Who is the greatest politician in your country’s history?
February 19, 2025
Thanks! 🙂
37 comments
Count István Széchenyi. In the 1840s, he traveled to Britain then brought the Industrial Revolution to Hungary, personally financing the construction of steam engines, the first railways, flush toilets, and the establishment of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Thanks to his work, Hungary had industrial standards of interchangeable machine part sizes by 1860 and factories rapidly started to be built. By 1888, the first Hungarian town was lit by electric street lights.
Willem Drees, the socialdemocratic prime minister who created the welfare state that the liberals are now trying to destroy for the past two decades. After the war the Netherlands were broke. He made sure that old people got a pension (AOW). It earned him the affectionate nickname Vadertje Drees (father Drees).
Probably Ion I. C. Brătianu, or Iuliu Maniu maybe 🤔 there are a handful of contenders from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries.
Brătianu, National Liberal, served as PM for over a decade (non-consecutive terms), including during WW1 and the immediate post-war period.
Iuliu Maniu served as PM for 2-3 years in the interwar (non-consecutive) and was overall an anti-authoritarian and anti-communist, who protested the successive dictatorships of Carol II, Ion Antonescu and the Communists.
Boring but true answer, Chruchill. If he doesn’t become PM we make peace with the Nazi’s. A good one, they didn’t want to fight us. But withuout the UK, the USA doesn’t declare war, no allied force. The Nazi’s fight the Soviet Union one on one and maybe win. They establish a giant slave state in Eastern Europe. Kill untold tens of millions.
Finland. K. J. Ståhlberg should be way more valued than he currently is. He did a great balancing act in a post civil war country by not giving too much in to left wing but not letting fascist movements and far right take over our democracy. Him and his wife were an voice of reason and tolerance in a very turbulent age.
You could argue, that based purely on power, foreign policy and longevity of their career, Urho Kekkonen would be the greatest, but he held an almost dictator-like power over our country and surely has many critics too.
Well… define “greatest”? Most impactful? That has best served the country?
For Italy, I would argue that the following are the most relevant (impactful) politicians, in order of relevance:
* Benito Mussolini (Il Duce, leader of Fascism)
* Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour (Leader of the Italian Unification)
* Giovanni Giolitti (Leader of the “historical Left”, dominated Italian politics in 1900-1915 period)
* Palmiro Togliatti (General Secretary of the Italian Communist party 1938-1964)
* Giulio Andreotti (leader of the “Andreottian faction” of the Christian Democrats 1955-1990)
* Silvio Berlusconi (needs no introduction)
They are however NOT the leaders that best served Italy. I would make the following, **very personal**, list, in order of personal preference:
* Giuseppe Garibaldi, (leader of Italian “risorgimento” and world-known revolutionary leader)
* Antonio Gramsci (Communist thinker and leader of Italian communist party during the 20s)
* Sandro Pertini (Socialist Leader. President of the Republic during the 80s)
* Don Luigi Sturzo (Catholic Priest, founder of the Italian Popular Party, predecessor of the Christian Democrats, anti-fascist leader)
* Alcide de Gasperi (President of the Council, Leader of the Christian Democrats during the 50s)
* Enrico Berlinguer (Secretary general of the Italian Communist Party 1972-1984)
I tried to be as impartial as possible, but I realise that my left-wing leaning is evident here.
If by “greatest” we mean the most impactful, then probably Piłsudski. He pretty much shaped the entire interwar period in Poland. And his impact is still felt (there are a lot of people who still get salty about Piłsudski eclipsing Dmowski).
If by “greatest” we mean the most cunning, then I guess, as much as I hate him, nominate Jarosław Kaczyński. He pretty much managed to come back after people declared his party irrelevant at the start of 2010s and dominate the Polish political sphere for the past 25 years (after being influential since the 1990s)
And if somebody tries to say that Wałęsa was the fucking greatest, then I swear to god I will shit in their paczkomat
For Germany, thats not easy. Most Impact was of cause Hitler, but that was not the greatest for sure.
Maybe Charlemagne, Bismarck for the unification, Ebert for the building of the first Republic (Weimar Republic)..
After the war the most important chancellors were Adenauer for the west integration, Brandt for the better relations to the east, Kohl for taking the opprtunity for the reunification.
In my opinion, Noel Browne. When Minister for Health he rolled out big reforms for healthcare in Ireland especially for mothers and children. Launched a large construction program for new hospitals, rolled a vaccine program to tackle TB which was a bug problem in Ireland in the 20th century.
And more impressive in a very Catholic, conservative Ireland in the 1950s, he took on the Catholic Church over control of the hospitals (the Church controlled many of the larger hospitals).
Aside from healthcare, he was a strong anti-Apartheid advocate in relation to South Africa. Strong supporter of the LGTBQ community which were a very marginalised group back then
If we look at only politics, then it must be Ferenc Deák who managed to make the Habsburgs to change their attitude towards Hungarians after their failed revoluion in 1848-49, and established the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, that was actually a model how the European Union was suppsoed to work.
De Gaulle obviously.
I would have said Napoléon but not sure he fits the “politician” étiquette. He did politic and was one of the greatest reformer of his time, but its shorter to say what Napoléon wasn’t than what he was.
Both defined so much stuff in our country, their work still has huge impact upon our modern lives.
