“CULT OF PERSONALITY”
by LIVING COLOUR, 1988
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Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Cult of personality.
I know your anger, I know your dreams,
I've been everything you want to be,
I'm the cult of personality.
Like Mussolini, and Kennedy,
I'm the cult of personality
Cult of personality
Cult of personality.
Neon lights, a Nobel Prize,
The mirror speaks, the reflection lies.
You don't have to follow me
Only you can set me free.
I sell the things you need to be,
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,
I'm the cult of personality.
Like Joseph Stalin, and Gandhi,
I'm the cult of personality
Cult of personality
Cult of personality.

Neon lights, a Nobel Prize,
A leader speaks, that leader dies,
You don't have to follow me,
Only you can set you free.

You gave me fortune, you gave me fame.
You’re my power in your God's name,
I'm every person you need to be,
I'm the cult of personality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ5SVDYBNrY
Questions
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How can you relate the lyrics of “Cult of Personality” to
the philosophies of communism? Fascism?
In your words, what exactly is the “cult of personality” in
terms of what we have learned about totalitarianism?
How can you correlate the “cult of personality” to the reign
of Stalin? Mussolini? Hitler?
Of the examples mentioned in “Cult of Personality”,
Benito Mussolini, John F. Kennedy, and Mohandas Gandhi
were all assassinated in the midst of their political
activities. Judging by these statistics, do citizens really care
about the “cult of personality”? Why or why not?
TOTALITARIANISM
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“DEMOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP”
“A MAN OF THE PEOPLE”
ONE PARTY STATE

TECHNOLOGY USED FOR CONTROL
WEAPONS OF REPRESSION,
COMMUNICATIONS

CONTROL OF EDUCATION AND MEDIA
TOTALITARIANISM

NO OPPOSITION – “ENEMIES OF THE
STATE”
 POPULAR, MASS ORGANIZATIONS
 IDENTITY
POLITICS
CONSCIOUSNESS
–
20TH CENTURY EXAMPLES:
COMMUNISM
FASCISM
VICTIM
During the war…
The Russian Revolution of 1917

Russia’s deep-seated problems
aggravated by Great War

February 1917: Tsar Nicholas
abdicated

October 1917: Bolsheviks, led
by Vladimir Lenin, took over

March 1918: Russia withdrew
from war

Birth of the Soviet Union
Vladimir Lenin
1870-1924
Josef Stalin
1879-1953
The Socialist Experiment

“Soviet” = workers’
collective

Efforts to build a noncapitalist society

Creation of agricultural
collectives

Command economy
RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS
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TWO REVOLUTIONS
IN 1917
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MARCH -MODERATE
NOVEMBER-RADICAL
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LED BY LENIN WHO
SEIZES POWER
BOLSHEVIK PARTY
STRONG ORGANIZATION
DIVIDED OPPOSITION
“PEACE, LAND, BREAD”
CIVIL WAR, 1919-1922
LENIN DIES, 1924

STALIN 1925-1953
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“SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY”
FIVE-YEAR PLANS OF RAPID
INDUSTRIALISM
COLLECTIVIZATION OF
AGRICULTURE
“CULT OF THE PERSONALITY”
GULAGS – PURGES OF ALL
OPPOSITION
SECRET POLICE
COMMUNISM
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STATE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE
INDIVIDUAL
INSPIRED BY MARX, DEFINED BY
LENIN
HISTORICALLY INEVITABLE
“DICTATORSHIP OF THE
PROLETARIAT”
The appeal of communism:

“I was ripe to be converted. . .the new star of
Bethlehem had risen in the East.”
See RGH #47 “Lenin and Communism”
COMMUNISM

ROLE/POWER OF THE STATE:
TO CRUSH THE CAPITALISTS
 TO EDUCATE THE WORKERS
 TO COMMAND THE ECONOMY
 TO “WITHER AWAY”
 A “CLASSLESS
SOCIETY”- “FROM
EACH, ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY, TO
EACH, ACCORDING TO HIS NEEDS.”
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ANTI-FASCIST
ANTI-CAPITALIST
The Internationale
Stand up. All victims of oppression
For the tyrants fear your might.
Don ‘t cling so hard to your possessions
For you have nothing, if you have no
rights.
Let racist ignorance be ended
For respect makes the empires fall.
Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all.
Chorus
So come brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on.
The Internationale
Unites the world in song.
So comrades come rally
For this is the time and place.
The international ideal
Unites the human race.
The Internationale
Let no one build walls to divide us
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone.
Come greet the dawn and stand beside
us
We’ll live together or we’ll die alone.
In our world poisoned by exploitation
Those who have taken, now they must
give.
And end the vanity of nations
We’ve but one Earth on which to live.
And so begins the final drama
In the streets and in the fields.
We stand unbowed before their armor
We defy their guns and shields.
When we fight, provoked by their
aggression
Let us be inspired by life and love.
For though they offer us concessions.
Change will not come from above.
Billy Bragg
FASCISM

MUSSOLINI OF ITALY (RGH, p. 281)


“This will be the century of authority. . .the century
of the state”
Definition of Fascism:

