Personality cult

A choir performance in East Germany.

“”♫I'm the smiling face on your TV ♫I'm the cult of personality ♫I exploit you, still you love me ♫I tell you one and one makes three

—Living Colour, "Cult of Personality"

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“”Now everybody's under somebody's spell / Unless they've already gone to hell.

—Pet Shop Boys, In The Night

A personality cult or cult of personality is a system in which the political legitimacy of an organization is the function of the leader. Often such leaders are able to control a group of people through the sheer force of their personality. In extreme cases the leader can be portrayed as a god-like figure.

Where the personality cult forms around a head of state, criticising that person is generally prohibited and/or dangerous — with threats or actions made against the critics by supporters of the head of state. Where the head of state has attained strong or complete control of state-sponsored media, they have often used this to spread propaganda to ensure that the masses receive a consistent positive picture of the head of state. Propaganda will typically depict the leader as being a great leader (or even called "Great Leader" as in Kim Il Sung), a genius prophet or a god-like figure, able to relate to ordinary people and upholding their interests, always in command — shown in propaganda with commanding appearance and never shown in submission to anyone. Frequently, personality-cult leaders claim to be devoted to a mission as the embodiment of the will of the people or of the nation. Leaders promoting personality cults will frequently tie their own image to various national heroes (personality cults of yore) as a means of legitimating themselves and their policies (think of Roman Emperor Augustus making his great-uncle the Roman dictator Julius Caesar a deity and dedicating monuments to him, or of Soviet posters showing the faces of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao).

Various monarchies claimed some form of divine sanction, but that doesn't necessarily make them personality cults in the modern sense, as the phenomenon is most commonly associated with post-19^th-century mass-media.

New surfaces may be produced for no other reason than to present that image, as satirized with the balloon bearing Joseph Stalin's image in an empty field in the 1994 Russian film Burnt by the Sun.

Personality cults are often found in strongly authoritarian societies like absolute monarchies with no democracy in them, but they can also develop in authoritarian semi-democratic societies like those of Julius Caesar and Augustus, or in totalitarian societies like Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler or like the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Although it is very rare to see them in strongly-democratic countries, they do occur from time to time.

Examples

Current and former heads of state

战无不胜的马克思列宁主义,毛泽东思想万岁!
("Invincible Marxism-Leninism, long live Mao Zedong Thought!")
l-to-r: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao)

Europe

• Heydar Aliyev and his son, Ilham Aliyev (Azerbaijan): Aliyev Senior is often proclaimed as the Atatürk of Azerbaijan
• Ion Antonescu (Romania)
• Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Turkey)
• Silvio Berlusconi (Italy)
• Napoleon Bonaparte (France)
• Julius Caesar, Augustus, Caligula, Domitian, Commodus, Elagabalus and most Roman emperors in general (Roman Empire).
• Nicolae Ceaușescu (Romania): Ceaușescu modeled his image after those of his predecessors (Carol II and Antonescu) as well as that of Kim Il Sung
• Carol II (Romania)
• Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Turkey)
• Francisco Franco (Spain): He is still dead.
• Adolf Hitler (Nazi Germany)
• Erich Honecker (East Germany)
• Miklós Horthy (Hungary)
• Enver Hoxha (Albania)
• Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union). Also applies to Leonid Brezhnev to a lesser extent, with his love of giving himself medals.
• Slobodan Milošević and Aleksandar Vučić (Serbia)
• Benito Mussolini (Fascist Italy)
• Mehmed II and Abdul Hamid II (Ottoman Empire)
• Philippe Pétain (Vichy France)
• Józef Piłsudski (Poland): suppressed in Communist Poland, but rehabilitated into some sort of Founding Father by the post-communist government. Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of Law and Justice (PiS), is following his footsteps.
• Vladimir Putin (Russia): Rehabilitating the images of both Stalin and the Czars!
• Margaret Thatcher (United Kingdom) - There has been a huge attempt to build a cult around her.
• Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia)
• Queen Victoria & Prince Albert, plus Elizabeth II (United Kingdom, and any of her realms including Canada, Australia and New Zealand)

