The significance of the political psychology of individual leaders
Sophie Katz discusses the rise and significance of Nigel Farage, drawing on an analysis of the the historical role of charismatic leaders in political movements.
Like a character out of an Evelyn Waugh novel appears Nigel Farage; a public school boy son of a Home Counties banker, in the book you would expect him to have been ‘de bagged’ by his Oxbridge college and known as ‘Honest Gentleman Jim’ the (in) famous ticket tout at Tattenham Corner. His clothes, cigarette and pint are straight out of the 1980s. A ‘cheery chappy’ plain-talking man of the people, his politics are as subtle as an air raid. His economics are a straight extension of Thatcherism at its most brutal. He sports cheerful ‘English style’ racism along with his blazer. He hates what he calls the establishment and his objective (given the rigors of first past the post electoral system) is to do what the SDP did to Labour in the 1980s, to shift Cameron’s Tory Party to the right, (preferably without Cameron.)
The emphases of critical thinking tend to focus on social and political trends and forces. The examination of ‘great individuals’ has had an unpleasant history already: a history about to be revived by another public school boy, Gove. Nevertheless, there are circumstances when individuals emerge who are able to catch the ‘spirit of the times’, often, ironically, to the detriment of their cause. Powerful and intellectual leaders have sometimes underestimated, even scorned, questions of personal characteristics among their number, only to find themselves completely isolated from the temper of the times. The classic case is of course that of Lenin and Trotsky’s total underestimation of Stalin in the teens and early 1920s.
Lenin finally thought Stalin ‘too rude’ to be General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party – a lack of insight into personal psychology that speaks volumes about Lenin’s own total lack of personal ambition. Trotsky desperately tried to understand his boorish, crude and lugubrious enemy using the pen of the Russian novelist that he had always hankered to be. In the end, a demonic Stalin comes to crystallise for Trotsky all the backwardness, the bureaucracy, the time and self-serving cowardice and slyness of the collapsing Bolsheviks and their dysfunctional state. In Trotsky’s brilliant pages Stalin becomes the all-powerful organising principle of the ‘degeneration’ of the first revolution for socialism and communism. But the all powerful Lenin and Trotsky combined could not and did not defeat him. Stalin rode the crest of the political counter-revolution that simply overwhelmed two of the most talented leaders that the socialist cause has known.
His contemporaries regarded Hitler as a snarling little dog. Mussolini was seen as a blowhard. Neither was accorded any intellectual weight or presence by their much mightier critics – when the latter decided to consider them at all. It is arguable, yet often insisted upon, that Hitler and Stalin went on to mark humanity more than any other individuals since the beginning of recorded human history.
The dialectic of political personality that is tuned to the historical context at once creates the force of that individual, while at the same time giving that force – an abstraction – a face, personal characteristics and an identity. In both Hitler’s and Stalin’s cases, individual leaders seemed to reach beyond party and state bureaucracies and penetrate the hearts of the people at large. They managed to portray themselves as the exact opposite of what they were, and to become so in the minds and actions of the people.
At the very centre of power they claimed they were still with the little person against the establishment. In reality both Hitler and Stalin relied on a cadre, a small pack of dedicated followers, most of whom had little skill and were totally beholden to their masters, masters who held in their (competing) hands the control of vital ministries and the militarised state bureaucracies and institutions. This is the exact opposite to holding the key to human hearts. It was the power of the state, of the organised monopoly of force, of the domination by a fractious band of ‘top dogs’ who had decided to give their brains and wills to a supreme leader, that ran Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia.
These parallels of leadership do not imply that these two states played the same role in the history of the 20th century. The Soviet State, born in a huge popular revolution, saved us all in Stalingrad and at the Volga. Its lingering existence protected China, Vietnam, and Cuba. Even the emergence of Britain’s welfare state was in part due to its presence in world politics, notwithstanding Stalin’s historic crimes. However the significance of personality as the tide turns against social progress – even in the context of revolution – turns out to be immense.
