St Xavier (Mumbai) Autonomous College's Award Winning Essay in Parimal K Shroff National Essay Compettition

 “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” - Plato

The aforementioned quote is attributed to the Greek wiseman, Plato. And Plato, like always, gives another important message: a person can be measured by what they do with power. It explores this comprehension in such a fashion that one can lucidly derive the conclusion that power is not the ultimate end but rather the beginning. Delving deeper, we realize that there are patterns to measure people. There are people who have spent their lives attempting to consolidate their power while being a lame duck vis-a-vis the utilization of that very power. And then there are those who’ve utilized whatever power they possessed for the peoples’ well-being. There also happen to be those cases where the well-being of the public has been a facade or a quaint smokescreen to rapaciously bolster one’s clout. 

We can based on this draw zillions of examples. But before we draw them, it has to be known that none of this should be translated into “good person” or “bad person” because those ‘good’ & ‘bad’ don’t exist. Morality is such that its boundaries are crafted & maintained on the whims & fancies of an individual. Then the question arises as to how we Judge a person in power. How do we measure a person? The answer is that there are crude people & then there are those who are exercising power in subtler yet effective ways. 

Let’s start our sketching with Adolf Hitler. Hitler had a person called “Ernst Röhm” in the Nazi Party. Mr. Röhm led what was referred to as “Sturmabteilung” or in popular abbreviations the SA which was the first Paramilitary for the Nazi Party. Röhm was its Chief & one of Hitler’s closest allies who brought him to power, as the Chancellor of Germany, supporting him throughout, now keeping Röhm a little aside there was another fellow called “Gregor Strasser”, Strasser was one of the two brothers who crafted the infamous & not-so-known, ideology of Strasserism. Stasserism is more radical & hardcore Nazism branching out from the Nazi Party itself. If Nazism isn’t hardcore enough then Stasserism is. A Strasserist would advocate for “Revolutionary Nationalism” events much like the Bear Hall Putsch & Economic Antisemitism. Now funny enough is the fact, if not unfortunately fortunate, that to consolidate power & get into the good books of the German Army, Hitler ordered the “Night of the Long Knives” where 150 people of his own SA were killed & hundreds were arrested.[1] Gregor Strasser was killed & Ernst Röhm was first arrested, subsequently pardoned & then given the choice to get killed or die of suicide & when Röhm spurned the latter, the former was exercised.[2] Leaving aside the Holocaust, this itself is the finest example of using limited power to gain power rapaciously. 

Another illustration of this would be from the French Revolution where Maximilien Robespierre unleashed what is now infamously called, the “Reign of Terror” with his friend & partner in crime, Georges Danton. Danton & Robespierre were great friends in the early days of the Revolution, only for their “ideologies” to get in the way, leading to Robespierre & his sycophants executing Danton using the Guillotine. Figures say, that during the Reign of Terror, about 300,000 suspects were arrested; 17,000 were officially executed, and perhaps 10,000 died in prison or without trial.[3] Ironically enough, the same Maximilien Robespierre’s arrest & execution was supported by ‘his’ people in the National Convention who once supported his decision against Danton.[4]

From this, we can lucidly conclude that ideology is utilized as a means to rationalize one’s consolidation of power. If Karl Marx said, “Religion is the Opium of the Masses”[5] then based on history one can argue that he wasn’t right enough because it is such that “Ideology is also the Opium of the Masses.” Ideology & Religion are two threads of the same stitch, both are belief systems & both have reformists who do not follow through with the conventional interpretation as well as orthodox interpreters who worship the books. The reformists & the conventional interpreters, both have a liking for those who follow what they preach. A Religious Fundamentalist & an ideological demagogue, both feel that they know the way ahead, if not everything. 