In Portugal we have many good ones. But i’ll start with negative impact. Salazar, his way of governing left a long last impact in the Portuguese psyche and how we see ourselves.
Mario Soares e Alvaro Cunhal were good politicians in a complicated transition period, Passos Coelho was good in a hard time, and as far as I remember the only one that didn’t govern just to get re-elected.
But for me the best is still Antonio Guterres, now in the UN, smart AF and empathetic.
If we’re talking about all time leaders, then D. Afonso Henriques started conquering what is now Portugal. Is that good? Debatable…
We learn that Marques de Pombal was also a good minister in the mid 1700s, but i’m sure his friends were the ones writing down history.
Maybe Infante D. Henrique was a great politician because he convinced the crown that investing in boats to sail to India was the best for the country.
That’s a very difficult question to answer, but I’d say Paul-Henri Spaak. Prime minister of the government in exile in London during the war, and after the war instrumental for the formation of the Benelux and what would ultimately become the EU.
Louis De Potter is also worth mentioning, the publicist who was instrumental in creating a revolutionary climate in Belgium, but was later sidelined because he was very much opposed to monarchy and wanted a republic.
I don’t agree with everything he did, but undoubtedly **Adolfo Suárez** was the architect of modern Spanish democracy. He was a very good negociator, knew the art of compromise, and had the grace to resign when he realized his time was over (unlike many after him).
I would also add the (less well known) fathers of the Spanish 1978 Constitution:
Gabriel Cisneros, Miguel Herrero, José Pedro Pérez (UCD party), Manuel Fraga Iribarne (AP party), Gregorio Peces-Barba (PSOE party), Jordi Solé Tura (PCE party), and Miguel Roca Junyent (Representing Catalan and Vasque independentists).
In Russia, these are probably the following:
1) Peter (Pyotr) I. “Europeanized” Russia. He did many important reforms in all areas. Made vector of development of Russia for the next centuries.
2) Lenin. He organized the revolutionary movement and necessary revolution in Russia. The image of modern Russia was created including thanks to him. It was with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks after revolution, that created industrialization in Russia.
3) Ivan IV. He successfully fought against Lithuania, Sweden and the Livonian Order, which gave Russia weight in the international arena. At the same time, he subdued the fragments of the former Golden Horde.
Objectively, Felipe González, although he had many dark spots. He won three consecutive majorities and was in power for 13 years
Good points:
-Spain entered the EU and took a spot in international politics
-The economy consistenly grew during his tenure
-Democracy consolidated and military lost influence. The state greatly modernized and professionalized
-Universal free healthcare was implemented
-The far right almost dissapeared
-Barcelona 1992 Olympics consolidated Spain’s image as a modern, friendly tourist destination
Bad points:
-State sponsored terrorism against Basque independence movement
-Rampant corruption
-Deindustrialization lead to social unrests
-Colonizing of independent institutions by government sponsored candidates
-Last years were marked by economic crisis and high unemployment
Both the economic and terrorism problems were common to most Western Europe in the 80s and 90s, corruption and nepotism are product of the enormous majorities PSOE held at the time
For Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic it would probably be Tomáš Garigue Masaryk – the founding father and first president of the republic
For Greece it would be Eleftherios Venizelos – the ethnarch of the Greek nation who expanded and secured the (more or less present-day) borders of the state. Without him Greece would probably be much smaller than it is today.
Josip Broz Tito
In todays standards, he was communist dictator. Well, maybe for some. In context of 1940- 1983, he was OK. In WW2 he run a world respectable anifascist resistance movent. After WW2 he was great in
transforming a poor agricultural country into an industrial one. He kept nationalists of all kind at bay. Later he co- founded the non-aligned movement. He was well respected in the west and the east.
..after his death, everything turned to shit in the region.
Yugoslavia was doing OK at that time.
Coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina, even putting my opposition to the continued existance of that artificial mockery of a country aside, there are no great politicians from here.
Pavelić remains the most impactful I’d say.
Going off by nationality however, I’d say our greatest one was Stjepan Radić. Agrarian, pro-sufforage, anti-clerical, republican, etc. His party enjoyed around 80% of vote among Croats.
He was murdered in parliament by a fellow deputy (one for whom our lovely eastern neighbour made a monument for a few years ago, simply for the great deed of murdering an innocent man).
Olof Palme, Swedish PM 1969-1976 and 1982-1986 (when he was murdered under mysterious circumstances).
He is often seen as the last of the great social democratic leaders who served as Swedish PMs in the post-war period, and one of the last loud proponents of democratic socialism in the west.
But what I admire most about him is his commitment to justice on the international stage. Swedish neutrality had traditionally been interpreted as ”don’t take sides” which led us to take some very questionable stances during WW2. But under Palme, neutrality become re-defined as advocating for non-alignment during the Cold War. He didn’t side with either the US or the USSR, but rather the smaller nations (often in the global south) who suffered due to the ambitions of the great powers. I would’ve been proud to have a PM like that today, someone with the courage to defend the rights of Ukrainians as well as Palestinians.
Probably Nicola Sturgeon.
