This document discusses the cult of personality that emerged around totalitarian leaders Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler. It provides context on the growth of right-wing populism in Europe and examines how each dictator developed extensive personality cults to consolidate their power and legitimize their totalitarian regimes. The cult of Stalin in particular grew enormously after his 50th birthday celebration in 1929, where he began to rival Lenin's cult in scale after taking dictatorial control of the Soviet Union.
Against the facts and the history itself, Bolsonaro and Ernesto Araújo, his incompetent Foreign Minister, insist on affirming that Nazism is of the left. It is well known by all those who know the history of Nazism as a far right political movement that it is synonymous with dictatorship, barbarism, genocide, war, among other crimes against humanity practiced by him. Nazism and fascism as the far right political movement are, historically, the antithesis of socialism and communism as a far-left movement as will be demonstrated in this article.
In the same way that there was an affinity between liberalism and dictatorship, as happened in France with Bonaparte, the same happens between liberalism and fascism, which are not strictly the same, but there is no insurmountable wall among them either. Among them, there are more points of convergence than of divergence. This was evidenced by the rise of fascism in Italy in the 1920s and Nazism in Germany in the 1930s that were supported by liberals. Liberals legitimized both fascism and Nazism with liberal-inspired policies in their dictatorships.
Presentation prepared for lectures on Fascism for PS 240 Introduction to Political Theory at the University of Kentucky, Spring 2007. Dr. Christopher S. Rice, Instructor.
In this article, the various characteristics of fascism throughout history are presented. Unlike the ancient fascism that was and continues to be nationalist, in the contemporary era, modern fascism is defender of globalization and neoliberalism. There is only one way to combat fascism in each country, which is the formation of a broad democratic front that, unifying left-wing political forces and democratic liberals, prevents the rise of the fascists to power because it is practically impossible to overthrow a fascist dictatorship when fascists are already in power. On the other hand, it is a difficult task to combat fascism resulting from the process of economic and financial globalization that led to modern totalitarianism, since it operates globally and is rooted in all quarters of the Earth. Only with an antisystem international political action in defense of humanity and against globalization and neoliberalism will it be possible to combat and defeat modern fascism.
Against the facts and the history itself, Bolsonaro and Ernesto Araújo, his incompetent Foreign Minister, insist on affirming that Nazism is of the left. It is well known by all those who know the history of Nazism as a far right political movement that it is synonymous with dictatorship, barbarism, genocide, war, among other crimes against humanity practiced by him. Nazism and fascism as the far right political movement are, historically, the antithesis of socialism and communism as a far-left movement as will be demonstrated in this article.
In the same way that there was an affinity between liberalism and dictatorship, as happened in France with Bonaparte, the same happens between liberalism and fascism, which are not strictly the same, but there is no insurmountable wall among them either. Among them, there are more points of convergence than of divergence. This was evidenced by the rise of fascism in Italy in the 1920s and Nazism in Germany in the 1930s that were supported by liberals. Liberals legitimized both fascism and Nazism with liberal-inspired policies in their dictatorships.
Presentation prepared for lectures on Fascism for PS 240 Introduction to Political Theory at the University of Kentucky, Spring 2007. Dr. Christopher S. Rice, Instructor.
In this article, the various characteristics of fascism throughout history are presented. Unlike the ancient fascism that was and continues to be nationalist, in the contemporary era, modern fascism is defender of globalization and neoliberalism. There is only one way to combat fascism in each country, which is the formation of a broad democratic front that, unifying left-wing political forces and democratic liberals, prevents the rise of the fascists to power because it is practically impossible to overthrow a fascist dictatorship when fascists are already in power. On the other hand, it is a difficult task to combat fascism resulting from the process of economic and financial globalization that led to modern totalitarianism, since it operates globally and is rooted in all quarters of the Earth. Only with an antisystem international political action in defense of humanity and against globalization and neoliberalism will it be possible to combat and defeat modern fascism.
The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?
―Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia
Deleuze & Guattari understand the Oedipus complex as a culture-specific, namely occidental-bourgeois phenomenon.
One of the most fascinating perspective corrections that Anti-Oedipus has made in this field consists in further advocating the thesis of the prematurity of the adult in relation to the child and the constant transfer of his or her own limitations to the child. Oedipus is the privileged example of this transference: an adult-erating infantilization, since the child is never able to appear as anything other than what the adult allows.
