Kaba Ma Kyei
"Kaba Ma Kyei" is the Burmese national anthem and has been the national anthem of Myanmar since 1947. It consists of two parts, the first is a traditional Burmese style section, before transitioning into the second half, a Western-style orchestra; the melody and lyrics were written by Saya Tin and adopted as the Burmese national anthem in 1947. According to the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar, the complete version of "Kaba Ma Kyei" is specified as consisting of both the traditional Burmese style and Western-style sections; the complete version is used on domestic occasions. A long-standing tradition is that those who sing Kaba Ma Kyei bow at the end, as a show of respect for the nation and its state anthem. Burma/Myanmar: Kaba Ma Kyei - Audio of the national anthem of Burma/Myanmar, with information and lyrics Ga Ba Majay Ba Ma Pyay Sheet music
Pinya Kingdom
The Pinya Kingdom was the kingdom that ruled Central Myanmar from 1313 to 1365. It was the successor state of Myinsaing, the polity that controlled much of Upper Burma between 1297 and 1313. Founded as the de jure successor state of the Pagan Empire by Thihathu, Pinya faced internal divisions from the start; the northern province of Sagaing led by Thihathu's eldest son Saw Yun fought for autonomy in 1315−17, formally seceded in 1325 after Thihathu's death. The rump Pinya Kingdom was left embroiled in an intense rivalry between Thihathu's other sons Uzana I and Kyawswa I until 1344. Pinya had little control over its vassals. Central authority returned during Kyawswa I's reign but broke down right after his death. In the 1350s, Kyawswa II repaired Pinya's long-strained relationship with Sagaing, in order to face off against the northern Shan state of Maw. Two Maw raids in 1358–59 and 1362–63 devastated Pinya's countryside during which Toungoo broke away. Narathu switched sides and aided the Maw attack on Sagaing in 1363–64.
But after the Maw troops sacked both Sagaing and Pinya in succession in 1364, Thihathu's great grandson Thado Minbya of Sagaing seized both devastated capitals in 1364, founded the Ava Kingdom in 1365. Pinya was a microcosm of the small kingdoms period of Burmese history. Weakened by internal divisions, Pinya despite controlling two of the three main granaries never reached its potential. Although its successor Ava would prove more successful in reassembling major parts of the erstwhile empire, it too would be hampered by fierce regional rivalries, Myanmar would remain divided into the mid-16th century. Pinya was the successor state of Myinsaing, the polity that succeeded the Pagan Empire in Upper Burma. After the Mongol invasions, the Mongols seized northern Burma to Tagaung, the rest of the empire broke up into several petty states. Pagan was left holding only a small region around the capital. In 1297, the three former Pagan commanders— Athinkhaya and Thihathu—overthrew King Kyawswa of Pagan, who had become a Mongol vassal nine months earlier.
The brothers placed a puppet king, ruled from their base in Kyaukse. The Mongols could not break through, they withdrew altogether from northern Burma in 1303. The brothers went on to reassemble the core regions of the fallen empire. In the north, they regained up to Tagaung but no further. Various Shan states, nominal Mongol vassals, now dominated the entire northwestern-to-southeastern arc surrounding the Irrawaddy valley. In the south, the brothers established suzerainty down to Prome, Toungoo, they did not try to Arakan in the west. The regency of the triumvirate was short-lived. Thihathu, the youngest and most ambitious brother, was never satisfied with a mere regent status, declared himself king in 1309; the proclamation ended the charade of Saw Hnit's nominal status as king. The old power structure at Pagan led by the dowager queen Pwa Saw was not happy but there was little she or Saw Hnit could do, it is not clear. At any rate, the elder brothers died in 1310 and 1312/13, Thihathu became the undisputed ruler.