Say what you will about the SNP, but she was the party for ten years and it’s kinda obvious based on how they are atm. She was an effective communicator during the pandemic and she stood down before her supporters got fed up (although it’s most likely because she got wind of her ex-husband’s finances scandal)
No other Scottish politician since devolution has been as good as her in internal politics
🇫🇮 Risto Ryti. He sacrificed his career and personal life to save Finland in WWll. His actions were crucial to keep Finland independent and not becoming a part of Soviet Union or falling under Iron Curtain.
🇫🇮 Urho Kekkonen. Longest serving president in Finland. Served during cold war years and managed to keep Soviets happy after war, while at the same time made Finland an European model country in several categories and basically didn’t give a shit what Soviets thought.
🇫🇮 Sauli Niinistö. Most popular president ever. People’s leader, wise, educated, very experienced. Was a PM and minister of treasure when 90’s bad years hit hardest and was a key member turning Finnish economy from struggling to blossoming.
Johan de Witt. Grand Pensionary of Holland, who presided over the most prosperous period of what is known as the Dutch Golden Age. Opposed the House of Orange having a powerful role in politics and preferred power to be concentrated among the merchant regents (still an oligarchy, but less aristocratic) while favoring a peaceful foreign policy that allowed trade to flourish.
Met a very unfortunate end in 1672 when he was lynched and partially cannibalized along with his brother Cornelis for underestimating the threat of all the Dutch Republic’s neighbors banding together to take it down. Stadtholder Willem III of the House of Orange was probably behind his death.
For Ukraine it’s undoubtedly Zelenskyi. He is the only Ukrainian leader since 1618 who managed to invade our Eternal Nemesis Russia.
At the same time, he brought the average Ukrainian salary to all time high and the government corruption to all time low
Axel Oxenstierna, who was the Lord High Chancellor of Sweden during most of the first half of the 17th century and the leading man in Sweden’s rapid rise as a great power under the reigns of both Gustavus Adolphus and Queen Christina. While Christina was still too young to govern, he basically ran the country as a regent himself.
He greatly reformed, streamlined and modernized the entire governance of the Swedish state, and replaced the old traditional provinces by instead dividing the country into administrative counties that are still in use today.
He also oversaw the favorable Swedish terms at both the Treaty of Westphalia where Sweden received Pomerania, Bremen, Verden and Wismar in today’s Germany, and the Treaty of Brömsebro where Sweden gained Halland, Gotland, Jämtland, Härjedalen and Idre-Särna from Denmark-Norway, paving the way for Sweden’s further territorial expansions which would reach their zenith just four years after his death.
Nobody in particular. That’s the beauty of having a system without a single head of state. Our head of state is a council of 7 people who have equal voting power. So no one person ever has all that much power.
Willem 3rd of the Netherlands. When a revolution threatened to break out he didn’t send the army but a few cartloads of jenever (Dutch gin). the angry mob got drunk and the revolution was averted at minimal cost and ill will. I believe he also refused ownership of what is now Congo preventing another black page in our history.
Czechia: Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk our first president of Czechoslovakia and Václav Havel our first democratically elected president of country, after the fall of communism
The Grand Old Man, William Gladstone. The Classical Liberal. Gladstone served as PM four times, returning to the office more than any man in history. Gladstone defined the sixty years of his career. Elected as a Tory, he remained when they reformed into the Conservative Party before joining Robert Peel with the Peelites when they defected due to their opposition to protectionism. The Peelites, Radicals and Whigs then merged to form the Liberals (now the Liberal Democrats).
A man of great faith, Gladstone was a staunch supporter of human dignity, one of his most prominent was the right to self determination. In this era of empire, Gladstone publicly and loudly supported causes like the Bulgarian struggle for independence on the grounds if self determination rather than merely great power politics. He was also known for inviting prostitutes to his home, where he would offer them dinner and attempt to convert them to christianity. This would normally cause scandal, but his reputation was so solid that even his rivals knew it would never stick.
He basically invented the modern political campaign with his Midlothian Campaign, the style of which has barely changed to this day and his party remain famous for (door knocking and leaflets, so many leaflets on every subject).
Before the abolition of slavery (and under his slaver father’s influence), he advocated for the education of slaves and protections of their basic rights leading to gradual manumission. Later in life when he was less under his father’s influence, he became more ardently anti-slavery and proposed tariffs be lowered on sugar produced without slaves (to encourage Spain and Brazil to end slavery)and he publicly called the end of slavery among the greatest achievements of his lifetime. When the Confederacy declared independence, he (a minister under the anti-American Lord Palmerston at the time, unable to go against government policy) privately denounced its basis on slavery and white supremacy, while he felt the South would win he strongly advocated that the European powers should apply pressure to force the eventual end of slavery there too.
As Chancellor, Gladstone was extremely popular among the working and middle class, he abolished the taxes on paper making it far easier to acquire books and newspapers and dustribute knowledge (which was why the tax was there in the first place, to prevent pamphlets and papers being spread).
He introduced the concept of the national budget, a single annual bill (later two) laying out all the government’s spending and taxes for the year (later for the half year). He also helped pass the Cobden-Chevalier treaty (limited free trade with France) which doubled trade with France during the 1860s. He also reduced tariffs on food and income taxes on working people, funding it by moving the tax burden onto the rich and by reducing stockpiling by the government.
