Cult Of Personality Research Articles

The war of the Russian Empire against Ukraine: The most dangerous phase of the post-communist transition

AbstractWe believe that the causes of the Russian-Ukrainian war can be understood as part of the post-communist transition. From the perspective of Putin's Russia, compared to the United States and China, the last three decades have been a failure on the economic growth front. Hence Putin's desire to restore as much as possible the Soviet Union, a multi-ethnic confederation of people built on communist ideology. But there is a contradiction here that neither public opinion nor Russian leaders can see. The Russian leadership cannot legitimise its current power and its ambitions to change the status quo by anything other than appealing to Russian national interests. This cannot be done without a communist ideology, because the Slavophile, ethno-nationalist, Pravoslav ideology and Putin's cult of personality are unacceptable to all other ethnic groups in the region.

Playing the sycophant card: The logic and consequences of professing loyalty to the autocrat

AbstractDespite the centrality of the loyalty–competence framework in research on authoritarian politics, scholars have only focused on material aspects of what elites do in their service to the dictator. Yet nonmaterial aspects such as sycophantically praising the autocrat in speech—a common, everyday practice under authoritarianism, have been ignored. We propose a novel theory to explain under what conditions elites “overpraise” the ruler and imitate his rhetoric, and whether they will be rewarded. We test the empirical implications through semisupervised text analysis and an original dataset of almost 1000 annual legislative addresses of Russian governors. Contrary to common assumptions that sycophancy is uniform across elites, we find that governors who are politically and economically vulnerable and without alternative career paths behave more sycophantically and show that they survive in office longer. Our results have important implications for how personality cults develop and how dictators navigate the loyalty–competence trade‐off.

«Խրուշչովյան հալոցքը» և այլախոհության առաջացումը ԽՍՀՄ-ում 1950-60-ական թթ. / "The Khrushchev Thaw" and the Emergence of Dissent in the USSR during the 1950s-1960s

This article explores the internal socio-political developments within the USSR following Stalin's demise, famously termed as the "Khrushchev Thaw." During Khrushchev's tenure, a new political trajectory emerged, coinciding with the appearance of dissident voices across the Soviet Union, increasing notably within its various republics. To achieve this objective, the study incorporates a review of the years preceding Khrushchev's leadership, the backdrop of the Cold War tensions between the USSR and the Western bloc, and pivotal moments such as Khrushchev's address at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The analysis concludes that Khrushchev's denunciation of the "cult of personality" at the 20th Congress, coupled with escalating Cold War hostilities and the diminishing influence of Communist ideology, catalyzed conditions conducive to dissent. This dissent rapidly gained momentum across the Soviet republics, evolving into organized movements by the 1960s, representing diverse ideological orientations. Despite relentless and severe state repression, dissent persisted until the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Soviet historiography of the period of «late Stalinism»: on cultural and educational work in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War (22.06.1941–09.05.1945)

One of the essential reasons for achieving the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War (22.06.1941–09.05.1945) was that the Armed Forces of the Soviet state carried out, and permanently, purposefully, actively, proactively and creatively, party political work. Its inalienable part was cultural and educational work, which had a small degree of independence. The historical phenomena mentioned above were constantly in the sphere of scientific interests of Soviet historians. Meanwhile, in post-Soviet historiography, they did not become significant in research practice. In modern Russian historiography at the beginning of the XXI century, such a bias is gradually being eliminated. The author of this small historiographical study, carried out in the format of a short scientific article, presents to the scientific and historical community an analysis of Soviet historiographical sources published during the period of «late Stalinism» (1945 – about the first half of the 1950s), that is, at a time when the cult of personality of I.V. Stalin reached its peak the highest point. The author, revealing the subject of his research, took into account in every possible way the historiographical situation that developed in Soviet historical science during the period of «late Stalinism», in particular, the development of historiography in the coordinate system of the Stalinist theoretical and methodological paradigm (and even more rigid than in the second half of the 1930s); a small number of historiographical and historical sources what was published in the chronological framework indicated above, as well as the absence of a proper historiographical elaboration of our problem. The article is carried out from the standpoint of modern theoretical and methodological approaches.

