How to Be a Dictator
Page 31
20NARA, RG 59, 1978STATE106159, 26 April 1978.
21PRO, FCO 31-2251, C. M. Carruthers, ‘Leading Personalities of Ethiopia’, 19 May 1978; NARA, RG 59, 1978ADDIS02129, 11 May 1978.
22NARA, RG 59, 1979ADDIS01388, 19 April 1979; Donald L. Donham, ‘Revolution and Modernity in Maale: Ethiopia, 1974 to 1987’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 34, no. 1 (Jan. 1992), p. 43.
23Paul Henze archives, Hoover Institution, box 71, ‘A Communist Ethiopia?’, 1981.
24NARA, RG 59, 1979ADDIS01388, 19 April 1979.
25Shambel, Misikirnet be Derg Abalat, p. 327.
26Habtamu Alebachew, Ye Kesar Enba (Tears of Cesar), Addis Ababa: Far East Trading Publishing, 2007, pp. 122, 142–3, 145 and 150.
27Dawit Wolde Giorgis, Red Tears: War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia, Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press, 1989, p. 58; BArch, DY 30/IV 2/2.035/127, Report on Propaganda, 4 April 1978, pp. 253–6; Baalu wrote the critical memoir entitled Oromay, used elsewhere in this chapter, and vanished in 1984, presumably killed.
28Dawit Shifaw, The Diary of Terror: Ethiopia 1974 to 1991, Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing, 2012, p. 72; Begashaw, Yecoloel Mengistu Haile Maryam ena Yederggemenawoch, p. 378.
29Paul Henze archives, Hoover Institution, box 68, ‘Revolution Day’, 12 Sept. 1977, pp. 16–17; the fines are mentioned in PRO, FCO 31-2093, D. M. Day, ‘Mengistu’, 15 June 1977; see also Giorgis, Red Tears, p. 59.
30MAE, 326QONT/28, Pierre Nolet, ‘Chronique mensuelle’, 11 Dec. 1979; Habtamu, Ye Kesar Enba, p. 122.
31MAE, 326QONT/28, ‘Note: Situation intérieure de l’Ethiopie’, 27 Feb. 1981.
32Clapham, Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia, pp. 70–77.
33Ibid., p. 77.
34François Jean, Éthiopie: Du bon usage de la famine, Paris: Médecins Sans Frontières, 1986, pp. 21–5; Harold G. Marcus, A History of Ethiopia, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994, pp. 204–5.
35BArch, DY 30/11498, 6 May 1982, p. 12; BArch, DY 30/27158, 3 Dec. 1982, p. 3; PRO, FCO 31-3895, D. C. B. Beaumont, ‘Meeting of EC Ambassadors’, 23 Sept. 1983.
36Ethiopian Herald, 6 and 26 July 1984.
37Henze, Layers of Time, pp. 306–7; Paul Henze archives, Hoover Institution, box 72, ‘Communist Ethiopia: Is it Succeeding?’, Jan. 1985; Giorgis, Red Tears, p. 135, mentions ‘hundreds’ of North Koreans; see also p. 59 for the trip to North Korea in 1982.
38Paul Henze archives, Hoover Institution, box 71, ‘A Communist Ethiopia?’, 1981; Korn, Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union, pp. 122–3.
39Ethiopian Herald, 4 and 7 Sept. 1984; the biography is mentioned in Giorgis, Red Tears, p. 172.
40Korn, Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union, pp. 122–3.
41‘Ethiopians Mark 10th Anniversary of Socialist Revolution’, United Press International, 12 Sept. 1984; Ethiopian Herald, 16 Sept. 1984.
42MfAA, C 1852, Travel Report, April 1978, p. 58; Donham, ‘Revolution and Modernity in Maale’, p. 29.
43Korn, Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union, pp. 123–4.
44Henze, Layers of Time, p. 307; Paul Henze archives, Hoover Institution, box 72, ‘Communist Ethiopia: Is it Succeeding?’, Jan. 1985; box 73, ‘Exploiting Famine and Capitalizing on Western Generosity’, March 1986, p. 91; Korn, Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union, pp. 124–6.
