Who were/are the Greatest Political Leaders

[kehenry1]

Peter because he was able to wrangle the boyers and push Russia towards its first modernization, created a real army and navy, looked towards real strategic survival by going south towards the Black Sea, all while fending off numerous assassination attempts, the orthodox church (which sometimes supported him and sometimes didn't) and various other achievements.

He didn't always succeed, but I believe he was extremely far thinking and moved Russia towards its future empire under both the monarchs and the bolsheviks.

Catherine for some obvious and not so obvious reasons. I mean, you have to give it to the lady, she was a nobody outsider in the court and wrangled it into the crown of an empress. She kept the men jumping to her tune, made the army grand again, kept the empire together and basically whipped the boyers and the church into obedience. Oh...she made Russia rich. took the fight to the Ottoman. Gained the Crimean peninsula and finalized Peter's drive to get access to the Black Sea.

then there is the whole arts and culture renaissance and the somewhat on again of again religious protections. Seriously, you cannot have a list of "greats" without Catherine the Great.

Elizabeth I. 45 years on the throne, fending off all sorts of power grabs and intrigues. kept her head. navigated the perils up to and directly after the ascendancy to the thrown. Various assassination attempts. Defeated the Spanish Armada. Kept a post Henry VIII England together. Over saw the expansion of the British Empire, exploration to the United States and colonization. Kept the French at bay. Shakespeare. Marlowe.

None of these were perfect, but they were very good when it was needed.

[davidbfpo]

A few quick thoughts, not in priority and my list would include:

Winston Churchill (for WW2 leadership)
David Lloyd George (for WW1 leadership)
Elizabeth the First (defeating the Spanish Armarda)
Nelson Mandela (helping those first years of a new South Africa)
Margaret Thatcher (waking up the UK)
Helmut Schmidt (West German PM in the Cold War)
FDR (leading a reluctant USA into WW2)
King Juan Carlos (helping Spain emerge as a democracy)
Vaclev Havel (same for Czechoslovakia)
Pope John Paul (the Pole who reminded us of mankind's better qualities)
Jospeh Stalin (reluctantly included ruthless b)

davidbfpo

[tequila]

Chinese history quibble: Mao didn't learn anything from Sun Yatsen, IMO. SYT is vastly overrated. He had very little role in the 1911 Revolution that overthrew the Qing and if anything the overly militarized government he established led directly to the weakness and centralization of the Chiang Kai-shek regime.

Mao also gets too much attention as a military leader. Most of his best tactical advice on guerrilla warfare was cribbed from Zhu De, Su Yu, He Long, Zhang Guotao, and others who actually led the operational detachments of the Red Army in its revolutionary days.

If you're calculating greatest political leaders, I'd nominate Deng Xiaoping instead of Mao. Deng's military cred is as good as any, having led the final offensive that finished off the Nationalists. Unlike Mao, China actually benefited from his domestic policies as opposed to sinking into near-anarchy and mass starvation. Deng also avoided pointless, expensive foreign conflicts.

[John T. Fishel]

you give, David, I think you have to include his partner (and sometime adversary) F. W. de Klerk.

In a similar vein, harking back to steve Metz' comment on Duarte: I would not propose him alone for the same reasons as gave you qualms, but along with Freddie Cristiani there is real political leadership.

Cheers

JohnT

[Eden]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned David Palmer

[SteveMetz]

you give, David, I think you have to include his partner (and sometime adversary) F. W. de Klerk.

In a similar vein, harking back to steve Metz' comment on Duarte: I would not propose him alone for the same reasons as gave you qualms, but along with Freddie Cristiani there is real political leadership.

Cheers

JohnT

Agree. Mandela was one of the first ones I thought of but decided that while he is a great political leader, he can't really be considered a great war time one. He was on Robbin Island during most of the war.

[Umar Al-Mokhtār]

Have to go with Nguyễn Ái Quốc over Mao since anything positive Mao did for China was offset by the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution."

Gustavus Adolphus

Napoleon (for developing the Code Napoléon)

Niccolò Machiavelli (one of the few who's name is now a pejorative term)

Simón Bolívar

[Hacksaw]

Eden,
David Palmer died before he could truly establish himself as a world statesman. His work in times of terrorist crises was impressive - but an incomplete resume

[Steve Blair]

Have to go with Nguyễn Ái Quốc over Mao since anything positive Mao did for China was offset by the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution."

Gustavus Adolphus

Napoleon (for developing the Code Napoléon)

Niccolò Machiavelli (one of the few who's name is now a pejorative term)

Simón Bolívar

I'm not so sure that Ho would have avoided the same pitfalls. He did launch some purges in the later 1950s, and it's hard to say what he would have done in the South had he lived to see 1975-76.