# Jerzy J. Wiatr Political Leadership Between Democracy and Authoritarianism

To the memory of my friend Klaus von Beyme

Jerzy J. Wiatr

# Political Leadership Between Democracy and Authoritarianism Comparative and Historical Perspectives

Verlag Barbara Budrich Opladen • Berlin • Toronto 2022

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### Contents


### Foreword

My interest in political leadership has long history. When I was born, Poland was ruled by Marshal Joseph Pilsudski, former socialist, one of the founders of independent Polish Republic and victorious commander-in-chief in the Polish-Russian war of 1919-1920. Two members of my family were Pilsudski's soldiers during the first world war and the cult of his personality was part of the political climate of my childhood. His death is the first political event I remember, being not yet four at this time.

During the second world war I lived in Nazi-occupied Warsaw and followed political events with keen interest, which grew as I was getting older. Names of Hitler and Stalin, but also Churchill, Roosevelt and de Gaulle were points of reference for the political information, received mostly from underground press which I helped to distribute.

This encounter with history made me a passionate student of biographies of great leaders, convinced that one cannot understand history without accounting for the role played by them – even if the official Marxist interpretation of history tended to marginalize their role and focused on socio-economic conditioning of political events.

Soon after I had started my academic carrier at the University of Warsaw, I became an assistant to Julian Hochfeld (1911-1966), former socialist theoretician and member of Parliament from whom, more than from anybody else, I learned the unorthodox interpretation of Marxism, part of which was a reinterpretation of historical necessity and of the role of great leaders. In later years, I had many opportunities to meet and work together with some of the political scientists whose contribution to the understanding of political leadership greatly influenced my thinking: David E, Apter (1924-2010), Zbigniew K. Brzezinski (1928-2017), Mattei Dogan (1920-2010), Samuel E. Finer (1915- 1993), Carl J. Friedrich (1901-1984), Glenn Paige (1924-2017) and Robert C. Tucker (1918-2010).

In the nineteen-sixties, I collaborated closely with Philip E .Jacob (1912- 1985) as head of the Polish part of the comparative study of values and local leadership in India, Poland, United States and Yugoslavia (Jacob 1971) and in the following thirty years I continued this type of research. As Adjunct Professor at the Michigan University in Ann Arbor in the years 1973/74 I conducted the seminar on political leadership with a very interesting group of American and foreign graduate students. Interested in the political role of the military, I wrote a study on three Polish military leaders, whose political role was crucial for Poland's modern history: Joseph Pilsudski, Władysław Sikorski and Wojciech Jaruzelski (Wiatr 1988)

In my political activities, both before and after Poland's democratic transformation, I had intense contacts with several Polish and foreign leaders and this experience enriched my understanding of the role of leadership in the way which would not be possible had I remained only an academic. I am particularly grateful to President Wojciech Jaruzelski (1923-2014), with whom I had many long conversations on dilemmas of political leadership.

I am grateful to my teachers, colleagues and students working with whom helped me to clarify my thinking about political leadership. I am especially grateful to my friends professors Grzegorz Kolodko, Krzysztof Ostrowski, Ergun Özbudun, Jacek Raciborski and Janusz Reykowski for reading the draft and offering me very helpful advice. My very special thanks go to Barbara Budrich and her collaborators for many years of common work and four books which I had the honor to publish with Barbara Budrich Verlag.

And, last but not least, I wish to express my gratitude to my wife Ewa without whose continuous encouragement and help this book would not have been written.

### Introduction

Political leadership has been studied from various perspectives by historians, philosophers, sociologists and political scientists. Since antiquity, the study of politics has focused on the role of men (rarely also women) who have ruled and led others: monarchs, military commanders, and prophets. Historians took their inspiration from Plutarch, whose biographies of famous rulers served as a moral guide for future princes. Theologians, from St. Augustine on, attempted to distinguish between legitimate rulers and tyrants. Political writers have sought to portrait the perfect ruler and to define the moral criteria of good governance. Since Niccolo Machiavelli's "Prince", they have added a new dimension to the old criteria – that of effectiveness. Philosophers of history differed in their assessment of the role of great individuals: from Georg Hegel's determinism to Thomas Carlyle's romantic view of human history as a product of the action of selected few – the heroes. When sociology emerged as a new academic discipline, it strongly emphasized social processes and institutions at the expense of the role of individuals. Soon, however, mostly under the influence of the Italian scholars Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941) and Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), attention shifted to the study of political elites, seen as the principal actors in history (Mosca 1939, Albertoni 1982). Some psychologists, notably Gustav Le Bon, critical of and hostile to the "masses", saw great leaders as the only alternative to the chaotic rule of the crowd (Le Bon 1912). Pioneers of the biological approach to the study of politics suggested that "natural selection has endowed *homo sapiens,* as it did other social primates, with an innate 'bias' toward hierarchical social and political structures" and concluded that "this innate tendency is a major – but not the only –reason why the overwhelming majority of political societies have been and continue to be authoritarian in nature" (Peterson and Somit 2001:186).

When political science emerged as an independent discipline, for a time it continued the traditional interest focusing on the role of great men in politics, as illustrated by the themes of doctoral dissertation at American university between 1925 and 1950 (Paige 1977: 237-240). With the passing of time, however, the traditional interest was overshadowed by new lines of inquiry into the function of institutions, the behavior of anonymous people, and the social forces that shape such behavior. In due time, calls were made to reintroduce political leaders as legitimate objects of investigation. Empirically oriented study of leadership was seen as the solution which, as Dankwart Rustow put it, "may enable us to rest the continuing controversy between those who see leadership.. primarily as an individual attribute or trait and those who prefer to see it as being determined by the situation – as well, as the even older debate over the historic influence of great individuals"(Rustow 1968: 691). Such studies tended, however, to focus more on collective entities defined as political elites than on political leaders as individuals. Harold Lasswell (1902-1978) played crucial role in switching the attention of students of political elites from ideologically oriented generalizations to the comparative analysis based on empirical data (Lasswell 1936). After the Second World War his call for comparative empirical research was answered by several studies on elites in Western democracies (Bauman 1972, Bottomore 1954, Edinger 1965, Keller 1967, Kirkpatrick 1976), Putnam 1973, Putnam 1976, Suleiman 1978, Welsch 1979) as well as in the then Communist states (Barton, Denitch and Kadushin 1973, Baylis 1974, Beck 1973, Farrell 1970, Ludz 1968, Scalapino 1972). In 1973, I have suggested a distinction between concepts of "elites" and of "leadership" arguing that not all groups of leaders have the characteristics of elites, only those which are socially cohesive and recruited mostly from among members of the same stratum (Wiatr 1973). There have been also numerous studies written by social scientists on contemporary political leaders (for example: Auty 1970, Bethell 1969, Caro 1982 and 1990, Deutcher 1949, Dikötter 2019, Halperin 1958, Kavanagh 1974, Kearns 1976, Kersaudy 1982, Schram 1966, Wolfe 1948). The fall of Richard Nixon produced – among numerous other studies -an excellent socio-political analysis of the background and history of so-called "Watergate affair" (White 1975). A few years later President Nixon himself contributed to the studies on leadership with a book based on his personal knowledge of and contacts with a large group of foreign leaders (Nixon 1982).

Leaders become most important at the critical junctions of history. It is their good or bad luck that some of them are confronted with situation in which decisions made by them change the course of history. Without the turmoil of revolutionary wars which followed the French Revolution of 1789, Napoleon Bonaparte would not have had the opportunity to become France's most celebrated military hero and at the peak of his career the almost absolute ruler of most of Europe. Without the culmination of conflict over the future of slavery in the United States Abraham Lincoln would not have become one of the greatest American presidents, the one who is credited with the decisions which saved the Union from dissolution and put an end to the infamous institution of slavery. Two world wars and the revolutions of the twentieth century made possible the emergence of leaders whose decisions shaped history: Georges Clemenceau and Charles de Gaulle in France, Winston Churchill in Great Britain, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the United States, but also Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin in Russia, as well as Mao Zedong in China. Adolf Hitler belongs to a special category of leaders whose impact on history, while undoubtedly significant, was purely negative because of their failure to achieve their goals and because they brought their nations to catastrophic defeats.

Following the two world wars, and largely because of the invention of weapons of mass destruction which made the total war improbable (Aron 1962), the international situation changed in a fundamental way. Avoiding a new total war called for responsible and courageous leadership, such as the one offered by Harry Truman and the other founders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Sometimes it took the courage to respond militarily to the unexpected turn of events, as in the case of President Truman's decision to use American military might in defense of South Korea in 1950 (Paige 1968) or by President Kennedy's decision to impose naval blockade on Cuba during the missile crisis of 1962 (Allison 1971). With the passing of time, the moral and political evaluation of these decisions changed. Glenn Paige, who had served in the US army in the Korean war and in his book had accepted the logic of the military response to the North Korean aggression, changed his assessment of the war and strongly criticized the decision to intervene from the position of non-violence. "From a nonviolent perspective, – he wrote – the best "lesson" to be learned from the Korean decision is that the American policy makers should be encouraged to experiment with the assumption that American violence will not be applied in international politics, that American military supplies will not be provided to support the violence of others, and that policy makers should work positively toward nonviolent resolution of grave domestic and international conflicts that threaten human dignity, economic decency, physical survival, and world peace"(Paige 1977: 1609). In a similar way, another decision of American presidents – this time on the military intervention in Vietnam – was criticized as politically mistaken and morally wrong by leftwing intellectuals, particularly by Noam Chomsky and Carl Boggs as morally wrong and politically disastrous (Boggs 2005: 106-107). The obvious difference between the decision to intervene in Korea and the decision to get involved in the conflict between two parts of divided Vietnam, is that while the first prevented the communist conquest of South Korea, the latter ended in total failure – the first military defeat of the United States in its history. The recent collapse of the American-sponsored regime in Afghanistan (in August 2021, after twenty years of military involvement of the United States and her NATO allies) demonstrated the failure of American leaders to learn from the Vietnam fiasco.

Not all critical decisions are related to war and peace. European integration would not have been possible without such leaders as Robert Schuman and Konrad Adenauer. Finally the peaceful dissolution of the Communism empire in Europe was to a very great degree the result of the visionary leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev (Brown 1966).

The new century began in the atmosphere of optimism which reflected the belief that after having won the "cold war"the commonwealth of democratic states, under the leadership of the United States, would be able to gradually and peacefully change the world in the way consistent with the basic values of liberal democracy. Thirty years later such optimism sounds naïve. Confronted with new challenges, such as international terrorism and global inequality, the world needs mature political leadership as much as it had needed it in the past century.

Political scientists, sociologists and psychologists study political leadership largely because they understand its relevance. They do it in various ways, using different research tools. The specific nature of political leadership calls for the choice of research approaches adequate to the specific nature of this phenomenon.

The very nature of political leadership calls for different research strategies than the ones usually employed by social sciences. Quantitative data are useful but only for the study of large categories of leaders, such as the local leaders selected as targets for the Values in Politics project (Jacob 1971) or for the computerized data bank of communist elites created in Pittsburgh by Carl Beck (Beck 1973). Neither of such studies targeted top political leaders.

For the study of top leaders we have to rely mostly on the accounts offered by themselves in their autobiographies and on the analysis of documents. Autobiographies of top political leaders have to be treated with some reserve since the authors tend to present their accounts in the subjective way, particularly in respect to their most controversial decisions. Additionally, some scholars are able to use data from the autobiographies or other accounts written by leaders' close collaborators, as illustrated by the innovative study of interactions between President Nixon and Henry Kissinger (Dallek 2007). Very rarely can a student of leadership base his or her analysis on prolonged interviews with a politician, as in the book on Lyndon Johnson written by his former ghost writer Derris Kearns and completed after his unexpected death (Kearns 1976). The nature of political system constitutes the crucial condition for this type of research. Autobiographies of leaders come mostly from democratic states, where open political debate is an indispensable element of political life. Most of American presidents after having left the White House published their memoirs. There are, however, almost no autobiographies of totalitarian leaders , with the interesting exception of those who lost power. Lev Trotsky's autobiography ("My Life") has been skillfully used in Issac Deutscher's study of the Soviet fallen leader (Deutscher 1954). Sometimes valuable historical accounts come from autobiographies of lower rank Communist functionaries, written after their break with the party (Leonhard 1956). To the very few exceptions belong the ten-volumes diary of Poland's former Prime Minister (1988-89) and party leader (1989-91) Mieczysław F. Rakowski, published years after the change of regime in Poland (Rakowski 1998-2005).

Unable to use the traditional methods of social sciences, students of political leadership have to rely on comparative analysis (Edinger (1964). It is probably the most important difference between typical biographies written by historians and analyses presented by political scientists. Among most interesting comparative biographies written by political scientists one can list Charles Merriam's biography of four American leaders (Merriam (1926) and Bertram Wolfe comparative biography of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin (Wolfe 1948). More recent such studies include Mattei Dogan's comparison of the Turkish and French national leaders (Dogan 1984) and Ladipo Adanolekun's study of African political leaders (Adanolekun 1988).

In 1964, the American political scientists Zbigniew Brzezinski and Samuel Huntington published a comparative study of two super-powers (USA and USSR), in which they combined the analysis of the institutional framework with the study of the performance of top leaders (Brzezinski and Huntington 1964). The most important conclusion of their study was that while leaders are important, it is the institutional system that best explains the policies of the great powers.

There are several reasons why leaders and leadership should be studied from a comparative perspective., that is across countries and periods of time. While each leader is unique, patterns of leadership can be observed and explained in comparative terms. We are all interested in what makes some leaders more successful than others, as well as in that what makes them act as they do. By comparing what remains essentially unique, we may be able to reduce the scope of the unknown, to better understand the forces that move leaders and to gain insight into the reasons of their success or failure.

Studying political leadership not only satisfies our curiosity; it can also affect the way in which politics is being conducted. Educated leaders and well informed followers are important for the quality of politics – now even more than in the past. Democracy cannot function well without the engagement of citizens – interested in and informed about public affairs. In modern democracies citizens decide by electing their representatives, whose leadership is crucial for the stability of democratic institutions and for direction of public policies. In the times when politics engages millions of people, it is important to understand who and how leads them to the unknown future.

"Politics – wrote the great German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) – is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective. Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth – that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible. But to do that a man must be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well, in a very sober sense of the word. And even those who are neither leaders nor heroes must arm themselves with the steadfastness of heart which can brave even the crumbling of all hopes. This is necessary right now, or else men will not be able to attain even that which is possible today. Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his points of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say 'In spite of all' has the calling for politics (Weber 1946:128).

The Weberian concept of leadership emphasizes the moral and political obligations of those who choose politics as their vocation. One of the founders of modern Israel, two-times prime minister and the ninth president Shimon Peres (1923- 2016) in his autobiography added another dimension of true leadership: the ability to dream and to make successful politics out of the ambitious dreams (Peres 2017). Visionary leadership demands the ability to formulate ambitious goals with the determination and talent necessary to make such dreams come true.

Leadership is a mission on the quality of which depends the wellbeing and security of the people. It is by far more than simple act of winning power. In its true sense, leadership is a service, in which the leader is motivated not by his (or her) personal ambition but by the devotion to the common good – whatever way they understand it. This is why studying leadership is crucial for understanding and for conducting politics worthy of its name.

### Chapter One: The essence of leadership

The concept of leadership has two connotations. In "Webster's New World Dictionary of American Language" it is defined as "the ability to lead". It is also used to denote a group of people distinguished by their ability to lead – the leaders. The ability to lead is not only a psychological trait. It also refers to the situation in which one person is able to lead others. Crucial for the concept of leadership is the relation "leaders-followers", as there are no leaders without those who are ready to accept their leadership – the followers.

There are three main kinds of leadership: religious, moral and political. Religious leaders appeal to the beliefs in god (or gods) and are seen by their followers as prophets speaking in the god's name. Some religious leaders become political leaders as well, particularly when political conditions impose on them such role. In some then communist states, religious leaders functioned as political authorities with strong popular legitimacy. Such was in particular the role of Poland Primate cardinal Stefan Wyszynski and of the Polish Pope John Paul the Second (KarolWojtyła). In a different political context, the Iranian revolution of 1979 brought to power the religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Michael Keren's study on the role of Moses as a religious leader (Keren 1988) demonstrates the political impact of religious leadership. The same may be said about moral leadership, the best known example of which is the role played by Mohandas Gandhi in the struggle for independence of India and in initiating the strategy of non-violence (Erickson 1968).

Political leadership focuses on state power as the main means of achieving the desired goals. Political leaders are those who, successfully or not, attempt to realize their objectives by capturing and executing power in a state. While they may use religious and/or moral arguments, their main strategy focuses on political power.

There is, however, a fundamental difference between politicians for whom winning and keeping power is the main goal, and leaders who are motivated by an idea – broader and more ambitious than power itself. True leadership requires commitment to an idea – a vision of future and identification with a goal more important than power itself. Great leaders achieved greatness by formulating ambitious goals and by the ability to mobilize others in the efforts to achieve these goals. Sometimes, such visions and goals are results of the unexpected historic events: as it was the case when the outbreak of the second world war and the Nazi victories in 1940 endangered the very survival of France and Great Britain. Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill became the greatest leaders of their nations in the twentieth century because both of them had a clear vision of what had to be done to avoid the final calamity and were able to formulate the goals around which they mobilized the will of their nations. Sometimes, the vision and the goal are results of the rejection of unjust social reality – as it was the case in Gandhi's peaceful revolt against the British rule in India and in the case of Martin Luther King's protest against race discrimination in the United States. Sometimes, the vision and the goal reflect leader's understanding of the necessity to fundamentally change international relations, as it was the case with the fathers of European integration after the second world war. In all these cases – and in many other – the commitment to a vision broader and more important than power itself became the essence of truly great leadership.

Power sometimes becomes the aim in itself, sought for variety of advantages it offers to power-holders – not only material but also those which allow them to satisfy their desire to control others. It would be naïve to ignore the fact that for very many individuals active in politics power is nothing but the way to achieve these advantages. It is, however, power treated not as the goal per se but as the means to make an impact on history, that makes true political leaders. If the quality of political leadership depends on the impact a leader makes on history, the key question is: how important are human actions for the course of history?

#### **1. Philosophy of history: determinism versus activism**

For many centuries, the dominant understanding of history placed great individuals – rulers, leaders – in the center of analysis. From the Egyptian belief in the divine nature of the pharaohs and the ancient Greek mythology of heroes to the historians of early modern era the dominant historical narration focused on the role played by great individuals, particularly those who ruled. The monarchical character of state power was one of the reasons why historians tended to treat great individual as history-makers.

This has changed in the nineteenth century with new trends in philosophy, historiography, social sciences and ideologies. The romantic view of history was still present, particularly in the writings of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), who in 1840 published the comprehensive treatise on the role of heroes in history. Carlyle interpreted history as shaped by great men, considered by him the greatest gift given by God (Carlyle 1907:59). "Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world – wrote Carlyle – is at bottom the History of Great Men who have worked here" (ibidem:1). He distinguished between five categories of heroes: (1) prophets (Mahomet), (2) poets (Shakspeare), 3) priests (Luther, Knox), (4) men of letters (Samuel Johnson, Rousseau, Burns), (5) kings. In the last category – the only one which can be identified with political leadership – Carlyle listed Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon Bonaparte, both of whom he called "modern revolutionaries". It is the role of political leaders ("kings"as Carlyle choose to call them) that constitutes the highest form of heroism. "The Commander over Men; – wrote Carlyle – he to whose will our wills are to be subordinated, and loyally surrender themselves, and find their welfare in doing so, may be reckoned the most important of Great Men"(ibidem: 272).

Carlyle's lectures were closer to literary works than to academic treatises. His poetic style allowed him to make strong argument for his general thesis, that history is made by great men, without getting to the most complex question of the conditioning and limits of their role in history. In spite of his popularity Carlyle did not represent the dominant intellectual currents of his era. Challenges to the romantic view of history came from three main sources.

The first was a new school of historians which emerged during the period of French Restauration (1815-1830), whose most famous representative was Francois Guizot (1787-1874) – historian and influential politician of the restored French monarchy. It was Guizot who introduced the concept of class struggle and who pointed to the new way of interpreting history – as result of mass movements rather than of great individuals.

In the second half of the nineteenth century with the emergence of sociology such view received strong support from representatives of this new discipline, particularly the British sociologist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), whose "The Study of Sociology"(1873) and monumental, ten-volumes "System of Synthetic Philosophy" (1862-1896) became the foundation for evolutionary sociology, patterned after the natural sciences and committed to the idea that human life is subject to the objective laws.

The third, and most important contribution to the deterministic interpretation of history came from the great German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) whose three-volumes study "Lecture on the History of Philosophy", published in 1840-1844, was the most comprehensive version of philosophical determinism (Hegel 1995). Hegel believed that the course of history is determined by the Spirit of History (*Weltgeist, Zeitgeist)*, which manifests itself though great men. "That the history of the World, with all the changing scenes which its annals present – wrote Hegel – is this process of development and the realization of Spirit – this is true Theodicy, the justification of God in history. Only this insight can reconcile Spirit with the history of the world – that what has happened, and the happening every day, is not only not 'without God' but is essentially His work" (Hegel 1974: 15). Great men never operate in a historical vacuum but in conditions created by past generations. Consequently, great men are nothing more than instruments and symbols of the existing social forces. Their actions bring lasting effects only if and when they are consistent with the demands of their time.

Hegelian determinism influenced many intellectuals, including the greatest, in my opinion, Russian writer of the nineteenth century Lev Tolstoy (1828- 1910) whose monumental novel "War and Peace"contains the philosophical part, in which he expressed the fatalistic interpretation of history. Contrary to popular views, argued Tolstoy, great men are nothing more than labels behind which there is the divine will, the determining force which shapes the course of history.

The impact of Hegelian philosophy of history is crucial for understanding the Marxist ideology and its impact on the political developments in the twentieth century.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) began his intellectual journeys as member of the group of "young Hegelians", a radical faction of German intellectuals in the years preceding the 1848 revolution. He fundamentally revised Hegel's philosophy by substituting material factors for the spiritual. Learning from French historians, he saw history as predominantly shaped by social classes and their conflicts, culminating in the proletarian revolution which ultimately would lead to the total liberation of mankind from the chains of economic determination (Walicki 1995). Marx himself did not elaborate on the role of great men in history. His only writing touching on this subject is his essay "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte"(written soon after Louis Bonaparte's coup of 1851) which contains the often quoted sentence: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past" (Tucker 1978:595). This common sense statement does not allow to interpret Marxian approach to history as fatalistic. In the course of later development , the Marxist interpretation of history took however a clearly deterministic direction, mostly under the influence of his friend and continuator Frederick Engels (1820-1895).

Engels expressed his interpretation of history mostly in letters to the German socialists Joseph Bloch and Heinz Starkenburg. In the letter to Bloch (21- 22 September 1890) Engels expressed the view, that "we make our history ourselves, but, in the first place, under very definite assumptions and conditions. Among these the economic ones are ultimately decisive" (Tucker 1978: 761). He went further in the direction of historical fatalism in the letter to Heinz Starkenburg (January 25,1894), in which Engels wrote the following:

"Men make their history themselves, but not as yet with a collective will according to a collective plan or even in a definite, delimited given society. Their aspirations clash, and for that very reason all such societies are governed by *necessity,* the complement and form of appearance of which is *accident…*This is where so-called great men come in for treatment. That such and such a man and precisely that man arises at a particular time in a particular country is, of course, pure chance. But cut him out and there will be a demand for a substitute, and this substitute will be found, good or bad, but in the long run he will be found"(Tucker 1978: 767-768).

Engels inspired the dominant current in the Marxist movement at the turn of centuries and it was his interpretation of history that gave orthodox Marxism the deterministic character. Karl Kautsky (1854-1938) in Germany and George Plekhanov (1856-1918) in Russia where the best known and most influential representatives of such deterministic interpretation of history. In their interpretations there was little room for the role of great men. Kautsky followed the reasoning of Engels and even sharpened it by the questionable assertion that in spite of individual differences all people in identical conditions behave in the same way (Kautsky 1963, vol. II, part 2: 325). Plekhanov in his essay "The Role of the Individual in History"( first published in 1898) tried to give more room for the role of great individuals but he also asserted that "in the last analysis" the results of their actions "depends upon the course of social development and on relation of social forces" (quoted in Hook 1955:101). Deterministic interpretation of the Marxist doctrine corresponded with the political position of moderate socialists who believed that the socialist revolution can materialize only when the "objective conditions" make it inevitable. Such approach collided with the more activist position taken by the radicals. The interesting example is Lev Trotsky's interpretation of the Russian revolution, written in exile in 1930. Trotsky argued that the revolution was inevitable, because of the accumulated social and economic conflicts, which he described as the "law of combined development"(Trotsky 1952, vol.1: 6) but he also emphasized the importance of the party and of Lenin's leadership in radicalization of the revolution and its transition to the communist stage (ibidem, vol. 3: 175). The British socialist and historian G.D. H.Cole speculated about the hypothetical consequences of the power struggle within the Bolshevik leadership, particularly the rivalry between Trotsky and Stalin (Cole 1960: 262). While, for obvious reasons, we shall never know how history would have looked had Trotsky, rather than Stalin, emerged as the winner, there is no reason to believe that such alternative would not have made a significant difference in the way the Soviet Russia was ruled.

The problem of great men's role in history was discussed from the perspective of "revisionist"Marxism by the American socialist and historian Sidney Hook (1902-1989) in "The Hero in History", first published in 1943. After having reviewed the main literature devoted to this subject, Hook formulated his interpretation crucial to which is the concept of alternatives. History is not predetermined in a fatalistic way, but neither is it fully dependent on the free will of acting people. "At any period of time- writes Hook – there are no realistic alternatives to certain paths of development because of the number of cumulative weight of 'the laws' that stand in the way of our striking out in a new direction. …History and politics, not to speak of personal life, present a daily confrontation of alternatives in which we forge part of our own destiny and for which we therefore assume some responsibility" (Hook 1955:265). Consequently, he allows for the meaningful role of individuals, some of whom because of their particularly great contribution to history he calls "heroes".

Hook proposed an interesting distinction between two categories of individuals who have become prominent in political history: "eventful man"and "event-making man". "The eventful man in history – he writes – is any man whose actions influenced subsequent developments along quite different course than would have been followed if these actions had not been taken. The event-making man is an eventful man whose actions are the consequences of outstanding capacities of intelligence, will, and character rather than of accidents of position. This distinction tries to do justice to the general belief that a hero is great not merely in virtue of what he does but in virtue of what he is." (Hook 1955:154).

This unorthodox interpretation of the role of individuals and of its historical conditioning avoids the extremes of both historical determinism and romantic heroism. The concept of objectively conditioned alternatives permits one to see history as composed of series of choices , each of which is based on the preexisting conditions but neither of which is inevitable. Choices are made by people and some of them make choices more important from the long-term perspectives of history. Hence, there is place for leaders who in some situations become, to use Hook's terminology, "event-making men".

The role of leaders depends on the type of historically available alternatives. One can distinguish between leaders who use their power to change the course of history and those who simply administer the daily affairs of the state, or – to use the terminology proposed by James Macgregor Burns – between "transforming" and "transactional"types of leadership (Burns 1978). "Transforming" leaders are motivated by their conviction that it is necessary to change the existing state of affairs and their ability to mobilize people in the successful effort to bring such change. That makes them "visionary leaders"(Dror 1988, Keren 1988 ,Migdal 1988). The choice between these two types of leadership depends more on the historical circumstances than on the individual qualities of a leader. In long periods of political stability the really existing alternatives are relatively limited and, consequently, even the most powerful leaders can change the course of history only in a limited role. Different is the situation of a leader acting at the time of great crises, such as wars or revolutions. A good example is the Second World War. Would have Winston Churchill become the greatest British leader of his century had it not been because of his brave and wise stand against appeasement with Nazi Germany, even after Britain had been left alone in her struggle? Would Charles de Gaulle have been able to raise to the role of national leader without France's defeat in 1940 and the capitulation of the French government? Would Lenin, Mao Zedong or Castro have become successful leaders of revolutionary movements and rulers of revolutionary states had it not been for the crises of the pre-revolutionary regimes and the emergence of social forces capable of overthrowing them? Greatness of these individuals as visionary leaders resulted from their role in moments of crises in which they, because of their ideas and characters, were able to provide successful leadership.

The study of leadership is not an alternative to the analysis of mass social phenomena and of objective historical conditioning. It does not imply that leaders are free in their decisions and, therefore, that history is made by heroes. But neither does it accept the view that leaders are but the "labels" of history and could have been substituted for by somebody else without much impact on the course of events. Studying leadership one encounters the philosophical question of historical inevitability. History consists of series of events, which are conditioned by earlier developments. To believe that they are inevitable, implies that whatever leaders did or did not do was irrelevant for the course of events. There is, however, a different way of interpreting inevitability. Certain events become inevitable because of other events which took place earlier, The German defeat in the second world war became inevitable in 1943 – after the series of lost battles (Stalingrad, Kursk) – but not before. But even then, the siege and destruction of Berlin were not inevitable. Had the conspirators of July 1944 been successful in eliminating Adolf Hitler, Germany would have capitulated earlier and at much lesser cost for her population. The same line of reasoning allows one to outline the limits of meaningful choice available for political leaders. They cannot do as they wish, but neither are they slave of previous history. The course of events depends on human decisions, and this means that decisions made by political leaders have particularly great impact on history.

#### **2. Leader's personality: a psychological interpretation**

Leadership requires certain psychological qualities, but it does not mean that all leaders have such traits. To become a leader and to perform well in this role one has to have certain characteristics which may not be so important in other types of career. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who not only studied leadership but also served as National Security Advisor to one of the world leaders, President Carter, commented on the nature of leadership as follows:

"Leadership is partly a matter of character, partly intellect, partly organization, and partly what Machiavelli called 'fortuna', the mysterious interaction of fate and chance" (Brzezinski 2007: 8).

It is interesting that he put the quality of character on the first place, suggesting that without accounting for their psychological characteristics we cannot understand how leaders meet the challenges of their times.

In his study of political leadership Glenn Paige identified the following six hypotheses related to the influence of personality characteristics on the behavior of political leaders (Paige 1977: 106-107):


Reviewing the then available literature, Paige identified also several ways in which the personality of a leader affects his or her performance (ibidem: 107- 113). Some of them seem particularly important for understanding the way in which leaders achieve or fail to achieve success. Personality characteristics affects the choice of values and through them the behavior of leaders. Personality is important for performance of a leader and leadership attracts and affects certain types of personalities. Roles tend to attract individuals with certain types of personality and they are connected with the affirmation of certain values as well as with the rejection of other values.

Of the variety of psychological aspects of leadership four seem to me most important.

First of them relates to the choice of values as the factor which largely determines the behavior of leaders. Values are commonly understood as internalized beliefs related to the sought-out goals. Political actions almost always demand choosing between alternatives and such choice is conditioned by the values of those who make it. Politics is not, and cannot be value-free, even if some politicians pretend that they conduct themselves in a purely pragmatic way.

Values of a leader are difficult to study. We can have only limited confidence in the declarations which he or she makes in public, because such declarations often serve as justification for decisions based on different premises. Socio-psychological empirical studies based on personal interviews are possible in the case of lower rank leaders, like in the study of local leaders in four countries interviewed in the comparative research on "Values in Politics" (Jacob 1971) or in the comparative study of British and Italian parliamentarians (Putnam 1973), but such approach would not be available in case of national leaders. In very rare cases, we get access to their personal diaries, more reliable than memoirs which usually have a strong element of self-justification. Consequently, the best way of reconstructing the set of values which lead a politician is to interpret his or her behavior, particularly in situations calling for difficult choices. We can never be sure that our interpretation is correct but it is probably the only way available if we wish to understand the psychological motivation of decisions made by a leader.

My second observation relates to the importance of personality characteristics in times of extreme stress. In normal times performing the functions of leadership, while putting big demands on leader's time and energy does not need a particularly strong ability to act under stress. The situation changes with the emergence of a crisis. Wars, revolts, economic crises, epidemics constitute such situations in which leaders have to face extraordinary challenges. For them these are the hours of truth, showing their ability or failure to meet extraordinary challenges. Observing leaders in such situations one can draw two conclusions. First, some individuals are better equipped to deal with a crisis than to operate in normal, peaceful conditions. Winston Churchill proved to be a very successful leader in war, but a rather mediocre politician in post-war peaceful time. Stalin with his iron-clad, brutal personality was a disaster for Soviet state and society before the war, but a victorious leader in war. Without the Vietnam war, Lyndon Johnson would have become one of the successful presidents whose domestic policies, particularly the human rights reforms, would have assured him a prominent place in American history. His inability to understand the nature of Vietnam conflict and his lack of courage to make a difficult decision of withdrawing American forces destroyed his presidency and negatively affected the way he is perceived by next generations. Richard Nixon's reaction to the disclosure of the Watergate break-in reflected certain negative traits of his personality (White 1978: 83). Henry Kissinger in his memoirs characterized Richard Nixon as "painfully shy", "fearful of rejection"and "deeply insecure", whose personality greatly contributed to his behavior and to his ultimate fall (Kissinger 1982: 1181). Second, it is the moment of crisis that either destroys or elevates a leader. The history of after-war Poland provides two interesting examples confirming this observation. In December 1970, confronted with the wave of strikes and street demonstrations in the Baltic harbor-cities Wladyslaw Gomulka – the party leader with strong credentials as Polish patriot and former political prisoner during the time of Stalinist repressions in early 1950s – decided to use military forces to qualm the workers' revolt. The decision cost dozens of death and ultimately led to Gomulka's fall from power as well as to destroying his image as political leader (Werblan 1988). In 1989, the military and political leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski (1923-2014) – the former architect of the martial law imposed in December 1981 – decided to open political dialogue with the leaders of the previously banned "Solidarity" union and to negotiate a political solution which made Poland the first country to initiate the peaceful democratic transition. It was a brave decision which made him the only communist leader of post-war Poland who deserves a high appraisal for his role in history (Pelinka 1999).

The third aspect of the psychological analysis of political leadership relates to the impact of political system in which the leaders operate on their personalities. Harold Lasswell was the first political scientist who investigated the political role of pathological personalities (Lasswell 1930). Under the influence of the dramatic experience of Nazi and Communist dictatorships scholars began to pay more attention to the various personality traits which deviate from what is considered normal. The concept of "authoritarian personality", first formulated by Theodore Adorno and his co-authors (Adorno, Frankel Brunswick, Levinson, Sanford 1950) was formulated as a tool to interpret the phenomenon of the emergence of the totalitarian regime and of the xenophobic attitudes as its ideological trait. Later, the concept of authoritarian personality was being employed in the analyses of political leadership in other dictatorial regimes. Robert Tucker's two books on Stalin demonstrated the usefulness of the psychopathological approach (Tucker 1971, 1974). Authoritarian personality, particularly the strong tendency to perceive politics as brutal struggle against "enemies"fits well the requirements of a dictatorial system. It can be argued even that such personality traits helps to win and keep power in a dictatorial regime. Stephen Cohen argued that Stalin's brutal personality was an asset, rather than a handicap, in his rivalry with Bukharin, whose personality was definitely less authoritarian, better fitted to the requirements of a democratic system than to those of totalitarian dictatorship (Cohen 1973).

The fourth aspect relates to the potential for psychological change under the impact of traumatic events experienced by a leader. History shows that the personality of a leader can change, even dramatically, under the impact of some traumatic events. In my book on Polish military I have given the example of Marshal Pilsudski's reaction to the assassination of his friend and successor, Gabriel Narutowicz (Wiatr 1988: 34-36). Narutowicz, internationally recognized scholar and former minister of foreign affairs, was elected to the presidency in December 1922, after the 1921 Constitution had been adopted, taking over from Joseph Pilsudski who had been the temporary head of state since Poland's independence in November 1918. Narutowicz's election was largely due to the support given him by the parliamentarians representing ethnic minorities, including the large Jewish community. His election was followed by the hostile campaign organized by the Right-wing nationalist party and five days after the inauguration, the new president was assassinated by the rightwing nationalist Eligiusz Niewiadomski. At his trial, the murderer proudly declared that he had killed the president in protest against the role played by "Jews and socialists" in the election. To make things even worse, Niewiadomski's trial and execution brought a massive campaign in which the nationalist Right glorified the assassin. For Marshal Pilsudski the assassination of President Narutowicz was a traumatic event. His previous belief in democracy, confirmed by his whole behavior when he was the head of state (1918- 1922) was destroyed. According to his wife (Pilsudska 1941:314), Pilsudski's reaction was highly emotional. His attitude toward political adversaries, whom he saw as responsible for the crime, changed. He lost faith in democracy. In this way, the traumatic event played a significant role in the crisis of Polish democracy, soon to be overthrown in the military coup of 1926.

In a different way another traumatic event affected the personality of President Lyndon Johnson. His biographer Dorris Kearns describes Johnson's reaction to the assassination of John Kennedy as highly emotional and full of doubts about his own role (Kearns 1976: 171).Largely under the impact of this dramatic event, Johnson adopted the policy stand radically departing from his previous conservative position and linking his domestic policies (particularly on civil rights of Afro-Americans ) to the heritage of his predecessor. In this way, Johnson became a very different kind of a leader than he had been before.

#### **3. Ethics of leadership**

Political leadership can be evaluated both in terms of its effectiveness and in terms of its ethics. Among twenty-six factors explaining political leadership listed by Ralph Stogdill one refers to ethical conduct and personal integrity (Stogdill 1974). It seems important to distinguish between three aspects of evaluating leaders in ethical terms.

The first aspect relates to the way leaders conduct themselves in matters not related to their political role. What for ordinary person remains his or her private matter, assumes political importance in the case of a leader. Leaders are expected to behave in accordance with moral norms accepted commonly in their societies. Such norms vary depending on time and place. What was considered morally acceptable in the past, may become morally compromising now. Also what is acceptable in one society may not be acceptable in another. Bill Clinton was strongly criticized because of his notorious womanizing, while some of his predecessors (particularly John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson) were not. The reason for the change of public moral response to such behavior was the impact of feminism on the perception of what is and what is not an acceptable behavior, particularly in case of individual who occupy important public positions.

The second aspect relates to the way in which leaders behave in their public roles. Corruption and nepotism are two most often criticized forms of morally unacceptable behavior, but leaders are also judged for other morally questionable behaviors, such as lying, breaking once given promises or changing political position for personal gains. Moral condemnation of such behavior varies depending on cultures and periods of time.

Leaders, particularly in dictatorial regimes, have been also responsible for serious murders, tortures and, in extreme cases even genocide. The latter was the trade mark of totalitarian leaders – Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. While it is true that dictators are more likely to commit politically motivated crimes, history knows situations in which perpetrators of politically motivated crimes were democratic leaders. On President John Kennedy's order the Central Intelligence Agency made several (unsuccessful) attempt to poison Cuban leader Fidel Castro and President George W. Bush authorized the use of tortures in investigations related to terrorism (Holmes 2007). The fundamental difference between dictators and democrats is that the former operate in a political situation in which no independent institution can stop them from committing such crimes. Moral assessment of politically motivated crimes depends on ideological beliefs. In spite of the shocking scale of crimes committed on Hitler's or Stalin's orders, these two dictators still have some fanatical followers ready not only to deny but even to defend their deeds.

The third aspect is by far more complex and involves the very nature of political decisions, particularly those made in extraordinarily testing situations, which call for behavior consistent with the ethics of responsibility.

In the lecture on "politics as a vocation" (*Politik als Beruf*) delivered in Munich in 1919, Max Weber focused on the moral aspect of politics. He rejected the view that politics is, or should be, a pure quest of power, free of any moral constrains. His concept of politics as a vocation implied that authentic politicians are, or should be, guided by some moral principles.

"We must – Weber wrote – be clear about the fact, that all ethically oriented conduct may be guided by one of the two fundamentally differing and irreconcilably opposed maxims: conduct may be oriented to an 'ethic of ultimate ends' or to an 'ethic of responsibility'. This is not to say that an ethic of ultimate ends is identical with irresponsibility, or that an ethic of responsibility is identical with unprincipled opportunism. Naturally nobody says that. However, there is an abysmal contrast between conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of ultimate ends – that is, in religious terms, 'The Christian does rightly and leaves the results with the Lord' – and conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of responsibility, in which case one has to give an account of the foreseeable results of one's action" (Weber 1946: 120).

The novelty of his argument was the way in which he understood such political morality. The crucial part of Weber's reasoning was a very important distinction between two types of ethics: that of principles (*Gesinnungsethik)* and that of responsibility (*Verantwortungsethik)*. In their search for salvation, argued the German sociologist, people follow iron-clad principles, but in politics another type of ethics is required, particularly from those who occupy positions of leadership. Political leader has to accept the necessity of making decisions which, while controversial in terms of pure morality, constitute the best possible alternative for those whose fate depends on the choices made by him. It is the ethics of responsibility which requires decisions which are based not on a simply choice between "good" and "bad", but a more controversial choice between options none of which is absolutely and obviously good. Such choice is often called "a lesser evil" and the name means that while the option chosen by a leader is not unquestionably good, it is better – in terms of its effects – than the opposite option.

The choice is not simply pragmatic since it implies moral judgement. Such judgement, Weber argued, must be based on the realization that leaders are responsible for other human beings whose lives and fortunes depend on decisions made by those in power. Moral responsibility is not limited to those who became leaders due to the will of the people. It binds the leader also in situation when his or her power is based on different foundations, including dictators. Whoever is in position of leadership cannot escape the dilemma of making choice between alternatives neither of which is perfect.

The logic of the "lesser evil" can be discovered in very many political decisions. It is also the logic of "greater good" – choosing between two or more goals, all important but ones which cannot be achieved simultaneously. Economic policies always require sacrificing some goals for other which are considered more important. In times of war, the logic of the lesser evil dominates all political and military decisions. To avoid defeat with all its consequences young people are sent to fight and to die, cities become targets and material prosperity is sacrificed – all in the name of choosing a lesser evil. Such logic applies not only to the extraordinary situations like wars. In early 2020, governments all over the world had to make decisions which dramatically restricted rights of the citizens and caused severe harms to national economies. Such drastic measures were considered necessary to slow down the spread of the COVID-19 epidemics. Confronted with the calamity which cost thousands of lives they have chosen "a lesser evil".

The Austrian political scientist Anton Pelinka applied the concept of the lesser evil to the analysis of dilemmas which confronted the Polish military and political leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski in 1981, when by declaring martial law he stopped a deepening radicalization of the conflict between mass movement for democracy ("Solidarity") and the communist authorities (Pelinka 1999). Pelinka published his study (in German) in 1996, years after the event and when it was possible to see its long-term consequences. He accepted the argument that in 1981 Poland was in serious danger of the Soviet military intervention, like the interventions in Hungary (1956) and in Czechoslovakia (1968). The first part of his analysis refers to the difficult choice the Polish leader had to make between risking the catastrophic scenario of Soviet intervention and suppressing the democratic movement by the use of Polish military and with much smaller loses in terms of human lives. Moreover, the Soviet intervention, had it taken place, would have destroyed the limited but not fictitious independence of Poland making her a Soviet protectorate.

"Jaruzelski's decision – writes Pelinka – was leadership: his intervention in the course of Polish history was indispensable, unmistakeable, and unchangeable. He

practiced leadership by accepting the choice Ulysses had between Scylla and Charybdis: between invasion by foreign troops and martial law supported by Polish troops. He did not want the former, but could have brought it by not actively making a decision. But the latter he could bring about by his own decision. It was up to him what course developments in Poland were to take in the 1980s"(ibidem: 26- 27).

Anton Pelinka accepted the argument that in 1981 Jaruzelski opted for a lesser evil. In taking such position the Austrian writer echoes the line of reasoning which constituted the essence of the verdict made (in 1996) by the democratically elected Polish Parliament to clear General Jaruzelski and his collaborators from legal responsibility for having imposed the martial law. It was a controversial ruling, which to the very end of Jaruzelski's life was being questioned by the radically anticommunist current in Poland. Having chaired the parliamentary committee which reviewed accusations raised against the authors of the martial law, I have justified the decision to clear the General from constitutional accountability on the ground that he had acted in a situation when the opposite decision would have had catastrophic consequences (Wiatr 1996a). Ultimately, this argument has been accepted by the parliament, which rejected the accusations by impressive majority.

The most innovative aspect of Pelinka's analysis is the way in which he judges the choice of the "lesser evil" from the perspective of its future repercussions. He compares two cases: that of Jaruzelski's Poland in 1981 and that of Petain's France in 1940. The Austrian writer accepts the argument that the French decision to stop fighting and to accept hard conditions imposed on her by the then victorious Nazi Germany could have been justified as a "lesser evil", very much as the Polish General's decision to prevent the Soviet intervention by suppressing the democratic movement through the imposition of martial law. The analogy is not perfect. In 1940, the war has not yet ended and the possibility of defeating Germany, while remote, could not have been excluded. General de Gaulle made the courageous decision to oppose the legitimate government of France and to continue fighting. History proved him right. In the case of Poland in 1981 it as absolutely clear that in case of the Soviet intervention Poles would be left alone. No Western power was ready to offer more than words of sympathy to a nation of the Soviet sphere of influence in case of the Soviet intervention. Hungary of 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 left no doubt about such deem realities of the cold war.

The main difference between these two cases Pelinka sees in the consequences of the "lesser evil" decision. Petain made himself totally dependent on the Nazi power. He and his government not only collaborated with Nazi Germany in the Holocaust but also passively accepted the occupation of the previously "free" zone of France in 1942 and in the Summer of 1944 evacuated themselves along with German troops to Germany. "The fact that the Marshal of France withdrew toward Germany from the troops of Free France in a sort of honorary arrest– writes Pelinka – demonstrates his fall and that of his regime of collaboration: the political maneuverability had been wasted; Vichy France was no longer even a secondary political factor." (Pelinka 1999:110).

Such total failure to use the opportunities created by the "lesser evil" decision Pelinka confronts with Jaruzelski's use of his position to steer Poland toward democratization and toward the end of the Soviet supremacy. "Jaruzelski – he writes – was a hero. He marched forward, strengthened by Gorbachev but also one step ahead of him and a step ahead of Hungary. Jaruzelski was responsible for the first truly free elections in a Warsaw Pact nation and thus for the first non-Communist led government." (ibidem: 244).

Comparing different political situations are always risky, but in the two cases selected by the Austrian scholar such comparison makes a lot of sense. It allows to judge the ethics of "lesser evil" by referring not to intensions of the leaders but to the objective consequences of their decisions, particularly such consequences which depended on the way in which leaders made use of the assets obtained because of such decisions.

Moral judgement on political leaders is very often colored by political sympathies and antipathies of those who make it. Moral relativism leads to the condemnation of acts committed by those whom we disapprove and to the acceptance of similar acts if they have been committed by those who enjoy our sympathy. When general Jaruzelski's martial law in Poland was condemned by the democratic leaders of the West, some of the same leaders continued cordial relations with the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, responsible not only for the overthrown of democratically elected President Salvadore Allende in 1973 but also for at least three thousand executions, most of them after the end of fighting. Foreign interventions and other acts of aggression are condemned or justified depending on who has been responsible. In the case of international terrorism, the very definition of a terrorist reflects the double standards. Being seen as a "terrorist"or as a "freedom fighter"depends on who makes the judgement. Such moral double standards one can find not only in the dictatorial regimes but also in democracies. Double standards make moralizing about political leadership difficult and controversial, but not impossible. One of the task which confront students of political leadership is not to avoid moral evaluations but to make everything possible to make such evaluation independent of individual or group sympathies and loyalties.

Can this be done? How can we avoid the temptation of making moral judgement dependent on our values and political preferences?

There are two, mutually not exclusive, possibilities: law and universal moral norms. Legal norms, should function as the objective criteria for judging the political actions, both in domestic affairs and in international politics. These norms change over time but as long as they are in force they should be respected by everybody. Violating legal norms, even by those with whom we identify, cannot and should not be tolerated. It means, for instance, that the violation of the sovereignty of a nation should not be condoned simply because it has been done by the authorities of our state or of the state whom we consider our ally.

The same is true about the universal moral norms. Such norms evolve over time but such evolution does not mean that they cannot be applied to evaluation of political decisions. Using tortures is morally wrong, regardless whether it is done by a democratic government or by a dictatorship, by our friends or by our adversaries.

The universal norms are easier to formulate than to observe them in practical politics. Ethics of political leadership often collides with requirements of political reality. This, again, is the problem of the "lesser evil", but the essence of this logic requires that when making a hard choice leaders should be aware of the moral (and legal) consequences of their choice.

### Chapter Two: A typology of political leadership

One of the most important contributions Max Weber made to the study of politics, is the way in which he addressed the question of legitimization of political rule. Not denying that the political rule is always based on the ability to use coercion, Weber introduced the distinction between sheer power (*Macht)* and legitimized rule (*Herrschaft).* The fact that somebody has means to force us to obey his wishes does not *per se* makes him or her a legitimate ruler. It is the belief that those who have power have also the right to rule, what makes legitimate ruler different from an usurper.