Crypto collapse: the cult of personality and the normalisation of fraud in FTX and Celsius

Crypto collapse: the cult of personality and the normalisation of fraud in FTX and Celsius

The Myth of Stalin and the Death of Hitler: André Bazin and The Fall of Berlin’s Transnational Travels

This essay explores aspects of the transnational and transhistorical impact of The Fall of Berlin (Padenie Berlina, Mikheil Chiaureli, 1949). Although the film is late Stalinist propaganda, and an outstanding manifestation of the Stalin personality cult, it cannot be reduced to those descriptors. It has had an ongoing impact upon viewers within different cultural contexts who do not necessarily subscribe to its politics. André Bazin’s seminal, frequently translated and reprinted essay ‘The Myth of Stalin in the Soviet Cinema’ (‘Le cinéma soviétique et le mythe de Staline’, 1950), is the most famous and frequently quoted piece of writing on Stalin personality cult films, but it is not the final word on them. It needs to be understood within the specific context of French film culture during the immediate postwar period. This essay therefore highlights the cultural specificity of ‘The Myth of Stalin in the Soviet Cinema’ by contrasting the debates within which Bazin’s essay was enmeshed with the equally culturally specific British reception of The Fall of Berlin in the early 1950s, exemplified by leading film critics and historians such as Dilys Powell, Fred Madjalany and Hugh Trevor-Roper.

Mandi Lok Sabha Showdown: Royal King Vs Bollywood Queen

The southern states of Kerala and Karnataka will be the centre of attention as India’s massive parliamentary elections enter their second of seven phases on April 26. On April 19, India’s general election for the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, began. On June 4, the outcomes of the biggest democratic election in history will be made public. The two main alliances, aside from a number of regional and national contenders, are the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), led by the main opposition Indian National Congress, and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). India’s political scene frequently features captivating contests characterised by the coming together of disparate identities and backgrounds. This phenomenon is best exemplified by the upcoming election between two strong candidates, Bollywood star Kangana Ranaut and Royal scion Vikramaditya Singh, for the Mandi Lok Sabha seat in Himachal Pradesh. Through shedding light on the complex issues involved in the conflict between the conventional aristocracy, represented by Vikramaditya Singh, and the magnetism of Bollywood fame, personified by Kangana Ranaut, this research adds to a deeper understanding of the changing landscape of Indian politics, where identity politics and personality cults collide with the established power system.

Legal Basis of the Formation and Functioning of the Democratic Regime: the Antinomy of Liberalism and Totalitarism

The article is devoted to the problems of the legal foundations of the formation and functioning of a democratic regime in its liberal and totalitarian dimensions. At the same time, since the unlimited power of the people hides the danger of totalitarianism, which has repeatedly manifested itself in the past of both our country and the world as a whole, the study of the democratic regime is of an urgent nature. Therefore, the purpose of this study is the legal basis of the formation and functioning of a democratic regime in the context of its interaction with liberalism and totalitarianism. The implementation of the specified goal requires the performance of a number of scientific tasks. The article substantiates that «pure» political regimes have a sufficiently abstract character. It was found that within the framework of the «dual» approach there are two dichotomies of political regimes: depending on the interaction of the state with the individual and according to the affiliation of sovereignty. It is proven that as a result of duality, the regime of «totalitarian democracy» is distinguished, an example of which is the USSR during the era of the personality cult of Y. Stalin, and the regime of «liberal democracy», the example of which is the USA for a significant part of its history. The article concludes that the philosophical foundation of «totalitarian democracy» was formed within the framework of the so-called «theory of collectivist democracy», according to which the people were considered as a multi-headed single collective being, which could often have negative consequences in the form of, for example, the maxim «enemy of the people». It is emphasized that the involvement of the broad masses of the people in the repressive Stalinist system created a certain «democratic surrogate» - the Soviet «totalitarian democracy», under which the Soviet people are involved in the trials of the «enemies of the people» (democratic dimension), and the nature of the repression itself has a mass character, which brings it closer to genocide (totalitarian dimension). It was found that the liberal-democratic regime in the USA was formed as a result of the combination of the fact that the people take an active part in the sending of state power (democratic dimension) and the constitutional and legal declaration, as a fundamental principle, of freedom (liberal dimension). The practical value of the work lies in the need to create safeguards for the revival of totalitarianism in the world in conditions of active use of the postulates of democracy by non-democratic regimes.

