A Relatively Short History of Autogolpes: Part Two
"Democracy is a process, not a static condition. It is becoming rather than being. It can easily be lost, but is never fully won. Its essence is eternal struggle." - William H. Hastie
Autogolpes, or “self coups,” are those insidious plots whereby the very powerful of a national government choose to usurp the will of the people as designated through their various and varied national documents, constitutions, or well-established precedents. It is not the overthrow of the government by an outside force—be it military, civilian, oligarchic, or some combination of any of these—but the decapitating of constitutional, legal, and political precedents by and from an individual or administration previously trusted to safeguard those very same concepts and constructs.
In part one of this essay series, the autogolpe was described and explained etymologically, some data was appraised concerning them across the 20th and 21st centuries, and some long historical perspectives were observed and noted; Gustav III’s Revolution of 1772 was a massive moment in the history of Sweden, and it would be two decades before further political and social reform and democratic progress could be achieved once again. Napoleon III, who we only touched upon in passing, certainly perpetrated an autogolpe himself, coming to power as the first President of France through the vote in 1848, before subsequently seizing additional power and time in office through the Coup d'état of 2 December 1851, prior to declaring himself as Emperor in 1852, which he would remain until 1870.
Yet those leaders and events were several centuries ago; there are many examples of autogolpes across our recently-departed 20th century, as information from various institutes referenced in part one illustrates.
The few I originally had in mind were those of Cuba, Greece, and South Korea, and I do believe that those three alone could provide a common understanding of how autogolpes occur and take place. Of course, Peru would be mentioned as well—concerning both 1992 and 2022—and 6 January 2021 and the United States would be further reflected upon too; referencing is never the issue, but considering who should be considered most prominently is less simple.
But, to have the full of scope of things as it relates to autogolpes—ranging from the 18th, through the 19th and 20th, and to our own modern time—nations like Austria and Uruguay deserved their places here as well. Autogolpes are not isolated, nor are they specifically regional or cultural, but universal; wherever there is fleeting power without strong institutions and actors, alongside military incentive, autogolpes can occur—whether successful or not.
Uruguay, as a friend of mine noted in passing, is legendary for the March autogolpe of Gabriel Terra during the early-mid 1930s, whereas, concerning Austria, I simply had my memory jogged as it regards the sad and unwise tale of Engelbert Dollfuss. Both the autogolpes—carried out at nearly the same time—featured strains of national fascism that enflamed in the lead-up to those moments and enveloped the will and order of the people’s constitutions.
While Terra’s Dictatorship was inspired in large part by Mussolini and the concept of large-scale, hyper-capitalistic, nationally directed economic and industrial innovation and progress, that of Dollfuss was, in many ways, a reactionary reflex to what was occurring just across the border in Germany—albeit, with greater Mussolini vibes than Third Reich energy. Each, however, holds valuable information concerning the political struggles of our own, current time.
Engelbert Dollfuss—a young man in his late thirties with only a year of federal government experience prior to being offered the Chancellor’s position by longtime President Wilhelm Miklas—had not been in office for even a single year when he successfully carried out an autogolpe that, to many at first, appeared as a constitutional crisis that he just happened to be presiding through, instead of something that he had helped to accentuate once the moment arose. This was, absolutely, nothing more than a clever ruse.
Dollfuss took what he determined to be and noted as the “self-elimination” of the National Council of the Austrian parliament across March of 1933 as his chance to rule without a parliament at all; his authoritarian, “Austrofascist” rule by decree would serve no positive purpose for the nation in the short or long term ultimately, however.
It would, instead, further fracture the nation in the lead-up to the Second World War, creating resistance and a single-party state that could in no way withstand the force of Nazi Germany. Not only did this measure fail to save his countrypeople, his nation, or himself from the venomous and wrathful nature of the evergrowing Nazi party of Germany, whose power had just ballooned in the wake of the Reichstage fire of 27 February, 1933 and subsequent Enabling Acts—and was considered to be growing in Austria—but it led to, in many ways, an easier eventual time for Hitler when the time would finally come for them to act in 1938.
Dolfuss would, to be sure, die long before that, however. Following a new, dictatorial, corporatist constitution created in the lead-up to its presentation in April of 1934, and enacted in May of that year, he was assassinated by ten Austrian Nazis in a failed coup of their own. The next four years leading up to the Anschluss would not be much better than the previous year, as Dolfuss’ constitution had annihilated—for the time being—democracy and the peoples’ voice in Austria.
Meanwhile, Gabriel Terra, a man who came from nothing—like so many individuals who have grasped and properly seized power throughout history—to become and emerge in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a well-respected intellectual, professor, capitalist, lawyer and, eventually, minister of various economic and scientific positions across the Uruguayan government, would execute an autogolpe of his own.