Legitimacy is the state of mind. If it is widespread, rulers do not have to rely on the daily use of coercion. If it disappears, their power rests in the physical coercion only and in the long run cannot survive. By introducing this line of reasoning Weber opened a new avenue for explaining the functioning of political regimes (Beetham 1974). Not denying the importance of coercion, Weber inspired political scientists to look behind it, to investigate reasons for which people accept their rulers as those who have the right to rule. In the next generations of students of politics, the Weberian concept of legitimacy inspired comparative studies of political cultures as well as studies of political leadership.

#### **1. Max Weber's pure types of legitimate rule**

Introducing the concept of legitimization Weber employed the concept of "pure types"(models), which became one of his greatest contributions to the methodology of social sciences. Such models by definition simplify more complex reality, but by doing so they allow us to understand the essence of investigated phenomena.

Asking himself why do people consider some rulers as legitimate, Weber identified two most common types of rule and added the third one, which he saw as exceptional. The two main models of legitimacy according to Weber are "traditional"and "legal". The exceptional one, which can be found only in some special situations, is the "charismatic"rule, which with the passing of time became the best known and the most frequently debated element of the Weberian typology.

Weber explained his typology in the following way:

"There are three inner justifications, hence basic *legitimations* of domination. First, the authority of the 'eternal yesterday', i.e. of the mores sanctified through the unimaginably ancient recognition and habitual orientation to conform. This is 'traditional' domination exercised by the patriarch and the patrimonial prince of yore. There is the authority of the extraordinary and personal *gift of grace* (charisma), the absolutely personal devotion and personal confidence in revelation, heroism, or other qualities of individual leadership. This is 'charismatic' domination, as exercised by the prophet or – in the field of politics – by the elected war lord, the plebiscitarian ruler, the great demagogue, or the political party leader. Finally , there is domination by virtue of 'legality', by virtue of the belief in the validity of legal statute and functional 'competence' based on rationally created *rules*. In this sense, obedience is expected in discharging statutory obligations. This is domination as exercised by the modern 'servant of the state' and by all those bearers of power who in this respect resemble him"(Weber 1946: 78-79)

The most original element of the Weberian typology was concept of 'charismatic leadership', previously not known in social sciences. There has been considerable confusion concerning the true meaning of the term, as a personal quality of the leader, as the state of mind of his followers, or a combination of both these elements. "The term 'charisma' – wrote Weber – will be applied to a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities". Such qualities , according to Weber, are "not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader" (Weber 1947: 358-359).

In some of his works, particularly in his "Sociology of Religion", Weber referred to religious prophets as the most notable examples of charismatic leadership. He mentioned Zoroaster, Jesus and Muhhamad, as well as Buddha and the prophets of Israel as best known examples of religious prophets and distinguished prophets from priests, since only "the prophet's claim is based on personal revelation and charisma" (Weber 1968: 253-254). It would, however, be mistaken to conclude that in Weber's mind prophets are the only types of charismatic leaders. Charismatic leadership can be found not only in religious communities but in political sphere as well. The analogy between religious prophets and charismatic political leaders suggests the element of a quasi-religious element of unquestioned faith in the political leadership based on personal charisma.

Here two aspects of charismatic leadership are of special importance: the personal qualities necessary for becoming a charismatic leader and the social conditions conducive to the acceptance of charismatic leadership. Comparative analyses of the best known examples of charismatic leadership suggest that it is in conditions of serious crisis – particularly wars and revolutions – that produce such leadership.

Leadership and power are related but not identical. Reinhard Bendix in his monumental study of Max Weber's intellectual heritage, distinguished two sub-types of leadership based on the charisma of the leader: the charismatic leadership and the leadership based on the charismatic nature of political power; only in the second sense the charismatic leader is also a ruler, whose power rests on his charisma (Bendix 1962: 310-311). Two related aspects of charismatic leadership are, as Bendix argued, of special importance: the institutionalization of charisma and the mechanism of inheriting charisma, To illustrate the question of institutionalization, Bendix referred to the Catholic church – "the most complete separation between the charisma of office and the worthiness of the incumbent"(ibidem: 311). He interpreted the institutional charisma as "a strong and enduring system of domination whenever priestly rule has developed into the organization of a church" (ibidem: 33). The crucial question for political and sociological analysis is how, under what conditions can the individual charisma be transformed into the institutional one. What has been possible in the Catholic church, failed in the Communist parties, in which the followers of charismatic leaders (Stalin, Tito, Mao Zedong) inherited power but not the charisma.

Inheriting charismatic leadership, according to Bendix, involves three methods: (1) designation of a new charismatic leader on the basis of established criteria, like in the case of Dalai Lama; (2) designations of his successor made by the charismatic leader himself and (3) the selection of successor by the disciples and followers of the charismatic leader (ibidem: 305). With the exception of the first method, deeply rooted in the religious norms, the mechanism of transferring charisma was rarely successful. Most often, the selected successors inherited power but not the charisma of their predecessors. Stalin's succession to the leadership of the Soviet regime was an interesting exception, but only partly so. When he began his march to absolute power (after Lenin's death in 1924), Stalin skillfully exploited Lenin's charisma and in fact did everything possible to build the quasi-religious cult of his predecessor. Simultaneously, he presented himself as the only faithful disciple of Lenin and on this basis built his own personal authority. In the first years of his power, he was powerful but not charismatic. His charisma came later – in the dramatic years of the second world war.

Traditional rule prevailed during most of human history. Its most typical form is the monarchy in which the right to rule is inherited according to the traditional principles of inheritance. Such principles may differ from country to country as well as over time. In most of the medieval kingdoms the right to throne belonged only to male descendants, usually in the rank order based on birth. However, in some countries , female descendants could inherit power if there was no male heir available. Queens Mary and Elisabeth, descendants of Henry VIII in England are the best known examples. The birth order was the most common but not the absolute criterion of the right to throne. And in many cases the dispute over who is the legitimate heir resulted even in civil wars, like the "war of two roses"(1455-1485) fought between two lines of the Plantagenet dynasty (Lancaster and York) in medieval England.

The essence of traditional rule has been the belief that such rule descends from God's will. The heir to throne deserved power because his or her birth in the royal family was the proof of God's grace. As long as people believed that the royal power is given by God, such legitimacy was unquestionable.

Things changed with the gradual departure from the concept of God-given royal power and the emergence of the concept of social contract which with the passing of time became the inspiration for the establishment of democratic systems. The legitimacy of rulers in democratic systems results from the fact that they win and execute state power in accordance with the legal norms. This distinction has important implications. A ruler can lose his or her legitimacy because of the violation of the legal norm regulating the execution of power. Such norms differ from state to state and over time but what is common for all forms of legal rule is the superiority of law over political will. If the legal norms are broken, rulers lose their legitimacy putting the political system in crisis. A recent example of such situation is the Ukrainian political crisis of 2013/2014 (the so-called "revolution of dignity") in which the legally elected president Viktor Yanukovych lost his power because of gross violation of law in the attempt to stop mass protests against his decision not to sign the treaty on Ukraine's association with the European Union.

Weber saw the legitimate rule as the one based on democratic principles. He was aware of the fact that such principles may differ, but in his thinking the legal rule was always identified with democracy. It is, however, possible that the legal type of rule functions in a nondemocratic system providing that the norms of such system are accepted by the great majority.

Long existence of some modern nondemocratic systems, of which Communist regimes are the best examples, suggest that a kind of legal rule is possible without democracy. The access to power in the Chinese People's Republic is not based on democratic elections but on the internal norms of the ruling party. Nonetheless, the sequence of leaders who came to power after the passing away of the founder of the regime Mao Zedong (1976) shows that the Chinese population accepts as legitimate rulers those who have been selected by the oligarchic leadership of the ruling party in accordance with that party bylaws.

In the Soviet Union the sequence of leaders who came to power after Stalin's death in 1953 showed a similar pattern. Only one of them, Nikita Khrushchev, was demoted from power by the will of the ruling oligarchy and in accordance with party rules. Three of Khrushchev's successors died in office. The last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is an interesting case as he was the only Soviet leader who had a kind of democratic mandate resulting from having been elected President of the Soviet Union by the Congress of People's Deputies, the more or less democratically elected representative body. When in August 1991 a group of high ranking Soviet officials organized themselves as the "Committee of Extraordinary Situation"with the declared objective to prevent the reform of the federation, their obvious weakness was the lack of legitimacy. When their attempt to force Gorbachev to support them failed, and when their opponents went to the streets, it became obvious that deprived of even a shadow of legitimacy they had no chance to win (Remnick 1993).

In the Weberian theory of legitimate rule, one model of legitimization is missing: the legitimization based on success. Seymour Martin Lipset in his monumental treatise in political sociology, compared several political systems in terms of their legitimacy and effectiveness. In his typology Lipset identified four types of political orders: (A) high on both legitimacy and effectiveness, (B) high on legitimacy but low on effectiveness, (C) low on legitimacy but high on effectiveness, and (D) low on both legitimacy and on effectiveness (Lipset 1981:68). It is type C that deserves special attention as it suggests the possibility of compensating for the lack of legitimacy by high effectiveness. Effectiveness can substitute for lack of legitimacy – at least as long as it lasts. If the ruler achieves success in his policies, such success legitimizes his rule – at least for the time being. Such legitimization remains, however, weak and unstable since it requires the continuity of success. Among many examples of such legitimization (and its end) one may mention the case of the Polish Communist leader Edward Gierek in the 1970s. He was named the party leader during and because of the workers' protests in the Baltic cities which caused the dismissal of his predecessor Wladyslaw Gomulka. After having been made party leader Gierek initiated a new economic policy based on the fast growth of private consumption and impressing public investment (Wiatr 1977). In a short time this policy made him highly popular, but the success proved shortlived. When in the second half of the 1970s the economic situation rapidly deteriorated and workers renewed their protest, Gierek's popularity was gone and he was forced to leave.

Legitimate rule, however, is the strongest when it is based on democratic principles. Democracy is a system of power in which legal norms are superior to political will, or – to put it differently – the political will is effective only if it is in accordance with the legal norms. This norms regulate both the way of coming to power (by free and fair election) and the way of wielding power (particularly in respect to civic rights and freedoms). In both aspects, legitimate (democratic) rule is restricted by law and by the dominant social values.

Does it mean that democracy makes true leadership impossible as sometimes suggested (Pelinka 1999: 39-40)? Certainly, it calls for a different type of leadership that the one we find in nondemocratic systems. One of the most obvious differences consists of the need to observe the legal limits within which a democratic leader operates. This makes effective leadership more complicated but not impossible.

#### **2. Controversies over the charismatic leadership**

The most original and also the most controversial part of Weber's theory of legitimized rule is his concept of charismatic leadership. "Few aspects of Weber's political sociology – wrote Robert Tucker – have been so much discussed in the recent literature of political science, and interest in the subject is still growing. Yet no scholarly consensus seem to be formed, or even to be in process of formation, on the scientific worth and precise application of the concept of charismatic leadership" (Tucker 1968: 731). Fifty years later these words are still true. Critics of the Weberian typology point to the lack of clarity on the very nature of "charisma". Some argued that the concept of "charismatic"leadership should be restricted to the religious movements and that it cannot be applied to secular politics (Friedrich 1961).This argument seems to be based on a misunderstanding. It is true that Weber illustrated his definition of charismatic rule by examples of great religious leaders, but the reason for including it in his typology was that it had relevance for the study of politics. Prophets in Weber's typology became models for charismatic leadership but he did not suggest that they were the only leaders of this type. Some Weberian analyses, particularly those which relate to the emergence of populism and "plebiscitary democracy"as a transitory political formations between charismatic leadership and legal democratic rule, point to the political meaning of the charismatic model of leadership (Pakulski 2020).

Other critics pointed to the lack of clarity concerning the criteria of charismatic leadership. It is true that the concept is so broad that it allows for various interpretations. Robert Tucker agreed that the concept introduced by Max Weber demanded further elaboration but firmly rejected "the extreme positions of those critics who would severely restrict the applicability of the concept of charisma or deny its continued relevance in the modern age"(Ibidem: 733).

More than a hundred years which passed since the formulation of Weber's typology, its importance as an analytical tool in the study of political power and leadership is even more obvious than in Weber's time. Mass radical movements of the twentieth century were dominated by leaders whose power rested on the belief of their followers seeing them as unique, exceptional, almost superhuman. For millions of their followers Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro, Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela were more than ordinary leaders. They had the "charisma" – a special gift that made them stand high above their followers.

The criteria of charismatic leadership are difficult to define as there are various kinds of charisma. The term itself is borrowed from Greek and means "a gift". Charismatic leaders are seen as those who have been "given"special qualities to lead. In this sense there are not just popular leaders but the ones perceived as having qualities superior to that of ordinary people, even of other leaders. It is the way in which a person is seen by his or her followers, rather than some objective characteristics, that makes a charismatic leader.

The common characteristics of such leadership is the belief of the followers in the special mission of the charismatic leader. "Charismatic leadership – writes Tucker – is specifically salvationist or messianic in nature. Herein lies its distinctiveness in relation to such broader and more nebulous categories as 'inspired leadership' or 'heroic leadership'. Furthermore, this fundamental characteristic of charismatic leadership helps to explain the special emotional intensity of the charismatic response and also why the sustaining of charisma requires the leader to furnish periodical 'proof' of the powers that he claims" (Tucker 1968:743).

Charismatic leaders are leaders in and for extraordinary times of great crises – particularly revolutions and wars. They followers turn to them out of hope or despair. They tend to remain faithful to charismatic leaders even in times of calamities – or, perhaps, in such situations specially. In 1938, the American sociologist of Polish background Theodor Abel published a study based on autobiographies of six hundred activists of the NSDAP, in which he pointed to their absolute and fanatical faith in Adolf Hitler (Abel 1986). For his fanatical followers Hitler remained the unquestionable leader to the very last hours of his rule in besieged Berlin, as documented in Gustave Gilbert's psychological study of Nazi officials (Gilbert 1950). Many old Bolsheviks , victims of Stalinist purges, died with his name of their lips, declaring their unbroken faith in the leader.

The ways, in which one becomes a charismatic leader, vary. In the majority of cases leaders were perceived as charismatic long before they won power. Their followers were often small groups of fanatics whose with the passing of time ranks grew to become mass movements. Robert Tucker argued that Lenin's dominant position among Russian revolutionaries made him their charismatic leader (Tucker 1968: 751). Was he indeed a charismatic leader? Tucker points to "infinite fertility of his tactical imagination, his astonishing capacity to devise formulas for the movement's policy at every turn and in every predicament""the immense assurance with which he usually propounded and defended them in party councils". On the other hand, however, it is well known that Lenin's position as party leader did not make it impossible for others party leaders to question his judgement and to oppose his proposed policies, like in the case of the controversy over the peace with Germany in early 1918. Contrary to Tucker, I think that it was only after Lenin's death (in 1924) that Stalin built the cult of the founder of the Soviet state as the ideological foundation of the emerging regime.

In the majority of cases, charismatic leadership emerges before the seizure of power. Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong were seen by their faithful followers as charismatic leaders long before they came to power. This, however, is not an iron rule. Stalin was not a charismatic leader but an unscrupulous manipulator when – after Lenin's death in 1924 – he seized power in the ruling Bolshevik party. His selection to the post of general secretary was largely due to the fact that he was perceived as a person less likely to become a supreme leader than his more popular future rivals. As late as in 1929, when he had already eliminated his most influential adversaries, the Central Committee of the Communist party passed a special resolution on the means to build up the popularity of its General Secretary (Deutscher 1949). It was after he had consolidated his power, and particularly during the war from which he emerged as the victorious chief commander, that Stalin became the charismatic leader for millions of his subjects.

Not all charismatic leaders become power-holders. Mohandas Gandhi (1866-1948) was the most important example of a charismatic leader who played crucial role in his nation's history, but who never came to power. Gandhi's political role was that of the founder of a mass movement (Indian National Congress) and even more as the man of ideas who gave his followers moral guidance. His invention of non-violent political action inspired not only his Indian compatriots but also leaders of liberation movements in other parts of the world, for instance the civil rights movement in the United States whose leader, Martin Luther King considered himself a follower of Gandhi.

Most of charismatic leaders were rebels against the existing social and political order. The most interesting exception was Charles de Gaulle – a conservative military man with strong patriotic motivation, whose leadership during the second world war resulted from his refusal to obey the orders of the then legitimate French government which had decided to seek armistice with Nazi Germany. De Gaulle's decision was based on his patriotism, expressed in his belief that "France cannot be France if she is deprived of greatness"(De Gaulle 1954:1). Motivated by the strong belief in France as a great nation, de Gaulle could not accept the humiliating defeat. In June of 1940 this little known outside military circles general became the leader of those who were ready to continue fighting, even if such behavior meant rebellion against the legitimate government in time of war. De Gaulle's numerous speeches made during the war are full of references to glorious moments of French history which, in his views, justified the breaking away from the government which by giving up to the enemy compromised its moral right to lead (De Gaulle 1970).

In 1940, de Gaulle was not a charismatic leader yet. His charisma grew with the fortunes of war, when it was becoming clear that he had been right when most of his compatriots were ready to accept defeat. For his followers de Gaulle became an unquestionable leader because his moral courage made him the symbol of France in her time of ultimate test and because he was proved right by the final result of the war. Without him, France would not have been able to return to her role as one of great powers after the war. By rejecting the defeatist policy of Marshal Petain and his government, de Gaulle not only saved the honor of France but also made it possible for her to be treated as one of the victorious powers and, consequently, to become one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. General de Gaulle's own belief in his historical role and the acceptance of such role by his followers made him a charismatic leader. As Stanley and Inge Hoffmann put it, "de Gaulle's conception of the leader as missionary of a national case had religious overtones and … this missionary figure was itself the creation of a political artist" (Hoffmann and Hoffmann 1968: 876).

De Gaulle became a charismatic leader but not a dictator. His political beliefs combined the attachment to the republican values and to the French national interest, which required that democratically elected government should be strong enough to be able to lead France to her destiny. When appointed prime minister of the provisional government of newly liberated France he tried to reform French political institutions in the way consistent with these ideas. When in 1946 the parliament adopted a constitution which continued the tradition of weak executive, he stepped down from his position as head of government and temporarily withdrew from politics. He was called back in 1958 to save French democracy from the revolt of the military. After his return to power, he used his prestige as the war-time leader to end the rebellion not by force but by persuasion. He then used his charisma to obtain publics support for the constitutional reform and for the end of the Algerian war – in both cases acting against what used to be the dominant sentiment of his nation. He ruled France as Prime Minister and President from 1958 to 1969 and used his power not only to reform the Republic and to end the war in Algeria but also to strengthen France's position as a great power within the Western alliance. "In this context – writes his biographer – de Gaulle appears as exemplar of the transformative leader" (Cerny 1988: 140).

There is a distinct difference between de Gaulle and the other great man of his time – Winston Churchill. The British statesman took over as Prime Minister in about the same time when de Gaulle broke with his government and appealed to his compatriots to continue fighting in the name of France. Churchill became Prime Minister not because of his previous popularity but because he had been right in his opposition to the "appeasement"policy of his predecessor Neville Chamberlain, which led to disastrous consequences. As the new prime minister Churchill promised his compatriots nothing but "blood, toil. sweat and tears"and declared his determination to fight under all conditions for the final victory. He proved to be a very strong leader whose historical role in the eventual victory over Nazi Germany made him one of the most important persons of his century, but he was not a charismatic leader. In his war efforts he was supported by the majority of his nation but even in moments of his greatest triumph he was not seen as someone whose very personality made him entitled to claim unquestionable obedience from his followers. Victory in war did not save him from losing election – barely two month later. He was a great leader, but he was not a charismatic one as sometimes suggested (Kavanagh 1974). Churchill's leadership in the second world war was based on purely rational strategic thinking, supported by the majority of the British people who – after the bitter experience with the "appeasement"policy of his predecessor realized that the only way to save their state from falling under the German hegemony was keep fighting. For this, Churchill did not need a quasireligious devotion like that commanded by charismatic leaders. And he showed that also in democracies there is room for great leaders.

Some charismatic leaders emerge in and because of the struggle for national independence. In Polish history of the twentieth century, there was only one leader who could be called charismatic – Joseph Pilsudski (1867-1935). Former socialist and the leader of the armed wing of the Polish Socialist Party during the Russian revolution of 1905-1906, Pilsudski abandoned party politics on the eve of the first world war and concentrated on forming a nucleus of the Polish military units in the Austrian part former Polish state – the only one where Poles enjoyed regional autonomy. For his followers he became the beloved commander whose firm belief in the rebirth of independent Poland made him unique among the Polish politicians of his era and whose personal courage built close ties with his soldiers. This, however, did not make him the national leader, since in the complicated political situation during the war there Poles were divided in their choice of alternative political strategies and alternative leaderships. Pilsudski's position as the national leader had to wait until the victory of his forces in the war with Soviet Russia in 1920. It was this victory that made him a national hero and a charismatic leader even for many who did not share his political views.

Charismatic leaders played significant role in the struggle for independence of the colonial peoples but in most cases they were not successful democratic leaders once the struggle for independence was over. Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972), the leader of the movement for independence and the first Prime Minister of independent Ghana, represented the type of charismatic leadership in developing countries (Apter 1968). His personal qualities made him an unquestioned leader of the national movement and for a time guaranteed him full and enthusiastic support of his followers. In just few years, his position began to weaken under the combined pressure of traditional, tribal politics and difficult problems of modernization. Nkrumah's response to the growing difficulties was the referendum of 1960 which made him president with enlarged prerogatives. Soon later (1963) another referendum made Ghana a one-party state with expanded role of police and secret services. By this time, his charisma was already gone and he had to rely on coercion. Increasingly authoritarian and deprived of his charisma, Nkrumah eventually lost power in a military coup. David Apter's interpretation of Nkrumah's fall stressed his inability to understand his charisma and his moral obligations. "He did not realize – wrote the American scholar – that charisma in a voluntaristic environment is based on populism, and that when it declined, that same populism was likely to turn the leader and his government into enemies of the people" (Ibidem: 788). The same could be said about the majority of charismatic leaders in the post-colonial states, whose ability to lead the independence movement was not enough to make them successful leaders of an independent nation.

Nkrumah's failure as a post-independence leader was not an isolated event. The Nigerian political scientist Ladipo Adamolekun in his analysis of African political leadership underlined the fundamental difference between two phases of their careers: the struggle for independence and the building of stable nation-states. He identifies as "giants" only a few of African leaders (in addition to Kwame Nkrumah he lists in this category only few other leaders like Sekou Toure of Guinea and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya) and concludes that "the achievement of the national independence objective in internal and external environments that were largely favorable is an easier task than the pursuit of the complex tasks of national integration and socio-economic development in hostile internal and external environments" (Adamolekun 1988: !05). Charismatic leaders are better fit for the independence struggle than for the peaceful times which follow the successful end of such struggle. Their charisma tends to evaporate in confrontation with routine politics. Nelson Mandela (1918- 2013), charismatic leader of the African National Congress, political prisoner for twenty-seven years, and the first democratically elected president of the Republic of South Africa (1994-1999), was a rare exception. He not only fully observed the rules of democracy but also used his moral authority to persuade the black majority not to take revenge against the white minority for decades of racist discrimination. Such revenge ruined several newly born independent African states, both politically and economically. Under Mandela, and largely because of his authority, South Africa's recent history was different. Mandela's policy of reconciliation created the political climate in which the black majority and the white minority have been able to participate in political life of democratized state and made possible the emergence of a new nation, based on common citizenship. Politics in the democratic and bi-racial Republic of South Africa became a success story, which cannot be understood without sufficient attention paid to the role Mandela played as its founding father.

The former Prime Minister of Pakistan (in the years 2004-2007), Shaukat Aziz in his autobiography summed up the lessons he had learned in his role as one of the key players in the Pakistani politics. "Today, – he wrote – the world suffers from a leadership deficit and an abundance of career politicians. True leaders worry about the next generation, not the next election. They operate with total integrity and transparency. Introducing and implementing credible structural reforms needs to be an ongoing process and by definition involve short-time pain. It takes skill to convince both the public and other stakeholders that these changes will be in their best interest" (Aziz 2016: 255-256).

Only very few leaders of the present time live up to such high expectations. Those who do, become true leaders in the Weberian meaning of this term.

### Chapter Three: Democracy and political leadership

While there are various definitions of democracy, one of its aspects is universally considered as *condition sine qua non* – the regular, free and competitive elections in which those who govern receive and confirm their right to rule (Schumpeter 1947: 269). For Max Weber, this mechanism of creating the government is the essence of legitimacy based on law (Weber 1946: 226). It is generally accepted, that democracy requires not only free elections but also the rule of law, protection of minorities and respect for human rights, but its very essence is the legitimization of government through free elections. They, and only they, guarantee that those who govern receive their mandate from the freely expressed will of the citizens.

"A democracy – wrote the great Italian political sociologist Giovanni Sartori (1924-2017) – does not pursue liberty and equality simply by cancelling leadership. Whoever considers that the command-obedience relationship is incompatible with democracy is adapting a position that is more consistent with the anarchic than with the democratic approach. If we start from the premise that being free and equal means that we should not be led or governed, it follows that as long as we governed there is neither liberty nor equality. But that is not the question….The approach to the problem of leadership in a democracy lies somewhere between the extremes of the anarchic refusal to pose the problem and the autocratic non-solution of it….Democracy is instead the political form that both poses the problem and feels capable of solving it. It does not aim at destroying the vertical structures but at taking advantage of them provided that they are rendered harmless" (Sartori 1962: 96-97).

#### **1. Leaders and citizens in democracy**

Since free and honest election is the essence of democracy, relations between leaders and followers are based on a kind of contract. Leaders receive power in exchange of their perceived readiness and ability to provide goods and services which the followers consider important. By definition, free and competitive election is the one in which voters are divided in their political choices but they respect the result of the vote as biding on all citizens, regardless of their choice.

"Democracy in a complex society– writes the classic of political sociology Seymour Martin Lipset – may be defined as a political system which supplies regular constitutional opportunities for changing the governing officials, and a social mechanism which permits the largest possible part of the population to influence major decisions by choosing among contenders for political office. This definition…implies a number of specific conditions: (1) a 'political formula' or body of beliefs specifying which institutions – political parties, a free press, and so forth – are legitimate (accepted as proper by all); (2) one set of political leaders in office; and (3) one or more sets of recognized leaders attempting to gain office." (Lipset 1981: 27).

For leaders in democratic systems the most important condition of political success is the ability to build and preserve support of their followers. No democratic leader can count on support of all voters and, while trying to expand his or her support, they cultivate special relations with their followers. Satisfaction with the way leaders perform, faith in their abilities and expectations for future achievements are necessary for maintaining support without which leadership in democratic systems is not possible.

Winning and consolidating support of their followers is a necessary condition for democratic leadership. Historically, there have been three types of strategies employed by political leaders to win and consolidate support of their followers.

At the beginning, when democratic institutions were in their nascent stage and when only a small minority of citizens enjoyed the right to vote, leaders were able to contact their actual or potential followers personally. Meeting them face to face in small groups made the interaction between a leader and his followers highly depended on his personal characteristics. Such direct interaction, combined with the elitist composition of the electorate, made rational discourse among politically interested individual a key to electoral success.

The gradual extension of voting rights to broader strata of the population changed the nature of interrelations between leaders and followers. In new conditions – particularly in the twentieth century – direct contact changed its character. From serious discussion it changed into routinized process of symbolic contacts in which leaders encounter their followers in mass meetings, which do not allow for more than a symbolic gesture of hand shaking. The essential part of the interaction is through political parties, which group more active followers and function as mechanism of political mobilization. Democratic leaders have to build their position within a party, most often by advancing step by step in the party hierarchy. Sometimes, a person is selected by party leadership as candidate for high office not because of his or her position in the party but because of other assets. One of the examples was the decision of the Republican Party to invite famous military commander general Dwight Eisenhower to become its candidate in the American presidential election of 1952 – the only time in the twentieth century when the nomination went to a famous military commander.

A new situation emerged as result of the growing role of mass media, particularly television and, more recently, internet. Mass media made it possible for a candidate to reach to potential followers directly and reduce the importance of political parties. In 1960, John Kennedy won in the selection of the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party running against Lyndon Johnson who had been supported by the party establishment. After having been nominated, Kennedy confronted his Republican rival Richard Nixon in the televised debate, which played crucial role in his eventual victory. In 2016, Donald Trump won the nomination of the Republican Party largely because of his successful campaign in mass media and in spite of his weak position in the Republican Party. And in 2017 Emmanuel Macron in France appealed directly to the voters and won their support. Only after having won the presidential election Macron started to build his party – from scratch and using his personal popularity.

 Leader-followers relations depend on changing political circumstances. The distinction between "transactional"and "transforming" leaders (Burns 1978) suggests that in democracies the first model dominates, at least in normal conditions, when politics is focused on ways to deals with routine problems of administering public affairs. Leaders in such situations translate the dominant wishes and expectations of their followers into public policies and their success depends on the extent to which they are able to do it in a satisfactory way. They cannot deviate from wishes and expectations of their leaders, at least not too much, since such deviation would deprive them of support necessary to win election, and – consequently – to preserve their positions. "For an approach based on the theory of democracy – writes Anton Pelinka – …we must differentiate between a broad, general concept of leadership, based on functions and offices, and a narrower concept that marks the decisive criterion of leadership, that is to say, the effects of political action that we can recognize, describe, measure, and analyze"(Pelinka 1999: 13). The Austrian political scientist comes to the conclusion, that authentic leadership, understood as "making history"is possible only in "predemocratic stage of development"(ibidem). I consider such restrictive use of the term "leadership" difficult to accept. While it is true that routine politics offer high office-holders little (if any) opportunity to become event-making leaders, the situation changes in time of crisis. Crises – both international and domestic – call for a strong leadership, capable of giving direction and of dealing with emerging challenges. It is in the time of crises that politicians get the chance of being true leaders. Contrasting "routine"and "crisis" leadership allows to understand the difference between situations in which leaders operate, as well as to evaluate their performance. Whether one operates in a routine situation or in a crisis, does not depend on his or her choice but on developments which in most cases are not of their choice. De Gaulle and Churchill would not have become great national leaders had it not been because of the critical situation created by the unexpected defeat of French forces in the campaign of 1940 and the decision of French government to withdraw from the war – a dramatic situation which called for courageous and strong British and French leadership. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's place in history is largely due to his innovative leadership in the time of Great Depression. His successor, Harry Truman, is highly regarded for his strong response to the international crises created in the first years after the second world wars by the aggressive Soviet policy (supporting Communist side in the civil war in Greece, blocking access to West Berlin and encouraging North Korea to attack her southern neighbor).

Crises are tests of leaders' ability to lead. Not all of them pass such test well. George W. Bush's response to the September 11 terrorist attack on New York and Washington was so reckless and detrimental to the long-term American interests that the former national security advisor (in President Carter's administration) Zbigniew Brzezinski described his leadership as "catastrophic" (Brzezinski 2007: 135-147). David Cameron's career as British Prime Minister was destroyed by his unwise decision to organize a referendum on the continuation of the United Kingdom's membership in the European Union (2016). Cameron personally was in favor of continuing membership but he grossly miscalculated the dominant mood of his compatriots. The victory of the "Brexit" vote ended his political career and destroyed his image as effective political leader. In 2020, the COVID-19 epidemics became a severe test of leaders' ability to lead with disastrous consequences for some of them, including the American president Donald Trump and the Brazilian president Jair Bolsenaro – in both cases because their irresponsible reactions to the unexpected challenge contributed to the deepening of the health crisis and seriously damaged their political positions.

Fortunes of leaders depend not only on their personalities, which allow them to deal, better or worse, with problems of governance. They also depend on the type of institutional framework within which they operate. The most obvious difference in this respect is between democratic and nondemocratic systems, but such difference is not the only one.

In the study of democratic leadership one should distinguish between two main types of democracies: presidential and parliamentary. In the first, executive power is in the hands of the president and is separated from the legislative power. In most cases president in the presidential systems are elected directly by the voters, or – as in the United States – by electors who are bound in their vote by the commitment to specific candidates. The presidential system gives the incumbent great power and guaranteed term of office, without the possibility of removing him for political reasons, except when properly sentenced for violation of law.

In the parliamentary system, the head of the government (prime minister, chancellor) serves as long as he or she enjoys the confidence of the parliament. This makes such leaders more dependent on the support offered them by their parties. In this respect, the fundamental difference exists between parliamentary systems with strong one-party majority and systems in which the cabinets are based on coalitions. The type of electoral law (majoritarian versus proportional) is the most important factor determining the way, in which parliamentary majorities are formed. The majoritarian system, in which parliamentarians are elected by simple plurality (as in the United Kingdom) works in favor of stable one-party majorities, while the proportional systems in most cases lead to the necessity of forming coalitions. Consequently, the position of the head of government is stronger when parliaments are elected by the majoritarian system. It does not mean, however, that in such cases the position of the top leader is independent of party support. It only means that in such systems the only effective challenge to the prime minister can come from within the ruling party.

Britain and the United States are two oldest modern democracies. Their democratic systems have roots in the eighteenth century: in the evolution, which gradually transformed Great Britain in parliamentary democracy, and in the American war for independence, followed by the adoption of the Constitution which gave executive power to the president. Other nations in their process of building democratic systems of government followed either the British or the American model, some with important deviations.

#### **2. Presidential leadership**

During the more than two centuries of American history forty-five people served as presidents, twenty of them for two (or more) terms. Fourteen served for two full terms; one of them – Stephen Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) served two terms (1885-89 and 1893-97) interrupted by his defeat in the 1988 election and is listed as the 22nd and 24th president. Three were elected vicepresidents, became presidents after the death of their predecessors and successfully run in the next election.. Two have not completed their second terms: Abraham Lincoln because of his assassination and Richard Nixon because of forced resignation. One (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) was elected four times (and died at the beginning of his fourth term).

Of the forty-five men who were elected presidents (there was no woman president yet), eight had been military commanders before being elected presidents (only one of them, Dwight Eisenhower served as president in the twentieth century), eighteen were governors of the states and twelve were US senators. Seven became presidents following the death of their predecessors under whom they served as vice-presidents (including four whose predecessors were assassinated); in one case (Gerald Ford in 1974) the succession was due to the forced resignation of the president (Richard Nixon). The forty-fifth president, Donald Trump was the only person elected to the highest office without any prior political or military career.

In most cases the American presidents were born in wealthy or at least affluent upper or middle class families. There were only few who came from poorer strata (Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden). Until Barack Obama's election (2008), none of the presidents came from the Afro-American minority and no president belonged to such large ethnic minorities as Italian or Polish. Until 1960 (John Kennedy's election) no Roman Catholic was elected president of the United States. There was no woman president yet, and the only woman running as the candidate of one of the two main parties was Hillary Clinton, defeated in the 2016 election by Donald Trump. In 2020, Kamala Harris became the first woman elected to the post of vice-presidents well as the first person whose both parents were immigrants. In their social background the American presidents have not been representative for the American society.

Among those who served as presidents of the United States only few can be considered transformative leaders who not only administered public affairs but also changed the course of American history. These few became great leaders because of the combination of their individual qualities and the challenges of their times. Richard Neustadt saw their role as "the power to persuade", which may be understood as the ability to lead in the context of democratic government (Neustadt 1960).

The first of such great presidents was George Washington (1732-1799), successful commander-in-chief of the American forces in the war for independence and, along with his two successors – John Adams (1735-1826; president 1797-1801) and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826; president 1801-1809) – one of the "founding fathers"of the Republic and authors of the constitution. After Washington had been elected president in 1788, he established the precedent of serving only two terms (1789-97). This precedent was honored by all his successors except Franklin Delano Roosevelt (elected four times in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944), after whose death (in April 1945) the constitutional amendment made the two-terms limit obligatory.

When George Washington was taking over as America's first president, the presidential system of government was totally unknown. British monarchy, at that time already with substantial role of the Parliament, was then the only model of democratic rule available. American federalists, of whom George Washington was the most popular leader, opted for a system in which the head of state with full executive power was to be democratically elected. The very nature of such executive was not yet clearly defined. It was greatly due to George Washington that the American presidential system became the most successful model of government based on separation and cooperation of the legislative, executive and judiciary branches. As president, Washington showed his high qualities of moderate leadership, readiness to establish and honor limits to his power. In this, he became the true architect of the American presidential democracy.

The second great president was Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), elected in 1860, reelected in 1864 and assassinated in 1965, soon after his second inauguration. In all scientific ranking of American presidents – since the first such study conducted in 1948 by Arthur M. Schlesinger – Lincoln has been ranked as the best and most outstanding of all. Lincoln's presidency came at the time of the greatest crisis in American history: the secession of the Southern states and the civil war (1861-1865). Lincoln belonged to the moderate wing of the abolitionist movement which opposed the continuation of slavery and his election in 1860 was meat with open hostility in the Southern states, where slavery constituted the foundation of their economy. The decision of the Southern states to secede from the Union and to form the Confederacy was controversial from the perspective of the existing law. There was no provision in the Constitution permitting the secession, but there was also nothing in prohibiting the states from leaving the Union. Layers and politicians of the South claimed that since the states entered the Union voluntarily, they retained the right to withdraw from it – the line of reasoning questioned by the North. It was Lincoln's determination to preserve the unity of the federation, if necessary by military force, that save the United States from its dissolution. Lincoln's declaration on granting freedom to slaves in the rebellious states (1863) marked the beginning of the abolishment of slavery. In both cases the president, while supported by a majority of politicians and citizens in the Northern states had to stand up to a strong and determined minority. His death – the first assassination of an American president – contributed to his image as a courageous leader.

No American president of the nineteenth century encountered so monumental challenges as the ones which made Lincoln the greatest leader of his time. Some (particularly Polk and Theodore Roosevelt) are remembered for their role in building the power of the United States in wars fought against weaker neighbors, like the Mexican war of 1846-48 or the Spanish war of 1898. By the end of the century the United States was one of the most powerful nations, which made American presidents important actors in world politics.

 In the twentieth century, three American presidents faced great crises, the reaction to which determined their place in history: Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Each of them had to deal with great international or domestic challenges and each offered successful leadership.

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) was the only academic (professor of jurisprudence and politics and president of Princeton University) ever elected president of the United States. He was elected twice (1912 and 1916) and it was during his second term that the United States entered the first world war. In January 1918, Wilson formulated his famous fourteen-points program for postwar world, in which for the first time in diplomatic history mentioned was the right to national self-determination. Wilson's most important contribution was his proposal to establish the League of Nations, for which in 1919 he received Nobel Peace Prize – first such distinction won by an American president. Wilson's role in domestic politics was by far less successful. After the defeat of his party (Democratic) in the congressional election of 1918, the Senate refused to ratify the accession of the United States to the League of Nations. In spite of his failure to guarantee American support for the League no Nations, Wilson's role in the formation of this body made him one of the most innovative leaders of his time. (Merriam 1926).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1982-1945) was the only person four times elected president of the United States. Before him, all presidents refused to run for the third term, but the two-terms limits was not legally obligatory. In 1951, six years after Roosevelt's premature death (barely three months after his fourth inauguration), the 22nd amendment to the US Constitution made the twoterms limit mandatory. Roosevelt began his presidency during the Great Depression (1929-1933) and introduced the then innovative economic program of state intervention in the economy ("New Deal") which not only helped to end the economic crisis but also profoundly changed the social fabric of American society. The success of his New Deal is considered Roosevelt's main title to greatness. Roosevelt's role in the second world war remains controversial. Unlike Wilson, he did not make the decision to enter the war, largely because there was not sufficient support for such decision in the American society. Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (1941) and German declaration of war which followed it, made the United States one of the main powers of the ultimately victorious coalition. Roosevelt leadership during the war has been criticized for his naivety in dealings with Stalin's Soviet Union and for the approval of Teheran (1943) and Yalta (1945) decisions which divided Europe for almost half of century. It is, however, doubtful whether a harder position of the United States could have forced Stalin to abandon his plans to establish Soviet hegemony over East-Central Europe.

Roosevelt's death in April 1945 resulted in the accession of his vice-president Harry Truman (1884-1972 ). Before having been elected vice-president (in 1944) Truman was a rather little known senator from Missouri (in the period 1935-1945), with practically no experience in foreign affairs. He was chosen as Roosevelt running mate more because of Truman's conservative views, which helped to balance the Democratic ticket, than because of his political experience. His presidency became a big surprise. Confronted with the postwar international situation and the real danger of social upheaval in economically ruined Europe, Truman demonstrated effective leadership by promoting American policy of helping Western Europe ("the Marshall Plan", named after the then Secretary of State general George C. Marshall) and by formulating socalled containment strategy – a strong response to the Soviet Union's attempts to expand its sphere of influence. President Truman's response to the challenge created by the beginning of the cold war shaped history. The long-term consequence of his decisions (air-lift in West Berlin in 1948-49, formation of NATO in 1949, and military intervention in the Korean war in 1950) was the avoidance of another world war not by concessions but on the basis of strengthening the alliance of democratic states. Truman's foreign and military policies were continued by all American presidents during the cold war but it was his leadership that determined the way in which the West responded to the challenges of the cold war.

Truman's successor, general Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969), has been described as –apart from Franklin Delano Roosevelt – the most successful president of the twentieth century, because of his achievements in foreign policy (ending the war in Korea, stabilizing American-Soviet relations) and his role in terminating McCarthyism at home and facilitating the growth of the civil rights movement (Smith 2012). When he was in office – and for some time after his departure – Eisenhower's presidency was often seen as mediocre. With the passing of time – and because of comparisons with his successors – his image changed for better. "Not until Ronald Reagan – wrote the American historian John Lewis Gardis – would another president leave office with so strong as sense of having accomplished what he set out to do" (Gardis 2012).

American presidents of the cold war era were mostly preoccupied with foreign and defense policies. The assessment of their leadership depended more on results obtained in these fields than on their domestic policies. The most important exception is the process of gradual abolishment of race segregation, begun by President Truman's decision to desegregate the armed forces (1948), and continued by his three successors – Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. It was during Johnson's administration that the civil rights legislation of 1965 removed all legal grounds for race discrimination. The role played by President Johnson in this process is considered his greatest – or perhaps his only – political achievement (Wicker 1969).

Two wars fought by the United States during the cold war had the greatest impact on American presidency: the wars in Korea and in Vietnam. There is an almost universal belief that Harry Truman's decision saved South Korea and greatly contributed to the consolidation of the alliance of Western democracies. The war in Vietnam was different. The United States did not react to an act of naked aggression, like the attack of North Korea in June of 1950, but intervened in the final stage of the prolonged struggle for liberation of Vietnam first from French rule (1945-1954) and then from the American protectorate. The military involvement in Vietnam has been interpreted as one of the biggest errors of American leaders. "The U.S. commitment, which began as far back as 1950 with President Truman's decision to help French to retain their hold over Indochina -– writes an American author – was designed to prevent Chinese Communist expansion into Southeast Asia and it was founded on the notion than Ho Chi Minh was a pawn of the Chinese. But Vietnam and China have been enemies for two thousand years, and their traditional conflict could have been exploited. Instead, American intervention in Vietnam united them in a marriage of convenience that fell apart only after President Nixon and the Chinese engineered a reconciliation that left Vietnamese out in the cold" (Karnow 1983: 43). The American involvement in the war dates back to President Dwight Eisenhower's policy of preventing the enforcement of the 1954 Geneva accord which provided for unification of both parts of Vietnam on the base of free election, scheduled for 1956. With the steady growth of Communist guerilla in the South, President Eisenhower sent limited military assistance to the anti-communist government. This policy was continued by his successor John Kennedy and – after Kennedy's assassination (in November 1963)– by President Johnson. It was during Johnson's presidency (1963-1968) that the American forces in Vietnam grew to half-million and the American casualties to thousands of killed, wounded or taken prisoners of war. On top of this, it became evident that the president lied to the Congress and to the American people when (in 1964) he justified his military action in Vietnam by the claim that the North had attacked American military vessels on international waters. The lack of success in Vietnam, combined with news about American atrocities, turned the American people against the war and forced Johnson to abandon his campaign for reelection in 1968. His political support – only few years earlier very high – was then so weak that had he decided to run, he would have lost the election (Kearns 1976: 347). For the first (and only) time in American history, the unfortunate war destroyed the career of one president and contributed to the weakening of his successor.

Johnson's successor was Richard Nixon (1913- 1994), former vice-president (1953-1961) and defeated Republican candidate in the 1960 election. Nixon won the 1968 election, largely because the voters were frustrated with the conduct of the war in Vietnam. In foreign affairs his presidency was marked by important successes. He ended the American involvement in Vietnam, normalized relations with the Chinese People's Republic and established good relations with the Soviet Union. Henry Kissinger, his national security advisor and secretary of state, considers him one of the greatest architects of American foreign policy after the second world war (Kissinger 1979: 1473-1476; Kissinger 1982: 308-309). His first term was such a success that in 1972 Nixon won the reelection with overwhelming majority. The tragedy of Nixon's presidency was his handling of the Watergate affair (White 1975). The affair was caused by the burglary of a group of former CIA agents to the headquarters of the Democratic Party in the Watergate hotel in Washington, where the burglars intended to install telephone tapping. Discovered by a night guardian and arrested, they constituted a danger for the president, even if he had no prior knowledge of the break-in. It was at this point that Richard Nixon committed the crucial mistake which eventually cost him presidency. In conversation of June 23, 1972, with his head of cabinet Harry Haldeman, the president instructed him to order the Central Intelligence Agency to sabotage the investigation (carried by the Federal Bureau of Investigation). When in the process of hearings at the special committee this information surfaced, Nixon lost almost all supporters in the Senate and, confronted with the inevitable impeachment decided to resign (on August 9, 1974) – the only such event in American history. The catastrophic end of his presidency resulted from the autocratic way in which he behaved as president. Very ambitious but also shy and insecure, Nixon surrounded himself by a group of individuals whose main characteristic was their blind loyalty to the president (Safire 1975). Instead of trying to stop him from violating the law, they followed his orders and tried to coverup for him, even when facing jail sentences themselves (Haldeman 1978). Nixon himself, even after his fall, failed to understand the gravity of his offense and made attempt to present the Watergate affair as "a second class burglary" (Nixon 1978). His fall showed the strength of American constitutional guarantees thanks to which even a very popular and otherwise successful president could not avoid consequences of his illegal action.

After Watergate American presidency never encountered similar crises and the two instances in which presidents were impeached by the House of Representatives (Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump in 2020) ended in Senate's rulings to acquit them. Neither of these cases was as serious as the Watergate affair and neither destroyed the sitting president. The accusations raised against Bill Clinton by the special prosecutor Kenneth Starr and supported by the Republicans were based on his questionable behavior in a "sex scandal"– the facts which he himself admitted in his autobiography (Clinton 2004). The accusation, however, could not prove that Clinton's behavior constituted acts of treason or high crimes, which constitute the only reasons for which a president can be removed from office. The whole campaign was marked by political and personal hostility toward the president and has been criticized as a politically motivated "conspiracy" (Toobin 2000).

The case of Donald Trump was different. His attempt to use the Ukrainian authorities against Hunter Biden – son of his main rival former vice-president Joe Biden – constituted an obvious and very serious violation of law; only partisan loyalty of the Republican majority in the Senate saved the president from impeachment. The case left, however, a scar on Trump's reputation and to some degree contributed to his defeat in the November election of the same year.

The quality of American presidency in late twentieth century is frequently lamented as inadequate. Three presidents of this period were defeated in their reelection campaigns (Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George Herbert Bush in 1992). Of the post-Watergate presidents, only Ronald Reagan is often listed among great presidents, but it was rather his good luck than the quality of his leadership that it was during his term (1981-1989) that the cold war came to its end – more as result of changes in Moscow than of Reagan's strong stand against the Soviet Union. His successor, George Herbert Walker Bush (1924-2018), served during the final years of the Soviet empire. During his term (1989-1993) the United States became the only superpower whose world hegemony was perceived as very lasting. Such turn of events was not caused by any specific action of the American president. He, however, used the opportunities created by the changes which took place in the USSR to promote the formation of a new international order, based on cooperation with the former adversary. Confronted with new developments of great historical importance, President Bush tried to play the role of a moderator. Some of his initiatives were doomed to fail, particularly his efforts to save the USSR from dissolution. By his moderation, however, George H.W. Bush contributed to the peaceful way in which the Soviet empire ceased to exists. I had an opportunity to observe one of his important initiatives which took place during the President's visit in Warsaw in July 1989, when he used the prestige of his country and his personal position to help both sides of Poland's politics to choose the way of compromise and co-operation on the basis of temporary power sharing. The compromise involved the election of the former leader of the socialist regime General Wojciech Jaruzelski as President of Poland, and the appointment of one of the leaders of democratic opposition, Tadeusz Mazowiecki to the post of the Prime Minister. In this difficult process – the formation of the first noncommunist government in a country of the then Soviet bloc – the American leader has contributed to the solution which ultimately had its impact on the whole region.