The personality of a personality cult? Personality characteristics of Donald Trump's most loyal supporters

AbstractThe unusually loyal supporters of Donald Trump are often described as a cult. How can we understand this extreme phenomenon in U.S. politics? We develop theoretical expectations and use the Big Five personality dimensions to investigate whether Trump's most loyal supporters share personality characteristics that might make them inclined to cult‐like support. We find that (1) Trump's supporters share high levels of Conscientiousness; (2) this is substantively and statistically distinguishable from the commonly identified association between Conscientiousness and Conservatism; and (3) the association is highly robust to a range of sensitivity tests. Our main findings are robust across two surveys. Study 1 is an online survey conducted in 2021 designed specifically for this project. Study 2 is the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES).

The temporary and partial personalization of political parties in India: A comparison of Indira Gandhi's INC and Narendra Modi's BJP

AbstractObjectiveWe analyze the extent to which the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were personalized during the tenures of India's two most famous populist prime ministers, Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi, respectively.MethodsWe use findings from contemporary Indian historiography and journalism, as well as academic secondary sources, to analyze the degree of personalization in both the INC and the BJP based on three separate dimensions of party institutionalization: internal institutionalization, external institutionalization, and objective durability.ResultsWe find evidence of partial personalization in both the INC and the BJP. To the extent that personalization took place in both cases, it involved an informal and temporary concentration of power in the hands of one leader. Both parties' formal structures remained largely constant and both parties remained valued as institutions by both voters and party members.ConclusionIndira Gandhi and Narendra Modi both became two of India's most powerful prime ministers through charismatic populist appeals and cults of personality. While meaningful and important, these outward appearances still give a somewhat misleading image of the degree to which their respective parties underwent personalization during their tenures. Both the BJP and the INC saw a temporary and personal personalization during their time in office while remaining institutionalized parties with objective durability even after their charismatic leaders leave office.

Генезис советской интеллигенции и изменение ее отношения к власти в годы реформ Н.С. Хрущева

This article is devoted to understanding the genesis of the Soviet intelligentsia and identifying meaningful changes in its attitude to power in 1953–1964. The research methodology is based on complementing the historical-party approach with sociological theories of functionalism and structuralism, as well as the theory of elites and the new class. The hypothesis of the study is the complex nature of the Soviet intelligentsia, which included the remnants of the pre-revolutionary educated layer, as well as representatives of the “new” Soviet intelligentsia who emerged during the years of Soviet power, possessing high cognitive qualities, partisanship and the ability for social conformism and mimicry. The modernization of the socio-political course under N.S. Khrushchev and his opening of the floodgates of criticism of the “cult of personality” of J.V. Stalin revived the function of critical analysis and construction of new meanings, characteristic of the intelligentsia, which was successfully suppressed in the USSR. The growth of critical sentiment among the Soviet intelligentsia in the conditions of desacralization of power and half-hearted de-Stalinization, the articulation of doubts about the effectiveness of the Soviet system began in the early 1960s to failures in economic policy. The economic uncompetitiveness of socialism in the conditions of weakening mobilization mechanisms for its development gives rise to a crisis of confidence in power among the Soviet intelligentsia. In the conditions of the USSR's transition to a post-industrial society, there is a growing dissonance between the humanization and technocratization of the Soviet intelligentsia and the further dogmatization of the CPSU system of ideological education. The result is an increasing trend since the mid-1960s anomie of the Soviet intelligentsia from power.

