Kieran Healy

The Persistence of the Old Regime

Robert Fisk, comparing Saddam Hussein to Joseph Stalin, was dismissed with contempt by David Adesnik, who said “Just when you thought he couldn’t be any stupider, he outdoes himself again.” Kevin Drum has already made a relevant comment here. But it turns out that Fisk is not the first to draw the comparison.

In a separate discussion, Daniel Drezner notes in passing that “the Baath Party has ruled Iraq for about thirty-five years. In both its organization and tactics, it bears more than a passing resemblance to Stalinist parties.” He goes on to quote approvingly from this piece by David Brooks, which makes it clear that “[o]nce in power, the party behaved, in some respects, as Leninist parties do everywhere.”

So maybe Fisk is on the right track here. But never mind about Fisk’s credibility. The real point is that the Baath party is very large, basically Stalinist in organization and has successfully held power for a long time. You don’t get to do that by populating the party apparatus with idiots. Instead, you populate it with thugs. Beyond that, the thugs are organized in a manner designed to maintain a tight grip on power.

Three consequences suggest themselves. First, in the short term, Saddam’s resistance is probably going to be much tougher than the U.S. has been hoping. Second, in the medium term, the backlash after his inevitable defeat could be horrible. Third, in the long term, Iraqi society is probably going to be living with the legacy of the Baath party for generations.

We’ve already seen evidence of the short-term problem. Resistance has been much stiffer than the Administration led the public (and possibly itself) to believe. This resistance is consistent with past evidence. This morning, Brad DeLong cited some relevant evidence about the Republican Guard’s behavior during the first Gulf War, from Kenneth Pollack’s first book. Brad commented that the Iraqi army may be “incompetent at using their artillery, unable to maneuver, unwilling to take the intiative, incapable of adapting to any surprise, armed with technologically-inferior and poorly-maintained equipment … yet large numbers of them, especially from the Republican Guard, will stand their ground and fight—until they die.”

The medium term problem is beginning to be noticed. Dan Drezner, for instance, is worrying about what he’s calling Debaathification. That is, what is the U.S. going to do with all the party members after the war? So far, the only solution he can think of is for the Baathists to resist as much as possible, thereby ensuring that as many of them as possible will be killed. The alternative, as Dan frankly says, is a purge. (Now there’s a word that owes a lot to Stalin.) Dan notes that

such purges are notoriously difficult to implement. Occupying forces often lack either the stomach or the energy to take the necessary actions.

It’s at this point—when words like “purge” are being tossed around—that much of the fine talk about “liberating the Iraqi People” sounds rather hollow. After their victory, those hoping to institute liberal democracy in Iraq are likely to find “The Iraqi People” (a noble abstraction) resolving itself into a multitude of Iraqi persons (a messy reality). Many of these people will have politically inconvenient biographies and personal agendas. What then? Does the U.S. really want to go down the road of purging the populace of the Baathists? (Where did I put my old Kulak detector?) More likely, does the U.S. want to take on the role of colonial administrator, struggling to keep a lid on the pot while waiting for a social revolution? Or, perhaps most likely, will the U.S. just declare victory as soon as Saddam is dead and get the hell out, perhaps installing a friendly puppet before leaving?

Kanan Makiya, writing to other Iraqi exiles, puts the point directly:

Why do I write this? Because I developed the impression … that some of you think you can lift your noses and ride into Iraq on American tanks, above the stink of it all, without having to wade knee-high in the shit that the Baath Party has made of your country. You cannot. That is a pipe dream. The Americans will be here for the shortest time that they can possibly get away with, and they will not understand during that time, nor even are they capable of imagining, exactly what it is they are dealing with, much less have they the stamina to move it all in the direction of the gentle and forgiving way of life (by contrast with Iraq) that we all have enjoyed for so many years in the West.

Finally, there’s the long-term problem, which I can’t even begin to deal with here. Suffice to say that the residue of even a defeated Stalinist party organization has a long half-life, especially if it’s been in power for thirty years. Westerners look on slack-jawed as portraits of old Joe himself are waved at marches in Russia. Surely those people don’t know what they’re doing, right? Don’t bet on it. And don’t bet on Iraqi liberal democracy until you can tell me why people won’t be doing the same thing with photos of Saddam ten or fifteen years from now.