The quality of American presidents who came to power after the end of the cold war has been sharply criticized by Zbigniew Brzezinski who blamed the failing American leadership for the gradual weakening of the global position of the United States (Brzezinski 2007). Of all presidents after the end of the cold war, the most disastrous was that of George Walker Bush, elected in 2000 and reelected in 2004. Unlike his father, he tried to impose the American hegemony all over the world – with disastrous consequences. His decision to invade Iraq (in March 2003) has been condemned by the majority of commentators, including some close to him politically (Herspring 2008). He has lied to the American people and to the foreign leaders accusing Iraq of accumulating weapons of mass destruction. His British partner in the Iraq war, former Prime Minister Tony Blair made an attempt to blame American and British intelligence for this untrue accusation (Blair 2010: 274), but there is sufficient evidence to reject such explanation Stephen Holmes claims that the aggression in Iraq was mostly motivated by George W. Bush's belief that it will please the American public (Holmes 2007). It is, however, more likely that the main motivation was Bush's intend to create a regime fully dependent on America's protection in the vitally important region of Middle East. "To stress the importance of that argument, – wrote the Polish sociologist and Poland's ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Andrzej Kapiszewski – the operation was termed Iraqi Freedom"and "the argument of the importance of democratizing Arab countries to win the war on terror has become an especially important one"(Kapiszewski 2004: 119). Whatever way we interpret president Bush's intent, the consequences of the Iraqi war for the world position of the United States were disastrous. The war seriously weakened America's position as the superpower and discredited Bush's presidency described as "reckless and arrogant" (Byrd 2005) as well as "catastrophic" because of his lack of knowledge of global complexities and a temperament prone to dogmatic formulation"(Brzezinski 2007: 11).

The 2008 election constituted an important turning point in American history. For the first time Americans elected as their president a person of (partly) African background. Moreover, Barack Obama run for the presidency as the candidate of progressive change. In his pre-election book, he sharply criticized the economic stagnation at home and the failure of American leadership abroad offering hope for a better national policy (Obama 2008). Twelve years later, in the first part of his autobiography he discussed the achievements – but also the limitations – of his administration (Obama 2020). In 2016, the pendulum switched to the extreme Right – partly as a reaction to the progressive policies of president Barack Obama.

The election of President Donald Trump in 2016 was unique in two respects. Never before the winner was someone who had no previous experience in politics or in the military and for whom presidency was the first public office ever held. It was also the first case that the winner received over three million votes less than the defeated candidate. Zygmunt Bauman, in an essays written in the aftermath of Trump's election, stressed the populist aspect of the event, the fact that "Trump vote was a massive, indeed popular protest against the political establishment and political elite of the country *as a whole,* with which a large and continually growing part of population grew in recent years frustrated for failing.. to deliver on its promises" (Bauman 2019: 37). The geography of the vote, particularly the fact that Trump won because of support given him by the less affluent and largely rural states of the center of the country, seems to confirm the interpretation of the election as an instance of advancing right-wing populism.

His lack of previous political experience was not the only factor making Trump's presidency a disaster. His niece and respected psychologist Mary L. Trump presented a unique study of the president's personality, based on the observation of his behavior and stressing the impact of pathological family relations on the formation of Donald Trump's character – particularly his pathological need of domination over and glorification by his subordinates (Trump 2020). In the literature on political leadership, Mary Trump's study occupies a special place. Never before had a leader been studied by someone who combined high academic credentials with such intimate knowledge of his family background.

Almost from the beginning, Trump's handling of the White House was criticized for chaotic organization and dictatorial manners of the new president (Wolff 2018). His foreign policy weakened America's position in the world because of loosening ties with the European Union and because of the worsening of relations with China – the policy considered detrimental to American interests and to the stability of international relations. Trump's handling of the epidemic crisis of 2020 has been criticized as doing too little, too late. Because of the controversial character of Trump's presidency, the election of November 3, 2020 has had a fundamental importance for the future of American democracy and – indirectly – for the perspectives of populist leadership worldwide. Trump's defeat in the closely contested election was not unprecedented. Of the forty four presidents, ten were defeated in the election in which they run when in office: John Adams (1800), John Quincy Adams (1828), Marin Van Buren (1840), Grower Cleveland (1888), Benjamin Harrison (1892), William Taft (1912), Herbert Hoover (1932), Gerald Ford (1976), Jimmy Carter (1980) and George H.W. Bush (1992). Donald Trump became the eleventh president to lose his bid for reelection, but the first in the present century.

The 2020 presidential election took place in the atmosphere of dramatic political polarization, caused by the intensification of race conflicts and the ideological campaign launched by the populist right-wingers against the liberal values and traditions of American democracy. The results of the election testified to the stability of the democratic system, which is not immune from populist and authoritarian challenges but has enough strength to effectively combat them by legal means. The election of the distinguished former senator and vicepresident (2009-2017) Joe Biden and his running mate senator Kamala Harris – the first woman elected to this office in the American history and the first person whose both parents were immigrants– signified the return to democratic tradition and put an end to the most unfortunate episode in American politics of the twenty first century. The margin of victory – over five million votes – showed that the American democracy proved sufficiently strong to be able to overcome the populist and authoritarian challenge. On the other hand, however, Donald Trump's presidency pointed to the main problem of the American model of democratic government: the great concentration of power in the hands of one person. His unprecedented refusal to accept his defeat and his appeal to followers (on January 6, 2021) to attack the Capitol Hill had no precedent in American political history and led to Trump's second impeachment. In the United States the strong liberal tradition, the deeply rooted respect for law and the dominance of democratic values make the system work, even if not without some disturbances. When such system has been imitated by countries with weaker democratic cultures, the results were detrimental to the maintenance of democracy.

The critical assessment of some American presidencies cannot, however, obscure the fact that the presidential system does work in accordance with the original intend of the founders of the United States. No American president attempted to do away with the democratic system of the separation and balance of legislative, executive and judiciary powers. Does this prove the superiority of presidential over the parliamentary system? The American political scientists Fred W. Riggs claimed that the success of American presidential system was due to the special ("paraconstitutional") practices which tend to stabilize the system, rather than to the system itself (Riggs 1988). Other scholars emphasize the weakness of the majority presidential systems. "Presidential systems – writes Juan Linz – can have string parties, but the parties are likely to be ideological rather than government oriented. More often than not presidentialism is associated with weak, fractioned, and clientelistic or personalistic parties. … Those who complain about the weakness of political parties and the poor quality of legislative leadership in some Latin American countries should perhaps look more seriously into the relationship between those conditions and the presidential system" (Linz and Valenzuela 1994:42). Giovanni Sartori, however suggests that "parliamentarism may fail us as much and as easily as presidentialism"and argues against both "pure presidentialism"and "pure parliamentarism"for a kind of mixed system (Sartori 1994: 108-110) He shares the view that the success of American presidential system has been due to the specific historical conditions of the United States rather than to constitutional norms. There is no way to confirm or to reject this opinion, but a comparative analysis of presidential systems in other parts of the world can put some light on this issue.

The Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1987), in his monumental study of American democracy and the race relations, explained the reason of democratic stability by referring to the combination of institutional arrangements and cultural characteristics of the American people. "The basic democracy, however,- Myrdal wrote – is maintained in spite of the extraordinary power awarded to the individual officeholders and the equally extraordinary lack of participation by the common citizens in the running of public affairs. While American democracy is weak from the aspect of citizens' sharing in political action and responsibility, it is strong in the ultimate electoral control. And there is logic in this. Several elements of what, from the other side of the Atlantic, looks like 'exaggerated democracy' in American measures of political control may be explained as having their 'function' in preserving for the common man the ultimate political power in the system of government where he participates so little in its daily duties. It is this trait which prevents the delegation of such tremendous power to leaders and the hero worship from degenerating into fascism"(Myrdal 1944: 717). Three-quarters of century later, Myrdal observation may still explain why in the United States even the election of an authoritarian populist cannot transform the presidential system into an authoritarian rule.

American model of presidential democracy was first imitated by the newly independent states in Latin America. The effects were disastrous. For almost two centuries Latin America remained the continent of highly unstable regimes, with brief periods of democratic rule were regularly interrupted by dictatorships, mostly military. The presidential system did not work in conditions different from those which existed in North America.

The prominent Spanish political scientist and conservative politician Miguel Fraga Iribarne explained the fiasco of presidential democracy in former Spanish colonies in terms of their social structure and political cultures (Fraga 1962). Latin American societies, unlike the North American, were based on big land property ("haciendas") owned by white colonists and on sharp class differentiation between the ruling white minority and the subordinated Indian population. Such social structure is not conducive to democratic rule, be it presidential or parliamentary. In addition, Latin America has had a strong tradition of "caudillos" – powerful local rulers, in most cases coming from the military. This combination of social and cultural factors explain the failure of democracy in Latin America. Logically, it is not the presidential system that explains the outcome, but in any case the Latin American example shows that the American model of presidential democracy does not work in dramatically different historical environment.

There were, however, interesting exceptions. Historically, the first and most important was Mexico, with two revolutions of 1861 and 1910. The first Mexican revolution was a national reaction to the French military intervention and the emperor Maximilian Hapsburg – a puppet of Napoleon III. Maximilian's power was mostly based on military assistance offered him by France and lacked social support in the country. The victory of the national revolution restored the republican system with Benito Juarez (1806-1872) as its president. Juarez served as president until his death and was the first Latin American leader who tried to introduce radical social reforms and whose presidency became a symbolic turning point in the process of Mexican modernization. Four years after his passing away the Mexican military under Porfirio Diaz overthrew the republic and established an authoritarian and socially conservative regime (1876-1910). The second revolution (1910) was as much a social revolt directed against the ruling class of bid land owners as a political act which has as its lasting effect the relatively well functioning presidential system. In the Mexican presidential system the position of presidents, elected for only one six-years term, is stronger than in the United States. They have an informal right to nominate successors and for several decades had a solid political support in the dominant political party – *Partido Revolutionario Institutional* (PRI) established in 1929. The most innovative president of Mexico was Lazaro Cardenas (1895-1978) whose presidency (1934-1940) is considered a turning point in the process of modernization. The most important achievement of his presidency was the land reform with its two most important results: the formation of a new social and economic structure based on family farms supported by a system of rural cooperatives and breaking the economic as well as political power of the *haciendas* owners, whose private armies controlled the countryside. The American political scientist Joel Migdal believes, that "in sum, the Cardenas regime, despite the many changes it instituted and despite the radical character of its vision, laid the basis in Mexico for the limitation of state predominance by private capital in the years after 1940. The Cardinas vision was fulfilled only partially. World historical forces played contradictory roles. Working on Cardinas's favor was the dislocation that preceded his years in office. Limiting his ability to see his vision through, however, were the absence of inducements to mobilize more fully, due to the lack of credible war threat, and the misfortune of ruling when international forces acted emphatically against the radical restructuring of society and consolidation of power in Mexico" (Migdal 1988: 33). Politically, however, the Cardinas presidency helped to consolidate the presidential system and the civilian control over the military – the two institutions making Mexico different from the rest of Latin America.

The second exception was Chile, where the civilian, democratically elected presidents ruled the country for forty-eight years, until the military coup of September 11, 1973. The Chilean coup terminated the record-long history of democracy, which included two periods of uninterrupted civilian rule: the Parliamentary Republic of 1891-1925 and the Presidential Republic of 1925-1973. In 1970, the presidential election was won by the candidate of the Left Salvadore Allende, whose position as president was considerably weakened by the fact that the Left did not control the Congress. The political polarization of the Chilean society, caused by radical social and economic reforms and by the strong conservative opposition to the Allende government created conditions conducive to a military coup, which eventually took place on September 11, 1973. The Chilean military coup, supported by the United States, showed that during the cold war it was extremely difficult if not impossible to maintain a democratic system of government if the leaders tried to pursue an independent policy vis-à-vis the regional hegemonic power. Henry Kissinger, who in 1973 served as the Secretary of State, in his memoires took a very sharp position against the fallen democratic government and tried to defend the brutal repressions which followed the coup (Kissinger 1982:403-413). Even he, however, could not deny that the coup and its aftermath cost thousands of lives and for a long time made Chile one of the most cruel military dictatorships, which nonetheless enjoyed the support of the United States. Only after 1977, when President Carter began his policy of promoting human rights in international politics, has this support weakened. Even then, however, the logic of the cold war made some of Carter's advisors – particularly Zbigniew Brzezinski – skeptical about the wisdom of elevating human rights issue as the key to future relations with Pinochet's Chile (Brzezinski 193: 128-129).

Parliamentary model of democracy, as the alternative to the presidential model, prevailed in Europe and had its roots in the British political evolution, marked by the gradual transfer of power from the monarch to the Parliament. When democratic governments emerged in Europe, the British model of parliamentary democracy – rather than the American model of presidential democracy – inspired the architects of the great majority of European democratic systems. The most interesting exception is France after the political crisis of 1958.

The French version of political system based on strong position of the president was invented by Charles de Gaulle after challenge presented by the military coup of May 1958. The Constitution of the Fifth Republic established a mixed system of government In which the president, elected by universal ballot, shares control over the government with the National Assembly. "Unlike the President of the United States – writes the American political scientist Ezra Suleiman – the President of France must have a majority in the National Assembly and therefore needs the support of a political party or of a majority coalition"(Suleiman 1980:102) Consequently, the effectiveness of presidential leadership in such system depends mostly on two factors: his personality and his control of the party (or coalition) which wins the parliamentary election. De Gaulle as prime minister and president (1958-1969) combined his enormous personal charisma with full control over the Gaullist movement which came to power largely because of his charismatic popularity (Cerny 1988). His successors were less fortunate. After de Gaulle's departure, the Gaullist movement gradually lost its original strength and its weakening, combined with increase strength of the socialist party resulted in several cases of "co-habitation"– situation in which the president and the prime minister come from two opposed political camps.

The mixed system of the Fifth Republic was best suited to the strong personality of its founder. Among his successors were gifted party leaders, like Francois Mitterand or Jacques Chirac, and good administrators, like Georges Pompidou, but none of them had the personal stature equal to that of de Gaulle. In the twenty-first century, the system showed symptoms of gradual erosion, one of its elements being the declining position of presidents, particularly Nicolaus Sarkozy and Francois Hollende, both losing their bits for reelection (respectively in 2012 and 2017) . Weakened position of presidents was accompanied by the erosion of French party system. In 2017, Emmanuel Macron was president of France without any party support and soon later his newly born presidential party LREM (*La Republique En Marche)* won a comfortable majority in the parliamentary elections. Whether these events mean a lasting restructuring of the French semi-presidential system, or are a passing phenomenon, is too early to judge.

The French semi-presidential model inspired some constitutionalists in other countries which departing from an authoritarian regime looked for a compromise between pure presidential and pure parliamentary systems. In his comparative analysis of the semi-presidential systems of government, Martin Carrier concluded, that "the French semi-presidential regime, an institutional model for numerous Eastern European countries, has shown that variation in the power relationship between political executives has occurred in large part because of the impact of majority changes in the National Assembly, even though some variation has also occurred between periods of partisan continuity. Much of the cause of these occurrences stems however from individual interpretations of the constitution abd of its spirit, and from the partisan resources of a given executive in an institutional setting that frames the power conflicts between political executives" (Carrier 2016:61)

One of the countries which in writing their constitutions used an adapted French model, was Poland, where the strong presidency was introduced in 1989, as part of constitutional changes introduced in the early stage of democratic transformation. In 1990, Lech Walesa, the historical leader of the "Solidarity" movement and the Nobel Peace Prize winner, was elected to the presidency with overwhelming majority. His term (1990-1995) was marked by a series of conflicts with the parliament, due mostly to the fact that there was no presidential party sufficiently strong to give Walesa effective political backing. The result was Walesa's weak and inconsequential leadership and his defeat in the presidential election of 1995, won by the young leader of post-communist Left, Aleksander Kwasniewski. The story of Walesa's presidency shows that even great personal popularity of the incumbent is not enough to make the semi-presidential system work. It calls for a solid political base, probably more than in the American presidential system, where the executive power of the president does not depend on parliamentary support.

Presidential and semi-presidential systems give presidents more power and make them less dependent on the balance of political forces than it is the case in parliamentary systems. It is because of this that they are considered more effective, particularly in difficult situations. The strong position of the president has, however, both positive and negative consequences. It allows the president to deal effectively with a crisis (like in France in 1968, when strong position of president de Gaulle and his effective action prevented the political explosion on massive scale), but it also can lead to the political crisis (like the Watergate affair in the United States).

The personality factor plays a particularly great role in the functioning of presidential and semi-presidential systems. Since the incumbent cannot be removed from office before the end of his term (except through a highly complicated legal process), the system allows for an incompetent or dishonest person to remain the head of state even for years. The election of presidents by universal ballot gives an advantage to those who are effective vote-getters (for instance excellent speakers), even if their competences in governing are untested. Such weaknesses of the presidential model motivates the majority of democratic countries to look for an alternative – the parliamentary government.

#### **3. Leadership in parliamentary systems**

The parliamentary system of government, unlike the American presidential system, emerged as the consequence of long evolution, in which the power of monarchs to rule was gradually limited by the growing prerogatives of representative bodies. There were two main aspects of this process. The first was a gradual erosion of the power of the monarch and the strengthening of the position of parliaments. The final point of this process was the establishment of the full parliamentary control over the cabinet and leaving to the monarch only symbolic role. The second process was the gradual extension of voting rights up to the point where all adult citizens (except those who lost the political rights in due process of law or who have been declared mentally ill) became potential voters. In several of countries the process of extending the voting rights took as long as to mid-twentieth century. In France, women received the right to vote only after the second world war. In the United States it was as late as in 1965 that the Afro-Americans won the right to vote in the Southern states were they had been prevented from voting since the end of Reconstruction (1865- 1875).

The process of gradual extension of the parliamentary control of government resulted in the existence of several mixed regimes, such as the German or the Austro-Hungarian ones at the eve of the first world war, where democratically elected parliaments have substantial legislative power but the executive was firmly controlled by the emperor. Only Great Britain, France and a handful of West European smaller states had fully parliamentary systems in early twentieth century. After the first world war several states, particularly the newly independent ones in Central Europe, established the parliamentary systems, most of them for only a short period of time. Parliamentary regimes became victims of the wave of authoritarianism beginning with the fascist coup in Italy in 1922. In late nineteen-thirties parliamentary democracies existed only in a handful of West European states. Democratization of Germany, Italy and Japan – defeated in the second world war – made them parliamentary democracies and the same was true in case of three formerly authoritarian states in Europe which became democracies in 1974 and 1975 (Portugal, Greece and Spain) It was after the end of the cold war that this model of democracy was adopted by almost all democratic states in East and Central Europe.

The parliamentary model of democracy was introduced in the majority of post-colonial new states, modelled mostly after the British or French examples. History of these states is full of disappointment. Most of these new democracies did not survive for more than a few years, showing that the very survival of democratic government depends on more than good constitutional arrangements. There have been, however, interesting exceptions. Parliamentary democracy functions well in India and in Israel in spite of adverse conditions: poverty and ethnic/religious heterogeneity in India, hostile Arab environment in Israel. Success of these to post-colonial democracies has been due to the fortunate combination of democratic political cultures and strong leadership, offered by the founders of these two states – Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964; prime minister 1947-1964) and David Ben Gurion (1886-1993; prime minister 1948-1963). Both had been active for years in the political movements which inspired by democratic values – the Indian National Congress and the socialist wing of the Zionist movement – and both were surrounded by the experienced activists who shared their democratic ideas. The majority of new nations was not so lucky.

In terms of their electoral systems parliamentary democracies can be divided in two broad category: the majoritarian and the proportional. In the majoritarian system, the model like the British one, elected is the candidate who received the plurality of votes. Quite frequently, such system allows the party which received less than half of votes to obtain the absolute majority of seats. The British system is credited for its ability to crate solid parliamentary base for the cabinet, but criticized for the distortion of representativeness. The most common alternative is the proportional system, frequently combine with a variety of arrangements which reduce the proportionality but help to create stronger majorities; the most often employed such measures are the d'Hondt method of seat allocation and a minimal threshold of the percentage of votes required to qualify for seat allocation.

The position of political leaders in parliamentary systems always depends on their ability to build and to maintain a stable coalition. This is true also in the majoritarian versions of parliamentary government, since the position of the prime minister depends on support given him or her by the majority of parliamentarians who belong to the governing party. In Great Britain, several prime ministers lost their position not because their party was defeated in election but because they had lost support of fellow parliamentarians from their own party (Anthony Eden in 1957, Margaret Thatcher in 1990, Tony Blair in 2007 and Dorothy May in 2019).

In terms of political leadership interesting is the difference between the British and the French models of parliamentary governments. In Great Britain, the majoritarian electoral system favors the creation of cabinets based on stable parliamentary majority. In the early stage of its history, the system produced such great prime ministers as Robert Walpole (1676-1745, prime minister 1721-1742) and Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, prime minister 1868 and 1874- 1880). Their role as the architect of the parliamentary system of government (Walpole) or as one of the founders of the empire (Disraeli) is unquestionable. So is the role of Winston Churchill, particularly as the war-time Prime Minister (1940-1945). His strong stand against Germany – particularly before and during the second world war – was blamed for losing the British empire, for the post-war division of Europe and for the cold war (Buchanan 2008), but such critique cannot change the dominant perception of Churchill as one of the greatest political leaders of the twentieth century. Margaret Thatcher (1925- 2013) because of her role as strong prime minister in the last stages of the cold war (1979-1990) is generally credited for her important contribution to strengthening the position of the United Kingdom internationally and for overcoming the economic and social crisis.

In terms of the strength of parliamentary leadership there has been an interesting difference between the British and the French cases. In the French Third and Fourth Republics, the instability of governing coalitions made the emergence of strong leaders difficult. In the Third Republic (1871-1940) there were 110 cabinets. With the average duration of a cabinet being a little more than seven months. In the IV Republic (1947-1959) there were 21 cabinets and the average length of their service dropped to a little more than six months. Two cabinets of the Fourth Republic served for three days only (Robert Schuman's 5-7 September 1948 and Henri Queille's 2-4 July 1950). Three other cabinets served for no more than one month (Paul Ramadier 22 October – 19 November 1947; Edgar Faure's 29 January-28 February 1952;Pierre Pflimlin's 13-28 May 1958). Such great instability of the parliamentary governments in the Third and Fourth Republics made it extremely difficult for the prime ministers to become effective political leaders. With the exception of Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), one of the most important leaders of the democratic and secular camp during the Dreyfus Affair and twice prime minister (1906-1909 and 1917-1920) and Charles de Gaulle, the last prime minister of the Fourth Republic and the founder of the Fifth Republic, none of the French prime ministers of that period deserved the name of a true leader. Particularly disastrous in this respect was the twelve years period of the Fourth Republic (1946-1958), when unstable and weak parliamentary majorities made it impossible, even for gifted politicians, to offer strong leadership. The consequence was the disastrous war in Indochina, lost by France in 1954 and the prolonged armed conflict in Algeria, which the weak governments could not end. It was the military coup of May 1958 in Algeria that forced the National Assembly to turn to general De Gaulle as the savior of French democracy, but also the initiator of the constitutional reform which put an end to the French parliamentary government.

The history of rebuilding democracy in Germany and Italy after the second world war shows that strong political leadership requires not only talented persons but also solid party base for their cabinets. Alcide De Gasperi (1881-1954) in Italy and Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967) in Germany headed the first parliamentary governments after the second world war – De Gasperi from 1945 to 1953 and Adenauer from 1949 to 1963. Both provided strong leadership in democratizing their countries and in making them important partners in the emerging European integration. In both cases the successful heads of government were also leaders of the Christian Democratic parties, which kept winning several post-war elections with strong majorities. The German and Italian political development after the second world war contrasted with the chaotic state of French parliamentary governments of the Fourth Republic. The success of democracy in these two countries was largely due not only to the institutional framework, which favored the emergence of a strong governing party, but also to the personality of their leaders.

In Germany, the strongest and event-making chancellor after the departure of Konrad Adenauer was the socialist leader Willy Brandt (1913- 1992), whose great contribution to building new Europe was the beginning of reconciliation with Poland based on the decision to recognize the post-war Oder-Neisse frontier – something that only a strong and future-oriented leader could have done. Brandt, after having become the chancellor in 1969, took a highly controversial decision to abandon the policy of previous chancellors who refused to recognize the post-war German-Polish border, largely because they were afraid of the negative impact of such decision on the German electorate. Brandt's political memoirs remind us of tremendous difficulties he had to overcome on this highly controversial issue (Brandt 1978). The decision to recognize the postwar German-Polish border was opposed not only by the Christian-democratic opposition, but also by the majority of citizens, among whom a substantial part were people who after the war had been forced to abandon their homeland in what used to be Eastern part of Germany. Accepting the results of German responsibility for the war and for its consequences did not come easily. It took strong and future-oriented leadership without which such an important change would not have been possible.

In his speech at the SPD conference in Nuremberg (March 18, 1968) Brandt made the following statement:

"The German nation needs reconciliation with Poland even without knowing when it will derive national unity from a peace treaty, What follows from this? What follows is the recognition or observance of the Oder-Neisse line pending a settlement by peace treaty" (Brandt 1978: 183)

Even before this conference , Brandt initiated secret contacts with Poland carried by his collaborator Egon Bahr. These moves were met with reservation by the chancellor of the coalition government , the CDU politician Georg Kiesinger, and it took another year (as well as the Bundestag election won by the SPD) to make Brandt's initiative work. The result was chancellor Brandt's visit to Warsaw and signing the Warsaw Agreement, which fundamentally changed relations between Poland and the Federal republic of Germany. Elsewhere, I wrote in this context, that "to my way of thinking Willy Brandt was the greatest of the German leaders after the Second World War precisely because he had the wisdom and the moral courage to do what his predecessors were unwilling to do" (Wiatr 2014: 43). Once more it was demonstrated that true leadership demands courage to swim against the current of prevailing public opinion.

In the parliamentary system, more than in the presidential one, there is room for strong leadership practiced by politicians who are not heads of government. In the history of the European integration such was the role of Robert Schuman (1886-1963) French minister of foreign affairs and one of the main architects of the European Community. His leadership in the process of European integration is by far more important than two short periods, when he was France's prime minister (1947-*1948*).

#### **4. Democratic leadership and party systems**

In modern democracies political parties are essential. They function as pools of potential leaders and as channels of their advancement. They also provide leaders with cohorts of party workers, both professionals and voluntary activists. In most cases they formulate political programs and organize political campaigns.

Populist critics of political parties advocate a kind of democracy, in which leaders would communicate directly with their followers, without the mediating role of parties. There is, however, not a single example of the modern democracy functioning without political parties. If the populist win election, they organize themselves as a political party, like the followers of Emmanuel Macron after his election as French president in 2017.

There is a great variety of political parties and a number of party systems. In terms of their ideological outlook, political parties can be divided into two broad categories: ideological and catch-all parties. Among the ideological parties differences concern not only the type of ideology, but also the intensity of the ideological commitment. It has been argued, for instance, that in this century the ideological distance between two main American parties became more pronounced than it was the case in the twentieth century. Such trend is not universal. In several European democracies, for instance in the Federal Republic of Germany, the last decades produced the weakening of ideological distances between two main parties (CDU and SPD) but also the emergence of strongly ideological parties on the Left (*Die Linke*) and on the Right (*Alternative für Deutschland* ). In Britain, the ideological differences between two main parties (Conservative and Labor), markedly strong in the first half of the twentieth century, weakened after the second world war (Finer 1980).

There are also important differences in the number of politically relevant parties – the ones which are necessary to form a cabinet. The French political sociologist Maurice Duverger in his classic study of political parties distinguished three types of party systems in the democratic states: two party systems, multi-party systems and dominant party systems (Duverger 1951). These three types of democratic party systems are distinguished by the number of parties effectively competing for power. In two party systems (like the British or the American) only two parties have sufficient potential to effectively compete for the formation of cabinets. In multi-party systems there are several (or at least three) parties with such potential. In the dominant party systems one party has so great potential that it is able to govern for several decades (like in Sweden and in Israel in the first decades after the second world war).

The role of individual leaders vis-à-vis political parties varies depending on the type of electoral system and on the personality of a leader. The German sociologist Max Kaase observed that in his country the system of election, which combines proportional distribution of seats with the direct election of approximately half of the deputies, favors personalization of politics (Kaase 1995). In the British two-party system based on one-seat constituencies where to win a seat it is sufficient to obtain a plurality of votes, party politics is highly personalized and the ability to attract votes is the necessary condition of effective leadership.

Multi-party systems, where coalition building is necessary in majority of cases, effective leadership requires the ability to compromise and to form alliances. Leaders in such situation are less likely to be strong personalities and in most cases their role is severely limited by the inevitable compromises with their coalition partners. By contrast, two-party or dominant party systems offer greater possibilities of effective leadership.

In the majority of democratic systems, top party leaders take personal responsibility for governing if their party wins election. They become presidents or prime ministers. The situation in which the top party leader exercise his or her leadership from the "back seat", without official positon in the government, is very rare, usually due to some extraordinary circumstances. An example of such situation was Willy Brandt's resignation from chancellorship, but not from the leadership of his party, after an East German spy had been unmasked in his office. In the American presidential system the winning candidate for the highest office automatically becomes the leader of his party. In some cases such system allows for a politically successful outsider to capture the leadership of a party, as it was the case of Donald Trump and the Republican Party in 2016.

Recent debates on the state of democracy suggest that the role played by political parties tends to diminish under the pressure of the populist movements and the growing frustration with the way in which traditional parties function (Von Beyme 2018, Przeworski 2019). There are several negative consequences of the decline of political parties, including its impact on the quality of political leadership. In the past, leaders built their carriers through a long process of advancement within a political party, gaining experience and being judged by their peers. While no institutional arrangement is absolutely safe, the traditional pattern of political carrier tended to reduce the frequency of accidental successes of unprepared individuals. In the second half of the twentieth century, the growing role of mass media made the traditional pattern obsolete. In 1960, for the first time in American presidential elections, nomination of one of two main parties went not to a politician favored by the party elite but to a relative outsider – John F. Kennedy – who owed his success to his skillful use of a new medium – television. In the present century, mass media and internet have even greater impact on the advancement of political leaders reducing the importance of party machines in their selection and in their electoral victories. The Polish and Australian political sociologist Jan Pakulski used the term "leader democracy"to describe the process in which political parties lose their role as cradles of leadership and become instruments of populist leaders whose road to power no longer requires a long and faithful partisan activity and who often are ill-prepared for the high office (Pakulski 2012) If such processes continue, a change in the traditional model of relations between leaders and their parties becomes very likely with negative consequences for the quality of political leadership and for the functioning of democratic institutions.

#### **5. Conservatives, reformers, and nation-builders**

Leaders' place in history depends on the character of their mission. Although in politics winning and maintaining power is a necessary condition for successful leadership, it is not and cannot be the sole end of politics. True leadership demands the existence of a mission the realization of which constitutes the aim of leader's actions.

From this perspective, democratic leaders can be divided in three broad categories: conservatives, reformers and nation-builders.

The conservative leaders are those whose main role in politics is to maintain the existing political order, with only such changes which became necessary due to the changing conditions. In the great majority of cases, leadership in democracies is conservative in this meaning of the term, regardless of whether politicians declare themselves as conservatives, liberals, or even socialists. Conservative leadership does not exclude some reforms, both socioeconomic and political, but puts main emphasis on the continuity of the established political modes. Great conservative leaders, if conditions permit, may be able to bring important changes if such changes are consistent with the logic of the system in which they reached the leadership position. Benjamin Disraeli was one of the greatest conservative leaders and it was under his leadership that Great Britain expanded her colonial empire. In this sense, he has changed the political landscape of his country, but not the way in which British politics functioned. There have been numerous examples of successful conservative leaders whose place in history has been based not on what they had changed but on their ability to guarantee continuity of social and political relations. Zygmunt Bauman in his study of the British labor movement (Bauman 1972) provided an interesting analysis of the process in which the elite of this movement became conservative in this sense. It has abandoned the ambition to fundamentally change the British society and concentrated on effective ruling.

Conservative leaders chose such option either because of their values or because of the pressure of the prevailing conditions. Ideological conservatives value continuity and are skeptical about the potential effects of deeper change. It they initiate some innovations, it is with great care and only to the degree that such changes have become inevitable due to the evolution of public mind or because of other conditions. Some of the conservative leaders believe in the natural superiority of the existing arrangements and reject any possibility of changing them. Such was for instance the position taken by two great conservative leaders of late twentieth century – Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom – on the preservation of neo-liberal economic order, which both of them consider natural and indispensable.

Conservative leaders favor so-called traditional values, the roots of which are mostly religious. This does not mean that they would not adjust their policies to the changing mood of their societies. In Europe and in the United States conservative Christian values dictated the preservation of the traditional family model based on the marriage of individuals of different genders. In recent decades however the majority of democratic states in Europe as well as many states in the USA adopted legislations which allow same-sex marriages and, in many cases, even giving them the right to adopt children. Such legal reforms took place because of the fast changes in the value systems to which politicians adjusted their policies.

Reformist leadership is different. Its essence is the commitment to change which has not yet become universally applauded. Reformist leader has a vision of a future different from the existing situation and undertakes political action to produce change consistent with such vision. To be a successful leader, the reformist must take into consideration existing conditions but he or she does not bow to them. "The visionary realist – according to Michael Keren – is neither a dreamer who ignores constrains posed by reality on the accomplishment of one's vision, nor a pragmatist overwhelmed by those constrains. He or she defines transformational goals, possibly excessing those deemed feasible by others, and applies them to the complexities of the real world through the careful but straightforward use of power, knowledge and human decency. Ina word, visionary realism is the creative pursuit of daring goals"(Keren 1988: 5).

One of the most fascinating stories of reformist leadership concerns the process of European integration after the second world war (Deutsch 1967). It took great vision and enormous courage to promote not only reconciliation between former enemies but also integration within a broader European community composed of nations very recently engaged in the war which more than any other conflict in recent history left deep scares and bitter memories. Reformist leaders – such as Jean Monet and Robert Schuman in France, Konrad Adenauer in Germany, Alcide De Gasperi in Italy – had a vision of Europe different from the past and a courage to promote such vision when it was not yet universally popular among their citizens. After 1958, they were joined by Charles De Gaulle who as prime minister and president of France used his enormous prestige to overcome the reservations of his followers toward the European integration and made a particularly great contribution to the French-German reconciliation.

In the United States of the twentieth century there were two main periods of reformist leadership: Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal in nineteenthirties and the civil rights legislative reform in the nineteen-sixties , in which the crucial role belonged to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. There were other presidents in recent history who tried to reform American institutions (like reforms of medical services undertaken by presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) but the results were mediocre, largely due to the strength of vested interests, but also to the weakness of presidential leadership.

A special type of reformist leadership is the one exercised by nation-builders. The concept of nation building has been used in political science to denote the transition from the states identified with the patrimonial rule of a dynasty to the modern state, in which sovereignty belongs to the people. Such people – citizens of a nation-state – becomes a nation in the way in which this concept has been used in the political language of Western democracies (Rokkan 1966, Shils 1966, Tilly 1978).

Nation-building in Europe predated the establishment of democratic institutions. In fact, it was the earlier transition to nation-state that make democratic development possible. The emergence of the American nation-state was unique, because of the impact of the British model of local self-government on the formation of the American democratic institutions.

The history of nation-building in Europe of the nineteen century included unification of Italy and Germany, two political processes in which the quality of political leadership played crucial role. Camillo Benso di Cavour (1810- 1861), as prime minister of the kingdom of Sardinia showed great diplomatic talent and political determination when he exploited the French-Austrian conflict of 1859 to unite Italy. Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), as Prussian prime minister played a similar role in the process of German unification and served as first chancellor of united Germany greatly contributing to her emergence as one of the strongest European powers.

In the early twentieth century, the most remarkable effort to build a new nation was Thomas Garrigue Masaryk's (1850-1937) program designed to unite Czechs and Slovaks in one Czechoslovak nation. The creation of Czechoslovakia, in which he served as her first president, was to a very great extent his success, but a short-lived one. The ethnic structure of population, with Czechs numbering only 47 percent and with large German minority (24 percent), made the survival of Czechoslovakia as a nation-state difficult if not impossible. Economic and cultural differences between two parts of the republic, intensified during the second world war and exploited by Nazi Germany, and the tensions generated by the collapse of the communist system resulted in the division of Czechoslovakia into two states: Czech and Slovak republics. Masaryk is, however, still remembered for his visionary leadership and for his role of establishing the only durable democracy in East-Central Europe of his time.

In the former colonies and dependencies in Asia and Africa the process of nation-building was different for two reasons. First, the artificial division of colonial territories between European powers had not been based on the previously existing ethnic structures, resulting in a great ethnic diversity in almost all countries emerging from the colonial rule. Second, in the process of decolonization democratic constitutions patterned after the European ones were imposed on former colonies, in most cases without prior preparation for such institutional development. In the great majority of cases, fragility of the newly established democratic institutions was due to the way in which they had been established, usually under strong influence of the departing colonial powers (Rustow 1967). Specially complex was the situation in those post-colonial countries in which liberation came as result of the armed struggle. Leaders of national liberation movements of the decolonization era were mostly revolutionaries, not democratic politicians. Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria, Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau, Samora Machel of Mozambique, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and other individuals whose names are symbols of national liberation, were hardened by the armed struggle and prisons, and have little or no experience of democratic politics. When in power, they soon became authoritarian rulers. What explains this regularity is not the personality of a typical leader of national liberation movement but the combination of weak political structures and the absence of democratic political culture of former colonies.

The two most interesting exceptions were India and Israel – two new states (independent since 1947 and 1948 respectively) where democracy had its roots in the long process of political mobilization within democratically oriented political movements: the Indian National Congress and the Zionist socialism. In both cases the successful establishment of democratic nation states was largely due to the dominant personalities of their first prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) and David Ben Gurion (1886-1973).

As nation-builders, both faced enormous obstacles and both became successful nation-builders. What they had in common was their intellectual roots in the European democratic tradition and the fact that both operated within political movements inspired by democratic values.

Nehru began his political career in the Indian National Congress, the first and by far the most influential mass movement struggling for the independence of India, founded (in 1885) and led by Mohandas Gandhi . Since 1878, the Indian subcontinent was politically organized as the Empire with the British monarch serving as the emperor of India. This was the first time in history that the whole Indian subcontinent was politically united under one ruler. Political unification did not eliminate, however, enormous ethnic and religious differences. Islam was dominant in the North, Hinduism and Buddhism in the South and in the center. The population was divided along linguistic lines as well. The Indian National Congress appealed to all these groups and formulated the program of common struggle for independence. Gandhi's most original contribution was the idea of non-violence as the only way to promote the cause of independence. During its long campaign, the Congress formed a large cohort of party activists, devoted to Gandhi's ideas and hardened by years of persecution. As Gandhi's closest collaborator, Nehru was elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1929 and became its strong leader. During the second world war (in 1942) the Indian National Congress gave Britain a conditional support in her stand against the Japanese aggression but linked it to the demand for full independence after the war. The situation was complicated, however, because of the demands of the Muslim League, strong in the North, which fought for the creation of an Islamic state. In May 1946, lord Mountbatten in his capacity of viceroy and the last head of British administration in the Indian Empire, formulated the plan of dividing the colony into two states "with Bengal and Punjab having the option of being split between India and Pakistan, joining in entirety with either state or going it alone" (Ziegler 1985: 378). Originally, Nehru strongly opposed the plan, but eventually approved it as a lesser evil. On 15 August 1947, India and Pakistan became independent, originally within the Commonwealth as dominions and soon as fully sovereign republics.

Soon after the independence, conflict between Muslim and Hindu communities in the border regions exploded to massive killing and ethnic cleansing. Gandhi was assassinated (1948) by a Hindu fanatic for his efforts to stop the killings and Nehru was left alone as the leader of the Congress and prime minister of India. His difficult task was to unite the disperse population of over three hundred million people, divided by their religious and ethnic identities. It is remarkable that India, largely because of Nehru's leadership, was able not only to preserve her unity as a new nation but also to build and consolidate the democratic parliamentary system of government. In their studies of the emergence of political leadership in independent India, Indian scholars underline the importance of democratic political culture and its roots in the decades of peaceful struggle for independence (Vidyarthi 1967). Next to Gandhi himself, it was Nehru who deserved credit for such development. As the leader of independent India, Nehru became one of the founders of the nonalignment movement (1955) – an effort to guild a third force in world politics divided by the cold war rivalry between two superpowers. He was a successful nation-builder and one of the most prestigious world leaders.

David Ben Gurion's road to political leadership in a new nation led through his early involvement in the socialist wing of the Zionist movement. In 1906 he emigrated from the part of Poland, which was then under Russian rule, to Palestine where he took part in the Zionist movement. In 1930, he became chairman of the newly founded, moderate socialist party (MAPAI) and five years later became president of the Jewish Agency – the representative body of the Jewish settlers in Palestine..

After the first world war, Palestine, formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, became a mandatory territory of the League of Nations, and was put under British administration. The British policy toward Palestine was plagued by the tendency to accommodate both the Arabs and the Jews, neither of them ready to accept a solution based on the establishment of the common state. Within the Zionist movement in late nineteen-thirties grew political divides between moderates, who concentrated on peaceful political action, and radicals who favored terrorist attacks against the British institutions. The right-wing radicals demanded the establishment of the Jewish state on the whole territory of Palestine – the "promised land" of the Jewish people. Rejecting such program as unrealistic, Ben Gurion firmly stood for the political solution, which involved the division of Palestine between the Jewish and the Arab states. Such solution was eventually proposed by the United Nations resolution on ending the British mandate and dividing Palestine along ethnic lines. On May 15, 1948 David Ben Gurion became the prime minister in the provisional government of independent Israel. Instantly, the new republic was attacked by the coalition of seven Arab states which refused to accept the division of Palestine. In the first Israeli-Arab war (1948-1949) victorious Israel not only defended her independence but also extended her borders compared to those proposed in the UN plan. For several years Ben Gurion and his socialist party MAPAI offered Israel firm and democratic leadership, something that in terms of the extremely difficult international situation looked like a miracle. The survival of democracy in a small state surrounded by enemies demanded leadership not only strong but also devoted to democratic values. David Ben Gurion gave his nation such leadership. More than this: Ben Gurion was not only the successful nation-builder but also a political dreamer whose political ideas appealed to the best instincts of his people. "For Ben Gurion – writes the Israeli political scientist Shlomo Avineri – a historically abnormal people like the Jewish people could maintain a state only if it would not be another run-of-the mill "normal" state: a Jewish state will be able to exist, according to him, only if it will be a model state, a Good Society, based on the social and spiritual values of one's own labor (*avoda atzmit)*, economic self-sufficiency, internal order, and abiding by the law." (Avineri 1981: 215). Ben Gurion's idealism – combined with his political realism in the running of the newly born state – made him one of the most outstanding leaders of his century. Shimon Peres, who as a young man became Ben Gurion's follower and close collaborator, praised him as the great dreamer who had the wisdom and courage to make his dream come true (Peres 2017). In Israel, however, the years of permanent conflict with the Arab neighbors – and particularly the occupation of the West Bank (1967) resulted in changes which made his ideological heritage increasingly abandoned. The Israeli political scientist, Asher Arian, has documented the shift to the Right which took place in the Israeli politics in late nineteen-seventies and the weakening of the idealistic appeal of Ben Gurion, even if he remained one of the highly appreciated historical leaders of Israel (Arian 1985). This process continued in the present century with the emergence and coming to power of the populist and nationalist coalition under the leadership Benjamin Netanyahu, making Israel of today dramatically different from the dreams of the founders of the Jewish state.

The history of modern democracy documents the importance of leadership but also shows how much the effectiveness of leaders depend on institutional arrangements and on the cultural heritage which shapes the behavior of leaders and their followers. Democracy needs strong and committed leaders but the way democratic institutions are built is not always conducive to the emergence and success of such leadership. The expansion of democracy in modern times is a prolonged and slow process, in which success is mixed with reversals. Explaining this process one has to take into account a variety of factors. The quality of leadership is just one of them, but one which should not be underestimated.

### Chapter Four: Autocratic leaders in modern times

The second half of the twentieth century registered the unprecedented expansion of democracy all over the world. Still, however, more than half of the world population lives under nondemocratic regimes. According to the evaluation presented annually by the Freedom House, in 2021 out of 195 analyzed states only 42 % were fully free, 30% partly free and 28% not free. In terms of population, states considered fully free represented 20 % of world population, partly free – 42 % and not free – 38%. The visible decline of the number of citizens living in democracies was largely due to the deterioration of political situation in India. Democratic states (those which have been defined as fully free) were situated mostly in both Americas, Western and Central Europe and in Oceania while the non-democratic ones mostly in Asia and Africa (Freedom House 2021). There is, however, a great variety of non-democratic regimes. While all democracies have at least one common characteristic – free, honest and competitive elections – the non-democratic regimes can be distinguished only by a negative one: the fact that they lack such legitimization. They differ in the types of their legitimization and in the forms of their institutions. Consequently, any analysis of non-democratic leadership must take into account the fundamental differences between various types of non-democratic systems of government.

#### **1. A typology of non-democratic regimes**

In the contemporary world, there are five basic types of political regimes which qualify as "non-democratic": traditional monarchies, theocracies, authoritarian dictatorships, totalitarian or post-totalitarian party regimes and "sultanic regimes"– to use the Weberian concept for "the extreme form of personal despotism"(Bendix 1962: 344) . Each has its specific kind of legitimization and each is characterized by the way, in which political power is executed. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan offered a slightly different typology, in which they distinguished fours main types of non-democratic regimes: authoritarian, totalitarian, post-totalitarian and sultanistic (Linz and Stepan 1996: 44:45). The last category, first identified by Max Weber, consists of patrimonial states ruled by a dictator with discretional power. Sultanic regimes, existing only in less developed countries and only for a limited period of time, are characterized by leadership which is highly personal and unrestricted by law or ideology.

Two of the non-democratic systems (traditional monarchies and theocratic regimes) are remnants of the past, continuing their existence only in countries which either escaped the processes of modernization or had their modernization stopped (and at least partially reversed) due to the strong resistance of the traditional, particularly religious forces.

The traditional monarchies survive only in some Arab states (for instance in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, United Arab Emirates and other emirates of the Gulf) and in Thailand, were the power of the king is to some degree limited by the informal but strong position of the military.

Iran under the last Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1919-1980), overthrown by the revolution in January 1979, was a hybrid between military dictatorship and traditional monarchy. The old Persian dynasty (Qajar) was overthrown in 1921 by a military coup, in which a prominent role played brigadier general Reza Pahlavi (1878-1944), former commander of the Cossack brigade. After having served as war minister and as prime minister, Reza Pahlavi consolidated his power and in December 1925 was crowned as Shah of Iran (upon the decision of the Constituent Assembly – Majlis). During the second world war, he sympathized with Germany and was forced to abdicate under a combined British and Soviet pressure. After the war, his son and successor Mohammed Reza Pahlavi initiated what was called "white revolution" – the policy of modernization from above – which provoked opposition of the conservative clergy and eventually the revolution of January 1979, forcing the Shah to leave his country. The Iranian abortive modernization from above illustrates the dilemma of traditional monarchs who try to westernize their countries from above, against the dominant patterns of culture. Recently some of the remaining traditional rulers made careful efforts to introduce a limited political representation of the citizens, like in Morocco under the rule of king Mohammed VI. Basically, however, the survival of this type of non-democratic rule depends on the continuous acceptance of the traditional rights of the ruling dynasty. Saudi Arabia remains the most stable example of such regime in the modern era.

The second model of a non-democratic regime is theocracy, based on the belief that the rulers receive their power directly from god and that they are accountable only to him. This type of political rule has its justification in the holy book of Islam – Koran. In an Islamic state, political and religious powers are united in the hands of a narrow elite composed of the highest clergymen. Presently, such theocratic rule is a very rare type of government, the only example of which is the Islamic Republic of Iran, established in 1979 after the revolution which overthrew the last Shah. The founder of the theocratic republic was ayatollah Rudollah Khomeini (1902-1989), a charismatic clergyman who had led the Islamic opposition to the Shah from exile in France. After his death, all real power in Iran remained in hands of the small group of top clergymen with only limited and largely symbolic role reserved for the president, the government and a kind of parliament with greatly curtailed prerogatives. The Iranian legal system, based on Koran, deprives Iranian citizens of their democratic freedoms and rights making the Islamic republic one of the most oppressive regimes in the modern world. After the end of the cold war and the fall of the leftist dictatorship (previously militarily protected by the Soviet Union) in Afghanistan, the Iranian model inspired Islamic fanatics ("taliban") who ruled the country for several years and were eventually overthrown by the American intervention following the September 2001 terrorist attacks organized by the terrorist organization with its headquarters in Afghanistan. Since then, no new theocratic regime has been established, except the short-lived Islamic Caliphate in Northern Iraq and Syria (2013-2019), established by the Islamic fanatics who made use of the internal political crises in these two Arab states.