To commemorate his reign, Thihathu founded a new capital at Pinya in the Kyaukse valley but closer to the Irrawaddy. He decided to keep his capital in the premier granary instead of returning to Pagan because Pinya was closer to the Mu valley granary in the north. On 7 February 1313, Thihathu, of non-royal birth, was crowned king as the rightful heir of the Pagan kings by Queen Pwa Saw herself. For the first time since the 1280s, the entire Irrawaddy valley between Prome in the south and Tagaung in the north was under a single ruler. However, Pinya's authority over the frontier regions such as Prome and Toungoo was nominal; the Myinsaing-Pinya rulers had inherited the longstanding problem that had existed since the late Pagan period: between one and two-thirds of Upper Burma's cultivated land had been donated to religion, the crown had lost resources needed to retain the loyalty of courtiers and military servicemen. Furthermore, "markedly drier weather during the late 13th and much of the 14th centuries" in Upper Burma forced large migrations from the established granaries "to better watered districts farther south".
To compound the problem, Pinya was hit with a dynastic feud from the start. So eager was Thihathu to be seen as a legitimate king of Pagan, he made his adopted stepson Uzana, biological son of King Kyawswa of Pagan and Queen Mi Saw U, his heir-apparent, he appointed Kyawswa I, his biological son by Mi Saw U, governor of Pinle, the second most coveted position. On the other hand, the king did not appoint Saw Yun, his eldest biological son by a commoner queen, Yadanabon, or Tarabya his stepson by Yadanabon, to any meaningful positions, he appointed Saw Yun governor of Sagaing in 1314 only after the eldest son's repeated protestations. Saw Yun remained unhappy for he still did not command an army as did Uzana and Kyawswa; the simmering resentment led to Saw Yun's insurrection. The young prince upgraded Sagaing's timber walls to brick without his father's permission in 1315–16. Thihathu seemed conflicted about punishing his teenage son; the king, who had never liked to share power — with his own brothers — never sent a full force to reclaim Sagaing.
He did order two small expeditions, the first led by Crown Prince Uzana and the second led by Prince Kyawswa. But by the end of 1316–17 dry season, both expeditions had faile
Military history of Myanmar
The military history of Myanmar spans over a millennium, is one of the main factors that have shaped the history of the country, to a lesser degree the histories of the country's neighbours. At various times in history, successive Burmese kingdoms were involved in warfare against their neighbouring states in the surrounding regions of modern Burmese borders—from Bengal and Assam in the west, to Yunnan in the northeast, to Laos and Siam in the east and southeast; the Royal Burmese Army was a major Southeast Asian armed force between the 11th and 13th centuries and between 16th and 19th centuries. It was the premier military force in the 16th century when Toungoo kings built the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia; the centuries-long warfare between Burma and Siam shaped not only the history of both countries but that of mainland Southeast Asia. In the 18th and early 19th centuries militaristic Konbaung kings had built the largest empire in mainland Southeast Asia until they ran into the British in present-day northeast India.
Prior to the three Anglo-Burmese wars, previous existential threats to the country had come from China in the form of Mongol invasions and Manchu invasions. The country was a major battle front in the Southeast Asian theatre of World War II. Since independence in 1948, the country's various political and ethnic factions have been locked in one of the longest civil wars today, with myriad insurgencies receiving implicit and explicit help from various external states; the military history in the early era is sketchy. The Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu, the earliest inhabitants of the Irrawaddy valley in recorded history, founded several city states that thrived between the 1st century BCE and the early 9th century CE. Eighth-century Chinese records identify 18 Pyu states throughout the Irrawadddy valley, describe the Pyu as a humane and peaceful people to whom war was unknown and who wore silk cotton instead of silk so that they would not have to kill silk worms. To be sure, this peaceful description by the Chinese was a snapshot of the Pyu realm, may not represent the life in the city-states in general.
The earliest extant record of warfare in the Pyu realm is the early 9th century when the Pyu states came under constant attacks by the armies of the Kingdom of Nanzhao. Nanzhao had just become a major military power in the region by defeating the Tibetan Empire in 801; the Nanzhao warriors pressed down southward into the present-day Shan Hills and into the Irrawaddy valley. Ancient city-states one by one surrendered or were overrun by the "powerful mounted archers from the north". In 832, Nanzhao destroyed the city-state of Halin, close to old Tagaung, returning again in 835 to carry off many captives; the Nanzhao cavalry is said to have swept down all the way to the Bay of Bengal despite stiff resistance. Following the Nanzhao raids, another Tibeto-Burman-speaking people called the Mranma, who had come down with the Nanzhao raids, began to settle the central Irrawaddy valley, near the confluence of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin rivers, en masse; the Burmans founded a small fortified city of Pagan c.
