Stalin’s Cult of Personality

EMANUEL MARCANO & LUIS ODON

What is a Cult of Personality

• “Intense devotion to a particular person” – www.princeton.edu

• “The unique position Stalin attained and the power he possessed to shape the Communist state and the lives of the people in the Soviet Union” - Fiehn

• By the end of the 1940s Stalin was literally everywhere• Presented as Lenin’s heir and the sole interpreter of party

ideology• Vozhd – The Leader; a genius with great wisdom and

even prophetic powers

Why?

• Economic and political circumstances of the 1930s• Disruption and disorientation brought by the Five-Year

Plans, Collectivization, and the Purges• Former heroes were revealed as traitors• “Saboteurs” were everywhere• The image of Stalin reassured the people that they had a

strong leader to take them through these tough times• It held Soviet society together

Origins

• In the 1920’s Bolshevik leadership was portrayed as an anonymous collective body making joint decisions

• Few pictures of the leaders were seen • In the late 1920s Stalin was seen as cold and distant• Full-blown cult began around 1933-1934 • From 1935 Stalin could only be referred to in positive

idolizing terms

Timeline

• 1924-1929 Origins of the cult• Wants to appear as a hard-working man of moderation• Tsaritsyn renamed Stalingrad in 1925 (now Volgograd)

• 1929-1933 Cult Underway• Stalin portrayed as Lenin’s faithful pupil and companion-in-

arms• Huge portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin begin to

appear

Timeline

• 1933-1939 Cult Fully Established• Paintings, poems, and sculptures used to

promote cult• Socialist Realism• The History of the All-Union Communist

Party

• Post 1945 Height of the cult• Power cemented by his success as a war

leader• Childhood home becomes a shrine• Portraits show him as a god-like figure,

superior and apart

Rewriting History

• History of the All-Union Communist Party published in 1938

• Main history text for educational institutions across the USSR

• Stalin given more important role in the October Revolution as chief companion to Lenin, his closest friend and disciple

• Trotsky given little credit and demoted to the role of bourgeois opportunist and given little credit

• Old Bolsheviks, especially Bukharin and his supporters, were designated ‘enemies of the people’ or relegated to minor roles

• All leaders dwarfed except Lenin and Stalin

Stories

• When a speech of Stalin’s was published on a series of gramophone records, one side of one of the records consisted entirely of applause.

• “…somebody told me he was the best surgeon. He could perform a brain operation better that anyone else, and I believed it. I knew that he was busy with other things, but if he wanted to do it he would be better.”

Reaction

• Benefactor: Stakhanovites, soldiers, and young intelligentsia grateful to him, because they had acquired their status despite humble origins. Admired as the prime agent in achieving the astounding changes brought about by industrialization and collectivization.

• Traditional defender of the people: Millions of letters and petitions sent to him. Officialdom was riddled with corruption and the vozhd was on the people’s side.

• Charismatic Leader: Perceived as demi-god possessing superhuman abilities and superhuman wisdom.

Other Famous (or infamous) Cults of Personality

• Mao• Kim Il-Sung – Kim Jon-Il – Kim Jong-Un• Muammar Gadhafi• Nicolae Ceausescu• Hafez/Bashr al-Assad • Ho Chi Minh