While these two types of non-democratic regimes are extremely rare, there are two other types more frequent in modern times: authoritarian and totalitarian. Both of them are products of political change identified with modernization. The crises of monarchical order, beginning with the English Revolution of 1640 and intensified by the French revolution of 1789, created an ideological vacuum: the old, traditional, legitimization has disappeared and the new one, based on democratic legality, was yet to be born. Oliver Cromwell (1599- 1658), victorious commander of the army of the Parliament in the English civil war and – after the execution of Charles I (1649) Lord Protector with dictatorial powers, has become the prototype of the military man who because of his victories in war took over as an authoritarian ruler. After his death, his son Richard served briefly as Lord Protector, but lacking support of the military was (in 1660) removed from office by the commander of the army General Monk who reinstalled Charles II, heir of the Stuart dynasty, as king of England. Cromwell's military rule was the only instance of authoritarianism in British history. In the next centuries, it has become a model of post-monarchic military authoritarianism – an inspiration for some and a warning for others.

Revolutionary France of late eighteenth century was first to imitate the English pattern. Ten years after the beginning of the Great Revolution, victorious general Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) took over as First Consul, and in 1804 was crowned as Emperor. For the military authoritarians Napoleon Bonaparte became the symbol of successful war commander who because of his victories claimed political power. For several decades "bonapartism"as an ideology justified military rules, not only in France. Karl Marx was the first political writer who pointed to the importance of the bonapartist ideology, called by him the Napoleonic ideas. "The culminating point of the "*idees napoleoniennes* – he wrote – is the preponderance of the army. The army was the *point d'honneur* of the peasants, it was they themselves transformed into heroes, defending their new possessions against the outer world, glorifying their recently won nationality, plundering and revolutionizing the world. The uniform was their state dress, war was their poetry; the small holding, extended and rounded off in imagination, was their fatherland, and patriotism the ideal form of the property sense"(Tucker 1978: 613). The Bonapartist ideology survived the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte and inspired generations of military men to follow his example. Much less successful was the emperor's nephew Louis Bonaparte, who after having been elected president of France in 1848, used the military forces in a coup of 1852 which gave him dictatorial power as emperor Napoleon III (until his forced resignation caused by France's defeat in the war with Prussia in 1870.

Authoritarian regimes have been the most common model of a non-democratic state of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Most of them had the form of military dictatorships. One of the rare exception was the authoritarian rule of a civilian economist Antonio Salazar de Oliveira (1889-1970), the prime minister of Portugal since 1932 with dictatorial powers. Authoritarian regimes emerged in the Arab states after the overthrown of monarchies: in Egypt (1952), Iraq (1958) and Libya (1969) with a mixture of military dominance and one-party rule.

Authoritarian regimes grew rapidly on the ruins of colonialism. They emerged in Latin America, after its liberation from Spanish and Portuguese rule, in the nineteenth century and in the majority of post-colonial states in Africa and Asia where the colonial system had been abolished after the second world war. In Europe, a wave of authoritarianism followed the emergence of independent states after the first world war. In spite of the advances of democracy in late twentieth century, the authoritarian regimes remain the most numerous variety of non-democratic systems in present world.

Military regimes are products of the political change which removed the monarchical control over the armed forces but failed to substitute for it a stable democratic system. There are two main factors which explain the emergence of military dictatorships. The first is the lack of mature democratic consciousness of citizens without which democracy is not likely to survive. The British political scientist Samuel E. Finer in his comparative study of military regimes linked their emergence and survival to the weakness of democratic political culture (Finer 1962). The second is the will and the ability of the military to pursue its corporative interests, which the Israeli political scientist Amos Perlmutter calls (by analogy to the Roman times ) "praetorianism". "A modern praetorian state – Perlmutter wrote – is one in which the military tends to intervene in the government and has potential to dominate the executive. Among its characteristics are an ineffective executive and political decay"(Perlmutter 1977:93). Military regimes, in the past the most common form of authoritarian systems, still survive in a number of post-colonial countries but are now by far less frequent than in the past century.

The fourth type of non-democratic systems is the totalitarian dictatorship, defined as a system, in which the ruling party monopolized control over all aspects of life: political expression, economy, coercion and means of forming public mind (Friedrich and Brzezinski 1956). Political power in such system is monopolized by a political party with strong ideological profile. Totalitarian dictatorship – unlike the authoritarian one – tries to extend its power to all aspects of life making them parts of politics.

The distinction between totalitarian and authoritarian regimes has been specified by Juan J. Linz (1964, 2000). "Authoritarian regimes- wrote Linz – are political systems with limited, not responsible political pluralism; without elaborate and guiding ideology (but with distinctive mentalities); without intensive nor extensive political mobilization (except some points of their development); and in which a leader (or occasionally a small group) exercises power within formally ill-defined limits but actually quite predictable ones" (Linz 1964:297). Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, in their comparison of authoritarian and totalitarian leaderships, saw the crucial difference in the existence or lack of legal restrictions and in the origins of these two types of leaders. "Totalitarian leadership- they wrote – is unconstrained by laws and procedures and is often charismatic. … By contrast … authoritarian leadership is characterized by a political system in which a leader or occasionally a small group exercises power within formally ill-defined but actually quite predictable norms"(Linz and Stepan 1996: 46). Juan Linz's analysis of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes have been almost universally accepted by political scientists, for instance by Almond and Powell in their pioneering study of political development. They extended the typology by differentiating between four basic types of modern non-democratic regimes: radical totalitarian, conservative totalitarian, conservative authoritarian and modernizing authoritarian, with Communist states, Nazi Germany, Franco's Spain and Brazil as typical examples (Almond and Powell 1966: 272-273).

All totalitarian regimes cultivate the cult of their leaders with quasi-religious overtones making them secular versions of the prophets. Frank Dikötter in his study of twentieth century dictators (Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, Duvalier, Ceausescu and Mengistu) stressed the role of the cult of their personality as the most important ideological bond consolidated their rule – at least for a time (Dikötter 2019). In this, totalitarian leaders differed from other autocrats, including military dictators, civilian authoritarian rulers and even leaders of the late totalitarian states (like the successors of Stalin in the USSR), who – while politically powerful – were not surrounded by such cult of personality.

Authoritarian regimes have much longer history than the totalitarian ones. They had their roots in the crises which put an end to the traditional, monarchical form of government, mostly in the nineteenth century. Totalitarianism is a century younger. Totalitarian party systems emerged in the first half of the twentieth century as results of the Russian communist revolution of 1917 and of the fascist and Nazi take-overs in Italy (1922) and in Germany (1933). The second world war ended with the defeat of Italy and Germany and in the liquidation of their totalitarian systems, but it also resulted in the expansion of communist party dictatorship – first in East-Central Europe, and then in Asia and Latin America.

Several authors who specialized in the study of totalitarian systems, pointed to the fundamental difference between their two main versions: fascist and communist. While in both ideology played crucial role, there were two fundamental differences between fascist and communist ideologies. The first postulated domination of the privileged race over the "lower"folks, some of which were to be eliminated (Jews, Gypsies) and other reduced to the role of slaves. The communist ideology while justifying persecution of "class enemies"proclaimed equality and brotherhood of nations. Consequently, the communist version of totalitarianism was often identified with radical social transformation, while the Nazi version was socially conservative (Almond and Powell 1966: 272-273). The second difference concerns the relation between proclaimed ideologies and political practice. The communist ideology appealed to the values of freedom and equality – the ideas which made it attractive to many radicals seeking an ideal world. "Whether we like it or not – writes the Polish historian of ideas Andrzej Walicki – the dogmatic and utopian side of Marxism is of utmost importance for understanding communist totalitarianism"(Walicki 1965:2) Consequently, in the communist parties conflicts between proclaimed ideologies goals and political practice were not only possible, but frequent. Generation after generation, former communists frustrated by the contrast between proclaimed ideology and reality of totalitarian power turned into critics of the regime – the phenomenon unknown in the fascist type of totalitarianism. No similar phenomenon existed in the fascist and Nazi totalitarianism, whose practice corresponded closely with proclaimed goals. For the enthusiastic readers of Hitler's "Mein Kampf"even the genocide was justifiable by the accepted ideology.

Communist party systems have much longer history than the fascist version of totalitarianism. Even after the fall of regimes in the USSR and in East-Central Europe communist party systems survived in Asia and – exceptionally – in Latin America (Cuba).Because of their longevity, they passed through four stages: (1) revolutionary, pre-totalitarian. (2) fully developed totalitarianism, (3) declining totalitarianism, and (4) post-totalitarianism. When Friedrich and Brzezinski formulated their definition of totalitarianism, they considered mass terror one of the definitional traits of such systems. With the passing of time, particularly after the death of Stalin in the USSR and of Mao Zedong in China, it became obvious that late totalitarianism can do without mass terror – at least for some time. The peaceful collapse of the Soviet and East European communist regimes was unpredictable in terms of the original theory of totalitarianism, according to which totalitarian systems were supposed to be immune from fundamental change from within (Wolfe 1957). It also inspired studies of "post-totalitarian"states, where remnants of the communist institutions and of communist mentality remained even after the change of regime.

The collapse of Communist regimes in Europe did not lead to the disappearance of similar systems from the political map. Communist party systems still in function in China, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba, but in most of them (North Korea being the only exception) the way in which they function changed, particularly in respect to the control of the economy. Because of change in their economic life (doing away with state monopoly of ownership and adopting free market mechanisms), Chinese, Laotian, Vietnamese and Cuban systems can be called "declining totalitarian" or even "post-totalitarian".

In non-democratic systems, political leaders operate in conditions fundamentally different from those which exist in democracies. They are not constrained by legal norms, which can easily be adjusted to the needs and caprices of the rulers, or by the verdicts of voters. It does not mean, however, that they are free to do as they wish, probably with the exception of a situation, in which power is concentrated in hands of a charismatic leader, like Hitler, Stalin or Mao. In Soviet and Chinese regimes after the passing away of their totalitarians founders, emerged a new, oligarchic, type of party leadership. In such system the man of the top is no longer an absolute ruler but rather the most powerful member of the ruling circle of leaders.

#### **2. The men on horseback**

The earliest and most common type of authoritarian leadership in modern times is the military rule in one of its two basic variants: the personal dictatorship of the military man and the collective rule of a military council – "junta"(as such regime is called in Spanish). There have been instances of transition from one to the other, like in Argentine in 1945 when during the crisis within the ruling junta one of its members, minister of labor colonel Juan Peron, took over as the supreme leader, thanks to the support given him by the poorer people of Buenos Aires.

The first military regimes in modern era came into being in result of crises caused by the antimonarchic revolutions of the seventieth (England) and eighteenth (France) centuries. Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon Bonaparte became the role mode ls for the military dictators of our time. Their coming to power had similar roots: the absence of a traditional rule, abolished by the revolution, the weakness of the democratic institutions and social tensions generated by the revolutionary upheaval, and the glory of the victorious military leader, worshiped not only by his soldiers but by a large part of society as well.

In the discussions on the sociological bases of military rules, several scholars stressed the role of history and of the cultural patterns which are its results. Samuel E. Finer, in his classic study on "the man on horseback"pointed to the importance of political culture, as the main factors explaining why in some countries the military dutifully obey civilian authorities while in other it rebel against them or impose its will by the threat of force. "In the first place – wrote Finer – there is a distinct class of countries where governments have been repeatedly subjected to the interference of their armed forces, They are certainly not liberal democracies of the British or American kind wherein the military is strictly subordinated to the civilians. Nor are they despotisms or autocracies of a totalitarian type, where, we must emphasize, the military are subordinated to civilians as much as or even more than in the liberal-democratic regimes. These regimes of military provenance or military rule are *sui generis*. They constitute a large proportion of those sovereign states which are neither communist nor liberal-democratic…The regimes where the military are the decisive political factor form a distinct class which we may call the *empirical autocracies and oligarchies.* 'Empirical' distinguish them from the ideological autocracies and oligarchies of the Soviet type; 'autocracies and oligarchies' distinguishes them from the democracies"(Finer 1962: 3-4).

The dominant concept of Samuel Finer's study is the close link between the military rule and the dominant type of political culture. Distinguishing between four levels of political culture, Finer pointed to the fact that the military play crucial political role only in countries of low or minimal political cultures, where neither the rules of liberal democracy nor the principle of firm party control have been entrenched in the tradition of the country and in the minds of its people. Historically, these have been those states which relatively lately emerged from foreign rule (Latin America, Middle East, Africa) or where democratic systems existed for only short time, as was the case in eastern Europe after the first world war. The political culture approach proposed by Finer has one obvious weakness: it explains why there have been no military coups in countries with strong democratic traditions but it does not explain why such coups took place in some, but not in the other, countries which lacked such traditions. To fill this vacuum, one has to account for the variety of factors, including the motivations of military leaders.

There are many reasons for military intervention in politics as well as various modes of such intervention. Inly in extreme situation the armed forces (or a segment of them) take power and elevate their commanders to the position of national leadership. The first important distinction is between military regimes and regimes of military provenance (Finer 1962: 164). In the second category, the regime emerges in consequence of a military intervention but is not dominated by the military. The best example of such situation is France in 1958. The military coup of May 13, 1958 put the Fourth Republic into mortal crisis and was pacified only due to the decision to appoint as Prime Minister general De Gaulle, whose enormous prestige among the officer corps allowed him to reestablished civilian control over the armed forces, as well as to introduce a fundamental constitutional reform. De Gaulle came to power because of the military coup but not by using the military force against the constitutional order of the Republic. The Fifth Republic, his lasting heritage, remained a democratic state, fully controlling the military.

The essence of military regime is the usurpation of state power by the armed forces – not the mere elevation of a military man to the highest position in government. Several American presidents were former military commanders – from George Washington to Dwight Eisenhower – but they were not military rulers. Neither was marshal Arthur Wellesley – duke of Wellington (1769-1852), the famous commander of the British forces in wars against Bonaparte's France, Prime Minister (1828-1830) and for a long time (1828-1846) leader of conservatives in the House of Lords. In the long history of British parliamentary government he was the only military man elevated to such political position but he was not a military ruler.

When the armed forces interfere with the execution of political power, their intervention can have four distinctly different forms: influence, blackmail, displacement and supplantment (Finer 1962: 140). In the first two, the military use their power and authority to change or to modify the policy of the government. They do not become political rulers, but play a more or less important role in formulating the government policies. In the third situation, they go one step further, replacing the incumbent civilian government by another one, more to the liking of the military. In such situation the military becomes the most powerful political actor, but not the ruler of the state. Only the fourth type (supplantment) constitute the military regime in the strict sense. In tea military regime, political power is in the hands of the military, who may coopt civilian experts but who effectively control the machinery of the state.

Why do the military intervene in politics? This question is crucial for the understanding of the role of the military in politics. The obvious and universal fact is that the military have means to impose their will. The military organization constitutes a powerful force, with which no other institution can compete in terms of pure strength. It is the question of motivation which explains why the military sometimes intervene in politics and in other cases maintain a subordinate status.

The Israeli political scientist Amos Perlmutter conceptualized three types of military orientation: (a) professional in a classical meaning of the term employed by Samuel Huntington in his pioneering study of the relationship between military and political institution in liberal democracies (Huntington 1957), (b) praetorian, and (c) revolutionary (Perlmutter 1977: 9). The first and the third ones are not relevant for the present discussion, as in both these cases the military operates within an established political order in which power is in hands of civilian leaders. Samuel Huntington's concept of military professionalism and its role as the main obstacle to the military intervention in politics, has one important weakness. It is either tautological or empirically wrong. When Huntington referred to the professionalism of the military, he included in this concept the commitment of the military to the principles of civilian control (Huntington 1957: 85). Logically, the negation of civilian control would mean that the military could not be considered professional, regardless of the other criteria. If, however, professionalism is defined purely in terms of professional skills, the hypothesis of the link between professionalism and the acceptance of civilian control proves flagrantly wrong. In several cases, highly professional armed forces rebelled against the civilian authorities, like it was the case in France in 1958 or in Chile in 1973. Therefore, one has to look for a more precise explanation of the relationship between the type of the armed forces and their readiness to intervene in politics. It is the concept of praetorian military that helps to explain the phenomenon of military regimes.

The term "praetorian soldier"has its roots in ancient Roman empire, where behind the technically absolute ruler stood the strong and influential military force, the praetorian guard, capable even to decide who may seat on the throne. In modern times, the praetorian army and the praetorian state are products of the combination of weak civilian authorities and strong corporate military organization, "The collapse of executive power- wrote Perlmutter – is a precondition for praetorianism. Under praetorian conditions, many civil-military combinations become possible: the army can take over the government with or without the consent of civilian politicians, on their behalf or against them, with the aim of replacing one civilian group with another or with the aim of eliminating rivals in the military" (Perlmutter 1977:89). In a study published few years later, Perlmutter defined the praetorian regimes as "rather rigid, corporate, noncohesive alliances of ambitious and interventionist officers, bureaucrats, and opportunistic politicians"and linked them with the Bonapartist tradition (Perlmutther 1982: 319).

Such formulation does not, however, explain why would the military decide to intervene in politics. Samuel Finer (1962: 32-60) identified three main reasons which motivate the military to disobey their civilian superiors and to intervene in politics: (1) the "manifest destiny of the soldier", based on the belief that the military *esprit de corps*, a distinctive mentality of the soldiers, makes them a very special elite, entitled to rule or at least to have the dominant voice in decisions concerning the state; (2) the belief that the national interest has been endangered by the policies conducted by civilian authorities and that it is the duty of the military to defend it; (3) the sectional interest of the armed forces, behind which there often is the purely personal motivation to improve their own careers, regional interests, corporate interests of the army or individual self-interests of the influential military leaders. These motives are not mutually exclusive and in most cases they appear in mixed combinations.

Part of the motivation to intervene is the ideological orientation of the military. The Dutch military sociologist Jacques van Doorn distinguished between "political ideology", "corporate ideology" and "operational ideology" (Doorn 1971). He underlined the fact that in the majority of cases, the political ideology of the military was that of the Right. During the cold war a strong ideological factor motivating the military to intervene in politics was anticommunism, which explains why so many military regimes of this epoch enjoyed the support of the United States. There have been, however, several exceptions – cases of leftist or populist military regimes, like those of Juan Peron in Argentina (1945-1955) and of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt (1952-1970).

In the last two centuries, there have been four waves of military dominated regimes in four different geographical regions.

Chronologically the first was Latin America, where the struggle against the Spanish (and later against the Portuguese) colonial rule began in 1813 by Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) with his attack on the Spanish forces in Venezuela, produced the first independent states in the Southern part of the continent. In 1821 Bolivar created the Gran Colombia state (comprising what is now Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador) and became its first president. In 1824 he declared himself dictator of Peru and in 1825 created another independent state Bolivia – also under his power. His role as *El Liberator* established a pattern of the rule of powerful military commanders in Latin America. With occasional return to short-lived civilian governments this pattern dominated Latin American politics until late nineteen-eighties. For one and half century, military regimes were the dominant pattern of politics in most of Latin America. "In contrast to Arab and African regimes, – wrote Amos Perlmutter – Latin American regimes demonstrated an impressive institutional and authoritarian continuity and the military had a long tradition of autonomy and considerable political power." (Perlmutter 1977: 199). What is particularly interesting is that such pattern of political culture has not prevented the Latin American military regimes to give way to democratic civilian governments in the nineteen-eighties. Historical traditions tend to perpetuate political systems but are not unbreakable.

The second case of military interventions in politics were Eastern Europe and the former Ottoman Empire after the first world war, which resulted in the collapse of three multinational empires – Ottoman, Russian and Austro-Hungarian – and brought into life new states, in majority with extremely weak legitimacy for civilian democratic governments (with the sole exception of Czechoslovakia, the only state of the region which remained democratic until the end of her independence in 1939). Of the military regimes of this period the most important and most interesting for a political-sociological analysis were the Turkish and the Polish ones. Two military leaders of these nations – Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938) in Turkey and Joseph Pilsudski (1967-1935) in Poland can serve as models of military authoritarians of their time.

Mustafa Kemal, the professional soldier whose skillful command during the war made him popular and respected both in the armed forces and among the Turkish population, began his political career in 1919 when he refused to accept the terms of peace treaty imposed on the Ottoman empire by the victorious coalition. At the end of 1918, Turkish forces controlled no more than half of the prewar territory. The Greek army landed in Anatolia, politically and logistically supported by Great Britain and France. In the East, there were string secessionist movements, particularly among the Kurds. All this meant that Turkey would not only lose her possessions in the Arab Middle East, but a sizeable part of her national territory. The terms of peace agreement would make her a dependency of the Western powers. Faced with the consequences of military defeat, the last Sultan Mehmed Vahideddin accepted the peace terms which in reality amounted to the partition of mainland Turkey and to making it a dependency of foreign powers (Great Britain and France).

Kemal's National Pact, announced in 1919, called for defense of Turkey's independence and integrity within the lines of the armistice of 1918. It meant both giving away the dream of rebuilding the Ottoman empire and the realistic program of nation-building. "Before inaugurating the half-century of peace, – writes his biographer Dankwart Rustow – Kemal mobilized his countrymen to one supreme and final military effort – this time for the defense of their Anatolian 'mother-country'" (Rustow 1981:57). The bulk of the armed forces and the Turkish population responded to Kemal's appeal for defending their fatherland – seen now as a nation-state and not as an Islamic empire. Launching the war, Kemal challenged the authority of the sultan, but for a time he did nothing to remove him. Nonetheless, he established a new capital in Ankara and convened the Grand National Assembly (on April 1920). The War of Independence ended in 1922 with the defeat of the Greek forces and the establishment of Turkish control over the whole national territory. Kemal, the commanderin-chief of the Turkish forces, was given the honorary title of *Gazi* (victor). On the 29 October, 1923, the Grand National Assembly proclaimed the Turkish Republic with Mustafa Kemal as its president. The new state was highly homogenous in terms of the ethnic and religious composition of its population: over 90 percent spoke Turkish as their mother-language and over 98 percent professed Islam as their religion (Rustow 1981: 59).

During his fifteen years as president of the Turkish republic Mustafa Kemal (who in 1934 received the name of Atatürk – "the father of Turks") ruled as civilian president and leader of the ruling Republican People's Party in a one-party system. His rule was not a military dictatorship but a dictatorship nonetheless. His closest collaborators were forced to make a choice between remaining in the armed forces (and withdrawing from politics) or accepting political positions and resigning from the military. As one of the greatest modernizers, Kemal introduced new codes of law patterned after the West European (1926) , reformed the alphabet, and abolished the Caliphat making Turkey a secular republic. In foreign policy he strictly followed the line of peaceful relations with all neighbors.

Kemal Atatürk was a charismatic leader, considered the greatest national hero many decades after his passing away – regardless of the ideological drift to the Islamic Right in the 21st century. For many nationalist and modernizers in the less developed countries he remains a powerful symbol of successful reformer and nation-builder.

Joseph Pilsudski's military rule in Poland came into being in much less dramatic circumstances. The restoration of independence in November 1918 was a natural consequence of the defeat of the Central Powers (as well as the earlier collapse of the Russian Empire). Pilsudski, a former socialist and one of the leaders of the 1905 revolution in the then Polish part of the Russian empire, initiated the formation of the Polish legions fighting under the general Austrian command and commanded one of their three brigades. This war experience made him the unquestioned leader of his soldiers, who with the passing of time were to become the core of his political camp. In 1917 Pilsudski refused to swear loyalty to the German and Austrian emperors, when they established the puppet "Kingdom of Poland" under their tutelage. For this act of defiance, he was imprisoned in the Magdeburg military fortress from which he was freed by the German revolution.

Day after his return to Warsaw (on November 10, 1918) Pilsudski was appointed commander-in-chief of the nascent Polish armed forces and soon later became the temporary head of state (with the traditional Polish title *naczelnik)*. His access to power was based on the decisions of the provisional organs of state power, which had been formed during the war. One was the State Council of the "Polish Kingdom"- the political entity created by the German and Austrian emperors in 1916 on the territory captured from Russia. The second was the Provisional Government formed by the coalition of Left-to-Center parties just few days before the armistice. Both these bodies turned to Pilsudski to head the nascent state.

At this stage of his career Pilsudski – unlike Mustafa Kemal – was not a victorious war commander. He was not a professional soldier but a revolutionary who turned to arms in the struggle for his nation's independence. Soon, however, he had an opportunity to lead Polish army in a new war – the war with Soviet Russia, 1919-1920, in which the culminating point was the battle of Warsaw (August 1920), won by the Polish forces and described (by the British ambassador Edgar D'Abernon) as the "eighteenth decisive battle of the world"(D'Abernon 1931). For the Poles, it was the first military victory since 1683 (the Polish victory over the Ottoman forces in the siege of Vienna). In public mind, Pilsudski became the savior of the newly independent nationstate.

His great popularity did not encourage Pilsudski to establish an authoritarian system. Using his discretional powers he called for early parliamentary election (in January 1919) and accepted the parliamentary form of government. In 1922 , following the adoption of the Constitution and election of president Gabriel Narutowicz , Pilsudski vacated the office of head of state but remained the head (general inspector) of the armed forces – the position from which he resigned in late 1923 in protest against the formation of a cabinet with strong position of the nationalist Right, whom he blamed for having created the political atmosphere conducive to the assassination of President Gabriel Narutowicz in December 1922, just five days after his inauguration.

In May 1926, Pilsudski moved against the government of the Center-Right coalition in the military coup which turned into three-days skirmishes between his rebel forces and the units loyal to the government. The reasons for his coup were complex and should not be reduced to his frustrated ambitions. Among the reasons of the coup, nine were crucial :


After having seized power, Pilsudski decided to modify the constitutional system by strengthening the position of the president. He refused to be elected to this position and nominated a prominent academic with solid socialist background Ignacy Moscicki, whose presidency was nothing but the cover for Pilsudski's role as the real ruler. Poland became – more *de facto* than *de jure –*  a semi-presidential system, in which the prerogatives of the Parliament were strongly reduced and the cabinet became an administrative organ rather than the center of political power. The real political power was in Pilsudski's hands and had a personal rather than institutional character. His trusted military officers were delegated from the armed forces to the government, including several Prime Ministers commissioned from the military. Polish authoritarianism lasted until 1939 and survived the death of its founder (1935). In ideological terms, the regime established with support of the Left gradually adopted conservative policies, both in its socio-economic policies and in its treatment of national minorities. This process started soon after the coup and accelerated after the death of the Marshal and included such moves as anti-Semitic regulations at the universities and discriminatory policy toward the Ukrainian minority, the largest ethnic minority in prewar Poland. The defeat of the Polish forces in the September 1939 campaign and the decision of the president, members of government and military high command to cross the border to Romania (where they were interned) put an end of the regime and made possible the formation of the government-in-exile headed by the arch-rival of Pilsudski, General Wladyslaw Sikorski (1881-1943) and composed by the former members of opposition.

The contrast between Kemal Atatürk and Pilsudski cannot be reduced to the differences in their personalities. It was mostly the matter of different political situations. In Turkey, the military regime emerged out of the collapse Ottoman empire and was a successful formula for nation-building and political modernization. In Poland, the emergence of the military regime was caused by the weakness of parliamentary democracy, but it was not an adequate answer to deep social and political problems of the newly reborn nation-state. In Turkey, the authoritarian regime skillfully played its cards in a complicated international game of neutrality in the approaching war (which Turkey joined in its last stage, just in time to belong to the victorious coalition when the coming defeat of Germany was already evident. Poland was by far less fortunate and for Pilsudski's successors there was no good solution to the dilemma of a weak country sandwiched between two powerful and hostile neighbors – Nazi Germany and communist Soviet Union. Nonetheless, the two founders of the military regimes remained national heroes for their nations of the next generations. Both were charismatic leaders, most likely the greatest military leaders of their region and historical period. The difference between Kemal Atatürk and Joseph Pilsudski was due more to the dramatically different historical circumstances, than to their personalities.

The third wave of military regimes was Asia and Middle East after the second world war. States of this regions were mostly weak monarchies with outmoded and corrupt mechanism of governing, unable to face the challenges of modern times. Pakistan was different in the sense that the Islamic republic was a product of the division of former Indian Empire under British rule and has strong religious identity. A similarity between Pakistan and the Arab Middle East extended beyond their common religious background. They were, what one may call, "defective nation states" in the sense that their identities were by far less solid than it was the case in most of Europe. In Pakistan, this weakness of national identity led to the civil war and the division of the state (in 1971) between what used to be East and West Pakistan. Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz explained the frequency of military rules in his country by pointing to the consequences of the way in which Pakistan had been established as an Islamic republic. "By the time I joined the government, -he wrote – Pakistan political system had been interrupted on four occasions by military coups in its relatively short history – orchestrated by Ayub Khan in 1958, Yahya Khan in 1969, General Zia in 1977 and General Musharraf in 1999. Several other attempts had been unsuccessful, while elected politicians struggled with poor governance, accusations of wrongdoing and an inability to improve the country's prospects"(Aziz 2016: 19-20). Why was Pakistan so different from India, where the civilian governments have ruled without any military intervention for over seventy years? Aziz explained his country's troubled history by the fact, that during the British rule the nascent democratic institutions "were largely concentrated in the Indian part of the subcontinent – as was the bulk of the infrastructure and development efforts"and by the absence of Muslims in the civil bureaucracies of the British Raj (ibidem: 20). It is also quite likely that the very concept of Pakistan as an Islamic state, formulated by its founder Mahammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948 ) made more difficult to establish and to maintain the democratic system than it was the case in the secular republic of India.

Pakistan is not the only state in Asia with strong tradition of military intervention in politics. An even older case is Thailand – one of the last monarchies in Asia, since the military coup of 1932 dominated by the military. The latest coup of 2014 produced the specific system of military domination in which the real power belongs to the Prime Minister general Prayut Chan-ocha, and in which the monarch – king Rama X – plays mostly a symbolic role.

 In the Arab world the ambivalent identities (national, Arab and Muslim) produced a series of unsuccessful efforts to build broader Arab states, like the United Arab Republic – a short lived union of Egypt and Syria. Compared to Turkey, countries of this group were much less advanced in th process of modernization and their traditional elites were conservative in their social and political outlook (Janowitz 1971). On top of this, the Middle Eastern monarchies, in the majority of cases products of Western domination, lacked solid traditional legitimacy.

Countries of this group suffered from military defeats: Pakistan in her wars with India, Egypt and other Arab states in their wars with Israel. Particularly the defeat of the coalition of Arab states in their war against Israel (1948/49) created the almost universal feeling that a radical political change was necessary. The Egyptian conspiracy of Egyptian "free officers" – a coterie of young nationalists – was the first manifestation of the growing unrest of the military, deeply frustrated by the failure of the traditional monarchy to effectively defend national interests of Egypt, what became obvious particularly in the first war against Israel. "Free officers" were highly motivated by their excessive nationalism and their feeling that only by changing the regime they could make their nation strong again. The military revolt of July 23, 1952 not only terminated the monarchical rule of king Farouk, but became the beginning of nationalistic revolts in the Middle East, with the officer corps as their leading force.

The leader of the Egyptian revolution Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918 -1970 ) became the symbol and role model for the Arab (and also many other Middle Eastern and African) military dictators in their efforts to transform and modernize their countries. His rule (1952-1970) was a strange mixture of social and economic change and frustrated political initiatives, including two wars with Israel (1956 and 1967) as well as the shot-lived union with Syria. Nasser's dictatorship was a military rule not only because it was the result of the military coup (later heralded as the Egyptian "revolution") but also because the military officers became the ruling elite of the state and masters of national economy. The Egyptian political scientist Anouar Abdel-Malek presented a very competent analysis of Nasser's Egypt as "a military society"(Abdel Malek 1962). The regime tried to legitimate itself by a combination of three circles of loyalties: national (Egyptian) , Arab and Islamic. It was a combination of the institutional rule of the military and the personal leadership of its chief commander. The most obvious proof of Nasser's charismatic leadership was a wave of massive public protests when he declared his willingness to resign in the aftermath of Egypt's defeat in the six-days war of 1967.

Nasser was not an ideologue but he used a mixture of socio-economic postulates and patriotic appeals to legitimize his regime as the one based on "Arab socialism". Following his unexpected death, the regime gradually moved in the direction of more pragmatic politics, modified its anti-American stand and normalize its relations with Israel. Nasser remained, however, a vivid symbol of radical nationalism for the other Arab nations. The paradox of his leadership was the contrast between his numerous failures (defeats in two wars with Israel: 1956 and 1967, collapse of the shirt-lived union with Syria, divisions within the Arab world, disappointing alliance with the Soviet Union) and his very high prestige not only in the Egyptian society but in many other countries where his name symbolized dreams of national revival. For the Arab masses Nasser was and remained the symbol of hope for a national revival.

The fourth group of contemporary military regimes is composed by a variety of post-colonial African states. Beginning with the military coup in the former Belgian colony of Congo in 1965 and the military regime of Joseph-Desire Mobutu (1930-1997), this type of rule has become a dominant type of political order in majority of former colonies. These regimes lacked not only legitimacy but also clear programs of social and political reforms. One of the weaknesses common in this group of states is the lack of competent leadership. Ambitious, very often corrupt, military rulers of the new African states contribute to the malaise of their countries by not being able to deal effectively with complex problems of nation-building. Relatively optimistic predictions voiced by some African scholars in early seventies -particularly concerning the future of Nigeria under military rule (Akinsola Akiwowo 1971: 268) – have not been confirmed by the political developments in the following fifty years.

In addition to the above-listed four groups of military regimes, there have been individual cases of the military intervention in politics in other regions and periods of time, including three European states after the second world war.

The first was the revolt of the French army in Algeria in May 1958. The background to this intervention was a long political and ideological crisis of the French military (Girardet 1964). Three elements of the recent past left a deep feeling of frustration among French officers: 1)the unexpected and rapid defeat in the 1940 campaign, followed by the collaboration of the Vichy government with Nazi Germany, 2) the colonial war launched to keep Vietnam under French control and culminated by the humiliating defeat of the French forces in the battle for control of the Dienbienphu valley (May 1954), 3) the prolonged Algerian war, begun in 1954 and four years later still very far from a satisfactory end. Officers of the French army blamed politicians for these events and saw themselves as the guardians of national interest and honor, betrayed by incompetent or corrupt politicians.

The wars in Indochina and Algeria gave birth to the doctrine of "revolutionary war"and to a new type of armed forces with which the French army faced the revolutionary guerrilla. To oppose such adversary, the army itself had to abandon its apolitical stand and to develop its own political ideology – a mixture of nationalism and anti-communism. Gone was the old-fashioned concept that setting political goals is the exclusive prerogative of the civilian political authorities. Compelled to fight "a revolutionary war", the army became an active political actor. "Time has come for the army to abandon its stand as a Great Mute" – declared general Chassin in 1954 (Girardet 1964: 184).

Algeria created a special problem. With its vicinity to France and with more than one million French settlers, the country was treated not as a colony but as an integral part France. When in 1954 the Front of National Liberation launched its terrorist campaign, the French army was confronted with a new type of an adversary, more difficult to combat than even the Vietnamese partisan army. The result was brutalization of the anti-insurgency measures (like the routine use of tortures), to which the French civilian population and politicians responded with growing unrest. Realizing that the war could not be won, some of French politicians began to look for a negotiated compromise, violently opposed by the extreme nationalistic forces. In the Spring of 1958, the military commanders in Algeria grew increasingly worried that the government would abandon Algeria. The May coup was not a typical attempt to seize power but rather a move directed at forcing the government to abandon its plans to negotiate with the Algerian national movement.

The military put their hopes in General de Gaulle and were ready to obey his orders. The paradox of the coup was that the only leader whom the French officers were ready to obey, understood the inevitability of solving the Algerian problem not by force but by negotiations. When he decided to negotiate with the Algerian "rebels" and eventually agreed to their demands for independent Algeria, a faction of the military formed a clandestine organization (OAS – *Organisation de l'Armee Secrete*), which turned to individual terror, including several attempts on the life of De Gaulle. As president, de Gaulle demonstrated his outstanding leadership abilities. Not only was he able to end the war and to obtain clear democratic mandate for ending French rule in Algeria, but he also managed to rebuild the integrity of the armed forces as an apolitical, fully modernized military force. The solution of the French military crisis proved the importance of enlightened and strong leadership in defense of democracy.

Greece was a totally different story. In 1967 the Greek officers launched a coup against the Center-Left government, abolished the monarchy and established a military dictatorship of strongly nationalist and rightist ideological coloring. The regime collapsed in 1974 after having arrange an unsuccessful revolt of Greek-Cypriot nationalists, crushed by the intervention of the Turkish army and followed by the partition of Cyprus, which more than forty years later looks permanent.

The third case of military intervention in Europe after the second world war was Portugal. On April 25, 1974, the young officers of the Portuguese army moved against the authoritarian government of Marcelo Caetano in what was to be named "the revolution of carnations". The main motivation for the revolt was a deep frustration of the military caused by prolonged colonial war in Angola, but also by their dissatisfaction with the outmoded "Estado Nuovo"a conservative, corporatist system established by Caetano's predecessor Antonio Salazar (1889-1970). The result was a brief military dictatorship of the military junta headed by General (later Marshal) Francisco de Costa Gomes (1914-2001), followed by restauration of the civilian parliamentary government in 1976 and the establishment of a semi-presidential system with General Antonio dos Santos Eanes serving as president for ten years (1976- 1986). The comparison of these two cases of South European military regimes shows that the military has often been motivated by drastically different ideologies: extreme right, bordering with fascism in Greece and leftist with socialist elements in Portugal.

The question of the ideological motivation is one of the most complex aspects of military regimes. The over-all assessment of the "military mind" suggests that in their ideological orientation the military officers tend to lean to the conservative values. "The military ethic – wrote Samuel Huntington – is thus pessimistic, collectivist, historically inclined, power-oriented, nationalistic, militaristic, pacifist, and instrumentalist in its view of the military profession. It is, in brief, realistic and conservative" (Huntington 1957: 77). Huntington, however, admitted that his formulation was a kind of Weberian ideal type. This means that while in the majority of cases the reality of military regimes corresponds with the model, there have been important exceptions.

Sociological studies of the armed forces in the developed, democratic states confirmed Huntington's description of the typical military mentality (Janowitz 1960: 413; Abrahamson 1972: 80-86). There is also plenty of historical evidence that the Latin American military tended to support conservative regimes and oppose, often by force, the leftist or populist ones. The Brazilian and Argentinian coups against the populist dictators Getulio Vargas (1945) and Juan Peron (1955), and particularly the Chilean coup against socialist government of Salvadore Allende (1973) were all motivated by the string opposition of the military to any policy directed against the privileges of the upper class. The Latin American military has been mostly conservative in its political orientation. Alfred Stepan, however, having defined the ideological outlook of the Brazilian officer corps as "authoritarian nationalists", noted the existence of the "liberal internationalist" group in the Brazilian armed forces. Nonetheless, the right-wing nationalism combined with anticommunism remained the dominant ideological outlook of the Latin American military during the cold war.

Even in Latin America, however, there was an important exception: peronism in Argentina. Juan Peron (1895-1974) was a member of the Argentinian junta which came to power in 1943 in a typical *pronunciamento* and served as minister of labor in the military government. In this capacity he cultivated links to the trade unions. When dismissed from the government, he was returned to power by the mass demonstrations of the Buenos Aires workers and became president of Argentina in 1946. During his ten years rule, Peron followed populist policies of social justice. In 1947, he formed his own party (*Partido Peronista)* with a vague ideological program known as "Peronism" – a combination of socialist and corporatist ideas with a strong nationalist accent. "Peronism – writes Seymour M. Lipset – much like Marxist parties, has been oriented toward the poorer classes, primarily urban workers but also the more impoverished rural population. Peronism has a strong-state ideology quite similar to that advocated by Mussolini. It also has a strong antiparliamentary populist content, stressing that the power of the party and the leader is derived directly from the people, and that parliamentarianism results in government by incompetent and corrupt politicians. It shares with right-wing and centrist authoritarianism a strong nationalist bent, blaming many of the difficulties faced by the country on outsiders – international financiers and so forth. And …it glorifies the position of the armed forces" (Lipset 1981:173)

Peronism as an ideology and as a political movement survived the overthrown of its creator and allowed Peron to return to power briefly before his death. It remains one of the main political forces in Argentina and has been imitated by populist movements in other Latin American countries.

The situation has been more complex in the Middle East, where there have been strong leftist, even socialist currents among the military. Kemalism, the official ideology of Turkey under Kemal Atatürk and his successors, is a progressive ideology with strong commitment to such values as social justice and secularism. The Turkish political scientist Suna Kili of strongly kemalist orientation identified Kemalism as based on six main principles: "complete independence, nation-state, real democracy, secular state, social state and the rule of law"(KIli 1969: 219). She also stressed the importance of the Kemalist interpretation of Turkish nationalism as based not on race, ethnicity or religion but on the attachment to the state, common language, history and culture (ibidem: 157). Another important aspect of Kemalism is its commitment to social justice and its intent to modernize the Turkish society (ibidem: 220-221).

Partly influenced by the Kemalist example was "Arab socialism"– the ideology dominant in Egypt during Nasser's rule, adopted by many military rulers in the other Arab states, particularly Iraq and Syria. It is, therefore, difficult to generalize on the military ideological orientation. The choice of ideology depends mostly on the nation-specific conditions, the type of social structure and the international alliances. During the cold war, military leaders in the less developed countries tended to choose their ideologies in the way which corresponded with their countries' international alliances. In Latin America, allied with the United States, it meant choosing anti-communist policies and protecting the existing socio-economic system. In the Arab countries, the military rebelling against the status quo tended to look for Soviet support and were more likely to adopt a leftist, even socialist ideology.

Few military commanders became successful political leaders in the autocratic regimes. The ability to command rarely can be translate in the capacity to govern, particularly in societies where social change requires more than the ability to give orders. Military regimes in most cases are products of deep divisions created by the revolutionary crises, economic deprivation or ethnic conflicts – the conditions which call for creative leadership but by their complexity make effective governing difficult. What helps the military to seize power, very often makes it difficult to govern in an effective way. Relying mostly on force – typical for the majority of military regimes – cannot be a solution for social problems and prevents building efficient coalitions. It is a great paradox that the military commanders fare much better as political leaders in democracies than in military dictatorship. George Washington and Edgar Wellington, Charles de Gaulle and Yitzchak Rabin were great leaders of their nations who came to power by democratic procedures and functioned within the rules of democracy. Only very few military dictators can equal them in making history. Kemal Atatürk is one of them and his role in transforming Turkey into a modern, secular republic is universally recognized.

#### **3. Totalitarian and authoritarian party leaders**

Before the first world war, the dominant type of non-democratic regime was the military rule. While such systems continue to flourish in the twentieth century, a new type of dictatorship emerged after the war – the dictatorship of a totalitarian party, capable not only of doing away with institutions of parliamentary democracy, but also of subordinating the military to the dictates of the party.

The most typical form of such dictatorship is totalitarianism in one of its historical forms: fascist or communist, fundamentally different in their ideological outlook but closely similar in the way in which they functioned. There have been, however, more or less successful attempt of imitating such models in a number of post-colonial states, where after a short period of nascent democracy power was concentrated in hands of a top leader or of a group of leaders in the form of a one-party rule. Such regimes in most cases have not been able to build a totalitarian system with full control over all aspects of life, but usually tried to use methods of governing which had been installed in totalitarian party-states.

The fascist version of totalitarianism was short-lived, due to the defeat suffered by Germany and Italy in the second world war. Because of its brief existence (twenty one years in the case of Italian fascist and twelve in the case of Nazi Germany) we can only speculate on the ways in which these regime would have developed if given enough time. Compared to Italian fascism, German Nazism has been subject to several important scholarly studies. The first scholarly analysis of the Nazi regime was written by Franz Leopold Neumann (1900-1954), the German political refugee and American political scientist. His study of National Socialism was published in 1942 and (in a revised edition) in 1944 – before the end of the regime. In his analysis Neumann stressed the importance of the charismatic leadership of Adolf Hitler and the role of the *Führerprinzip* as the ideological base of the regime (Neumann 1944). He distinguished charismatic leadership of the German Führer from the older versions of absolute power (*Herrschaft),* the main difference being the irrational character of the charismatic leadership.

Communist regimes lasted much longer than their fascist and Nazi equivalents and because of this allow for a deeper analysis of the way in which such regimes undergo changes, including the changing role of political leaders. Crucial for the evolution of the communist regimes was the special role of the communist party as the backbone of the regime and the political base for the supreme leader.

In the communist states there were two variants of the party system based on the concentration of political power in the hands of the communist party, the leader of which automatically controlled the state machinery. The original (Soviet) model was a one-party state, after the second world war imitated by a number of countries. In some states, however, the power of the communist party took another form, which I have labelled "the hegemonic party system" (Wiatr 1964). In the hegemonic party systems the ruling communist party cooperated with one or more of non-communist parties, which accepted its hegemony and satisfied themselves with some, more or less limited, share of power, mostly in selected sectors of state administration. The concept of the hegemonic party system was used by Giovanni Sartori in his expanded typology of political party systems based on the seven models: one-party, hegemonic party, predominant party, two-party, moderate multipartism, extreme multipartism, and atomized (Sartori 1970: 324). To simplify the analysis of the role of political leader in such systems, I shall treat the hegemonic party systems as variants of the one-party systems .

Historically, the first case of the establishment of a one-party totalitarian dictatorship was Russia after the 1917 revolution. Because of its longevity, the dictatorship of the communist party became the most important model of the totalitarian system. Two other versions of totalitarianism – fascism in Italy and national socialism in Germany – lasted only 21 and 12 years respectively and perished because of the defeat in the second world war. We shall never know, if and how these systems would have evolved – also in terms of their patterns of leadership – had there been no world war. For the sociology of leadership, the fate of the Italian and German regimes means that it has become impossible to generalize on the logic of long-term functioning of this version of totalitarianism. Only the communist version functioning for several generations, makes it possible to formulate some general observations on this model of leadership. Here, however, one has to differentiate between two groups of communist regimes: the ones which collapsed during the short but turbulent years 1989- 1991 (former Soviet Union, East – Central Europe, Mongolia) and those, where the rule of the communist parties survived (China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam). Only in respect to the first group, it is possible to generalize on the processes which resulted in the fall of the regimes and on the role of political leadership in the system transformation. The second group of the communist states provokes a different question: what are the social forces and political mechanisms which allow the communist elites to maintain their leadership – at least for the thirty years after the disappearance of the first communist-ruled state.

The tsarist regime of Russia collapsed in early March 1917 (February in the old calendar) due to a spontaneous revolution caused by defeats on the front and famine in the country. Its collapse was followed by a short period during which several political parties competed for power. Defeats on the front and growing chaos in the country made possible for the radicals (Bolsheviks and Social-revolutionaries) to overthrow the provisional government in so-called "October Revolution". In reality, the events of October 25, 1917 (old style), were a well prepared coup, prepared in so deep conspiracy, that "when Kamenev disclosed in a newspaper interview a week before the event was to take place …Lenin declared him a traitor and demanded his expulsion"(Pipes 1993: 498). The nature of the seizure of power made the role of the Bolshevik leadership much greater than it would have been had there been a spontaneous popular revolution, like the one of February of the same year. What took place later is a different story. The seizure of power in the two capitals (Petrograd and Moscow) was accompanied by the "peasant jacquerie" – a spontaneous movement of the Russian peasantry in the winter 1917/1918 "which liquidated the gentry landholding in the countryside and made the peasants (temporarily) their own masters"(Malia 1994: 103).

For several months power was in hands of the government ("Council of People's Commissars) dominated by the Bolsheviks in alliance with the Left Social revolutionary party. After the Social-revolutionaries broke with Bolsheviks because of the formers' protest against the terms of the peace treaty with Germany (in March 1918), the Bolshevik party became the sole ruler of revolutionary Russia. Left-wing parties (Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks) were temporarily allowed to function, only to be eliminated at the end of the civil war (1918-1921). The elimination of the opposition made post-revolutionary Russia a one-party state or the "dual state"in which "real power in the country was held by the Party, a self-appointed organization recruited entirely by cooptation; it was thus in effect a secret society , or what has been called a 'conspiracy in power', which ruled behind the scenes through a formal state apparatus, theoretically resting on the people" (Malia 1994: 115). To a great surprise of many foreign observers and politicians (and too some extent even of the Bolsheviks themselves), this system not only defended itself in the civil war but also survived for the life-time of two generations.

During its more the seventy years during which Russia (and, since 1922, the Soviet Union) were ruled by the communist party, the system evolved, but its very nature as a totalitarian party dictatorship did not change until the last years of the regime, when the last party leader Mikhail Gorbachev initiated political reforms with the intension to transform the late totalitarianism into a kind of democratic state.

