How Tyrannies Failed in the Past and the Present-Louis XIV vs. Fidel Castro
In today’s society we look at single-party governments as oppressive tyrannies, but throughout history, these monarchies also made noble accomplishments that benefited there country. On the basis of success, historian's created five guidelines of a dictator. These principles are a politician's tenure, the number of free fair elections, tolerance of oppression, economic development, and personal wealth. This essay going to compare the absolute monarchies of Louis XIV with the fierce dictatorship of the Cuban leader Fidel Castro. In general Cuba’s modern absolutism lead to poor country that had poor foreign policy, economic policy, tons of corruption. On the other hand, absolutism historically was a highly successful form of government that benefited kings such as Louis XIV by limiting resisting powers to make swift decisive decisions.
One of the main factors of a dictatorship is political tenure. Political tenure is defined as a politician's time in office. This factor has the potential to leave either crippling or benefiting effect on a nation. In the case of Louis XIV, his reign lasted nearly 72 years. This time span allowed him to generate chivalrous movements such as surpass Spain as the dominant power in Europe but he also used his reign to construct hazardous acts that crippled France, such as his participation in numerous wars, including the War of Devolution which lead to an extreme loss of allies. On the modern side, Fidel Castro dictated the island of Cuba for almost 50 years. During his reign, Fidel Castro utterly destroyed Cuba’s prestige from his poor foreign policy to his crumbling economy. Due to Castro's poor foreign policy, he received an embargo from the United States that limited there trading option's and thus their economy. As you can see the tenure of a politician correlates to longer everlasting effects.
The next factor of a dictatorship is the availability of free fair elections. This factor mainly resembles how controlling each dictator is over the government. Louis XIV ruled each branch of the government with an iron fist while no fair free elections took place. Using his sole power he restructured the central policy-making by removing nobles from parliament. Louis XIV was able to create policies based on his jurisdiction. This power was partially beneficial because Louis XIV was able to make swift decisions that were needed in dire situations such as the Treaty of Utrecht that restored peace between France and the Holy Roman Empire. This was also partial-negative because he was also able to make irrational impulses that damaged France, such as the War of Spanish Succession that lead to two famines in France. In the case of Fidel Castro, he often performed show elections that were corrupted but no fair free elections were held. This lead to a one-party government that lead to Castro's control of all political, economic, and military activities. Castro militarily acted on behalf of the Soviet Union by engaging in many Cold War proxy wars. Castro mainly used wars like the Angolan Civil War, and Ogaden War to spread communism throughout Africa. Overall the lower the amount of fair free election’s the stronger the control of the dictatorship is.
The third factor of a dictatorship is the tolerance of opposition. This issue focuses on a dictatorship’s acceptance of opposed ideas. Louis XIV’s monarchy controlled every detail of France, political, militarily, and religiously, so he had a zero-tolerance policy on opposition. Religiously Louis wanted to weaken religious freedom that was established in the late 16th century. He took action on this by issuing the Edict of Fontainebleau that repealed the Edict of Nantes and the Calvinist rights that came from it. Fidel Castro was similar to Louis in the fact that he had a strict stance on opposition. He established a sense of fear and order in Cuban citizen through scare tactics such as surveillance, unfair trials, long prison sentences, and beatings. One example of oppression happened in 2003 when 75 human activist and other critics of the government were labeled as mercenaries. They then were tried in shame trials that subjected many of them to inhumane treatments, such as prolonged solitary confinement, and beatings. Overall both dictators responded to hostility with astringent consequences.
The fourth factor of a dictatorship is there countries economic development. This factor is based on how well the economy was during a dictator’s reign. Louis XIV monarchy's economy was counterproductive but yet fruitful. On the negative side, France’s economy was crumbling because of the cost of construction of the Palace of Versailles, the excess of wars, and the heavy maintenance of his court. Even with these struggle Louis XIV’s general of fiancé, Jean-Baptiste Colbert revived France’s economy. Using mercantilism, which is a policy where the government benefits from trading, which allowed Colbert to change government laws for the benefit of the state. He also increased exports by creating lavish new industries such as Venetian glass and French cloth. Castro’s economy was much more devastating. When Castro overthrew the government in 1959 he also took on a crumbling economy. Due to poor foreign policy, Cuba's only had communistic trade partners, the main of which was the Soviet Union which would trade with Cuba for fixed prices. Cuba's main export was cane sugar which had a gradual decrease through the 80's. Both the economy and the price of this import was weakening until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Having no major trading partners left Cuba's economy fell into irreversible shambles. In general, the state of a countries economy is dependent on a dictator’s foreign and political policies.
The final factor is the personal wealth of the factor. This attribute ties into government because if a dictator has a lot of money than there able self-pay certain expenses of the government. Louis XIV economically burdened the working class by forcing them to pay heavy taxes, while the nobles and he were benefited by tax deduction. Over time through low taxes, Louis became increasingly wealthy. This wealth, however, was not spent to accommodate the needs of Louis's expensive buildings, such as the Palace of Versailles. These expenses, however, were paid for by the state, which only increased taxes for citizens, and damaged the economy. Fidel Castro was very similar to Louis in the fact that he was also extremely wealthy with an estimated net worth of $900,000. Castro also used Cuba's national budget for ridicules expenses, such as a Coppelia which is an ice cream parlor. These useless expenses lead an economic catastrophe where the government couldn’t afford it’s basic such as infrastructure or health care. As you can see if a dictator is wealthy then they are vulnerable to corruption.
Work Cited
“Foro Internacional.” Foro Internacional, vol. 10, no. 2 (38), 1969, pp. 227–227. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27737556.
Pérez, Louis A. “The American Historical Review.” The American Historical Review, vol. 99, no. 5, 1994, pp. 1786–1787. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2168582.