849 to help the Nanzhao pacify the surrounding country side. The early Pagan army consisted of conscripts raised just prior to or during the times of war; the main weaponry of the infantry consisted of swords and bow and arrows. The infantry units were supported by elephantry corps; the Pagan army would be known to the world for their war elephants as reported by Marco Polo. By King Anawrahta's accession in 1044, the small principality had grown to include its immediate surrounding area—to about 200 miles north to south and 80 miles from east to west. Over the next 30 years, Anawrahta went on to unify for the first time the regions that would constitute the modern-day Burma. Anawrahta began his campaigns in the nearer Shan Hills, extended conquests to Lower Burma down to the Tenasserim coast to Phuket and North Arakan. Anawrahta's conquest of Tenasserim checked the Khmer Empire's encroachment in the Tenasserim coast, secured control of the peninsula ports, which were transit points between the Indian Ocean and China.
After a flurry of military campaigns by Anawrahta, Pagan entered a gilded age that would last for the next two centuries. Aside from a few occasional rebellions, the kingdom was peaceful during the period; the most serious was the 1082 -- 1084 rebellion by Pegu. In the 1110s, Pagan sent two separate expeditions to Arakan to place its claimant Letya Min Nan on the Arakanese throne; the first expedition failed but the second in 1118 succeeded. Sinhalese Mahavamsa Chronicles mention a dispute over trade in elephants between Burma and Sri Lanka that prompted the Ceylonese forces to raid Lower Burma in 1180; the authority of Pagan continued peaking in the reign of King Narapatisithu. The king formally founded the Royal Palace Guards in 1174, the first extant record of a standing army. Pagan's influence reached further south into the upper Malay peninsula, at least to the Salween river in the east, below the current China border in the farther north, to the west, northern Arakan and the Chin Hills. Up to the first half of the 13th century, much of mainland Southeast Asia was under some degree of control of either the Pagan Empire or the Khmer Empire.
The Pagan military power was intertwined with the kingdom's economic prowess. The kingdom went into decline in the 13th century as the continuous growth of tax-free religious wealth—by the 1280s, two-thirds of Upper Burma's cultivable land had been alienated to the
Pagan Kingdom
The Kingdom of Pagan was the first kingdom to unify the regions that would constitute modern-day Burma. Pagan's 250-year rule over the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery laid the foundation for the ascent of Burmese language and culture, the spread of Burman ethnicity in Upper Burma, the growth of Theravada Buddhism in Burma and in mainland Southeast Asia; the kingdom grew out of a small 9th-century settlement at Pagan by the Mranma, who had entered the Irrawaddy valley from the Kingdom of Nanzhao. Over the next two hundred years, the small principality grew to absorb its surrounding regions until the 1050s and 1060s when King Anawrahta founded the Pagan Empire, for the first time unifying under one polity the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery. By the late 12th century Anawrahta's successors had extended their influence farther to the south into the upper Malay peninsula, to the east at least to the Salween river, in the farther north to below the current China border, to the west, in northern Arakan and the Chin Hills.
In the 12th and 13th centuries, alongside the Khmer Empire, was one of two main empires in mainland Southeast Asia. The Burmese language and culture became dominant in the upper Irrawaddy valley, eclipsing the Pyu and Pali norms by the late 12th century. Theravada Buddhism began to spread to the village level although Tantric, Mahayana and animist practices remained entrenched at all social strata. Pagan's rulers built over 10,000 Buddhist temples in the Pagan capital zone of which over 2000 remain; the wealthy donated tax-free land to religious authorities. The kingdom went into decline in the mid-13th century as the continuous growth of tax-free religious wealth by the 1280s had affected the crown's ability to retain the loyalty of courtiers and military servicemen; this ushered in a vicious circle of internal disorders and external challenges by the Arakanese, Mons and Shans. Repeated Mongol invasions toppled the four-century-old kingdom in 1287; the collapse was followed by 250 years of political fragmentation that lasted well into the 16th century.