While he came to fairly assumed power after prior national elections on 1 March 1931, he already had great enmity for the Constitution of 1918; just over two years later, on the last day of March in 1933, he and his supporters launched a successful coup of the national government which he led against the National Council of Administration, the Uruguayan Parliament and its Senators—leaving Terra as the de facto dictator of the country until May of the following year, 1934.
During this period of authoritarian rule, the replacement constitution he backed—the third constitution of Uruguay, variously known as the Constitution of 1934—would replace the prior constitution, and would officially rule the land until 1942—ironically, the year of its creator’s death too. By May of 1934, though, Terra could - once again—call himself the legal President of the nation after getting “fairly” re-elected to office. He is, therefore, the leader of that nation with the longest consecutive time in office, and is the only leader of that country to have had three “terms” in office—even if one was taken, and not given.
While Gabriel Terra went on to rule legally again between 1934 and 1938, shortly after his reign—the longest consecutive rule of one individual in Uruguayan history—ceased, he suffered a debilitating stroke, and his own life would end in 1942, in the obscurity of poverty and illness. His constitution was an interesting amalgamation of beliefs and innovations, but Terra is not a beloved figure in Uruguayan history, most likely because he was an antisemitic, fascist sympathizer who has, like so many of that era and time period, been long repudiated for his autocratic tendencies and behavior.
Engelbert Dollfuss, meanwhile, who ruled like a fascist, and would similarly die like one—albeit at the hands of some other fascists in 1934—is remembered only for his actions from 1933 to his death, which includes the coup he helped to successfully execute. Concerning both Terra and Dollfuss, we see that the coups took advantage of susceptible parliamentary bodies and political environments to overpower national institutions with either power or guile. Violence would be witnessed following both by the state and population, but at the time, it was largely avoided as power changed hands through forces such as the national police or military cooperation with strongmen dedicated to subverting democratic institutions and processes.
While the early decades of the 20th century certainly had their fair share of authoritarians, fascists, coups, and autogolpes, the subsequent decades of the century would not be outdone without some struggle. Those nations like Cuba, Greece, and South Korea would have stories both similar and different to those of Gustav III, Gabriel Terra, and Engelbert Dollfuss, and are our path closer to our current time period.
Cuba, the nation that the United States once wholly desired as its own, has had a long, tumultuous history. Fulgencio Batista is as important a figure to know from this previous century as his successor, Fidel Castro. He first came to power and led the nation as the leader of a pentarchic junta of officers after the Revolt of the Sergeants in 1933, and maintained control over a string of that nation’s Presidents until himself winning that position in 1940 with what has been called a populist agenda. His four-year Presidential term would feature embezzlement, innovations as well as repression, and when he left office in 1944 after losing that Presidential Election, he would go on to live comfortably in Florida—until that wasn’t good enough.
His last reign of power, from 1952 to New Year’s Day 1959, began itself as a coup, coming right before his attempted elected victory in the Presidential Election of 1952. His repression spawned—as so often has happened across human history—a pushback from the people, and movements like the 26th of July Movement and many others that have since been forgotten are reflective of the frustration that this final period of rule spawned within Cuba. While I have previously noted the extent to which Batista economically sold the nation out to American capital—legal and otherwise—it is today known and understood that he, like so many before and after, was nothing more than an American-backed strongman.
Meanwhile, across the entire first three-quarters of the 20th century, Greece was not necessarily thriving politically or socially either. Ruled by a combination of reactionary Monarch—King George II—and reactionary Prime Minister and former General Ioannis Metaxas—who himself committed an autogolpe after just four months in power, constructing what is known as the 4th of August Regime—before the First World War, the Second World War was no reprieve. After the Nazis plundered and starved the nation—with some help from British blockades—the Greek military would eventually try its own hand once again at completely dominating the nation by the end of the 1960s.
Many in Greece wanted the nation to become a Communist-governed polity—and it likely would’ve had Stalin not secretly agreed that Greece should remain with the Western nations on a very infamous, “naughty” little cocktail napkin—known today as the Percentages agreement. Churchill knew this as well as anyone, and rather intimately at that. But once the Greek Communists were defeated by the allied and officially backed populations across Greece by the end of the 1940s—and the Monarch was continued—the dictatorial nature of the Greek nation and society would continue as well.
