5 'Mr. Right Now' Leaders from History... not Mr. Right
Some people happen to be in the right place at the wrong time
From antiquity to modernity, there have been people who happen to be perfectly placed to lead and less than well equipped to do so. Some of these leaders got lots of support and are famous to this day. Others are… less so. Whatever path led to these leaders taking power, one thing seems to stay constant. The rest of us suffer for it.
Tacitus (Roman Emperor 275-276 AD)
There’s a reason you present a project early in class and not after the genius in the front row. All Tacitus is truly famous for is succeeding an emperor who makes everyone’s Top 5, Aurelian. Tacitus is not even the most famous Roman with his name. Before Aurelian, the Crisis of the 3rd Century had wrecked the Roman Empire. Emperors came and went at around the same rate I go through phone chargers. The army was out of control, the economy was in shambles, the Sassanids and Goths were having their way with the Empire, and it seemed like they were perpetually one really bad ruler away from collapse.
Tacitus was born just as this crisis was beginning to take shape. Born in 200, the emperor at the time was the perpetually furious Caracalla. As a kid, Tacitus would likely have heard and seen people being killed because Caracalla felt like it. As he got older he would have seen the Crisis of the 3rd Century truly develop as every emperor one upped the previous by paying the army more and more. The only one who tried to get a handle on it, Macrinus, didn’t survive long enough to make it back to Rome from the frontier. Tacitus’ start wasn’t the most glamorous. He likely made up being descended from the more famous historian who shared his name and was the annoying guy trying to tell everyone about it all the time.
Tacitus lived a pretty normal upper class life for the time. He was a senator and was not known for being particularly bold or interesting. All the accounts of his personal life are mind numbingly boring, the only tidbit is that he liked collecting pottery. Tacitus would definitely have been fine living out his days on an estate but destiny decided otherwise. Aurelain, the restorer of the Empire, had a glorious reign. He united a fractured Empire and made crucial reforms. Unfortunately, he had a bit of a reputation for being a hardo and some of his soldiers locked him in a tower and killed him out of frustration. What followed next is hilarious in hindsight, but was probably horrifying at the time.
Just like no one wanting to present after a great project, no one wanted to be emperor. For one, if anyone jumped at the opportunity everyone would assume that they were behind killing the first good ruler they had in about 100 years. The army refused to put one of their own as an emperor so they kicked it to the Senate. The Senate also refused and a standoff occurred. It took 8 months for the most powerful entity on the planet to decide to even have a leader. The Senate eventually just decided that Tactitus seemed like a safe choice since he was just an old man who could be a placeholder. Tacitus did not even live in Rome anymore. He was basically dragged to Rome and made emperor.
Despite probably not wanting the job, he did not do as terrible as he could have. He attempted to empower the Senate and won a battle against barbarians. Before he could really do anything at all he died. Some say it was illness and others say it was an assassination. Apparently he mumbled some weird old person things before dying. His brother, Florianus, would take over and would immediately get killed in a civil war. Tacitus himself was not the worst on this list but his situation just exemplifies ‘Mr. Right Now.’ The Roman Empire literally went nearly a year without a ruler before putting someone pretty worthless on the throne who died with a whimper.
Hong Xiuquan (Taiping Rebellion 1851-1864 AD)
This will undoubtedly be the most controversial person on this list. Hong Xiuquan was masterfully charismatic and led one of the largest movements in history. If you have heard of Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King (Tian Wang), it’s as the guy who thought he was the brother of Jesus Christ and started a war that killed tens of millions of people. That is all true but the reason he makes this list has more to do with why he was so successful initially. The Qing dynasty was painfully weak and Hong Xiuquan was perfectly placed to be ‘Mr. Right Now.’
The Qing dynasty rose from the ashes of the failed Ming dynasty. The Qing were originally Manchurians (note: not ethnic Chinese) who took over a failing empire despite their numerical inferiority. Unfortunately for the Qing, they managed to make their empire just as weak and got most of the population to absolutely hate them. They forced men to wear the Manchu hairstyle and implemented many policies that alienated and humiliated the Chinese. They then followed this up by losing both of the Opium Wars to Britain and were forced to cede important coastal territories to foreign powers.
By the middle of the 19th century, a good chunk of the population were very done with the Qing dynasty. China was getting poorer and opportunities were disappearing. A lot of people were looking for anyone to rise up against the system. In stepped Hong Huoxiu.
His initial story is quite inspiring before it gets… well a little darker. Huoxiu was of Hakka descent, a minority in China who has their own strong culture, and lived in a village outside Canton. His original life mission was to become a Confucian scholar and he dedicated his life to the pursuit. It was difficult, think of it like trying to get into Harvard Law or become a Navy SEAL. He failed in his pursuit but he soon came into contact with some of the Christian missionaries and their writings. After this and some locking himself away, he had a series of visions that formed quite a poetic synthesis of his local traditions and of Christianity. The vision is quite long to explain but two things happened. He changed his name to Hong Xiuquan (which was quite defiant) and he came away with the belief that he was the brother of Jesus Christ sent to Earth to expel the Qing and form a heavenly kingdom for the entire planet.
