The error of all dictators

Journalist Vasily Legueido recalls the story of the Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stressner:

“... dictators usually not waking consciousness of the people, but their own inability to stop in time, leads to collapse. In the late 1980s, Stressner after eight re-elections shifted their own-against the backdrop of international isolation and mass protests due to economic decline. The father of the daughter -in -law of the dictator and the high -ranking General Andres Rodriguez, who for a long time served as a stressner, suggested that he soften the regime, accept reforms and resign peacefully, but he refused and threatened Rodriguez himself by dismissal for treacherous thoughts.

It ended in the fact that almost all influential military jokes joined the general. In February 1989, the army under his command surrounded the main state institutions in the capital of Paraguay Asunsion. Stressner did not want to give up even then: he took refuge in the barracks of the personal guard and ordered the soldiers to shoot to the last. Only when more than 30 people died on both sides, and almost 60 were injured, the son of Stressner, whom he prepared for the role of a successor, persuaded his father to agree to surrender.

This is how the American diplomat James Mack, who just found the last years of Stressner as president, says about the fall of the 35-year-old Paraguayan dictatorship.

"Like many dictators and authoritarian rulers, he did not know when to leave. If he had gone five or 10 years earlier, he would probably go down in the history of Paraguay as a great leader, despite the tough manner of leadership. However, he lingered too long. Ferdinand Marcos, Alberto Fuhimory in Peru and many others, made a similar mistake."