The state of maturity is only a standstill of development, the state of the human being which is placed under the protection of institutions and laws. In reality this state should be called more correctly "childhood," for the human being has been diminished in history to the extent that he imposed artificial constraints upon himself: "We were created to be adults; the laws and society have thrown us back into the state of childhood."
Inasmuch as the teacher is entrusted with the task of watching over the process of maturation and, accordingly, infantilization - which bourgeois society (capital) performs on individuals in order to seize them and incorporate them into generalized exchange - the child is constituted in him as an object exposed to a controlling gaze; the child here stands for every individual degraded to an object in this way.
The child as a symbol of socially accepted castration, accepted by a society organized around a central scarcity, i.e. a deliberate annihilation of sexuality, in which instead only the phantom-like shadow of the law rises, which is manifested in the general police or other surveillance.
The death wish against the child is, we maintain, present everywhere and all the more so as everything strives to "protect" it.
―R.Schérer
Why would I need to tell my mother what I do? Because that's the way it's set up. The whole setup is to be set up to be controlled.
As children we learn to identify with those things that aggress against us. By identifying with them it gives us a sense of power and we feel less frightened. When we do identify with them we take on their personalities and characteristics. So every time I have a thought I have multiple censors come in and censor that thought and every time I'm about to do something I have multiple censors come in and analyze what I'm about to do.
―C.S. Hyatt
"Saturn takes 29.5 years to return to it’s birth position, entering you into adulthood, brings out themes of responsibility, duty, discipline. The inner child is sacrificed, the adult mind is set." (666 fake persona/A.I./mask!)
Adult comes from adult-erated and adult-ery (breaking unity with God).
The fifth presentation in the series called Political Ideologies. It is suitable for History and International Relations from Year 9 to university level. It contains the following: Marx, The Capital, Communist Manifesto, dialectical materialism, socialism, forms of Marxism, classical Marxism, the utopians, Hegels, mode of production, Hegel's thesis, Hegelian dialectic, Marx theory of history, stages of Marxism, communism, classless society,
class conflict, exploitation, capitalism, proletariat, the proletarian revolution, orthodox communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, reification, Frankfurt School.
20th Century Cultural War,; The Frankfort School of Cultural Marxism and the ...Wayne Williams
Students will examine the history of the Frankfort School of Marxism and how it migrated to the U.S., and how this relates to social upheaval in today's America.
Theoretical Underpinnings of European Unioniosrjce
The aftermath of Second World War offered a prospect of utter misery and desolation. Europeans felt
hopeless and exhausted. The objective of peace went hand in hand with desire to ensure that Europe was able to
get back on its feet economically after 1945. The proponents of European integration advanced theories for
integration that involved gradual surrendering of sovereignty to a supranational entity. The ECSC was the first
step towards European Union. The post 1945, regionalism emerged out of gradual process of integration from a
six member organization to today 27 members European Union; from an inter-governmental organization to a
supranational entity.The paper looks at the theoretical framework of European integration
Mussolini, the Doctrine of Fascism, AbridgedDanteK
This document was written by Benito Mussolini in 1932 together with Giovanni Gentile, two months before the National Assembly would meet to discuss Fascist philosophy. This abridged version is approximately one third of the original.
AFTER THE END of World War I, many Germans were unwilling t.docxjack60216
AFTER THE END of World War I, many Germans were unwilling to accept that their nation's
armed forces had been vanquished on the battlefield, giving rise to the widespread belief that
defeat had come about as the result of a “stab in the back” by traitorous elements within the
German population. To some, there was no secret as to who those treasonous elements were:
they were to be found in the country's Jewish population. Jews were prominent in many
professions, including law, medicine, and education, and were active in the financial and banking
sector as well. Widely envied and resented, they were ripe targets for attack by revenge-seeking
revanchist groups within the country.