The origins of the Pagan kingdom have been reconstructed using archaeological evidence as well as the Burmese chronicle tradition. Considerable differences exist between the views of modern scholarship and various chronicle narratives. Burmese chronicles do not agree on the origins of the Pagan kingdom. Chronicles down to the 18th century trace its origins to 167 CE, when Pyusawhti, a descendant of a solar spirit and a dragon princess, founded the dynasty at Pagan, but the 19th-century Glass Palace Chronicle connects the dynasty's origins to the clan of the Buddha and the first Buddhist king Maha Sammata. The Glass Palace Chronicle traces the origins of the Pagan kingdom to India during the 9th century BCE, more than three centuries before the Buddha was born. Prince Abhiraja of Kosala of the Sakya clan – the clan of the Buddha – left his homeland with followers in 850 BCE after military defeat by the neighbouring kingdom of Panchala, they founded a kingdom. The Chronicle does not claim. Abhiraja had two sons.
The elder son Kanyaza Gyi ventured south, in 825 BCE founded his own kingdom in what is today Arakan. The younger son Kanyaza Nge succeeded his father, was followed by a dynasty of 31 kings, another dynasty of 17 kings; some three and a half centuries in 483 BCE, scions of Tagaung founded yet another kingdom much farther down the Irrawaddy at Sri Ksetra, near modern Pyay. Sri Ksetra lasted nearly six centuries, was succeeded in turn by the kingdom of Pagan; the Glass Palace Chronicle goes on to relate that around 107 CE, nephew of the last king of Sri Ksetra, founded the city of Pagan. The site was visited by the Buddha himself during his lifetime, it was where he pronounced that a great kingdom would arise at this location 651 years after his death. Thamoddarit was followed by a caretaker, Pyusawhti in 167 CE; the chronicle narratives merge, agree that a dynasty of kings followed Pyusawhti. King Pyinbya fortified the city in 849 CE. Modern scholarship holds that the Pagan dynasty was founded by the Mranma of the Nanzhao Kingdom in the mid-to-late 9th century CE.
Indeed, European scholars of the British colonial period were more skeptical, dismissing outright the chronicle tradition of early Burmese history as "copies of Indian legends taken from Sanskrit or Pali originals", the Abhiraja story as a vain attempt by Burmese chroniclers to link their kings to the Buddha. They doubted the antiquity of the chronicle tradition, dismissed the possibility that any sort of civilisation in Burma could be much older than 500 CE; the Abhiraja myth notwithstanding, more recent research does indicate that many of the places mentioned in the royal records have indeed been inhabited continuously for at least 3500 years. The earliest evidence of civilisation thus far dates to 11,000 BCE. Archaeological evidence shows that as early as the 2nd century BCE the Pyu had built water-management systems al
Saharat Thai Doem
Saharat Thai Doem was an administrative division of Thailand. It encompassed the parts of Shan State of British Burma annexed by the Thai government after the Japanese invasion of Burma. By means of this annexation Axis-aligned Thailand expanded northwards to the 22nd parallel north and gained a border with China. Chiang Tung was the administrative headquarters of the province. Thailand was still allied with Japan when the war ended. In 1946 Thailand agreed to hand back the territories occupied during Japanese presence in the country as the price for admission to the United Nations all wartime claims against Siam were dropped and the country received a substantial package of US aid; the Thai-occupied region in Eastern Shan state returned to its pre-war status and became again part of Burma. The territory of the Northern Thai province was mountainous, except for a few small areas, such as the intermontane basin of Kengtung; the Salween River marked the western border of the new province. The northernmost point was the frontier town of Pangsang.
