Cult of personality

A 1950 Chinese propaganda poster showing a happy family of five enjoying life under the image of Mao Zedong. The caption above the picture says "The happy life Chairman Mao gives us".

A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise.^[1] Although cults of personality are often found in dictatorships, some have occurred in highly industrialized democracies and republics. The sociologist Max Weber developed a tripartite classification of authority; the cult of personality holds parallels with what Weber defined as 'charismatic authority'.

A cult of personality is similar to hero worship, except that it is established by mass media and propaganda. However, the term may be applied by analogy to refer to adulation of religious or non-political leaders.

Background

Throughout history, monarchs and heads of state were almost always held in enormous reverence. Through the principle of the divine right of kings, for example, rulers were said to hold office by the will of God. Imperial China (see Mandate of Heaven), ancient Egypt, Japan, the Inca, the Aztecs, Tibet, Thailand, and the Roman Empire (see imperial cult) are especially noted for redefining monarchs as god-kings.

The spread of democratic ideas in Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries made it increasingly difficult for monarchs to preserve this aura. However, the subsequent development of photography, sound recording, film and mass production, as well as public education and techniques used in commercial advertising, enabled political leaders to project a positive image like never before. It was from these circumstances in the 20th century that the best-known personality cults arose. Often these cults are a form of Political religion.

Purpose

Personality cults were first described in relation to totalitarian regimes that sought to radically alter or transform society according to radical ideas. ^[2] Often, a single leader became associated with this revolutionary transformation, and came to be treated as a benevolent "guide" for the nation without whom the transformation to a better future couldn't occur. This has been generally the justification for personality cults that arose in totalitarian societies of the 20th century, such as those of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

Not all dictatorships foster personality cults, not all personality cults are dictatorships (some are highly democratic), and some leaders may actively seek to minimize their own public adulation. For example, in the regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia, Pol Pot's image was rarely seen. On the other hand, in North Korea there exists a very successful cult of personality, which includes actual semi-worship of both the father (Kim Il-sung) and son (Kim Jong-il).

Examples from totalitarian regimes

Adolf Hitler, behind Hermann Göring, at a Nazi rally in Nuremberg in 1928.

The criticism of personality cults often focuses on the regimes of Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Saparmurat Niyazov, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-Sung, Sukarno, and Kim Jong-Il.

During the peak of their regimes, these leaders were presented as god-like and infallible. Their portraits were hung in homes and public buildings, with artists and poets legally required to only produce works that glorified the leader and his regime. Other leaders with such cults include Siad Barre of Somalia and Enver Hoxha of Albania. The term cult of personality comes from Karl Marx's critique of the "cult of the individual"—expressed in a letter to German political worker, Wilhelm Bloss. In that, Marx states thus:

Nikita Khrushchev recalled Marx's criticism in his 1956 "Secret Speech" denouncing Stalin to the 20th Party Congress:

Some authors (e.g. Alexander Zinovyev) have argued that Leonid Brezhnev's rule was also characterized by a cult of personality, though unlike Lenin and Stalin, Brezhnev did not initiate large-scale persecutions in the country. One of the aspects of Leonid Brezhnev's cult of personality was Brezhnev's obsession with titles, rewards and decorations, leading to his inflated decoration with medals, orders and so on^[4]. This was often ridiculed by the ordinary people and led to the creation of many political jokes.

Journalist Bradley Martin documented the personality cults of North Korea's father-son leadership, "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung and "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il.^[5] While visiting North Korea in 1979 he noted that nearly all music, art, and sculpture that he observed glorified "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung, whose personality cult was then being extended to his son, "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il.^[5] Kim Il-sung rejected the notion that he had created a cult around himself and accused those who suggested so of "factionalism".^[5] A US religious freedom investigation confirmed Martin's observation that North Korean schoolchildren learn to thank Kim Il-sung for all blessings as part of the cult.^[6] Evidence of the cult of Kim Il-Sung continues into the 21st century (despite his death in 1994) with the erection of Yeong Saeng ("eternal life") monuments throughout the country, each dedicated to the departed "Great Leader", at which citizens are expected to pay annual tribute on his official birthday or the anniversary of his death.^[7]

