The Second Leader Rule

I have a rule that gives us an idea of what to expect for Cuba, now that Fidel Castro is gone. The rule is called "The Second Leader Rule". A revolution is typically consolidated and led by a charismatic, high-profile leader. But some revolutions last, while others don't. I notice that the security of a revolution is revealed by the nature of it's second leader, the one that follows the typically charismatic and high-profile first leader.

If the revolution is secure, is here to stay, the second leader will be much more low-profile than the first leader. This means that the revolution has succeeded and has entered into an institutional phase, where the primary focus is now day-to-day administrative tasks. If the second leader is high-profile and charismatic, like the first leader, that is not a good sign. It means that the revolution has not yet completed the consolidation phase, and the revolution is not likely here to stay. My definition of revolution is an abrupt change in the social order.

Almost everyone knows who George Washington is. But he was followed by a successor of far lower profile, his vice-president John Adams. This represented a good sign for the American Revolution as it indicated that the consolidation phase had been successfully completed, and the revolution had moved into the institutional phase.

Ali Khamenei is the current Supreme Leader of Iran, the successor of Ayatollah Khomeini who died in 1989. Khamenei has inherited all of the power that comes with being Supreme Leader but, despite the similarity in their names, is of far lower profile than Khomeini was. The spell-checker on this blog doesn't even recognize his name.

But this is a good sign for the Iranian Revolution. One may approve or disapprove of it, the revolution may adjust it's tone or come to agreement with former opponents, but the succession to a lower-profile leader is a sign that it is here to stay. Khomeini was the revolutionary, and Khamenei is his successor as the administrator. That can only mean that the revolutionary phase was a success.

In China, we see another example of a high-profile revolutionary followed by an administrator of a much-lower profile. Chairman Mao was the revolutionary, and Deng Xiaoping the administrator. This means that so-called "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" is here to stay.

If Soviet Communism was meant to last, it would have followed this pattern also. Lenin, the initial leader and the revolutionary, would have been followed by a lower-profile administrative leader like Leonid Brezhnev. Instead Lenin was followed by Josef Stalin, who had a profile at least as high as Lenin. The fact that consolidation of the revolution had not been completed by it's first leader was not a good sign for it's future.

Nikita Khrushchev, the third leader, had a high profile too, although not as high as Lenin and Stalin. It took more than forty years, and three high-profile leaders, to settle into the administrative phase, with a lower-profile leader. Not much more than twenty years later, Soviet-style Communism entered a second revolutionary phase with another high-profile leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, but this phase never saw completion as it was the end of large-scale Communism.

North Korean Communism is another case in point. It had it's revolutionary leader in Kim Il Sung, with all of the personality cult that revolutionary leaders often have. But if his system was really secure, he would have been followed by a lower-profile administrative type of leader. Instead, his successor was his equally high-profile son Kim Jong Il, who in turn was followed by his equally high-profile son, the present leader Kim Jong Un.

All of this looks very good for the social order in Cuba. The revolutionary, Fidel Castro, being followed by his brother Raul, of much lower profile, means that the Cuban Revolution is here to stay. It is very reminiscent of George Washington being followed by John Adams.