There were few roads connecting the districts and most of the population lived in small mountain villages. The area was inhabited by Tai Yai people, but there were sizable communities of Lahu, Akha and Wa people, as well as those belonging to the Karen ethnic group, including the Red Karen and the Kayan people. Thai Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram signed a secret agreement with the Japanese Empire on 14 December 1941 and committed the Thai armed forces to participate in the planned Malayan Campaign and Burma Campaign. An alliance between Thailand and Japan was signed on 21 December 1941. On 25 January 1942, the Thai government, believing the Allies beaten, declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom; as a reward for entering into a military alliance with them, the Japanese agreed to return to Thailand Kedah, Perlis and Terengganu, the four Malayan provinces ceded to the British in 1909, as well as parts of Shan State in British Burma that were deemed "lost territories" of Thailand.
In accordance with the Thai military alliance with Japan, signed on 21 December 1941, the Japanese agreed that the area of eastern Shan State east of the Salween was to be under Thai administration. In 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army accompanied by the Thai Phayap Army invaded the Federated Shan States from Thailand; the defense of the Shan States had been left to the Nationalist Chinese forces, upon the request of the British. The 93rd Division of the Chinese Army defended Kengtung, while the 249th and 55th Divisions guarded from the Kengtung to Karenni States along the Thai border; the Japanese forces with superior air power went on to dislodge the Nationalist Chinese forces by November 1942. The IJA allowed the Phayap Army to occupy all of Kengtung State and the four trans-Salween districts of Möng Tang, Möng Hang, Möng Kyawt and Möng Hta, of Mongpan State. Following the existing agreement between Thai Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram and the Japanese Empire, on 18 August 1943, the Japanese government agreed to the Thai annexation of Kengtung and part of Mongpan State The Thai government wanted the two districts of Möngmaü and Mehsakun of Mawkmai of the southern Shan states as well as part of Kantarawadi in the Karenni states, all east of the Salween River, but the Japanese assigned them to their client State of Burma in September 1943.
Panglong, a Chinese Muslim town in British Burma, was destroyed by the Japanese invaders in the Japanese invasion of Burma. The Hui Muslim Ma Guanggui became the leader of the Hui Panglong self defense guard created by Su, sent by the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China to fight against the Japanese invasion of Panglong in 1942; the Japanese destroyed Panglong, burning it and driving out the over 200 Hui households out as refugees. Yunnan and Kokang received Hui refugees from Panglong driven out by the Japanese. One of Ma Guanggui's nephews was Ma Yeye, a son of Ma Guanghua and he narrated the history of Panglang included the Japanese attack. An account of the Japanese attack on the Hui in Panglong was written and published in 1998 by a Hui from Panglong called "Panglong Booklet"; the Japanese attack in Burma caused the Hui Mu family to seek refuge in Panglong but they were driven out again to Yunnan from Panglong when the Japanese attacked Panglong. The Thai army would remain there until the end of the war although the Thai government began to alter its position when the tide of war began to favor the allies.
After the Phibun government fell in August 1944, the new government of Khuang Aphaiwong communicated to the British government it renounced all claims to the Shan States and northern Malaya, that it would return the territories to Britain. The Churchill government did not accept the Thai overture, was prepared to retaliate; the Thai army evacuated the two Shan States only in August 1945. A rudimentary administration was set up early in the invasion with Kengtung as the centre. Made up of small rural communities, during the occupation the Thai territory in Shan State remained a forgotten place. Wounded or ill Thai soldiers who were sent to Bangkok were shocked that there was no knowledge or concern about the hardships of the northern Thai Army in the newly-annexed territory. Dec 1942 - 1945 Phin Choonhavan Saharat Thai Doem was divided into twelve districts, to which a further district was added. Mueang Phan was a special district; the Thai flag was hoisted in Kengtung on 5 June 1942. Kengtung would become the capital city of the new Th
Japanese occupation of Burma
The Japanese occupation of Burma was the period between 1942 and 1945 during World War II, when Burma was occupied by the Empire of Japan. The Japanese had assisted formation of the Burma Independence Army, trained the Thirty Comrades, who were the founders of the modern Armed Forces; the Burmese hoped to gain support of the Japanese in expelling the British, so that Burma could become independent. In 1942 Japan invaded Burma and nominally declared the colony independent as the State of Burma on 1 August 1943. A puppet government led by Ba Maw was installed. However, many Burmese began to believe the Japanese had no intention of giving them real independence. Aung San, father of future opposition leader and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, other nationalist leaders formed the Anti-Fascist Organisation in August 1944, which asked the United Kingdom to form a coalition with the other Allies against the Japanese. By April 1945, the Allies had driven out the Japanese. Subsequently, negotiations began between the British for independence.
