A Supreme Leader typically refers to a figure in the highest leadership position of an entity, group, organization, or state, who exercises strong or all-powerful authority over it. In religion, the supreme leader or supreme leaders is God or gods. In politics, a supreme leader is typically an all-powerful figure who has a cult of personality associated with them, such as Adolf Hitler as Führer in Germany, Benito Mussolini as Duce in Italy, Joseph Stalin as vozhd in the Soviet Union, the Supreme Leader of Iran, or the Supreme Leader of North Korea.
There have been many dictators and political party leaders who have assumed such personal and/or political titles to evoke their supreme authority. Particularly during the Second World War, many fascist and other comparable right-wing figures directly modelled these after Hitler's Führer and Mussolini's il Duce. During and after the Cold War, several socialist and communist leaders also assumed such titles, as did some other politicians at different points in time.
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Famous quotes containing the words supreme and/or leader:
“Ask a toad what beauty is, the supreme beauty, the to kalon. He will tell you it is his lady toad with her two big round eyes coming out of her little head, her large flat snout, yellow belly, brown back.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“The exile is a singular, whereas refugees tend to be thought of in the mass. Armenian refugees, Jewish refugees, refugees from Franco Spain. But a political leader or artistic figure is an exile. Thomas Mann yesterday, Theodorakis today. Exile is the noble and dignified term, while a refugee is more hapless.... What is implied in these nuances of social standing is the respect we pay to choice. The exile appears to have made a decision, while the refugee is the very image of helplessness.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)