Cult of personality

A portrait of Nikita Khrushchev, who delivered his speech on Stalin's so-called "cult of personality," in 1956.

The Cult of personality refers to the anti-communist, typically revisionist accusation. Although Karl Marx used the term, revisionists, opportunists, and anti-communists frequently appropriate the term to invalidate socialist progress or agitation.

Origin

While the term, cult of personality, existed before, Marx first discussed it within a political context in 1877. Marx, in a letter to Wilhelm Blos, declared,

"I ‘bear no ill-will’ (as Heine says) and nor for that matter does Engels. Neither of us cares a straw for popularity. Let me cite one proof of this: such was my aversion to the personality cult that at the time of the International, when plagued by numerous moves — originating from various countries — to accord me public honour, I never allowed one of these to enter the domain of publicity, nor did I ever reply to them, save with an occasional snub."

Revisionist use

The cult of personality, as a term, can be delineated to either Menshevism or Trotskyism. Notably, the Mensheviks initially discarded the Bolsheviks as an "arbitrary, terrorist regime" that would establish "the new dictatorship of the aristocracy." However, the direct use of "cult of personality" is not documented. After Vladimir Lenin's death, and thereby the "split" in Leninism, Trotskyists described Joseph Stalin as the initiator of his own cult of personality. The majority of the United Opposition bloc of Rights and Trotskyites supported the counter-revolutionary myth of a "Soviet Thermidor." Leon Trotsky himself claimed,

"In the last period the Soviet bureaucracy has familiarized itself with many traits of victorious fascism, first of all by getting rid of the control of the party and establishing the cult of the leader."

Khrushchev, after his coup in 1953 and subsequent rise to power in 1956, rehabilitated the claims that Stalin upheld the cult of personality in his speech, "On the Cult of Personality and its Consequences," to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev spread a series of lies against Stalin to allow liberalization and de-Stalinization. The Chinese vehemently defended Stalin from such accusations and rejected the formulation of the "cult of personality" altogether.

In launching “the combat against the personality cult”, the leaders of the CPSU are not out to restore what they call “the Leninist standards of Party life and principles of leadership”. On the contrary, they are violating Lenin’s teachings on the interrelationship of leaders, party, class and masses and contravening the principle of democratic centralism in the Party.

See also

• Revisionism
• Nikita Khrushchev
• Trumpism
• Totalitarianism
• Stalinism