Алистер Смит - The Dictator's Handbook - Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

Leaders, like Liberius, who fail to do the right thing, provide opportunities for someone new to come to power. But remember, what constitutes doing the right thing must be understood from the perspective of a potential supporter; it may have nothing to do with what is best for a community or nation. Anyone who thinks leaders do what they ought to do—that is, do what is best for their nation of subjects—ought to become an academic rather than enter political life. In politics, coming to power is never about doing the right thing. It is always about doing what is expedient.

Seizing Power from the Bankrupt

As it turns out, one thing that is always expedient is remaining solvent. If a ruler has run out of money with which to pay his supporters, it becomes far easier for someone else to make coalition members an attractive offer. Financial crises are an opportune time to strike.

The Russian Revolution is often portrayed through the prism of Marxist ideology and class warfare. The reality might be much simpler. Kerensky’s revolutionaries were able to storm the Winter Palace in February 1917 because the army did not stop them. And the army did not bother to stop them because the czar did not pay them enough. The czar could not pay them enough because he foolishly cut the income from one of his major sources of revenue, the vodka tax, at the same time that he fought World War I.

Czar Nicholas confused what might seem like good public policy with bad political decision making. He had the silly idea that a sober army would prove more effective than an army that was falling-over drunk. Nicholas, it seems, thought that a ban on vodka would improve the performance of Russia’s troops in World War I. He missed the obvious downsides, however. Vodka was vastly popular with the general populace and, most assuredly, with the troops. So popular and widely consumed was vodka that its sale provided about a third of the government’s revenue. With vodka banned, his revenue diminished sharply. His expenses, in contrast, kept on rising due to the costs of the war.

Soon Nicholas was no longer able to buy loyalty. As a result, his army refused to stop strikers and protesters. Alexander Kerensky formed Russia’s short-lived democratic government after toppling the czar’s regime. But he couldn’t hang on to power for long. His mistake was operating a democratic government, which necessitated a large coalition, and implementing an unpopular policy—continuing the czar’s war—thereby alienating his coalition right from the start. Lenin and the Bolsheviks made no such mistakes.

The czar fell once there was no one to stop the revolution. Louis XVI suffered much the same fate in the French Revolution. Successful leaders must learn the lesson of these examples and put raising revenue and paying supporters above all else. Consider Robert Mugabe’s success in staying on as Zimbabwe’s president. The economy has collapsed in Zimbabwe thanks to Mugabe’s terrible policies. Starvation is common and epidemics of cholera regularly sweep the country. Mugabe “succeeds” because he understands that it does not matter what happens to the people provided that he makes sure to pay the army. And despite regular media speculation, so far he has always managed to do so and to keep himself in office well into his eighties. He has reduced a once thriving agricultural exporting nation into one that depends on foreign aid. Mugabe is certainly horrible for what he’s done to the people he rules, but he is a master of the rules to rule by. Where policy matters most, when it comes to paying off cronies, he has delivered. That is why no one has deposed him.

Silence Is Golden

We all grew up hearing the lesson that silence is golden. As it turns out, violating that basic principle is yet another path by which incumbents can succumb to their political rivals.

The incumbent’s advantage in offering rewards disappears as soon as coalition members come to suspect their long run access to personal benefits will end. An incumbent’s failure to reassure his coalition that he will continue to take care of them provides competitors with a golden opportunity to seize power. Houari Boumediène was able to seize the Algerian presidency from Ahmed Ben Bella in 1965 after Ben Bella foolishly opened his mouth. Silence would have served him better.

Ben Bella achieved fame both on the soccer pitch and as a war hero. He joined the French army in 1936 and, while posted to Marseille, played for their professional soccer team. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille militaire for his gallantry during World War II. After the war he joined the struggle to liberate Algeria from France. He became a popular figure in the independence movement and was elected president of Algeria in 1963. But despite his many talents, he made a serious mistake. On June 12, 1966, he announced that there would be a politburo meeting a week later and that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss three major issues: (1) Changes in the cabinet; (2) Changes in the army command; (3) The liquidation of the military opposition. He then left Algiers for Oran.

This announcement was tantamount to telling his essential supporters that he was getting rid of some of them. Since he did not say who was to go, he created a common interest among the whole group in getting rid of Ahmed Ben Bella.

Ben Bella’s foolish announcement was just the opening that Houari Boumediène needed. No one was certain who would be replaced, but given Ben Bella’s sweeping statement, clearly many would be. In this unforced error, Ben Bella threw away his incumbency advantage and left Boumediène a week to organize a plot of his own. Ben Bella returned to Algiers the day before the scheduled meeting and he was awakened at gunpoint by his friend, Colonel Tahar Zbiri. Boumediène grasped his opportunity and the essential supporters defected.8 Silence, as Ben Bella learned far too late, truly is golden. There is never a point in showing your hand before you have to; that is just a way to ensure giving the game away.

Institutional Change

There is a common adage that politicians don’t change the rules that brought them to power. This is false. They are ever ready and eager to reduce coalition size. What politicians seek to avoid are any institutional changes that increase the number of people to whom they are beholden. Yet much as they try to avoid them, circumstances do arise when institutions must become more inclusive. This can make autocrats vulnerable because the coalition they have established and the rewards they provide are then no longer sufficient to maintain power.

Under the old Soviet system, Boris Yeltsin had no chance of rising to power.9 His first effort at becoming a major player relied on a proposal every bit as foolish as the decision of Czar Nicholas to ban vodka sales. He sought to end Communist Party members’ access to special stores, privileged access to the best universities, and other benefits not shared by the working people of the Soviet Union. Sure, that was popular with the masses but the masses didn’t have much say in choosing who ran the Soviet Union—Party members did. Mikhail Gorbachev, seeing that Yeltsin was a loose cannon, sent him packing. After this setback, Yeltsin only survived by being resilient and inventive in the face of a changed environment.

By the late 1980s the Soviet economy had stagnated. This left the recently promoted Soviet leader, Gorbachev, with a serious dilemma. Unless he could somehow resuscitate the economy, he was liable to run out of money. As we have seen, this situation can get leaders into serious trouble. In order to get the economy moving so that there would continue to be enough money, Gorbachev needed to loosen control over the people, freeing their suppressed entrepreneurial potential.