At this point most would have expected him to be dismissed a kook, but he was not. Over a long period of time and through several exiles into the mountains he eventually established a following. This following led to him conquering some land, which seems crazy, but it’s important to note things had gotten so lawless that pirates ran many of the rivers. Hong Xiuquan and his Taiping Heavenly Kingdom got on a roll at this point. They began to pick up droves of supporters (many were paid to be) and conquered several walled cities, including their new capital at Nanjing.
At this point things began to get a bit weird. Hong Xiuquan held some extreme beliefs, especially on morality relating to sex. He had men and women separated, families were not even allowed to see each other at times. In Nanjing, there were draconian punishments for those who strayed from the law derived from the new religious doctrine. Sex was mostly forbidden. I say mostly because Xiuquan had a good number of women for himself, and since he was delivering God’s will it meant it was okay for him to have concubines.
There were other leaders in the movement as well. There were different “Kings” (each given a direction e.g. North) who generally had some quality such as being able to have God speak directly through their voice. They also enjoyed great privileges and were held in a divine status. The unity between Hong Xiuquan and his subservient kings soon fractured. Internal politics led to a massive purge within the movement and soon after a further attack on the Qing government failed.
Ultimately, the Taiping rebellion ran out of supplies in Nanjing. Hong Xiuquan got desperate and ended up eating weeds and dew in the hopes that it would save him like the Biblical manna saved the Israelites. The rebellion failed but the damage wrought was astounding. Estimates range from 20 to 70 million deaths. Yes, million with an M. Its safe to say that Hong Xiuquan was not ‘Mr. Right’ for the moment. A lot of his support came from people who were so sick of the Qing dynasty that they would follow anyone. At the end of the day, everyone ended up in a much more dire situation after such a devastating civil war.
Konstantin Chernenko (General Secretary, USSR 1984-1985 AD)
Chernenko’s origin story made for great communist propaganda. He grew up poor in Siberia yet worked through the ranks all around the Soviet Union to one day become the General Secretary of the Communist Party. That’s the short version. A lot of things happened between him picking up smoking at 9 years old and his ascension to power.
He was a child when Lenin’s communist party defeated the White army and established the Soviet Union. The seminal event of the first half of his life would have been World War II, or the Great Patriotic War to Russians. He must have had some degree of political skill, or ability to kiss ass, to have survived the purges of Stalin. From then on, he would slowly rise through the party until he was a part of the Politburo and then the Central committee.
In the meantime, the Soviet Union went through a lot. The Cold War began and Khrushchev began the process of De-Stalinization. The Soviet Union was now perpetually geared for war, but had become a much less terrifying place to live than it just had been under Stalin’s totalitarian rule. Slowly, but surely the issues with a totally centralized economy began to unravel. Whether it was dumb ideas like trying to turn Siberia into a massive producer of wheat or infrastructure projects simply being dragged out, the problems would begin to amass heavily under Leonid Brezhnev.
Brezhnev often gets forgotten even though he was the General Secretary for quite some time. This is probably because he was a very forgettable leader. Under his rule, zastoi began to take hold in force. This translates to stagnation in Russian. Without the fear of Stalin or revolutionary fervor of the early days, there was little incentive for workers to put any effort forward at all. A lot of people soon figured out that they could clock in, clock out, drink vodka all day, and still get paid the same amount as the hardest worker at their job. Trains began to stop running on time and the economy began a death spiral.
This problem was not helped by the fact that at this point the Soviet Union had become a gerontocracy, aka rule by the elderly. Brezhnev was surrounded by his buddies who were the same age as him and they did not let any young blood into the Central Committee. This was fine when they were younger but once they were all elderly problems began to emerge. After Brezhnev, the capable but elderly Yuri Andropov became the general secretary but died after only two years. The Central Committee was down to the last of the old guard so they turned to our hero.
It would have been hard to have been proud of the decision to elevate Konstantin Chernenko. He was chosen because the hope was he could be a pushover and keep things running as they had been. That view was a bit optimistic. His health was already failing. He could barely give the eulogy for Andropov and was rarely able to make any appearances. Chernenko essentially governed from a hospital before very predictably dying after only a year in power. He was very much picked because they needed someone, really anyone, and he did so little as a leader that it is honestly noteworthy. He truly only had time to be ‘Mr. Right Now.’
Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor 1519-1556)
I lied when I said Hong Xiuquan would be the most controversial on the list. I should premise this by saying Charles V was not a complete failure nor was he incompetent. He is, however, the antithesis to meritocracy and was very much elevated to his position because he epitomized ‘Mr. Right Now.’
Charles was the culmination of hundreds of years of planning and strategic marriages. The Habsburg’s had schemed their way into inheriting massive amounts of land. They had also done quite a bit of incest to do so and the picture above clearly shows the result of that. Charles V would manage to inherit the Holy Roman Empire (well was elected technically), Spain and all its possessions in the New World, Austria, the Netherlands, all of Southern Italy, much of Germany, Burgundy, and Sardinia. He came to possess the most land of any ruler in Europe since Charlemagne. Charles did all of this just by being born, not through masterful rule.
