Cult of Personality
Propaganda promoted each leader’s qualities and achievements, thus propagating a cult of personality.
Cult of Personality
The adoration of an individual through the use of art and popular culture.
It was used as a method of enhancing the status of an individual leader and creating a sense of loyalty to them
One of the features of Stalin’s rule, which caused Trotsky to accuse him of betraying the revolution by creating a personal dictatorship from a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Brezhnev had less personal power than Stalin or Khrushchev, but his Cult gave him the appearance and trappings of power.
Lenin
“Father of Communism” - association gives legitimacy and stability to other leaders
Resisted it while alive, but developed post-humously by Stalin
Mauseleum in Red Square, Stalin’s eulogy
Stalin doctored photos to establish himself as a disciple
Stalin
“Lenin of Today”
Doctored photos
Dictatorship gave great personal power
Autobiography rewrote socialist history
70th Birthday celebrations lasted more than a year
High-Stalinism - greatest personal power after Great Patriotic War
Gave speech from Red Square to commemorate 50th anniversary of October Revolution while Nazis were 50 miles away - wartime leader
Khrushchev
Ended collective leadership to establish personal power
Helped to survive anti-party coup
Presented himself as
responsible for new successes (like Soviet Space & rising harvests in Virgin Lands)
Authority in many topics
Reformer perfecting the Soviet system
Lenin’s disciple, completing the journey
Respected statesman negotiating equally with US
Obvious failures undermined the media’s claims
Condemned Stalin’s Cult of Personality in Secret Speech 1956
Didn’t fully denounce Stalin publicaly, so popular loyalty continued
Limited de-Stalinisation
Khrushchev was then condemned himself for his Cult as a reason for dismissal (1964)
Brezhnev
His personal image was a subsitute for power, rather than a tool for manipulating it
Inspired cynacism - “What will do if the Bolsheviks come into power?”
Medals & Military honours for WW2 “expanded chest”
Lenin Prize for Literature
Luxury cars
His Cult was counter-productive as an obviously priviledged bureaucrat not a radical revolutionary or war hero
Led to ridicule
Cult of Personality
Propaganda promoted each leader’s qualities and achievements, thus propagating a cult of personality.
Cult of Personality
The adoration of an individual through the use of art and popular culture.
It was used as a method of enhancing the status of an individual leader and creating a sense of loyalty to them
One of the features of Stalin’s rule, which caused Trotsky to accuse him of betraying the revolution by creating a personal dictatorship from a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Brezhnev had less personal power than Stalin or Khrushchev, but his Cult gave him the appearance and trappings of power.
Lenin
“Father of Communism” - association gives legitimacy and stability to other leaders
Resisted it while alive, but developed post-humously by Stalin
Mauseleum in Red Square, Stalin’s eulogy
Stalin doctored photos to establish himself as a disciple
Stalin
“Lenin of Today”
Doctored photos
Dictatorship gave great personal power
Autobiography rewrote socialist history
70th Birthday celebrations lasted more than a year
High-Stalinism - greatest personal power after Great Patriotic War
Gave speech from Red Square to commemorate 50th anniversary of October Revolution while Nazis were 50 miles away - wartime leader
Khrushchev
Ended collective leadership to establish personal power
Helped to survive anti-party coup
Presented himself as
responsible for new successes (like Soviet Space & rising harvests in Virgin Lands)
Authority in many topics
Reformer perfecting the Soviet system
Lenin’s disciple, completing the journey
Respected statesman negotiating equally with US
Obvious failures undermined the media’s claims
Condemned Stalin’s Cult of Personality in Secret Speech 1956
Didn’t fully denounce Stalin publicaly, so popular loyalty continued
Limited de-Stalinisation
Khrushchev was then condemned himself for his Cult as a reason for dismissal (1964)
Brezhnev
His personal image was a subsitute for power, rather than a tool for manipulating it
Inspired cynacism - “What will do if the Bolsheviks come into power?”
Medals & Military honours for WW2 “expanded chest”
Lenin Prize for Literature
Luxury cars
His Cult was counter-productive as an obviously priviledged bureaucrat not a radical revolutionary or war hero
Led to ridicule