In the early 1930s, the nationalist firebrand Adolf Hitler took advantage of these sentiments
to seize power in a country wracked by the Great Depression. In a relatively short period of time,
Hitler, at the head of his National Socialist (Nazi) Party, installed himself as the dictator of what
was termed the Third Reich. He soon embarked on a path to cleanse the country of its internal
enemies and make Germany once again the dominant force in Europe. The ensuing conflict,
which eventually spread worldwide, repeated the horrors of the previous “war to end all wars”
and resulted in an even more decisive defeat for German forces on the battlefield. When World
War II came to an end in 1945, there could be no further cries of a “stab in the back.” Germany
had been decisively defeated and its capital of Berlin lay in ruins.
CRITICAL THINKING
Q What was the relationship between World War I and World War II, and how did the ways
in which the wars were fought differ?
The Rise of Dictatorial Regimes
On February 3, 1933, only four days after he had been appointed chancellor of Germany, Adolf
Hitler (1889–1945) met secretly with Germany's leading generals. He revealed to them his desire
to remove the “cancer of democracy,” create a new authoritarian leadership, and forge a new
domestic unity. His foreign policy objectives were equally striking. Since Germany's living
space was too small for its people, Hitler said, Germany must rearm and prepare for “the
conquest of new living space in the east and its ruthless Germanization.”
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/books/9780357297667/epub/OEBPS/08_9781285447902_cont.xhtml#toc-sec6_1
The rise of Adolf Hitler to supreme power in Germany was not an isolated incident, but part
of a pattern that had spread throughout Europe and other parts of the world in the wake of the
Great Depression. The apparent triumph of liberal democracy in 1919 had proven to be
extremely short-lived. Italy had installed a fascist regime in the 1920s, and the Soviet Union
under Joseph Stalin was a repressive dictatorial state. A host of other European states, and Latin .
AFTER THE END of World War I, many Germans were unwilling t.docxgalerussel59292
AFTER THE END of World War I, many Germans were unwilling to accept that their nation's
armed forces had been vanquished on the battlefield, giving rise to the widespread belief that
defeat had come about as the result of a “stab in the back” by traitorous elements within the
German population. To some, there was no secret as to who those treasonous elements were:
they were to be found in the country's Jewish population. Jews were prominent in many
professions, including law, medicine, and education, and were active in the financial and banking
sector as well. Widely envied and resented, they were ripe targets for attack by revenge-seeking
revanchist groups within the country.
In the early 1930s, the nationalist firebrand Adolf Hitler took advantage of these sentiments
to seize power in a country wracked by the Great Depression. In a relatively short period of time,
Hitler, at the head of his National Socialist (Nazi) Party, installed himself as the dictator of what
was termed the Third Reich. He soon embarked on a path to cleanse the country of its internal
enemies and make Germany once again the dominant force in Europe. The ensuing conflict,
which eventually spread worldwide, repeated the horrors of the previous “war to end all wars”
and resulted in an even more decisive defeat for German forces on the battlefield. When World
War II came to an end in 1945, there could be no further cries of a “stab in the back.” Germany
had been decisively defeated and its capital of Berlin lay in ruins.
CRITICAL THINKING
Q What was the relationship between World War I and World War II, and how did the ways
in which the wars were fought differ?
The Rise of Dictatorial Regimes
On February 3, 1933, only four days after he had been appointed chancellor of Germany, Adolf
Hitler (1889–1945) met secretly with Germany's leading generals. He revealed to them his desire
to remove the “cancer of democracy,” create a new authoritarian leadership, and forge a new
domestic unity. His foreign policy objectives were equally striking. Since Germany's living
space was too small for its people, Hitler said, Germany must rearm and prepare for “the
conquest of new living space in the east and its ruthless Germanization.”
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/books/9780357297667/epub/OEBPS/08_9781285447902_cont.xhtml#toc-sec6_1
The rise of Adolf Hitler to supreme power in Germany was not an isolated incident, but part
of a pattern that had spread throughout Europe and other parts of the world in the wake of the
Great Depression. The apparent triumph of liberal democracy in 1919 had proven to be
extremely short-lived. Italy had installed a fascist regime in the 1920s, and the Soviet Union
under Joseph Stalin was a repressive dictatorial state. A host of other European states, and Latin .
The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?
―Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia
Deleuze & Guattari understand the Oedipus complex as a culture-specific, namely occidental-bourgeois phenomenon.
