How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century

Dikötter (The Cultural Revolution), a University of Hong Kong humanities professor, explores modern dictators and their “illusion of popular support” in this richly detailed yet disappointing study. Focusing on eight authoritarian regimes, including Italy under Benito Mussolini, China under Mao Zedong, Russia under Joseph Stalin, and Haiti under François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Dikötter describes massive parades, weekly radio broadcasts, and marathon speeches before enraptured crowds. The purpose of these “cults of personality,” he writes, was “not to convince or persuade,” but rather to “enforce obedience”: if no one can tell who’s a true believer and who’s lying, everyone has to self-censor. Dikötter reveals that Mussolini shaped his public image by leaving his office lights on at night (to prove that he never slept), and cites American journalist Edgar Snow’s 1937 bestseller Red Star over China as an example of how dictators manipulate foreigners to burnish their international reputations. (Mao Zedong vetted Snow and reviewed the book’s every detail.) But these rulers’ true power, Dikötter contends, is fear—without it, there is no cult. However, he fails to sufficiently analyze the mechanisms of fear and how they fit with the careful cultivation of these leaders’ public images. Such oversights mar what might have been a fascinating work. (Dec.)