05 Feb 2013 | Tony Leon | Original Publication: Bdlive
Our history contains lessons
on how leaders change and the extremity of circumstances that forces change
upon them, writes Tony Leon
A FATUOUS local academic apparently announced to a colleague that any
history before 1994 was of "no interest" to him.
Doubtless then, the occurrence of two anniversaries last week would have
passed him by. But for the rest of us, they are hugely consequential. And both
of them contain lessons on how leaders change and the extremity of circumstance
that forces it upon them. This might salt a clue or two for our national
renewal and the prospects for a self-proclaimed "agent of change"
soon, apparently, to enter our political arena.
Seventy years ago, on January 31 1943, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus
surrendered the remnants of the Wehrmacht’s 6th Army to the Soviets at
Stalingrad. This epic siege is well revealed in Max Hastings’s riveting account
of the Second World War, All Hell Let Loose. The title referred to Stalingrad,
where the "butcher’s bill" amounted to about a million lives lost in
its wasteland. But this battle was the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler’s
dreams of world domination.
However, just seven months before, the military terms of trade were
starkly different. As Hastings reminds us, after the fall of Sevastapol,
Kharkov and the Crimea, "Russia seemed at its last gasp". The key to
the subsequent reversal of fortunes was, in Hastings’s estimation, Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin’s ability to "profit from experience as Hitler would
not". Aside from his monstrous ruthlessness, he learnt some vital lessons
from his early defeats and implemented changes that were unimaginable until
they were forced on him by dire necessity.
In Hastings’s account, Stalin "recognised the need to subordinate
ideology to military necessity, the prohibited word ‘officer’ was restored …
and unit commanders were liberated from their subordination to commissars;
henceforward promotion would be determined by competence".
I was wondering why books about epic events of more than 70 years ago
still enthrall. One answer was provided by writer Geoffrey Wheatcroft, who
suggests we "crave for a heroic age and for leaders of giant
stature", in contrast to the "unheroic age in which we now live, and
our diminished rulers".
South Africa today is at peace with the world and our circumstances
hardly equate to the furnace of the most terrible event in world history.
Still, in the acknowledgment of the government, we are not at peace with
ourselves as we confront the triple evils of "poverty, inequality and
unemployment".
As we attempt to confront some mini-Stalingrads in our own country, from
a failing education system to corrupt public services, might we not apply some
lessons from battlefields past? Ditching ideology, which impairs growth and job
creation, and removing political commissars from frontline delivery agencies
and state-owned enterprises would be good places to start. Or do we have to
edge closer to the abyss until we start to change?
One leader who peered into the pit of national destruction and decided
to reverse course, or hoist the flag of ideological surrender, depending on
your take on history, also commemorated an anniversary last week. Twenty-three
years ago, on February 2 1990, then president FW de Klerk used his speech at
the opening of Parliament to turn his back on the convictions of a lifetime and
inaugurate the constitutional processes that led to the creation of a
democratic South Africa.
I sat riveted in Parliament (and it was very far back in those days for
a lowly backbencher on his first parliamentary day) as the conservative leader
of the National Party essentially implemented, from his podium of power, the
manifesto of the electorally unsuccessful white liberal opposition.
What impelled this prince of the National Party to systematically
dismantle the house of authoritarian power and racial privilege he was
bequeathed, which was the result, even if not the intention, of that speech of
thermonuclear intensity?
On his account, there were many in his security establishment who felt
he should hold fast to the prevailing order and tough it out in the mould of
his predecessors. But, he said, as he peered into the future, "I
ultimately only saw disaster if we had dug in our heels." Many will
contest this self-assessment, and state that he simply read the proverbial
writing, etched in the blood of struggle and protest, on the wall.
Still, at least he had the intelligence and courage to read it, even if
his grand design for the subsequent negotiations foundered.
Whatever the motives and background circumstances of De Klerk’s
epiphany, he was an unlikely, but essential, agent of change. Now, nearly two
decades later, a self-styled "agent of change", Mamphela Ramphele,
will, on some accounts, soon pitch her tent on the stony soil of South African
politics.
Next week, we will hear further on this. Meanwhile, it was Stalin,
again, who asked the essential question: "How many divisions has the
Pope?"
• Follow Tony
Leon on Twitter: @TonyLeonSA
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