We are now a world away from Nigel. The UKIP leader whose latest tirade against the ‘anti-English Scottish fascists’ who chased him back over the border is the latest absurdity in a mountain of absurdities – and shows how our man is still barely formed. Yet there are more than faint echoes from history about him. His purpose is simple and talismanic. All wrongs lead to Brussels. His thinking about a post-Brussels Britain is a crude version of Thatcherism with racist bells on. He hates unions and does not understand why they exist. (His ‘little man’ is a little businessman – and a man.) He is suspicious of the giant multi-national corporations who also squeeze the life out of ‘little’ farmers and housewives. He is profoundly in the ‘middle’ i.e., he hates organised workers and fears big capital. Everything, from this perspective, is blindingly obvious. At the moment Nigel delivers his matchbox wisdom from the sidelines. But Nigel’s mantra could become a drumbeat in society. More space is opening up for him.
A recent memo leaked from Prime Minister Cameron’s coterie indicates despair with the quality of the local Tory Parties. In a vote for self-serving opportunism a hundred odd Tory back benchers voted against him out of fear of UKIP in their manors. More widely the IMF, the European Central Bank and the US are all calling for a turn away from austerity and Cameron is in a bunker (thus the sudden discovery of a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ courtesy of a retiring bank manager and another twiddle with the growth figures by the Office for (wrong) National Statistics.) The Tories are in trouble. Yet Labour is not benefiting. A political recomposition on the mainstream right is possible.
Some ghosts and Hamlets have emerged in the last weeks. Ex-chancellor Lawson, Portillo and others, now followed by Gove and Hammond in the current cabinet, would all vote for EU exit if there were a vote today. Commentators talk about the growing UKIP influence in Tory ranks. But here’s the significance of the dance of egos that has just started in the upper echelons of the Tory Party. Lawson, Gove et al believe they are representing something much more than UKIP when they give their views. They are not so much interested in UKIP as in the City of London. They are setting out the first line of defence against any Euro inspired attack on the international rights and privileges of the City to organise the big money of a large part of the world in any way they see fit.
What is opening up now for Nigel – if he has the wits to grasp it – is the beginnings of his own political alliance with a deeply significant section of big capital based in Britain. There are many pieces in a jigsaw puzzle but some are more important than others. The ‘sophisticates’ at the Carlton Club may look on Nigel (and second class Boris) as buffoons. But sometimes the temper of the times calls for buffoons. And we can always put them away when they have finished playing their role for us – can’t we?
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13 responses to “The significance of the political psychology of individual leaders”
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As a supporter of Lenin and Trotsky I want to take issue with this. I concede that it is well written. Kudos on that. Having said that, style is no substitute for substance. Psychological analyses of individuals are not unimportant. However, the analysis here is very shallow when it comes to Russian events. From day one, Trotsky and Lenin pinned their hopes on the success of the Russian Revolution on material forces that did not exist within the borders of the Russian empire. They knew that the seizure of power by the Russian working class was likely to spark a socialist revolution in Germany and the rest of the advanced capitalist world. That was likely due to the fact that three years of imperialist war had decades these states. Successful socialist revolutions abroad would enable the relatively numerically small Russian working class to bypass an extended period of brutal class rule, a position Trotsky had held for over a decade and one Lenin adopted after February 1917. Unfortunately, the revolutionary working class never received that material assistance. That did not happen because although there were attempts at working class liberation throughout Europe and beyond, these revolutions were consciously sabotaged by the leaders of the reformist and centrist parties. Rosa Luxemburg and Antonio Gramsci were as clear on that as Trotsky and Lenin. Stalin placed himself at the service of a rising state bureaucracy. The rise of this counterrevolutionary force was the tragic price the Russian workers and peasants paid for the betrayals of Karl Kautsky and co. Lenin’s wife said during the show trials that if Lenin had not already died, he would be in one of Stalin’s slave labour camps, tortured, then executed. Trotsky saw this process before Lenin did, but he was isolated by the rest of the Communist leadership because Lenin was too ill to see what was going on. Stalin managed to keep Lenin in the dark. Only in his last months of life did Lenin try to do a deal with Trotsky so the pair of them could try to fight this bureaucracy, starting with removing Stalin as general secretary. But he died too soon, and they would both still have depended on successful socialist revolutions in Germany and beyond. This is not an academic debate. Left Unity needs to be built on the basis of uniting the real left. I am not in favour of keeping centrists out of Left Unity. A pure Leninist party is not on the cards today. However, we can and must build the kind of party that Marx and Engels wanted to build. That party will include a Rosa Luxemburg wing, like the pre-WWI SPD. It will contain a Lenin wing, like the pre-1912 RSDLP. But it should contain those who disagree with this politics. We should be able to unite on what we agree with, and agree to differ where we do not. Such a party will not form a majority government any time soon, but it can pile up a lot of votes, and it will mean that the xenophobic ultra-Thatcherites of Nigel Farage don’t mop up the none-of-the-above protest vote that is dragging official politcs far to the right of what most trade unionists and the oppressed want it to be.
