The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Leader Cults: Varieties, Preconditions and Functions

      • E. A. Rees

      Pages 3-26

3. The Making of the Cult: Methods and Individuals

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 27-27

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   2. Stalin and the Making of the Leader Cult in the 1930s

      • Sarah Davies

      Pages 29-46

   3. ‘A Very Modest Man’: Béla Illés, or How to Make a Career through the Leader Cult

      • Árpád von Klimó

      Pages 47-62

   4. Leader in the Making: The Role of Biographies in Constructing the Cult of Mátyás Rákosi

      • Balázs Apor

      Pages 63-80

4. The Functions of the Leader Cult

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 81-81

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   2. The Stalin Cult, Bolshevik Rule and Kremlin Interaction in the 1930s

      • Benno Ennker

      Pages 83-101

   3. Grandpa Lenin and Uncle Stalin: Soviet Leader Cult for Little Children

      • Catriona Kelly

      Pages 102-122

   4. Georgian Koba or Soviet ‘Father of Peoples’? The Stalin Cult and Ethnicity

      • Jan Plamper

      Pages 123-140

   5. Working Towards the Centre: Leader Cults and Spatial Politics in Pre-war Stalinism

      • Malte Rolf

      Pages 141-157

5. Beyond Moscow: The Cult’s Peripheries

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 159-159

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   2. Exporting the Leader: The Stalin Cult in Poland and East Germany (1944/45–1956)

      • Jan C. Behrends

      Pages 161-178

   3. President of Poland or ‘Stalin’s Most Faithful Pupil’? The Cult of Bolesław Bierut in Stalinist Poland

      • Izabella Main

      Pages 179-193

   4. Georgi Dimitrov: Three Manifestations of his Cult

      • Markus Wien

      Pages 194-207

   5. Leader Cults in the Western Balkans (1945–90): Josip Broz Tito and Enver Hoxha

      • Stanislav Sretenovic, Artan Puto

      Pages 208-223

6. The Dilemmas of De-Stalinisation: Change and Continuity in Leader Cult Patterns in the Post-Stalin Period

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 225-225

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   2. ‘I’ve Held, and I Still Hold, Stalin in the Highest Esteem’: Discourses and Strategies of Resistance to De-Stalinisation in the USSR, 1953–62

      • Polly Jones

      Pages 227-245

   3. Surviving 1956: Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and the ‘Cult of Personality’ in Romania

      • Alice Mocanescu

      Pages 246-260

The first book to analyze the distinct leader cults that flourished in the era of 'High Stalinism' as an integral part of the system of dictatorial rule in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Fifteen studies explore the way in which these cults were established, their function and operation, their dissemination and reception, the place of the cults in art and literature, the exportation of the Stalin cult and its implantment in the communist states of Eastern Europe, and the impact which de-Stalinisation had on these cults.

• communism
• dictatorship
• Europe
• Poland
• Soviet Union
• Stalin
• Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
• Vladimir Lenin

• European University Institute, Florence, Italy

  Balázs Apor, E. A. Rees

• Herder-Institut, Marburg, Germany

  Jan C. Behrends

• School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES-UCL), UK

  Polly Jones

S. DAVIES Senior Lecturer, University of Durham, UK B. ENNKER Professor of History, University of Tübingen, Germany C. KELLY Professor of History, New College Oxford, UK A.V. KLIMO Visiting Professor, International University, Bremen, Germany I. MAIN Researcher A. MOCANESCU Researcher, University of Durham, UK J. PLAMPER Research Fellow, University of Tübingen, Germany A. PUTO Researcher, European University Institut, Florence, Italy M. ROLF Assistant Lecturer, Department of History, Humbolt University, Berlin S. SRETENOVIC Researcher, European University Institut, Florence, Italy M. WIEN Researcher, European University Institut, Florence, Italy M. ZAREMBA Professor, University of Warsaw, Poland

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