Joseph Stalin's cult of personality

This was not just because the man himself was so physically unprepossessing – diminutive and squat, his face dominated by a big walrus mustache and heavily pitted from smallpox – or that he was a secretive, intensely private individual who spoke in a quiet, undemonstrative voice, his Russian couched in a strong Georgian accent that never left him.

Publicly, Stalin was modest, rejecting suggestions that he was Lenin's equal, but allowing a dual celebration of the two men to proceed, before later shifting it primarily to himself.

[10] From 1936, the Soviet press started to refer to Stalin as the "Father of Nations",[11] reminding the peasantry of their image of their previous ruler, the tsar, who was seen as a "stern family patriarch".

Shortly after the revolution of October 1917, Ivan Tovstukha drafted up a biographical section featuring Stalin for the Russian Granat Encyclopedia Dictionary.

[23] After 5 years in the making, the massive 17,000-ton monument was finally revealed to the public which depicted Stalin, with one at the front of a group of proletarian workers.

[25] Although it was not an official uniform, party leaders throughout the Soviet Union emulated the dictator's usual outfit of dark green jacket, riding breeches, boots, and cap to prove their devotion.

On 2 December 1949, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree to form a government committee centered on Stalin's birthday.

Marshal of the Mongolian People's Republic Khorloogiin Choibalsan, who was once a favorite of Stalin, did not attend the ceremonies, instead sending General Secretary Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal.

The ages of these young people ranged from 9 to 28 years old making it a favorable instrument to reshape the members and ideology of the Soviet Union.

[29] Stalin wanted the best to prevail in his image of the future Soviet Union so he put into effect a decree that would punish juvenile delinquency to ensure the 'good apples' were the ones paving the road for his ideal society.

Cartoons like The Strangers Voice by Ivan Ivanov-Vano, reinforced the idea of a Soviet culture by depicting foreign thinking and customs as unwanted and strange.

I want to propose a toast to our patriarch, life and sun, liberator of nations, architect of socialism [he rattled off all the appellations applied to him in those days] – Josef Vissarionovich Stalin, and I hope this is the first and last speech made to that genius this evening.

Historian Archie Brown wrote: "Stalin himself believed that his 'image' ... as a charismatic, almost superhuman, leader helped to solidify support for Communism and to bestow on it legitimacy."

It was a constant in Stalin's beliefs that the Russian people, especially the peasants, were used to being ruled by a single person, the tsar, and did not understand the complexities of the structure of power and governance in the Soviet Union.

Few scholars today would cite Khrushchev's speech as a reliable source and it now seems clear that Stalin distrusted the cult of personality around him.

Stalin spoke disdainfully of this excess, expressing concern that idolatry is no substitute for rigorous Bolshevik study, and could be spun as a fault of Bolshevism by right-deviations in the USSR.

The important thing resides in the fact that the book has a tendency to engrave on the minds of Soviet children (and people in general) the personality cult of leaders, of infallible heroes.

[47] His death and the destabilization of his iconic leadership was met with the chance of new reforms and changes to his regime that had originally been immediately locked down under his control.

The result left Nikita Khrushchev, Lavrentiy Beria, Nikolai Bulganin, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lazar Kaganovich as members of that committee.

"[50] The "Secret Speech" initiated a political reform known as "the overcoming/exposure of the cult of personality",[51] later called de-Stalinization, that sought to eradicate Stalin's influence on the Soviet society.

[53] Under Khrushchev's successor, Leonid Brezhnev, pro-Stalinist forces attempted to re-establish Stalin's reputation as the "Great Leader".

Having failed to do so at the 23rd Party Congress in the spring of 1966, they turned to another method, the text of a speech that Brezhnev was scheduled to give in November of that year in Georgia, Stalin's native country.

Even though the anti-Stalinists prevailed in this instance, the use of the phrase "the period of the cult of personality" – referring to 1934–1953 – disappeared, indicating a softening of the official anti-Stalin line.

[54] This changed when Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the country's top leadership position.

[56][57] After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin saw a return of both centralized and authoritarian control of the state and the cult of Stalin, focusing primarily on his role in the defeat of Nazi Germany and the winning of World War II.

[56] During this period, in the early 2000s, Russia had lost its role as a global superpower, and restoring the positive legacy of Stalin helped to ameliorate the felt loss of status, bringing back a symbol of the country – albeit the Soviet Union predecessor state – at the height of its power.

For instance, Dmitry Medvedev, the president of Russia, said about the Katyn massacre of Polish officers in World War II by the Soviet Army that "Stalin and his henchmen bear responsibility for this crime", echoing a previous statement by the Russian Parliament: "The Katyn crime was committed on direct order by Stalin and other Soviet leaders."

Partly driven by Russian re-engagement with the West, the new de-Stalinization, unlike that under Gorbachev, has not been accompanied by liberalization and reform of the political system, which remains centralized, authoritarian, and dependent on the repression of the people by the security police, much as in Stalin's time.

Such a paradoxical situation, where Stalin's reputation is downgraded, but the state is essentially following in the path blazed by him, leads to the ambivalence of the official position.

And despite the official statements of Stalin's culpability, those in power are still anxious to use the symbolic value of the dictator in support of their own monopolistic hold on the country.