True leaders do not fear criticism, but see it as an opportunity for improvement and correction especially when accurate and needed, but even if mistaken and unpleasant. They deal with it as simply one of the unavoidable elements of complex social interaction—at the very center of what true leaders do. Leaders who value mutual care foster cooperative action.
Bullies typically are easily offended, are directive and overbearing, or devious and leading with flattery, false hopes and fears. Or all of these. They punish those who do not submit.
Bullies revel in praise and hate criticism. For all their swagger and apparent self-confidence, they demonstrate their actual insecurity in how they react to opposition. Bullies use whatever means they have to silence their critics, including lies, false allegations, sarcasm, screaming, slapping, beating, firing, jailing and killing, depending upon their level of power and the constraints of their circumstances. They may do these things overtly, with a threatening attack or public retribution, or covertly, hiding the evil of their actions behind a mask of calmness or justice. But they don’t actually engage their critics, or even just ignore them. They attack to silence them.
This distinction is important. Understanding the difference between true leaders and bullies, in motives and actions, gives us the power to see and expose the bullies among us, and to uphold and support the genuinely decent leaders.
Examples follow in the links below.
We can use them to help fine tune our discernment of bullies in the world today, and close to home. The sad truth is that if we tolerate bullies—especially those we naïvely think are on our side—then we or those we love, and other innocents, will suffer. Resist them.
Bullies strive to make their opponents disappear. This can be as simple as name-calling and derision to drive them out of public view, or as concrete as incarceration—where the law and law enforcement are used to physically remove them from sight—and where they sometimes die under “unusual” circumstances. This is happening today with protestors in Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, Brazil, Myanmar, North Korea (the list goes on), and… here.
The examples below are hardly exhaustive. They are mere illustrations, but intended to sensitize us to bully tactics wherever they arise and whoever employs them. The more able we are to see them, the quicker we can be to resist them.
Russia: The imprisonment and murder of opponents has a long history in Russia, notably with Tsar Nicholas in 1905, whose troops killed hundreds, wounded thousands, and put 7,000 in jail, after a peaceful protest seeking better working conditions, led by Georgy Gapon, an Orthodox priest.
After the monarchy was overthrown by the Bolsheviks, the same bully methods of cruelly dealing with opposition continued with only minor pauses up to today.
Valdamir Putin is a former KGB agent and now President of the Russian Federation, and an undisputed autocrat of Russia which, as of 2025, he has led in Russia for 26 years. His regime is widely regarded as corrupt, and widely referred to as “Partiya zhulikov i vorov” or the “party of crooks and thieves.”
Alexei Navalny began protesting the actions of Putin’s party, and founded the “Fond borby s korruptsiyey” (FBK) or Foundation for Combatting Corruption.
The Russian Constitution guarantees freedom for such activities. Section One, Articles 29-31 state:
Article 29.
- Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought and speech.
- Propaganda or campaigning inciting social, racial, national or religious hatred and strife is impermissible. The propaganda of social, racial, national, religious or language superiority is forbidden.
- No one may be coerced into expressing one’s views and convictions or into renouncing them.
- Everyone shall have the right to seek, get, transfer, produce and disseminate information by any lawful means. The list of information constituting the state secret shall be established by the federal law.
- The freedom of the mass media shall be guaranteed. Censorship shall be prohibited.
Article 30.
- Everyone shall have the right to association, including the right to create trade unions in order to protect one’s interests. The freedom of public associations activities shall be guaranteed.
- No one may be coerced into joining any association or into membership thereof.
Article 31.
Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to gather peacefully, without weapons, and to hold meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets.
We should keep these guarantees in mind when considering the United States Constitution, and how bullies in power might make an end-run around such protections (recall the arrests of opponents of the Vietnam war on invented charges of narcotics manufacturing and sale, in Bullies, Parasites and Slaves):
Because protest and political opposition are constitutionally protected in Russia, Navalny could not be charged for those activities. Instead, prosecutors accused him of embezzlement, of crimes which defamed him and conveniently prevented him from running for office.
Later he was poisoned with a nerve agent, likely by the Russian Federal Security Service (the FSB, successor to the KGB), nearly died, was evacuated to a hospital in Germany, and then accused of violating his parole because he was “out of the country without permission” in Germany. He was arrested when he returned to Russia, imprisoned, and died there under “unusual circumstances” in 2024.
You can read more detail here: Alexei Navalny
The “Disappeareds”
Argentina: In 1976 the armed forces of Argentina staged a coup against president Isabel Peron, and imposed a military dictatorship which ruled the country until 1983. They persecuted opponents using torture, jailing, murder and “disappearances” where individuals and whole families were dragged from the streets and their homes, and were never seen again. These are now called the “Disappeareds,” in Spanish Desaparecidos. Some 30,000 were taken and are still unfound to this day.
The mothers of many of these organized a protest in the plaza in front of the main government palace, wearing diapers with the names of their children written on them, and later with photographs on posters. The story from the Buenos Aires Herald follows:
Mothers of the Plaza, in Argentina
Also from Wikipedia:
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (Spanish: Madres de Plaza de Mayo) is an Argentine human rights association formed in response to abuses by the National Reorganization Process, the military dictatorship by Jorge Rafael Videla. Initially the association worked to find the desaparecidos, people who had disappeared without arrests, trials or judicial process; most were believed dead. Their mothers and supporters investigated to determine the culprits of what were considered crimes against humanity in order to bring them to trial and sentencing.