His popularity was so extreme that when he went to visit a northern town all the mines closed for the day because the workers had gone to see him. There’s a legend that once while taking a boat along the Tyne (industrialised river valley around Newcastle) the people lined the banks for twenty miles just to see him, standing on rooftops, climbing chimney and holding up their children to see the People’s Chancellor. He regularly advocated for the enfranchisement of all men, which caused him to lose his Oxford University parliamentary seat (composed of alumni of the university) and he had to move to the more industrial South Lancashire which allowed him to be more vocally pro-worker. His newly unmuzzled status (his words) meant that Disraeli was forced to pass a new reform act that enfranchised male city workers.
He then lost his seat again in a surprise upset and was re-elected in Greenwich (you could stand in multiple seats in those days). He became PM after this election. His premiership was defined by an early version of libertarianism.
He disestablished the (Protestant) Church of Ireland, freeing the Irish from Protestant tithes and granted Irish tenant farmers sweeping protections against landowners (including banning their eviction from working farms) and a mechanism for thr tenantsto buy their land from willing buyers using a government mortgage at a low interest rate.
He pursued a policy of peace to reduce public spending on war and promoted trade wherever he could because he believed that more trade would mean more demand for workers and raise their wages. As part of the policy of peace he settled the Alabama Claims with the US, creating the concept of international arbitration in the process.
He legalised trade unions and gave them the right to collective bargaining, later referring to it as freeing worker from their chains.
He enacted universal primary education and abolished the ban on non-protestants from attending or teaching at universities and barred the universities from enacting religious restrictions.
He reformed the poor laws (predecessor of modern welfare), which had become thoroughly corrupt. He reformed the civil service, army (including banning peacetime flogging and all sales of commissions) and local government to cut down on nepotism, corruption, patronage and cronyism and promote meritocracy.
He cautioned the working class against following aristocratic populism of the New Social Alliance (an attempt by the aristocrats to remove the power of Industrialists) by denouncing them as delusional utopians.
He enacted secret ballots to end vote buying.
He also enacted the Licensing Act (still in force, but much amended, to this day) requiring places that serve alcohol to acquire a licence and limit their opening hours, banned public intoxication and makes it a crime to be drunk in charge of a horse, cattle, steam engine or carriage, or while in possession of a loaded firearm. He also banned tampering with beers (such as adding salt to make people thirstier).
He reformed and simplified the judiciary, creating the High Court and Court of Appeals (which still exist today). It was also going to strip the house of lords of their judiciary function and make the High Court into the UK equivalent of the supreme court, but Gladstone lost the next election and Disraeli found a compromise, making the Law Lords non-hereditary peers appointed by the monarch, which they would remain until Tony Blair removed them in 2005.
He lost the next election, not due to a lack of popularity, he won a majority of votes in the three constituent countries on Great Britain (the Liberal friendly Home Rule party won a huge majority in Ireland outside Dublin and Ulster). He lost because his party didn’t get the votes in the right places (i.e. running up huge majorities in some seats while not managing to find a candidate in time in others).
His latter terms were less important, he had a handful of new achievements, like two attempts to establish an Irish Parliament, the establishment of specialist education for deaf and blind children and seizing the Suez canal. The biggest achievement left, though, was doubling the franchise in his second term, where anyone with £10 of property or paying £10 in rent was now allowed to vote. He also expanded on the rights of Irish tenant farmers.
I won’t go with my personal opinion because then I’ll be called a junta apologist (yes they built roads, electrified the countryside, brought water to villages, etc etc etc)
Some very popular picks would be Konstantinos Karamanlis (the elder), and Andreas Papandreou. Both very impactful in their own ways.
For Turkey it is without a doubt Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. I think it goes without explanation that he is perceived as a hero because of the Turkish civil war, and the battle of Gallipoli.
Propably Pericles. With his death during the Peloponisian war, I believe, democracy died forever. The way it was originally imagined, it doesn’t exist anywhere today or in the past. Athens had 10 generals of equal power, he was so loved that he rose above the other 9, and the others didn’t even complain (impressive that even the others let him overshadow them). Moreover, there was a term limit in back then, so Athenians voted just to make an exception for him and they let him run as many times as we wanted
Quite many say it’s Einar Gerhardsen.. The prime-minister of the post ww2-era.. Had incredible popularity and as to some degree termed the generation of the 1950s and 60s. Still to this day the longest serving PM in norway. At lot of stuff in the norwegian society stems from his decades in power. In 2005 they had a vote about who was the “norwegian of the century” (1900-2000) and he became nr.2 after the king (Olav).
Probably Kārlis Ulmanis. First prime minister and leader of Latvia during the Indeoendence War, which he managed brilliantly, despite many believing a country of Latvia was a failed project at start. Then in 1936 he made a coup and became dictator (a soft one, no real violence or anything), and then accepted the Soviet ultimatum of 1940, basically allowing them to occupy us. So yeah, very controversial figure, especially during his dictatorship.
I guess that many poles would say that Piłsudzki, but I don’t really like him. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all the things he did for Poland, but in my opinion he was not the best politician. The coup d’état, the restriction of freedom of the press, the harsh policy towards national minorities in Poland are just some of his actions. I understand that he is an important figure after all, but I would like to hear more criticism towards him in our history books.
Probably Margaret Thatcher. Our country is getting worse year on year due to her 30 odd year old policies
Of course it’s not *all* her fault, but still
As an Austrian, leaving all the Habsburg Kaisers aside and also not considering the Bearded One, I’d probably go with Metternich.
