Personality cults

[Dimentio]

Could any marxist-leninist explain to me why marxist-leninist states often tend to build large statues of their ever-smiling leaders leading the people to the bright red dawn, to the socialist paradise?

Why that need for personality cults?

[JimmyJazz]

Fidel has called himself a Leninist since '62, and Cuba builds statues of John Lennon (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.netssa.com/image/John_Lennon_Havana.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.netssa.com/havanart.html&h=329&w=500&sz=51&hl=en&start=10&usg=__LYapTYFGUE2OBv7weM5M7GRJcSw=&tbnid=mYBMq36t7TJHtM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djohn%2Blennon%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26s afe%3Doff%26sa%3DG), Jose Marti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mart%C3%AD_Memorial), Antonio Maceo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Maceo_Grajales), Abraham Lincoln (http://havanajournal.com/culture/entry/statue-of-abraham-lincoln-in-havana-cuba/), and Che Guevara (http://www.traveladventures.org/continents/southamerica/cheguevara04.shtml), not of Fidel.

Meanwhile, this seems like a good day to point out that the U.S. has built a massive cult of personality around soldiers and veterans. I bet we've got more monuments to state-sanctioned killers in this country than Albania (or wherever) ever had of Hoxha.

Not to mention stuff like the Washington Monument which, come to think of it, is exactly analogous to what you're objecting to. You can also go to any American grade school classroom and listen to their pronouncements about freedom and democracy, or listen to any adult white male right-winger masturbating about the infallible genius of the U.S. constitution and the founding fathers. Take the monuments and the rhetoric together, and any foreigner would surely view us as a society of patriotic drones. Which we largely are.

It doesn't seem so 1984-ish when you're in the midst of it, is my point.

[JimmyJazz]

Also, just as a reminder of who this whole personality cult business did not start with:


Neither of us [him nor Engels] cares a straw for popularity. A proof of this is, for example, that, because of aversion to any personality cult, I have never permitted the numerous expressions of appreciation from various countries with which I was pestered during the existence of the International to reach the realm of publicity, and have never answered them, except occasionally by a rebuke. When Engels and I first joined the secret Communist Society we made it a condition that everything tending to encourage superstitious belief in authority was to be removed from the statutes.

-from the Marx-Engels Reader, a letter to Wilhem Blos in 1877

Robert Tucker (editor of the M-E Reader) says, "Marx may have been the person to coin the now commonly used term 'personality cult.'"

I've read practically no Lenin, so sorry, no quotes from him either way. (Anyway, Lenin has to be judged by what he did and not just what he said).

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Lenin said something about statues gathering bird s***, so he didn't want any statues. When some "provincial" damaged a portrait of Lenin out in the countryside and got arrested, Lenin ordered a release (just a picture).

[Prairie Fire]

Generally, Persynality cults are errected around leaders, not by their own wishes.

Lenin didn't ask for it, Stalin had nothing but contempt for it (http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/StalinBB.htm (http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/StalinBB.htm))....

As I said, it is usually sycophants, especially of a bourgeois persuasion who initiate these cults:




What is now happening to Marx's theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation.

During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.

Today, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labor movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure, or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul.


Lenin, "The State and Revolution",1917

[redguard2009]

Another arguement from a different perspective is that in many countries throughout the world throughout the communist movement there have been millions of peasants and low-income working men and women who do not know how to read or write. In these instances, attachment and support for personality cults and "super-human" caricatures largely replaces traditional propagandization.

Prairie Fire is right, however; most personality cults are erected around leaders and reach their most fervent pitch after that leader's death. Exceptions to this include the Kims from the DPRK and Bob Avakian.

[JimmyJazz]

During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes have visited relentless persecution on them and received their teaching with the most savage hostility, the most furious hatred, the most ruthless campaign of lies and slanders. After their death, attempts are made to turn them into harmless icons, canonize them, and surround their names with a certain halo for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping them, while at the same time emasculating and vulgarizing the real essence of their revolutionary theories and blunting their revolutionary edge.

Funny, I just read this quote earlier today in regards to Che.

[Led Zeppelin]

Moved to History.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The quote posted by PF from Lenin is dealing with the tendency of the bourgeoisie to try to co-opt revolutionary figures after their deaths (only as "icons", devoid of their content, e.g. Che's face on T-shirts, watches, etc.) after they opposed them their whole lives.

[Rosa Provokateur]

Generally, Persynality cults are errected around leaders, not by their own wishes.


