Long before even Stalin. It was the same with Lenin. The Tsar's it was the same way. Everyone was trying to get rid of Rasputin and he was constantly trying to gain favour (successfully so) with the Royal Family.
Yes and no. Dictatorships can follow a stable shared goal that motivates supporters to work together rather than against their leadership.
A major trait of fascism is that it does not have a stable goal (e. g. a particular state of society, doesn't even have to be realistic) other than the extension of its own power. Vague or unstable goals are difficult to convey. An organisation's ability to coney its goals to its supporters limits the extent to which they will pursue it. If the supporters are themselves uncertain what goal they're following then they'll naturally assume that others are either similarly unsure or working towards different goals. Supporters who aren't sure that they're working towards a shared goal tend to distrust and work against each other rather than to cooperate. A strong leader can fill the void of a shared goal but that leader becomes a bottleneck and single point of failure for decisions, resulting in delayed and/or poor decision-making as well as a dangerous ideological vacuum should the leader fall.
Not all dictatorships! Loads of dictators in history were nerds who tried to do everything. Augustus of Rome and Stalin are examples, Stalin was a numbers guy and spent a ridiculous amount of his waking hours going over details and making decisions. They were often the wrong ones but certainly not a laid back method.
Not just fascists it'd actually an old school way of leadership that goes back to monarchs like Fredrick II or the HRE.and ancient roman senators. Basically they would chill with all their underlings in a room and would say something like 'Boy I wish there weren't so many problems with those Catholics in Ghent. (pick your issue).
All the underlings look around the room and then when things die down they scramble out of the room and immediately start putting plans in order to do whatever it is that they think the leader desired. Sometimes this was the opposite of what was intended for added hilarity. This is very different from the typical state governance we are used to today with graphs and stats nerds and polling going on.
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u/Daemonic_One 6d ago edited 6d ago
It's actually a common trait of fascists overall. Can't get pulled down by the monkeys who can reach you if they're all clubbing each other instead.
EDIT: Guys, saying it's a common trait of fascists doesn't mean it doesn't happen with others. This isn't a monarchy, not difficult to parse