37 comments
Count István Széchenyi. In the 1840s, he traveled to Britain then brought the Industrial Revolution to Hungary, personally financing the construction of steam engines, the first railways, flush toilets, and the establishment of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Thanks to his work, Hungary had industrial standards of interchangeable machine part sizes by 1860 and factories rapidly started to be built. By 1888, the first Hungarian town was lit by electric street lights.
Willem Drees, the socialdemocratic prime minister who created the welfare state that the liberals are now trying to destroy for the past two decades. After the war the Netherlands were broke. He made sure that old people got a pension (AOW). It earned him the affectionate nickname Vadertje Drees (father Drees).
Probably Ion I. C. Brătianu, or Iuliu Maniu maybe 🤔 there are a handful of contenders from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries.
Brătianu, National Liberal, served as PM for over a decade (non-consecutive terms), including during WW1 and the immediate post-war period.
Iuliu Maniu served as PM for 2-3 years in the interwar (non-consecutive) and was overall an anti-authoritarian and anti-communist, who protested the successive dictatorships of Carol II, Ion Antonescu and the Communists.
Boring but true answer, Chruchill. If he doesn’t become PM we make peace with the Nazi’s. A good one, they didn’t want to fight us. But withuout the UK, the USA doesn’t declare war, no allied force. The Nazi’s fight the Soviet Union one on one and maybe win. They establish a giant slave state in Eastern Europe. Kill untold tens of millions.
Finland. K. J. Ståhlberg should be way more valued than he currently is. He did a great balancing act in a post civil war country by not giving too much in to left wing but not letting fascist movements and far right take over our democracy. Him and his wife were an voice of reason and tolerance in a very turbulent age.
You could argue, that based purely on power, foreign policy and longevity of their career, Urho Kekkonen would be the greatest, but he held an almost dictator-like power over our country and surely has many critics too.
Well… define “greatest”? Most impactful? That has best served the country?
For Italy, I would argue that the following are the most relevant (impactful) politicians, in order of relevance:
* Benito Mussolini (Il Duce, leader of Fascism)
* Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour (Leader of the Italian Unification)
* Giovanni Giolitti (Leader of the “historical Left”, dominated Italian politics in 1900-1915 period)
* Palmiro Togliatti (General Secretary of the Italian Communist party 1938-1964)
* Giulio Andreotti (leader of the “Andreottian faction” of the Christian Democrats 1955-1990)
* Silvio Berlusconi (needs no introduction)
They are however NOT the leaders that best served Italy. I would make the following, **very personal**, list, in order of personal preference:
* Giuseppe Garibaldi, (leader of Italian “risorgimento” and world-known revolutionary leader)
* Antonio Gramsci (Communist thinker and leader of Italian communist party during the 20s)
* Sandro Pertini (Socialist Leader. President of the Republic during the 80s)
* Don Luigi Sturzo (Catholic Priest, founder of the Italian Popular Party, predecessor of the Christian Democrats, anti-fascist leader)
* Alcide de Gasperi (President of the Council, Leader of the Christian Democrats during the 50s)
* Enrico Berlinguer (Secretary general of the Italian Communist Party 1972-1984)
I tried to be as impartial as possible, but I realise that my left-wing leaning is evident here.
If by “greatest” we mean the most impactful, then probably Piłsudski. He pretty much shaped the entire interwar period in Poland. And his impact is still felt (there are a lot of people who still get salty about Piłsudski eclipsing Dmowski).
If by “greatest” we mean the most cunning, then I guess, as much as I hate him, nominate Jarosław Kaczyński. He pretty much managed to come back after people declared his party irrelevant at the start of 2010s and dominate the Polish political sphere for the past 25 years (after being influential since the 1990s)
And if somebody tries to say that Wałęsa was the fucking greatest, then I swear to god I will shit in their paczkomat
For Germany, thats not easy. Most Impact was of cause Hitler, but that was not the greatest for sure.
Maybe Charlemagne, Bismarck for the unification, Ebert for the building of the first Republic (Weimar Republic)..
After the war the most important chancellors were Adenauer for the west integration, Brandt for the better relations to the east, Kohl for taking the opprtunity for the reunification.
In my opinion, Noel Browne. When Minister for Health he rolled out big reforms for healthcare in Ireland especially for mothers and children. Launched a large construction program for new hospitals, rolled a vaccine program to tackle TB which was a bug problem in Ireland in the 20th century.
And more impressive in a very Catholic, conservative Ireland in the 1950s, he took on the Catholic Church over control of the hospitals (the Church controlled many of the larger hospitals).
Aside from healthcare, he was a strong anti-Apartheid advocate in relation to South Africa. Strong supporter of the LGTBQ community which were a very marginalised group back then
If we look at only politics, then it must be Ferenc Deák who managed to make the Habsburgs to change their attitude towards Hungarians after their failed revoluion in 1848-49, and established the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, that was actually a model how the European Union was suppsoed to work.
De Gaulle obviously.
I would have said Napoléon but not sure he fits the “politician” étiquette. He did politic and was one of the greatest reformer of his time, but its shorter to say what Napoléon wasn’t than what he was.
Both defined so much stuff in our country, their work still has huge impact upon our modern lives.
