Development of the Stalin Cult

Question 1

When was the cult of personality established?

Answer 1

Established 1933-29 but reached height after WW2

Question 2

How was the cult of personality established?

Answer 2

-Portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin
-Paintings, poems and sculptures glorified Stalin
-Trotsky and other Bolsheviks painted as ‘enemies of the people’
-Photos doctored to remove Stalin’s enemies and show Stalin alongside Lenin
-Stalin adored and given loyalty
-Praised his qualities and achievements

Question 3

Phrases used to describe Stalin

Answer 3

-Mighty leader
-Father of the nation
-Universal genius
-Shining sun of humanity

Question 4

What was the main historical textbook 1938 used for education?

Answer 4

‘History of the All-Union Communist Party’

Question 5

Examples of control over arts/literature

Answer 5

-1932 all writers had to belong to ‘Union of Soviet Writers’.
-Similar constraints for musicians, film-makers, painters and sculptors etc.

Question 6

What is socialist realism?

Answer 6

The ‘truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development’.
Doesn’t depict soviet life exactly at the time, but what it might become.

Question 7

How was the working man portrayed?

Answer 7

-Glorified
-Optimistic and uplifting
-‘How the Steel Was Tempered’ by Nikolai Ostrovsky

Question 8

How did Stalin use propaganda?

Answer 8

-Relied on it heavily
-Worker Hero’
-‘Mother Heroines’
-Idealised workers
-Press publicity e.g stakhanovites in Pravda
-Children’s books

Question 9

What was ‘Worker Hero’?

Answer 9

-Stakhanov as role model
-Successful workers on front page of Pravda

Question 10

What were ‘Mother Heroines’?

Answer 10

-Large families
-Glorified

Question 11

Example of children’s story

Answer 11

-Pavlik Morozov
-Denounced his father as a kulak and was killed by angry relatives
-Seen as a hero