lucius Junius Brutus? It says something about our culture that we admire and venerate the men who turned Rome into a dictatorship and woefully neglect the man who ended the reign of Roman kings and founded the Roman Republic, one of the few examples of democracy in the ancient world.
1 Mosse, W. E. (1964) “Interlude: The Russian Provisional Government 1917”, Soviet Studies 15(4): 408–19.
2 The State Duma: The Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, “History of the State Duma”. Available at: http://duma.gov.ru/en/duma/about/history/information/
3 Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, “Elections to the Constituent Assembly Began”, Available at: https://www.prlib.ru/en/history/619753
4 Dando, William A (1966) “A Map of the Election to the Russian Constituent Assembly of 1917,” Slavic Review 25(2): 314–19.
5 Ibid
6 Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, “Elections to the Constituent Assembly Began”, Available at: https://www.prlib.ru/en/history/619753
7 Dando (1966) “A Map of the Election to the Russian Constituent Assembly of 1917.”
8 Ibid
9 Oxford Reference, “Overview: Russian Civil War”, Available at: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100434322
10 Kerwin, Jerome G. (1932) “The German Reichstag Elections of July 31, 1932”, The American Political Science Review 26(5): 921–26.
11 United States Census Bureau, “The Treaty of Versailles”, Available at: https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/treaty_of_versailles-112018.pdf
12 International Committee of the Red Cross, “The Occupation of the Ruhr (Germany, 1923-1925)”, Available at: https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/68ujy5.htm
13 Kerwin, Jerome G. (1932) “The German Reichstag Elections of July 31, 1932”, The American Political Science Review 26(5): 921–26.
14 British Broadcasting Corporation, “Julius Caesar (100BC – 44BC)”, Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/caesar_julius.shtml
15 Oxford Reference, “Overview: Julius Caesar”, Available at: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095541196
16 Taylor, Lily Ross (1957) “The Rise of Julius Caesar”, Greece & Rome 4(1): 10–18.
17 Katz, Barry R (1975) “The First Fruits of Sulla’a March”, L’Antiquité Classique 44(1): 100–125.
18 Lange, Carsten Hjort (2013) “Triumph and Civil War in the Late Republic”, Papers of the British School at Rome 81: 67–90.
19 Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan (2004) “The ‘Lex Valeria’ and Sulla’s Empowerment as Dictator (82-79 BCE)”, Cahiers Du Centre Gustave Glotz 15: 37–84.
20 Oxford Reference, “Overview: Augustus”, Available at: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095434313
21 Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan (2004) “The ‘Lex Valeria’ and Sulla’s Empowerment as Dictator (82-79 BCE)”.
22 Boak, A. E. R. (1916) “The Theoretical Basis of the Deification of Rulers in Antiquity”, The Classical Journal 11(5): 293–97.