There is another peculiar example that comes from Stalin’s Great Purge. During the so-called “Great Purge” which was initially all about suppressing political dissidence but later it got converted into a ruthless power consolidation exercise where people were arrested, tortured & taken to Gulag on suspicion of being a potential dissident. Stalin on 6th November 1918 wrote in Pravda No.241, “All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of comrade Trotsky, the president of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the party is indebted primarily and principally to comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military-Revolutionary Committee was organized..”[6] The same Stalin in 1929 exiled Trotsky who decided to settle down in Mexico only to be assassinated by an NKVD Agent who decades later was honoured with an Order of Lenin, the Gold Star & the Hero of the Soviet Union for his deed of taking Trotsky down.[7] Stalin further, on the advice of his close circle in August 1936 initiated the Trial of the Sixteen, also referred to as the “Case of the Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Center” & it was merely the beginning of the series of show trials, now popularly recalled as the “Moscow Trials.”  Nikolai Bukharin and Karl Radek were two of Stalin’s close allies who were part of the committee making the 1936 Constitution of the USSR which built the “Stalin’s Cult of Personality.” Bukharin during the Great Purge was labelled as a “Rightist” & executed while Radek was on the charges of “treason,” sent to the Gulag only to die there in the Urals. Nikolai Yezhkov, the Chief of the NKVD who was the mastermind of the Great Purge & had the ear of Stalin during the Purge, was executed in 1940 in an effort to distance Stalin from the Purge while pushing the entire responsibility for the massacres onto Yezhkov. About 681,692 people were executed in the Purge while 116,000  died in the Gulag Camps.[8]

This example demonstrates how a few powerful people utilise their power even when it is boundless. During Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, Mao purged his close allies such as Liu Shaoqi. From being publicly acknowledged to be Mao’s Successor in 1961, handpicked by Mao himself to getting labelled as a “traitor” & “capitalist roader” by 1968, it was quite a fall from grace. He was even called “China’s Khrushchev” because the people saw him to be a Nikita Khrushchev equivalent who would start a destalinization-like initiative in China.[9] The entire concept of the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” which may be “novel” or even “noble” or perhaps a “necessity” for an ideologue has essentially provided for people like Lavrentiy Beria, Kang Sheng, Feliks Dzierzynski, Kang Kek Lew & all of them have been the right-hand person of some demagogue who at that given point in time had boundless power & the best way they saw to exercise this power was purging people based on ethnicity, or based on those people’s potential to be “counter-revolutionaries” or at least they were perceived to be ones. These right-hand people were those who played second fiddle to their masters in popularity, and power, but they were usually those sycophants who executed people in a bare minimum of one million to gain their master’s succession line while their master often enjoyed power without limits. Kang Kek Lew’s master Polpot had orchestrated the Cambodian Genocide which led to the death of 1.2 million to 2.8 million.[10] 

Now so far I’ve painted a very one-sided dark picture. All of the examples so far have proved George Orwell right in his words, “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.”[11] But cherry-picking people doesn’t prove Orwell right. Orwell writes with the assumption that everyone in power would be crude in their ways of protecting their power, but a certain William Gaddis very much agrees with Plato while discarding the Orwellian Assumption at the same time. Mr Gaddis says, “Power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power.”[12] Precisely, saying that a select individuals corrupt power & in a way agreeing with Plato, Gaddis says that a person can be measured based on the methods through which they exercise their power. 

For a change, let’s start with an Indian here. The name is P. V. Narasimha Rao. Many students in India know about the 1991 Reforms but little do they know what unfolded. Before we delve into the nitty gritty, it should be known that it's not the reforms that warrant him to be mentioned but his ability to take political risks for fulfilling his vision in a humane way without butchering people because there exist people who would disagree with the reforms & those who would lay forth a democratic socialist approach instead of liberalization. What is unique about Rao’s case is that the reforms were drafted before Narasimha Rao even took the office of the Prime Minister.[13] Before the Chandrasekhar Government could adopt the reforms, the Congress withdrew support.[14] The Reforms weren't popular even in the Congress. In late 1991, Rao had asked for an IB report on MPs within Congress against the reforms & it turned out that 55 MPs including seven ministers such as Madhavrao Scindia & Balram Jakhar were against liberalization policies in trade.[15] 18 MPs were against privatizing public sector firms, 20 MPs opposed reduction of fertilizer subsidy.[16] For Rao, running a minority government with the support of independents & small parties, undertaking such endeavours was bold, to say the least.

If Rao was effective at exercising power in a subtler way then so was the Chilean President Salvador Allende. Allende unlike Polpot, Mao, Stalin and Castro went on ahead with the concept of the “Chilean Way of Socialism,” a form of Democratic Socialism. Precisely, reiterating my previous point about the ability to take political risks for fulfilling one's vision in a humane way without butchering people. It's of course, a story for another day about how the Americans interfered in Chile to topple Allende. 