Charles faced a number of issues. He did initially succeed in expanding his possessions in the New World. He had to deal with rebellions such as one in Ghent, but was able to put most of them down. He was constantly at war with powers such as France and the Ottoman Empire. His empire was under constant attack as the rest of Europe saw its expansion as an existential threat.
In true Habsburg tradition, he married his first cousin to make the family tree a straight line down. The true failure of Charles was soon to come; his inability to create a lasting empire. His demesne was massive, but wholly unsustainable without great leadership. Being a very average person (albeit with a jaw for the ages), he had to put his focus on the wars. He ran massive deficits and this would eventually lead to later bankruptcies by Spain and its subsequent decline into second tier status. Charles also failed to address the Protestant Reformation (for which I am personally thankful). Although he despised it, he never took serious action to quell it and Martin Luther’s rise further weakened the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburgs.
By the end, Charles V was suffering from health issues totally not related to the massive amounts of incest in his family tree and started to abdicate the various titles he had. He began to split up the holdings of the family and upon his death the massive empire his forefathers dreamt of was no more. He was a product of circumstance but was unable to rise to occasion. There are a plethora of books written about him and he was around for some of the most momentous changes in European history, yet he was not the reason for anything truly lasting today. He was picked only because he was at the right place from birth.
Santa Anna (President, Mexico on and off from 1833-1855)
Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón may have become president as many times as he has names. Colloquially known as Santa Anna, he is one of the all time great characters (or villains, in my view) of history. Who else has a legend about their severed leg being exhumed and smuggled throughout the USA?
From the very beginning, Santa Anna played both sides and came out on top. He was born to the criollo class in Mexico. These were the high ups who owned the haciendas and were of pure Spanish blood. He began by fighting against the initial Mexican Revolution for the Spanish, but changed sides when he saw which way the wind was blowing. For the next decade or so, he was a good general for the Mexican military and played politics in Veracruz.
Santa Anna helped lead a revolt against the despotic Iturbide, who he had originally been under the command of on both sides of the revolution. His revolt had mixed results initially, but eventually Mexico underwent liberal reforms and became a republic. At first he did look like ‘Mr. Right’ as he defeated a Spanish invasion. He quickly had his image tarnished a bit as he helped lead a coup that would eventually make him president.
At this point I should probably mention that Santa Anna would be the ruler of Mexico 11 times. Even I lose track where in the story he is the president and where he is not. His presidencies soon began to resemble a dictatorship however. His autocratic practices quickly became too much for those living in the Mexican province of Tejas. The Texas Revolution began and Santa Anna led the Mexican army to crush it. Santa Anna committed some brutal atrocities, such as the massacre at Goliad and the capture of the Alamo. They are still well remembered today; I grew up with people saying “Remember Goliad! Remember the Alamo!” Eventually Santa Anna lost at the Battle of San Jacinto and was captured. The defeat was comical as the entire army decided to take a siesta before battle and was ambushed by Sam Houston and the Texan army. He was forced to sign over Texas’ independence as a nation and he would soon lose power after this.
Santa Anna was disgraced and exiled but he is the king of being ‘Mr. Right Now.’ France invaded Mexico for the first time and Mexicans looked to him for leadership. He returned and led a heroic victory at Veracruz and lost his leg there (leading to many later legends). He rode this wave of new popularity to the presidency yet again. He began to rule as a dictator again and quickly found himself exiled again as Mexico fell into economic peril.
Once again, he found a chance to come back to power in a time of need. The Mexican-American war had begun and he was in exile in Cuba. He tricked the American government into sending him back to Mexico where he quickly took command as a general yet again. He weaseled his way back into power but once again failed militarily. Mexico was utterly humiliated in the war and Santa Anna was sent into exile yet again.
I could end the story here and he would still be the penultimate ‘Mr. Right Now’ leader, but the story keeps going. A coup occurred in Mexico by the faction that had traditionally supported him. He was invited back once more to be president. This presidency went as poorly as the others as he still fancied himself a dictator even when it was not politically feasible. He met his usual fate and was kicked to the curb. He would try to come back to fight against the French a second time but to no avail. He would even try to raise money in New York to finance a new coup for him to take over. Despite the glamorous life he had lived, he would die in poverty in Mexico. Perhaps this is a fitting end for the true ‘Mr. Right Now’ leader.
Sources/Further Reading
Since this was more of a fun write up I did not cite sources for my information but I have read good books on all of these topics. Here are some good books and podcasts if you would like to learn more.
Books:
God’s Chinese Son by Jonathan Spence
History of the Soviet Union by Peter Kenez
Vodka Politics by Mark Schrad
Texian Iliad by Stephen Hardin
Podcasts:
Fall of Rome by Patrick Wyman
Tides of History by Patrick Wyman
Totalus Rankium by Rob and Jamie
Revolutions by Mike Duncan
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