45Laurence Binet (ed.), Famine et transferts forcés de populations en Ethiopie 1984–1986, Paris: Médecins Sans Frontières, 2013; Alex de Waal, ‘Is the Era of Great Famines Over?’, New York Times, 8 May 2016.
46Gebru Tareke, The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009, pp. 218–61.
47Charles Mitchell, ‘“Operation Red Star”: Soviet Union, Libya back Ethiopia in Eritrean War’, 20 March 1982, UPI; Messay Kebede, Ideology and Elite Conflicts: Autopsy of the Ethiopian Revolution, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011, pp. 307–24.
48Alex de Waal, Evil Days: Thirty Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia, New York: Human Rights Watch, 1991, pp. 302–7.
49Henze, Layers of Time, pp. 327–9.
50Paul Henze archives, Hoover Institution, box 68, ‘Travel Diary, 1991 June’.
AFTERWORD
1Elleni Centime Zeleke, ‘Addis Ababa as Modernist Ruin’, Callaloo, 33, no. 1 (Spring 2010), p. 125.
2‘How Kim Jong Un Builds his Personality Cult’, The Economist, 8 June 2017.
3Joseph Willits, ‘The Cult of Bashar al-Assad’, Guardian, 1 July 2011.
4Kadri Gursel, ‘The Cult of Erdogan’, Al-Monitor, 6 Aug. 2014.
5Tom Phillips, ‘Xi Jinping: Does China Truly Love “Big Daddy Xi” – or Fear Him?’, Guardian, 19 Sept. 2015.
6Rowan Callick, ‘No Turning Back the Tide on Xi Jinping Personality Cult’, Australian, 25 Nov. 2017; Viola Zhou, ‘“Into the Brains” of China’s Children: Xi Jinping’s “Thought” to Become Compulsory School Topic’, South China Morning Post, 23 Oct. 2017; Jamil Anderlini, ‘Under Xi Jinping, China is Turning Back to Dictatorship’, Financial Times, 11 Oct. 2017.
Acknowledgements
A very faint idea of this project goes back to my first year as an undergraduate student in 1981, when I came across ‘La fabrication d’un charisme’, a riveting article on Stalin’s cult written before its time by my teacher Bronisław Baczko at the University of Geneva. Professor Baczko was a pioneer in cultural history, and I would like to acknowledge, belatedly, that his body of work has shaped my approach to history to a much greater extent than I realised at the time.
Writing about the cult of personality can be a risky business. Every historian of Mussolini is deeply indebted to Camillo Berneri, who published an illuminating study entitled Mussolini Grande Attore (Mussolini the Great Actor) in 1934, only to be killed by a squad of communists in Spain three years later, probably on the orders of Stalin. Great dictators often attract great writers, and one of the pleasures in working on these tyrants is to be in the company of so many gifted scholars, whether they wrote at the time or with hindsight. My debt to them is indicated, however inadequately, in the footnotes.
I spent many a week in archives across Europe, but would not have been able to make sense of the documents in the Arhivele Naţionale ale României in Bucharest without the help of Ştefan Bosomitu, a researcher with unparalleled knowledge of the Ceauşescu files. In Addis Ababa, Eyob Girma read patiently through dozens of memoirs in Amharic, while Jen Seung Yeon Lee helped with propaganda material from North Korea. A seemingly infinite amount of material on twentieth-century war, revolution and peace can be found at the Hoover Institution, and the staff in both the library and the archives were unstinting with their help.
Robert Peckham rekindled my interest in the history of image and power by lending me a copy of Peter Burke’s The Fabrication of Louis XIV. A number of people have read and commented on draft versions, especially Peter Baehr, Gail Burrowes, Christopher Hutton, Peter and Gabriele Kennedy, Françoise Koolen, Andrei Lankov, Norman Naimark, Robert Peckham, Priscilla Roberts, Robert Service, Facil Tesfaye and Vladimir Tismaneanu. Others were generous in sharing stories and sources, in particular Paul S. Cha, Mihai Croitor, Brian Farrell, Sander Gilman, Paul Gregory, Paul Hollander, Jean Hung, Mark Kramer, Michelle Kung, James Person, Amir Weiner and Arne Westad.