The evolution of the Soviet one-party system can be divided into five stages. In the first (1917-1922) the totalitarian party state was in the process of being born, fighting for its very survival against domestic and foreign enemies. While from the beginning the communist party was inspired by the totalitarian idea of total control, it was not able to establish such control yet. The second period, 1922-1929, can be described as the maturing of the totalitarian system of full party control over all aspects of life. In this stage. Within the party itself power belong to the oligarchy composed of the top elite of pre-revolutionary Bolsheviks. Gradually, however, the general secretary Joseph Stalin (1879- 1953) eliminated all his rivals and concentrated power in his hands. This process led to the third stage – the personal dictatorship (1929-1953) – which degenerated into mass terror directed against the old Bolshevik guard (particularly during the great purges of 1937-38). After Stalin death, the Soviet system entered in its fourth and longest stage (1953-1985), during which the ruling party was led by the self-coopted oligarchy of top communist functionaries. The system has lost its original dynamics and with the passing of time was increasingly oriented to the preservation of the status quo. It has abandoned the use of mass terror but continued to repress all manifestations of dissent. The last and short period of Soviet totalitarianism (1985-1991) was its gradual dissolution, during which the last Soviet leader Gorbachev tried to reform the state and when ultimately the Soviet one party system was destroyed, mostly by the growing conflicts within the party elite.

During the seventy-four years of the Soviet communist system, the pattern of political leadership evolved. Some of the most important changes involved the composition and role of top political leadership.

In the early years after the revolution, leadership of the communist party was in the hands of a small elite within which the dominant person, but not a dictator, was Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), as unquestioned party leader and head of government. While his position as the leader of the party and of the state was not questioned, he had to take into account views expressed by other top party leaders, some of whom (particularly Lev Trotsky and Nicolai Bukharin) opposed him on some policies (Deutscher 1954, Cohen 1973). Following Lenin's passing away, sharp political conflicts divided the top leadership of the Soviet communist party, eventually resulting in the concentration of power in hands of Stalin, who as the secretary general skillfully eliminated his rivals, one after the other. In this, Stalin was helped by two main factors. One was the advancement of a new generation of communist activists, who joined the party during or after the civil war and were interested in taking power from the hands of the generation of pre-revolutionary leaders. The second reason for Stalin's success in the internal party struggle was the deep division between his rivals from the Left (Trotsky) and from the Right (Bukharin). They, particularly Trotsky, were lured by the false historical analogies., particularly by the analogy with French Thermidor of 1794 which ended the dictatorship of the Jacobins. Trotsky interpreted the factional struggle within the communist party as the conflict between the new "thermidorians"and the defenders of the true spirit of the proletarian revolution and, consequently, opted for tactical alliance with Stalin against the Bucharin faction, which he accused of conducting a policy leading to the restauration of capitalism. In 1930, already in exile, Trotsky presented his interpretation of the emerging dictatorship of Joseph Stalin as the Soviet version of "Bonapartism"which he saw as "the victory of the bureaucratic-military centralist power over all the various shades of Jacobinism" and claimed that "the present regime, transitional from capitalism to socialism, could give way only to capitalism (Trotsky 1973: 71-73). Few years later, in his "The Revolution Betrayed" (1937) he called for the second socialist revolution (Trotsky 1972:284-290). Until 1935, Trotsky saw the danger of thermidorian restauration and of bonapartism not in Stalin's policies, but in the Bolshevik "Right"(Bukharin and others) and was ready to enter in a tactical alliance with Stalin to prevent such course of events (McNeal 1977). In a sense, the bitter divisions among his adversaries helped Stalin in his efforts to established his personal dictatorship. Eliminating his rivals from party leadership took Stalin five years (1924-1929) and made him an absolute ruler in the fully totalitarian system. After he had consolidated his power, Stalin turned against many of his close and loyal supporters, many of whom perished in the bloody purges of 1937-38. Over one million members of the communist party (out of 2,8 million before the purge) lost their party cards, many of them were executed or sent to labor camps. Of the 139 members and candidate-members of the Central Committee elected at the XVII party congress in 1934, 98 lost their lives (Bretovśek 1984: 388). Never before and never later had there been such massive extermination of the members of the top communist elite. When it lasted, Stalin's terrorist dictatorship was often presented as the model of communist totalitarianism. After his death, particularly among the Soviet and East European critics of his rule, the term "Stalinism"has been used to distinguish his dictatorship from the earlier and later versions of communist one-party state (Miedwiediew 1979). In the discussions on the nature of Stalinist regime, the physical elimination of top party leaders, including those who had been always loyal to him, is often explained in terms of the psychopathology of the dictator (Bretovśek 1984: 353). Robert Tucker's analysis of Stalinism stressed the fit between psychological traits of the dictator and the needs of the totalitarian system. Pointing to the importance of what he called "warfare personality"Tucker wrote that, "Hitler and Stalin were examples who also happened to be, in their respective ways, men of outstanding leadership ability. The warfare personality shows paranoid characteristics as psychologically defined. But what is essential from the standpoint of this discussion is that it represents a *political* personality type." (Tucker 1971: 40). Consequently, the pathological "warfare personality"may be considered as highly functional from the perspective of the needs of the totalitarian organization. Another functionalist interpretation was offered by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who in his first book on Soviet totalitarianism (Brzezinski 1956) interpreted the Stalinist mass purges as a functional equivalent to the routine exchange of the political elite, such as elections in democratic systems. Such interpretation, while free of the risky psychological assumptions, was soon undermined by political developments which followed the death of Stalin. The Soviet system survived the dictator by 38 years during which there was no return to mass purges. After Stalin's death, the Soviet elite peacefully aged and its leaders were dying in office.

The Soviet totalitarian system survived its founder and lasted thirty eight years after his death. In this period it has remained a totalitarian one-party state, but the one which was able to do away with mass terror. The result was an unprecedented stability of top party elite. Few changes took place on the top of power hierarchy, except those caused by natural reasons. During the whole history of the Soviet state, only seven men occupied the position of the number one leader. Of those, five died in office (Lenin in 1924, Stalin in 1953, Brezhnev in 1982, Andropov in 1983 and Chernenko in 1985) and only one was dismissed by the decision of the ruling oligarchy (Khrushchev in 1964). The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, lost his power when the Soviet Union ceased to exist due to the collapse of his reforms and to the abortive coup of August 1991.

In the other communist systems the pattern of leadership varied. In China, Mao Zedong (1893-1976) remained the unquestionable top party leader to his death, but following his passing away top party and state positions were occupied by his successors each of whom served for only a limited period of time. Such regulated rotation of top party and state leaders not only stabilized the Chinese communist regime as an oligarchical rather than personal rule, but also helped to prevent factionalism within the ruling party. After 2012, when Xi Jinping became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, there have been important changes in the functioning of the oligarchical system which evolves in the direction of personal dictatorship of the top leader. Whether these changes will become lasting and how will they affect the functioning of the regime, is yet too early to say.

In Vietnam, the father of the communist revolution Ho Chi Minh (1890- 1969) ruled until his death and so did the leader of communist Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito (1890-1980). The communist system of North Korea is unique in the pattern of political succession, in which the top position has passed from father to son: Kim Il Sung (ruling from 1948 until his death in 1994), his son Kim Jong-il who died in office in 2011 and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong-un. Consequently, during the seventy-five years of its history, North Korea was ruled by only three top leaders – the world record of stability of political leadership and the only case of a lasting political dynasty without a monarchical form of government.

In several communist states of East-Central Europe the heads of the ruling parties served for many years until their natural death: Georgi Dimitrov in Bulgaria (1949), Gheorg Georghiu Dej in Romania (1965) , Klement Gottwald and Zapatocky in Czechoslovakia (1953 and 1957, respectively). Wilhelm Pick (1960) and Walter Ulbricht (1973) in the German Democractic Republic, Enver Hoxha in Albania (1985). The last Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu ruled his country for 24 years and was executed during the revolution of December 1989. Longevity in office was the consequence of the political stagnation guaranteed by the freezing of political divide in Europe during the cold war. An interesting exception was Poland, where of the seven people who were first secretaries (top leaders) of the ruling Polish United Workers Party, only one died in office (Boleslaw Bierut in 1956), four were dismissed by the PUWP Central Committee during acute crises (Edward Ochab in 1956, Wladyslaw Gomulka in 1970, Edward Gierek in 1980, Stanislaw Kania in 1981), one resigned after having been elected President of the Republic in the early stage of post-communist transformation (Wojciech Jaruzelski in 1989) and one (Mieczyslaw Rakowski) remained party leader for barely six month, until the dissolution of the PUWP in 1990. The main reason for this Polish uniqueness was a very high frequency of political crises, which made Poland different from other states of East-Central Europe.

The common feature of the communist party-states has been the subordination of the state apparatus to the party leadership. The prime ministers and titular heads of state were subordinated to the party leader, unless – of course – he held these positions himself. While the civilian administration was never a rival for the party, control of the military was the key condition for the maintenance of the party control of the state.

One of the interesting features of the totalitarian systems is their ability to subordinate the military to the dictates of the ruling party. This was true in case of the Italian and German versions of totalitarianism. In both these countries the armed forces were put under the control of the party. In Germany, the process of transforming the military into an armed wing of the party took a few years and culminated in the purge of top military command in 1938 (Craig 1956). To be on the safe side, the NSDAP formed its own military formation – SS (*Schützstaffel)*. Originally formed as the personal security for the party leaders (1925), the SS became highly effective military formation rivaling the regular armed forces (*Wehrmacht)* There was an interesting difference between the behavior of top military command in Italy and Germany in the final stages of the second world war. In 1943, the Italian commanders – confronted with the landing of the allied forces and realizing that the war had been lost – broke with Mussolini and made possible his fall and arrest. In Germany, only a part of the military undertook an abortive coup against Adolf Hitler in July 1944 and the bulk of the Wehrmacht, as well as all SS divisions remained loyal to him to the bitter end.

In the Soviet Union the party domination over the armed forces was facilitated by the fact that the Red Army itself was created by the communist party during the civil war and staffed with trusted party cadres (Kolkowicz 1967:47). What is fascinating, however, is the fact, that the Soviet military remained loyal to the party even when endangered by the purge of 1938 which cost the Soviet armed forces the majority of their top commanders. Three out of five marshals, 3 outs of 15 army commanders, 57 out of 85 corps commanders, 110 out of 195 division commanders, 220 out of 406 brigade commanders and thousands of lower rank officers perished in the great purge of 1938 (Erickson 1962:504-506). What is difficult to comprehend, is the passivity of Soviet top commanders even when facing prison and execution. One possible explanation points to the fear of the powerful political police, but this does not explain why the military abandoned any attempt to stop the purge. Ideological indoctrination and the charisma of Joseph Stalin, in late thirties treated as the sole heir to Lenin as the founder of the communist state, could perhaps better explain such passivity than fear alone.

After Stalin's death, the Soviet military commanders played an important, but secondary, role in the political defeat, arrest and execution of the powerful head of security services Lavrentiy Beria in June 1953. Moving against the powerful head of the security forces, the military commanders were motivated by fear that a return to the policy of internal terror would lead to their physical liquidation. It was the fear of such return to the past that helped Khrushchev to obtain support from top Soviet military commanders. They did not act on their own but as supporters of Nikita Khrushchev and other party leaders who decided to eliminate powerful and dangerous rival. The fall of Beria liberated the military from police control but not from the subordination to the party. Barely four years later, the dismissal of Marshal Georgy Zhukov from the post of defense minister and a member of the Political Bureau of the party was accepted by the Soviet top commanders without any attempt to save him, in spite of Zhukov's well deserved fame as the victorious commander during the second world war. The American specialist in Soviet military history Roman Kolkowicz explained the reasons for Zhukov's promotion and then ouster from power by pointing to Nikita Khrushchev's "desire to keep the entire military establishment on his side during the struggle for power in the Party"which lost its importance "with the destruction of the intra-Party opposition" in1957 (Kolkowicz 1966: 247). In the system of communist party rule, there was little room for an independent role of a military commander, particularly if he was seen as a great war hero. An interesting footnote to Zhukov's fall can be found in the Soviet press, which frequently referred to the danger of "bonapartism".

In the other communist states, total party control over the military was intact with only two exception. The first was a brief increase of the political role of the Chinese military during the so-called "cultural revolution" in the nineteen-sixties and particularly after the death of Mao Zedong. During the "cultural revolution" the military used their influence to soften the pressure of the radicals and to protect some of the moderate party leaders. In the struggle for succession after Mao's death, the military successfully opposed the radicals and made it possible for communist reformers to win the struggle for power (Joffe 1987). The second case was Poland in 1981, when the military under General Wojciech Jaruzelski entered politics against the background of deepening political crisis and almost total collapse of the Polish United Workers Party (Korbonski and Terry 1982). In this case, however, the top military commander responded to the initiative of civilian members of the communist leadership who realized that the deepening political crisis had weakened the party so much that it was no longer able to control the situation by political means (Wiatr 1988).

In terms of their impact on history, there was an obvious difference between Soviet and East European communist leaders. The seven individuals who occupied the position of the top party leader in the USSR had means to affect the political situation on the world scale. Of them, the most eventful was the role of Joseph Stalin – both as the founder of consolidated totalitarian state and as the ruler and commander-in-chief during the second world war. After he had eliminated his rivals, Stalin's leadership became a personal dictatorship in the sense of a full subordination of the communist oligarchy to the will of the dictator. Neither Lenin, nor any of Stalin's successors have been able to accumulate such absolute personal power. In the Russian political mind, Stalin's leadership is mostly associated with the victory in the second world war – the greatest national triumph since Napoleon Bonaparte's defeat in 1812-1814. The image of him as the architect of victory is firmly entrenched in the Russian historical memory. Well known facts which could put the quality of Stalin's leadership under a question mark, are either little known or ignored. One of the examples of his gross mistakes, is Stalin's refusal to believe intelligence numerous reports and other information pointing to the coming German attack in 1941. The American historian Barton Whaley in his study of this aspect of Soviet history presented convincing argument for the thesis that Stalin's failure to correctly interpret information non the German military preparation was due to his way of thinking – the inability to understand the high-risk taking which characterized Hitler's policies before and during the war. "Stalin – writes Whaley – was too certain of his command of the threads of diplomatic-military intrigue. His policy toward Hitler was one of sheer appeasement. True, he was not so deluded as Chamberlain to believe that his prostitution was buying peace in his time. He thought only to buy peace until the next year, when he expected the Red Army would have rebuilt to the unassailable state from which he had himself reduced it by the Great Purge. … The subtle intrigues of Stalin were simply an inappropriate response to Hitler's child-like, single-minded desire to attack regardless of anything Stalin would do. Stalin erred in attributing to his opponent his own complex yet basically rational view of Russo-German relations."(Whaley 1973:226). In the system of personal dictatorship, such psychological limitation on the side of the main leader inevitably leads to disastrous consequences. Stalin strategic errors in the early stage of the war caused millions of lives but in the Russian national memory he is remembered as the victorious commander in the war which for many decades determined the position of their country in the world. With the passing of time, Russians tended to remember Stalin more as the victorious war leader than as the bloody dictator, responsible for millions of human beings destroyed on his orders. Here lies the difference between the historical images of two totalitarian dictators – Stalin and Hitler. Both were responsible for millions of victims, but there is a sharp difference between the way they are seen by the next generations of their compatriots: as the father of victory or as the one who had brought his nation to the greatest defeat in its history.

Stalin successors were not dictators but the key players within the ruling oligarchy. The first of them, Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) is best remembered for his effort to do away with the most brutal aspects of Stalin's regime. His chaotic domestic reforms and the setback of his foreign policy during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 turned the party oligarchs against him and forced his removal from office (in 1964). His three followers – Leonid Brezhnev, Andrei Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko – conducted the policy of maintaining the status quo, both domestically and in international relations. Russian historians quite correctly present years of their leadership (particularly those of Brezhnev who served as general secretary for eighteen years, 1964-1982) as those of stagnation. Soviet leaders of this period were no longer revolutionaries inspired by the idea of world communist revolution but conservative bureaucrats, fearful of change and determined to use the power of the totalitarian state to prevent it. In 1968, confronted with the reformist policy of the Czechoslovak communists, they used military force do crush it Skilling 1976). Seen from the historical perspective, their leadership can best be described as the one which delayed the necessary reforms of the Soviet system and by so doing made its collapse very likely if not inevitable.

The role of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, was fundamentally different. During the relatively short period of his leadership (1985-1991) the last general secretary of the Soviet communist party and (since 1990) president of the USSR undertook ambitious political reforms and more than any other world leader contributed to the termination of the cold war. As reformist leader he has made history – even in his ultimate defeat. The paradox of Gorbachev's leadership is that he has achieved not what he aspired to, but something even more monumental. He intended to reform the communist system, but in reality he – more than anybody else –contributed to its demise and to the wave of democratic changes in the Eastern part of Europe. For the peoples of the Soviet Union, the Gorbachev's era meant the end of the Russian imperial rule and the possibility to build their own, independent states – for the majority of them, for the first time in history. Many Russians blame him for the fact that it was on his watch that Russia lost her empire, built by Peter the Great and his successors. Many Russian democrats consider him a failure, because his reforms did not work and ultimately led to the August coup of 1991 and the final collapse of the USSR. The British biographer of the last Soviet leader, Archie Brown, disagrees with such assessment. "Thus, – he wrote – the case for viewing Gorbachev as a failure rests, above all, on a comparison between his goals when he became General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and what actually happened during his years at the top of the Soviet political system. Even by these criteria, however, things are not so simple…Gorbachev was a more serious reformer as early as 1884-5 than was generally appreciated at the time either in the Soviet Union or in the West., and he was interested not only in economic reform but also in glasnost (although, then, more as an instrument of reform than as a desirable end in itself), in a liberalization of the political system…, in replacing Soviet hegemony over other Communist parties and systems by co-operation, in reducing the size and weight of the military-industrial complex, in bringing the Soviet troops back from Afghanistan, and in ending the Cold War between East and West Those goals were far from easy to attain, but Gorbachev realized them" (Brown 1966:306). Changes brought by the Gorbachev's policies were truly historical events. In his brief six years term on the top of the Soviet political hierarchy, he changed the world more than any other Soviet leader before him – as well as extremely few leaders in other parts of the world.

The role of the communist leaders in East-Central Europe was different. With very few exceptions, they functioned under constrains resulting from the dependent status of their countries. Their elevation to top positions and their political survival depended more on support given them by the Soviet leadership. This was particularly evident in two communist states where the Soviet military intervention installed a new communist leadership: Janos Kadar in Hungary and Gustav Husak in Czechoslovakia. When after the second world war communist regimes were installed in countries dependent on the USSR, leaders of these regimes had to be at least approved (if not directly named) by Stalin himself. In later years, the leadership changes (due mostly to the aging or death of incumbents) were subject at least to the Soviet veto.

Exceptions from such rule were few but important. The first and most remarkable was Yugoslavia under the leadership of Josip Broz-Tito (1890- 1980) – the general secretary of the illegal communist party before the war and commander-in-chief of the partisan army during the war. After the German and Italian invasion in 1941, it was the communist party which initiated the national uprising and built the partisan army strong enough to liberate most of Yugoslavia on its own – the only such case in the occupied Europe. The Antifascist National Council, formed on the liberated territories, became the nucleus of the future communist regime. It was also the only political force which appealed to all constituent nations of Yugoslavia and presented a program of multi-national federation, based on the equality of its six constituent republics. After the war, the Yugoslav communist leadership, while loyal to the USSR was not dependent on the Soviet support. Tito's biographers stress the importance of this historical context for making him the only communist leader independent of the Soviet Union in the first years after the war (Auty 1970, Kulić 1998, Pirjevec 2015). In 1948, Tito refused to bow to the Soviet pressure in an unprecedented gesture of breaking the unity of the communist bloc. Tito's collaborator and biographer Vladimir Dedijer described the trauma suffered by the Yugoslav communist leaders when they had to choose between the loyalty to the USSR and the national interest of their country (Dedijer 1953). Contrary to common expectation, the Soviet political pressure has not produced leadership change in Yugoslavia. Conflict with Moscow made Tito "the triumphant heretic"of the Soviet-dominated bloc and a true national leader (Halperin 1958). After having consolidated his independent position, Tito and his subordinates in the leadership of communist party initiated a series of political and economic reforms, which made Yugoslavia unique among the then communist states. The Yugoslav reforms included partial departure from rigid central control of the economy and the introduction of self-management in the enterprises as well as territorial self-government. The Yugoslav reforms were named "titoism"(Neal 1957) due to his role as the political leader, even if the actual architects of the reforms were other members of the communist elite, particularly two most important party intellectuals Boris Kidrić (1912-1953) and Edvard Kardelj (1910-1979). In international politics, Tito was one of the initiators of the Bandung initiative to create a bloc of nonaligned nations (1955). His biographers differ in their assessment of Tito's role. Those who published their book during Tito's life, exclusively Western scholars (Auty, Halperin, Neal), stress his role as the first, and for a period of time the only, communist leader who successfully defended his country's independence against Stalin's dictates. His successful defense of the independent Yugoslav Communist state and his support for policies deviating from the Soviet model made him the symbol of the original, reformist version of Communist ideology. This does not mean that Tito was the intellectual father of what came to be known as "Titoism". "Tito himself – wrote the American specialist on Yugoslavia A. Ross Johnson – did not play a major innovative role in working out the new doctrines; the label of "Titoism"so often applied to post-1948 Yugoslav Communist doctrine, was in this sense a misnomer. A brilliant revolutionary strategist like Lenin, Mao, and Ho, Tito's background differed from theirs: he was an industrial worker turned arty worker, not a revolutionary intellectual" (Johnson 1972: 235). With the passing of time, the assessment of Tito's role changed. The two authors who published their studies years after Tito's death and who come from the former Yugoslav republics (Serbia and Slovenia), presented a more balanced picture, both (Kulić and Prijevec) stressing the brutality of his rule in the first years of the communist regime. Both, however, see him as one of the great leaders of our time and the one who not only defended the integrity and independence of Yugoslavia but also represented the reformist version of communism. In the last years of his life, Tito made an attempt to introduce changes which would preserve the unity of Yugoslavia in the years to come as a federation with rotating presidency and extended autonomy of six constituent republics. His passing away was followed by the rapidly growing crisis of the Yugoslav federation. The Yugoslav crisis were deeply rooted in history and social structure, but it was partly caused by the disappearance of the only leader whose strong personality and great prestige prolonged the existence of the common state of the Yugoslav peoples.

Another exception was Poland after Stalin's death and the death of Boleslaw Bierut (1892-1956) – the orthodox communist who came to power in 1948, due to the Stalinist type of political purge. For the first time in the Soviet bloc the ruling party, when confronted with the growing political crisis, decided to change its leadership not only without having asked Moscow for approval but in open opposition to the Soviet pressure. Wladyslaw Gomulka (1905-1982), few years earlier demoted from party leadership and imprisoned, was elected party leader in spite of the strong Soviet protests, coupled with threats of military intervention. In the first years of his leadership, Gomulka was applauded by Western commentators as the reformist communist leader and Poland under his leadership was seen as the source of hope for a better type of communist regime (Lewis 1958). His strongest asset was the fact that he was perceived – quite correctly – as a true Polish leader, not as a Soviet puppet. The fact that in 1948 he had lost his position (and a few years later his freedom) because of his opposition to the imposition of policies dictated from Kremlin, made Gomulka a symbolic figure in the efforts to protect Polish sovereignty to the degree possible in the then divided Europe. In relations with the USSR Gomulka achieved the status of "an independent satellite"(Stehle 1965) – the maximum possible change in conditions of the cold war and of Soviet hegemony. For this, he was supported by the powerful Catholic Primate of Poland cardinal Stephan Wyszynski and many noncommunist realists, including an influential group Catholic laymen, among whom was the future Prime Minister of independent Poland Tadeusz Mazowiecki. The philosophy of political realism, solidified by the bitter experience of Poland during the second world war, worked in favor of Gomulka's moderate policies (Bromke 1967). Domestically, Gomulka's policies included abandoning forced collectivization of the agriculture, normalization of relations with the Roman Catholic Church, liberalization of cultural and educational policies and greater personal freedom. Poland was no longer a totalitarian state. In foreign policy, he defended Polish national interest both by limiting the Soviet domination and by successfully seeking reconciliation with Germany based on the recognition of the post-war borders. In both these aspects this policy was as successful as it was possible under the existing international conditions. With the passing of time, particularly in late sixties, Gomulka retreated from his reformist policies, partly under the pressure of the authoritarian and nationalistic faction within the party (Bethell 1969). His once great popularity evaporated and in 1970 Gomulka lost his position in consequence of his decision to use military force against workers' protest in Gdansk and other Baltic cities. His collaborator and biographer Andrzej Werblan, while praising Gomulka as an outstanding leader, pointed to his psychology (distrust of others and authoritarian tendency to impose his will) as well as to the weakness of his political base within the party to explain Gomulka's fall (Werblan 1988). The British political scientist of Polish descent (during the war a soldier of the Polish underground Home Army ) Zbigniew A. Pelczynski explained his fall as resulting from a combination of faulty economic policies and the fact, that he "never built up a large personal following in the Central Committee or the party apparatus"(Pelczynski 1973:10) but summed up Gomulka's role as follows:

"The redeeming features of Gomulka's career were his patriotism, courage, personal integrity, modesty, common sense and moderation. His devotion to socialism and to his country's welfare, as he understood them, was unquestionable. He never abused political power for personal ends, though he became a virtual autocrat." (Leslie 1978: 406)

In later years, two communist leaders in Europe challenged the Soviet hegemony: Enver Hoxha (1908-1986) in Albania and Greorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1901-1965) in Romania. Both rejected the limited liberalization of communist totalitarianism which took place in USSR after Stalin's death and appealed to the nationalist ideas. Neither of them, however, made any change in the way their totalitarian states functioned. In Romania, the totalitarian regime with strong nationalistic traits continued under Nicolae Ceausescu until the revolution of December 1989. In Albania, the death of Hoxha did not affect the functioning of the state, which for few years remained a totalitarian enclave until it collapsed in 1991, during the wave of democratic change in Eastern Europe.

Different was the role of communist leaders in three countries where the new system was established by revolutions and not imposed by the Soviet superpower. China, Vietnam and Cuba are interesting examples of the revolutionary leadership, committed to the communist ideology but independent of the Soviet Union. They are also different from other communist states (except North Korean) in their ability to survive the wave of democratization, which for the Soviet Union and all communist states in Europe meant the disappearance of the communist regimes, substituted for by either democratic systems or another forms of authoritarianism.

The survival of communist regimes in these three states is due to the fact that the revolutions from which they emerged, had combined social and national aspects. They were directed not only against the domestic ruling classes but also, and in case of Vietnam mostly, against foreign powers which formally (as in case of the French colonial rule in Indochina) or informally (as in case of the American relations with pre-revolutionary China and Cuba) dominated their countries. In such context, leaders of communist revolutions were perceived as symbols of national liberation – something that in the communist states in Europe was possible only in case of Yugoslavia.

The three founding fathers of these regimes remained unquestioned leaders until their death and are still subject to a semi-religious cult. There have been, however, important differences between modes of their leadership.

Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976) was one of the founders of the Chinese communist party and its unquestioned leader since 1935. He led the party through the civil war and the war against the Japanese invasion during which the communists built a strong partisan army. After defeat of Japan, Chinese communists continued their struggle against gradually weakened authoritarian regime of Chiang Kai-shek and in 1949 established their full control over the territory of continental China with Mao Zedong as its powerful chairman. Then new political elite, made almost exclusively of the pre-revolutionary party cadres took over. Its social and political composition differed from that of their predecessors, but in both cases members of the ruling elites were party activists of long standing (North 1952). Within this elite there were people who, while accepting Mao's role as the supreme leader, played an independent and quite important role in governing China. The most interesting case was that of the gifted Prime Minister Zhou Enlai (1898-1976), about whom Richard Nixon wrote that "he had the talent, rare among revolutionary leaders, to do more than rule the ruins: He could retain what was best in the past and build a new society for the future" (Nixon 1982:260)). Nixon, who knew both Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, very clearly considered the later a greater leader and lamented the fact that Zhou's death, barely few month before Mao's, deprived China of his leadership. "Without Mao – he wrote – the Chinese Revolution would never caught fire. Without Zhou it would have burned out and only the ashes would remain. Whether it will survive and in the end do more good than harm depends on whether the present Chinese leaders decide, as Zhou did, that they are going to be more Chinese than communist. If they do, China…can become not only the most populous , but also the most powerful, nation in the world"(ibidem). Forty years later, we can see Nixon's prediction coming true.

The dual leadership in China was the only such case in the history of communist party states. Zhou Enlai was a natural candidate for succession and his death – on the eve of Mao's – opened a brief period in which China was plagued by a sharp conflict on the very top of the communist hierarchy. The ultimate winner was the reformist politician Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) under whose leadership China started an ambitious program of economic reforms. Deng's very strong position within the party leadership did not exclude the fact, that "proponents of divergent visions of reform survived in top echelons, as evidenced by struggles throughout the 1980s and early 1990s between Deng Xiaoping's followers and less innovative rivals" (deLisle 2008:206). Deng's victory in the internal conflict within the Chinese political leadership played a decisive role in determining China's path of reforms and in assuring its success. In the four decades of reforms China underwent the process of rapid economic growth and became the second strongest economy in the world. Between 1978 and 2019 her national multiplied 39 times – by far more than in any other country. The national product per person grew 26.8 times allowing China to practically eliminate extreme poverty. The Chinese economic and political system constitutes a mixture of privately and state property (with approximately 60 percent in the private sector), strong state control of the economy and authoritarian party rule. Such unique mixture – called "Chinism"by the Polish economist Grzegorz Kolodko – deserves special attention as an alternative both to the free market capitalism and to state socialism (Kolodko 2018). To understand its emergence it is necessary to account for the crucial role of the political leadership of the post-Mao era. Since 1978, when the struggle for power had ended, Deng remained the actual top leader under whose command China began her march to modernity and gradually achieved the position of the second most powerful nation. One of the innovation which make China different from the Soviet model has been her system of routine rotation on the very top of political leadership. Chinese leaders serve for a fixed period and then gave room for their successors. Recently, there have been, however, changes in this system which suggest that the current leader Xi Jinping , since 2012 secretary general of the communist Party, may try to perpetuate his hold on power. Nothing in his policies suggest, however, that he might depart from the path of "Chinism"which has proved so successful in the last decades.

In the history of communist Vietnam Ho Chi Minh (1896-1969) played the crucial role as the founder of the communist party and later also of Viet Minh – a communist-dominated movement for national liberation which in 1941 raised started its campaign against the Japanese occupants. In the immediate aftermath of Japan's defeat, Viet Minh proclaimed the independent, but tied to France, republic with Hanoi as its capital. French Provisional government responded (in December 1945) by massive military attack forcing the communists to abandon Hanoi and other cities. A long partisan war ended in the defeat of French forces in the battle for control of Dienbienphu, followed by the peace conference in Geneva (July 1954), at which it was decided that (a) Vietnam would become independent, (b) temporarily, the country would be divided along the 14th parallel with Viet Minh ruling the North and the pro-French emperor Bao Dai remaining in power in the South, (c) after two years, free election would be organized and the country would be united under the democratically elected government. Under the American pressure, the South Vietnamese military removed Bao Dai and reneged the agreement on reunification on the base of free election. The prolonged war in which the United States tried to save the regime on the South by massive military intervention ended in final victory of Viet Minh and the unification of Vietnam (1976). Ho Chi Minh died seven years earlier but his role in the victory was crucial. After the unification, Saigon -the former capital of the South – has been renamed as Ho Chi Minh City. In unified Vietnam, economic reforms, patterned after the Chinese, were initiated by the then party leader Nguyen Van Linh in 1986 and after the end of the cold war the relations with the United States have been normalized. Along with China, Vietnam has demonstrated that reforms in a communist party state are not impossible if introduced under the firm and reform-oriented leadership.

In late nineteen-fifties, the Cuban revolution produced another type of communist leadership with highly specific characteristics. The pro-American military dictator Fulgencio Batista, who came to power in a military coup in 1952 and since then enjoyed full support of the United States. was overthrown (on New Year night 1958/59) not by a communist revolution but by the radical leftist guerilla launched against him by a group composed mostly by students and young leftist democrats. The starting point in their struggle was an unsuccessful attack on military barracks Moncada on July 26, 1953, in later years glorified as the origin of the Cuban revolution. This event gave name to the Cuban revolutionary movement, under the leadership of the charismatic lawyer Fidel Castro Ruz (1926-2016) who won great popularity by his brave and skillful defense at his trial. In November, 1956 the group of revolutionaries commanded by Fidel Castro landed in their yacht "Gamma"on the Cuban coast in Oriente and started their guerilla war, which ultimately ended in the collapse of Batista's regime and made them the rulers of Cuba.

The Cuban revolution was a combination of a populist revolt against the privileged elite and a national liberation movement directed against the powerful United States. The Cuban communist party did not support the revolution, which it saw as nothing but "a bourgeois"coup. It was only after the deterioration of relations between Cuba and the United States and the emergence of the Soviet Union as the only world power ready to defend the Cuban regime, that the communist party decided to offer its support to Fidel Castro. In the first years after the revolution, the base of Castro's power was not the communist party but the July 26 Movement, an elite formation of former partisans. After the abortive intervention in Bay of Pigs in 1961 (organized by the American Central Intelligence Agency) and after the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, Castro decided to merge his movement with the communist party. The unification of these two formation was done in a way which produced new party leadership composed almost exclusively by the veterans of the July 26 Movement with Fidel Castro as the top party leader. It was the only case that the communist party was headed by a leader whose political career and access to power predated his access to the communist movement. Castro's French biographer Serge Raffy, not only critical but even hostile to the Cuban leader, documented the long process of unification of two Cuban radical movements: the 26 July Movement and the communist party (Raffy 2003). Never before (or after) had the communist one-party regime emerged from the revolutionary action of non-communist radicals with only secondary role played by the communists. This origin of the Cuban regime gave it two specific traits: the crucial role of Castro as the charismatic leader whose position was not the consequence of his role in the party, and the radical nature of the regime, which perceived itself as the bridgehead of the liberation of Latin America more than as part of the world communist movement.

Castro was the unquestioned leader until his death. In the last years of his life he delegated his duties as Prime Minister to his younger brother Raoul Castro but remained the ultimate authority for the Cuban regime. His domestic policies were marked by the utopian dream of creating an egalitarian society based on firm political control of the economy and brought a permanent economic malaise. These policies have been, however, highly popular among the poorer strata for whom they constituted a perspective of upward social mobility. The main source of Castro's popularity was, however, his firm stand against the United States whose domination has been perceived (not only in Cuba but in many countries of Latin America as well) as "imperialism from the North". In April 1961, revolutionary Cuba survived the military intervention organized by the Central Intelligence Agency . The landing of Cuban emigrants armed by the CIA in the Bay of Pigs ended in their surrender due to the lack of popular response – the only case when the superpower had to accept defeat in confrontation with a small nation in its sphere of hegemony. The durability of the Cuban regime when compared with the fate of other radical regimes in Latin America (like that of Salvadore Allende in Chile, 1970-1973) can be seen as the great success of Fidel Castro as the charismatic revolutionary leader. Supported by the majority of his people and skillfully playing on Soviet support against the United States, the Cuban leader was able to stay in power to the end of the cold war – and years later. Communist Cuba became the symbol of radical revolution which failed in all other parts of Latin America.

The century of communist one-party regimes suggests the following three generalizations:


After the second world war, communist one-party system became a model for authoritarian regimes in many post-colonial nations. With very few exceptions (like Algeria after her independence in 1962) such regimes were much less stable than the communist party states. The main reason of their instability is that in most of them (again with Algerian exception) the ruling parties have been formed after (rather than before) the capture of power. Because of this, they lacked the cohesive cohorts of party veterans, hardened by years of common struggle and experienced in conducting party politics.

Algerian one party system has its roots in the long war against French rule (1954-1962) in which the political leadership of the pro-independence forces was in hands of the National Liberation Front (FLN) led by Ahmed Ben Bella (1916-2012), who in 1962 became the prime minister and in 1963 the president of the independent republic. After the liberation, FLN reorganized itself as a monopolistic political party and consolidated power in its hands. The Algerian one-party system survived the military coup of June 19, 1965 in which the military, under its commander Houari Boumedienne removed Ben Bella from office and put him under house arrest. Bumedienne ruled Algeria until his death in 1978, but he did not replace the one-party regime with a military dictatorship. Instead, he made himself the leader of the ruling party. In 1988 following a series of riots which weakened the Algerian regime, a democratic constitution was adopted and the opposition party – Islamic Salvation Front – was allowed to enter the political life. In the climate of democratic changes in Europe and Latin America, the Algerian leadership made a timid attempt to partially democratize the system and organized a competitive parliamentary election of December 1991, based on the French system of two rounds . When, however, the first round ended in a very good results for the Islamic opposition, the second round was annulled and the opposition suppressed. The result was a long civil war (1992-1999) and twenty years presidency (1999-2019) of the FLN veteran Abdefazir Boutefika whose resignation , caused by deteriorating health, has not effect on the functioning of the Algerian state as a one-party regime.

Other post-colonial states tried to imitate the one-party model but without lasting success. The monopolistic parties were formed not before but after the seizure of power by an authoritarian leader or by a coterie of leaders. Such parties lacked a solid base in the form of political cadres whose political past made them experienced elites tied by memories of common past and by the ideological beliefs. The consequence is that the one-party systems have remained mostly the political regimes of the communist states.

Among the non-communist one-party states the Spanish experience of the authoritarian rule is unique. Juan Linz, the American political scientist of Spanish descent, in his pioneering study (Linz 1964) defined the authoritarian system as qualitatively different from the totalitarian one, in spite of some similarities. One of the differences concerned the character of the ruling party and its relation with the state. Authoritarian regimes are not party regimes in the way in which the totalitarian ones (both communist and fascist) have been. The ruling party shares its power with the military, which remains not only independent of the party but even capable of competing with it for control of the state. In his analysis of the composition of Spanish cabinets 1938-1962, Linz found that only 17 (25%) of cabinet ministers had their background in Falange, while 26 (39%) came from the ranks of the military (ibidem: 330). The nature of the governing party in Spain also differed from the fascist model, in spite of their ideological closeness. The Spanish ruling party (*Falange Espanola de los Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista*) was formed in 1934 as a variant of fascism, strongly emphasizing its nationalism and commitment to conservative version of Roman Catholicism. Its ideological roots go back to the miniscule Spanish Nationalist Part, whose leader was Jose Maria Albinana, and to the weekly paper "*La Conquista del estado*" under the directorship of Ramiro Ledesma Ramos (Payne 1961: 10). Both were strongly influenced by the nationalistic ideology of German NSDAP. In June 1931, another group of similar outlook was formed under the leadership of Onesimo Redondo Ortega who combined the ideas borrowed from German National Socialism with string attachment to Catholic values (Payne 1961: 15-16). In 1934, these groups merged with the "Falange Espanola "whose leader was Jose Antonio Prima de Rivera (1903-1936), son of Miguel Prima de Rivera (1870-1930) who ruled Spain as the military dictator after the coup of 1923 until his fall in 1930, soon followed by his death. The variety of ideological roots made Falange much less cohesive than the Italian or German fascist parties. When in 1936 the military under command of general Francesco Franco (1892-1975) rebelled against the leftist government, Falange supported the rebellion. On April 19, 1937 Franco issued the Unification Decree under which Falange was merged with the monarchical movement of the "carlists" and after the civil war became the only legally existing party. It was not, however, the sole or even the main actor in the authoritarian state but rather a civilian wing of the predominantly military regime. Franco was the head of the state and the titular leader of the party, but his power rested more on the military than on the party. The way in which he projected the continuity of the authoritarian state – the restoration of monarchy with very strong position of the king – indicated that what he had in mind was not a one-party regime but a kind of traditional monarchical system based on support offered it by the military and the Roman Catholic church. Such a mixture of military rule, one-party state and monarchy – if successful – would have been a unique type of modern authoritarianism. Its demolition was due to the combination of three factors: the weakness of the party structure, the pressure coming from the democratic international environment and the personality of king Juan Carlos who – instead of becoming the continuator of the regime – choose to become its grave-digger.

Authoritarian regimes, military dictatorships and one-party systems dominated the world of politics until the last quarter of the twenties century. All Latin American states, most of African and Asiatic ones, all in the Eastern part of Europe and three in the South of Europe (Greece, Portugal and Spain) were ruled by leaders who did not receive their mandate in democratic, competitive elections. The quality of their leadership varied, as did the extent to which their rule violated human rights and individual freedoms. The durability of authoritarian leadership suggested that for a long time an authoritarian, rather than democratic leadership would remain the dominant model of political power. In early nineteen-seventies democracy functioned only in North America, Western Europe, Oceania and a handful of states in Asia. Democratic governments were on the defensive in various parts of the world. In September 1973, the democratically elected president of Chile Salvadore Allende was overthrown and lost his life in the military coup politically supported by the United States and more or less accepted by the community of democratic nations. In the majority of formerly colonial states of Africa decolonization failed to produce democratic governments and if such government came to power in the early stage of decolonization in most cases it was replaced by a dictatorship, often led by the former leaders of anti-colonial movements. The defeat of the United States in Vietnam, while not leading to the "domino effect" in the other countries of Asia, was perceived as the proof that the most powerful democratic state was no longer capable of promoting or defending democracy in the remote parts of the world. The strong position of the Soviet Union and the growing power of communist China were perceived as guarantees of the continuity, or perhaps even expansion, of the international communist system. The dominant spirit of the time was rather pessimistic as far as the perspectives of democracy were concerned.

All this changed in an unpredicted way. Rapid political change, which took place in the last quarter of the past century, produced what Samuel Huntington called "the third wave of democratization"(Huntington 1991) and created a new atmosphere of optimism as far as the future of democracy is concerned. Instead of studying the break-down of democratic regimes, political scientists began to concentrate on the democratic transition and consolidation. However, even the impressive successes of this period did not make democracy the dominant model of modern political systems. In the present century the world of politics is still marked by the competition between two alternative models: authoritarian and democratic leadership. The first two decades of the twenty-first century passed without any further expansion of democracy in the world. In the Arab world, the political events of 2011 – optimistically labelled "the Arab Spring" – turned into chaos, civil wars and return to the military rule. Democracy faces crises, caused by economic polarization and the rise of populist movements (Przeworski 2019). Future remains undetermined.

It is the non-deterministic character of the present political changes that makes the study of democratization and of the alternative roads of political change so important. It also makes political leadership so essential for the future of democracy.

### Chapter Five: Political leadership in the transition to democracy

The last quarter of the twentieth century witnessed an unprecedented growth of democracy all over the world. Between 1974 (democratic revolution in Portugal and the fall of the military regime in Greece) and 1994 (first fully free election in the Republic of South Africa) thirty four states experienced fully free election – first in their history or first after a prolonged period of dictatorial rule. While democracy cannot be identified with free election alone, such election is a necessary condition without which a state cannot be considered democratic. According to the Freedom House, this group of new democracies included the following states (with the year of first free election): Argentine (1983), Benin (1991), Bolivia (1982), Brazil (1985), Bulgaria (1991), Cape Verde (1991), Chile (1990), Czech Republic (1993), Dominican Republic (1978), Ecuador (1979), El Salvador (1994), Estonia (1992), Greece (1975), Grenada (1984), Guyana (1992), Honduras (1982), Hungary (1990), Latvia (1993), Lithuania (1993), Mali (1992), Mexico (1997), Mongolia (1993), Panama (1980), Peru (1980), Philippines (1987), Poland (1990), Portugal (1976), Republic of Korea (1988), Republic of South Africa (1994), Romania (1990), Slovakia (1993), Slovenia (1992),Spain (1978), and Thailand (1992). In many more countries, the authoritarian regimes collapsed, but their fall did not result in the establishment of democratic systems, at least for several more years. This has been particularly true in the majority of former Soviet republics and, at least for several years, in the case of some former Yugoslav republics.

 The rapid growth of the number of democratic states, called by Samuel P. Huntington "the third wave of democratization", was unprecedented in term of the previous history of democratic regimes. In 1973, democratic systems existed in only thirty states (Huntington 1991:26) – less than half the number of democracies twenty-one years later. Never before was the transition from authoritarian to democratic systems so massive and so fast. Between 1922 and 1962 (the highest points of the first and the second waves of democratization) the number of democracies grew only from 29 to 36, and in terms of their share in the total number of states fell from 45.3% to 32.4%.

Later developments confirmed the uniqueness of this period. After 1994, the number of democratic states continued to grow but very slowly. While the "third reverse wave" has not taken place, there was also no "fourth wave" comparable in its scale to the third. In 2011, the wave of revolts in the Arab states raised hopes that so-called "Arab Spring" would produce an effect similar to the third wave of democratization. The reality was quite different. Only in one Arab state (Tunisia) political upheaval gave birth to a relatively stable democratic system, which, however, suffered from the presidential coup d'etat in 2021. In the remaining Arab states the anti-authoritarian revolts ended either in civil wars (Libya, Syria, Yemen) or in the military coup and the reestablishing of an authoritarian regime (Egypt). Hopes for the continuous democratization of the communist states have been frustrated by political developments in the majority of former Soviet republics, including the Russian Federation, and by the survival of communist regimes outside Europe (China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam). Twenty-five years after the end of the third wave of democratization, democracies are still in minority world-wide.

Democratization, however, changed the geographic pattern of political regimes. Europe, with the exception of the three post-Soviet states (Belorussia, Russia and Ukraine) has been transformed into a community of democratic states, the majority of which are now members of the European Union. Latin America, previously the region notorious for the frequency of military dictatorships, is almost fully democratic (with the exception of Cuba and Venezuela) and for over forty years has not experienced any military take-over. In Africa and in Asia, there have been instances of successful democratization, with the end of apartheid and the consolidation of democracy in South Africa as the most impressive success.

Interpreting the third wave of democratization one may focus on four main aspects: the sources of change, the modes of transition, the success or failure of democratic consolidation and the role of political leaders.

#### **1. Alternative explanations of transition**

Students of the transition from dictatorship to democracy differ in the way in which they explain this process. While there seems to be an agreement that there is no single, universally valid, causal relationship, these interpretations concentrate on various elements of the social and political situation. Samuel Huntington listed twenty-seven variables which had been considered important for explaining the transition to democracy and concluded that the processes of democratization could not be explained in terms of any single factor (Huntington 1991: 37-38). In reference to the third wave of democratization, Huntington listed five main changes which played significant role in transition to democracy: 1) "the deepening legitimacy problems of authoritarian systems in a world where democratic values were widely accepted", (2) "the unprecedented global economic growth of the 1960s", 3) "the striking changes in doctrine and activities of the Catholic Church ", 4) "changes in the policies of external actors", such as the European Union and the United States, as well as the new Soviet policy , 5) "snowballing of demonstration effects"(Huntington 1991:45- 46). On the relative importance of the economic factors, Huntington voiced a guarded opinion, that "transitions to democracy should occur primarily in countries at the middle level of economic development"and observed, that "twenty-seven out of thirty-one countries that liberalized or democratized, were in the middle-income range, neither poor nor wealthy, and half of the third wave countries had 1976 per capita GNP between \$1,000 and \$ 3,000"(ibidem: 60, 63). Does this mean that democratization was caused by economic development? Huntington refused such conclusion and pointed to the variety of political consequences of the rapid economic growth, depending more on political choices made by the leaders than on economic performance (ibidem:72). Similarly, Linz and Stepan, while admitting that "there are a number of cases where sustained prosperity altered relations of power in favor of democratic forces" refused to accept the view that "economic growth contributes to regime erosion"(Linz and Stepan 1996:78-79). As a counter-argument to the hypothesis that economic prosperity leads to democratization, one may quote Poland in late eighties, when the prolonged economic crisis was one of the reasons for which the ruling military-civilian leadership opted for the negotiations with the opposition and ultimately for the democratic change.

In practically all studies of the democratic transition, authors point to the importance of the economic factors. They are not unanimous, however, on the relative importance of various aspects of the economic situation. Linz and Stepan "accept the well-documented correlation that there are few democracies at very low level of socioeconomic development and that most polities at high level of socioeconomic development are democracies"but they warn that "this relations hip between development and the probability of democracy does not tell us much about *when, how* and *if* a transition will take place and be successfully completed"(ibidem: 77). They also pointed to the importance of the spirit of time (*Zeitgeist* in the tradition of German intellectual history) and the impact of diffusion of the democratic values and patterns of governing, particularly in countries which for historical reasons had been influenced by the political models prevailing in the old democracies (ibidem: 74-76). Economic interpretation of the reasons for democratization cannot be reduced to the impact of the level of economic development. Henry Teune concentrated on one key factor – globalization, which he saw as "two sides of contemporary world's development wedge"(Teune 2008: 74). Obviously, globalization brings not only economic but also cultural changes which tend to undermine authoritarian regimes.