Saparmurat Niyazov, who was ruler of Turkmenistan from 1985 to 2006, is another oft-cited cultivator of a cult of personality.^[8][9][10] Niyazov simultaneously cut funding to and partially disassembled the education system in the name of 'reform,' while injecting ideological indoctrination into it by requiring all schools to take his own book, the Ruhnama, as its primary text, and like Kim Il-sung, there's even a creation myth surrounding him.^[11][12] During Niyazov's rule there was no freedom of the press nor was there freedom of speech. This further meant that opposition to Niyazov was strictly forbidden and "major opposition figures have been imprisoned, institutionalized, deported, or have fled the country, and their family members are routinely harassed by the authorities."^[13] Additionally, a silhouette of Niyazov was used as a logo on television broadcasts^[14] and statues and pictures of him were 'erected everywhere.'^[15]. For these, and other reasons, the US Government has gone on to claim that by the time he died, "Niyazov’s personality cult...had reached the dimensions of a state-imposed religion."^[16].

University of Chicago professor Lisa Wedeen's book Ambiguities of Domination documents the cult of personality which surrounded Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. Numerous examples of his glorification are made throughout the book, such as displays of love and adoration for the "leader" put on at the opening ceremonies of the 1987 Mediterranean Games in Lattakia, Syria.

Juan Perón, elected three times as President of Argentina, and his second wife, Eva Duarte de Perón, were immensely popular among many of the Argentine people, and to this day they are still considered icons by the Peronist Party. The Peróns' followers praised their efforts to eliminate poverty and to dignify labor, while their detractors considered them demagogues and dictators. To achieve their political goals, the Peronists had to unite around the head of state. As a result, a personality cult developed around both Perón and his wife.^[17]

Iraq under Saddam Hussein was another well known example of a cult of personality. Saddam had portraits of himself made all over the country, some showing him as Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and Saladin, reinforcing his personality cult in one of the most secular Arab countries.

Another example is that of Romania's political power structure in the 1980s, which was a cult of personality surrounding Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife, Elena Ceauşescu. Nicolae Ceauşescu rose to power in 1965, but by 1971 the regime had reasserted its Stalinist legacy in socioeconomic and cultural matters. Ceauşescu was increasingly portrayed by the Romanian media as a creative communist theoretician and political leader whose "thought" was the source of all national accomplishments. His tenure as president was known as the "Golden Age of Ceauşescu." In the 1980s, the personality cult was extended to other members of the Ceauşescu family, including his wife, Elena, who held a position of prominence in political life far exceeding protocol requirements. By the mid-1980s, Elena Ceauşescu's national prominence had grown to the point that her birthday was celebrated as a national holiday, as was her husband's.

Since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, he and his government have exhibited many traits commonly attributed to a cult of personality rule. The Cuban government frequently puts up billboards and posters with propaganda slogans. Castro features prominently in much of this, his own persona being intertwined with the Cuban flag and identity, and the revolution itself.

In a 2004 article on personality cults, The Economist identified Togo's Gnassingbé Eyadéma as maintaining an extensive personality cult, to the point of having schoolchildren begin their day by singing his praises.^[18] Similarly, Cambodian schoolchildren in French Indochina at one point in the early 1940s began their schoolday with prayers to Marshal Pétain, opening with the words, "Our father, who art in Vichy".^[19]

Modern use

The modern usage of the phrase "Cult of Personality" focuses much less on direct government control of media and more on individuals who have a large following of people who see said individual as "More than Human". This would be an example of hyperbole, and does not accurately reflect personality cults as they have existed in countries such as Togo, Turkmenistan, and what continues to exist in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

See also

• Charismatic authority
• Celebrity
• The Rage Against God

References

External links

• Why Dictators Love Kitsch by Eric Gibson, The Wall Street Journal, August 10 2009