Public diplomacy of authoritarianism: Strategic use of Suzanne Mubarak

AbstractA leader's wife can be a key player in consolidating his authoritarianism through her public diplomacy activities. Taking the example of Egypt's former First Lady, Suzanne Mubarak (1981–2011), this article demonstrates how her role in public diplomacy framed her as a “modern” woman with a mission of “modernizing” women or the country's whole population. The modernization model adopted in these frames presumes the need for agents to transform “traditional” societies into “modern” societies and the need for agents to build more networks of collaboration with the “West.” The second section of the article focuses on political instrumentality, showing how former President Hosni Mubarak attempted to look good, to look democratic, and to look useful to his allies. This process was partly organized by Mrs. Mubarak herself, who used her public diplomacy roles as opportunities and resources to build a personality cult drawn on glorifying herself and aggrandizing her activities.

The Curious Personality Cult of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi: At the Crossroads of Religion, Politics, and Communication Strategies and Technologies

Abstract This paper studies the construction of the personality cult of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the deceased leader of the Islamic State (is) organization that ruled large territories in Iraq and Syria in the mid to late 2010s. Examining a range of is primary sources, I argue that al-Baghdadi sought to develop a distinct personality cult by cultivating auras of holiness and mystique around his personae. While he flaunted putatively exceptional religious leadership credentials, it is al-Baghdadi’s use of communication strategies and technologies for projecting his personality cult that distinguishes his case and this study. Al-Baghdadi sought to strategically mystify himself by rarely appearing in public and largely avoiding visual self-revelation in the media messages he released. Ultimately, given his defiance of regional and international powers and his group’s notoriety, al-Baghdadi’s low visibility and self-enigmatization worked to his advantage by generating much interest about him among supporters and the global media.

Ideological literary policy of Stalin and Khrushchev

The subject of this study is the changes in ideological literary policy by I.V. Stalin to N.S. Khrushchev. The article examines the features of Stalin’s literary ideological policy (concept of socialist realism). This concept, developed in the light of the ideological and political guidelines of the Stalinist leadership and supervision, writers, poets, and critics lost their creative freedom. This was the reason for the formation of the theory of conflict-free behavior in the literature. The author notes that by the early 1950s a new path opened for creating examples of literary creativity, since the new political leader rethought the concept of socialist realism and eliminated Stalin’s cult of personality. When studying problems related to the analysis of the ideology and political orientations of outstanding statesmen of the USSR, comparative historical and typological research methods were used in the work. To formulate the conclusions of the study, the author used methods such as comparative and descriptive. As a result of the research, the evolution in the ideological and political views of the state leadership on the course of the literary process in the country was revealed, it was concluded that the period of Khrushchev’s reign can rightfully be called the time of the onset of the cultural “thaw” in the details of the writers, poets, and critics. However, factors that seem obvious at first glance, introducing a certain degree of freedom into the creative process, are still accompanied by the inevitable tightening of policies and political supervision over the content of literary works. The author concluded that the cultural “thaw” that clearly emerged in the country during the reign of Khrushchev turned out to be an incomplete reform, since the content of creativity was still supposed to revolve around the ideas and orientations of the party’s activities.

Trafficking Narratives and the Prosecution of NXIVM

ABSTRACT Although cults often inflict significant damage upon their followers, the prosecution of cult abuse is a challenging feat because of the legally incoherent nature of the harms. Increasingly, prosecutors have addressed cult abuses by prosecuting cult leaders for human trafficking. We examine the 2019 trial of Keith Raniere, the founder of a group called NXIVM. Raniere never placed his followers in a sexual marketplace, and the operations of the organization lacked several hallmarks of trafficking, yet prosecutors were able to attain a guilty verdict. We argue that the prosecution’s success substantially derived from the attention paid to three “trafficking-adjacent harms”: gaslighting, coercive control, and trauma-coerced attachment. The convincing demonstration of these harms allowed prosecutors to establish a persuasive case against Raniere. The testimonies of Daniela, Nicole, and Sylvie, three victim/survivors of NXIVM, reveal how prosecutors use anti-trafficking legal frameworks to address cult exploitation.