Under Japanese occupation, 170,000 to 250,000 civilians died. Some Burmese nationalists saw the outbreak of World War II as an opportunity to extort concessions from the British in exchange for support in the war effort. Other Burmese, such as the Thakin movement, opposed Burma's participation in the war under any circumstances. Aung San with other Thakins founded the Communist Party of Burma in August 1939. Aung San co-founded the People's Revolutionary Party, renamed the Socialist Party after World War II, he was instrumental in founding the Freedom Bloc by forging an alliance of Dobama Asiayone, ABSU, politically active monks and Ba Maw's Poor Man's Party. After Dobama Asiayone called for a national uprising, an arrest warrant was issued for many of the organisation's leaders including Aung San, who escaped to China. Aung San's intention was to make contact with the Chinese Communists but he was detected by the Japanese authorities who offered him support by forming a secret intelligence unit called the Minami Kikan, headed by Colonel Suzuki with the objective of closing the Burma Road and supporting a national uprising.
Aung San returned to Burma to enlist twenty-nine young men who went to Japan with him to receive military training on Hainan and they came to be known as the "Thirty Comrades". When the Japanese occupied Bangkok in December 1941, Aung San announced the formation of the Burma Independence Army in anticipation of the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942. For Japan's military leadership, the conquest of Burma was a vital strategic objective upon the opening of hostilities with Britain and the United States. Occupation of Burma would interrupt a critical supply link to China; the Japanese knew that rubber was one of the few militarily vital resources that the United States was not self-sufficient in. It was thought critical that the Allies be denied access to Southeast Asian rubber supplies if they were to accept peace terms favourable to Japan; the BIA formed a provisional government in some areas of the country in the spring of 1942, but there were differences within the Japanese leadership over the future of Burma.
While Colonel Suzuki encouraged the Thirty Comrades to form a provisional government, the Japanese military leadership had never formally accepted such a plan. The Japanese Army turned to Ba Maw to form a government. During the war in 1942, the BIA had grown in an uncontrolled manner, in many districts officials and criminals appointed themselves to the BIA, it was still headed by Aung San. While the BIA had been an irregular force, the BDA was recruited by selection and trained as a conventional army by Japanese instructors. Ba Maw was afterwards declared head of state, his cabinet included both Aung San as War Minister and the Communist leader Thakin Than Tun as Minister of Land and Agriculture as well as the Socialist leaders Thakins Nu and Mya; when the Japanese declared Burma, in theory, independent in 1943, the Burma Defence Army was renamed the Burma National Army. It soon became apparent that Japanese promises of independence were a sham and that Ba Maw was deceived; as the war turned against the Japanese, they declared Burma a sovereign state on 1 August 1943, but this was just another façade.
Disillusioned, Aung San began negotiations with Communist leaders Thakin Than Tun and Thakin Soe, Socialist leaders Ba Swe and Kyaw Nyein which led to the formation of the Anti-Fascist Organisation in August 1944 at a secret meeting of the CPB, the PRP and the BNA in Pegu. The AFO was renamed the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League, roundly opposed the Japanese fascism, proposing a fairer and more equal society. Thakins Than Tun and Soe, while in Insein prison in July 1941, had co-authored the Insein Manifesto which, against the prevailing opinion in the Dobama movement, identified world fascism as the main enemy in the coming war and called for temporary co-operation with the British in a broad allied coalition which should include the Soviet Union. Soe had gone underground to organise resistance against the Japanese occupation, Than Tun was able to pass on Japanese intelligence to Soe, while other Communist leaders Thakins Thein Pe and Tin Shwe made contact with the exiled colonial government in Simla, India.