In fact, Kenneth Pollack makes much of the Stalin analogy—and says that Saddam Hussein believes that it is relevant as well. That is, Saddam Hussein has not only been driven by the logic of history to find solutions to his problems of maintaining rule similar to those Stalin did, he has also set out to ape Stalin.

Iraq is organised along Stalinist lines; the standard cliché is that Saddam’s library is filled with books by and about Uncle Jo. Fisk is on the right track here: the BBC even interviewed the author of a book about Stalingrad and asked him for comment.

We might note the political competitiveness, if not dominance, of ex-communist parties and ex-communists in the former Warsaw Pact nations.

Sheesh! Talk about political correctness!
Go read what Fisk wrote. His sin is not bracketing the name “Stalin” with “the evil dictator”. It is politically incorrect not to do so.

Of course Stalin was an evil dictator. But Fisk is not discussing that. He is discussing Stalin, the military strategist, whose strategy, need I remind, that was highly useful to the United States at the time, and comparing it to that of Hussein.

A fair reading of the article will find no praise or blame of Stalin except perhaps as a military strategist.

Adesnik is making a fuss about what he assumes Fisk must mean, and does nothing but make a fool of himself.

>>>>You don’t get to do that by populating the party apparatus with idiots. Instead, you populate it with thugs. Beyond that, the thugs are organized in a manner designed to maintain a tight grip on power.

Forgive me for saying this but, government systems hold onto power by providing some level of results to their people. I don’t want to minimize the ruthlessness of the Iraqi regime, but the truth is that somebody who stays in power that long must be doing something right.

Jefferson wrote that “governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed” and he wrote it during a time when there were NO REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACIES on the face of the earth. They were all as we would say dictatorships.

Re Max: Good socialism beats bad capitalism doesn’t it?

Jefferson wrote that “governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed” and he wrote it during a time when there were NO REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACIES on the face of the earth.

The parliamentarians in 1770s London might disagree: they’d fought a civil war, deposed one monarch and orchestrated the succession of the Hanoverians precisely to guarantee that ‘consent’.

Stalin as military strategist? The guy was a buffoon- it was Marshals Zhukov and Vasilevski that won the war for the Soviet Union.

There’s also the slight problem that the Iraqi army is totally outclassed by the US army; and there’s no industrial base to sustain a fight.

The Stalin comparision is helpful but one needs to look to what happened at the battle of Moscow- if I hear one more ignorant comment about Stalingrad I’m going to scream.

Basically at the Battle of Moscow there was some flight and panic in October-November 1941 but Stalin was resolute in staying and eventually restored order- but Stalin was a harder man then Saddam. And of course, the Russians won the battle of Moscow; but Saddam has no army of Siberians to come to HIS rescue.

His comparison is more valid though, when you consider the postwar reconstruction of Iraq. In Germany after the war they had de-Nazification programs, and it’s likely that something similar will be required in Iraq. Will the Administration stick around long enough to do it? Doubtful. But you can be sure that it won’t be done at all if the UN is involved.

aaaaaa

Stalin had a mustache, Saddam has a mustache.

They were both ruthless, murderous dictators who donned military attire.

Case closed!

Well maybe not.

Stalin’s USSR stole or developed most of its weapons technology. The US handed it to Saddam.

Stalin’s USSR was almost militarily and technologically equivalent to the US. Saddam’s Iraqi defensive war seems the most technologically lopsided war since Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935.

The USSR had an established hierarchy based on loyalty to the revolution. Saddam’s hierarchy is based on loyalty to Saddam’s family.

Dictators will all seem similar in their demeanor and practices on the surface – it comes with the territory afterall. Even those that seem benevolent or outwardly friendly will share such universal traits to varying degrees as: no elections (or mock elections), secret police, direct control of military and media, suppression (or physical eradication) of opposition, etc……..

We needn’t look far to find such “leaders”. They are everywhere – even among our “friends”.

Saddam as Stalin

Kieran Healy has a very good post on the Saddam-as-Stalinist analogy and what it may mean for the future. I…

[...] 26th. The Persistence of the Old Regime. … the Baath party is very large, basically Stalinist in organization and has successfully [...]