The totalitarian leader...
I would like to present VHeadline readers with commentaries on the Venezuelan political situation, hoping to transmit the concern of many of my countrymen about the future of our country, for the benefit of those who do not already have a frozen position regarding our political problems.
In this first installment, I would like to list, first of all, the theoretical components of totalitarian regimes and of totalitarian leaders. They are mostly taken from literature and I make no claim to being original.
What is Totalitarianism?
Briefly, the exercise of limitless political power, or the attempt at doing that.
A totalitarian regime usually exhibits some of the following characteristics:
Strong Nationalism
Promotion of class struggle
Pronounced Statism
Collectivism prevailing over Individualism
Existence of "myths" and "religious creeds" as in the Fascist "The Ten Commandments"
Considering the nation as equal to the government and government equal to a Supreme leader
The existence of groups for the defense of the system
A progressive replacement of the professional Army by paramilitary groups, as in Cuba, China and Communist Russia.
In turn the totalitarian leader exhibits some of the following characteristics (after Robert Tucker and Hanna Arendt in "Political Leadership", Univ. Pittsburg, 1986):
The Leader sits at the center of the movement
He survives by spinning intrigues and constantly changing personnel
His will is.... the Law
Remains secure not because his superior gifts about which his inner circle has no illusions but because without him everybody is lost
The Leader does not tolerate criticism
The Leader has the monopoly of explanations therefore seeming to be the only person who knows what he is doing
The Leader is infallible. Therefore he has no need to tell the truth
The totalitarian leader dominates the decision making process
The system rarely survives the Leader.
In addition to these theoretic models, I would like to add some reflections by James MacGregor Burns on what true leadership means:
Leadership is collective. One man leadership is a contradiction in terms since a symbiotic relationship between leader and the whole of society, without exclusion, is required.
Leadership is dissensual. This requires respect for dissenters and the acceptance of conflict
Leadership is causative. It produces events and creates institutions that will survive the Leader.
Leadership is not destructive.
In my second commentary I will try to describe the step by step political involution suffered by the government of Mr. Chavez.
Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983. In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort. You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email ppcvicep@telcel.net.ve