Socio-economic interpretations tend to point in two opposite directions. On the one hand, it seems plausible that the growth of an affluent and influential middle class is likely to produce a social force interested in departure from dictatorial rule and capable of mobilizing political forces necessary to produce such change. On the other hand, however, it is also true that the deterioration of economic conditions – particularly if it comes after a period of economic improvement – results in massive dissatisfaction with the performance of the regime and that such dissatisfaction can cause the weakening and even fall of the regime. Most – but not all – of the countries which democratized during the "third wave" suffered acute economic crises prior to the beginning of the transition. It is debatable whether such crises were the main reason for the fall of non-democratic regimes, but it is obvious that in some cases they undermined the legitimacy of the incumbent government and contributed to the mobilization of protesters. In the then communist bloc, Poland of 1980 was an extreme case of economic collapse and mass protests generated by the rapid deterioration of the standard of living. On the other hand, however, relatively good performance of the Hungarian or Czechoslovak economies did not prevent the collapse of the communist regimes when the wave of democratization reached the communist bloc. Consequently, one may assume that the fall of dictatorial regime can come either in conditions of good economic performance or in conditions of economic failure. If so, economy alone cannot explain the departure from non-democratic regime, and even less – the success of democratic transformation. On the other hand, however, the quality of economic performance is essential for the stabilization of new democracies. In a collective study devoted to the issue of democratic stabilization we have argued that for new democracy to become sustainable the choice of economic strategy is very important. "Economic strategies – we argued – have political consequences. First, the rapid internationalization of economic and political relations requires national governments to alienate some traditional instruments of economic policy. This reduced sovereignty, in turn, restricts the scope of decisions controlled by the democratic process. Collective choices are so constrained that little appears at stake in political participation. This is perhaps one reason why organizational life is anemic, not only in the new but also in the established democracies. Second, the technocratic policy style, characteristic of the promarket reforms, tend to undermine the nascent representative institutions. Finally, indiscriminate cuts of public expenditures reduce the very capacity of the state to guarantee the effective exercise of citizenship rights, particularly in the areas of police protection, education, and income maintenance. Pushed to the extreme, they threaten the very integrity of the state"(Przeworski 1995: 111).

The distinction between condition leading to the regime change and conditions of stabilization of the new, democratic, system is important for the understanding of the relationship between economy and politics in the process of democratic transformation. No matter how important were the non-economic sources of the political crisis, the long-term effects of the political change depend to a particularly great extent on the ability of the new government to satisfy the economic expectations of the citizens. This, however, is not the same as reducing the causes of transition to the economic issues.

The necessity of accounting for the non-economic factors reflects the weakness of purely socioeconomic interpretation. Not ignoring the impact on economic and social change, one must take into account four main non-economic factors: the historically rooted political culture, the role of religious beliefs, the international environment and the role of political leaders – both those who promote democratic change and those who defend the old regime or attempt to established an alternative version of authoritarianism. The relative importance of those factors varies depending on the historical conditions of a country or of a geographic region.

One factor, however, explains the rapid growth of democracies during the "third wave" better than anything else. It is the change in the international situation following the end of the cold war. While all other factors existed before, this new international environment made the crucial difference, at least for the majority of countries which belong to the "third wave of democratization".

All these factors do not make democratic transformation inevitable. The historical experience of last four decades show that a significant number of countries continued to live under non-democratic regimes, some of them in spite of deep and fast changes in their social and economic structures, as illustrated by the impressive stability of the communist party rule in China in conditions of massive change in the economic and social fabric of the China. Democratic transformation requires political leadership committed to such change and social forces capable of giving it sufficient support.

Prior to the end of the cold war, democratic transition took place only in three states of Southern Europe (Portugal, Greece and Spain) and in some Latin American states (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras and Peru). It took place also in the Philippines in 1987, when the cold war was just ending. It seems plausible to suggest that the regime change in these years was at least partly facilitated by the change of the policy of the United States toward its non-democratic allies. Such change began before the end of the cold war and was one of the consequences of a new political climate after the Vietnam war which seriously undermined the confidence of the United States in the ability of its nondemocratic allies to serve as efficient barriers to the advances of the communist adversaries. The election of president Jimmy Carter (1976) and his policy of promoting human rights was a turning point in the way in which the United States reacted to internal crises in the some of its non-democratic allies. In 1979, the American president refused to offer support to the besieged shah of Iran, indirectly facilitating the collapse of one of the most pro-American regimes in the Middle East. The concern for human rights, previously almost totally absent in the American foreign policy, made it easier for Latin American democratic forces to effectively challenge dictatorial regimes in their countries.

Even more important was the change in the USSR. Mikhail Gorbachev's elevation to the top position (in March 1985) and his new approach to the international relations signaled the beginning of the end of the cold war. In 1988, with the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan and with the announcement of the new foreign policy of the USSR, the cold war came to its end. Fast transition from communist regimes in Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union were consequences of the changed international situation, particularly of the historical decision of the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev not to use force to prevent democratic change in the former Soviet dependencies in Central Europe.

The end of the cold war affected not only the communist states but also the situation of the non-democratic regimes in other parts of the world. The end of the racist regime in South Africa is a good example. As long as the cold war lasted, the democratic powers of the West tolerated the South African regime as a lesser evil compared to the potential access to power of the African National Congress, within which there was an influential communist wing. Democratic declarations notwithstanding, the United States and its European allies did nothing to promote democratic change in South Africa as long as they considered their communist adversaries to be a real danger. This has changed in the early nineteen-nineties and forced the South African regime to start the process of gradual transition from apartheid to multi-racial democracy.

A similar pattern was evident in relations between the United States and Latin America. In early nineteen-eighties, the dominant pattern of Latin American politics was the military rule of strongly anti-communist orientation, supported by the United States for international reasons. American support for the Chilean coup of 1973 was just one of the series of actions motivated by the fear that democratization could bring to power leftist, or even communist, forces inimical to the interests of the United States. With the weakening of the Soviet Union and with its withdrawal from the cold war confrontation, this consideration was losing its relevance. The United States no longer feared that democratization would mean the growth of Soviet influence in the region traditionally considered an American sphere of influence.

The change of the international situation, however, created conditions conducing to regime transformation but did not make such transformation inevitable. In the majority of Asian and African states, democratization was not even attempted or was stopped in its very early stage by powerful authoritarian forces. Iran after the revolution of January 1979 is a good example. While there were strong reasons for the fall of the regime of Shah Muhammed Reza Pahlavi and while the United States refused to offer political or military assistance to the besieged ruler, the potential for democratization was not strong enough to prevent the seizure of power by the influential Islamic theocratic leadership and the establishment of an authoritarian regime of Islamic fanatics. Communist regimes outside Europe (with the exception of Mongolia) were not affected by the wave of democratization and thirty years later look as solid as ever before. Particularly important for the global international relations is the successful economic reforms and growing position as one of two strongest world powers in China – an interesting case of consolidated rule of the communist party.

The crucial difference between countries which underwent successful democratization and those which remained non-democracies can be found in their political cultures, formed by centuries of history and affecting both the ordinary citizens and the political leaders. The contrast between former Soviet republics and the Central European states illustrates this difference particularly well.

Comparing political change in the former communist states, I have emphasized the importance of historical conditions which made Central Europe fundamentally different from Russia and the other former Soviet republics, except the ones which had been forcibly incorporated during the early stages of the second world war: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Moldova (Wiatr 2008). Already before the beginning of democratic transition, differences between the Soviet Union and the Central European communist states were heralded by several specialists in the communist studies. They advocated abandoning the stereotypes according to which all communist states were seen as carbon copies of the Soviet model and postulated a comparative approach to the study of varieties of communist polities (Shoup 1971). They pointed to the importance of the difference in the length of time in which these countries remained under communist rule and the importance of this factor both for the composition of the ruling elites and for the political experience of citizens (Triska 1970). Already in 1966, in a paper written jointly with Adam Przeworski, I have pointed to the importance of differences between totalitarian and authoritarian communist regimes in Europe, Poland being the most obvious deviant case among countries then under Soviet hegemony (Wiatr and Przeworski 1966).

Comparing former communist states I have pointed to five main differences between the Soviet Union and the Central European communist states (Wiatr 2008).

First, the communist system was established in the former Russian empire one full generation earlier than in the non-Soviet European communist states. By the time the communist system was coming to its end, the pre-communist past was no longer part of the life experience even of the older generation of Soviet citizens – with the exception of those from the Baltic republics – but it was still very much alive in the memories of the older generation of citizens of the Central European states. Consequently, in the early stages of transition from the communist system in Central European an important role was played by leaders who had begun their political activities before the establishment of the communist system, like Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Wiesław Chrzanowski in Poland (respectively Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament in the first years of democratization), Jozsef Antall (Prime Minister of Hungary from 1990 to his death in 1993), Valdas Adamkus (president of Lithuania from 1997 to 2002) or Simeon Sakskoburgotski (Prime Minister of Bulgaria 2001-2005 who as a child was the last tsar Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha from 1943 to 1946).

Second, a majority of Central European communist states varied from the Soviet republics in their political past. Most of them had had at least some experience in democracy prior to the establishment of the communist rule. Several of them before the first world war were parts of the Austro-Hungarian empire with very considerable elemental exposure to political freedoms and to democracy, at least since the constitutional reforms of the 1860s. Political democracy existed in almost all of them at least for some parts of the interwar period and in Czechoslovakia it functioned well until 1938 when it fell victim to the dictate of the Nazi Germany. In this respect, the case of the three Baltic republics is closer to that of the other Central European states than to that of the older Soviet republics.

Third, the pattern of the establishment of the communist regimes made Central Europe (including the Baltic republics) different from Russia and the other former Soviet republics, where communists came to power on their own – by exploiting the dissatisfaction with the war, organizing the revolutionary seizure of power and winning the civil war. In Central Europe, with the exception of Yugoslavia and Albania, communist regimes were imposed on the unwilling population by the overwhelming might of the victorious Soviet army , with the consent of the Western powers. Being imposed from without, the newly communist regimes in East-Central Europe were forced to make numerous concessions and in so doing they partially deviated from the rigid orthodoxy of Soviet communist model.

Fourth, due to the death of Stalin and the partial liberalization initiated by his successors in the USSR, the fully totalitarian stage of the communist rule lasted in Central Europe form only five years (1948-1953), with the exception of Albania and Romania where totalitarian political regime survived to the very end. In the USSR, the fully totalitarian system had been consolidated during the forced collectivization of the agriculture (1929-1933) and lasted until the death of its founder – that means for at least twenty-four years. Compared with the Soviet model Central European communist regimes were considerably less oppressive, particularly in the intensity of mass terror.

Fifth, in the case of communist regimes of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia the collapse of the communist regimes took place in the context of the breaking of the multi-national states and the process of changing the regimes was mixed with the building of new nation-states, in most cases for the first time in the history of nations involved. In Central Europe, with the exception of Czechoslovakia, democratization took place within a nation-state and was facilitated by the dominant feeling of regained national independence. The "velvet divorce"of former Czechoslovakia differed dramatically from the violent way in which the Yugoslav federation was divided into seven separate states, including the prolonged ethnic war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-1995) and the NATO military intervention in Kosovo (1999). In Russia, the breakdown of the empire produced a feeling of national defeat and complicated the process of democratic transformation.

The general conclusion, which can be formulated on the ground of this comparison, points to the fundamental difference between causes of democratic transformation in Central Europe and in the Soviet Union. Central European nations used the opportunity created by the changed climate of international politics for doing away with the system which had been imposed on them and which survived mostly because of the actual or potential intervention of the Soviet Union in their domestic the affairs. Seen from this perspective, the Central European democratization – unlike democratization in other parts of the world – was to a very high degree motivated by the frustrated national will to be independent from a foreign power. In the Soviet Union, the collapse of the communist system was accompanied with the disappearance of the empire and the dissolution of the multi-national state. What in Central Europe was a national triumph, in Russia came to be seen as a national disaster.

#### **2. Modes of extrication from non-democratic regimes**

Transitions from authoritarian regimes varied not only in their causes but also in the modes of change. The first modern democratic systems in Europe and in America were products of long political evolution, which took at least a hundred years, and in the case of Great Britain and the United States had its roots in the gradual process of reducing the royal power which culminated in the English Revolution of 1640-1648. In the twentieth century, when the process of democratization accelerated and expanded to other regions of the world, the transition to democracy was mostly due to a single political act rather than to a long evolution. In this period, there have been five different roads of transition from non-democratic system to democracy: war, revolution, capitulation, reform from above, and negotiated reform.

The first mode of transition is **war.** Democratic transformation can lead to the democratic transformation in countries which either lost the war or emerged on the ruins of defeated powers. The consequences of the two world wars confirm this observation, , but the effects of the political changes resulting from these wars differed. Following the defeat of three empires – Russia, Germany and Austro-Hungary – several nations of Central Europe regained their independence and most of them adopted the model of parliamentary democracy patterned after the French Third Republic. The exceptions were Hungary, where following a brief communist revolution the authoritarian regime of Admiral Horthy was established and survived until the end of the second world war, and Finland where the civil war delayed the process of establishing democratic system. With the exception of Czechoslovakia, all these young democracies fell victims to authoritarian coups during the interwar period.

The second world war had different effects. Following the war, democratic changes took place in four states under the tutelage of the victorious Western powers: Italy, Austria, West Germany and Japan. In the three European cases democratization meant restoration of democratic systems which had been destroyed by the fascist (Italy) and national-socialist (Austria and Germany) regimes. The process of democratization took place under the supervision of the Western powers (United States, Great Britain and France) and in the Austrian case also under Soviet control, but in all these cases it had its native roots. The German case was complicated by the fact, that democratization took place only in the occupation zones of the Western powers, while in the Soviet zone a communist regime, firmly controlled by the USSR was established. The case of Japan was the most interesting example of transition to democracy in a nation which had no democratic tradition and in which the dominant political culture glorified the god-like power of the emperor and the military values. It was the shock of defeat that made the Japanese to accept political transformation, imposed upon them by the American military administration, but endorsed by the emperor Hirohito. Contrary to the effects of the first world war, democratic transitions caused by the second war have not been reversed by later events.

The experience of the democratization under foreign tutelage has not been replicated by later events. Only in two small Latin American states (Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989) the American military interventions removed from office authoritarian rulers and created conditions for the restoration of democracy. In these two cases, however, the American interventions occurred during the mounting wave of democratization well under way in Latin America. Elsewhere, the strategy of imposing democratic change by a military invasion failed. The removal of the "Taliban"regime of Afghanistan led to the continuous instability and civil war, which the pro-American government cannot win, even with heavy support of the foreign troops. In 2003, the American occupation of Iraq, partly motivated by the intent to transform this state into a democratic polity allied with the United States, ended in continuing unrest, terrorist attacks and armed conflicts which made Iraq a fallen state. The fiasco of the American plan for Iraq became evident already in the first years of the occupation. With the passing of time it is clear that in the greatly different international environment replication of the democratic transformation of Japan under the American occupation is not possible.

The second mode of transition – **revolution** – took place very rarely. The Russian revolution of 1917 began with the formation of the provisional government composed of the representatives of the main democratic forces but in a rather short time power was seized by the Bolsheviks who, after having won in the civil war, ruled the country for more than seventy years. The revolution in Germany brought to life the democratic Weimar Republic, but it also fell victim of the totalitarian take-over in 1933, less than fifteen years after the revolution. In Hungary, the communist revolution of 1918 was put down by the combination of Hungarian and foreign (Romanian) military and was followed by the authoritarian regime for the rest of the interwar period. The victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949 replaced the authoritarian regime of Kuomintang by the communist dictatorship, which more than seventy years later remains well entrenched.

There have been only two revolutions which opened the process of democratic transition: the Portuguese "revolution of carnations" in 1974 and the Romanian revolution of 1989. In both cases the victories of the revolutions did not mean instant democratization. In Portugal, the revolution gave power to the military Junta of National Salvation and to the adoption of the 1976 Constitution which gave the military vast but ill-defined supervisory prerogatives. It took eight years for the Portuguese system to get free of all remnants of the revolutionary-military rule and to become fully democratic. In the Romanian case, the effects of the revolution were far from clear-cut victory of the democratic forces. In the preceding years, the communist system in Romania became highly personalized with the practically absolute power in hands of the president and party leader Nicolae Ceausescu in a way which made it close to the Weberian model of "sultanistic"dictatorship (Fischer 1989). The fall and execution of Nicolae Ceausescu put an end to his dictatorship, but did not result in the immediate transfer of power to the democratic forces. "The highly personalistic nature of the regime – wrote Linz and Stepan – allows new leaders, even if they had close links to the regime, to advance the claim that the sultan was responsible for all the evil in the country, thereby dissociating themselves from the sultanic regime by playing a prominent role in his overthrown" (Linz and Stepan 1996: 358-359). The so-called "capture"of the revolution by the former functionaries of the old regime led to the formation of the government of the National Salvation Front under the leadership of Ion Iliescu, who in May 1990 was elected president of the republic by the overwhelming majority of 85 %, and to the victory of the NSF in the parliamentary election (ibidem: 360). It took another five years for the democratic opposition to consolidate and to win the presidential and parliamentary elections. Evidently, revolution is not the shortest way from dictatorship to democracy. It can also lead to even more oppressive type of authoritarian regime than the one which it overthrew, like in the case of the Iranian revolution of 1979. Fortunately, in the great majority of cases the transition from dictatorship took a non-revolutionary path, which proved by far better road to a democratic government.

The third mode of extrication from dictatorship is the **capitulation** of the incumbent leadership and the fall of regime, caused by international or domestic fiascos. In two cases the military regime engaged in a foreign adventure with dramatic consequences. In July 1974, the ruling military government of Greece precipitated a political crisis in Cyprus by supporting a coup of Greek nationalists against the government of Archibishop Makarios with the evident goal of *Enosis –* the unification of Cyprus with Greece. When Turkey responded with her military intervention and the United States refused to offer help to the besieged Greek government, the military capitulated and turned power to civilian democratic politicians, with the former Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis as the head of the provisional government. On December 8, 1974 the plebiscite abolished monarchy and the parliamentary election gave Karamanlis and his National Democratic Party an absolute majority.

The second case of capitulation caused by international fiasco was Argentine of 1983. Following the decision of the ruling military government to invade the Falkland Islands (Malvinas in the Argentinian terminology) and the crushing defeat of the Argentinian forces by the British Navy, the ruling junta had no option but to capitulate and turn power to the civilians . In the following years, the Argentinian military attempted four military coups, but none was successful. With the passing of time the Argentinian democratic institutions solidified and the key leaders of the military regime were put on trial receiving long-term verdicts.

The Greek and Argentinian cases were caused by the gross mistake in the choice of international strategy by the two military governments, both hoping that the success would help them to consolidate their power and both being unprepared for the alternative. Capitulation can take place also for purely internal reasons as illustrated by the fall of communist regimes in Czechoslovakia and in East Germany in the Fall of 1989. In both these countries the ruling communist parties were entirely dependent on the Soviet support for their very existence – in the German Democratic Republic since its emergence and in Czechoslovakia since the Soviet-led military intervention which crushed the reformist Prague Spring in 1968. When Poland started the process of democratic transition and Hungary was engaged in the preparation to go the same way, citizens of the two communist strongholds began to publicly demand democratic changes in their countries. The decision of Mikhail Gorbachev not to intervene on behalf of the besieged communist regimes in Berlin and Prague made their situation desperate and forced them to give up to the demands for democratic change. The East-German and Czechoslovak communist leaders could not follow the Polish or Hungarian policy of negotiated reform, because their position was too weak and the pressure from below too strong. Like the Greeks and the Argentinians – but for different reasons – they had only one choice: capitulation.

 The fourth mode is **democratization from above,** which occurs in countries in which the ruling authoritarian elite decides to gradually reform the system of governing without any meaningful co-operation with the opposition. Such scenario took place in Brazil during a long period between 1974 (the election of General Ernesto Geisel as president) and 1990 (the election of the civilian president Fernando Collor de Mello). The democratization from above, named *abertura* (opening), was a long and slow process of transition undertaken by the Brazilian military ten years after it had seized power in a coup of 1964. Reasons for which the Brazilian generals decided to gradually reinstall democratic institutions are complex and never fully explained in the studies of the *abertura* process. Alfred Stepan*,* who interviewed some of the key military actors, came to the conclusion that they were motivated, at least partly, by the fear of the growing role of the security apparatus and sought support in the civilian society to counterbalance such a threat (Stepan 1988:30-44). There were probably even deeper roots of the Brazil controlled democratization. The military, when they took power, moved against what they perceived as extravagancies of the populist president Goulart and did not intent to remain in power indefinitely. Their coup was meant as a step undertaken in an extraordinary situation and aimed at restoring what they – in their basically conservative political outlook – considered normality. Once this task had been completed, the generals in power started a carefully planned process of withdrawing from government, but they did it on their terms. Part of the price for return to democracy were the guarantees of impunity for the military for whatever violations of law they might have committed when in power.

The Brazilian democratization was basically arranged from the top, by the ruling military without negotiations with or support of the democratic opposition. Part of the reason was the weakness of such opposition which, until the very last stage of the transition lacked sufficient strength to be able to seriously affect the process of democratization. Only in the last stage of the process, in early 1984, Brazil experienced a mass campaign for direct election of the president, which, however, failed to force the military to abandon the system of indirect election, favorable for the ruling *junta*. After the president-elect Tancredo Nerves had died before taking office, his running mate, a civilian technocrat, Jose Sarney assumed the office and served for the final five years of democratic transition, after which a semi-presidential system with strong but indirect role of the military was put into effect. The election of the first civilian president without explicit support of the military failed to produce political stability. Chaotic political and economic situation and the impeachment of President Collor de Mello for corruption (1992) made the first years of Brazilian democracy far from success. It was only after the election of the famous sociologist (and senator) Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994) that Brazil reached the stage of democratic consolidation – at least for the time being.

The Brazilian experience of controlled democratization from above has been followed with keen interest in some of the other authoritarian regimes, particularly in Latin America. There has been, however, a fundamental difference between Brazil and the other democratizing regimes. Only in Brazil was the democratic opposition so weak – due to the long and effective process of its marginalization under the military government – that the ruling generals were free to conduct their reforms without any meaningful interference from below. In the other Latin American countries, the demonstrations in favor of democratization not only expedited the change but also forced the incumbent military governments to negotiate the terms of transition. In 1985, the Uruguayan military, in powers since 1973, agreed to organize democratic presidential election and accepted its result in exchange for guarantees that there would be no trial of the military personnel for violation of human rights during their rule and for institutional guarantees of the role of the armed forces as a powerful political factor. In Chile, general Augusto Pinochet's government introduced an authoritarian constitution of 1980, in its intension consolidating the rule of the military junta. Under the terms of the constitutional plebiscite, Pinochet became president of the republic whose eight-years term in office could have been extended for another eight-years period subject to the plebiscite planned for 1988. By the time of the new plebiscite, the mood in the country changed in favor of the opposition, resulting in Pinochet receiving only 44% of votes. His defeat opened the road to the presidential election of 1989 (won by the democratic candidate Patricio Alywin) and to the end of the military regime in March 1990. The military, however, obtained several important concession, including the impunity for past offenses, the continuity of Pinochet's role as chief commander of the armed forces (until 1998) and the right of the military to appoint nine (out of forty-seven) members of the Senate. It took thirty more years before the decision (made in 2020) to begin the process of writing a new constitution, free of the concessions for the military.

A similar road to democratic transformation was taken by the Republic of Korea. After decades of an uninterrupted military rule (in power since the coup of 1961), the last military government of president Chun Doo Hwan opted for gradual democratization, expedited by the wave of street demonstrations and leading to the restoration of democracy in 1987.

Democratization from above was also intended by two reformist communist leaders in the last years of the cold war: General Wojciech Jaruzelski in Poland and Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. In both cases the strategy of *abertura* failed, but for different reasons and with greatly different consequences.

 In Poland, after the imposition of the martial law (in December 1981) the political situation was precarious. The once powerful democratic opposition, united under the banners of the "Solidarity" union, was temporarily paralyzed but continued its activities underground. The ruling Polish United Workers Party had lost one third of its membership and was deeply demoralized by the dominant feeling of political isolation. Only the Roman Catholic Church and the armed forces retained their prestige and authority. Wojciech Jaruzelski, as chief commander of the armed forces, party leader and prime minister, intended to reform the political system from above, without negotiations with the opposition but with support of the Church and of the moderate non-communist political personalities. In early nineteen-eighties, he introduced several democratic reforms, unprecedented in the communist bloc, such as the establishment of the Constitutional Court and the office of the ombudsman. In 1986, he initiated the formation of the Consultative Council, which included several prominent personalities close to the democratic opposition and to the Catholic Church. The long-term goal of these changes was to gradually democratize the system. Time, however, was on his side. The deepening economic malaise and the changing international environment of the late nineteen-eighties allowed the democratic opposition to regain strength and be able to challenge the regime in the series of political strikes of 1988. With the fiasco of reforms from above, it became obvious that only negotiations with the opposition could terminate the prolonged crisis of the communist system.

Gorbachev's policy of democratization from above was declared in the first years of his leadership and was part of his ambitious plan to end the cold war and to bridge the gap between the Soviet Union and the democratic West. After having been elected general secretary of the Communist Party, Gorbachev started the program of liberalization, which included freeing most of the political detainees, allowing greater freedom of press and making concessions to the national ambitions of the constituent republics of the USSR. In 1989 for the first time Soviet citizens voted in the basically free election of the Congress of People's Deputies and in 1990 they elected republican parliaments in all fifteen constituent republics. In five of them (Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania and Moldova) the independent "national fronts" won majority of seats, removing the Communist Party from power in the republican governments. With the double elections of 1989-1990 and the constitutional reform which introduced the office of president of the Soviet Union, the process of Sovietstyle *abertura* was well under way and there were good prospects for further democratization. Simultaneously, however, three fundamental problems emerged, ultimately leading to the collapse of the reformist strategy. The first was the unresolved nationality problem, the importance of which Gorbachev had not fully realized. As long as the USSR remained a totalitarian (or posttotalitarian) regime, tensions between nationalities and the ambitions of some of them to regain their independence were efficiently suppressed. Democratization changed the situation in two ways: it reduced the ability of the state apparatus to put down national protests and simultaneously it raised the hopes of non-Russian nationalities for greater autonomy or even independence. Because of this, Soviet reformers not only could not count on support in the most rebellious republics (particularly the three Baltic ones) but also had to confront the resistance of those elements within the ruling party and state apparatus which were alarmed by the spectrum of "losing" the peripheries of the USSR. It was Gorbachev's mistake to underestimate the consequences of the unresolved nationality problem for the perspectives of democratization. The second, and even more consequential mistake was the Soviet leader's approach to the existing party elite. After Stalin's death all Soviet leaders operated within the powerful communist oligarchy, which political preferences they had to take into account and which had enough strength to force the change of the general secretary, as it happened to Nikita Khrushchev in 1964. With Gorbachev's elevation to the top position, there were some changes in the communist leadership, but the great majority of the members of the elite and the bulk of the provincial party apparatus were rather conservative in their political outlook, particularly on the issue of preserving the unity of the multi-national empire. The relative weakness of Gorbachev's position within the party was to be compensated by giving him extra powers in his capacity as president of the USSR, but it proved not to be enough in the hour of truth – the coup of August 1991. In early 1991, the Soviet communist leadership was badly split between Gorbachev reformers and conservatives, who could count on the majority of higher and middle party apparatus. What made Gorbachev's situation even more difficult was his policy of trying to maintain the unity of the party by making concessions to the conservatives, with the inevitable consequence of losing support of the more radical reformers. The third factor contributing to the collapse of Gorbachev's strategy was the fast growth of radical democratic opposition. The passivity of the Soviets society was gone and in a very short time new political organizations of radical orientation mushroomed , many of them under the leadership of former communist functionaries who, like Boris Yeltsin, contested Gorbachev's policy from the radical side. Some of the radicals successfully contested the official party candidates in local elections, including the mayors of Moscow (Gavril Popov) and Leningrad (Anatolii Sobchak). In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin won the presidency of the Russian Republic defeating the candidate of the Communist Party. In the Summer of 1991, the Soviet president was being criticized from two sides: as both moving too far as not moving far enough in his reformist policies. It was his fundamental mistake that he tried to maneuver between two opposite camps, losing whatever support he used to have. When the conservative majority of his political elite decided to use force in the attempt to stop and reverse his policies, Gorbachev was left virtually alone. The August coup was peculiar in the sense that it was organized by the members of the highest state authorities with vice-president, prime minister, ministers of defense and of internal affairs, head of the security services and a number of other dignitaries establishing the un-constitutional committee, which attempted to take power from the isolated president. The coup failed, because it was confronted with the massive opposition of the citizens of Moscow led by Boris Yeltsin and with the reluctance of a large part of the armed forces to support it against the will of the people. The consequences of the failed coup for the future of the Soviet Union were dramatic. The Communist Party was dissolved by the decree of the president, who nominally was still its general secretary. His own position was so weak that in the last few months when he was still in office, Gorbachev had to passively accept decisions made by his now more powerful rival Boris Yeltsin. It was Yeltsin's decision, made in cooperation with the Ukrainian and Belorussian leaders (Leonid Kravchuk and Stanislav Shushkevich) , to dissolve the USSR. Gorbachev's reform from above was in ruins but it left behind the political reality of the fifteen now independent post-Soviet republics, moving in various political directions.

Comparison between the Brazilian and the Soviet experiences leads to the conclusion that the success of the reform from above depends on the cohesion of the ruling elite and its unity of purpose as well as on the relative weakness the radical democratic opposition. Lacking both these assets, the Soviet reformer was doomed to fail.

The fifth mode of extrication from the non-democratic regime has been named in Spanish *reforma pactada/ruptura pactada* to describe the process of **negotiated reform** and departure from the Spanish authoritarian regime (Linz and Stepan 1996:n 87 ). Spain after the death of Francesco Franco (1975) became the first country in which the process of democratic transformation had been based on negotiations between the representatives of the authoritarian regime and the – still illegal – opposition. The Spanish transition constituted the attractive model for the reformist communist leaders in Poland and Hungary – the two countries of the then communist bloc in which democratization was based on carefully crafted compromises with the democratic opposition.

The Spanish negotiated transition began soon after General Franco's death in 1975 under the leadership of King Juan Carlos, selected by Franco as his heir with hopes that the renewed monarchy would stabilize the authoritarian regime for many years. The young king disappointed, however, the hardliners of the regime by forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Arian Navarro and appointing as successor the former head of the youth organization Adolfo Suarez (in July 1976) and by initiating negotiations with the representatives of the (still illegal) opposition. His role in the Spanish negotiated democratization made Juan Carlos one of the most important leaders of the "third wave democratization"notwithstanding the later corruption scandals which destroyed his image. In 1976, on Suarez's initiative the Spanish parliament (Cortes) passed the Law For Political Reform, confirmed by the national referendum by the impressive majority of 94 % (Linz and Stepan 1996: 95). With extra powers vested on him by the new law, Suarez met with the socialist leader Felipe Gonzales and soon later with the released from jail communist leader Santiago Carillo. Negotiations with the leaders of opposition resulted in signing the Moncloa Pact – a blueprint for democratization. The opposition parties, including the communist, were legalized and free, contested parliamentary election was held on June 15, 1977. The new parliament drafted the democratic constitution which was then approved by national referendum on December 8, 1978.

The relatively fast process of Spanish democratic transition was based on a negotiated compromise, under which the main parties of the opposition abandoned their uncompromising stand against the regime and accepted the legal system of the monarchy in exchange for the guarantees of free and fair election. The hardliners of the regime, including the Army Supreme Council protested against the terms of the compromise but they were powerless vis-à-vis the authority of the king and the strong public support for the reformist policies of the Suarez government. The nascent democratic government, still under the prime minister Adolfo Suarez, had to deal with two main dangers: the hardline opposition within the regime and the terrorist campaign of the Basque organization ETA (*Euskadi ta Askatasuna).* The success of democratization on both these fronts was due to the high quality of the leadership and to the overwhelmingly democratic sentiments of the Spanish people (ibidem: 108-109). In 1982, the second democratic election brought to power the Socialist government of Felipe Gonzales in the evident proof of the consolidation of Spanish democracy.

The Polish negotiated transition of 1989 had many similar characteristics to the Spanish model. The authoritarian regime, dominated by the military, was no longer a typical party-regime – in spite of the unchanged constitutional norms but a hybrid one, which I have called "bureaucratic-military rule" (Raciborski and Wiatr 2005: 47-52). General Jaruzelski's position as both the leader (first secretary) of the ruling party, chairman of the Council of State and chief commander of the armed forces was incomparably stronger than that of any of his predecessors or of the majority of communist leaders in the other states. In the couple of years following the martial law, he had been able to get rid of the hardline opponents of democratization and was now in full control of the party and of the security services, now controlled by his close collaborator General Czeslaw Kiszczak. By 1988, Jaruzelski received guarantees of Gorbachev's support – the decisive factor for opening the negotiation with the opposition. On the side of the opposition the main actor was the "Solidarity" union, still illegal but well organized in a nation-wide network of underground organizations and headed by the advisory committee to the "Solidarity" chairman Lech Walesa, composed by moderate intellectuals and trade-unionists. The idea of the negotiated compromise received support of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church – a very important factor in the traditionally catholic Poland. After complicated preliminary talks the "round table"negotiations began in February 1989 and after two month ended with the agreement on far reaching political change. The transitory system of "contractual democracy"was introduced to allow for gradual departure from authoritarian party rule (Wiatr 1990) . "Solidarity" was legalized and the new electoral law was adopted under which the newly established Senate was to be elected in fully free election and in the election to the more powerful lower house (Sejm) "Solidarity" received the right to contest one third of seats. The new electoral mechanism was defined as a temporary one, for the 1989 election only. The Irish journalist Jacqueline Hayden in her study of the Polish transition, claimed that during the negotiations both sides were mistaken in their assessment of the relative balance of power underestimating the strength of the opposition and overestimated that of the regime (Hayden 2006). The reality was perhaps more complicated. The very emergence of the realistic alternative to the continuation of the post-war regime encouraged a substantial part of the voters to vote for the opposition. The effect was an impressive victory of the democratic opposition, which in the election of June 1989 won all contested seats in the Sejm and 99 (out of 100) seats in the Senate. The negotiated compromise was nonetheless respected by both sides, with General Jaruzelski being elected to the newly established position of president of the republic and a coalition government with the prominent catholic intellectual and advisor to the "Solidarity" Tadeusz Mazowiecki as prime minister.

The Polish transition – first such event in the history of communist states – was observed with keen interest and eventually followed by the Hungarian reformists. After the traumatic experience of the national revolution of October 1956 and of the Soviet intervention which put an end to the hopes for independence and democratic revival, the country gradually moved in the direction of carefully planned economic and partly political liberalization. In 1988, the leader of the ruling party Janos Kadar resigned his position and was replaced by the moderate reformer Karoly Grosz. Within the party leadership a more radical group, headed by Imre Pozsgay , demanded far-reaching political change, including a compromise with the nascent democratic opposition organized in the form of the Hungarian Democratic Forum in 1987. By the end of 1988, several new political parties enter the Hungarian politics and in February 1989, the Central Committee of the ruling party accepted in principle the idea of a multi-party election, the specifics of which were to be negotiated with the opposition. The Hungarian reformers observed the Polish round-table process with great interest but in their negotiations – completed after the success of the Polish "round table"– went even further than the Poles. The Hungarian transition jumped over the contractual stage of transformation and in March and April 1990 fully free parliamentary election was held producing the solid noncommunist majority (Szoboszlai 1996).

Comparative studies of the negotiated transition (Colomer 1990, Przeworski 1992) have demonstrated the importance of the four-partners "games of transition", essential for the success of the negotiated democratization. On both sides of the political divide leaders working for the negotiated accord (reformers in the regime, moderates in the opposition) face the challenge of the opponents of the negotiated compromise (hardliners on the side of the regime, radicals on the side of the opposition). Only when on both sides the challengers are effectively marginalized, can the negotiated compromise be reached and put in practice, Spain, Poland and Hungary being the most important examples of such success.

In all five types of transformation leaders play very important role. Their role is crucial in the case of negotiated reform, which can succeed only if on both side of the political divide there are leaders who not only understand the importance of finding a compromise solution but also have enough strength to overcome resistance to such compromise coming from more radical elements of their own political camps. it is true that leaders do not operate in a social and political vacuum but it is also true that very much depends on the way in which they confront the obstacles and exploit the opportunities created by the past and present political events.

#### **3. Different outcomes: democracies or renewed authoritarianism**

Democratic transformation is not the only scenario for countries emerging from a nondemocratic regime. There are two other scenarios: the collapse of the state and the establishment of another form of authoritarian rule. Which of these three possibilities would materialize, depends not only on the combination of historical circumstances but also on choices made by those who, because of their political position, can made historical choice – the leaders.

The crisis and in the extreme case even the collapse of the state are serious dangers for countries whose population is deeply divided along ethnic and/or religious lines to the extent that such group loyalties are more important – at least for a large part, if not for a majority of citizens – than the loyalty to the common state. Under a nondemocratic regime sectorial divisions can be effectively controlled by a combination of coercion and loyalty to the crown, to the charismatic leader or to the ruling party. The extrication from the nondemocratic regime undermines all these mechanism of maintaining the unity of the state and, in extreme cases, may even lead to its total collapse. In the last halfcentury there have been several instances of such crises.

The largest group of countries which faced the crisis of the state was composed of former republics of the multi-national communist federations – the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. In the case of changes taking place in the former Soviet Union, the basic challenge to the unity of the newly independent states came from the constitutional inequality between the fifteen constituent republics (called "union republics") and the smaller units ("autonomous republics") existing within their borders and inhabited by ethnic minorities. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the union republics became internationally recognized independent state, but the autonomous republics were not. Some of them decided to break away from the newly independent states, like Abkhaz autonomous republic and South Ossetian autonomous *oblast* (district) in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova, Nagorno- Karabagh in Azerbaijan or Chechenia in Russia. The Chechen rebellion led to two ethnic wars before it was put down by a combination of military repression and political concessions. The Nagorno-Karabagh issue led to the military confrontation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the latter being able to establish her control over the disputed territory. In Georgia and Moldova, the breaking away of the secessionist regions was made possible by the military and political protection offered them by the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation intervened also in the crisis of the Ukrainian state in early 2014 by annexation of the Crimea with its mostly Russian population and by supporting the secession of the Donbass region in the Eastern part of Ukraine. Considering the pluralistic composition of the majority of the formerly Soviet republics, including Russia, were only eighty percent of the population consider themselves ethnic Russians (*Ruskiye),* the intensity of the crises of the new states was, however, not that great.

Much more dramatic was the situation in former Yugoslavia. Of the six former Yugoslav republics, the largest three faced very serious ethnic crises, leading to ethnic violence and ethnic cleansing in Croatia, civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and foreign (NATO) intervention to stop ethnic conflict in the Kosovo, technically still an autonomous republic within Serbia. The intensity of the ethnic conflicts in former Yugoslavia was due to the combination of three factors. First, ethnicity has been closely linked to religious differences between three main religious denominations (Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim). Second, the Yugoslav nations had a very vivid memory of ethnic violence and mass murders committed during the second world war, particularly on the territory of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Third, ethnic conflicts were mixed with the ideological conflict between the post-communist and the anti-communist forces, with the first still in power in Serbia and the second – in Croatia and in the Muslim part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The historical conditions made the Yugoslav extrication from the communist regime much more dramatic than in the other states, but the Yugoslav case demonstrated also the importance of the quality of leadership, particularly in a crisis situation. Republican leaders in Serbia (Slobodan Milośević), Croatia (Franjo Tudjman) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (Aliya Izabegović) and their close collaborators adopted the uncompromising position of ethnic nationalism and opted for confrontation in the situation in which only compromise solutions could have allowed their nations to avoid bloody confrontation. The opposite situation occurred in the three republics which avoided ethnic conflicts (Slovenia, Montenegro and Macedonia), only the first two with mostly homogenous ethnic and religious populations.. Macedonia , with her large Albanian (Muslim) minority could have followed the example of Bosnia-Herzegovina in becoming a battle field for ethnic civil war. That such scenario has not materialized was mostly due to the responsible and moderate leadership of the last communist head of the republic and the first president of the independent state Kiro Gligorov (1917-2012). The dissolution of the Yugoslav federation was largely due to the failure of leadership in three biggest republics: Serbia Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The role played by the Serbian president Slobodan Milośević was crucial because of three factors: the size of the Serbian population (which constituted close to half of the total population of Yugoslavia), the dominant role of Serbs in the officer corps of the Yugoslav army and the presence of huge Serbian minorities in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was ready to accept the secession of Slovenia and Croatia, declared by these two republics on June 25, 1991, but insisted on the preservation of the federation of the remaining republics. Such solution would have resulted in the Serbian domination and was rejected by both Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, which left the federation on April 5, 1992 and on September 8, 1991, respectively. Not satisfied with the emerging situation, Milośević and the Yugoslav army actively supported the Serbian revolts in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The two ethnic wars in these republics and numerous atrocities committed by all sides made the dissolution of Yugoslavia one of the greatest tragedies of the late twentieth century.

The crisis of the state has not been limited to the former communist countries. In Spain, the secessionist movements in two regions – Basques region and Catalonia – could have undermined the process of democratization, saved only because of the constitutional reform which gave both regions extended autonomy. Events in Catalonia, following the victory of the pro-independence forces in regional election of 2017, showed that even such compromise may not lead to a lasting solution of the stateness problem.

Decomposition of the state took the most radical forms in some Arab states. In Libya the overthrown and death of Muamar Gaddafi in 2011 led to the civil war and the division of the state more or less along the historical lines which separated its two parts before the Italian conquest. In Yemen and in Syria civil wars and foreign interventions destroyed chances of democratic transformation at least for a very long time.

Such crises of the state have had very deep historical roots. It would be a gross simplification to attribute them only to the errors committed by political leaders. Leaders, however, are not helpless even in the most complicated political situations. In the majority of cases, they were confronted with crises of stateness not of their making, but in some their policies were essential either for avoiding or for solving the crisis.

In several states the fall of an old authoritarian regime led not to democratization but to the emergence of another nondemocratic regime. Historically, there were two main scenario of such development: revolution or replacement.

In the case of the majority of revolutions directed against the existing authoritarian regimes, the revolutionaries proclaim democracy is proclaimed as their goal, but tend to exclude the "enemies of the revolution" from participation in the democratic game. The Cuban revolution of 1959 had been launched under radically democratic slogans but once in power the revolutionaries refused to organize democratic elections and deprived their political enemies of basic democratic rights. Twenty years later, the Iranian revolution proclaimed the establishment of an Islamic republic, in which supreme power belonged to the highest Muslim clergy. The only different examples were the revolutions led by the military in Portugal and Romania, where the armed forces not only removed from power the autocratic rulers but also initiated the processes of returning to democracy. One possible explanation for this difference is that in both these cases the revolutionaries in uniforms were not ideological fanatics but rather patriotic soldiers motivated by desire to see their nations free from oppressive regimes.

When the autocratic regime rapidly collapses, like in the Soviet Union, the chances of democratic transformation depend on whether there existed democratic forces strong enough to take control of the situation. In Greece and Argentine, the rapid collapse of the military regimes made possible the return to power of democratic leaders who had been active in politics before the military coups. In the minority of the Soviet republics, particularly in the Baltic republics, the Gorbachev reforms produced relatively strong democratic movements which demanded not only independence but democratization as well. In the majority of the Soviet republics, particularly in the Asiatic part of the USSR, such movements did not exists. In the situation created by the collapse of communist dictatorship and by the dissolution of the USSR, power remained in the hands of republican communist leaders, who adopted new political slogans and reorganized the state apparatus transforming the party rule into a kind of presidential dictatorship.

During the Arab Spring, Egypt became the most obvious case of authoritarian replacement. The fall of general Hosni Moubarak – president of Egypt since the assassination of his predecessor Anwar Sadat in 1981 – brought to power the Muslim Brotherhood, the fundamentalist party with broad appeal to the poorer and more traditional segments of the Egyptian society. The road of the Muslim Brotherhood to power was fully democratic – winning both the presidential and the parliamentary elections of 2012– but its rule from the very beginning was undemocratic. Non-Muslim denominations, such as Christians, were discriminated against and the legal system of the state was being destroyed by the adoption of the Islamic code. In 2013, barely one year after the fall of the Mubarak regime -the dissatisfaction of the educated middle class and of the armed forces led to the military take-over and the reestablishment of the authoritarian regime under the former head of the army general Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, elected president in the uncontested elections of 2014 and 2018. Authoritarian regime dominated by the military was reestablished because of the failure of short-lived rule of Islamic fundamentalists.

Both the collapse of the state and the replacement of one autocracy by another mean the failure of democratic transition. The alternative to them is democratic consolidation, the process of building stable democratic institutions and of creating democratic political culture.

### **4. Democratic consolidation: the importance of leadership**

"What makes democracies sustainable, given the context of exogenous conditions, – wrote the authors of a collective report on sustainable democracy – are their institutions and performances. Democracy is sustainable when its institutional framework promotes normatively desirable and politically desired objectives, such as freedom from arbitrary violence, material security, equality, or justice, and when, in turn, the institutions are adept at handling crises, that arise when such objectives are not being fulfilled"(Przeworski 1995: 197)

In a similar way, Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan defined the democratic consolidation in terms of institutionalization and of political consent prevailing among political elites and in the society at large.

"A democratic transition is complete – they wrote – when sufficient agreement has been reached about political procedures to produce an elected government, when a government comes to power that is the direct result of a free and popular vote, when this government *de facto* has the authority to generate new policies, and when the executive, legislative and judicial power generated by the new democracy does not have to share power with other bodies *de jure"* (Linz and Stepan 1996:3).

Thirty years ago, when the "third wave of democratization"reached its highest point, the prospects of the democratic consolidation were uncertain. Samuel Huntington, learning from the past experiences of the first and the second waves of democratization, predicted the "reverse wave" which would negatively affect the democratic consolidation in at least part of the newly democratized states. Aware of the differences between the third wave of democratization and the earlier two, Huntington suggested the possibility of five scenarios of reversing the democratization: (1) authoritarian nationalism, (2) religious fundamentalism, (3) oligarchic authoritarianism, (4) populist dictatorships, and (5) communal dictatorships (Huntington 1991: 293-294).

"The third wave, the 'global democratic revolution' of the late twentieth century – he wrote – will not last forever. It may be followed by a new surge of authoritarianism constituting the reverse wave. That, however, would not preclude a fourth wave of democratization developing some time in the twenty-first century. Judging by the past record, the two key factors affecting the future stability and expansion of democracy are economic development and political leadership" (ibidem: 315).

Thirty years later, we can amend this forecast by two observations.

First, the third reverse wave has not materialized, at least on a massive scale. In 2020, almost all states which democratized during the third wave were still democracies. New authoritarianism, if and when it has come to power in formerly democratized countries, is a marginal phenomenon and tends to be unstable. Populist and authoritarian leaders come to power not only in some new democracies, but even in the old ones (like the United States following the election of Donald Trump in 2016), but there are strong democratic forces which prevent the departure from democracy. Nonetheless, instances of the new authoritarianism are important because they signal the weak point of the democratic systems and the need of reforms (Wiatr 2019).

Second, the third wave of democratization has not been followed by the fourth wave and there are no signs of such scenario – at least for a long time. Nondemocratic regimes, such as the Chinese one, successfully resisted the democratic transformation, due to the combination of political coercion and of rapid economic development. New forms of authoritarianism emerged in a large group of former Soviet republics, with the Russian Federation as the most important, and also most interesting example. Consequently, the rivalry of democratic and nondemocratic regimes continues and is most likely to last for a very long time.

Democratic consolidation requires building democratic institutions. Here, one of the central question is the choice between two best known types of democratic systems: presidential and parliamentary. In late nineteen-eighties Fred W. Riggs reviewed the experience of the then new democracies (mostly in Latin America) and concluded that the imitation of the American presidential model had not been conducive to the stability of democratic regimes in other parts of the world. In the second of his studies, which was based also on the experience of post-communist transition, he made his argument even stronger (Riggs 1997). Does it mean that the choice of parliamentary government makes democracy safe? Later developments cast some doubts on such generalization. In three Central European states which had chosen the parliamentary form of government (Slovakia, Hungary and Poland) new authoritarians came to power by winning the parliamentary elections. In the first case (Slovakia) the authoritarian regime headed by the Prime Minister Vladimir Mećiar lasted only four years (1994-1998) and was terminated by the electoral defeat of the ruling Movement for Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). In Hungary, the electoral victory of Victor Orban and his party (Fides) in the parliamentary election of 2010 opened the way to the establishment of a relatively strong authoritarian regime, capable of repeating its success in the elections of 2026 and 2020. Poland is somewhere in between these two cases. The authoritarian Law and Justice Party won the presidential and the parliamentary elections in 2015 and in the following years it went a long way toward subordinating of the system of law protection to its dictates. In 2019, it won the election to the more powerful lower chamber (*Sejm*) but lost the election to the Senate and in the presidential election of 2020 its candidate Andrzej Duda won the re-election with a small margin of 51.03 percent of votes in the second round.