Despite the many problems I have with this article, there is a lot of sense too. I have had my say on the question of the Russian Revolution, and the importance of material forces rather than disembodied personalities. But Marxism is not a scholarly commentary on events, but a guide to action. And, as Gramsci pointed out, ideas become a material force when they grip the masses, and that is where politics comes in. There are gaps in this article. Important gaps that Left Unity needs to grasp and exploit for all they are worth. UKIP is, according to the latest opinion polls, twice as popular as the loathsome Lib Dems. Socialists can seize the role they do in damaging the Tory Party, by splitting the right-wing vote. This is a massive silver lining for socialists. That said, most Tory MPs want to get rid of this problem one way or another, and one solution is to dump David Cameron and replace him with someone who will offer some kind of electoral pact with UKIP. This cannot be ruled out. If it proved workable (and I think it can), there could be a majority Tory government before too long. They will claim a new mandate and will deploy the special bodies of armed men (and women) to crack skulls of pickets, student demonstrators, and those who organise mass civil disobedience to sabotage the austerity demanded by the capitalists. Such a government will have the support of the BBC, SKY News, Channel Four News and they will use their propaganda to foment scapegoating, divide and rule. Left Unity needs to prepare for that and take measures to undermine it, as far as that is possible. Exposing Nigel Farage is possible. He has a short fuse. A handful of student protestors can have him foaming at the mouth. Alex Salmond has been able to humiliate him. In Scotland we are not afraid of him. Farage is an ultra-Thatcherite. He wants to shift economic resources from welfare to warfare. We can defeat him on this. We can do it in England and Wales as well as Scotland. But we need to unite the anti-capitalist left if we are going to be successful. And that means extending olive branches beyond the 100 odd who attended Left Unity’s first national meeting a week ago. We need to work with Owen Jones, John McDonnell, Dave Nellist, Bob Crow, etc, etc, etc.
Well. I’m quite surprised, Tom, in that I agree with at least some of your , as usual painfully orthodox Trot ,analysis : the straight historical bit anyway.. I also think there is a lot of incisive observation, however, in the lead piece by Sophie Katz. One core point implicit in Sophie’s piece, and not in any way undermining your argument that it was the failure of the West European revolutionery wave which condemned the workers and peasants revolution of October 1917 to eventual usurpation by the Stalinist bureaucracy, is the simple observation that vis a vis estimating Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky got it badly wrong. Not in itself a big point – but a point needing to be made – given the ” infallible holy writ” status the tactics and writings of both very mortal men have acquired on the Far Left. We need to move on from both “Leninism” and “Trotskyism” as rigid cultish belief systems. If we don’t we will be trapped forever in an isolated political backwater.
As to your concluding point, that “We need to work with Owen Jones, John McDonnell, Dave Nellist, Bob Crow etc. etc” All different types , with differing levels of personal credibility, admittedly, but if we “work with” the likes of, for instance, current media star, Owen Jones, we have to always be aware that his, and many of the other’s agendas is simply to rebuild the electoral credibility of the Labour Party with its now rapidly dying Left working class base. Hence assisting the totally corrupt career politicians of the Parliamentary Party to win yet another election – so they can continue to enrich themselves and screw the majority of us yet AGAIN !
Left Unity needs to move well away from sucking up to a few dubious Leftish figures with a high media profile. Surely we learned the lessons from the alliances with Galloway and Sheridan ? Forget “olive branches” (dubious backroom deals, giving them a platform ?) to a few high profile, but actually pretty irrelevant individuals. Or seeking deals with a few trades union leaders looking for some “Left cover” for their actual continuing craven retreat in the face of austerity. We need to aim for the rank and file union MEMBERS, to recruit. We need to win support from masses of ordinary people for the project of a new party
It’s time to establish a new radical party to destroy the neoliberal Labour Party, not assist it to live on as the “natural depository” of working class votes just a bit longer.
