The Stalin Cult as Political Religion

Graeme Gill

doi:10.3390/rel12121112

Abstract

Political religion is a concept that gained prominence around the middle of the twentieth century, being associated for many with the idea of a totalitarian regime. Political religion was seen as a secular ideology whose followers took it up with the enthusiasm and commitment normally associated with adherence to religion. Comprising liturgy, ritual and the sacralization of politics, it created a community of believers, and usually had a transcendental leadership and a millennial vision of a promised future. This paper will explore the utility of this concept for understanding leader cults in authoritarian regimes. Such cults have been prominent features of authoritarian regimes but there is little agreement at the conceptual level about how they should be understood. One of the most powerful of such cults was that of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953. This paper analyses this cult in terms of liturgy and ritual and concludes that despite some aspects that are common between the cult and religion, most ritualistic aspects of religion find no direct counterpart in the cult.

Highlights

This paper analyses this cult in terms of liturgy and ritual and concludes that despite some aspects that are common between the cult and religion, most ritualistic aspects of religion find no direct counterpart in the cult
The idea of political religion has been around for some time, it reached its height of acceptance in the middle of the twentieth century when the notion of totalitarianism was popular as a framework for understanding the Nazi German, fascist Italian and communist Soviet regimes (Voegelin [1938] 1986)
2009); paradoxically, the main theorists of totalitarianism did not use this as an important analytical concept; for example, (Arendt [1951] 1986; Friedrich and Brzezinski [1956] 1965; Schapiro 1972; see Maier 2007)) was a secular ideology whose followers took it up with the enthusiasm and commitment normally seen in the adherents of religion

Summary

Introduction

The idea of political religion has been around for some time, it reached its height of acceptance in the middle of the twentieth century when the notion of totalitarianism was popular as a framework for understanding the Nazi German, fascist Italian and communist Soviet regimes (Voegelin [1938] 1986). 2009); paradoxically, the main theorists of totalitarianism did not use this as an important analytical concept; for example, (Arendt [1951] 1986; Friedrich and Brzezinski [1956] 1965; Schapiro 1972; see Maier 2007)) was a secular ideology whose followers took it up with the enthusiasm and commitment normally seen in the adherents of religion It usually had a transcendent leadership, a millennial vision of the promised future, and gave a real sense of belonging to its adherents; it created a community of believers The clearest way in which the cult could be seen in religious terms is through the relationship it sought to create between the principal of the cult, Joseph Stalin, and his followers The essence of this was the attempt to create a relationship between the two that can best be described as charismatic This liturgy, or framework of action, applied to two groups: the immediate intimates of the principal of the cult, and the mass following

Cultist Liturgy

Soviet Ritual and the Cult

A Political Religion?