In Portugal we have many good ones. But i’ll start with negative impact. Salazar, his way of governing left a long last impact in the Portuguese psyche and how we see ourselves.
Mario Soares e Alvaro Cunhal were good politicians in a complicated transition period, Passos Coelho was good in a hard time, and as far as I remember the only one that didn’t govern just to get re-elected.
But for me the best is still Antonio Guterres, now in the UN, smart AF and empathetic.
If we’re talking about all time leaders, then D. Afonso Henriques started conquering what is now Portugal. Is that good? Debatable…
We learn that Marques de Pombal was also a good minister in the mid 1700s, but i’m sure his friends were the ones writing down history.
Maybe Infante D. Henrique was a great politician because he convinced the crown that investing in boats to sail to India was the best for the country.
That’s a very difficult question to answer, but I’d say Paul-Henri Spaak. Prime minister of the government in exile in London during the war, and after the war instrumental for the formation of the Benelux and what would ultimately become the EU.
Louis De Potter is also worth mentioning, the publicist who was instrumental in creating a revolutionary climate in Belgium, but was later sidelined because he was very much opposed to monarchy and wanted a republic.
I don’t agree with everything he did, but undoubtedly **Adolfo Suárez** was the architect of modern Spanish democracy. He was a very good negociator, knew the art of compromise, and had the grace to resign when he realized his time was over (unlike many after him).
I would also add the (less well known) fathers of the Spanish 1978 Constitution:
Gabriel Cisneros, Miguel Herrero, José Pedro Pérez (UCD party), Manuel Fraga Iribarne (AP party), Gregorio Peces-Barba (PSOE party), Jordi Solé Tura (PCE party), and Miguel Roca Junyent (Representing Catalan and Vasque independentists).
In Russia, these are probably the following:
1) Peter (Pyotr) I. “Europeanized” Russia. He did many important reforms in all areas. Made vector of development of Russia for the next centuries.
2) Lenin. He organized the revolutionary movement and necessary revolution in Russia. The image of modern Russia was created including thanks to him. It was with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks after revolution, that created industrialization in Russia.
3) Ivan IV. He successfully fought against Lithuania, Sweden and the Livonian Order, which gave Russia weight in the international arena. At the same time, he subdued the fragments of the former Golden Horde.
Objectively, Felipe González, although he had many dark spots. He won three consecutive majorities and was in power for 13 years
Good points:
-Spain entered the EU and took a spot in international politics
-The economy consistenly grew during his tenure
-Democracy consolidated and military lost influence. The state greatly modernized and professionalized
-Universal free healthcare was implemented
-The far right almost dissapeared
-Barcelona 1992 Olympics consolidated Spain’s image as a modern, friendly tourist destination
Bad points:
-State sponsored terrorism against Basque independence movement
-Rampant corruption
-Deindustrialization lead to social unrests
-Colonizing of independent institutions by government sponsored candidates
-Last years were marked by economic crisis and high unemployment
Both the economic and terrorism problems were common to most Western Europe in the 80s and 90s, corruption and nepotism are product of the enormous majorities PSOE held at the time
For Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic it would probably be Tomáš Garigue Masaryk – the founding father and first president of the republic
For Greece it would be Eleftherios Venizelos – the ethnarch of the Greek nation who expanded and secured the (more or less present-day) borders of the state. Without him Greece would probably be much smaller than it is today.
Josip Broz Tito
In todays standards, he was communist dictator. Well, maybe for some. In context of 1940- 1983, he was OK. In WW2 he run a world respectable anifascist resistance movent. After WW2 he was great in
transforming a poor agricultural country into an industrial one. He kept nationalists of all kind at bay. Later he co- founded the non-aligned movement. He was well respected in the west and the east.
..after his death, everything turned to shit in the region.
Yugoslavia was doing OK at that time.
Coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina, even putting my opposition to the continued existance of that artificial mockery of a country aside, there are no great politicians from here.
Pavelić remains the most impactful I’d say.
Going off by nationality however, I’d say our greatest one was Stjepan Radić. Agrarian, pro-sufforage, anti-clerical, republican, etc. His party enjoyed around 80% of vote among Croats.
He was murdered in parliament by a fellow deputy (one for whom our lovely eastern neighbour made a monument for a few years ago, simply for the great deed of murdering an innocent man).
Olof Palme, Swedish PM 1969-1976 and 1982-1986 (when he was murdered under mysterious circumstances).
He is often seen as the last of the great social democratic leaders who served as Swedish PMs in the post-war period, and one of the last loud proponents of democratic socialism in the west.
But what I admire most about him is his commitment to justice on the international stage. Swedish neutrality had traditionally been interpreted as ”don’t take sides” which led us to take some very questionable stances during WW2. But under Palme, neutrality become re-defined as advocating for non-alignment during the Cold War. He didn’t side with either the US or the USSR, but rather the smaller nations (often in the global south) who suffered due to the ambitions of the great powers. I would’ve been proud to have a PM like that today, someone with the courage to defend the rights of Ukrainians as well as Palestinians.
Probably Nicola Sturgeon.
Say what you will about the SNP, but she was the party for ten years and it’s kinda obvious based on how they are atm. She was an effective communicator during the pandemic and she stood down before her supporters got fed up (although it’s most likely because she got wind of her ex-husband’s finances scandal)
No other Scottish politician since devolution has been as good as her in internal politics
🇫🇮 Risto Ryti. He sacrificed his career and personal life to save Finland in WWll. His actions were crucial to keep Finland independent and not becoming a part of Soviet Union or falling under Iron Curtain.
