Abstract
Abstract Harry Pollitt’s grotesque peroration typified the eulogies that flooded the Communist world when Stalin died on 5 March 1953. These were not cynically intended. Stalinism’s political psychology in the West subsisted on three decades of isolation and defeat, counterposed to the stirring narrative of the USSR’s heroic success—victory in the civil war, socialism in one country, industrialization and the five-year plan, defeat of fascism— a polarity confused during 1941–47, but now freshly dramatized by the Cold War. Moscow loyalism reflected western Communism’s siege mentality in 1947–53, constantly charged by Soviet demands. But the abjection of so many independent minds, entire movements in fact, before the cult of Stalin’s personality still eludes understanding.
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