The allure of surrogate power
Some thoughts on totalitarianism
This is the third post in a series.
In Core belief #1 - on decision making I made the case for the value of distributed decision making.
In The not-so-smart books of Yuval Noah Harari I suggested that we should focus on reality, not narratives.
In this one I will expose the appeal of surrogate power
Every society is stratified somehow. Even in the most egalitarian ones, some were more equal than others.
You can start with the purest and noblest of ideas, but at some point, somebody had to make decisions. Somebody had to evaluate those decisions. Somebody had to plan the execution and organize the resources.
Communism has a very simple ideology that comes with the assumption that proper adherence to the ideology will overcome any obstacles in the realization of its goals.
The essence of communist authoritarianism therefore is to enforce ideological conformity in pursuing the goals. What you need for that is an ideology driven apparatus, with a hierarchical structure. A bureaucracy, if you will.
Terminology
Growing up in a soviet occupied country, I was exposed to a little more than average influence of Russian culture and literature. With that came a certain understanding of the political structures best described by Russian expressions. Let me explain to you the nomenklatura, chinovniks, apparatchiks, cadres, commissars and soviets.
Why do we need to understand these archaic communist notions?
Because once you do, you will realize that we are living with them.
Soviets
The word means ‘council’. The concept was a delegated hierarchy of the general will. The people, through their locally elected representatives passing up their concerns to higher levels of councils.
On the top was the Supreme Soviet which elected the Presidium, the executive body and the Councils of Ministers, the de facto government of the USSR.
The Soviets had the Party’s Central Committee and the Presidium, the EU has European Commission. Unelected bodies working behind closed doors; their decisions rubber-stamped by the ‘elected’ organizations, like the European parliament.
Nomenklatura
“A system of names” referred to the upper echelons of the party. A list of functionaries and their potential replacements. The nomenklatura is the self-selecting mechanism of authoritarian leaderships. A way to find people who yearn for power, but know exactly their place in the hierarchy. People who are compliant when looking up and ruthless when looking down. People who understand that their self-interest lies in the preservation of the larger system.
The Nomenklatura today is the World Economic Forum’s Young global leaders program penetrating cabinets around the world.
Commissars
The function of commissars was the most ingenious invention of the newly formed red Army in 1918. The communists did not have experienced military commanders and could not trust the officers of the ‘ancient régime’, so they introduced the function of the dedicated political officer with powers equal to that of the military commander. As the communist power matured, and it became impossible to get a position of significance without party membership, they blended into the group called apparatchiks.
Apparatchiks
Apparatchiks are custodians and enforcers of the ideology. The disseminators of the changes coming down from the actual policy makers. Making sure that everybody understands that we have always been at war with Eastasia. The party apparatchiks were also entrusted with the continuous monitoring of the public opinion and manipulating it according to the interest of the party. They were the censors and the propagandists.
Just like today’s legacy media, social media, fact checkers and a slew of institutions and organizations actively participating in the cancel culture. The people who get you fired for non-compliance with insane edicts, close your media accounts, freeze your bank accounts and lock you up for protesting their tyranny.
Chinovniks
Historically, for about 200 years from before the Soviet revolution Chinovniks were civil servants with titles. The communist abolished the system of entitlement, but the concept proved to have an exceptional staying power. Eventually the expression became a descriptor of civil servants in general. What kept the concept alive was the attitude of government officials and bureaucrats. A sense of entitlement representing the power of the state. In an authoritarian state, civil servants are your masters, NOT your servants. They are the dispensers of the ‘gifts’ of the state to its citizens and they would never let you to forget that you are a captive of their power. They expect gratitude.
The best example of this attitude today is walking into a hospital or government office and seeing signs warning you that the people working there will not tolerate ‘abusive behaviour’. If you do anything they don’t like, they may refuse to ‘serve you’. The fact that there is nowhere else to go is not their problem. It’s yours. No matter how badly they screw you, no matter how incompetent they are, you are NOT supposed to raise your voice. It would hurt they feeling and if that happens, they can actually hurt you.
Cadres
Cadres were the representatives of favored political groups, like the proletariat and the peasantry. These groups were the victims of the past wrongs of capitalism and feudalism. Discrimination and oppression that had to be rectified with a favored treatment in the present.
Much the way racial minorities, women and sexual minorities are in today’s liberal democracies. They had – and have preferential treatment for job placements and promotions, university admissions and other government goodies like housing. They are also the most enthusiastic supporters of the system, the existence of which is justified by their grievances.
The psychology
All of these groups use surrogate power.
The very top is empowered by ideology. Everything they do is for the greater good. They are fighting for a better future: the glory of the proletariat; the betterment of mankind; universal, restorative justice; saving humanity from human nature; saving the PLANET; saving humanity from pandemics; saving DEMOCRACY from populism.
They are making the omelets of the future, understanding that they cannot do that without breaking some eggs.
Everything below the top is power without personal responsibility.
They are agents of higher powers and ideals which justifies and excuses everything they do.
They are only accountable to their masters, never to those they exercise power over.
They represent the system and its institutions which are far more important than the little people who are most of the time too stupid and selfish to understand what is good for them let alone to see the big picture. This sense of superiority and empowerment is the allure of surrogate power. Its holders will go a long way to hang onto it.
The essence of totalitarianism is agency without accountability
The essence of freedom is agency with responsibility
In my next post I will try to describe the social psychology of communist existence.