By the way you seem incapable of grasping that the 100 or so people attending the 11th May London meeting were REPRESENTATIVES of Left Unity branches nationwide, not Left Unity in total. I’d rather firm up on how many real members Left Unity actually has, and encourage them to build a new mass party, than waste more time relabelling the same 5,000 or so UK Lefties as yet another “alliance” or “united front”. Its still just the same irrelevant 5,000 Lefties, but with yet more “hats” to wear..
oh dear. Until the left drops this rabbit-in-the-headlights type swooning over Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, etc. it is doomed to remain a footnote in history to the 21st century.
The new circumstances of capital as a social relation today has nothing – NOTHING – to learn from the old battles of 1917
I would argue that the early ‘socialists’ acted as a bourgeois dictatorship of the proletariate – TRANSLATION – top down rule by an elite central committee and leader(s).
To deal with the here and now – the Right like the Tories to an extent, the BNP and UKIP and the right wing media set white working people against black to distract them so the rich and powerful become invisible as they are distant from our lives.
Our job is to get this point over to working people and to unite them.
Time to get on with this job.
Yours in solidarity!
In simple language WORKING PEOPLE ARE SET AGaINST NEW IMMIGRANTS TO DISTRACT US FROM THE RICH – WE NEED TO GET THIS POINT OVER T O UNITE WORKING PEOPLE.
X & Peace.
I have no idea who Jimmy is, but who does he think is swooning on this website over Mao? Certainly not me. I don’t ‘swoon’ over Lenin or Trotsky but I won’t let anyone lie about what they argued. Newton said he saw further than others not because he was a giant but because he stood on the shoulders of giants. Gramsci is often contrasted to Lenin and Trotsky but in most respects they share the same politics, which didn’t stop them arguing over details. The method is what is important and those who support the scientific socialist method of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky and Gramsci need to be accepted as a part of Left Unity. I am not calling for critics of these people to be kept out. I don’t want that, but supporters of Marxists have to be a respected part of Left Unity. Ken Loach calls for Left Unity to be an explicitly anti-capitalist group. It certainly has. Left unity built on any other basis will build on sand. There are far too many pro-capitalist parties fighting for a share of the capitalist vote, all splitting each others votes, which is proving to be a nightmare for the lot of them. David Cameron’s Tories are the latest victims, thanks to the hapless but nonetheless dangerous Nigel Farage. You can’t control what you don’t own. Left Unity needs to repopularise the vision of a society based on public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, with production democratically planned for social need, not private greed. We need to shift economic resources from warfare to welfare. These are all at least potentially very popular ideas. Left Unity can tap into the alienation that has been fueling the rise of UKIP, allowing them as well as most of the broadcast media to peddle a series of scapegoating, divide and rule diversions to stop us focusing on the source of all our misery: the profiteering parasites. Left Unity not only can but must debate fraternally how to end the system of wage slavery, but we cannot waste too much time debating whether it should be ended. This is why we need to discuss the ideas of Luxemburg, Gramsci and the rest of the Marxists.
BROKEN BRITISH POLITICS –POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT NO SUBSTANCE
What actually are we the Electorate voting for today Ex College Kids ,none have ever done a hard days work in their lives .They pontificate what is right for US and the Country but are out of touch with Reality. They are totally disconnected from everyday norms that affect everyday people .Blair started this trend and just like a Spiv Salesman we all fell for it hook line and sinker .
I believe Britain is at a Serious Crossroads were we the Electorate should decide which Road we should take ,but to do that we have to Clear the Decks of Ineffectual ,Ignorant and Arrogant Politicians across the board .London is the Financial Capital of the World but we are expected to live like Paupers the sick disabled and unemployed all put in one class as ‘Non Productives’ Please think carefully whom you actually vote for its Britain’s Future at Stake – Ours. http://brokenbritishpolitics.simplesite.com
The significance of the political psychology of individual leaders
I see nothing much of use in this “analysis” of Nigel Farrage, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. It is certainly true that a persons psychology has a significant impact on their actions. It is also true that chance, their health, personal and political relationships also have an impact.
The crux of the matter for me is how does any of this help us to build up an accurate picture of today and make better decisions for tomorrow.
