The Gulag and the Guillotine

Why have so many people, many with ideals we share and apparent personal integrity, done inexplicable and even monstrous things after achieving political power? Why does power corrupt? Is corruption an inevitable consequence of the nature of power?

I don't pretend to know the answers. I do have a suggestion as to why the ideologically committed are in the greatest danger of perpetrating atrocities.

I think it goes further than simple 'the ends justify the means' ruthlessness. I think we can trace a process in the leadership of any movement that finds itself in power that goes some way to explain the gulag and the guillotine.

At first a person joins a particular political party or grouping because they believe in its ideology (for whatever reason, rational or otherwise). They come to identify with the movement. All the more so if they come to lead it. Then the movement becomes identified with them (eg Leninism, Maoism, Thatcherism). They can start to see the movement as an extension of their will. They become infallible.

They move from
"I need to get into power so that I can implement policies I believe to be right." to
"Everything I believe is right and the best for the country/party/faith." to
"Those who oppose me (and my obviously righteous policies) are necessarily evil and must be dealt with."
This a consequence of the native tribalism of the human race.

I think moving along this line of thinking is almost inevitable for those in power especially if they are surrounded by their own appointees and sycophants. The degree to which they can get away with such an approach depends mainly on the checks and balances inherent in their particular system. Those without any effective control (eg Soviet Russia, Mugabe's Zimbabwe, any military dictatorship you care to mention) inevitably see the grossest abuses.

This leaves us with a problem especially for those of us such as myself who lean to the left. This misunderstanding of the nature of power is the flaw in the Old Left. At the time their ideas were formulated there was no example of a state that was not explicitly run for the interests of its ruling classes. An intelligent observer could believe that the problem was not power per se but that in was in the wrong hands. This is no longer tenable. However, it is not enough for us simply to curtail the state when we want it to actually do some good and even social reform.

On the other hand, nothing I have said should be taken as support for complacent lassez faire liberalism. It is easy to be uncontroversial in an age of consensus. It easy to compromise when there is nothing at stake. It is easy to be patient when you are well served by the status quo.

The impossible choice between power with compromised ideals (the Stalinist or Blairite road) and failure with pure ideology (the Menshevik or Bennite approach) is explored well in Arthur Koestler's trilogy of political novels: Darkness at Noon, The Gladiators and Arrival and Departure (I call them a trilogy but they have no common characters or even setting; their only link is thematic). I would recommend them to anyone, they are books which fully justify themselves as novels, but they will especially interest those who think about politics and society.

Koestler doesn't provide us with any answers. Neither will I. We could hope for a new kind of politics. A politics with fewer tribes and fewer Great Leaders. A politics with more humility and recognition of the humanity of our opponents. We can wish that people were better than they are. But that is not a political programme. It is a daydream.