Authoritarianism at School: Indoctrination Education, Political Socialisation, and Citizenship in North Korea

ABSTRACT It is well known that North Korea uses political propaganda to elicit popular support, and this article focuses on how primary and secondary schools play an essential role in conveying the regime’s messages. The article asks how this process shapes North Koreans’ perceptions towards citizenship and how their perceptions of ‘democracy’ differ from those in other parts of the world. School education, I argue, socialises North Koreans and shapes their everyday political attitudes and citizenship perceptions. This study examines 32 North Korean Socialist Moral textbooks and identifies four core regime messages embedded in these texts: Personality Cult education in relation to the Kims, promoting socialism, fostering nationalism, and cultivating communitarianism and collectivism. I propose that these regime messages positively and negatively affect perceptions of democratic citizenship. Messages that promote communitarianism can encourage North Koreans to engage in democratic politics, but messages about political leadership, nationalism, and collectivism can hamper North Koreans’ understanding of democracy and their capacity to develop democratic norms. This study has implications for research into how North Korean defectors are integrated into democratic South Korea, suggesting that these defectors’ longstanding exposure to authoritarian education in North Korea will necessarily influence how they conceive of democracy.

White Supremacy and the January 6 Insurrection

Abstract In this paper, we argue that white supremacist values have been mainstreamed in the United States, and that the values driving the male supremacist and white supremacist movements are significant in fueling mass sympathy for January 6th (J6). To examine the white and male supremacy questions in relation to J6, we draw on a national survey from IPSOS. We also commissioned a poll with Harris Insights. The IPSOS poll was conducted from July 30 to August 16, 2021, and includes a nationally representative sample of 5,299 Americans. The Harris poll was conducted from October 20–25, 2022, and contacted a nationally representative sample of 2,029 Americans. We argue that J6 should be understood at the nexus point between white supremacist, populist, and fascist politics, not only in terms of the values driving the insurrectionists, but those in the mass public who are sympathetic to them. Right-wing populism, we believe, privileges white supremacy and white nationalism, male supremacy and political leadership that relies on an appeal to the cult of patriarchal personality, trust in the wisdom of “the people,” and distrust of political leaders – particularly Democratic leaders – who are framed as “corrupt,” “out of touch” “elites” working against the public good and democracy.

Омск как культурный центр в отражении городской топонимии

The article characterizes urban toponymy associated with the cultural development of Omsk. It examines the names of city streets in honor of cultural figures - poets and writers, scientists, artists, composers, represented in the cultural landscape of the city. The main stages in the development of the “cultural” toponymy of the city are highlighted, as well as the factors that determined its evolution in different periods of the country's history. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. the city had a small number of godonyms - street names associated with its cultural development. As a rule, these are streets that got their name from the location of city educational institutions and religious institutions. In the 1920s in the toponymy of the city there is a revolution as a consequence of the political revolution, the formation of a new Soviet statehood and ideology. In Omsk, streets appeared in memory of the classics of Russian literature, whose works were distinguished by a democratic orientation, narrated about the life of the people, as well as in honor of famous Soviet writers and public figures. In the 1930s commemorative practices in the field of toponymy were determined by the guidelines of the Stalinist “cultural revolution”. During this period, streets appeared on the city map that immortalized the names of writers, literary critics, democratic revolutionaries, socialists, popular Soviet writers, national cultural figures, outstanding Russian and Soviet scientists. In the 1950s - 1980s. The formation of the city's toponymy was greatly influenced by such processes in the country's socio-political life as the “thaw”, de-Stalinization and the debunking of the “cult of personality”. A new trend of this time was the expansion of the repertoire of urbanonymic foundations by naming streets in honor of local cultural figures. The social order of the era for science was also reflected in the toponymic space of the city: many streets appeared on the map of Omsk during this period in honor of the great Russian scientists, inventors, and founders of astronautics. In the post-Soviet period of history in the 1990s - 2000s. in the conditions of the collapse of the previous ideological system, the search for a new identity was expressed in turning to Russian and Soviet culture, updating its heritage in toponymy. The trend of naming city streets in memory of local cultural figures has also intensified as an expression of the desire of the city community and local authorities to gain local identity and create a positive, unique, recognizable, investment-attractive image of the city.

