Salami tactics

Salami tactics

Salami tactics, also known as the salami-slice strategy, is a divide and conquer process of threats and alliances used to overcome opposition. With it, an aggressor can influence and eventually dominate a landscape, typically political, piece by piece. In this fashion, the "salami" is taken in slices, until one realizes (too late) that it's gone in its entirety. In some cases it includes the creation of several factions within the opposing political party and then dismantling that party from the inside, without causing the "sliced" sides to protest.

According to the "Dictionary of Modern Thought" by Alan Bullock and Olier Stallybrass, ["The Harper dictionary of modern thought", / Edited by Alan Bullock and Oliver Stallybrass. Harper, 1977] the term was coined in the late 1940s by the Stalinist Mátyás Rákosi to describe the actions of the Hungarian Communist Party (szalámitaktika). Rakosi claimed he came to power by getting his opposition to slice off its right wing, then its centrists, until only those collaborating with the Communists remained in power. [Safire, William, "Safire's Political Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2008, p.639]

This strategy was also used in the majority of Eastern European countries in the second half of the 1940s.

Similar tactics had been used previously by many different political parties and groups wishing to consolidate their power in various countries. For example, Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party achieved absolute power in Germany within the early months of 1933 by squeezing out his conservative partners, after those conservative partners helped in the outlawing of Communists and Social Democrats and granting emergency powers to him.

The term "salami tactics" is also used in business and means that someone presents problems or solutions in pieces, and so it is hard to get the big picture.

ee also

*Salami slicing

References

Footnotes

External links

* Horvath, John. 2000. " [http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/8/8660/1.html Salami Tactics] ". Retrieved July 11, 2005.


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