An intensely nationalistic, (racialist), militarist
and imperialist dictatorship based on charismatic
leadership based on absolute obedience,
coercion, repression of all opposition, and a
strict subordination of the individual to the state.
See RGH #48 “Mussolini on Fascism”
Mussolini on the state:
“Fascism conceives of the state
as an absolute, in comparison
with which all individuals or
groups are relative, only to be
conceived of in their relation to
the State….”
Hitler
on
people
and
their
ruler:
“Like a woman, whose psychic feeling is
influenced less by abstract reasoning than by
undefinable,
sentimental
longing
for
complementary strength, who will submit to
the strong man rather than dominate the
weakling, thus the masses love the ruler
rather than the suppliant, and inwardly they
are far more satisfied by a doctrine which
tolerates no rival than by the grant of liberal
freedom; they often feel at a loss what to do
with it, and even easily feel themselves
deserted…” See RGH #49 “Hitler and Nazism”
Explaining Hitler
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Victim – Jew, abused
Loser – failed artist,
WWI
Insane, Madman
Diseased
Psychopath
“the Hitler within”
Master of irrational
psychological forces
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The sexual deviant
Evil incarnate
Political Criminal
Counterfeiter (Phony)
Opportunist
Eliminationist AntiSemite
Political genius
How does Hitler come to power?
“He came in on catpaws.”
NAZI VOTE IN ELECTIONS
Communists
May 1928
Sept. 1930
July 1932
Nov. 1932
3%
18%
37%
33%
54
77
Mar. 1933
43%
12 seats
107
230
196
(lost 2 million voters)
100
(no effective opposition)
So, the Nazis never won a majority in any national election
The Catholic Center party and the Social Democrats kept their voters throughout.
40% of those who joined the party between 1925 and 1933 eventually left.
Hitler and the Jews
Then I came to Vienna. . .
Once, as I was strolling through the Inner City, I suddenly
encountered an apparition in a black caftan and black hair
locks. Is this a Jew? Was my first thought.
For, to be sure, they had not loked like that in Linz. I
observed the man furtively and cautiously, but the longer I
stared at this foreign face, scrutinizing feature for feature,
the more my first questions assumed a new form:
Is this a German?
As always, in such cases, I now began to try to relieve my
doubts by books. For a few hellers I bought the first antiSemitic pamplets of my life. . .
I could no longer very well doubt that the objects of my
study were not Germans of a special religion, but a people
in themselves.”
From Mein Kampf
The Seven Elements of the Hitler
Myth
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the embodiment of
law and order
represents the national
interest
the architect of the
German “miracle”
a moderate against
extremists
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commitment against
the “enemies of the
people”
the statesman, the man
of peace
the military genius
How Does Hitler Come to Power?
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Depression
Technicalities
“He came in on catpaws”
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Weimar Republic weak
Personal Traits-charisma,
“a messiah”
“November Crime”-Ger.
loss in WWI
Versailles
Vision of a new Germany
Communists – Reichstag
fire
 The “Big Lie”Propaganda
“if only the Fuhrer knew
about that”
 Foreign Recognition and
Appeasement

“The George Washington of
Germany”
Lloyd George of Br.
I DIDN’T SPEAK UP
“IN GERMANY, THE NAZIS FIRST CAME FOR THE
COMMUNISTS, AND I DIDN’T SPEAK UP BECAUSE I WASN’T
A COMMUNIST. THEN THEY CAME FOR THE JEWS, BUT I
DIDN’T SPEAK UP BECAUSE I WASN’T A JEW. THEN THEY
CAME FOR THE TRADE UNIONISTS, AND I DIDN’T SPEAK
UP BECAUSE I WASN’T A TRADE UNIONIST. THEN THEY
CAME FOR THE CATHOLICS, BUT I DIDN‘T SPEAK UP
BECAUSE I WAS A PROTESTANT. THEN THEY CAME FOR
ME, AND BY THAT TIME, THERE WAS NO ONE LEFT TO
SPEAK FOR ME.”
REV. MARTIN NIEMOELLER, GERMAN LUTHERAN
PASTOR, ARRESTED BY THE GESTAPO AND SENT TO
DACHAU IN 1938, FREED IN 1945
The Interwar Period 1919-1939

Post-WWI Problems:
League of Nations—collective security
 Reparations and war debts
 Spread of dictatorship

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The Illusion of Security
Disarmament
 Peace agreements (Locarno; Kellogg-Briand)
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The Great Depression
In the U.S. by 1932:
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Industrial production was
HALF of 1929
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National income was
HALF of 1929
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44% of banks out of
business
Depressions: 1930’s and Today’s
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1930’s caused by boom period in 1920’s,
followed by stock market crash, consumer
spending dropped, bank panics, fear and
uncertainly, deflation, credit crunch,
unemployment to 25% by 1933.
Today, consumer uncertainty, stock market
volatility, housing deflation and prices, credit
crunch, weird financial arrangements, growing
unemployment.
Differences? Government agencies, Better
models?
The Great Depression was GLOBAL

Ripple effect throughout
the world

Producers of raw
materials couldn’t sell
them

Led to huge
unemployment globally
Great Depression in Germany
The Depression—the world goes crazy
Global Interdependence
Germany
Reparations
Loans, Investment
Trade
France
Britain
Japan
War Debts
United States
Government responses to the
Depression

At first relied on classical
economic theory: balance the
budget!

Later governments learned
they had to SPEND their way
out of the Depression

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U.S.: New Deal
Germany and Japan: arms
productions, public works
projects
“Economic nationalism”
Photograph of a migrant mother
Dorothea Lange
International Aggression

Japan—war in China, 1931-37+
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Italy—Ethiopia, 1935-37
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Spanish Civil War, 1936-39: Rome-Berlin Axis
Germany under Hitler

Two policies: nationalism, revise Versailles

Rearmament
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Remilitarization of the Rhineland, 1936
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Hossbach minutes, 1937: lebensraum, war
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Anschluss with Austria, 1938
The Munich Pact, 1938
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Surrender of the Sudetenland
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“Peace in our time”—Chamberlain

Germany seizes rest of Czech., March 1939
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Pressure on Poland and the end of
appeasement
The View from Russia
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Stalin’s suspicions
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The Nazi-Soviet Pact, August 1939