Political Philosophy I Pick a Political Leader Essay

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Political Philosophy I pick a political leader (dead alive). Once pick leader, apply a philosopher's ideas a philosophy reveal leaders strengths / weaknesses. You a philosopher's ideas directly influenced a leader ( Machiavelli's influence Mussolini Hitler).

Leadership in the history of political thought has always been identified in the broader lines of certain political paradigms and lines of judgment and characterized by philosophical rules and guidelines. Leaders such as Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Charles de Gaulle, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, to name just a few of the second part of the 20th century leaders that marked the political history of the world, have all been defined in their actions by particular elements of political and philosophical thought. Whether these examples point out a sense of extremism in terms of actions or moderation in their approaches, they are all representatives of social application of social philosophy and political undertaking.

One of the most significant leaders of the 20th century can be considered to have been China's Mao Zedong. His importance for world history does not lie only in the position Mao had, as the leader of the most populous communist country during the Cold War era, but also through the way in which he managed to convey certain doctrinal aspects of the socialist line of thought, adapt it to Chinese realities, and transform it into a type of communism whose legacy is still valid to this day in the modern Chinese society. The socialist beliefs promoted by Mao determined a new change from the ones provided by its neighboring Russian communist part and provided China with a different developmental model that suited better the realities of its society and thus, by adapting a traditional line of thinking in the form of socialism and communism, Mao became a leader to his own people and offered China a matrix for development.

There are several factors to be taken into account in order to assess the influences socialism had on Mao's consideration as a leader for his people and in fact for a lot of generations of Chinese people.

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From one point-of-view, it must be stressed that Mao Zedong was, as any other socialist leader, a very charismatic individual (Calvocoressi, 1996) This is largely due to the fact that socialism is aimed at appealing to the masses in an extreme manner. More precisely, the doctrine is constructed in such a manner as to ensure that the most important support is received from the people and not the elites. In the Chinese case, the large number of the population required a certain sense of organization and a type of political approach that would eventually lead to acquiring the necessary popularity level to provide his leadership the legitimacy needed to rule such a big size country and with an increasing population. Therefore, the character of the leader was essential for the success or failure of the measures needed to be taken from a socialist point-of-view.

Secondly, Mao's capacity as a leader were influenced by socialism also as a result of the actual notions socialism and later on communism entangled. Especially after the end of the Second World War the transformed socialist concepts that were manifested in the communist doctrines relied heavily on the Russian model of social conduct and economic practice. However, while the U.S.S.R. tended to view communism as a means of dealing with the socialist class struggle, the Chinese model of communism, manifested through the beliefs of Mao Zedong was different and were initiated by Mao. From this point-of-view, Mao is yet again seen as a leader of his time as "the Chinese Communist victory was anomalous from the Marxist standpoint because it was not based on the working class and lacked a definite class struggle. The pattern, which the other Far-Eastern Communist movements have copied, was to bring all available social groups into a movement controlled by the disciplined Communist Party; to capitalize on nationalistic and anti-imperialist emotion; and to develop the "proletarian" base of the movement not by social selection but by intellectual "remolding" or conversion on the basis of Marxist-Leninist ideology." (Hertzler, 960, p282)

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