So Stalin, Mao, Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il, and all those other guys never wanted statues but it was the populations fault? You've convinced me:rolleyes:

[Prairie Fire]

So Stalin, Mao, Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il, and all those other guys never wanted statues but it was the populations fault? You've convinced me:rolleyes:


Is there a particular reason that you are lumping all of these leaders together( I mean, other than your receptiveness to bourgeois media)?

I can't speak for Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il or Mao Tse Tung; It is my organizations general outlook that Mao did have a lot of power centralized in his own hands ( ie.> the "General Directory", that kept even the CC of the CPC in check, the 'guard of chairman mao' , that acted when ever mao needed to 'strike with one blow',)etc).

It is also our outlook that yes, certainly Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il encouraged their own 'cult of persynality' (even these two persynalities,father and son, are not exactly identical in terms of theory and action). Based on their creation and elaboration of the Juche idea, which has the "great leader" as a central-theme of the entire theory, you can see the basis of their 'persynality cult'. Enver noted this, and complained on his visit to Pyongyang, that there were no pictures of Marx,Engels,Lenin or Stalin anywhere, on Kim Il Sung. This is why it is our outlook that Kim Il Sung, although a revolutionary figure, was a revisionist.

However, to be fair, Kim Sr. has been dead for over a decade now, and yet his statues still stand, and his cult is still promoted. And Mao was praised to the high heavens by anti- Marxist sycophants, like Lin Biao.
What I said was true, even in the case of these leaders.

Stalin is not the same situation as these above mentioned leaders. I would highly recommend that you actually read my links, instead of sarcastic comments.

Also, if you have time, check out "With Stalin" by Enver Hoxha, or "Imperialism and the Revoltion" (also by Hoxha,), for sources on the information about Mao that I quoted.

[PostAnarchy]

Could any marxist-leninist explain to me why marxist-leninist states often tend to build large statues of their ever-smiling leaders leading the people to the bright red dawn, to the socialist paradise?

Why that need for personality cults?

Personality cults are another way of attempting to hypnotize workers under the spell of a "good government' or "good state" working on their behalf. No need for workers councils or workers control when there is the Great Wise Man looking after us and for our own good and well being...:rolleyes:

Naturally this is an abomination to authentic socialists and would not be necessary at all in a anarchist society.

[Ismail]

Stalin:
"Comrades! I want to propose a toast to our patriarch, life and sun, liberator of nations, architect of socialism (he rattled off all the appellations applied to him in those days), Josef Vissarionovich Stalin, and I hope this is the first and last speech made to that genius this evening." (A. Tuominen: The Bells of the Kremlin; Hanover (New Hampshire, USA); 1983; p. 162).

http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/StalinBB.htm

Anyway, yes, all Communists, as a rule, are opposed to personality cults since they allow revisionism to spread and hurt the legitimacy of both materialism and dialectics.

[Revy]

Could any marxist-leninist explain to me why marxist-leninist states often tend to build large statues of their ever-smiling leaders leading the people to the bright red dawn, to the socialist paradise?

Why that need for personality cults?
Well not all of these states had personality cults for all of their existence, take for example, what happened after Stalin died.

Khrushchev took over from Stalin, and dismantled the personality cult and began some democratic reforms, though it simply changed from a personal dictatorship to a party dictatorship (the Stalinist military & bourgeois leaders still with most of the control). Khrushchev began the process of "de-Stalinization", removing the personality cult of him from public life, exaggerations of his character, etc.

The dictatorship began again when Khrushchev was overthrown by the right-wing Stalinist leaders, and Brezhnev replaced him as a dictator-for-life.

[Ismail]

Well not all of these states had personality cults for all of their existence, take for example, what happened after Stalin died.

Khrushchev took over from Stalin, and dismantled the personality cult and began some democratic reforms, though it simply changed from a personal dictatorship to a party dictatorship (the Stalinist military & bourgeois leaders still with most of the control). Khrushchev began the process of "de-Stalinization", removing the personality cult of him from public life, exaggerations of his character, etc.

The dictatorship began again when Khrushchev was overthrown by the right-wing Stalinist leaders, and Brezhnev replaced him as a dictator-for-life."In our country, for the first time in history, a State has taken shape which is not a dictatorship of any one class, but an instrument of society as a whole, of the entire people...
The dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer necessary".
(N.S. Khrushchov: Report on the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 22nd. Congress CPSU; London; 1961; p. 57, 58).

