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Totalitarian and Authoritarian Dictators: A Comparison of Fidel Castro and Alfredo Stroessner

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Paul C. Sondrol
Paul C. Sondrol
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Scienceat the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.
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Extract

Personal dictators remain a key feature of contemporary regimes termed ‘authoritarian’ or ‘totalitarian’, particularly in their early consolidating phases. But there is still disagreement over the seemingly ideological, polemical and indiscriminate use of the term totalitarian dictatorship as an analytic concept and tool to guide foreign policy formulation. Jeane Kirkpatrick elevated the taxonomy to a vociferous level of debate with a 1979 Commentary article. Entitled ‘Dictatorships and Double Standards’, the work raised anew semantic hairsplitting concerning the qualitative differences between all previous tyrannies and those bearing organisational similarities with the Nazi, Fascist or Stalinist prototypes.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , October 1991 , pp. 599 - 620
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

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53 The author remembers attention in Asunción riveted on Stroessner's June 1988 speech before the United Nations General Assembly on (of all topics) nuclear disarmament. The speech was carried live via direct satellite feed on both of Paraguay's television networks. It was patently crafted for domestic consumption; being more a nationalistic defence of democracy ‘Paraguayan style’. The cameras remained glued to Stroessner. Later, it was revealed the General Assembly was almost empty of spectators who were boycotting the speech in protest against Stroessner's dictatorship. The speech was a huge success in Asunción.

54 For Stroessner's consolidation of power, see Yegros, Leandro Prieto, El Coloradismo Eterno Con Stroessner, tomo 1 (Asunción, 1988).Google Scholar

55 The term comes from Lanz, Cesarismo Democrático. See also Franz Neumann's conceptualisation of the term in his The Democratic and Authoritarian State (Glencoe, 1957), p. 236.Google Scholar

56 See, for example, Moreno, Dr Augusto, La época de Alfredo Stroessner: Valoración político, histórica y filosófica (Asunción, 1966)Google Scholar; Morinigo, Ubaldo Centurión, Stroessner, defensor de las instituciones democráticas (Asunción, 1983)Google Scholar; Stroessner, Alfredo, Política y estrategia del desarrollo (Asunción, 1986).Google Scholar

57 This personal Presidential Escort Regiment fought the motorised Cavalry Divisions headed by General Andrés Rodríguez in the coup of 3 Feb. 1989. Approximately 300 men from both sides died in the fighting.

58 Linz, , ‘Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes’, pp. 259–63.Google Scholar

59 Foster, George M., ‘The Dyadic Contract’, American Anthropologist, vol. 63 (1961), pp. 1, 173–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., ‘The Dyadic Contract II’, Ibid., vol. 65 (1963), pp. 1,281–94. Quotation from p. 1,281.

60 Hicks, Frederick, ‘Interpersonal Relationships and Caudillismo in Paraguay’, Journal of InterAmerican Studies and World Affairs, vol. 13 (1971), pp. 89–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Quotation from p. 99.

61 General-President Andrés Rodríguez, long a Stroessner intimate before turning on him, is considered by law enforcement authorities to be Paraguay's No. 1 drug trafficker. See The Arizona Daily Star, 5 Feb. 1989. The assassination of deposed Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza was rumoured to be linked to a faction of the officer corps surrounding Rodríguez, for Somoza's parvenu involvement in the military's international cocaine trade. See COHA's Washington Report on the Hemisphere, 30 Sept. 1980. For more on military corruption, see Carlos María, Lezcano G., ‘Lealtad al General-Presidente’, Investigaciones Sociales Educación Comunicación—ISEC, vol. 6 (Asunción, 1986), p. 3.Google Scholar

62 Alexander, Robert J., ‘The Tyranny of General Stroessner’, Freedom at Issue, vol. 41 (1977), pp. 16–17Google Scholar. Quotation from interview with journalist and author Guido Rodríguez Alcalá, 7 June 1988, Asunción. Translation by author.