Similar processes took place not only in the post-communist new democracies. The Turkish experience tends to support the view that choosing of the parliamentary system of government does not make new democracy safe. The victory of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) led by Recep Erdogan in the parliamentary election of 2002 began the long process of consolidating the authoritarian rule and the gradual transformation of the political system from parliamentary to semi-presidential, with Erdogan as president with broad prerogatives (Turan 2019: 67-72).

These four cases cast some doubt on the universality of Riggs' conclusion, but do not invalidate it. In the great majority of cases, choosing the parliamentary system of government made young democracies safer compared to the presidential versions. The necessary condition for subverting parliamentary democracy is the emergence of a strong and authoritarian party, capable not only of winning an election but also of repeated this success in several consecutive votes. In practically all cases, authoritarian leaders in new democracies tend to favor presidentialism over parliamentarism, mostly because the first makes the consolidation of their dominant position easier to achieve.

The second category of political decisions of great importance for the consolidation of new democracies concerns economy. This is true everywhere, but particularly in the former communist states, which economies had to be fundamentally restructured from state-control to free market. The collapse of the economy based on state monopoly made the transition to free market necessary for overcoming the economic crisis but the way in which such change was made depended on the decisions of political leaders. Huntington warned that the failure to effectively deal with such economic problems as debt, poverty and inflation would undermine the new democratic governments (Huntington 1991: 255). Przeworski and his co-authors added another dimension : social and economic inequalities (Przeworski 1995: 111). There is also a serious danger of politically conditioned corruption which may undermine the political and economic structures in the time of transformation. The case of Russian Federation in the last decade of the twentieth century is one of the best known examples of rampart corruption in a post-communist state (Freeland 2000, Klebnikov 2000).

Both the choice of constitutional system and the direction of economic policy depends on the decisions made by political leaders – with or without the consent of the citizens. In some cases, these decisions are subject to their ratification in a plebiscite, but in most cases the very nature of the choices is too complex to permit their solution by the referendum. Representative democracy to a very large extent depends on the quality of political leadership.

The role of leaders, signaled by the earlier studies of democratization, is particularly crucial for the stability of democratic systems. Here essential is the difference between old and new democracies. In the states where democracy existed for at least two generations (60-70 years), even the emergence of an authoritarian leader cannot lead to the collapse of democracy. There has not been a single case of a breakdown of democracy in countries where democracy had been at least 60-70 years old. The opposite is true in new democracies, the very survival of which depends to a large extent on the quality of political leadership. "For democracies to come into being,– wrote Huntington – future political elites will at a minimum have to believe that democracy is the least worse form of government for their societies and for themselves. They will also have to have the skills to bring about the transition to democracy against both radicals and standpatters who inevitably will exist and who persistently will attempt to undermine their efforts. Democracy will spread in the world to the extent that those who exercise power in the world and in individual countries want it to spread…History, to shift the metaphor, does not move forward in a straight line, but when skilled and determined leaders push, it dos move forward"(Huntington 1991: 316).

The task of stabilizing new democracies is complicated by the phenomenon of widespread disillusion with the effects of democratization. In his analysis of the psychology of democratized societies, the Polish political psychologist Janusz Reykowski points to the main common problems which cause such disillusion (Reykowski 2020). One of the most important is the very high level of expectations, particularly those related to the economic consequences of democratization, which – confronted with the reality – lead to the belief that the new democratic system failed. It does not matter whether the leaders of democratic movements actually promised economic miracles. What matters is the belief of many people that the only reason for which their standard of living had lagged behind the one they observed in the more affluent democratic countries, was the political system. Such belief is rooted, at least partly, in the way in which the democratic opposition tended to blame the autocratic regimes (particularly the communist ones) for the fact that economically the nondemocratic countries lagged behind the affluent Western democracies. Since the great majority of newly democratized societies were less developed than the old democracies, such feeling had been quite common and led to what the American political scientist David Ost interpreted as the main reason of defeat of Polish "Solidarity" in the first years of democratic transformation and of similar processes in the other post-communist states (Ost 2005). In addition to frustrated economic expectations, people in new democracies have often been disappointed with the quality of political life, particularly in what they perceived as selfish attitudes of new political elites and their rapid enrichment. In old democracies, with their centuries old social and economic inequality, people are used to the fact that members of political elite belong to the social strata whose economic well-being places them above that of common people. In new democracies, and particularly those which had replaced the communist systems, these differences are often seen as unacceptable. Economics is not the only reason for post-transition disillusion. The universal phenomenon, present in all societies which undergo deep political changes, is the inflated belief that the political change will do away with all, or almost all, negative aspects of the past and that the future will be bright. Such psychological disposition is necessary for the efforts necessary in the struggle for radical change. The more radical is the change, the deeper is the disappointment with its effects. Finally, there were political reasons for disillusion. Soon after the change of regime, the unity of former democratic opposition was replaced by political divisions and, sometimes, by very sharp conflicts. The longer an undemocratic systems lasted, the less likely citizens were to accept such divisions as natural for the democratic politics. Consequently, they tend to react by the generalized condemnation of politicians and by turning to populist leaders who promise politics free of partisanship.

All these psychological phenomena complicate the process of democratic consolidation but they do not make its collapse inevitable. A lot depends on how political leaders deal with not only objective social and economic difficulties but also with the psychological barriers. Efficient democratic leadership requires making brave and clever decisions. It also requires adjusting the style of politics and the behavior of politicians to the expectations of people who, sometimes for the first time in generations, can confront their expectations with the reality of democracy.

#### **5. Dilemmas of transformative leadership**

In the process of transition there have been four pure types of transformative leaders*:* reformers of the outgoing system, organizers of democratic opposition, moral authorities and institution builders. Individual leaders quite frequently moved from one role to the other, but this should not affect the typology as such.

Reformers of the outgoing system are people who have realized that the old institutions and ways of governing had lost their usefulness, either because of domestic changes or due to the changing international environment. They decide to reform the system both because they fear its rapid collapse and because they realize that democratization would be in the interest of their nations. In their efforts to change the system they combine innovative reforms with continuity of some aspects of the outgoing system. They are not radicals, even if by their actions they cause radical change. Their political careers tied them to the existing system but their ability to understand its dilemmas and their values motivate them to look for unorthodox solutions. While some of them belong to the long serving elites (Constantine Karamanlis in Greece, Alexander Dubćek in Czechoslovakia, Wojciech Jaruzelski in Poland, Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, Milan Kućan in Slovenia, Kiro Grigorov in Macedonia), the majority of reformers are younger members of the establishment, like Adolfo Suarez in Spain, Imre Pozsgay in Hungary and Alexander Kwasniewski in Poland. The success of their policies depends not only on how they act, but also on the state of society in which they function. There are two main conditions necessary for their success but independent of their actions: the state of the societies in which they act and the international situation. Reformers achieve their goals only if the state of the society makes reforms possible and is not so explosive as to lead to violent eruption. Their success depends also on the reaction of the key international players. Here, the difference between communist and noncommunist dictatorship is evident. In Greece, Portugal and Spain, as well as in Latin America reformers could count on friendly reaction of the democratic powers constituting their international environment. In the communist bloc, the opposite was true – at least until late nineteen-eighties. The Czechoslovak reformers in 1968 had a reasonable, well-designed reform program (Golan 1971, 1973) and enjoyed support of the great majority of their people, but they lost because they have underestimated the degree of hostility their reforms had produced in the Soviet leadership, fearful of the impact of the Czechoslovak experiment on the other communist societies. In 1981, Polish communist reformers had to temporarily retreat from their reform program because of the combination of the rapid radicalization of the protest movement and of the Soviet pressure, but they were able to return to the reform program when the international situation had changed due to the shift in the policy of the USSR in late nineteen-eighties. Gorbachev's ambitious reform program failed because it came too late and was confronted with the rapidly growing radicalism and the stubborn opposition of the hardliners.

Organizers of the democratic opposition come from various sectors of the population. Some are disillusioned former functionaries of the regime, like Franjo Tudjman (1922-1999), the communist general purged and imprisoned for his Croat nationalism, who became the founder and leader of the Croat nationalist party HDZ (Croat Democratic Community) and first president of independent Croatia. Others grew to the position of leadership through their role in the grass root protest movement, like the leader of Polish workers Lech Wałęsa, chairman of the "Solidarity" union during the critical 1980/81 period and the Nobel Peace Prize winner of 1983 and Nelson Mandela, the leader of the anti-racist African National Congress of South Africa, political prisoner for twenty seven years and also recipient of the Nobel peace Prize. Their role in history has been closely tied to the fortunes of the opposition movements, but these fortunes depended on the quality of their leadership. After victory, they all faced the critical tests of leadership, with greatly different results. Mandela's high quality of leadership was confirmed by the way he carried the responsibility of democratically elected president. Tudjman by his radically nationalist policy directed against the Serbian minority provoked ethnic war in Croatia, ended only after his passing away. Wałęsa, after having been elected president of Poland (in 1990), disappointed even his closest political friends and was described as egocentric and incompetent by the British correspondent Roger Boyce (Boyce 1994). In 1995, he lost his bid for reelection to the young leader of the Polish Left Alexander Kwasniewski and never regained the political position he had held in the first years of the democratic transition.

The third group of transformative leaders have distinguished themselves as the moral authorities: individuals whose main role in history was to formulate ideas and to serve as role models: writers like Vaclav Havel (1936-2011) in Czechoslovakia, or philosophers like Zhelyu Zhelev (1935-2015) in Bulgaria. Both became presidents of their countries in the early stage of democratization but their main impact on history was their intellectual contribution to the change of the political climate leading to the political change.

The fourth group of transformative leaders are institution builders. Reforming the nondemocratic state called for changing political and economic structures and such change depended on the will and ability of political leaders. In the early stages of democratization, the prime ministers played crucial role in making decisions on economic and administrative reforms. Jozsef Antall (1932-1993) in Hungary and Tadeusz Mazowiecki (1927-2013) in Poland are examples of heads of governments with clear vision of the desired reforms and with the resolve necessary to make them. Some of the economic reforms have caused deep social and political divisions and caused defeat of their originators, like the electoral defeat of the reformist Prime Minister of Poland Tadeusz Mazowiecki in the presidential election of 1990. The quality of their leadership can best be judged from a longer perspective, when the relative positive and negative aspects of reforms can better be seen and evaluated. Boris Yeltsin in Russia, successful as the leader of mass democratic movement in 1991, disappointed many of his followers as president of the Russian Federation, when he violated the constitution by using force against the parliament (in September 1993) and by governing in an authoritarian way

After having come to power transformative leaders face five main dilemmas, solving which makes the difference between success and failure of democratization.

In countries of ethnically plural population the number one dilemma concerns the status of the national minorities. Autocratic rulers were able, more or less successfully, to ignore the ethnic problems because all kinds of dissent were being suppressed. Democratic rulers cannot: they have to find a *modus vivendi* acceptable for all ethnic groups. This can be done in three ways. The first and the most radical one is the division of the state along national line. It can be done peacefully, through negotiated agreements, as it was the case in Czechoslovakia in 1993, when the ruling elites of Czech and Slovak parts of the federation agreed to what was then called "the velvet divorce"– a friendly division of the common state. The Czechoslovak solution was possible because of two factors. First, populations of both new republics were reasonably homogenous, with no large Slovak or Czech minorities left on the other side of the new frontier. If the ethnic composition of the population looks as a mosaic, the division of the common state leads to resettlement of large groups of people or makes necessary the establishment of autonomous regions. In several cases, political leaders' refusal to accept the demands of ethnic minorities led to rebellions and forced separation, particularly in some of the former Soviet republics (Georgia, Moldova). The dissolution of Yugoslavia showed how important were decisions made by political leaders. The Serbian president Slobodan Milośević (1941-2006) tried to exploit the chaotic situation of the falling federation to annex territories in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina inhabited by large Serbian populations simultaneously suppressing the Albanian majority in Kosovo. His nationalistic policies led to ethnic wars, the military intervention of NATO and ultimately to his defeat in the 2000 election (followed by his trial at the International Court in Hague). The most dramatic example of what can come if the demands of a large minority is ignored, was Bosnia-Herzegovina. The decision of the leader of Bosnian (Muslim) majority Alija Izetbegović (1925-2003) to proceed with the independence referendum was opposed by the large Serbian minority, which constituted one-third of the population, and resulted in the four years of civil war terminated only by the intervention of the NATO forces and the creation of an artificial federation composed of three ethnic parts: Bosnian, Serb and Croat. In several cases, however, the transformative leaders demonstrated enough wisdom and resolution to offer national minorities far reaching autonomy in their regions, like it was the case in Spain with the establishment of regional autonomous governments in Catalonia and the Basque region. Thea situation is particularly complex in those countries in which huge ethnic minorities have been products of the deliberate policy of the dominant power, like it was the case with the Russian minorities in Latvia and Estonia to large extent composed of people who had been resettled on the territories of these two republics after they had been annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. Latvian and Estonian leaders tried to deny full citizen rights to the Russian minorities and were forced to change their policies only under the pressure of the European Union, which the two republics joined in 2004.

The second dilemma is how to deal with the remnant of the nondemocratic past. The problem has three aspects: symbolic, personal and institutional. In the symbolic way, leaders of the transformation emphasize its radical character by such means as changing the name of the state and its anthem and by establishing national days in a way which puts emphasis on the democratic traditions of the nation. This seems to be the easiest part of the problem. More complicated is the personal aspect: how to treat those who had been implicated in the functioning of the nondemocratic regime. No transformative leadership went so far as to penalize everybody who had been involved in the functioning of the previous regime – millions of people from various social groups. Personal responsibility for crimes committed under the old regime is practically everywhere accepted, but often difficult to realize in practice. In Greece, officers implicated in violations of law were put on trial and sentenced without opposition from the military hierarchy. In Argentine, former *junta* leader general Jorge Videla and a number of his subordinates received long prison sentences. In several democratizing countries, however, the extrication from authoritarian rule was tied to some form of legal impunity for the functionaries of the regime, like it was the case in Chile and Brazil. In the Central European states the problem of legal responsibility for crimes committed under the old regime was complicated by the passing of time and the fact that the most heinous crime had been committed in late forties or early fifties of the twentieth century and most of the perpetrators had already passed away. Nonetheless, in several of countries of this regions functionaries of the security forces were put on trial and sentenced. In Czechoslovakia, the law on so-called "lustration" was adopted in September 1990, aimed at the identification of deputies to the Federal Assembly, who had been recruited by the security service of the communist regime. The law has been criticized as an example of "collective guilt"concept and for penalizing the collaborators – but not the functionaries – of the security services (Siklova 1996). Similar criticism has been raised against the lustration procedures in the other post-communist states (Elster 1992).

More complicated was the question of legal responsibility of the main political leaders. Only in Romania the president and head of the ruling party Nicolae Ceausescu was summarily tried and executed during the revolution of December 1989. In Poland, the controversy over the legal responsibility of the political leaders of the former regime was temporarily resolved in 1996 when the parliament by overwhelming majority refused to prosecute general Jaruzelski and his collaborators for their decision to impose martial law. However, several years later, after the electoral victory of the Right, general Jaruzelski was put on trial at the criminal court but the proceeding were terminated by his death (in 2014). Jaruzelski's case remained highly controversial from both legal and political perspectives. The American journalist Tina Rosenberg used his case to illustrated the dilemmas of "retrospective justice"in formerly communist states (Rosenberg 1995).

The main problem of "retrospective justice"cannot be reduced to the individual responsibility of political leaders, as it concerns the question whether to deprive people involved in the former regime of their right to run in democratic elections and/or to be appointed to political offices. No such laws have been even proposed in Latin American or non-communist Southern Europe, but attempts to introduce them took place in some countries of East-Central Europe. Such discriminatory policies have been proposed by some of the most radical anticommunist leaders. Results of the democratic elections in several new democracies showed, however, that such policy of discrimination was not supported by the voters, who in several states elected as presidents former members of the communist elites: in Poland (Alexander Kwasniewski), Romania (Ion Iliescu), Lithuania (Algirdas Brazauskas), Slovenia (Milan Kućan), North Macedonia (Kiro Gligorov) and other states.

The third dilemma is how to build democratic institutions – not by destroying but by transforming the former ones. Crucial decision in this respect concerns the elections. Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan stressed the importance of the early democratic election for the success of Spanish democratization. They believe that in the ethnically divided society the decision to have state-wide election (rather than the regional ones) first was crucial for the success of democratization and for the speed with which the new democratic constitution was adopted and ratified by the national referendum of December 1978 (Linz and Stepan 1996: 100). The same can be said about elections in the majority of democratizing countries. The alternative was the continuity of the old parliament with a very high probability of a sharp constitutional conflict, like the one which took place in the Russian Federation in 1993. Confronted with the opposition of the old parliament (Supreme Council) president Boris Yeltsin decided to use military force to disband it – in flagrant violation of the constitution and with long term negative effects for the political change in his country. Negotiated compromise, like the one in Poland, is far better for the orderly reform of the political institutions.

The fourth dilemma concerns the economic policy. The need of economic reforms has not been a common problem for all democratizing countries. Spain and the majority of Latin American countries entered the democratic transformation in conditions of the economic growth and impressive improvement of the standard of living. They faced, however, rapidly growing economic inequalities – consequences of adopting the neoliberal concepts. Former communist states faced the double problem of system transformation: changing the political system and in the same time restructuring their economies from the dominant state property and central planning to free market. In the early stage of the democratization political scientists and sociologists from the "South-East Systems Transformations"project warned about the dangers involved in rapid privatization of the economy and from adopting the neoliberal economic strategy. They argued that the deterioration of economic conditions, caused by drastic restructuring of the economy, while necessary for long-term economic growth, may undermine the stability of new democracies. "Searching for a solution to this dilemma we argued that stabilization and liberalization are not sufficient to generate growth unless these reforms are targeted to redress the fiscal crisis and to mobilize public savings, that a reform of the of the public sector rather than mass privatization better combines efficiency and equality, that without a social protection net political conditions for the continuation of reforms become eroded, and that a technocratic style of policy making weakens the nascent democratic institutions" (Przeworski 1995: 109).

The choice of economic strategy is a political decision, made by top political leaders. Poland's economic reforms of the early stage of the democratic transformation can serve as the illustration how important is the quality of leadership in the process of restructuring the economy from state-owned to free market. Polish negotiated transition began when the state of Polish economy was desperate – due both to the mistaken economic policy of the nineteen-seventies and economic sanctions imposed by Western states in response to the declaration of martial law. Reforming the economy in conditions of economic crisis was necessary but politically risky because radical reform caused deep recession and high unemployment. The decision of prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki to appoint as one of his deputies and minister of finance the young economist Leszek Balcerowicz and to give him a free hand in introducing radical reforms was an act of courageous leadership. The reform strategy chosen by Mazowiecki and Balcerowicz and endorsed by the World Bank called for the speedy freeing of economy, privatization of many state-owned enterprises and making Polish currency convertible. This strategy was continued after Mazowiecki's resignation (at the end of 1990) by the next three cabinets. The results were mixed. Poland recovered quickly from the recession, which ended in 1993, the fourth year of transformation, becoming "the fastest growing economy in all of Europe in 1993-94"(Linz and Stepan 1996: 269). The initial cost of the radical reform was, however, very high. Polish GNP in 1991 fell to 81.7 % compared to 1989, and did not reached the 1989 level until 1994. High inflation drastically reduced financial reserves of the population and lowered average wages, unemployment (unknown in the communist period) reached the level of 15-16 %. The approval of economic policy of the "Solidarity"-based government, at the beginning very high, fell dramatically. The frequency of strikes was the highest in 1992 (6351) and 1993 (7443) with 752 500 people on strike in the record year 1992. Social malaise was a dangerous signal of approaching political crisis. The situation changed, however, after the victory of the center-left coalition in the parliamentary election and the appointment of Grzegorz Kolodko as vice-prime minister and minister of finance (in 1994). Kolodko economic "strategy for Poland" represented a carefully planned revision of the neoliberal reform of his predecessor (Kolodko 2000, 2011). It consisted of carefully planned employment policy, strengthening the public sector and promoting economic growth. Consequences were impressive. Poland was the first country of the former socialist bloc to overcome recession and her long-term economic growth continued for the following years making Poland the pioneer of economy recovery in East-Central Europe.

The history of the Polish economic reform – particularly when compared with that of the other countries of this region – shows the importance of political leadership. The combination of choosing the radical strategy in the initial phase and of correcting it after barely four years became the key to fast economic recovery and to continuous economic growth. It also meant avoiding the potentially destructive consequences of a massive social protest. Courageous and competent political leadership was a necessary condition for success.

The fifth dilemma concerned foreign policy and in practical terms was limited to the post-communist states only. In Latin America or non-communist Europe, transition to democracy did not lead to the change of the international situation as all these countries belonged to the broadly defined Western bloc and had security arrangements with the United States. In Spain, democratization made possible joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Community – the only foreign policy changes in the democratizing non-communist states.

East and Central Europe were different. For the former Soviet Union the main dilemma was how to adjust to the new international situation with the American hegemony as the foundation of a new world order after the cold war. In the first years after the change of regime, the Russian Federation as the legal successor of the USSR, tried to maintain her position as a regional power but due to internal chaos was unable to achieve such goal. The majority of the former Soviet republics redefined their international position trying to combine close ties with Russia and good relations with the democratic West. Some looked for closer ties with China and in one case (Azerbaijan) with Turkey. Three Baltic republics made a different choice, reorienting their foreign policy toward establishing close ties with NATO and the European Community and distancing themselves from Russia, perceived as a potential danger to their sovereignty.

In Central Europe, change of the geopolitical situation caused by the end of the Soviet hegemony opened the prospect of the former socialist states joining NATO and the European Union. Practically all political leaders of the region, regardless of their political background, favored such foreign policy reorientation. It also had support of the great majority of citizens. The practical problem was not whether to join the West but how to meet the criteria of membership, more demanding in the case of the European integration than in case of NATO. In 1999, the first three sates of the region (Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) became members of NATO and in the first decade of the next century they were followed by the other Central European states. The extension of EU followed in 2004 when the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia became members. In the following years both NATO and the EU continued to expand to the East. Only in the Balkans the expansion of NATO and the EU was delayed, either because of the negative attitude of political leaders (Serbia) political instability (Bosnia-Herzegovina) or opposition of some of the member-states (North Macedonia, Kosovo).

In the majority of Central European states, the great majority of political leaders supported the reorientation of foreign policy: joining NATO and the European Union. There were, however, some politically motivated differences in their attitudes to the European integration with some (mostly from the authoritarian right) opposed to the role the EU institution play in defending democracy and the rule of law in those member-states in which they are endangered. Some political leaders, for example the two Czech presidents Vaclav Klaus and Miloś Zeman or the chairman of the Polish ruling party Jaroslaw Kaczynski, have made themselves known for their skeptical attitudes to the European Union. It is the dominant mood of the people that prevents them from changing the European orientation of their countries. It may, however, happen that the question of European integration becomes one of the central divides in the politics of Central European states.

Among the former Soviet republics the most complicated and unstable were relations between Ukraine and the democratic West. Unlike Russia and the majority of the former Soviet republics, Ukraine has had a relatively democratic system based on free parliamentary and presidential elections. From the very beginning of her independence, however, Ukrainian politics was marked by sharp contrast between the Eastern and the Western regions, the first favoring closer ties with Russia and the latter opting for the association with the democratic West. The regional differentiation in Ukraine has deep historical roots. The regions on the eastern bank of the Dniepr river were incorporated to Russia in late seventeenth century, after the Cossack uprising of 1648 and the Russian-Polish war. The Central regions remained part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until the second part of the eighteenth century when, as result of the three partitions of Poland, they came under Russian rule. The most western regions were parts of the Hapsburg empire until 1918, and, following its collapse, became parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia. In 1939, the formerly Czechoslovak part of Ukrainian lands was annexed by Hungary and the whole western Ukraine became part of the Soviet Union in result of the second world war. Ukrainian national rebirth began in the second half of the nineteenth century, primarily in the then Austrian part. Consequently, the choice of foreign policy orientation in Ukraine depends on the historical roots of the regions: the Eastern regions favoring closer ties with Russia and the Western ones opting for integration with the European Union. Until 2013, all Ukrainian presidents balanced their foreign policies between these two orientations. The critical moment came in the Fall of 2013 when president Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign the treaty of association with the European Union. In early 2014, street protests against his decision (called "the revolution of dignity") forced the fall of Yanukovych and the reorientation of the Ukrainian foreign policy. Deep divisions in the Ukrainian society are reflected in the assessment of the 2014 events. In 2016, the Kiev International Institute of Sociology asked Ukrainians how did they evaluate the events of 2014. The majority of respondents (56 percent) viewed them as a "popular revolution", but a substantial minority (34 percent) as "illegal armed coup". Support for the reorientation of Ukrainian foreign policy is the strongest in the western regions and weakest in the eastern ones, with their historically rooted ties with Russia. This divisions remain and make the definite reorientation of foreign policy difficult. In the presidential election of 2019, the incumbent president and one of the leaders of the "revolution of dignity" Petro Poroshenko lost to Zelensky, who has been perceived as a "new face" in Ukrainian politics, capable of finding a compromise solution to the conflict with Russia. Such a solution would, however, require concessions on both sides and its prospects look dim, at least for a time being. The Ukrainian-Russian relations became a new "frozen conflict" with no easy perspective of a compromise solution – at least for the time being (Bebler 2015). As in the other cases, such conflict demonstrated the importance of decisions made by political leaders and the high cost of their errors.

The factor which complicates foreign policy options in new democracies is the crisis of American hegemony in the twenty-first century. The third wave of democratization coincided with and was to a high degree conditioned by the end of the cold war and the change of the global balance of power. The emergence of the United States as the dominant world power made the foreign policy reorientation the logical consequence of these events. "Pax Americana"was seen as the strongest possible guarantee of international stability and as the international order favorable to the survival of new democracies.

The situation changed in the first decade of the present century. The American response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 – particularly the invasion of Iraq – weakened the world hegemony and cause divisions in the alliance of democratic nations. Leaders of new democracies who supported the United States had to pay a high political price. In Poland, the decision of President Aleksander Kwasniewski and the Prime Minister Leszek Miller to engage Polish forces in the invasion of Iraq was one of the reasons why their political formation, the Democratic Left Alliance, lost the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2005 and never returned to its previous strength. The Iraqi fiasco was not the only cause of the decline of American hegemony. The reemergence of Russia as a regional power and the steady growth of the international position of China transformed the international politics from the one dominated by the United States to that of interplay between big powers. Such architecture of international relations complicates the task of leaders in smaller states and makes their choice of strategy essential for the future of their nations. Difficulties in maintaining a common policy of the four Central European states (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), which in the early years of democratic transition formed the Visegrad Group, have been caused – at least partly – by the different approaches to the American strategy in the Middle East (Cabada and Waisova 2018).

The future of new democracies remains uncertain. Optimists point to the absence of the "third reverse wave", at least on a massive scale. The first and the second waves of democratization (1828-1926 and 1943-1962) were followed by the reverse waves, both of them beginning a few years before the end of the democratization – respectively in 1922 and 1958 (Huntington 1991: 16). Compared to the previous waves of democratization, the third has been exceptional. The long period of uninterrupted democratization created hopes that democratization became permanent. In the last years of the twentieth century, Central European political scientists and sociologists were practically unanimous in their belief that democracy in their region had already stabilized or was in the process of stabilization (Agh 1998, Higley, Pakulski and Wesolowski 1998) but there were also warnings that democratic stabilization could not last if socio-economic problems are not dealt with effectively (Jahn and Wildenmann 1995, Przeworski 1995). With the passing of time, however, the dominant mood began to change. Pessimists concentrate on the symptoms of political crises, not only in new, but also in some of the old democracies. They points to the weakening of political parties and high level of political apathy, as well as to the emergence of populist movements. They interpret the crises of democracy as the proof that liberal democracy – that is the only democracy which exists in modern times – faces so deep crisis that its collapse has become very likely, or perhaps even inevitable.

"Democracy, defined as liberal pluralism, resting on both democratic institutions and citizens sharing democratic values, – writes the German political sociologist Petra Guasti – is under stress worldwide. Pluralistic democratic institutions: a free press, civil society and the rule of law all seem to be under attack. The culprits, however, are not antidemocratic forces seeking regime change employing coups and electoral fraud, Instead … the changes are incremental – elected leaders seeking to aggrandize executive powers undercut democratic institutions (judicial autonomy, media freedom, elections). Therefore, democracies are not endangered by reversals, but by hollowing out – erosion and decay – while preserving the fundamental façade of electoral democracies"(Guasti 2018: 9).

Neither the pessimistic nor the optimistic forecast should be accepted without serious reservation. The seriousness of the crises of democracy does not mean that its decay has become inevitable, but leads to the conclusion that the survival of liberal democracy requires reforms. In his realistic evaluation of the present crises of democracy, Klaus von Beyme postulates the reformist policy of "neo-democracy", which would require greater emphasis on the values of liberty, justice and solidarity (Beyme 2018: 90). In a similar vein Adam Przeworski, while pointing to the danger of gradual deterioration of democracy, warns against extreme pessimism and postulates carefully planned reforms of the democratic institutions (Przeworski 2019) Maintaining the basic values and institutions of liberal democracy requires the constant readiness to correct past errors and to seek new ways of building the democratic social and political order in constantly changing societies.

The future of new democracies is not predetermined in such a way that it would not depend on human actions. Quite to the contrary: it depends on how people in general, and political leaders in particular, will respond to the present and future challenges. The rise of new authoritarianism is a very real danger, but it is not an inevitable end of democracy, even in those countries where it has its greatest successes.

Public opinion surveys conducted in new democracies offer some insight in the dominant state of mind of their citizens. The Slovak research center GLOBSEC in its comparative survey of authoritarian versus democratic values in ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe (GLOBSEC 2020) found that in most of them liberal democracy is preferred to the authoritarian regimes. Asked to choose between "liberal democracy with multi-party system and regular elections"and "the rule of a strong leader, who does not need to care for parliament and election", the respondents in nine (out of ten) countries favored liberal democracy over authoritarian rule: Austria (92:7), Hungary (81:12), Poland (66:26), Estonia (65:17), Czech Republic (60: 24), Romania (50:34), Slovakia (49:38), Lithuania (49:27), Latvia (43:35), Bulgaria (35:45). Quite obviously, the citizens of former communist states are less likely to declare liberal values than their Austrian neighbors, but differences between former communist states are intriguing as they do not correspond to the differences in the dominant patterns of national politics. The results of the GLOBSEC survey are based on declarations and can be questioned on the ground that they do not reflect the actual behavior, including the high electoral support received by the authoritarian parties and leaders in some of these countries (Hungary and Poland particularly). Comparative studies devoted to the authoritarian tendencies in old and new democracies, still in their early stage, are important not only for understanding the coming dangers but also for finding ways to maximize chances of the survival of liberal democracy – the only democracy worthy of its name.

### Chapter Six: New authoritarianism and political leadership

The twentieth century ended in the atmosphere of optimism. Democracy progressed in Europe and Latin America and there were no symptoms of its retreat. The present century, however, witnessed the decline in the democratic optimism, caused by the combination of three processes: the disappointment with the functioning of liberal democracy, the emergence of international terrorism on an unprecedented scale, and the growth of radical populism with strong elements of nationalism.

Populist movements have had a long history, beginning with the radical "narodniki"in tsarist Russia of the late nineteenth century. They represented a wide spectrum of ideological orientations, from Left to Right. Their common denominators were the hatred toward elites combined with the belief in the natural superiority of the "masses", the rejection of representative democracy and the readiness to use physical confrontation as the principal tools for achieving the desired goals. Lacking a coherent ideological orientation, the populist movements could be divided into Right- and Left- oriented. While the dividing lines are often blurred, the main difference between these two versions of populism seems to be the choice of the main enemy: for the Right identified with alien nations and/or ethnic minorities, while for the Left equated with the capitalist system at home and in its global aspects.

### **1. Nationalist populism in the 21st century**

The combination of nationalism and populism emerged as the main challenge to liberal democracy, offering an alternative type of politics. They differ from the older forms of nationalism by adopting a defensive rather than an offensive stand vis-a-vis their real or imagined adversaries. Instead of voicing the idea of race or national superiority, they pretend to struggle against the danger emanating from such alien forces as the "international Jewry", "global government" or "European federalism". In countries with ethnically mixed population, they often represent the tendency to divide the state by creation of smaller, ethnically homogenous entities. "Postmodern ethnopluralism – writes Klaus von Beyme – is a good example of the democratization of marginalized groups in society. In contrast to traditional racism and nationalism, ethnopluralism does not emanate from ethnic or racist superiority. It only fights against the danger of losing the identity of the group in the age of levelling and globalization"(Beyme 2019: 14).

The nationalist populism of our time represents the protest against modernization in the name of traditional values. It opposes the social change in such fields as the anti-racist legislation in racially divided societies and equal rights for sexual minorities. Sociological surveys show that the strongest appeal to nationalist populism exists in those social strata which feel deprivation due to the changing values and ways of life. In the United States, the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election was due to the support offered him by the white lower class men – the social stratum in which the negative response to equal rights social and legal changes have been the strongest. John Dollard's theory of frustration-aggression (Dollard 1937) can very well explain this phenomenon. In his study of race relation in American "Deep South", Dollard found that the strongest supporters of white supremacy and opponents to the anti-racists changes were members of the white "lower class"whose frustration led to the hostile attitudes toward Afro-Americans – the social group which they perceived as racially lower. Following the presidency of Barack Obama, the first Afro-American ever elected to the highest office, the election of the right-wing populist Donald Trump could best be explain as the effect of conservative lower class protest against social change. The notorious instances of police brutality directed against member of the Afro-American minority, which in 2020 resulted in the unprecedented wave of social protest, can also be explained in terms of the aggressive reaction to the equal rights changes of the last decades.

In Western Europe, nationalist populism has two main faces. It is directed against the European integration on one hand, and against the influx of immigrants (particularly from outside Europe) on the other. As in the United States, it also presents itself as defender of traditional values against modernizing changes.

In old democracies, the growth of nationalist populism did not lead to collapse of liberal democracy. National Front in France or Alternative for Germany remain minority parties, even if their electoral support increased in recent years. Even the access to power of populist nationalist parties (in Austria and Italy), has not produced lasting political change. The institutional framework and the political culture of liberal democracy were strong enough to make such instances passing phenomena. Once more it became clear that democracies which have lasted for at least two generations are safe. They may suffer from nationalist-populist challenge but they have enough strength to survive.

More complex is the situation of young democracies. In the states which had transited from authoritarian regimes during the "third wave of democratization", instances of successful nationalist populism are considerably more frequent than in older democracies. In the last ten years, in two Latin American young democracies right-wing populists were elected presidents: Juan Sebastian Pinera in Chile (in 2010 and in 2018) and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil (in 2018). Both demonstrate their affinity with the military regimes of the past and both are authoritarian in the way they behave when in office, but none of them has been able to rebuild the authoritarian system of government – at least for the time being. Another version of the populist authoritarian regime, this time of radical left orientation, is Venezuela. Since the 1998 presidential election of Hugo Rafael Chavez (1954-2013) the country gradually from liberal democracy to an authoritarian model of government and – after the death of Chavez – to political chaos and a deadlock between two centers of power: the president (former vice-president Nicolas Maduro) and the parliament, supported by the United States. With these exceptions, however, newly restored democracies in Latin America and Southern Europe look safe, at least for the time being.

In India, once considered the model democracy in the post-colonial world, there has been strong populist and nationalist reaction to the policies of the Congress party. During the first two decades of independence, India served as a model of successful democracy in the post-colonial world, largely due to the democratic socialization of the political elite during the long struggle for independence (Kothari 1970: 38-42). The ruling Congress took into account the linguistic and religious divides which made India the most heterogeneous democratic state in the world. With 15 official languages (and about eight hundred spoken dialects) and with the population divided between Hinduism (80%), Islam (11 %), Christianity (2,4%) and several other religious, the unity of the republic had to be based on political loyalty to the common state rather than on ethnic or religious identities. For several decades, India was ruled by the Congress, which kept receiving strong parliamentary majorities. Even the declaration of the state of emergency by the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (in 1975) has not destroyed India's democracy, and in 1977 the ruling party (Congress lost the parliamentary election), only to be able to return to power three years later. In a comprehensive study of politics in India Samuel Eldersveld and Bashiruddin Ahmed emphasized the depth of democratic commitment of the citizens of India and expressed the optimistic view concerning the future of Indian democracy. They rejected the argument that the poverty of the Indian masses make democracy impossible and point to "the great progress in economic and social change in India, the establishment of a unified integrated society, and the accomplishment of a remarkable fusion of traditional and modern values in the spirit of justice and freedom"(Eldersveld and Ahmed 1978: 294).

Political developments of the following decades disproved such optimism. The assassination of Indira Gandhi (in 1984) by the nationalist fanatics, and the assassination of her son Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 showed the depth of ethnic violence which undermined the foundations of Indian democracy. After the prolonged period of political instability, parliamentary election of 2014 was won by the nationalist Indian People's Party (BJP – Bharatyya Janata Party) under the leadership of Narenda Modi. His government began the policy of retreat from the secular policy of the Congress and from the concept of India as the multi-ethnic republic. Instead, BJP opted for the dominance of Hinduism as the dominant religion and that of Hindu as the dominant ethnic group. Hindu nationalism proved to be the key to political consolidation around the ruling party, which in 2019 won the parliamentary election receiving again the absolute majority of seats. The nationalist policy of the BJP has not made India an authoritarian state – at least not yet – but it indicates a deep crisis of Indian democracy.

Populism – with strongly Islamic orientation – was the main reason for the collapse of the "Arab Spring" – the wave of revolts directed in 2011 against the old authoritarian regimes in such Arab states as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. With the exception of Tunisia, none of these countries became democracy. Egypt, after a brief rule of the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood, returned to the military dictatorship in 2013, while Libya and Yemen became the victims of prolonged civil wars.

The situation is more complicated in some countries of the post-communist Europe and in the neighboring Turkey. While these states preserve the basic elements of representative democracy, such as elections and political pluralism, their political systems became authoritarian in a new sense of the term. It is particularly true in case of the former communist states, but they are not the only cases. Among countries where nationalist populists came to power and managed to consolidate their rule, the most important examples are Russia, Belarus, Turkey and Hungary. In some other states, particularly Serbia, Croatia and Slovakia, the nationalist leaders came to power in the early stages of the system transformation but lost it after couple of years. The case of Poland is perhaps the most complicated, with the prospects of the nationalist populist regime unclear for the time being.

Following is the review of these selected cases.

#### *a) Russia*

In many respects, post-Soviet Russia can serve as the model for new authoritarianism in countries which had transited from communist regimes in the last decade of the twentieth century. As discussed in the preceding chapter, Mikhail Gorbachev's program of controlled democratization from above failed because of the combined pressures coming from stubborn defenders of the *status quo* on the one hand and radical reformers on the other. The abortive coup of August 1991 and the decision to dissolve the Soviet Union left the post-Soviet republics in an unprecedented and difficult to foresee situation, in which they had to solve simultaneously the problems of state-building and of constructing a new political and economic order.

In the Russian Federation, the immediate consequence of these events was the emergence of a plethora of political parties, neither of which was able to fill the vacuum created by the legal ban on the functioning of the Communist Party. Because of this, the role of the top leader – president Boris Yeltsin – was crucial for the early stage of post-communist transformation. Elected president of Russia in June 1991 – barely three month before the August coup – Yeltsin played an important role in crushing the coup by mobilizing the people of Moscow in defense of democracy. He was an effective leader in this critical moment but a very weak one in the years to come. His was the case of political failure following political victory. The man who in the crucial days of the coup symbolized the best of Russian nascent democracy, turned into an incompetent and weak but extremely ambitious and authoritarian head of state. During his rule, Russia experienced the armed confrontation between President Yeltsin and the Supreme Council (in October 1993), the rapid deterioration of the economy and the growth of private fortunes, most of which based on so-called "nomenclature privatization"– the transfer of state property to political influential members of the elite. Rising social and ethnic conflicts made Russia of the last years of the twentieth century a combination of anarchy and incompetent authoritarianism – called "anocratia" by Klaus von Beyme (Beyme 1996:166).

The Constitution of 1993, proclaimed by Yeltsin after his victory in the conflict with the Supreme Council, made the Russian Federation a semi-presidential system, patterned after the French Fifth Republic, but in reality functioning as the presidential autocracy. "The 1993 constitution – writes the American political scientist Martin Carrier – … granted the president dominant formal power, most notably the power to define nit only foreign but also domestic policy guidelines for the country"(Carrier 2016:80). Yeltsin's personality, however, made impossible the full realization of his technically enormous political power. His extravagancies, combined with alcoholism, produced a series of clashes with the consecutive prime ministers, particularly with the most gifted among them Yevgenyi Primakov (September 1998-May 1999). The falling popularity of Boris Yeltsin made his re-election in 1996 highly problematic and assured only by massive manipulation (and only in the second round, in which Yeltsin defeated his main opponent, the communist leader Gennady Zyuganov by the weak majority of 53 percent).

Yeltsin abdication in December 1999 and the access to power of the newly appointed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (elected president in early 2000 and reelected in 2004) ended the period of weak and chaotic leadership but has not made Russia an effective democracy. Economically, the beginning of Putin's presidency coincided with the end of recession and with the beginning of steady economic growth. It was also marked by the campaign against the most powerful oligarchs, denounced by Putin in February 2000 and forced either to emigrate (like Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Bearezovsky) or to face many years of imprisonment (like Mikhail Khodorkovsky). "Putin – according to the Russian historian Yury Akimov – pointed out that the limittio0n of the oligarchs' political influence does not threaten the privatization process and that political authorities will support business and the free market in Russia" (Akimov 2017: 266).

Putin served for two terms and in 2008 left the presidency to his handpicked successor Dimitry Medvedev, satisfying himself with the post of powerful Prime Minister. In 2012 and in 2018 , Putin was again elected president of the Russian Federation and the constitutional changes of 2020 made possible his reelection for two more terms, each of seven years. Russia's political system is based on the very strong position of the president , supported by the ruling United Russia (*Yedinaya Rossiya)* party, which regularly wins absolute majority of seats in the parliament. Critics of Putin's regime point to the oligarchic character of his regime and to the autocratic essence of his "steered democracy"(Reitschuster 2004). The Russian historian Yury Akimov, while stressing the positive impact of Putin's rule on the political and economic stability of Russia, admitted that, following Putin's return to the presidency in 2012, "a number of laws that could be regarded as oppressive were passed; penalties for offenses at meetings and demonstrations were intensified, financial supervision of non-profit organizations was increased, limits on the spread of illegal information on the Internet were increased, foreign-child adoptions were banned, and many other freedoms were restricted" (Akimov 2017:269).

The doctrine of "sovereign democracy", officially proclaimed in 2007, justifies the political practice of new authoritarianism as the way of making Russia "free of any external influences" and "suggested political patterns" (ibidem: 268). In reality, the official ideology serves as rationalization of the system which combines strong and authoritarian leadership with the preservation of limited political pluralism, regular election and basic personal freedoms. The official ideology of the Russian authoritarian regime combines conservative cultural values with strong attachment to the national pride and belief in Russia's role as a world power. Russian nationalism, as interpreted by President Putin, is free of ethnic connotation and stresses the unity of all citizens, regardless of their ethnic background. In respect to the historical heritage, it praises both the positive aspects of the tsarist regime and the role played by the Soviet Union in the second world war against Nazi Germany. Even Stalin – regardless of his monstrous crimes – is now presented mostly as the great leader in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

The key to the success of Russian new authoritarianism is a very high personal popularity of and support for President Putin. Sociological studies of Russian public opinion consistently show his very high popularity, with his approval rating reaching 86 percent in February 2015, in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea (Shestopal 2016: 293). At the time of his access to power, Putin was unknown to the majority of his people and seen mostly as "Yeltsin's hand-picked successor" (ibidem: 295). During his twenty years of running Russia, however, he has built his image as the strong and effective political leader. His main achievements – ending the war in Chechnya, restoring economic growth and improving the standard of living, weakening the oligarchs and strengthening Russia's international position – made him the most popular Russian leader, favorably compared to his predecessors. None of the leaders of the opposition is perceived as his equal rival.

Partly it is due to the notorious weakness of the Russian opposition. The Russian sociologist Nataliya Velikaya explains this phenomenon as caused by the combination of extreme fragmentation of the opposition parties and the passivity of the Russian population, with possible exception of the biggest cities – Moscow and Sankt Petersburg (Velikaya 2019). These factors explain most, but not all, reasons for the continuous weakness of the opposition. The dark side of the authoritarian regime in Russia is the notorious use of extralegal violence directed at the leaders of the liberal opposition, including the assassination of the liberal politician Boris Nemtsov in February 2015 and the poisoning of Alexei Navalny in August 2020. While in both these cases there are no solid proofs of the responsibility of the government, the acts of political terror darken the image of the present regime.

As a model of new authoritarianism, Putin's regime can last for a very long time and inspires replication in several other former Soviet republics, particularly in Central Asia. Its future depends on the ability to meet the expectations of continuous economic improvement and of maintaining Russia's position as one of the main regional powers. After twenty years as president or prime minister, Vladimir Putin remains the powerful and popular leader of his nation, perhaps more than any Russian leader since the revolution of 1917. His new authoritarianism is perceived – not only in his own country – as the most successful Russian regime in generations. The American political scientist (and former diplomat, who had served in the US embassy in Moscow) Dale R. Herspring interpreted Putin's presidency as an example of successful and strong conservative leader, whose long presidency brought stability to his country (Herspring 2020). As such, it serves as a model for new authoritarians in other countries.

#### *b) Belarus*

In 2020, Belarus became the first neo-authoritarian regime strongly affected by mass popular protest, which put the very survival of the regime in serious doubt. The analysis of this crisis may help to understand the most important contradiction of new authoritarianism – the tension between popular expectation for freedom and a say in running the government on the one hand, and the wish of the ruler to remain in power on the other hand.

Among the then Soviet republics of the European part of the USSR, Belarus was the only one with no history of independent statehood, except the short-lived semi-independent "Belarusian Peoples Republic" functioning from March 1918 through January 1919 on the territory occupied by the German forces. The idea of Belarusian national identity emerged only at the end of the nineteenth century and was limited to the educated middle class. In the 1991 referendum, 83 percent of Belarusian voters opted for remaining part of the Soviet Union. The dissolution of the USSR made Belarus an independent state before the bulk of her citizens came to see themselves as a separate nation.

After first three years of her independence, dominated by the newly formed democratic parties, the presidential election of 1994 was won by the former director of a state farm and chair of the parliamentary commission on corruption, Alexander Lukashenka, who defeated five better known candidates including prime minister Vyacheslav Kebich, former chairman of the Supreme Council (Soviet) Stanislau Shushkevich and the leader of conservative Christian party Zenon Pazniak. In the following years, Lukashenka won five consecutive presidential election and was able to change the constitution (in 1996) to establish a kind of presidential regime with no limit on the number of presidential terms and with marginalization of the legislative and judiciary bodies. Lukashenka's control of the whole machinery of the state became complete and the opposition, isolated and subject to political repression, was even weaker than in Russia. Belorussian populism reflected mostly the nostalgic attitudes to the Soviet past, visible both in the symbolic sphere and in the preservation of the institutional structures. The remarkable stability of the populist regime was based on three main factors: the maintenance of the modest but stable standard of living, the loyalty to the nation-state (first Belorussian state in history) and the continuity of the Soviet-era traditions, including the memory of the second world war. Because of the homogenous population, Belarus does not experience ethnic conflicts – one more factor contributing to the stability of the post-soviet regime. On the other hand, however, there exists a potential conflict over the future relations with Russia. President Lukashenka tried to steer his country between two extremes, rejecting both the unification with the Russian Federation and the European integration. It is quite likely that such middle-of-the road policy was for him an additional political dividend, at least as long as his domestic position remained safe. In the long run, the main problem Belarus faces is the delay of modernization and lagging behind other countries of the region in economic and social transformation.

Lukashenka's hold on power weakened during his fifth presidential term. The younger and better educated generation became frustrated with the visible lack of change and with the contrast between Belarus and faster developing countries of Central Europe, like the neighboring Lithuania and Poland. Incompetent management of the Covit-19 epidemics contributed to the decline of Lukashenka's popularity. In the presidential election of August 2020 the government used mass repression, including arresting the leading candidates of the opposition, but even these measures were not enough to give the incumbent victory at the polls. When official electoral returns were announced, with over eighty percent of the votes declared for Lukashenka, people went to the streets in massive demonstrations of protest. Brutal reaction of the regime, with six thousand protesters arrested, hundreds severely beaten and tortured and at least three killed, made things even worse for the president. Unlike other new authoritarians, he no longer has been able to govern with support of his citizens. Belarusian regime to survive had to employ naked coercion. Increasingly, its very survival depended on the support offered by the Russian Federation. Here, however, the prospects of the Belorussian authoritarian regime depend on the delicate game played by the Russian president Vladimir Putin. While offering Lukashenka some form of support he tries to make him open a dialogue with the opposition, which – unlike the democratic opposition in Ukraine before and during the "revolution of dignity" – had supported Russia's foreign policy, including the annexation of Crimea. All these developments suggest that the time of "new authoritarianism" in Belarus has been over. The regime will either have to turn to the systematic use of mass repression or will be forced to accept a kind of democratization.