«Все же не получилось великого содружества Ленина со Сталиным»: стенограмма совещания при дирекции Института Маркса-Энгельса-Ленина (ИМЭЛ) по обсуждению научной биографии В. И. Ленина 20 ноября 1940 г.

The purpose of this publication is to introduce into scientific circulation the transcript of the meeting of the Directorate of the Marx Engels Lenin Institute (IMEL) dated November 20, 1940. The published source belongs to the problematic field of the history of historical science at the turn of the 1930s-1940s. The meeting reflected in the document became one of the few known to us "exchanges of views" within the institute on the development of the author's team of the biography of V.I. Lenin. The document complements the plots related to the functioning of the cult of personality of I.V. Stalin and its limits in Soviet historical science; gives an understanding of how the image of a professional revolutionary should appear; reflects the technical nuances that imposed objective restrictions on the author's team during the writing of the biography of V.I. Lenin. The creators of the text found themselves in a certain ideological framework: they were obliged to build the reviewed Lenin's works, focusing on the "Short Course of the history of the CPSU (b)". Separate text inserts and quotations of V.I. Lenin in the text of the biography were subject to the same kind of adjustments. The construction of the image of the leader from the point of view of his human qualities posed a large number of questions to the team of authors concerning the image of a professional revolutionary. How should one comprehend the theoretical heritage of the leader and how to combine it with practice? How should the portrait of V.I. Lenin be given? Is it worth showing the personality through everyday details (through a description of his rest, attitude to nature, etc.) or is it quite possible to limit yourself to showing high culture in the work and modesty of the leader? And is it necessary to set such a goal at all? Ultimately, during the discussion that unfolded during the meeting of the IMEL directorate, the team of authors decided to focus mainly on the political activities of V.I. Lenin, limiting themselves to only rare references to the personal life of a professional revolutionary. The source was identified in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) in f. 71. The document is a typewritten original and is published in accordance with modern rules of spelling and punctuation. Obvious shortcomings and a few errors have been corrected in the text. Information about the persons and scientific works mentioned in the source is given in the footnote. An important pre-publication comment updating this source is important. The source is published with banknotes: plots that are insignificant from the point of view of the issues discussed are cut out.

ВЕЛИКИЕ СТРОЙКИ КОММУНИЗМА В ЗЕРКАЛЕ СОВЕТСКОЙ НОСТАЛЬГИИ

The article examines the evolution of the mythology of the great construction projects of communism in the context of nostalgia for the Soviet. The author shows the specifics of the formation of the mythology of great construction projects in the Soviet media sphere through connection with the basic constructs of the official communist ideology. This mythologem was never able to move into the discourses of historical memory, since the exposure of the cult of personality and mass repressions launched the process of undermining trust in the Soviet mythological pathos of the great construction projects of communism until its complete ideological corrosion during the period of perestroika. However, the specifics of the accumulation of primary scientific data on the history of the economy of forced labor in the USSR pushed into the shadows the real participation in great construction projects not only of the civilian population, but also of Komsomol activists who went en masse to these sites at the call of the Communist Party. The initial conditions of many construction projects were very harsh, and the objects themselves were distinguished not only by their scale, but also by their knowledge intensity, which implied their high technological efficiency. Currently, great Soviet construction projects penetrate into the space of media memory through the digital content of tourists, whomthey attract as a source of unprecedented impressions of exotic sights. The author concludes that in the case of great construction projects, Soviet nostalgia as a cultural movement works with the material, rather than symbolic, dimension of great construction projects, drawing positive connotations to elevate their image within the experience industry.