One of the most fascinating perspective corrections that Anti-Oedipus has made in this field consists in further advocating the thesis of the prematurity of the adult in relation to the child and the constant transfer of his or her own limitations to the child. Oedipus is the privileged example of this transference: an adult-erating infantilization, since the child is never able to appear as anything other than what the adult allows.
The state of maturity is only a standstill of development, the state of the human being which is placed under the protection of institutions and laws. In reality this state should be called more correctly "childhood," for the human being has been diminished in history to the extent that he imposed artificial constraints upon himself: "We were created to be adults; the laws and society have thrown us back into the state of childhood."
Inasmuch as the teacher is entrusted with the task of watching over the process of maturation and, accordingly, infantilization - which bourgeois society (capital) performs on individuals in order to seize them and incorporate them into generalized exchange - the child is constituted in him as an object exposed to a controlling gaze; the child here stands for every individual degraded to an object in this way.
The child as a symbol of socially accepted castration, accepted by a society organized around a central scarcity, i.e. a deliberate annihilation of sexuality, in which instead only the phantom-like shadow of the law rises, which is manifested in the general police or other surveillance.
The death wish against the child is, we maintain, present everywhere and all the more so as everything strives to "protect" it.
―R.Schérer
Why would I need to tell my mother what I do? Because that's the way it's set up. The whole setup is to be set up to be controlled.
As children we learn to identify with those things that aggress against us. By identifying with them it gives us a sense of power and we feel less frightened. When we do identify with them we take on their personalities and characteristics. So every time I have a thought I have multiple censors come in and censor that thought and every time I'm about to do something I have multiple censors come in and analyze what I'm about to do.
―C.S. Hyatt
"Saturn takes 29.5 years to return to it’s birth position, entering you into adulthood, brings out themes of responsibility, duty, discipline. The inner child is sacrificed, the adult mind is set." (666 fake persona/A.I./mask!)
Adult comes from adult-erated and adult-ery (breaking unity with God).
The fifth presentation in the series called Political Ideologies. It is suitable for History and International Relations from Year 9 to university level. It contains the following: Marx, The Capital, Communist Manifesto, dialectical materialism, socialism, forms of Marxism, classical Marxism, the utopians, Hegels, mode of production, Hegel's thesis, Hegelian dialectic, Marx theory of history, stages of Marxism, communism, classless society,
class conflict, exploitation, capitalism, proletariat, the proletarian revolution, orthodox communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, reification, Frankfurt School.
20th Century Cultural War,; The Frankfort School of Cultural Marxism and the ...Wayne Williams
Students will examine the history of the Frankfort School of Marxism and how it migrated to the U.S., and how this relates to social upheaval in today's America.
Theoretical Underpinnings of European Unioniosrjce
The aftermath of Second World War offered a prospect of utter misery and desolation. Europeans felt
hopeless and exhausted. The objective of peace went hand in hand with desire to ensure that Europe was able to
get back on its feet economically after 1945. The proponents of European integration advanced theories for
integration that involved gradual surrendering of sovereignty to a supranational entity. The ECSC was the first
step towards European Union. The post 1945, regionalism emerged out of gradual process of integration from a
six member organization to today 27 members European Union; from an inter-governmental organization to a
supranational entity.The paper looks at the theoretical framework of European integration
Mussolini, the Doctrine of Fascism, AbridgedDanteK
This document was written by Benito Mussolini in 1932 together with Giovanni Gentile, two months before the National Assembly would meet to discuss Fascist philosophy. This abridged version is approximately one third of the original.
AFTER THE END of World War I, many Germans were unwilling t.docxjack60216
AFTER THE END of World War I, many Germans were unwilling to accept that their nation's
armed forces had been vanquished on the battlefield, giving rise to the widespread belief that
defeat had come about as the result of a “stab in the back” by traitorous elements within the
German population. To some, there was no secret as to who those treasonous elements were:
they were to be found in the country's Jewish population. Jews were prominent in many
professions, including law, medicine, and education, and were active in the financial and banking
sector as well. Widely envied and resented, they were ripe targets for attack by revenge-seeking
revanchist groups within the country.