Do I need to know what it is about your psychology that led you to write this piece before I can understand it enough act on it, either to agree and integrate the ideas with my own or to disagree and respond? Should I start a debate by checking on your upbringing, influences, likes, dislikes, take a personal history?
I would suggest that while all these questions and factors may give me a more accurate picture of yourself, as an activist to attempt to glean this level of understanding before acting would be to be paralysed most if not all of the time.
Finally I would make the point that once embarking down this road, to miss, misinterpret or leave out exploration of some seemingly small detail could actually leave one with an entirely false perception of the subject and in a position where your actions could easily by counter productive.
I would suggest that working on the basis of peoples arguments, actions and the outcomes both in a contemporary and historic context is by far the best way to proceed if looking to understand the world. The best way I have found to do this is using a Marxist analysis of the world.
I don’t believe in the great man or woman theory of history – forces usually produce leaders (Thatcher for example had to be sat in a room by Keith Joseph and others and taught monetarism ) and if this lower m class , reactionary class waririer had never existed they would have found someone else. Just read ‘1066 and all that’ the best mickey take I have ever read about history – Gove should read this but he probably wouldn’t get it. I feel confident for a left which is REAL SOCIALIST which is grassroots -led, bottom up and democratic, that involves and engages with people, and this I belive is the era that people want a say, want involving, they are sick of top down and paternalism and unfairness – this could be the era of progressives and our best leaders I believe will be those who beliieve in this too. I also believe the Internet has also given us all a voice which is probably why some Govts try to curb it when in the past we had to be informed (or misinformed) by journalists. Personalities can be important but we should always judge people on their practice – what they do and not what they say. I also wonder about posting here, I am confident to but it’s like speaking in public I again am usually confident but others may not be so, we should encourage all progressives to share their ideas.
Years ago I went to my first Labour Party meetings and it took me ages to have the confidence to speak – I always remember a man coming for the first time and suggesting free public transport (this was in the 1970’s) and the experienced councillors and everyone but me laughed at him – he never came again – I now support free public transport with a passion and this man had more imagination in his little finger than they had in their whole lives! So brothers and sisters don’t be afraid to share your ideas!
I feel optimistic tonight! X & Peace!
After so much discussion about the internal structure of LU and the debate with the left groups, I promised myself that I would focus only on policies and the way forward for Left Unity but I can’t help myself.
Lenin and Trotsky did not just underestimate Stalin they created a system which gave birth to him. Within a short space of time, maybe by mid-1918, they had established a state/party unified bureaucracy which ruled ‘for’ working class people, independent of any control from popular workers’ councils. Their treatment of the peasants was even worse. Workers and peasants, and members of other left parties, were shot in huge numbers and the organs of state terror given free reign. Then, as night follows day, they banned factions even inside the Bolshevik Party (1921), and the party became the model of all the silly imitations of it ever since. Trotsky discovered the virtues of Party democracy once he realised that he was on the receiving end, but by then it was too late. He had colluded in the bloody repression of anyone who could have supported him.
Now – what policies do we want Left unity to uphold in the 21ST CENTURY!
“I promised myself that I would focus only on policies and the way forward for Left Unity”
Failed miserably at the first hurdle Ray. :-) (joke)
I am not going to take up your comments in detail as I believe they are taking the thread off topic, so instead I am going to try and pull out what I see as relevant to the title.
You seem to be in general saying you don’t believe the key to understanding the problems that occurred were down to psychology, but instead down to the political actions of those leaders and the effect this had on the population of workers and peasants, who were actually the force behind those same leaders. I can agree with that (without agreeing with the detail of your argument) with the proviso that I would add that many more factors were involved in the failures of those leaders, not least of all, the actions of other nations and their leaders in response to the revolution.
So in short leaders can only make the right decisions, regardless of their individual psychology when they make the decisions that are based on true democratic control by the majority of the organisation/movement.
I’ve learned something from every contribution – and if you have got this far I hope you have too. A couple of rejoinders: T was very interested in political psychology (viz. history of Russian Rev.) Second, I’ve heard some say that Left Unity wants to be ‘a left version of UKIP.’ Farage wants to be a right version of the old SDP.
Left Unity as a pressure group on the LP? Perhaps the ambition should be to set a new overall political agenda. And for the left to get to that place involves millions in motion.