Americas

• Salvador Allende for the left and Augusto Pinochet for the right (Chile), though Allende's worship is nowhere to the extent compared to Pinochet, who had overthrown Allende and turned the country into a dictatorship.
• Fidel Castro (Cuba): even though Castro disliked the concept and his last wish was that no statues would be erected in his honor and no streets or cities be named after him
• Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicholas Maduro (Venezuela): Maduro and his fellow Chavistas frequently depicted himself along with pictures of Hugo Chavez and founding father Simon Bolivar).
• François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier (Haiti)
• Alberto Fujimori and his daughter Keiko Fujimori (Peru): along with several Fujimorist political parties
• Juan Perón and his wife Eva "Evita" Perón (Argentina), along with her fans Peronistas. Cristina Kirchner and her deceased husband Nestor Kirchner are following their footsteps with Kirchnerism.
• Saint Ronald Reagan for Republicans and John F. Kennedy (sometimes Franklin D. Roosevelt, but not always for obvious reasons) for Democrats, and the Founding Fathers in general (USA)
• Alfredo Stroessner (Paraguay)
• Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic)
• Donald Trump (USA): "I alone can fix it"
• Álvaro Uribe (Colombia)
• Getúlio Vargas (Brazil), and currently Lula for the left and Jair Bolsonaro for the right.

Africa

• Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali (Tunisia)
• Idi Amin (Uganda): gave himself the title "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE (Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular), Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas".
• Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir (Sudan)
• Jean-Bédel Bokassa, later Emperor Bokassa I (Central African Republic): briefly reformed the country into the Central African Empire.
• Muammar al-Gaddafi (Libya)
• Gamal Abdel Nasser, Hosni Mubarak, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Egypt): following in the well trodden footsteps of their Pharaonic predecessors.
• Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaïre): his concept of authenticité, his appearance on nearly all banknotes during his rule
• Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), similar to Amin, his regime gained a sizable personality cult.

Asia & Oceania

• King Bhumibol Adulyadej and his son, King Vajiralongkorn (Thailand): lèse-majesté laws can lead to a 70-year sentence for insulting the Thai royal family. Although King Bhumibol Adulyadej personally opposed the laws, the Thai military junta uses it to suppress dissidents.
• Hafez al-Assad and his son, Bashar al-Assad (Syria)
• Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma Myanmar)
• Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (China and later Taiwan)
• Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines)
• Emperor Shōwa [Hirohito] (Japan): until 1945 the Japanese imperial clan claimed to be descendants from the Sun goddess Amaterasu; this claim was especially emphasized starting with the Meiji emperor. The American occupation put an end to it.
• Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam): has a city named after him.
• Saddam Hussein (Iraq)
• Ayatollah Khomeini (and by extension, Ayatollah Khamenei) (Iran)
• Kim Il Sung ("Eternal President" even after his death), his son, and then his grandson (North Korea)
• Chairman Mao and Xi "Winnie the Pooh" Jinping (China): Mao was literally worshiped, had loyalty dances and inspired a Cultural Revolution because his relative power in the Communist Party was shrinking. His successors, up until Xi, deliberately went out of their way to avoid building personality cults.
• Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines)
• Narendra Modi (India)
• Nursultan Nazarbayev (Kazakhstan): the capital of Kazakhstan was renamed Nur-Sultan in his honor after his resignation.
• Jawaharlal Nehru and the Gandhian dynasty (India)
• Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenistan: aka Türkmenbaşy (lit. Father of all Turkmen. Read his book three times get into heaven free!), and his successor Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.
• Park Chung-Hee (South Korea)
• Ali Abdullah Saleh (Yemen)
• Suharto and Sukarno (Indonesia)
• Shinzo Abe (Japan): The idol for Japanese Netto-uyoku

Other political figures

Guevara: the personality cult pose. Find it on a t-shirt near you!

• Stepan Bandera (Ukraine): After being suppressed for decades by the USSR, Bandera's Ukrainian Insurgent Army is officially commemorated by the current Ukrainian government, despite being responsible for collaboration with the Nazis and massacring Poles.
• Felix Dzerzhinsky (USSR/East Germany): Founder of the Cheka secret police which led to become the KGB. Statues and busts of founder can be found in all the buildings of KGB and the Stasi, plus the Stasi's own regiment was named him, the Wachregiment "Feliks E. Dzierzyński".
• Lei Feng (China): Supposedly a soldier from the People's Liberation Army who lived from 1940 to 1962, he has been used for various CCP propaganda campaigns, with a well known slogan being "follow the example of Comrade Lei Feng" (向雷锋同志学习). His personality cult was mainly used to prop up Mao's, as the most famous potrait of him depicted him carrying Mao's "Little Red Book".
• Che Guevara (Argentina/Cuba)
• Meir Kahane (USA/Israel): Founder of the Jewish Defense League, considered a terrorist group in both Israel and the USA. Fellow JDL member Baruch Goldstein, who murdered 29 Palestinians, is similarly regarded by extremist Zionists.
• Joseph Kony (Uganda): leader of the Lord's Resistance Army
• René Lévesque (Quebec): practically a god to Québécois independence activists (despite having been born in Campbellton, New Brunswick) and supporters of Quebec Bill 101 (the Charter of the French Language) (even if René was more moderate on language than some of the PQ, and would have resigned as leader rather than eliminate English-language public schools as some party members proposed), and one of the main streets in Montreal is named for him. Camille Laurin, creator of Bill 101, is similarly regarded, though nowhere to the extent compared to Mon cher René.
• Ingrid Newkirk and other PETA activists such as Dan Mathews (mostly USA)
• Ayn Rand and her Randroids (USA)
• Rafael del Riego (Spain): one of the old Spanish national anthems was dedicated to him
• Maximilien Robespierre (France)

