How To Be A Dictator - Frank Dikotter - #102

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Oh, hello there, friends. Today we are going to learn how to be a dictator. Well, kind of. Frank Dikotter is an author, and his most recent book, How to Be a Dictator, looks at eight of the most chillingly effective dictators of the 21st century. So we're gonna learn about Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, and a couple of leaders that I'm going to leave to Frank to pronounce. But yeah, the characteristics of a dictator are oddly similar whilst also being incredibly unique. As Frank identifies, one dictator from one regime at one particular period of time wouldn't work at all if he was to swap places with another. As always, if you've got any questions, comments or feedback, feel free to get at me at ChrisWillX wherever you follow me. But for now, please welcome Frank Dikotter. I am joined by Frank Dikotter at the beginning of his book tour. Frank, how are you? welcome to the show.

**Frank Dikotter** (1:15)
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

**Chris Williamson** (1:16)
It's an absolute pleasure to have you on. So today, you're going to teach us how to be a dictator, right?

**Frank Dikotter** (1:22)
That's the title of the book. Not sure I can really help you go all the way.

**Chris Williamson** (1:28)
It's not a, so it's not a personal development, self-development, how-to book?

**Frank Dikotter** (1:33)
It is probably more of a history book that will tell you how to spot other potential dictators.

**Chris Williamson** (1:41)
Got you. Okay. Well, if there are any budding dictators in the audience, they might be a little disappointed, but for everyone else, those of us, we're going to be fascinated. So tell us why you wrote the book, first off.

**Frank Dikotter** (1:57)
Well, I'm a historian, and when you think about it, you could pretty much summarize the 20th century in about a sentence. There is an attempt on the one hand to separate out powers, in other words, to build up a civil society, to have checks and balances. That's a very difficult thing to do. It's frail, it's fragile, but it's made great progress. And then on the other hand, there is an attempt to concentrate all power. In other words, to make sure that there is an authoritarian regime with one person who makes all the decisions. These are two very contradictory trends. And I spent most of my career really studying countries where attempts have been made to concentrate powers in the hands of a dictator. So that really was what prompted me to write this book.

**Chris Williamson** (3:02)
I suppose that when people think back to the 20th century, that will be some of the defining characteristics, right? So what is a dictator in its purest form?

**Frank Dikotter** (3:14)
Well, this may sound strange, but you have to think of a dictator as developing against a background of democracy. In other words, to put it slightly differently, we live in an age of democracy. In fact, since the French and the American revolutions of the 18th century, we live more or less in an age of democracy. In other words, sovereignty with the collapse of old regimes in France, in particular, power is seen to reside no longer in some heavenly mandate or in the divine rights, but in the people, and people select their leader through a process of elections. Of course, this is a very gradually unfolding age of democracy, but it means that there is a paradox with dictators. They seize power on the one hand, but they must also create the illusion somehow of popular support, and that's where the cult of personality comes in. That's one of the key focuses of the book.
A dictator must, on the one hand, use terror, you know, the secret police, military forces, torturers, spies, a praetorian guard, concentration camps. But on the other hand, there must also be an attempt to build up what I call a cult of personality. In other words, a dictator must coerce his people into claiming him. He must create the illusion that people actually support him.

**Chris Williamson** (4:57)
Yeah, you've got to still play the game whilst also not looking like you're playing a different game.

**Frank Dikotter** (5:03)
Exactly. So this is the great paradox of modern dictators. They all claim to be rather democratic. Or at the very least, they claim to represent the true will of the people.

**Chris Williamson** (5:16)
Yes, I understand. And it's then a game of switching that round. How much of this do you think is very well laid out in advance from the position of the dictator? And how much of it is us post-hoc rationalizing they ended up being a dictator? Could some of them have begun with the best ideas of holding democracy in mind and then changed when power became easier for them to take and advantages became available?