In the early 1930s, the nationalist firebrand Adolf Hitler took advantage of these sentiments
to seize power in a country wracked by the Great Depression. In a relatively short period of time,
Hitler, at the head of his National Socialist (Nazi) Party, installed himself as the dictator of what
was termed the Third Reich. He soon embarked on a path to cleanse the country of its internal
enemies and make Germany once again the dominant force in Europe. The ensuing conflict,
which eventually spread worldwide, repeated the horrors of the previous “war to end all wars”
and resulted in an even more decisive defeat for German forces on the battlefield. When World
War II came to an end in 1945, there could be no further cries of a “stab in the back.” Germany
had been decisively defeated and its capital of Berlin lay in ruins.
CRITICAL THINKING
Q What was the relationship between World War I and World War II, and how did the ways
in which the wars were fought differ?
The Rise of Dictatorial Regimes
On February 3, 1933, only four days after he had been appointed chancellor of Germany, Adolf
Hitler (1889–1945) met secretly with Germany's leading generals. He revealed to them his desire
to remove the “cancer of democracy,” create a new authoritarian leadership, and forge a new
domestic unity. His foreign policy objectives were equally striking. Since Germany's living
space was too small for its people, Hitler said, Germany must rearm and prepare for “the
conquest of new living space in the east and its ruthless Germanization.”
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/books/9780357297667/epub/OEBPS/08_9781285447902_cont.xhtml#toc-sec6_1
The rise of Adolf Hitler to supreme power in Germany was not an isolated incident, but part
of a pattern that had spread throughout Europe and other parts of the world in the wake of the
Great Depression. The apparent triumph of liberal democracy in 1919 had proven to be
extremely short-lived. Italy had installed a fascist regime in the 1920s, and the Soviet Union
under Joseph Stalin was a repressive dictatorial state. A host of other European states, and Latin .
AFTER THE END of World War I, many Germans were unwilling t.docxgalerussel59292
AFTER THE END of World War I, many Germans were unwilling to accept that their nation's
armed forces had been vanquished on the battlefield, giving rise to the widespread belief that
defeat had come about as the result of a “stab in the back” by traitorous elements within the
German population. To some, there was no secret as to who those treasonous elements were:
they were to be found in the country's Jewish population. Jews were prominent in many
professions, including law, medicine, and education, and were active in the financial and banking
sector as well. Widely envied and resented, they were ripe targets for attack by revenge-seeking
revanchist groups within the country.
In the early 1930s, the nationalist firebrand Adolf Hitler took advantage of these sentiments
to seize power in a country wracked by the Great Depression. In a relatively short period of time,
Hitler, at the head of his National Socialist (Nazi) Party, installed himself as the dictator of what
was termed the Third Reich. He soon embarked on a path to cleanse the country of its internal
enemies and make Germany once again the dominant force in Europe. The ensuing conflict,
which eventually spread worldwide, repeated the horrors of the previous “war to end all wars”
and resulted in an even more decisive defeat for German forces on the battlefield. When World
War II came to an end in 1945, there could be no further cries of a “stab in the back.” Germany
had been decisively defeated and its capital of Berlin lay in ruins.
CRITICAL THINKING
Q What was the relationship between World War I and World War II, and how did the ways
in which the wars were fought differ?
The Rise of Dictatorial Regimes
On February 3, 1933, only four days after he had been appointed chancellor of Germany, Adolf
Hitler (1889–1945) met secretly with Germany's leading generals. He revealed to them his desire
to remove the “cancer of democracy,” create a new authoritarian leadership, and forge a new
domestic unity. His foreign policy objectives were equally striking. Since Germany's living
space was too small for its people, Hitler said, Germany must rearm and prepare for “the
conquest of new living space in the east and its ruthless Germanization.”
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/books/9780357297667/epub/OEBPS/08_9781285447902_cont.xhtml#toc-sec6_1
The rise of Adolf Hitler to supreme power in Germany was not an isolated incident, but part
of a pattern that had spread throughout Europe and other parts of the world in the wake of the
Great Depression. The apparent triumph of liberal democracy in 1919 had proven to be
extremely short-lived. Italy had installed a fascist regime in the 1920s, and the Soviet Union
under Joseph Stalin was a repressive dictatorial state. A host of other European states, and Latin .
This presentation presents the overview and the origin of the two political concept, the political ideology of fascism and the type of leadership of totalitarian.