Religious and anti-religious personalities

Asahara: "Rise above! We're gonna rise above!"

• Shoko Asahara (Japan): founder of the Aum Shinrikyo cult
• Ryuho Okawa (Japan): self-proclaimed "Master" of the Happy Science group
• Richard Dawkins and the New Atheist "Four Horsemen" in general for atheists (mostly UK): Once heroes to many liberals… until half moved in the opposite political direction (for example: Sam Harris's support for racial profiling and torture, and his supporters' attempts to normalize his near-Islamophobia, and Dawkins falling down a similar rabbit hole).
• Jim Jones and his equally disastrous "Kool-Aid drinkers" (USA)
• David Koresh and the disaster we know as Waco (USA)
• Li Hongzhi (China): self-proclaimed "Main Buddha of the Universe"
• Andrew Schlafly (mostly USA): beloved by non-troll Conservapedians, a lot of which is likely due to his sheer amount of power on the shite scaring them
• Phyllis Schlafly (USA): Andrew's mother and practically a god to many antifeminists and homophobes

Crime

• Charles Manson and his "Family" (USA)
• Keith Raniere and NXIVM
• Andrew Tate

Technology

• Steve Jobs (USA): co-founder of Apple Computers known for his showmanship and obnoxiously perfectionist behavior
• Elon Musk (USA): (in)famous businessman and engineer known for his batshit insane approach to new technologies. Hyperloop anyone? Musk declared himself 'technoking' in 2021.
• Richard Stallman (USA): free sofware/open source advocate and creator of the GNU libraries, which are the backbone of the Linux operating system. Noted for ghosting people who don't called Linux, GNU/Linux and making fun of those who use Vi program for coding instead of Emacs.

In the technology world there a number of what is known as benevolent dictators for life, people who are like unofficial gurus of a particular project who become the final say of a project and its actions. However no cult is based around them. For instance; Linus Torvalds for Linux and Eugen Rochko for Mastodon.

In pop culture

For various reasons, the idea of a personality cult is entering pop culture spheres, sometimes as just another set piece (such as in "Cult of Personality" by Living Colour in 1988), but sometimes it's a major element of a movie. An example is the German film The Wave (originally made in 1981 and remade in 2008). The movie was based on the social experiment called "Third Wave" created by Ron Jones, and is about a German teacher who attempts to show his high school students what fascism is. As a result, he accidentally creates a personality cult that leads to large amounts of vandalism, an attempted murder, and a suicide when the instructor (Wenger) tells his students that the experiment is over. The 2001 German thriller film Das Experiment is somewhat similar. The Emperor of Mankind is also a fine example.

Bad attempts

There have been in bad attempts to create cults of personality on certain individuals, only to flop usually because the person doesn't much of a personality in the first place. Examples include East Germany's Ernst Thälmann who the government initially called their youth wing Thälmann Pioneers, and Walter Ulbricht, who famously made a old-man-yells-at-cloud speech about pop music. British far-right wingers have tried British Union of Fascists's Oswald Mosley, by calling him "Leader". In a modern context there has been an attempt to build a cult of personality around Margaret Thatcher; with the Thatcher Room at 10 Downing Street, a former study at the prime minister residence, the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, a conservative neoliberal thinktank, and several statues including one in the Westminster Guildhall and the other in hometown of Grantham which have both been attacked.

Reviving the dead

The John Birch Society named themselves after a then-deceased Baptist missionary and low-ranked US Army officer during World War II in China. The Society trotted out a hagiography, puffing up the minimal factual information that was known about him.

See also

• Great man theory

External links

• See the Wikipedia article on On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences.