What is it with leftist "cults of personality"?

[Os Cangaceiros]

I thought of this while reading about the cult of personality surrounding Aldo Brandriali, leader of the Union of Italian communists.

I mean, the horrific grovelling towards glorious comrade Stalin, attributing the sun rising every day with Mao's rule, the insane mythology surrounding Kim Il-Sung, etc. It even infests parties (Blob Avakian being probably the most egregious example). I can understand the exhaltation of leaders when it comes to ideologies like, say, fascism, but it seems to have a disturbing tendency to attach itself to an ideology that one would expect wouldn't lend itself to that sort of thinking.

[red cat]

Historical contributions should be remembered. Cults should be denounced.

[Rooster]

What about when cults form an integral part towards state functioning?

[Ocean Seal]

The reason that we have cults on the left is that we're composed primarily of pretty cool guise bro. :thumbup:

[Terminator X]

Do you just mean on RevLeft, or in the real world? Because I have yet to run into any self-proclaimed Stalinists or Maoists in everyday life. (And if I ran into a Kim Il-Sungist on the streets of my city, I'd have to question that person's mental health.)

Also, Kim Il-Sung shouldn't be qualified as a "leftist" and his cult of personality is more forced and required than rightfully earned.

[Manic Impressive]

I think it's a sign of weakness used for the similar reason that the fascists use it, as a banner and something to unite around. Obviously it's highly reactionary but it's a tactic almost as old as civilisation whether it be the Pharaohs or Qin Shi Huang or any of the Abrahamic religions they all have an idol like figure man or god for people to rally around. It substitutes fact for blind faith due to a diseducated working class. Hopefully next time we won't make the same mistakes again.

[GallowsBird]

To be fair, if you are referring to the reverence of leaders in Socialist countries that has more to do with the mentality of most humans more than anything.
In regards to people like Lenin and Mao and Castro et cetera they are seen as liberators of the country and people tend to lionise their heroes.

Look at America with George Washingtona and Abraham Lincoln for instance for a non-Socialist country with "hero-worship".

I think it is OK to respect, for lack of a better word, heroes, but it shouldn't be extreme... and yes that may be ironic coming from a guy with Stalin as his avatar but there you go...:bored:

[El Chuncho]

Because I have yet to run into any self-proclaimed Stalinists or Maoists in everyday life.

You should visit England on Mayday. ;)

[Manic Impressive]

To be fair, if you are reffering to the reverence of leaders in Socialist countries that has more to do with the mentality of most humans more than anything.
In regards to people like Lenin and Mao and Castro et cetera they are seen as liberators of the country and people tend to lionise its heroes.

Look at America with George Washingtona and Abraham Lincoln for instance for a non-Scoialist country with "hero-worship".

I think it is OK to respect, for lack of a better word, heros but it shouldn't be extreme... and yes that may be ironic coming from a guy with Stalin as his avatar but there you go...:bored:
except it wasn't just the people who were holding them up as heroes although obviously many would it was state implemented canonisation for want of a better word of Lenin and Stalin and I think that makes a clear distinction from general hero worship.

[Proukunin]

after every revolution there will be a developed cult. America glorifies the founding fathers. I don't necessarily think that it is a good thing. But these cults happen when people glorify their hero's.

[Os Cangaceiros]

You should visit England on Mayday. ;)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3099/2402165916_cb5bbf28d7_o.jpg

lol

[El Chuncho]

lol


Come on, how can you not think that is at least a little cool? :D

[Tommy4ever]

I think it probably stems back to Russian culture at the time of the revolution. The veneration of saints and the Tsar seemed to be a major influence (the most important influence) behind the creation of the Cult of Lenin and later Stalin. This is understandable as the Bolsheviks were trying to harness the same sort of love and respect Russians (especially peasants) had for saints and the Tsar.

Just like so much about the Soviet Union many leftists, ignoring the fact that this had more to do with Russian culture than Marxist ideology, saw it as a major part of the whole ideology.

As for the Asian cults of personality. I'm not as good on my Asian history as on my Russia but would I be right in assuming thay China might have had similar style cults around political figures?

If not then I guess its mostly the Soviet influence throughout the Communist (with a big C) movement around the world.

[Chairman Wow]

http://obeygiant.com/images/2008/11/obama-hope-shelter-copy-500x752.jpg

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/images/la/LACOVreagan_miller3.jpg
http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ronald_reagan_2.jpg

God damned evil commies and their cults of personality

[El Chuncho]

http://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/George-Washington.jpg

http://www.solarnavigator.net/history/explorers_history/Winston_Churchill_British_bulldog_portrait.jpg

[Manic Impressive]

Come on, how can you not think that is at least a little cool? :D
It's not cool and it makes us all look like a joke to the rest of the proletariat. That being said comrades from the CPGB-ML are some of the nicest and friendliest people I've met on demo's.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

What Tommy4ever said, plus the revisionists specifically promoting a cult around him in Stalin's case, being the "liberator" and "unifier" of China in Mao's case, same with Kim Il-sung etc.

[Os Cangaceiros]

after every revolution there will be a developed cult. America glorifies the founding fathers. I don't necessarily think that it is a good thing. But these cults happen when people glorify their hero's.

I guess that's a good point, but I'm not sure how exact the comparison is. It's kind of an ignored fact, but a lot of people hated the "founding fathers" when they were in state power. There were people toasting to Washington's death in Virginia taverns when he was president. The founders kind of have a retrograde nostalgia about them here...perhaps a more apt comparison in the USSR would be Alexander Nevsky...?

The best comparison I can think of in the USA is actually FDR. Some journalist commented that (during the 30's) the only portrait that hung in more working-class homes than FDR was the Virgin Mary.

[Omsk]

The so called 'cults of personality' were created sometimes even by the people,for instance,you had cases of people who really were devoted to Lenin's ideas,and followed his teachings,and that is normal,a man of such size and achievements should be rewarded with such acts,such as writing books,poems and raising monuments in his honor.
In hard times,people need a figure to stick to,Lenin,Stalin and a number of other were such figures,back in the day,even whispering their names inspired common workers and soldiers to heroic deeds.You had cases of Red Army soldiers charging with the slogan "For comrade Lenin!!" Or " Да здравствует Ленин"

On the other hand,things like portraying the leaders with godlike powers is wrong,for instance,some leaders do need positive attention,some don't,you cant equalize the 'cults' of Kim Jong Il and Lenin.Its obvious that Lenin deserves the good words,while Kim,does not.All in all - Masses liked and upheld the figure of Lenin (and other Soviet leaders) so there was nothing wrong in a number of paintings of Lenin or songs composed in his honor.
However,if the leader didn't actually do much for the country,than he deserves no such thing. (we can all agree that both Lenin and Stalin achieved a huge number of positive things for the Soviet Union)

[El Chuncho]

That being said comrades from the CPGB-ML are some of the nicest and friendliest people I've met on demo's.

As it should be. ;)

[Per Levy]

Come on, how can you not think that is at least a little cool? :D

if you think stalin is "cool" then maybe it is, most people dont think stalin is cool though.

topic: difficult to say, i think a lot of the "cults of personality" were created to strengthen power, if people worship a leader almost religiously they probally wont fight against him.

[El Chuncho]

if you think stalin is "cool" then maybe it is, most people dont think stalin is cool though.

Actually, my comment was tongue in cheek, I am a Marxist-Leninists but i do not care as much about waving a big portrait of Stalin around, even if I acknowledge influence from him.

[punisa]

Because no matter how many times leaders fail the huge masses will always yearn for "another great leader" and its more or less the way human beings are.
I don't see anything wrong with a bit of personality cult, if only that personality would be the one who has genuine just ideas about freeing the working class.

I think its rather too dogmatic to completely denounce and reject even the hypothetical idea that there might be a single leader without common flaws.
And its completely absurd to call all vanguard revolutionary movements bad.

I'm still waiting for a leaderless revolution to take place and it might be a long wait..

[Os Cangaceiros]

Because no matter how many times leaders fail the huge masses will always yearn for "another great leader" and its more or less the way human beings are.

Ah, so it's all human nature. ;)


I'm still waiting for a leaderless revolution to take place and it might be a long wait..

The question isn't really about the need or lack of need for leaders...it's about aforementioned leaders being propelled to almost demigod-like status within a socio-political body of thought in which (theoretically) this should not be happening.

[black magick hustla]

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/033/concept-of-brilliant-leader

the "cult of personality" was part of the counterrevolution and eventual bolshevization of the world communist movement. communism will emerge against "Communist leaders", always. The stalinist clique had to exterminate hundreds of thousands of communists because the stalinists were rightly afraid of real communists making them drown in their own fucking blood

[punisa]

Ah, so it's all human nature. ;)


I know I know... guilty as charged :lol:
I always have issues when people explain certain phenomena as "human nature", but I was indeed in a serious lack of a better explanation.

It's not something I have constructed out of thin air either. I talk to people, common working people in my country who totally lost any hope for the parliamentary democratic parties.
They see what is happening in the Arab world, the tension in the air, the feeling of depression.. and many of they say: "if we only had a great leader to show us the way".

The fact why so many lefties here take a strong stance against leaders is partly because few of them take time to talk with real people out there.




The question isn't really about the need or lack of need for leaders...it's about aforementioned leaders being propelled to almost demigod-like status within a socio-political body of thought in which (theoretically) this should not be happening.

Yes, this is usually the case. But we do have to ask ourselves why is this so damn easy? Why do huge masses fall for that?
If you ask me the "Obama campaign" in the US was not that different from other cults of personalities. Once again it was proven that people tend to rally against a single personality, his/her programs all fall in the second plan.

[black magick hustla]

I always have issues when people explain certain phenomena as "human nature", but I was indeed in a serious lack of a better explanation.


i been fighting against "human nature" all my life

[Chimurenga.]

Also, Kim Il-Sung shouldn't be qualified as a "leftist" and his cult of personality is more forced and required than rightfully earned.

The man was a member of an anti-imperialist organization called the Down-With-Imperialism Union when he was in middle school, at fourteen years old. He directly participated in resistance against Japanese colonialism and US imperialism. He led, along with others, successful socialist construction to a demolished and broken country and the creation of a workers state in northern Korea. This same workers state was able to offer material aid and military training to liberation and anti-apartheid movements around the world.

As a self-proclaimed "leftist", what the fuck have you ever done?

This thread is problematic from the start because there is no such thing as a "cult of personality". From Ho Chi Minh to Mao to Che and so on, only deep appreciation exists. An appreciation that I, like many who have posted in here, couldn't even begin to understand.

[black magick hustla]

so having a corpse for a president (eternal president) is just deep appreciation huh

[Leo]

I don't think nearly all bourgeois states having cults of personalities around their leaders shows that it is normal for the socialists to do it. Quite the contrary it shows that the so-called socialist states who had cults of personalties around their leaders to have an essentially bourgeois characteristic.

[Os Cangaceiros]

This thread is problematic from the start because there is no such thing as a "cult of personality". From Ho Chi Minh to Mao to Che and so on, only deep appreciation exists. An appreciation that I, like many who have posted in here, couldn't even begin to understand.


To justify his fabricated past, he appointed so-called revolutionary war sites (7 places) and historic sites (34 places) throughout all North Korea, and every year he urged all the people to make expeditionary marches to those places. He even ordered the building of over 40,000 Kim Il-sung's Revolutionary Thought study rooms for the indoctrination of the people.

Furthermore, he had over 70 bronze statues and over 20,000 plaster busts erected all over the country, and had more than 20 diverse kinds of Kim Il-sung badges manufactured and worn by the people according to their class, aside from the obligatory hanging of a Kim Il-sung portrait in each household.

Besides, he ordered the carving of over 12,000 pieces of catchword trees and catchword documents, as well as the carving of letters appearing on natural rocks, and the erection of monumental stones with his own personal writings, let alone the publication of countless books related to his personality cult. In addition, he designated his birthday as "the greatest nationalholiday (http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/champion/65/pers_cult.htm#)" and observed his birthday by spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

Even after the death of Kim Il-sung, the North Korean authorities had his body mummified and laid in a coffin at the super-deluxe Kumsusan Memorial Palace to prolong the personality cult under the pretext that he is "immortal and imperishable."

The North Korean authority went to every length to deify Kimill-sung as the progenitor the Kingdom by designating 97.7 Kim's birth year(1912) and date(April 15) as the Proto 'Juche' year and 'Taeyang(great sun)day.

http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/champion/65/pers_cult.htm

Yep, nuthin' but "deep appreciation".

[Chimurenga.]

so having a corpse for a president (eternal president) is just deep appreciation huh

Yes. Its not something that I am personally for but I'm hardly in a place to comment on that.


http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/champion/65/pers_cult.htm

Yep, nuthin' but "deep appreciation".

You pretend like I give a shit about an anti-communist site that deliberately seeks to discredit and denounce the DPRK.

Perhaps you'd like to browse the site before instantly linking it for some sort of credibility. Like you should've done in the first place.

[The Red Next Door]

You should be *****ing about cult of personality for celbs.

[L.A.P.]

Regardless of opinion on the nature of personality cults, I think it is safe to say that having personality cults is not exclusive to fascism and socialism.

[Os Cangaceiros]

You pretend like I give a shit about an anti-communist site that deliberately seeks to discredit and denounce the DPRK.

LOL, yes, I'm sure that a DPRK research webpage run by a Russian professor and devoted to the study of relations between the DPRK, Russia and Australia is part of the massive bourgeois conspiracy to descredit the DPRK.


Perhaps you'd like to browse the site before instantly linking it for some sort of credibility. Like you should've done in the first place.

It sounds like YOU didn't browse the site! This was posted on the very same site:


Kim Il, an anti-Japanese war veteran, is one of the revolutionary forerunners who devoted themselves to the heroic struggle for the sovereignty, independence and socialist construction of Korea. He was born into a poor peasant family in Orang County, North Hamgyong Province, in March 1910. Under the guidance of President Kim Il Sung, he took part in the revolution in the early 1930s and made a contribution to winning the historic victory in the anti-Japanese war as a regiment political commissar of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army.

http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/champion/65/history.htm

Along with a ton of info about the DPRK's burgeoning information technology market and assorted other topics. :lol:

[RedSunRising]

It's not cool and it makes us all look like a joke to the rest of the proletariat. That being said comrades from the CPGB-ML are some of the nicest and friendliest people I've met on demo's.

It is cool. Its a giant fuck you troll! At this stage Stalin being more of a symbol than actual man.

The fact though that Russia, China and Korea were coming out of feudal societies has a lot to do with the historical cults of personalities. Russian peasants transfered a lot of the feelings that they had for the Tsar unto Lenin and Stalin. Same situation in the case of Mao. The problem with North Korea is that the state there massively encourages and not just allows the personality cult.

[black magick hustla]

It is cool. Its a giant fuck you troll! At this stage Stalin being more of a symbol than actual man.

The fact though that Russia, China and Korea were coming out of feudal societies has a lot to do with the historical cults of personalities. Russian peasants transfered a lot of the feelings that they had for the Tsar unto Lenin and Stalin. Same situation in the case of Mao. The problem with North Korea is that the state there massively encourages and not just allows the personality cult.

This is not true. Like all bourgeois factions, the stalinists massively encouraged the cult of Stalin and Lenin. This is why the "cult of personality" is endemic in international stalinist organizations, not only for stalin but whatever nobody is leading the party too. Mao actively encouraged a "cult of appreciation" too. The "cult of personality" is perhaps one of the most massive contradictions between the radical rhetoric of "emancipation"of maoist ideologues and their practice.

[RedSunRising]

This is not true. Like all bourgeois factions, the stalinists massively encouraged the cult of Stalin and Lenin. This is why the "cult of personality" is endemic in international stalinist organizations, not only for stalin but whatever nobody is leading the party too. Mao actively encouraged a "cult of appreciation" too. The "cult of personality" is perhaps one of the most massive contradictions between the radical rhetoric of "emancipation"of maoist ideologues and their practice.

If I said that Stalin was a very humble, even shy man, who hated the fuss made about him it would be considered trolling or being silly. Outside of the positive cult of personality we should consider the demonization and negative cults of personality around Communist leaders.

[Manic Impressive]

It is cool. Its a giant fuck you troll! At this stage Stalin being more of a symbol than actual man.
Troll :confused: I don't see how you got that from my post.
Anyway it is anything but cool it's counter productive whether all or most of the propaganda against Stalin is false makes no difference. Carrying a big picture of a man most normal people consider to be a mass murderer is not a good way to attract the working class to communism. More of a symbol? of what? lol good moustaches? the failure of the soviet union? please enlighten me as to how Stalin is a positive symbol in the 21st century. :lol:

[RedSunRising]

Troll :confused: I don't see how you got that from my post.


They are trolling. I mean surely it must be about winding up Trots and Anarchists no?

[black magick hustla]

If I said that Stalin was a very humble, even shy man, who hated the fuss made about him it would be considered trolling or being silly. Outside of the positive cult of personality we should consider the demonization and negative cults of personality around Communist leaders.

there are no positive cult of personalities. cults are for mormons

[black magick hustla]

They are trolling. I mean surely it must be about winding up Trots and Anarchists no?
i just imagine boring old men who have the fashion sense of a microwave, and assorted nerdarios who larp idk if thats trolling

[Decommissioner]

While I agree it can go both ways, I just don't buy this whole "deep appreciation" excuse for cults of personality.

We don't see images of the founding fathers every where we look, or the current president, and even when we do, it's often in a negative light as much as positive in a positive light.

I couldn't give two shits how much people adored their leader, it just seems more than obvious that the hero worship seen in most so called socialist countries was state enforced.

People in the capitalist west worship personality cults as well, most obvious being of celebrities and athletes. The difference here is people are genuinely compelled by the capitalist system to do it, but not forced. Proof of this is you can publicly say anything you want about a celebrity without fear of punishment. Another crucial difference is these celebrities are not leaders that have direct control of policy.

I don't think the excuses for them are valid. I think people worship leaders more out of fear and blind faith more than adoration, a sign that they do not have control over the means of production.

[Die Rote Fahne]

It's no different than Nationalism.

It is something all leftists should renounce.

The only "cult of personality" should be the working class as a whole.

[RedSunRising]

It's no different than Nationalism.

It is something all leftists should renounce.

The only "cult of personality" should be the working class as a whole.

Tendency: Luxemburgists (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=67) :rolleyes:

[28350]

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/033/concept-of-brilliant-leader

the "cult of personality" was part of the counterrevolution and eventual bolshevization of the world communist movement. communism will emerge against "Communist leaders", always. The stalinist clique had to exterminate hundreds of thousands of communists because the stalinists were rightly afraid of real communists making them drown in their own fucking blood

wait I thought you guys were pro-bolshevik

[Chimurenga.]

LOL, yes, I'm sure that a DPRK research webpage run by a Russian professor and devoted to the study of relations between the DPRK, Russia and Australia is part of the massive bourgeois conspiracy to descredit the DPRK.



It sounds like YOU didn't browse the site! This was posted on the very same site:



http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/champion/65/history.htm

Along with a ton of info about the DPRK's burgeoning information technology market and assorted other topics. :lol:

I said nothing about a "bourgeois conspiracy".. don't be stupid.

Just because it comes from a Russian professor in Australia doesn't mean shit.

The page still endorses "Pyongyang Watch (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/pongyang.html)" (among other things) which seem to perpetuate the same ideas in the mainstream press that the leadership is deliberately starving its citizens rather than feed them, etc.

[black magick hustla]

wait I thought you guys were pro-bolshevik
early bolshevik

[black magick hustla]

Tendency: Luxemburgists (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=67) :rolleyes:
are you implying that having a tendency named after a figure for its theoretical contributins is the same as having an eternal zombie president. fuck, then the physicists oif the old who called themselves newtonian were having something different going on

[black magick hustla]

shall the glory of the sun shine on the face of presidente gonzalo

[Os Cangaceiros]

I said nothing about a "bourgeois conspiracy".. don't be stupid.


an anti-communist site that deliberately seeks to discredit and denounce the DPRK.

Why would it seek to "deliberately discredit and denounce the DPRK" unless it had a reason for doing so? Unless, in fact, it was in a league with the bourgeois propagandists who have been trying to cover up the amazing success of the worker's state there? :ohmy:


Just because it comes from a Russian professor in Australia doesn't mean shit.

Who said that it did mean shit? :closedeyes:


The page still endorses "Pyongyang Watch (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/pongyang.html)" (among other things) which seem to perpetuate the same ideas in the mainstream press that the leadership is deliberately starving its citizens rather than feed them, etc.

Well, I dunno...according to that site, the guy who runs it has been following events in the Koreas for almost 40 years, so yeah, I have no idea why that site would be linked to. Must be part of the attempt to deliberately discredit and denounce the DPRK. They should've linked to the erudite analysts at the Marxist-Leninist blog instead.

[lines]

There's nothing wrong with admiring people who have exemplary moral qualities. Not everyone has to be a rugged individualist.

[black magick hustla]

yea theres a difference to that and having thousands of busts of their face everywhere and going to big plazas were the face of glorious mao facing the northstar is in a big frame and children dressing all the same raise his fucking dumb book of quasi confusian aphorisms

[black magick hustla]

so much for equality among men

[Die Rote Fahne]

Tendency: Luxemburgists (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=67) :rolleyes:

It's named after her because of her theories. Not because I think she's the bombshell.

[robbo203]

Its not just the plain obnoxousness and toe-curling embarrassment of this whole "cult of the personality" - putting people way up there on some towering pedestal with the implication that the rest of us really count for nothing in the grand scale of things - that is the problem. It is the fact also that all cults of personality are fundamentally at odds with the principle of working class self emancipation. No leaders, no heroes , no great thinkers, no friggin vanguard are going to do it for us. It has got to be done from the ground up. We should learn to respect ourselves a little more and to have more confidence in our own abilities as "ordinary workers". As someone once said, the high and mighty only appear to stand tall because we are on our knees

[lines]

Its not just the plain obnoxousness and toe-curling embarrassment of this whole "cult of the personality" - putting people way up there on some towering pedestal with the implication that the rest of us really count for nothing in the grand scale of things - that is the problem. It is the fact also that all cults of personality are fundamentally at odds with the principle of working class self emancipation. No leaders, no heroes , no great thinkers, no friggin vanguard are going to do it for us. It has got to be done from the ground up. We should learn to respect ourselves a little more and to have more confidence in our own abilities as "ordinary workers". As someone once said, the high and mighty only appear to stand tall because we are on our knees

Whats wrong with people having heroes? Some people need someone they can look up to.

[red cat]

shall the glory of the sun shine on the face of presidente gonzalo

Certain leftcoms seem alien to the idea of posting without trolling. :)

[red cat]

Whats wrong with people having heroes? Some people need someone they can look up to.

Why shouldn't they look up to themselves instead ? The masses emancipate themselves.

[lines]

Why shouldn't they look up to themselves instead ? The masses emancipate themselves.

Some people need someone to lean on.