PICK A PRODUCT OR PRODUCT CATEGORY ON EUROMONITOR AND WRITE A .docxkarlhennesey
PICK A PRODUCT OR PRODUCT CATEGORY ON EUROMONITOR AND WRITE A 600
WORD REPORT ON CONSUMER TRENDS FOR THAT PRODUCT OR PRODUCT CATEGORY
USING DATA FROM FIVE COUNTRIES. (The countries should be from different regions
and have different levels of economic development)
THE REPORT SHOULD INDICATE:
o What the overriding trends are for the product;
o In what type of country is the product doing well or poorly and why;
o Where are sales for the product projected to grow and decline;
o What do Euromonitor’s written assessments and reports tell you about the
product?
This assignment is due at 11:59pm on Wednesday, 12/4/2019.
Chapter 6. The Totalitarian Model: A False Utopia
Learning Objectives
· 1Define totalitarianism.
· 2Describe the role of ideology in totalitarian states.
· 3Identify the three most infamous totalitarian rulers and how they earned that reputation.
· 4Describe the three developmental stages in the life of a totalitarian state.
· 5Determine the value of studying totalitarianism even though the world’s worst examples of totalitarian rule have passed into the pages of history.
A new and more malignant form of tyranny called totalitarianism reared its ugly head in the twentieth century. The term itself denotes complete domination of a society and its members by tyrannical rulers and imposed beliefs. The totalitarian obsession with control extends beyond the public realm into the private lives of citizens.
Imagine living in a world in which politics is forbidden and everything is political—including work, education, religion, sports, social organizations, and even the family. Neighbors spy on neighbors and children are encouraged to report “disloyal” parents. “Enemies of the people” are exterminated.
Who are these “enemies“? Defined in terms of whole categories or groups within society, they typically encompass hundreds of thousands and even millions of people who are “objectively” counterrevolutionary—for example, Jews and Gypsies (Romany) in Nazi Germany, the bourgeoisie (middle class) and kulaks (rich farmers) in Soviet Russia, and so on. By contrast, authoritarian governments typically seek to maintain political power (rather than to transform society) and more narrowly define political enemies as individuals (not groups) actively engaged in opposing the existing state.
Why study totalitarianism now that the Soviet Union no longer exists? First, communism is not the only possible form of totalitarian state. The examples of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are reminders that totalitarianism is not a product of one ideology, regime, or ruler. Second, totalitarianism is an integral part of contemporary history. Many who suffered directly at the hands of totalitarian dictators or lost loved ones in Hitler’s Holocaust, Stalin’s Reign of Terror, Mao’s horrific purges, or other more recent instances of totalitarian brutality are still living. The physical and emotional scars of the victims remain even after the tyrants are long g ...
The First Political Theory (liberalism) is short of breath and although it has achieved boundless totalitarian power, it is no longer able to ensure order. It will explode like Aesop's frog: it swelled beyond its ability to bear "
Political Ideologies: Fascism. Presentation suitable for Cambridge History students, level 11, 12 and 13 (IGCSE, AS, A2). It contains a comprehensive presentation of fascism.
Digital exclusion as a hindrance to the emergence of the information society:...Przegląd Politologiczny
There is no doubt, that digital transformation (knowledge-based transformation) has
emerged as the crucial megatrend in modern civilization. Artificial intelligence (AI), machines and
autonomous vehicles, the Internet of Things (IoT), financial technology (Fin/Tech), smart investing
and the analysis and processing of big data are the most recent manifestations of this trend, but not
the only ones. All of these phenomena have led to the emergence and continuing development of the
so-called ‘Information Society’ (IS), which refers to a new type of social organization that is clearly
distinct from the earlier forms of society. In this new society, information and knowledge play an
essential role in facilitating the Knowledge-Based Economy (KBE), where information is collected,
transmitted and processed in a faster and more effective manner, and can subsequently be used to
foster accelerated economic growth. Unfortunately, the problem of digital exclusion still occurs, also
in Poland. The author in the conclusion comes to opinion that people who are digitally excluded find
it much more difficult to overcome psychological rather than technical barriers to having access to
the Internet and learning basic computer skills. This situation calls for urgent improvement. In the
modern information society, a lack of basic knowledge about computers translates into partial or total
digital illiteracy and makes it difficult to perform a range of everyday tasks. It is therefore essential
in Poland to prevent digital exclusion. People who do not use the Internet are socially and professionally limited, or virtually handicapped, which results in quantifiable economic losses. This translates to lower creativity and innovativeness and reduced revenue of state budget, and impedes the
competitiveness of the economy and the development of a post-modern, post-industrial social model.