And the 1976 Constitution, fully approved by Brezhnev, upheld this viewpoint from a legal standpoint. Not to mention it was Gen. Zhukov who came to the aid of Khrushchev when Molotov and co. tried to get Khrushchev out of power.

And now, both Lenin and Stalin on this view:

"The Party is the General Staff of the proletariat...
The Party is the organised detachment of the working class...
The Party is the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat...
The Party is an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat".
(J.V. Stalin; "The Foundations of Leninism", in: "Works", Volume 6; Moscow; 1953; p. 179, 181, 186, 188-9).

"The bourgeoisie finds it advantageous and necessary to conceal the bourgeois character of modern democracy from the people and to depict it as democracy in general, or as 'pure democracy'...
The bourgeoisie is obliged to be hypocritical and to describe the (bourgeois) democratic government as 'popular government', or democracy in general or pure democracy, when as a matter of fact it is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the exploiters over the mass of the toilers".
(V.I. Lenin: "Democracy' and Dictatorship", in: ibid.; p. 219, 220).

Hmm...

[Revy]

"In our country, for the first time in history, a State has taken shape which is not a dictatorship of any one class, but an instrument of society as a whole, of the entire people...
The dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer necessary".
(N.S. Khrushchov: Report on the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 22nd. Congress CPSU; London; 1961; p. 57, 58).

And the 1976 Constitution, fully approved by Brezhnev, upheld this viewpoint from a legal standpoint. Not to mention it was Gen. Zhukov who came to the aid of Khrushchev when Molotov and co. tried to get Khrushchev out of power.

And now, both Lenin and Stalin on this view:

"The Party is the General Staff of the proletariat...
The Party is the organised detachment of the working class...
The Party is the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat...
The Party is an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat".
(J.V. Stalin; "The Foundations of Leninism", in: "Works", Volume 6; Moscow; 1953; p. 179, 181, 186, 188-9).

"The bourgeoisie finds it advantageous and necessary to conceal the bourgeois character of modern democracy from the people and to depict it as democracy in general, or as 'pure democracy'...
The bourgeoisie is obliged to be hypocritical and to describe the (bourgeois) democratic government as 'popular government', or democracy in general or pure democracy, when as a matter of fact it is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the exploiters over the mass of the toilers".
(V.I. Lenin: "Democracy' and Dictatorship", in: ibid.; p. 219, 220).

Hmm...

Oh please. Just because I said that Khrushchev was more democratic does not make me a fan. The Soviet people and workers, however, were so much more happy to live under it than under Stalin's disgusting and brutal regime, though Khrushchev did crush the Hungarian Revolution, initially opposing it, but converting to the call for invasion by the Stalinists.

Stalin was not a Marxist, he cared nothing for the workers. His policies only benefited an elite bourgeois bureaucracy - the nomenklatura. It was Stalin's allies Zinoviev and Kamenev that were opposed to the Bolshevik Revolution. What great revolutionaries. Khrushchev was not a Marxist either, as he descended out of the Stalinist tradition.

[Ismail]

though Khrushchev did crush the Hungarian Revolution, initially opposing it, but converting to the call for invasion by the Stalinists.The Hungarian 'revolution' wasn't much. Basically, there was a very weak, barely Communist party which became revisionist, then it allowed a traitor to come to power, then Khrushchev, realizing this wouldn't be good for the Soviet Union vis-à-vis NATO, decided to crush it, establish a new Hungarian party savishly loyal to the Soviets, and basically, well, yeah.

As a note, explain this, from We Will Bury You, Khrushchev speaking:

Having dropped this bombshell he went on to let fall another. 'We
must change our relationships with the West. The Socialist camp must
have the chance of benefiting from the technical and industrial progress
of Capitalism. This is an essential step towards the achievement of
Socialism. Do not be blinded by ideology.
'Socialist ideas,' he added in a passage I have never forgotten, 'can
only triumph when the peoples of Eastern Europe eat like the delegates
at this Congress. Love of Communism passes through the stomach.'
He urged all the Communist countries to mobilize their technical and
scientific cadres. 'Never mind whether or not they're good Marxists!' he
shouted. 'We must give science a free hand to absorb as much as
possible from the West. Any of you who despises or damns Capitalist
engineering as a "bourgeois invention" is an idiot. It doesn't matter
where the machine was made, only how it is used.