🇫🇮 Urho Kekkonen. Longest serving president in Finland. Served during cold war years and managed to keep Soviets happy after war, while at the same time made Finland an European model country in several categories and basically didn’t give a shit what Soviets thought.
🇫🇮 Sauli Niinistö. Most popular president ever. People’s leader, wise, educated, very experienced. Was a PM and minister of treasure when 90’s bad years hit hardest and was a key member turning Finnish economy from struggling to blossoming.
Johan de Witt. Grand Pensionary of Holland, who presided over the most prosperous period of what is known as the Dutch Golden Age. Opposed the House of Orange having a powerful role in politics and preferred power to be concentrated among the merchant regents (still an oligarchy, but less aristocratic) while favoring a peaceful foreign policy that allowed trade to flourish.
Met a very unfortunate end in 1672 when he was lynched and partially cannibalized along with his brother Cornelis for underestimating the threat of all the Dutch Republic’s neighbors banding together to take it down. Stadtholder Willem III of the House of Orange was probably behind his death.
For Ukraine it’s undoubtedly Zelenskyi. He is the only Ukrainian leader since 1618 who managed to invade our Eternal Nemesis Russia.
At the same time, he brought the average Ukrainian salary to all time high and the government corruption to all time low
Axel Oxenstierna, who was the Lord High Chancellor of Sweden during most of the first half of the 17th century and the leading man in Sweden’s rapid rise as a great power under the reigns of both Gustavus Adolphus and Queen Christina. While Christina was still too young to govern, he basically ran the country as a regent himself.
He greatly reformed, streamlined and modernized the entire governance of the Swedish state, and replaced the old traditional provinces by instead dividing the country into administrative counties that are still in use today.
He also oversaw the favorable Swedish terms at both the Treaty of Westphalia where Sweden received Pomerania, Bremen, Verden and Wismar in today’s Germany, and the Treaty of Brömsebro where Sweden gained Halland, Gotland, Jämtland, Härjedalen and Idre-Särna from Denmark-Norway, paving the way for Sweden’s further territorial expansions which would reach their zenith just four years after his death.
Nobody in particular. That’s the beauty of having a system without a single head of state. Our head of state is a council of 7 people who have equal voting power. So no one person ever has all that much power.
Willem 3rd of the Netherlands. When a revolution threatened to break out he didn’t send the army but a few cartloads of jenever (Dutch gin). the angry mob got drunk and the revolution was averted at minimal cost and ill will. I believe he also refused ownership of what is now Congo preventing another black page in our history.
Czechia: Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk our first president of Czechoslovakia and Václav Havel our first democratically elected president of country, after the fall of communism
The Grand Old Man, William Gladstone. The Classical Liberal. Gladstone served as PM four times, returning to the office more than any man in history. Gladstone defined the sixty years of his career. Elected as a Tory, he remained when they reformed into the Conservative Party before joining Robert Peel with the Peelites when they defected due to their opposition to protectionism. The Peelites, Radicals and Whigs then merged to form the Liberals (now the Liberal Democrats).
A man of great faith, Gladstone was a staunch supporter of human dignity, one of his most prominent was the right to self determination. In this era of empire, Gladstone publicly and loudly supported causes like the Bulgarian struggle for independence on the grounds if self determination rather than merely great power politics. He was also known for inviting prostitutes to his home, where he would offer them dinner and attempt to convert them to christianity. This would normally cause scandal, but his reputation was so solid that even his rivals knew it would never stick.
He basically invented the modern political campaign with his Midlothian Campaign, the style of which has barely changed to this day and his party remain famous for (door knocking and leaflets, so many leaflets on every subject).
Before the abolition of slavery (and under his slaver father’s influence), he advocated for the education of slaves and protections of their basic rights leading to gradual manumission. Later in life when he was less under his father’s influence, he became more ardently anti-slavery and proposed tariffs be lowered on sugar produced without slaves (to encourage Spain and Brazil to end slavery)and he publicly called the end of slavery among the greatest achievements of his lifetime. When the Confederacy declared independence, he (a minister under the anti-American Lord Palmerston at the time, unable to go against government policy) privately denounced its basis on slavery and white supremacy, while he felt the South would win he strongly advocated that the European powers should apply pressure to force the eventual end of slavery there too.
As Chancellor, Gladstone was extremely popular among the working and middle class, he abolished the taxes on paper making it far easier to acquire books and newspapers and dustribute knowledge (which was why the tax was there in the first place, to prevent pamphlets and papers being spread).
He introduced the concept of the national budget, a single annual bill (later two) laying out all the government’s spending and taxes for the year (later for the half year). He also helped pass the Cobden-Chevalier treaty (limited free trade with France) which doubled trade with France during the 1860s. He also reduced tariffs on food and income taxes on working people, funding it by moving the tax burden onto the rich and by reducing stockpiling by the government.
His popularity was so extreme that when he went to visit a northern town all the mines closed for the day because the workers had gone to see him. There’s a legend that once while taking a boat along the Tyne (industrialised river valley around Newcastle) the people lined the banks for twenty miles just to see him, standing on rooftops, climbing chimney and holding up their children to see the People’s Chancellor. He regularly advocated for the enfranchisement of all men, which caused him to lose his Oxford University parliamentary seat (composed of alumni of the university) and he had to move to the more industrial South Lancashire which allowed him to be more vocally pro-worker. His newly unmuzzled status (his words) meant that Disraeli was forced to pass a new reform act that enfranchised male city workers.
He then lost his seat again in a surprise upset and was re-elected in Greenwich (you could stand in multiple seats in those days). He became PM after this election. His premiership was defined by an early version of libertarianism.
He disestablished the (Protestant) Church of Ireland, freeing the Irish from Protestant tithes and granted Irish tenant farmers sweeping protections against landowners (including banning their eviction from working farms) and a mechanism for thr tenantsto buy their land from willing buyers using a government mortgage at a low interest rate.
He pursued a policy of peace to reduce public spending on war and promoted trade wherever he could because he believed that more trade would mean more demand for workers and raise their wages. As part of the policy of peace he settled the Alabama Claims with the US, creating the concept of international arbitration in the process.
He legalised trade unions and gave them the right to collective bargaining, later referring to it as freeing worker from their chains.
He enacted universal primary education and abolished the ban on non-protestants from attending or teaching at universities and barred the universities from enacting religious restrictions.
He reformed the poor laws (predecessor of modern welfare), which had become thoroughly corrupt. He reformed the civil service, army (including banning peacetime flogging and all sales of commissions) and local government to cut down on nepotism, corruption, patronage and cronyism and promote meritocracy.
He cautioned the working class against following aristocratic populism of the New Social Alliance (an attempt by the aristocrats to remove the power of Industrialists) by denouncing them as delusional utopians.
He enacted secret ballots to end vote buying.
He also enacted the Licensing Act (still in force, but much amended, to this day) requiring places that serve alcohol to acquire a licence and limit their opening hours, banned public intoxication and makes it a crime to be drunk in charge of a horse, cattle, steam engine or carriage, or while in possession of a loaded firearm. He also banned tampering with beers (such as adding salt to make people thirstier).
He reformed and simplified the judiciary, creating the High Court and Court of Appeals (which still exist today). It was also going to strip the house of lords of their judiciary function and make the High Court into the UK equivalent of the supreme court, but Gladstone lost the next election and Disraeli found a compromise, making the Law Lords non-hereditary peers appointed by the monarch, which they would remain until Tony Blair removed them in 2005.
He lost the next election, not due to a lack of popularity, he won a majority of votes in the three constituent countries on Great Britain (the Liberal friendly Home Rule party won a huge majority in Ireland outside Dublin and Ulster). He lost because his party didn’t get the votes in the right places (i.e. running up huge majorities in some seats while not managing to find a candidate in time in others).
His latter terms were less important, he had a handful of new achievements, like two attempts to establish an Irish Parliament, the establishment of specialist education for deaf and blind children and seizing the Suez canal. The biggest achievement left, though, was doubling the franchise in his second term, where anyone with £10 of property or paying £10 in rent was now allowed to vote. He also expanded on the rights of Irish tenant farmers.
I won’t go with my personal opinion because then I’ll be called a junta apologist (yes they built roads, electrified the countryside, brought water to villages, etc etc etc)
Some very popular picks would be Konstantinos Karamanlis (the elder), and Andreas Papandreou. Both very impactful in their own ways.
For Turkey it is without a doubt Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. I think it goes without explanation that he is perceived as a hero because of the Turkish civil war, and the battle of Gallipoli.
Propably Pericles. With his death during the Peloponisian war, I believe, democracy died forever. The way it was originally imagined, it doesn’t exist anywhere today or in the past. Athens had 10 generals of equal power, he was so loved that he rose above the other 9, and the others didn’t even complain (impressive that even the others let him overshadow them). Moreover, there was a term limit in back then, so Athenians voted just to make an exception for him and they let him run as many times as we wanted
Quite many say it’s Einar Gerhardsen.. The prime-minister of the post ww2-era.. Had incredible popularity and as to some degree termed the generation of the 1950s and 60s. Still to this day the longest serving PM in norway. At lot of stuff in the norwegian society stems from his decades in power. In 2005 they had a vote about who was the “norwegian of the century” (1900-2000) and he became nr.2 after the king (Olav).
Probably Kārlis Ulmanis. First prime minister and leader of Latvia during the Indeoendence War, which he managed brilliantly, despite many believing a country of Latvia was a failed project at start. Then in 1936 he made a coup and became dictator (a soft one, no real violence or anything), and then accepted the Soviet ultimatum of 1940, basically allowing them to occupy us. So yeah, very controversial figure, especially during his dictatorship.
I guess that many poles would say that Piłsudzki, but I don’t really like him. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all the things he did for Poland, but in my opinion he was not the best politician. The coup d’état, the restriction of freedom of the press, the harsh policy towards national minorities in Poland are just some of his actions. I understand that he is an important figure after all, but I would like to hear more criticism towards him in our history books.
Probably Margaret Thatcher. Our country is getting worse year on year due to her 30 odd year old policies
Of course it’s not *all* her fault, but still
As an Austrian, leaving all the Habsburg Kaisers aside and also not considering the Bearded One, I’d probably go with Metternich.