[Olentzero]

Cults of personality are a symptom of low political consciousness. Take the classic example on the left of the Lenin worship actively promoted by Stalin. The Russian Civil War decimated the politically conscious and active element of the working class while Stalin decimated the politically conscious and active element of the Bolsheviks. The result: a class and a party that had no experience of organizing, resisting, or a revolutionary tradition steeped in self-emancipation. In short, a society all too open to the idea that it was only a Few Great Men who could selflessly sacrifice everything and who were morally perfect in ways they could not hope to be, whose mere thoughts were enough to move the world. Even more so in countries whose revolutions were not made by the working class (China, Cuba, North Korea) and therefore the same lack of independent political consciousness. The higher the level of revolutionary political consciousness among workers, the less likely a cult of personality will develop.

Also, I love the delicious spicy contradiction of the poster upthread haranguing someone about Glorious Kim Il-Sung's contribution to the socialist paradise that is North Korea and how that other person's contributions to the furtherance of socialism were a drop of ant's piss in comparison, then not two sentences later declaring there was no such thing as a cult of personality. I believe this is a form of dramatic irony but don't quote me on that.

[Red_Devotchka]

cults of personality are inevitable part of propaganda. It has always existed in different forms, but the one we associate tht term with starts in XX century, with most influential dictator-ships ( Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin). There are several psychological explanations to tht phemonon, but i personally feel Frued's one most correct. In his opinion people do permit tht to happen because of their regression. Regression is is a defense mechanism leading to the temporary or long-term reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way. The leader uses propaganda then in order to make believe that he can somehow become a solution to people's problems. A person is led into some kinda of trance. Today the new form of propaganda, apart from tht political, that of course is nowhere as strong as in the begening of XX century, there is another form , still developing and increasingly influencing our minds. It's advertisment. Of course I'm not tryin to compare it to the proper meaning of word propaganda, it's has more metaphorical sense here. What I'm trying to say tht it influences us , often perfectly unconsciously, and we should try to change it, change the way of communicating, as it creates new , even if apparently innocent , cults of personalities, life styles, status symbols, sweetly distracting us from the real issues and "cloning" personalities, with fucked up priorities and no real values.

[Zanthorus]

wait I thought you guys were pro-bolshevik

Bolshevisation refers to the drive to bring the non-Russian Communist parties in line with the ruling clique in the USSR initiated by Zinoviev at the 5th congress of the Comintern. You can be pro-Bolshevik but against the Bolshevisation drive.

[red cat]

Some people need someone to lean on.

Because the bourgeois society moulds them that way. Our duty is to remind them every moment that the masses and only the masses are the real heroes.

[lines]

Because the bourgeois society moulds them that way. Our duty is to remind them every moment that the masses and only the masses are the real heroes.I'm no hero

[red cat]

I'm no hero

Okay, let's start with you then :lol:

Yes you are ! :)

[RedSunRising]

there are no positive cult of personalities. cults are for mormons

Okay very insightful. I acknowledge that in the balance the "cults of personality" have proved a major weakness to the International Communist Movement" for various reasons not the least of which is the aftermath of the leaders death or imprisonment in the case of Chairman Gonzalo, but we should also try to understand how and why the arose in the first place rather than just saying "Stalinists are capitalists with massive egos who are bad, bad people".

[robbo203]

Whats wrong with people having heroes? Some people need someone they can look up to.

"Heroes" per se need not be a problem; there is a legitimate case for making a role model of them. It can become a problem if you become obsessive about them and put them a pedestal that elevates them way above any reasonable assessment one might make of them.

My point was not to knock heroes as such but simply to emphasise the fact that no individual can emancipate the working class through so called leadership. As long as our class looks to "great men or women" as the key to its salvation, its renounces the very idea of working class self emancipation without which capitalism cannot be overthrown

[southernmissfan]

http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general434.html
Ideological Intransigence, Democratic Centralism, and Cultism: A Case Study from the Political Left (http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general434.html)

Is anyone familiar with this article? It looks interesting, I haven't read it yet though.