Unlike Rao & Allende, Deng Xiaoping walked the grey areas of crudity. On one hand, Deng rehabilitated many who were purged in the Cultural Revolution, perhaps partly because he was also purged but on the other hand the “quell protests with force” approach was seen vis-a-vis the Tiananmen Square. Speaking of the grey areas the world saw leaders like Lee Kuan Yew who transformed Singapore through his way of Socialism but at the same time curbed free press, restricted industrial labour action or strikes through anti Trade Union legislations. He even went on to say, “If Singapore is a nanny state, then I'm proud to have fostered one.”[18] 

This definitely again begs the starting question about how do we really measure people in power? But the illustrations do prove one thing that these people in power aren't unmeasurable. Every leader has a vision, one may agree or disagree but what matters more is how is that vision achieved. The approach must be humane to draw a proper judgment. If one realizes they're a human being first & then some ideology or religion or even country for that matter then the larger well-being is bound to be considered. Indian Foreign & National Policy since 1947 has embraced the ideals of Panchsheel, Vishwamitra, and Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam. One may well say that Foreign Policy is good propaganda but compared to any country, Bharat has stood on this very firmly. And of course, people in power don't mean only those governing the country. Every corporate, every executive, every manager, every security guard, every police officer, every supervisor, every team head, and even every person for that matter has some power. Some govern their family, some govern their business, some govern their workers, some govern their companies, and some govern the country, this essentially means that everyone has some power, some authority. The question is, if it hasn't always been, how does one really govern. 

Everyone has a choice between a tyrant, or a team player. Someone may take a hard approach, and someone may tread the grey areas. Humanity is the way to measure but after that, it is all but your choice. It has always been that way, perhaps time to get conscious of this. 

Citations:

1. 1) How did the Nazi consolidate their power?. The Night of Long Knives – The Holocaust Explained: Designed for schools. (n.d.). https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-nazi-rise-to-power/how-did-the-nazi-gain-power/night-of-long-knives/
   
   
2. Ibid
   
   
3. Greer, Donald (1935). The Incidence of the Terror during the French Revolution : A Statistical Interpretation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, coll. « Harvard historical monographs » (no VIII). pp. 26–37.
   
   
4. Mark, H. W. (2022, November 30). Fall of maximilien robespierre. World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2119/fall-of-maximilien-robespierre/
   
   
5. Blau, R. (2015, January 5). What is the opium of the people?. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/1843/2015/01/05/what-is-the-opium-of-the-people
   
   
6. In one and the same issue. In One And The Same Issue (October 1935). (n.d.). https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol02/no06/quote.htm
   
   
7. Don Levine, Isaac (1960), The Mind of an Assassin, D1854 Signet Book, pp. 109–10, 173.
   
   
8. Thurston, Robert (1996), Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934–1941. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp 139
   
   
9. Colville, A. (2021, January 11). Liu Shaoqi, the Chinese president turned “capitalist roader.” The China Project. https://thechinaproject.com/2021/01/11/liu-shaoqi-the-chinese-president-turned-capitalist-roader/
   
   
10. Heuveline, Patrick (2015). "The Boundaries of Genocide: Quantifying the Uncertainty of the Death Toll During the Pol Pot Regime (1975-1979)". Population Studies. 69 (2): 201–218.
    
    
11. Orwell, George, 1984. Secker & Warburg, pp 263
    
    
12. William Gaddis Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved August 19, 2024, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/william_gaddis_176230
    
    
13. Mehra, P. (2021, January 22). “A moment 30 years ago that had been a year and a half in the making.” Mint. https://www.livemint.com/news/india/a-moment-30-years-ago-that-had-been-a-year-and-a-half-in-the-making-11611245748632.html
    
    
14. Ahluwalia, M.S. (2020). BACKSTAGE: The Story behind India's High Growth Years. Rupa Publications. 2020. pp. 119–120
    
    
15. Sitapati, V. (2016, June 24). IB gave Narasimha Rao list of congmen, ministers against 1991 reforms. The Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/intelligence-bureau-ib-narasimha-rao-congress-manmohan-singh-sonia-gandhi-2874380/
    
    
16. Ibid
    
    
17. Textos de Salvador Allende 1972, p. 459
    
    
18. Ho, Terence (21 February 2023). "Does Budget 2023 suggest that Singapore remains a 'nanny state'?". The Straits Times