I am indebted to my publishers, namely Michael Fishwick in London and Anton Mueller in New York, and my copy editor Richard Collins, as well as Marigold Atkey, Chloe Foster, Genista Tate-Alexander, Francesca Sturiale and Lilidh Kendrick at Bloomsbury. I would like to convey my gratitude to my literary agent Andrew Wylie in New York and Sarah Chalfant in London. I thank my wife Gail Burrowes, as always, with love.
Hong Kong, December 2018
Index
Adwa, Battle of here
Afabet, Battle of here
Agronsky, Martin here
Ai Xiaoming here
Albania here, here, here, here
Alexander the Great here
Alfieri, Dino here
Allilueva, Anna here
Aman Andom, General here, here, here
Angkar here
Apostol, Gheorghe here
Assad (father and son) here, here
Atatürk, Kemal here
Atnafu Abate here, here
atomic bombs here, here
Augustus, Emperor here
Austria, Hitler’s annexation of here, here
Avdeenko, Aleksandr here
Axum here, here
Badoglio, Pietro here
Balbo, Italo here, here, here
Baltic States here
Barbot, Clément here, here, here
Barbusse, Henri here, here
Barre, Siad here
Battle of Britain here
Bavarian Socialist Republic here
Bay of Pigs here
Bedel, Maurice here
Beethoven, Ludwig van here
Benjamin, René here
Béraud, Henri here, here, here
Berghof here, here, here
Beria, Lavrentiy here
Berlin Olympics here
Berlin Wall, fall of here
Bessel, Richard here
Bierut, Bolesław here
Bismarck, Otto von here
Bodnaras, Emil here
Bokassa, Jean-Bédel here
Bolsheviks here, here, here, here, here, here
Bolshoi Theatre here, here
Braun, Eva here
Brezhnev, Leonid here, here, here
Bucharest
National Theatre here
Palace of the People here, here
remodelling of city here
Bukharin, Nikolai here, here, here
Bulgaria here, here
Burebista, king of Dacia here
Byrnes, James here
Carter, Jimmy here
Castro, Fidel here, here, here, here, here
Catchlov, Donald here
Ceauşescu, Elena here, here, here
Ceauşescu, Nicolae here, here, here, here
and ancient traditions here
biographies here
birthday celebrations here
control over culture here
decline and fall here, here
and Duvalier here
and growing discontent here, here
and Hitler here, here, here
images of here, here, here
ideological writings here, here
international titles and honours here
July Theses here
and Kim Il-sung here
and Mao Zedong here
and Mussolini here, here
and presidency here, here
promotes relatives here
purges leadership here
refuses statues here
rise to power here
and Stalin here
tours country here
Ceauşescu, Nicu here
Ceauşescu Doctrine here, here
Ceauşescu Era here, here, here
Chamberlain, Neville here, here
Changchun, siege of here, here
chemical weapons here, here
Chen Boda here
chengfen here, here
Chiang Kai-shek here, here, here, here, here
China
Ceauşescu visits here
and North Korea here, here, here, here, here
and Soviet Union here, here, here, here, here, here
see also Mao Zedong
Cho Gi-cheon here
Cho Man-sik here
Christophe, Henri, see Henri I, King of Haiti
Churchill, Winston here, here, here
Ciano, Galeazzo here, here, here, here
Citadelle Henri Christophe here
Clapham, Christopher here
Cold War here, here, here
collectivisation here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Comintern here, here, here
concentration camps here, here, here
Congress of Victors here, here
Corner, Francesca here
Corriere della Sera here
Courlander, Harold here
Creole here
Cromwell, Oliver here, here
Cuba here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Czechoslovakia here, here, here, here, here
Soviet invasion here, here
Dalí, Salvador here
d’Annunzio, Gabriele here
Das Kapital, published in Amharic here
de Gaulle, Charles here, here
Déjoie, Louis here
Deng Xiaoping here, here
Denis, Lorimer here, here
Derg, the here, here
Dessalines, Jean-Jacques here, here, here
de-Stalinisation here, here
Deutscher, Isaac here
Dominican Republic here, here, here
Draghici, Alexandru here
Drexler, Anton here
Du Bois, W. E. B. here
Dumini, Amerigo here
Duvalier, François ‘Papa Doc’ here, here, here, here
birthday celebrations here
and blackness here, here
Catechism of the Revolution here
and Ceauşescu here
death and mausoleum here
Essential Works here
and exodus of professionals here
illness and return to power here
images of here, here, here, here
improves image here
and the masses here
and Mao Zedong here
and Mussolini here
occult associations here
practises medicine here
and presidency here, here, here, here
purges here, here, here
refuses statues here, here
relations with Catholic Church here, here
relations with US here, here
and tonton macoutes here
Duvalier, Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ here, here, here
Duvalier, Marie-Denise here
Duvalier, Simone here
Duvalierism here
Dzerzhinsky, Felix here
East Germany here, here
Eckhart, Dietrich here, here
Edison, Thomas here
Eisner, Kurt here
El Alamein, Battle of here
Elizabeth II, Queen here, here
Engels, Friedrich here, here, here, here
and Ethiopia here, here, here
and North Korea here, here
Enukidze, Avel here
Erdogan, Recep Tayyip here
Eritrea here, here, here, here
Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR) here, here
Estimé, Dumarsais here
Ethiopia
Italian invasion here, here
see also Mengistu Haile Mariam
Ethiopian Orthodox Church here
famine and starvation here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Farinacci, Roberto here, here, here
fasces here
Felice, Renzo de here, here
Finland here, here, here
Foch, Marshal Ferdinand here
France, fall of here, here
Franco, Francisco here
Gaddafi, Muammar here
Gaetano, Vincenzo de here
Gandhi, Mohandas here
Gao Hua here
Garbo, Greta here
Garibaldi, Giuseppe here
Gentile, Emilio here
Gheorghiu-Dej, Gheorghe here, here
Gibson, Violet here, here
Gide, André here
Giobbe, Salustri here
Girma, Baalu here
Glowania, Paul here
Goebbels, Joseph here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Goering, Hermann here, here, here, here, here
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von here
Gorbac
hev, Mikhail here, here
Grandi, Dino here, here, here
Gravelli, Asvero here
Graziani, General Rodolfo here, here
Great German Art Exhibition here
Great Pyramid of Giza here
Great Wall of China here
Greece here
guerrilla warfare here, here, here
Haffner, Sebastian here
Hamelet, Michel-Pierre here
Han Chae-tok here
Han Sorya here
Hannibal here
Hassell, Ulrich von here
Hearst, William Randolph here
Henri I, King of Haiti (Henri Christophe) here, here
Henri, Jacques-Victor here
Hess, Rudolph here
Himmler, Heinrich here
Hindenburg, Paul von here, here
Hitler, Adolf here, here, here
anti-Semitism here, here, here, here, here
appearance and manner here
assassination plot here
becomes chancellor here
Beer Hall Putsch here, here
biographies here, here
birthday celebrations here
and Ceauşescu here, here, here
decline and fall here
failed presidential bid here
failing health here
and First World War here
Gleichschaltung (synchronisation) process here, here
holds referendum here
images of here, here, here, here, here, here, here
and interior design here
judge of character here
master of disguise here
Mein Kampf here, here, here, here, here, here, here
and Mussolini here, here, here, here, here, here, here
newsreels and films here
Night of the Long Knives here, here, here
and political violence here
refuses statues here, here, here
renaming of streets here
rhetorical skills here, here, here
and Stalin here, here, here, here, here, here, here
and war here, here
Hitler salute here, here
Hitler Youth here, here
Ho Kai here
Hoffmann, Heinrich here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Hollander, Paul here
homosexuality here
Hou Bo here
houngans here, here, here, here
Hoxha, Enver here, here
Hua Mulan here
Hungary here, here, here, here, here
revolt and Soviet invasion here, here
Hussein, Saddam here
Iliescu, Ion here, here, here