Everything about Cult Of Personality totally explained
A
cult of personality or
personality cult arises when a country's leader uses
mass media to create a heroic public image through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in
dictatorships but can be found in some
democracies as well.
A cult of personality is similar to general
hero worship except that it's created specifically for political leaders. However, the term may be applied by analogy to refer to adulation of non-political leaders.
Background
Throughout history, monarchs were almost always held in enormous reverence. Through the principle of the
divine right of kings, rulers were said to hold office by the will of
God.
Imperial China (see
Mandate of Heaven),
ancient Egypt,
Japan, the
Inca, the
Aztecs, and the
Roman Empire (see
imperial cult) are especially noted for redefining monarchs as
god-kings.
The resurgence of ancient Greek democratic ideas in
Europe and
North America in the 18th and 19th centuries made it increasingly difficult for monarchs to preserve this aura. However, the subsequent development of
photography,
sound recording,
film and
mass production, as well as
public education and techniques used in commercial
advertising, enabled political leaders to project a positive image like never before. It was with these circumstances in the 20th century that the best-known personality cults arose.
Purpose
Generally, personality cults are most common in regimes with
totalitarian systems of government, that seek to radically alter or transform society according to
revolutionary new ideas. Often, a single leader becomes associated with this revolutionary transformation, and he becomes treated as a benevolent "guide" for the nation, without whom the transformation to a better future can't occur. This has been generally the justification for personality cults that arose in totalitarian societies of the 20th century, such as that of
Adolf Hitler and
Joseph Stalin.
Not all dictatorships foster personality cults, however, and some leaders may actively seek to minimize their own public adulation. For example in
Cuba public images of
Fidel Castro are rare, and a personality cult around Castro isn't encouraged officially, although images, posters, and billboards of
Che Guevara abound. Similarly in the regime of
Pol Pot in
Cambodia, the image of Pol Pot himself was rarely seen.
Examples from totalitarian regimes
The criticism of personality cults often focuses on the regimes of
Mussolini,
Hitler,
Stalin,
Josip Broz Tito,
Mao,
Saddam Hussein,
Kim Il-sung and his son
Kim Jong-il. During the peak of their reigns, these leaders were presented as god-like and infallible. Their portraits were hung in homes and public buildings, and artists and poets were instructed legally to produce only works that glorified the leader and their political movements. Other undemocratic leaders with such cults include leaders such as
Eva Peron of
Argentina and her husband
Juan. The term
cult of personality comes from
Karl Marx's critique of the "cult of the individual" - expressed in a letter to German political worker, Wilhelm Bloss. In that, Marx states thus:
From my antipathy to any cult of the individual, I never made public during the existence of the [1st] International the numerous addresses from various countries which recognized my merits and which annoyed me... Engels and I first joined the secret society of Communists on the condition that everything making for superstitious worship of authority would be deleted from its statute.
Nikita Khrushchev recalled Marx's criticism in his 1956 "
Secret Speech" denouncing Stalin to the
20th Party Congress:
Comrades, the cult of the individual acquired such monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself, using all conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his own person. . . . One of the most characteristic examples of Stalin's self-glorification and of his lack of even elementary modesty is the edition of his Short Biography, which was published in 1948..
This book is an expression of the most dissolute flattery, an example of making a man into a godhead, of transforming him into an infallible sage, "the greatest leader," "sublime strategist of all times and nations." Finally no other words could be found with which to lift Stalin up to the heavens.
We need not give here examples of the loathsome adulation filling this book. All we need to add is that they all were approved and edited by Stalin personally and some of them were added in his own handwriting to the draft text of the book.
Journalist
Bradley Martin documented the personality cults of
North Korea's father-son leadership, "Eternal (formerly Great) Leader"
Kim Il-sung and "Great (formerly Dear) Leader"
Kim Jong-il. While visiting North Korea in 1979 he noted that nearly all music, art, and sculpture that he observed glorified "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung, whose personality cult was then being extended to his son, "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il. Kim Il-sung rejected the notion that he'd created a cult around himself and accused those who suggested so of "
factionalism."
Former President
Saparmurat Niyazov of
Turkmenistan is another oft-cited cultivator of a cult of personality. Niyazov simultaneously cut funding to and partially disassembled the education system in the name of 'reform,' while injecting ideological indoctrination into it by requiring all schools to take his own book, the
Ruhnama, as its primary text. During Niyazov's rule there was no freedom of the press nor was there freedom of speech. This further meant that opposition to Niyazov was strictly forbidden and "major opposition figures have been imprisoned, institutionalized, deported, or have fled the country, and their family members are routinely harassed by the authorities." Additionally, a silhouette of Niyazov was placed on the screen of all television broadcasts and statues and pictures of him were 'erected everywhere.'. For these, and other reasons, the US Government has gone on to claim that by the time he died, "Niyazov’s personality cult...had reached the dimensions of a state-imposed religion.".
University of Chicago professor
Lisa Wedeen's book, "Ambiguities of Domination" documents the cult of personality which surrounded late Syrian President
Hafez al-Assad. Numerous examples of his glorification are made throughout the book, such as displays of love and adoration for the "leader" put on at the opening ceremonies of the
1987 Mediterranean Games in Lattakia Syria.
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