#### *c) Turkey*

The Turkish version of nationalist populism has roots emerged as an alternative to the secular authoritarianism of the Kemalist era on the one hand, and to the liberal democratic trend in Turkish politics after the restoration of political pluralism in 1950, the year of the first competitive election and of the birth of Turkish parliamentary democracy. The democratic system which replaced the one-party regime was the product of changes in the international position of Turkey, more than of the internal social change. Confronted with the cold-war division of the world, Turkey opted for an alliance with the United States and for joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (the member of which she became in 1952). Such direction of foreign policy made it almost obligatory to adjust the political system to the rules prevailing in Western democracies (Turan 2019: 59). For the following fifty years, the Turkish democratic system functioned, however, in the shadow of the powerful armed forces, which – according to the Kemalist doctrine – had a special obligation to preserve the secular character of the state. The Turkish military intervened in politics either by a coup d'etat (in 1960 and 1980) or through a pressure imposed on civilian governments and institutionalized by the constitutional amendment of 1961 which legalized the crucial role of the National Security Council in Turkish politics. Such defective democratic regime suffered from two fundamental conflicts: between the secular and educated middle class and the conservative masses of the population on one hand, and between Turkish nationalism and the demands for autonomy (if not independence) voiced by the militant Kurdish minority, on the other. The first ten years of the Turkish democratic system (1950-1960) were defined as "populist elected authoritarianism" (Turan 2019:65) and can be seen as a prelude to the more efficient and lasting version of new authoritarianism which resulted from the 2002 electoral victory of the moderately Islamic party AKP (Justice and Development Party) of Recep Erdogan. The Democratic Party of Prime Minister Menderes represented a retreat from radical secularism of the Kemalist period and used autocratic methods of dealing with the opposition, including even political motivated murders. After it had been overthrown by the military coup of May 27, 1960, the republic continued to move between military and civilian governments. The perspectives of democratic consolidation remained unclear (Özbudun 2000).

The coming to power of the AKP changed the situation in three ways. First, the ruling party departed from the policy of state-sponsored secularization and consolidated its support among the conservative and religious masses, and by so doing it alienated the bulk of the educated middle class. While capable of winning all national elections, the AKP failed to build its support in the biggest cities, as demonstrated by its defeat in the municipal elections in Ankara and Istanbul in 2018, but has been able to consolidate its majority nationwide. Second, the AKP was able to successfully survive the military coup of July 2016 and in its aftermath purged the armed forces to assure their full loyalty to the existing regime. Third, it was able to control the Kurdish revolt and by intervening in the civil war in Syria against the Kurdish enclaves in this country consolidated its control over the rebellious East of Turkey.

Ideologically, the AKP is an interesting mixture of Turkish nationalism and Islamic traditionalism. It stands for Turkey's independent position vis-àvis the outside world but does not abandon the hopes for joining the European Union. It has abandoned the policy of unquestionable loyalty to the United States and improved relations with the Russian Federation. This type of new nationalism may appeal to the Turkish masses.

Does it make the Turkish new authoritarian regime stable? Electoral results obtained by the AKP and by President Erdogan in consecutive elections seem to indicate that the regime is there to stay for a very long time. It has lost power in two main cities (Istanbul and Ankara) but remained strong in the countryside. Leading Turkish political scientists Ergun Özbudun and Ilter Turan have, however, doubts about the future of Turkish authoritarianism. Pointing to the growing economic tensions, Turan suggests that they "will either lead to liberalization and to the return to more democracy or …will lead to the replacement of one type of authoritarian rule by another or simply to a change of the 'government team'" (Turan 2019:75). In a recent analysis, Ergun Özbudun suggested that the consolidation of the "competitive authoritarianism" in Turkey may appear less lasting that predicted in the past (Özbudun 2020). This forecast were formulated before the heavy consequences of the COVIT-19 epidemics during which Turkey suffered very heavy human and economic loses had been fully known. As in the other authoritarian regimes, such situation could either destroy or strengthen the authoritarian regime, depending on the final assessment of the effectiveness of the government in its efforts to control the epidemics.

#### *d) Hungary*

The fourth case of successful populist movement is Hungary. After the reasonably smooth transition from communist regime to democracy, the Hungarian political system suffered from the combination of social and economic tensions generated by the liberalization of the economy, rampant corruption and bitter division between democratic political parties . The electoral victory of the (formerly liberal) Fidesz party led by Victor Orban in 2010 was a turning point in Hungarian post-communist politics. Because of the mixed system of voting , the winning party with 53 percent of popular vote received the absolute majority (67 %) of seats which allowed it to change the constitution and in the following parliamentary elections of 2014 and 2018 it was able not only to maintain but even to consolidate its hold on power. Such success of Fidesz and its leader can best be explained in terms of the deeply rooted psychological and political problems of Hungarian society. Ever since the first world war, the dominant problem of Hungarian political mentality was the feeling of having been harmed by the terms of the peace treaty of Trianon (in 1920), which transferred large parts of the former Hungarian Kingdom to the neighboring states: Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. The territories lost have had strong Hungarian minorities numbering 3.5 million people. Territories lost in 1920 constituted 102 thousand square kilometers – more than the whole territory of the post-war Hungarian state (92 thousand square kilometers) . One out of four ethnic Hungarians became a member of the Hungarian minority. The wish to regain the lost territories motivated the Hungarian authoritarian regime of Admiral Miklos Horthy to join Nazi Germany in the second world war. During the communist era the issue of lost territories remained dormant, but has not disappeared from national memory. After the transition to democracy, the dominant political parties (socialists and liberals) choose the policy of European integration, which – realistically speaking – is the only way in which the question of huge Hungarian minorities could be solved in a satisfactory way. Victor Organ is the first prominent Hungarian politician who made the "Trianon treason"the central issue of his politics. Playing on the nationalist sentiments and accusing his predecessors of not having been strong enough in defending Hungarian national interest, Orban won and consolidated political support of the overwhelming majority of his compatriots. Disappointed with the liberal West, Orban has built close relations with Russia and China and in the same time antagonized the European Union by his illiberal domestic policies, particularly in the field of law protection.

Ideologically, Orban's Hungary is a perfect case of the conservative syndrome, composed of such principles as: (1)order, clear social hierarchies, (2) male values and role, (3) stability, (4) national independence, (5) ethno-national exceptionalism, (6) strong leadership, and (7) controlled politics and media (Heinrich 2019: 106). Already in July 2014, in his speech delivered on a visit to the Hungarian-populated region of Romania, Orban formulated the idea of "illiberal democracy", which should in his view combine the mechanism of free elections with the respect for conservative values. The Hungarian sociologist (and former minister of education and culture) Balint Magyar described the political system created by Fidesz as a "mafia state", in which the concentration of political power allows the ruling elite to transform itself into the new oligarchy through the looting of national economy (Magyar 2016). Recently, in the interview for the Polish edition of *Newsweek* weekly (21-27 September 2020)*,* Magyar pointed to the difference between more ideologically oriented authoritarianism in Poland and the pragmatic Hungarian authoritarianism concentrated on accumulation of financial gains by the political elite. This, however, does not explain the political success of Victor Organ and his party. Like in the Russian and Turkish versions of populist nationalism, the remarkable success of the Hungarian regime is largely due to the popularity of the leader (Heinrich 2019: 112). Having won the hearts of the great majority of his compatriots, Orban consolidates his rule by exploiting his compatriots' deep feeling of having been hurt by the outside world. Such feeling is always stronger among less educated and less successful social strata, as demonstrated in the weak results obtained by Fidesz in the capital city Budapest and among the educated middle class. However, with solid support among the great majority of Hungarians Fidesz can remain in power for a very long time. Under its rule, Hungary became the neo-authoritarian island within the European Union and one of the strongest nationalist-populist regimes in the world.

#### *e) Slovakia, Serbia and Croatia*

In the first decade of the post-communist transformation, three European states were ruled by the nationalist-populist leaders, but none of them became a consolidated neo-authoritarian regime. While the nationalist and populist politicians still play important role in their politics, Slovakia, Serbia and Croatia have demonstrated the instability of such regimes and the potential of democratic revival. Two of them (Croatia and Slovakia) are now members of the European Union and are listed as full democracies by the Freedom House. Serbia, while lagging behind in the quality of her democratic institutions, has also improved her status as a democratic state.

The Slovak populist episode of 1994-1998 was caused by the electoral victory of the Vladimir Mećiar's Movement for Democratic Slovakia and the formation of a governing coalition with the nationalist Slovak National Party. The electoral victory of the nationalistic parties was mostly due to the growing frustration with the hard realities of the early years of post-communist transformation and the rise of nationalist feelings connected with the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the establishment of the independent Slovak state. Sociological studies of the Slovak society showed, however, that such sentiments were relatively weak and that even in the Mećiar era a large part of the Slovak society supported the values of liberal democracy (Butorova 1998, Szomolonyi and Gould 1997). After the defeat of the Mećiar regime in the parliamentary election of 1998, Slovakia has returned to liberal democratic policies and in 2004 became a member of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The populist trend was still present in Slovak politics, particularly during the rule of the left SMER party, but Slovakia remains a democratic state.

The emergence of nationalist populism in two largest republics of former Yugoslavia can best be explained in terms of the fundamental tension which existed in this country ever since the first world war and the unification of the parts of the Austro-Hungarian empire with Slav population with Serbia. The new multinational state (named the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and in 1929 renamed Yugoslavia) was dominated by its Serbian part, not only the largest in population but also the one which had been an independent state, one of the victors of the war. Serbian and Croat nationalism collided throughout the interwar period and culminated during the second world war, which in Yugoslavia had also the character of a bloody ethnic conflict. The postwar Yugoslavia, due to the constitutional arrangements which made her a federation of six equal republics, and because of the internationalist policy of the ruling communist party, was able to reduce the tensions between constituent nationalities, but even then the problem of ethnic nationalisms remained one of the key problems, as documented by the eruption of Serbian and Croat nationalisms in early nineteen-seventies (Ramet 1984). In the nineteen-eighties, following the death of president Josip Broz-Tito (1892-1980), nationalist tensions between the constituent republics increased and led to the emergence of national populist leaderships in two biggest republics. In Serbia, the ruling Serbian Socialist Party (under the former leader of the League of Communists Slobodan Milośević) adopted a firmly nationalist stand on the issue of the autonomy of the Albanian-populated Kosovo and tried to impose the Serbian hegemony in the whole federation. In Croatia, the post-communist transformation brought to power the nationalist party HDZ (*Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica- Croat Democratic Community)* under the former communist general of the Yugoslav army Franjo Tudjman (1922-1999). Both parties followed the populist policies of ethnic nationalism, which led to the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation and to the series of ethnic wars. Tudjman's death in 1999 and the overthrown of Milośević in 2000 (after his attempt to falsify results of the presidential election) led to the collapse of authoritarian regimes in both republics and the establishment of democratic political systems. In Serbia, the first twelve years of the 21st century brought to power liberal democratic forces under such leaders as Presidents Vojislav Kośtunica and Boris Tadić, Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic (assassinated in 2003) and other representatives of the liberal democratic forces. Nationalist populism remained strong and gained influence, largely because of what was considered the failure of liberal democrats to undo the consequences of Serbian defeats in the ethnic wars of the last decade of the twentieth century. In 2012 and in 2017, the representatives of the nationalist party SNS (*Srpska Naprednja Stranka*– Serbian Progressive Party) Tomislav Nikolić and Alaxandar Vucić –were elected presidents and the SNS kept winning parliamentary elections. The coming to power of the SNS reflected the disappointment with the liberal democratic parties and the nostalgia for the past. Election of president Vucić, the former minister in the government of Slobodan Milośević (with the impressive 55% majority), was symbolic for the change of general mood. After 2012, however Serbia continued the process of reforms and preparations for the membership in the European Union, but her foreign policy took a pro-Russian turn, largely due to the disappointment with the policy of the European Union and the United States on the Kosovo issue. While the ruling party can be characterized as nationalist and populist, it has not abandoned the process of democratization and has not restored the authoritarian regime. President Vućić symbolizes the populist and nationalist sentiments of a large part of the Serbian population, but under his rule the country has not returned to the authoritarian policies, at least for the time being.

At the turn of centuries, Croatia departed from the nationalist-populist regime of the HDZ because of the combination of three factors: the end of thy ethnic wars, the demands for democratization coming from the European Union and the sudden death of President Tudjman (in December 1999). In the following twenty years, Croatia made impressive progress on the road to consolidation of the democratic system and was admitted to NATO (in 2009) and to the European Union (in 2013). Between 2000 and 2020, elections – both presidential and parliamentary- were won either by the SDP (*Socijaldemokratska Partija Hrvatske),* or by reformed HDZ, which at its V Congress (April 2000) rejected the authoritarian heritage of its founder. In the process of democratic consolidation, two Croat leaders made the most important contributions: President Stjepan Mesić (during his two presidential terms: 2000-2005 and 2005-2010) and Prime Minister Ivica Raćan (in the years 2000-2003). Their role in steering Croatia toward parliamentary democracy and integration with the EU was crucial for the successful democratic consolidation. The evolution of HDZ – from populist nationalism to conservative democratic program – helped it to win the parliamentary election of 2016 and allowed its candidate Kolinda Grabar- Kitarović to win the presidential election of 2015. In 2020, the presidential election was won by Zoran Milanović, supported by the SDP. The orderly rotation of leftist and rightist presidents and cabinets testify to the newly gained stability of Croatian democracy.

The story of the short-lived neo-authoritarian regimes in Slovakia, Serbia and Croatia can be interpreted in two ways. One would point to the existence of deeply rooted nationalist and populist tendencies in these three countries and could point to the continuous strong presence of nationalist politicians in governments of these countries. The alternative interpretation would focus on the democratic potential which caused the departure from authoritarianism and the relatively strong position of democratic parties. Both interpretations have solid grounds in the turbulent political fortunes of the recent past. Slovakia, Serbia and Croatia have not become the consolidated authoritarian regimes on the Russian, Turkish or Hungarian model, but after the experience of authoritarian populist and nationalist governments in the nineteen-nineties they are moving in direction of consolidated democracies. Their political future remains however an open question due to the heritage of authoritarian nationalism. In the case of Croatia and Slovakia their membership in the European Union became an important factor in favor of democratic consolidation and in the case of Serbia her ambition to join the European mainstream plays a similar role.

### *f) Poland*

Poland stands somewhere in between the fully consolidated neo-authoritarian states and those where such regimes became a passing phenomenon. As the first country which departed from the communist system, Poland used to be a highly respected example of successful democratization. During the twentyfive years of the functioning of her democratic system (1990-2015), regular and fair elections produced a sequence of cabinets most of which have been formed either by the Left (1993-1997 and 2001-2005) or by the liberal democratic coalitions. Presidents elected in direct elections: Lech Walesa (in 1990), Aleksander Kwasniewski (in 1995 and in 2000), Lech Kaczynski (in 2005) and Bronislaw Komorowski (in 2010) represented a wide spectrum of political views – from Right to Left – but all respected the principles of liberal democracy. The Constitution of 1997 solidified the democratic system and Poland's admission to NATO (1999) and to the European Union (2004) were rightly seen as proofs of her place in the family of democratic nations. In 2014, the former Prime Minister and leader of the liberal Civic Platform Donald Tusk was elected president of the European Council – first case of this position being offered to the politician from the formerly communist state.

During this period, various nationalist and populist parties (like the League of Polish Families and the Self-defense), while capable of winning some electoral support, remained too weak to change the direction of Polish politics. Even the short-lived cabinet of the populist Law and Justice party (2005-2007) did not try to change the system and soon was forced to call for early election which it lost to the liberal democratic Civic Platform. The situation changed in 2015 when the Law and Justice party won both the presidential and the parliamentary elections. Its presidential candidate Andrzej Duda defeated the incumbent Bronisław Komorowski by a small margin of two percent and in the parliamentary election Law and Justice won the absolute majority of seats only because of the failure of the coalition of the leftist parties to pass the mandatory threshold of eight percent. The emergence of the strong populist party changed the character of Polish politics, perhaps for many years. Headed by the skillful politician Jaroslaw Kaczynski (twin brother of President Lech Kaczynski, who died in the air crash near Smolensk in April 2010), the party benefited from the disillusion of the poorer strata with the effects of the liberal economic reforms and from the conservative backlash against modernization. It also played on nationalist sentiments, particularly by constantly referring to the role of Germany and the Soviet Union in Poland's tragedies during the second world war. This mixture of populism and nationalism allowed it not only to win the 2015 elections but also to maintain its dominant position in the following years. It won the European (2019), parliamentary (2019) and presidential (2020) elections, in all three cases with a very small majority. In the presidential election of 2020 its candidate, the incumbent president Andrzej Duda, won by the small margin of 51.03 percent nation-wide and lost in the majority of provinces. In 2019, the ruling party lost the control over the upper house (Senate) to the united democratic opposition and in 2018 the opposition won provincial elections in eight (out of sixteen) provinces and in all major cities, including Warsaw. Compared to Russia, Turkey and Hungary Poland has much weaker ruling party, which however proved capable to renew its democratic mandate for several more years.

All these elections followed a certain pattern. The Law and Justice won among the more traditional strata and the opposition in those which represented the processes of modernization. Geographically Poland has been divided between the traditional, less developed East-South (which voted for the Law and Justice) and the more developed North -West, which voted for the opposition. Historically, this division reflects the heritage of partitions and of the territorial changes which followed the second world war. Law and Justice is stronger in the less developed former Russian and Austrian partitions, and the liberal opposition in former German partition and in the territories incorporated after the second world war. The political divide reflects also the social differentiation. In 2010, President Andrzej Duda won among voters with elementary education (by 77.3%), among those living in villages (by 63.8%), and voters over sixty years old (by 62.5 %). His main rival , the mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski won in big cities (by 65.8%), among voters with college education (by 65.1%) and among youngest voters (by 63.7%). Similar sociological pattern of voting support one can find also in other authoritarian states (Russia, Turkey, Hungary), but nowhere is it so strong as in Poland.

Poland differs from the other new authoritarian regimes in three respects. First, the ruling party has much weaker political support and the democratic opposition is markedly stronger than in the other countries ruled by nationalist populist politicians. Second, Poland is ethnically homogeneous, with ethnic Poles constituting over 94 percent of the total population; therefore, Polish ethno-nationalism is directed mostly against foreign states – Russia, Germany, Ukraine – and against the imagined "international Jewry". Third, the democratic system functioned well for twenty-five years – longer than in any other state affected by the rise of national populism. All these factors made Poland the key example of unstable neo-authoritarian regime. Another factor contributing to the vulnerability of the Polish regime is the position taken by the European Commission and the Tribunal of Justice of the European Union in defense of the rule of law. On several occasions, the intervention of the European organs forced the Polish authorities to slow down or modify the measures intended to subordinate the legal system to the demands of the ruling party. With the very high support the European Union enjoys among Poles, the intervention of the European institutions complicates all efforts of the Polish regime to establish full control over the organs of law enforcement.

Countries ruled by the populist parties have some common characteristics. All have departed from authoritarian or totalitarian regimes during the third wave of democratization. In all, the populist parties came to power after the relatively short period of transition – the shortest (three years) in Belarus and the longest (twenty five years) in Poland. All had lived under one-party dictatorship during prolonged periods of time (the shortest in Turkey during the rule of the Republican People Party, 1923-1950). In all, one of the key political issues has been the character of the nation-state, the ethnic differentiation of their population or the troubled historical relations with neighboring states. The combination of these factors explains why nationalist and populist parties are by far more successful in these countries than in the old Western democracies.

#### **2. New and old authoritarianism: similarities and differences**

Political systems established by the populist parties in late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been named "illiberal democracy"(Zakaria 2007), "delegative democracy"(O'Donnell 1991), "controlled democracy"(Anyang' Nyong'o 2016) or "electoral authoritarianism" (Turan 2019). In my earlier writings, I have used the term "new authoritarianism" to underline both the continuity of some basic traits and the novelty of the present version of the authoritarian regimes (Wiatr 1996, 2019). By using this term, I have stressed both the similarities and the differences between the present populist authoritarianism and its older predecessor – the classic authoritarian rule as defined by Juan J. Linz in his pioneering studies (Linz 1964, 2000).

In my earlier study I have pointed to four main differences between new and old authoritarianism (Wiatr 2019:173-174).

First, new authoritarian regimes are based on basically free (if not always fair) elections, in which rulers receive and renew their mandate in an open competition. The political opposition not only exists but have the possibility to compete in elections. Support for the regime is so strong that there is no need to steal elections; at the worst there might be some manipulation with the results, but not to the extent which would make elections meaningless. Here, the case of Belarus in 2020 is very important since it indicates the fundamental difference between new (electoral) authoritarianism and its older version, based on sheer coercion.

Second, political pluralism exists and is reflected in the existence of political parties and associations as well as in the media. The regime controls public media, but there is plenty of room for independent channels, including the internet.

Third, new authoritarianism uses the coercive measures, but does it in a less flagrant way than old authoritarianism, except in conditions of acute crisis., like in Turkey after the abortive coup d'etat of July 15, 2016, or in Belarus after the rigged election of August 9,2020.

Fourth, in most of the authoritarian regimes of the past, the armed forces were either in power or constituted a very important part of the ruling bloc (like in Poland, 1926-1939 or in Spain, 1939-1975). New authoritarianism is based on civilian control of the armed forces and- while supported by the military – does not depend on them for staying in power.

It is a new form of authoritarianism, but a version of authoritarianism, nonetheless. The key difference between authoritarianism – old and new – and democracy is in the sphere of the rule of law. Independent judiciary, effectively protecting the rights of citizens is a necessary condition for a truly democratic system. Without it, government even enjoying support of the majority, can become as oppressive as the one which is based on a sheer force (Maravall and Przeworski 2003). New authoritarianism may enjoy support of the majority but as long as it does not respect the rule of law, it cannot be considered a democracy, even ab "illiberal"one.

Old authoritarianism was almost always the product of mass violence. Authoritarian regimes of the past were mostly products of military coups or of civil wars. While they had support of a part of society, they almost never tested this support in an open and free election.

Massive coercion was the trade mark of all traditional authoritarian regimes, even if they have not reached the level of violence practiced by the totalitarian regimes of Germany, Soviet Union or China. In some cases the magnitude of state coercion has been frightening, like in Argentine where over thirty thousand people perished during the military dictatorship of late seventies and early eighties of the twentieth century. Frequently, state coercion was used against the ethnic or religious minorities.

The very existence of new authoritarian regimes depends on their ability to win and to maintain the confidence of citizens. They come to power through election and they renew their mandate in consecutive elections. If it loses the electoral support, authoritarian rulers are forced to make a choice between giving up power or keeping it by the use of violence., as it has happened in Belarus after the rigged presidential election of August 2020. In both cases, this would mean the end of new authoritarianism, which can be replaced either by restored democracy or by more traditional variant of dictatorship.

All new authoritarian regimes promote a massive exchange of political elites and all exploit the anti-elitist sentiments of the population to win and consolidate their power. The Polish political psychologist Janusz Reykowski points to three main conditions required for such massive exchange of elites : (1) "the existence of social groups that feel that the current system limits their chances of personal advancement or harms them in various ways", (2) "the very broad disappointment with the ruling elites", and (3) the growing tolerance for authoritarian politics" (Reykowski 2019: 51)

Because of the electoral nature of new authoritarianism, its very survival depends on the ability to produce success, either in foreign or in domestic politics.

Success in foreign policy is available only for powerful states, like the Russian Federation, which can use their assets to expand their sphere of influence. Russia's involvement in the Ukrainian crisis of 2014, culminating in the annexation of Crimea, has greatly improved Vladimir Putin's political ranking, which rose to 86 percent by the end of 2014 (Shestopal 2016: 13). For the Turkish leader Recep Erdogan a similar role played the successful intervention in the Syrian civil war and the suppression of what had been considered the Kurdish insurgency. Rulers of smaller states have more limited possibilities to build up their support through successes in foreign policy. They may, however, play on national emotions, as it has been the regular practice of Victor Orban in respect to the Hungarian minorities in the neighboring countries (Romania, Serbia and Slovakia). For a reasonably long time, Alexander Lukashenka's support largely depended on his ability to maintain a delicate balance between Russia and the European Union.

Domestic politics offers wider possibilities of success – real or imagined. Social and economic policies aimed at reducing income inequalities help the autocratic governments to consolidate their support among the poorer strata, as illustrated by the structure of Polish electorate in the elections of 2019 and 2020. When they cannot point to the real successes in their domestic policies, the authoritarian rulers compensate by creating artificial enemies, like in the campaign against LGBT, which played an important role in and after Polish presidential election of 2020.

New authoritarian regimes have relatively short histories. The oldest of them emerged in the last decade of the twentieth century. It is still too early to judge their ability to survive in the longer perspective. Whether they will evolve in direction of full scale dictatorship or will democratize, remains to be seen. Also the scenario of long-term consolidation cannot be excluded.

For all authoritarian regimes Covit-19 epidemics became the most serious challenge, testing their ability to deal with an unprecedented public danger. It will take some time to asset the long term consequences of this situation.

#### **3. New authoritarianism and the post-communist heritage**

Post-communist states constitute the majority of new authoritarian regimes world-wide. This can be explained in two ways. First, formerly communist states constitute the largest group of countries affected by the third wave of democratization. Second, there are some similarities between the late communist regimes and new authoritarian ones, particularly in two aspects: (1) the subordination of state apparatus, mass media and the judiciary to the dictates of the ruling party and (2) the concentration of power in the hands of the powerful leader. In spite of ideological difference, new authoritarian regimes in the way they function resemble late communist regimes.

In the comparative survey on the state of democracy (political participation and civil liberties) conducted by the Freedom House in 2019, 38 are states which either were, or still are, communist dictatorships (the list includes unrecognized states: Abkhazia and Transdniestria, as well as partly recognized Kosovo). Using the Freedom House score of democracy (from 0 to 100), one can divide them into four categories: fully democratic (score over 80), partly democratic (score 50-80), not democratic (score below 50) and communist (score below 50 plus the monopolistic rule of the communist party).

Only ten states are listed as full democracies: Czech Republic, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Twelve are considered partly democratic: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia. Serbia and Ukraine. Sixteen are not democratic, including five still governed by the communist parties (China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam) and eleven which can be defined as new authoritarian regimes (Abkhazia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tadzhikistan, Transdniestria, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). Full democracies constitute barely 26.5 % of all states which are now or have been ruled by the communist parties in the late twentieth century. Compared to other regions (particularly Southern Europe and Latin America), the formerly communist states have been much less successful in the establishment of consolidated democratic systems.

The geographic distribution of democratic versus authoritarian post-communist states show that all countries listed as full democracies are in Central Europe, with the interesting exception of Mongolia – the only formerly communist state in Asia to become democratic. The Central European category includes three Baltic republic forcibly incorporated by the Soviet Union in 1940 and historically closer to the other states of the region than to Russia. The partly democratic category is a mix of former Soviet republics and Balkan and East European states. The authoritarian post-communist states are exclusively former parts of the Soviet Union.

The taxonomy presented by the Freedom House corresponds closely to the findings of the cross-national study on "Democracy and Local Governance", which in the years 1991-2001 covered 28 countries, including 15 post-communist states. Data from this study (Jacob et al.1993, Jacob et al 1999, Wiatr 2003) showed marked differences between local political leaders in the level of their respective support for values of political equality, political pluralism and respect for the rights of the minorities. In six of the post-communist states under investigation Czech republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania and Slovenia – in the order of relative acceptance of democratic values) local leaders demonstrated their positive attitudes to these values. In eight (Ukraine, Armenia, Latvia, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan), the local leaders scored negatively on their attitudes to democratic values. In Estonia, the local leaders occupied a middle place between support and rejection of democratic values. It is clear that historically determined political culture explains a large part of differences between states which used to be seen as parts of the cohesive bloc of communist regimes.

Historical and geographic differentiation of the post-communist states calls for a comparative historical analysis. There are two main questions: (a) how important has been the long-term histories of the period preceding the establishment of the communist system, and (b) what was the impact of the communist regimes on the formation of national political cultures.

Historically, communist regimes emerged only in countries, in which democratic systems either never functioned or was only a short-lived phenomenon. Only in Czechoslovakia the democratic system survived for twenty years (1918-1938) and was destroyed by the outside force (Nazi Germany). In all other communist and post-communist states , the democratic experiment – if any – lasted only for a very short time (for instance less than eight years in Poland, 1918-1926). The weakness of the democratic history makes the democratic consolidation difficult, but not impossible, as shown by the successful democratization of Mongolia. Her history demonstrates that democratic consolidation is possible even under most unfavorable historical conditions. Established in 1924 (after the successful anti-Chinese revolt of 1921 supported by the Soviet forces), the Mongolian People's Republic remained a Soviet satellite state for sixty-five years. In 1989, during the peak of the third wave of democratization, the Mongolian Democratic Union, composed mostly by the reformist within the existing regime, was formed as the main champion of democratic change. The specific character of the Mongolian democratic transformation was due to the absence of anti-communist opposition. Democratic change was promoted by the ruling party (Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party) and the first fully democratic election took place in July 1990. Two years later (1992) New constitution changed the name of the state (from the "Mongolian People's Republic" to "Mongolia") and established the semi-presidential system. Former communists remained a powerful force, receiving 57 percent of votes in the 1992 parliamentary election. The presidents, elected by popular vote, serves for four years with the possibility of only one reelection. The first president, leader of the reformist wing of the communist party Amtsinhaber Punsalmaagiin Ochirbat, was elected in 1923 and was followed by four presidents (the present one, Kualtmaagiin Battulga, was elected in 2017) and none of them made any effort to prolong his rule beyond the constitutionally acceptable limit. In the orderly functioning of the democratic system Mongolia differs dramatically from the former Soviet republics. One possible explanation is that the new Mongolian political elite emerged from within the old communist elite, which – not being challenged by anticommunist opposition – easily adapted to the requirements of democracy.

In all remaining communist and post-communist states the impact of longterm history seems to play a major role. All five states, in which communist parties have been able to retain their monopoly on power, had no democratic past. With the exception of Cambodia, all authoritarian post-communist states were before 1917 parts of the Russian empire with its autocratic tradition.

The middle-of- the road category of partly democratic states represents a historical mix, composed of three former Soviet republics (Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine) and the bulk of the Balkan states. Only in the last years this group has been expanded by the reduction of the status of Hungary – from full democracy to partial democracy – in consequence of the neo-authoritarian rule of Victor Orban and his Fides party. The role of the Balkan heritage cannot be ignored. From the late thirteenth century, the region was either ruled by the Ottoman empire or lived in its shadow. The Ottoman political system, while remarkably tolerant in its treatment of religious and ethnic differences, was in its essence a patrimonial autocracy. According to Richard Farkas, "the Ottomans ruled in an elaborately decentralized pattern of indirect political control. The central feature of their system was the military hierarchy; political management for them was a tertiary focus. Their approach to the necessary political management of large numbers of markedly diverse peoples was ingenious and pivoted around finding local authorities to entrust." (Farkas 2007:11). Such system, while tolerant in its policy toward ruled peoples, was autocratic and has not developed any significant democratic tradition. Democratic ideas began to penetrate the Balkans in the early nineteenth century, largely under the influence of French military conquests in Europe. In the first decades of the twentieth century, all Balkan states were ruled by the authoritarian governments – monarchies with strong role of the military.

Different was the history of the Central European states. Two main factors determine the difference between this region and the former Russian empire: the religious divide and the impact of the evolution of the Hapsburg empire in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The historical divide between Western and Eastern Christianity has its roots in the Great Schism of 1054 which finally destroyed the unity of Christian Europe. Along the eastern borders of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia runs the great divide between these two cultures the identity of which has been defined by their dominant religious heritage (Huntington 1996). Even after parts of the region fell under Russian rule in the late eighteenth (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) or early nineteenth (Finland, partly Poland), they retained their identities, different from the dominant Russian culture, the roots of which have been formed under the influence of the Orthodox Church.

A large part of the region belonged to the Hapsburg empire (present Croat, Czech, Hungarian, Slovak, Slovenian states, as well as the Southern part of Poland). The political reform of 1867 transformed the Austrian empire into the dualistic (Austro-Hungarian) monarchy and granted substantial autonomy to the other nationalities of the empire. Political freedoms, parliamentary elections and formation of political parties made the Austro-Hungarian state a transitory formation between the autocratic rule of the past and full democracy. For the nations of Central Europe this was the first and the most important school of democratic politics.

These historical factors, however, were not enough to make the region safe for democracy. In the twenty years between the first and the second world war, democracy perished in all states of the region. This period left a mixed heritage of the early democratic experiments and of the authoritarian regimes. Today, both are very much alive in the collective memories of the Central European nations.

The present differences between Central Europe and the successor states of the former Russian empire are due not only to the long-term historical conditioning but also to the way in which the communist systems had been established and functioned in the countries of these two regions. There are four main differences.

First, the communist regimes in Central Europe were not products of the ingenious revolutions but of the Soviet victory in the second world war. The "original sin" of these regimes – the fact that they owed their emergence to the foreign power – made them weaker and more likely to undergo fundamental change, once the Soviet hegemony ceased to be the paralyzing factor.

Second, the communist regimes in Central Europe lasted for twenty eight years less than in the former Soviet republics. This difference, often ignored in comparative communist studies, has had fundamental consequences for the political culture and for the elite formation of the countries involved. In 1989 when political change accelerated in the post-communist states of Central Europe, the generation of people old enough to remember the pre-communist period was not too old to actively participate in politics. Several of democratic leaders in Central Europe had begun their political activities in the noncommunist parties or organizations before the establishment of the communist system. No equivalent leadership was available in Russia and in the other republics of the former Soviet Union (except in the Baltic states and in Moldova, annexed by the USSR during the second world war).

Third, the communist regimes in Central Europe were less oppressive that their Soviet "model". The worst period of political repression in Central Europe was from 1948 (the open conflict with Yugoslavia and the purges of communist leadership in the Central European communist states) and 1953 (the death of Joseph Stalin and the execution of the powerful boos of Soviet security apparatus Lavrenti Beria). In Central European the period of mass terror was much shorter than in the USSR and resulted in disproportionally fewer casualties. The relative shortness and limited scale of massive terror made Central European communist states less oppressive than the USSR and, consequently, more likely to become cradles for democratic movement.

Fourth, in consequence of the above listed characteristics, in the Central European communist states democratic reforms found by far stronger support than in the USSR. Already in the nineteen-fifties Hungary and Poland moved by far farther in demolishing the totalitarian systems than any other state of the Soviet bloc, and they were followed twelve years later by Czechoslovakia. In Hungary and in Czechoslovakia, the democratic change was stopped and reversed by the Soviet military intervention, but in Poland it produced a lasting liberalization which made impossible, what the American political scientist Richard Staar described as "the Sovietization of a captive people" (Staar 1962). In spite of the "freezing" of the Polish peaceful revolution (Gibney 1959), its main achievements have not been wiped out and in 1980 Poland became the cradle of the first massive democratic movement "Solidarity". Studying the evolution of the Polish communist system, the Canadian political scientist Ray Taras concluded, that "post-war Polish history can be characterized … as a protracted and profound ideological crisis interwoven with the cyclical occurrence of political crises. Without definitive resolution of the former, the latter are bound to recur" (Taras 1984: 258).

One of the consequences of the different patterns of political development in Central Europe and in the Soviet Union, is the fate of the Left after the demise of the communist system. In Russia and in the other former Soviet republics (with partial exception of Ukraine), the collapse of the system has not been followed by the emergence of politically relevant social democratic parties. Such parties not only were formed in Central Europe but in short time were able to win elections and to come to power: in Lithuania (1992), Poland (1993), and Hungary (1994).

"At that point – write the American authors Curry and Urban – country-specific influences – such as the record of popular unrest and economic adjustments under communism, the political profile of the regime on the eve of its collapse, and the mode of exit from communism – became more important than the earlier Sovietera systemic similarities in determining both the character and the role of successor leftist parties in their respective countries" (Curry and Urban 2003:5-6).

The findings quoted above point to the importance of political culture in the transformation of the formerly communist states. More than twenty years ago Klaus von Beyme (1996) stressed the delayed and complicated process of creating democratic political cultures and considered it the main factor making the long-term effects of transformation in the post-communist states uncertain. Later developments confirmed his worries – particularly in the post-Soviet states but also in some in Central Europe. However, is the historical heritage the only factor?

#### **4. Political leadership in new authoritarianism**

In the comparative studies of democratic transformation, the deterministic explanation has been challenged by scholars who put emphasis on the role of leaders.

"Many factors – wrote for example Samuel Huntington – will influence the consolidation of democracy in third wave countries and their relative importance is not at all clear. It does seem most likely, however, that whether democracy in fact falters or is sustained will depend primarily on the extent to which political leaders wish to maintain it and are willing to pay the costs of doing so instead of giving priority to mother goals"(Huntington 1991:278-279)

Richard Farkas, in his study of democratization in the Balkans, suggested that for the emergence and consolidation of democratic system three conditions are necessary: (1) "A generic value system, shared by the bulk of the governed – ideas and expectations that enable the leaders to communicate with, and anticipate the behavior of, the publics they are attempting to lead"; (2) "Political machinery – structures or mechanisms institutionalized to the point that they are recognized and can produce the outcomes (policies) that the leadership is aiming toward"; and 3) "Leadership – a cadre of persons able to pursue gals by making rational policy choices, accounting for costs, payoffs, and Consequences" (Farkas 2007: 17)

Talented political leaders with firm democratic values have been indispensable for the success of democratic consolidation as much as the emergence of new authoritarians made it possible to reverse the direction of transformation and the emergence of neo-authoritarian regimes.

New authoritarian leaders differ from their predecessors in the pattern of their carriers. The majority of them did not play any prominent role in the political life prior to their access to power. Before the change of regime, some of them, for instance Vladimir Putin and Alexandr Lukashenka, occupied middle or lower positions in the state apparatus. Some, like Victor Orban and Jarosław Kaczynski, were active in the democratic opposition, but did not belong to its historical leaders. Two had a more visible role in the opposition and payed for it by prison terms: Franjo Tudjman and Recep Erdogan. Only the first obtained a prominent position, as general of the Yugoslav army (promoted to this rank in 1960 at the age of 38). Slobodan Milośević was the only neo-authoritarian leader who came to power before the change of the regime (as the chairman of the League of Communists in Serbia).

None of them held a commanding position in the armed forces – another clear difference between them and the old authoritarian leaders. Tudjman was a military historian – more an intellectual than a warrior. Putin had the rank of lieutenant colonel, but in the intelligence service, not in the army. With the exception of Milośević and Tudjman the new authoritarian leaders were little known before the fall of the old regime.

There is one common characteristics of all of them. They are nationalists for whom the "national interest", in whatever way they interpret it, is the dominant ideological goal. Most of them interpret the national identity in ethnic terms, as the imagined blood community. The most interesting exception is Vladimir Putin who in his speeches stresses the unity of the Russian nation, composed not only by the ethnic Russians ("*Ruski"*in Russian), but also by numerous ethnic minorities.

Most of them demonstrate their allegiance to the dominant religion. In the case of Recep Erdogan it is most likely the reflection of true religious beliefs. In the case of others, particularly Vladimir Putin, the newly adopted position of religious faithful most likely reflects a political calculation.

They came to power as relatively young men in their forties. Putin and Erdogan were 48, Orban 47, Lukashenka – the youngest – was only 40 when elected president. The oldest of them, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, was 56 when he became Prime Minister and 61 when his party won power in the decisive election of 2015.

The age of the leaders does matter. Authoritarian regimes – old and new alike – have a serious problem with arranging for a smooth succession of power. Only very few dictators arranged for the orderly succession of power, like Mustafa Kemal and Francesco Franco. Most died without having prepared their countries for the inevitable change on the top of the power structure. The result was often a struggle for power within the group of top collaborators of the dictator, as it was the case in Poland after Marshall Pilsudski's death (Wiatr 1988: 72-73).

Contemporary authoritarian leaders have not prepared their nations for the succession, mostly because they are still too young to seriously consider the inevitable. The logic of all authoritarian system makes it extremely difficult for a recognized successor to emerge. As long as the top leader is in charge, he tends not to tolerate the presence of a "crown prince", whose position could weaken his own. Only future will tell, whether the present authoritarian regimes will be able to solve the question of succession in the way which would make their systems safe for a longer period of time.

Another problem of the new authoritarian regimes is the presence – or in most cases absence – of the alternative leadership. In the late communist systems such alternative leadership emerged within the ranks of the opposition – at least in countries where the democratic opposition was strong enough . People like Lech Wałęsa in Poland or Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia came to be known and respected long before the fall of the old regime catapulted them to power. The notorious weakness of alternative leadership in the new authoritarian states cannot be explained solely in terms of political repressions, in the majority of cases less serious than in the communist system. Spontaneous mass protests, like in Belarus after the rigged election of 2020, show that the new authoritarians have difficult time when they are confronted with popular dissent, but also that such dissent does not generate strong and effective leadership, easily.

The future of the new authoritarian regimes remains uncertain. A lot will depend on the ability of these regimes to deal with the mounting problems of governance and on the ability of the opposition to build common fronts in spite of ideological differences. In any case, leadership will matter. History – the history of authoritarianism also – is not made by leaders alone but its course always was and will be affected by the way in which leaders lead their nations.

### Conclusions

History is full of unexpected events. In the last decade of the twentieth century the dominant mood of politicians and political analysts was highly optimistic. Democratic changes in large parts of the world created the belief that democracy has become – or was becoming – the common future for mankind and that the impressive democratic progress which had taken place in Europe, Latin America, Asia and parts of Africa was irreversible. Such optimism contrasts sharply with the present worries about the future of liberal democracy. The earlier vision of bright future has been replaced by the pessimistic image of the end of liberal democracy.

The new century began with the traumatic events of September 11, 2001, followed by the intensification of armed conflicts, particularly in the Middle East. Twenty years later it is evident that the response to international terrorism chosen by the United States and its closest allies failed and indirectly contributed to the intensification of what Samuel Huntington called "the clash of civilizations". Chaos and in some countries prolonged civil wars marked the development of several Arab states following the "Arab Spring" of 2011 as well as a number of African countries (particularly Congo, Mali and Sudan). The combination of civil wars and economic collapse caused thousands of refugees to make desperate efforts to get to the "European haven", creating not only huge human problems but also contributing to the growth of the xenophobic backlash which has helped right-wing authoritarians to successfully challenge the democratic consensus.

In several states which in the late twentieth century departed from dictatorial regimes, democratic systems have been weakened by the emergence of populist and nationalist challengers, in some cases strong enough to establish new authoritarian regimes, supported by the majority of the population.

In 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic shocked the world and in many countries seriously weakened the governments – both the democratic and the authoritarian.

All these developments combined into the massive wave of populist movements all over the world. Appealing to the frustration and fears of the large segments of societies, these movements offer a false solution: doing away with the basic tenets of liberal democracy.

Old democracies have not been immune from the populist challenge. The quality of democratic government deteriorated in the oldest modern democracy – the United States of America – to the point when some commentators lamented "the failure and discreditation of the political class"(Bauman 2019: 49). The growth of populist movements in several countries of Western Europe, combined with the secessionist aspirations in the growing number of regions, causes grave doubts about the future of democracy.

All these trends justify the growing feeling that democratic governments – as we came to understand them – are endangered. Understanding the seriousness of these dangers is necessary if we are to win the struggle for the survival of democracy. The final result of this struggle remains uncertain. Neither the success not the defeat are inevitable.

In the preceding discourse, I have underlined the importance of leadership. Failures and successes of democratic governments can be explained – at least to the high degree – by the quality of individuals who play the leading roles on both sides of the democracy-authoritarianism divide. As is the past, the future of democracy depends on the ability of democratic leaders to find answers to the challenges of their times and on the ability of citizens to select leaders of strong democratic beliefs and political will to successfully promote them in political practice.

They face a dilemma. Their access to power depends on the verdict of voters, but the effectiveness of their leadership depends on the ability to do what is necessary for public good, even if it is not what the voters want them to do. Only truly great leaders have been able to do what they believe to be right, even if not popular. Difficult times call for such leaders but history knows numerous cases when truly great leadership has not materialized.

The importance of leadership should not blind us to the broader question of citizens' responsibility for the future of democracy. Leaders do not come from the open sky – they are products of the political processes, the roots of which can only be found by the analysis of the social structure and its impact on the behavior of the citizens. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that we have such leaders as we deserve. Successes of authoritarian leaders would not have been possible without support given them by citizens – or at least by a large part of them. Therefore, it is the way in which citizens are educated in the democratic values that makes the emergence of authoritarian leadership if not impossible, than at least less likely. Stressing the importance of leadership, one points also to the role of those who – by their actions or by their withdrawal from politics – make the emergence of authoritarian leadership more or less likely. The future of democracy and the quality of future leadership are in our hands – for better or worse.

### References

Abdel-Malek Anouar (1962), *Egypte: Societe Militaire,* Paris: Editions Seul

Abel Theodore (1986), *Why Hitler Came to Power: An Answer Based on the Original Life Stories of Six Hundred of His Followers,* Cambridge: Harvard University Press


De Gaulle Charles (1970), *Discours et messages,* Paris: Plon, 5 volumes

Dedijer Vladimir (1953), *Tito,* New York: Simon & Schuster

deLisle Jacques (2008), "Development without Democratization? China, Law, and the East Asian Model" in: Jose V. Ciprut, ed., *Democratizations: Compa-* *riso0ns, Confrontations, and Contrasts,*Cambridge Mass. – London: The MIT Press: 197-232


Karnow Stanley (1983), *Vietnam: A History,* New York: Viking Press


Kersaudi Francoise (1982), *De Gaulle et Churchill,* Paris: Plon


Nixon Richard (1982), *Leaders,* New Year: Warner Books

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*Revolution: Essays in Honour of Zygmunt Bauman,* London-New York: Routledge: 201-214


### Keywords

Autocracy 74-77 Charismatic leadership 32-33, 36-40, 85 Communist leadership 95-113 Democracy 43-44 Democratization 117-136 Legitimacy 31-35 Military regimes 77, 80-94 New authoritarianism 173-175, 180-183 Populism 156-159 Psychology of leadership 5, 21-25, 143-144 Transformative leadership 144-146 Totalitarianism 77-79, 94

### About the author

Jerzy Jozef Wiatr was born in 1931 in Warsaw, where he lived during the second world war. He graduated from the University of Warsaw in 1954 (philosophy and social sciences), where he also received his doctorate (1957) and habilitation (1961) in sociology. He taught at the University of Warsaw, Jagiellonian University of Cracow and the Military Political College in Warsaw, where he chaired the department of military sociology (1958-1968). He was also deputy director of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences (1965-1969) and dean of social sciences at the University of Warsaw (1977-1980). From 2007 through 2013 he served as rector of the European School of Law and Administration (Warsaw and Brussels), and is now its honorary rector. He was president of the Polish Association of Political Sciences (1964-1967 and 1976-1979), vice-president of the International Political Science Association (1979-1982) and president of the Central European Political Science Association (2000-2003). In the IPSA, he chaired two research committees (Local Government and Politics, 1971-1979, and Global-Local Relations, 2009-2017). He was also member of the editorial committee of the International Political Science Review (1980-2000). He was visiting professor of several universities in the USA (Michigan University, Boston University, University of California in Los Angeles and Southern Illinois University), Canada (University of British Columbia), United Kingdom (Manchester University), Belgium (Catholic University of Leuven), Slovenia (University of Ljubljana) and Russia (Moscow State University). He received honorary doctorates from the Academy of Science & Education in Kursk and Oleś Honchar National University of Dnitropetrovsk, as well as the title of honorary senator from the University of Ljubljana.

He belonged to the Polish United Workers Party (1949-1990), was prominently active in its reformist wing and after its dissolution was one of the founders and members of the national leadership of the Social-Democracy of the Republic of Poland (1990-1999). He served in Polish Parliament (1991- 2001) and was Poland's minister of education (1996-1997). He received several Polish state decorations, including the Commander Cross with Star of "Polonia Restituta".

Jerzy J. Wiatr (ed.)

## **New Authoritarianism**

Challenges to Democracy in the 21st century

2019 **•** 184 pp **•** Hc. **•** 36,00 € (D) **•** 37,10 € (A) **•** GBP32.95, US\$52.00 ISBN 978-3-8474-2221-1 **•** eISBN 978-3-8474-1249-6

The authors deal with comparative aspects of contemporary authoritarianism. Authoritarian tendencies have appeared in several "old democracies" but their main successes take place in several states which departed from dictatorial regimes recently. The book contains case-studies of contemporary Hungarian, Kenyan, Polish, Russian and Turkish regimes.