Japanese soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, the 215th Regiment and the OC Moulmein Kempeitai of the Imperial Japanese Army entered the village of Kalagong on 7 July 1945 and rounded up all the inhabitants for questioning. These soldiers were ordered by Major General Seiei Yamamoto, chief of staff of the 33rd Army, to massacre an estimated 600 Burmese villagers. There were infor
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is an authoritarian form of government, characterized by a single leader or group of leaders with either no party or a weak party, little mass mobilization, limited political pluralism. According to other definitions, democracies are regimes in which "those who govern are selected through contested elections". With the advent of the 19th and 20th centuries and constitutional democracies emerged as the world's two major forms of government eliminating monarchies, one of the traditional widespread forms of government of the time. In a dictatorial regime, the leader of the country is identified with the title of dictator, although their formal title may more resemble something similar to "leader". A common aspect that characterized dictators is taking advantage of their strong personality by suppressing freedom of thought and speech of the masses, in order to maintain complete political and social supremacy and stability. Dictatorships and totalitarian societies employ political propaganda to decrease the influence of proponents of alternative governing systems.
The word "dictator" comes from the classical Latin language word dictātor, agent noun from dictare In Latin use, a dictator was a judge in the Roman republic temporarily invested with absolute power. Right after the end of World War II, with a more relaxed political and social climate, several studies regarding the classification of various forms of government have been conducted. Among these, has been intensely discussed by historians and political scientists the conceptualization and definition of the dictatorship form of government, it has been concluded that dictatorship is a form of government in which the absolute power is concentrated in the hands of a leader, a "small clique", or a "government organization", it aims the abolition of political pluralism and civilian mobilization. On the other hand, compared to the concept of dictatorship, is defined as a form of government where the supremacy belongs to the population and rulers are elected through contested elections. A new form of government that, in the 20th century, marked the beginning of a new political era and is linked to the concept of dictatorship, is known as totalitarianism.
This form of government is characterized by the presence of a single political party and more by a powerful leader who imposes his personal and political prominence. The two fundamental aspects that contribute to the maintenance of the power are: a steadfast collaboration between the government and the police force, a developed ideology. Here, the government has "total control of mass communications and social and economic organizations". According to Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is a new and extreme form of dictatorship composed of "atomized, isolated individuals". In addition, she affirmed that ideology plays a leading role in defining how the entire society should be organized. According to the political scientist Juan Linz, the distinction between an authoritarian regime and a totalitarian one is that while an authoritarian regime seeks to suffocate politics and political mobilization, totalitarianism seeks to control politics and political mobilization. However, one of the most recent classification of dictatorships, formulated, do not identify Totalitarianism as a form of dictatorship.
In Barbara Geddes's study, she focused in how elite-leader and elite-mass relations influence authoritarian politics. Geddes typology identifies the key institutions; the study is based and directly related to factors like: the simplicity of the categorizations, cross-national applicability, the emphasis on elites and leaders, the incorporation of institutions as central to shaping politics. According to Barbara Geddes, a dictatorial government may be classified in five typologies: Military Dictatorships, Single-party Dictatorships, Personalist Dictatorships, Hybrid Dictatorships. Military dictatorships are regimes in which a group of officers holds power, determines who will lead the country, exercises influence over policy. High-level elites and a leader are the members of the military dictatorship. Military dictatorships are characterized by rule by a professionalized military as an institution. In military regimes, elites are referred to as junta members. Single-party dictatorships are regimes.
In single-party dictatorships, a single party has control over policy. Other parties may exist, compete in elections, hold legislative seats, yet true political power lies with the dominant party. In single-party dictatorships, party elites are members of the ruling body of the party, sometimes called the central committee, politburo, or secretariat; these groups of individuals controls the selection of party officials and "organizes the distribution of benefits to supporters and mobilizes citizens to vote and show support for party leaders". Personalist dictatorships are regimes. Personalist dictatorships differ from other forms of dictatorships in their access to key political positions, other fruits of office, depend much more on the discretion of the personalist dictator. Personalist dictators may be leaders of a political party. Yet, neither the military nor the party exercises power
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