For the last three
days you've been claiming that Communist technology is the best. Well,
you've been lying; Western technology is superior in most respects, and
it's our duty as Communists to exploit it. For example, the Americans
have the best combine harvesters in the world. Right, then let's buy
them, and if they're coloured green we'll paint them red and make them
work for Communism.' All this was like a gust of fresh air after the turgid nonsense we had
heard from the other delegates. Finally, in a welcome reference to our
own economic problems, he concluded: 'Workers and management
must both be given more responsibility; only in this way can you en-
courage productivity. You simply must improve living standards!
Everyone must have a stake in growth improvement. It is the duty of the
Party to understand this new idea, and to promote it. You must open the
door to let in fresh winds, and you must see that they blow first of all
through the Party.'

The speech was frequently interrupted by applause, and we gave
Khrushchev a standing ovation at the end.Yeah, some real solid 'Stalinism' there.

From The Working Class in Revisionist Countries Must Take the Field and Re-Establish the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (1968):

Let us start with Hungary. In the euphoria of the advent to power of Khrushchevite revisionism, but at a moment when it had not yet consolidated its positions, world capitalism, its Titoite agency and the internal Magyar reactionary bourgeoisie launched the armed counter-revolution against the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Workers' Party of Hungary, thinking it was the weakest link of the chain of the socialist countries. And so it was indeed. Rakosi's party melted away like snow in rain. But world capitalism and Titoism had not chosen the correct moment: they were convinced of Khrushchev's treacherous line, but they did not take account of the fact that his positions were not yet stabilized and, although he hesitated to resort to tanks, he was finally obliged to do so. Otherwise his road of treason could have been compromised. But in connection with the Hungarian counter-revolution the following facts must be pointed out:

1. The Hungarian counter-revolution was initiated by some intellectuals and students. These wavering strata, deprived of the influence of a genuine Marxist-Leninist party, became reserves and squalds of the counter-revolutionary attack under the direction of the bourgeoisie. The Hungarian writers were in the van of this counter-revolution.

2. The Hungarian working class in general and that of Budapest in particular, despite the revolutionary traditions inherited from the 1919 proletarian revolution, was unable to defend its power and gains. On the contrary, a considerable part of the working class, especially in Budapest, was activated in favour of the counter-revolutionaries. It became therefore a reserve of reaction. This means, in other words, that the work of Rakosi's party was not well grounded, it was superficial. The working class did not fully recognize it as their leader. This was the greatest and most dangerous evil.

3. The counter-revolution entirely liquidated Rakosi's party within a few days, while counter-revolutionary Janos Kadar promulgated the decree for its official dissolution.

4. During the few days of counter-revolution in Hungary many bourgeois, capitalist and fascist parties immediately sprang up like mushrooms after rain. Thus, the Hungarian counter-revolution was suppressed by means of Soviet tanks, a thing which can no longer be repeated. The same traitor who liquidated the party, under the dictate of the Khrushchevite revisionists, promulgated the other decree for the re-founding of the new allegedly <<Marxist-Leninist>> party, the Hungarian revisionist party, a still worse one than that of Rakosi.

The Hungarian counter-revolution was suppressed by counter-revolutionaries. Thus, both wings of the putsch were bound to come together, as they did. They would build up their own <<Hungary>>, as they did build it. They would restore capitalism, as they are restoring it. Drawing lesscns from the bloodshed and, after having paid a bloody ransom for its hasty actions, Hungarian reaction is now carrying out at leisure its reforms of radical capitalist transformation independently, and without any trouble from the Soviet forces and tanks which remain on Hungarian territory. The Hungarian bourgeoisie is, so to speak, going about its business, this time under the protection of the Khrushchev tanks. The Hungarian capitalist bourgeoisie, hostile to the working class, disguised under the <<banner of the party>>, is lulling the working class to sleep while forging new chains for it. The capitalist bourgeoisie has as its vanguard the old and new revisionist intelligentsia in complete identity of views and unity of action.


Stalin was not a Marxist, he cared nothing for the workers. His policies only benefited an elite bourgeois bureaucracy - the nomenklatura. It was Stalin's allies Zinoviev and Kamenev that were opposed to the Bolshevik Revolution. What great revolutionaries.Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky were, to my knowledge, the only ones who supported revolution besides a few lesser-known people. Pretty sure that is from Ten Days that Shook the World


Khrushchev was not a Marxist either, as he descended out of the Stalinist tradition.Uh, no, Khrushchev was a former Trotskyist who 'reformed' in the 20's.