Unregulated succession makes totalitarian leadership inseparable from the movement

Evidence

The more technical reason for this suicidal loyalty is that succession to the supreme office is not regulated by any inheritance or other laws. A successful palace revolt would have as disastrous results for the movement as a whole as a military defeat. It is in the nature of the movement that once the Leader has assumed his office, the whole organization is so absolutely identified with him that any admission of a mistake or removal from office would break the spell of infallibility which surrounds the office of the Leader and spell doom to all those connected with the movement. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 891

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the scaffolding theme of how bureaucratic/structural logic produces loyalty effects, and to Weber(‘s contrast with rule-governed succession). — connects to: Communist successor leadership cohorts self-perpetuate for over a decade after 1989 — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 401