On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

“Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people.”

— Timothy Snyder, from his introduction.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by historian Timothy Snyder consists of lessons on how to defend democracy against authoritarianism and fascism. To make his point in each lesson, the author uses events from European history to identify conditions that enabled democracies to transform into dictatorships. 

Examples of some lessons are “Defend institutions,” “Believe in truth,” “Investigate,” and “Learn from peers in other countries.” 

Some of the events that the author touches upon include the Great Terror of the Soviet Union, also known as the Great Purge, Hitler’s rise to power, events that led up to the Holocaust of European Jews by Nazi Germany, Germany’s invasion of Poland, and Britain fighting back against Germany in WWII. 

Considering what is happening in Ukraine currently, some of the more recent events that are touched upon seem even more important now, Putin’s rise to power and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014. It puts helpful perspective on the events of today.

I found the lessons insightful and worthwhile. The following are quotes that stood out to me.

On Hitler’s rise to power:

“The mistake is to assume that rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions — even though that is exactly what they have announced.” 

On democracies becoming a one-party state:

“Some of the Germans who voted for the Nazi Party in 1932 no doubt understood that this might be the last meaningfully free election for some time, but most did not.” 

“No doubt the Russians who voted in 1990 did not think that this would be the last free and fair election in their country’s history, which (thus far) it has been.”

On being wary of paramilitaries:

“The SS began as an organization outside the law, became an organization that transcended the law, and ended up as an organization that undid the law.”

On the media and thinking of your own way of speaking:

“Staring at screens is perhaps unavoidable, but the two-dimensional world makes little sense unless we can draw upon a mental armory that we have developed somewhere else. When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework. To have a framework requires more concepts, and having more concepts requires reading.” 

On believing in the truth:

“You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case.”

“Fascists despised the small truths of daily existence, loved slogans that resonated like a new religion, and preferred creative myths to history or journalism.”

On figuring things out for yourself:

“It is your ability to discern facts that makes you an individual, and our collective trust in common knowledge that makes us a society. The individual who investigates is also the citizen who builds. The leader who dislikes the investigators is a potential tyrant.”

“Journalists are not perfect, any more than people in other vocations are perfect. But the work of people who adhere to journalistic ethics is of a different quality than the work of those who do not.” 

On the difference between being a patriot and being a nationalist:

“A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and tells us that we are the best.”

“A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well — and wishing that it would do better.”

“A nationalist will say that “it can’t happen here,” which is the first step toward disaster. A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.”

If I have any criticism, it’s that the author could have gone into greater depth regarding some of the historical events. For example, he doesn’t talk about the degree of coercion that people were subjected to in some of the events he uses as examples. 

On the other hand, I think this book is a good introduction and overview of authoritarianism in the 20th century. It's short but it does a good job of provoking the reader to think more deeply about some of the major issues that we face today. It’s motivated me to read more about European history, specifically about Russia and Ukraine, as well as fiction by Russian and Ukrainian authors.

Which brings me to one piece of advice that the author gives that I think is one of the most important: 

Read books.