By 1965, there was still a Monarchy—if in its last throes—but King Constantine II dismissed the relatively centrist government of Georgios Papandreou in July of that year, and by 1967—after nearly two years of political unrest and dissonance—things were looking more unfortunate in Greece once again. Eventually, in the place of a centrist government came the junta known today as the Regime of the Colonels, led chiefly by Georgios Papadopoulos, that would see the final destruction of the Greek monarchy in 1973 while haunting the nation until its dissolution in 1974, terrorizing it and sapping the nation and its people of even fundamental pleasures as simple as dancing in public.
As a quick aside, while it is not the specific topic of this essay series, my previous Liberal Currents essay on autogolpes specifically appraises American acceptance or support for autogolpes and pro-American figures or forces in Cuba, the aforementioned Greece, as well as the soon-to-be discussed South Korea; Uruguay’s Terra too, without question, also found support from the US in the form of support from the administration of FDR during the latter portions of his tenure in office. And, as we continue to discuss autogolpes, it should simply be considered by readers the part that America has—in various ways—played in the history of autogolpes across the last 120 years.
Greece, however, with the fall of the infamous junta in 1974, has been free from dictatorship ever since, and the United States has long ago apologized for supporting such a barbaric government. In any event, it is clear through the words of former US President Lyndon Baines Johnson—as well as through previous and subsequent foreign policy—that liberal, democratic societies often have not historically meshed with American material or national security interests.
“...Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked good... We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about democracy, parliament, and constitution, he, his parliament, and his constitution may not last long…”
South Korea—a longtime national ally of the US, mind you—is the final example from this section of the 20th century. These three examples of Cuba, Greece and SK hold in common the military influences and distinctions of those usurping leaders and at least some of their backers. Terra and Dolfuss were politicians who tried, and succeeded in degrees, to play the role of strongman—Batista, Metaxas and his colleagues, as well as South Korea’s infamous Park Chung-hee, were strongmen who happened to serve eventually as national leaders and political figures.
One final passage from the oft-cited and linked to Liberal Currents essay concerning autogolpes is necessary for our appraisal of South Korea and Chung-hee:
“South Korea of the 1960s and 70s, however, is perhaps the best example of this aforementioned dichotomy. While North Korea was—at this point—already a decade-plus into US sanctions, South Korea was not being sanctioned at all—nor has it ever been. While the Kim family of North Korea is rightly derided for their autocratic manners, it should certainly be clarified that South Korea was also led by just two individuals from 1948 to 1979—and suffered through further authoritarian regimes until 1988. The difference between North and South Korea is simply as cut and dry as which interests they each align with; Soviet and Chinese aligned? Sanctions. Western aligned? Friendship, along with various degrees of intelligence, financial, and military support.
Not only did the US and its allies do nothing when South Korea’s first modern President, Syngman Rhee, led the nation as an authoritarian for over a decade, but after students finally ousted him during the April 19th Revolution of 1961, they watched and happily cooperated with his successor, the high ranking military officer Park Chung-hee, as he first ruled as part of a junta, before succeeding to the rank of President through election, only to choose to implement martial rule in 1972, of which would be sustained across the final seven years of his life and rule. His era is particularly significant and interesting to me, for how he hit the political leadership triple crown of sorts; he came to power through a military coup, remained by being voted in by the people, and then, deciding through an autogolpe, that he could just rule for however long he liked regardless of election results or the will of the people. His assassination in 1979 was not the end of South Korea’s torment, but it was a warning that those present conditions could not persist too much longer.”
Chung-hee, a ruthless and brutal man who, in the minds of some South Koreans, willed modernity upon that nation and its people through the “Miracle on the Han River,” grew the modern South Korean state in many ways at the very expense of the people, their individuality, self-expression, and, in many ways, humanity. While the economic state of the polity certainly entered modernity with the founding and development of such multinational conglomerates as LG, Samsung, and Hyundai, amongst others, civil and political liberties would be curtailed across each section of his nearly twenty-year reign.
All five examples of part two of this essay series looked to perpetuate - with various innovations in the modern sense of the word - traditional societies mixed with hyper-capitalist and statist policies. Each example nation witnessed the expansion of certain “rights” under the post-autogolpic era, allegedly, as other rights or freedoms certainly became curtailed in turn. Each witnessed a very national form of fascism - the only form fascism ever takes, wherever it is found - and each usurping regime and leader would leave a legacy of repudiation and disgust in the history books and minds of their successors.
Four of the five examples featured American support - either passively or actively, either before, during, or after - but as Sweden, France, Austria, and so many unmentioned others, autogolpes do not begin or end with the United States, its apathy, or its support. Peru of the 1990s - an example we touched upon briefly in part one - is an example that illustrates this point, while modern Russia and Brazil must also be appraised through this lens before we make our way back to the US one final time in the third and final part of this series.