Influence

Part 7 of 12  ·  Evidence

The Throne and the Lie

Power as practiced: the playbooks, the propaganda ministries, and the rulers who wrote down what they were doing.

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1 The Manual Behind the Mask: Machiavelli Writes the First Power PlaybookNiccolo Machiavelli, ‘Il Principe’ (The Prince), written 1513 in exile at Sant’Andrea in Percussina, dedicated to Lorenzo de'…
2 Senigallia, New Year’s Eve: The Trap Dressed as ReconciliationCesare Borgia’s execution of Vitellozzo Vitelli and Oliverotto da Fermo at Senigallia, 31 December 1502, after the Magione…
3 The Body in the Piazza: Ramiro de Lorca and the Scapegoat SpectaclePublic execution of Ramiro de Lorca (Machiavelli’s ‘Remirro de Orco’), Cesare Borgia’s governor of the Romagna, displayed in the…
4 The Will Read Aloud: Octavian’s Character Assassination of Mark AntonyOctavian’s propaganda campaign against Mark Antony, 33-31 BC, including the public reading of Antony’s alleged will in the Roman…
5 The Gilded Cage: Louis XIV Turns Etiquette into SurveillanceLouis XIV’s court system at the Palace of Versailles after the court’s permanent move in 1682: the lever and coucher rituals,…
6 The Day of the Dupes: Richelieu’s Counter-Ambush at CourtCardinal Richelieu’s survival of the Journee des Dupes, 10-11 November 1630, when Marie de Medici believed she had secured his…
7 Thirteen Words Removed: Bismarck’s Edited Telegram Starts a WarOtto von Bismarck’s editing and release to the press of the Ems dispatch, 13 July 1870, reporting Wilhelm I’s meeting with the…
8 Fire and Emergency: The Reichstag Decree and the Legal Death of a RepublicThe Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 suspending civil liberties, and the…
9 The Cathedral of Light: Albert Speer Builds a Machine for AweThe Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies (Reichsparteitage) at the Zeppelinfeld, 1933-1938, and Albert Speer’s ‘Cathedral of Light’ using…
10 Triumph of the Will: Editing Reality Into DestinyLeni Riefenstahl’s ‘Triumph des Willens’ (1935), commissioned by Hitler in 1934 to document the Nuremberg party rally, using…
11 The Big Lie: Scale as a Credibility StrategyAdolf Hitler’s formulation of the ‘grosse Luege’ in Mein Kampf (1925), where he claims the masses more readily fall victim to a…
12 The People’s Receiver: Goebbels Wires Propaganda Into the Living RoomJoseph Goebbels' Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, established 13 March 1933, and the mass distribution of…
13 Do You Want Total War? Goebbels Manufactures Consent After StalingradJoseph Goebbels' Sportpalast speech, Berlin, 18 February 1943, delivered to a pre-selected audience weeks after the surrender at…
14 Night of the Long Knives: The Purge That Bought an ArmyThe Roehm Purge / Night of the Long Knives, 30 June — 2 July 1934, in which Hitler had SA leader Ernst Roehm and dozens of others…
15 Confessions on Cue: The Moscow Show TrialsThe Moscow show trials, August 1936 — March 1938, including the Trial of the Twenty-One (Bukharin, Rykov, Krestinsky, March 1938)…
16 Quotas for Enemies: NKVD Order No. 00447 and Terror by ArithmeticNKVD Operational Order No. 00447, signed by Nikolai Yezhov on 30 July 1937 and approved by the Politburo, setting regional quotas…
17 The Commissar Vanishes: Retouching People Out of HistorySoviet photographic falsification under Stalin, documented by David King in ‘The Commissar Vanishes’; the canonical case is the…
18 The Doctors' Plot: Paranoia Aimed at the HealersThe Soviet ‘doctors’ plot' announced in Pravda and Izvestiya on 13 January 1953, alleging that mostly Jewish Kremlin physicians…
19 Yan’an Rectification: Criticism, Self-Criticism, and Manufactured SincerityThe Yan’an Rectification Movement (Zhengfeng), Chinese Communist Party base area of Yan’an, roughly 1942-1944, combining study…
20 Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom: The Invitation That Was a Census of DissentMao Zedong’s Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956-1957) inviting criticism of the Party, followed by the Anti-Rightist Campaign…
21 The Struggle Session: Public Humiliation as ReprogrammingMaoist struggle sessions (pidou hui) used from the land reform period through the Cultural Revolution, and Robert Jay Lifton’s…
22 The Little Red Book: Scripture in a Pocket‘Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung’ (the Little Red Book), first compiled for the People’s Liberation Army by Lin Biao’s…
23 The List in His Hand: McCarthy’s Unfalsifiable AccusationSenator Joseph McCarthy’s speech to the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, 9 February 1950, claiming…
24 Checkers: The Dog That Answered a Corruption ChargeRichard Nixon’s televised ‘Checkers’ or Fund speech, 23 September 1952, delivered from the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles to…
25 The Smoking Gun: Watergate and the Cover-Up That Recorded ItselfThe Watergate cover-up: the taped Oval Office conversation of 23 June 1972 between Richard Nixon and H.R. Haldeman discussing…
26 The Madman Theory: Engineered Unpredictability as Bargaining PowerRichard Nixon’s ‘madman theory’ toward North Vietnam, described by H.R. Haldeman in ‘The Ends of Power’ (1978), and the secret…
27 Shuttle Diplomacy: Kissinger as the Indispensable ChannelHenry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, producing the Egyptian-Israeli disengagement agreement of…
28 Little Green Men: Implausible Deniability in CrimeaRussian forces in unmarked uniforms seizing Crimean facilities from 27 February 2014; Vladimir Putin denied on 4 March 2014 that…
29 Manufacturing the Enemy: Hungary’s Anti-Soros Poster CampaignThe Hungarian government’s nationwide billboard campaign against George Soros, launched in July 2017 by Viktor Orban’s Fidesz…
30 Stop the Steal: A Modern Big Lie With a Documented Paper TrailThe ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign following the 3 November 2020 US presidential election, examined in the Final Report of the House…