The main research goal is to show the causes of the phenomenon of digital exclusion in Poland and
ways to counteract it. In the course of the research, the most frequently used method was causal and
effect analysis as well as institutional and legal analysis. Elements of the decision-making, historical,
comparative and statistical methods were also used.
How long can the term of office of the Polish parliament last? A legal-consti...Przegląd Politologiczny
The main research aim of this article is an analysis of the length of the parliamentary term of
office in Poland based on the analysis of legal rules. According to the art. 98 para. 1 of the Constitution,
the parliamentary term of office starts on the day on which the Sejm assembles for its first sitting and
ends on the day preceding the first assembly of the newly elected Sejm. Although the mentioned rule
also expressly states that parliamentary term of office lasts 4 years, the length of the particular terms
of office could be very different. If the parliamentary term of office is shortened, it could last even less
than two months. If it is prolongated because of the introduction of the extraordinary measure, it could
last approx. 5 years (in case of emergency state), or it maximal length can not be defined. Moreover,
even in case of the “normal” terms of office they could have different length – slightly less than 4 years
or longer than 4 years by even a few weeks. The presented considerations lead to the conclusion that
there is need to make certain amendments of the rules of law concerning this area, which would ensure
minimal 4 years length of the “normal” parliamentary term and regulate the organisation of the parliamentary elections after the termination of the extraordinary measure. Author analysed the legal rules
basing on legal-dogmatic method and interpreted them by using such methods of their interpretation as:
language-logical, teleological and systematic.
E-politics from the citizens’ perspective. The role of social networking tool...Przegląd Politologiczny
The progress of civilization, supported by the development of new technologies, has led
to a series of social, economic and political changes. The information society, in its expectations and
through access to knowledge, has significantly affected a change in the model of democracy, causing
a kind of return to the original forms of communication in citizen-government relations. This has been
accompanied by a shift of social and civic activism from the real to the virtual world. In literature,
the use of information and communication technologies in the democratic system is named electronic
democracy. One of its forms is e-politics, which is implemented at several levels: institutional, system
and civil. A good example of the last type are the new social movements that in recent years have had
a significant impact on politics.
The basic research problem in this paper concerns e-politics from the citizens’ perspective, through
the activities of the new social movements, especially of a political nature. The main research goal
is therefore to present the role of social networking tools in influencing citizens and their subsequent
activities that have triggered changes in the political system. The methods used in the paper are case
study and comparative analysis.
The relationship between position on an electoral list and chances of winnin...Przegląd Politologiczny
This paper examines the relationship between the candidate’s position on an electoral list
and the feasibility of winning a seat in the Sejm (the lower chamber of the Polish parliament). This research hypothesizes that winning a seat strongly depends on the candidate having a top position on the
electoral list. This hypothesis is verified vis-à-vis the results of the 2015 election to the Sejm. The study
confirmed the initial assumption, since it was found that nearly 82% of the seats were taken by the candidates from the so-called “seat-winning places,” namely the top places on the lists of candidates (the
number of these places equals the number of seats taken by a given party in a given constituency).
The Mayor of a Municipality – Competences, Qualifications, Current Status in ...Przegląd Politologiczny
The mandatory authorities – the municipal office and the mayor of the municipality – play an
irreplaceable role at the municipal level. Both bodies are elected. These authorities influence the direction of municipal development in the upcoming term of office, the municipal representatives’ protection
of citizens’ needs and interests as well as fulfilment of the tasks and obligations imposed by the law. The
main aim of the article is to clarify the importance and seriousness of the mayor as the highest representative of the municipal government in the Slovak Republic. Another aim is to present new realities
connected with the mayor’s office as well as new requirements associated with it.
Social Security of Citizens in the Manifesto of the Christian Democratic Unio...Przegląd Politologiczny
This article aims to analyze the common manifesto of the Christian Democratic Union of
Germany and the Christian-Social Union in Bavaria regarding social security, with regard to the elections to the German parliament in 2017. The basic assumption was to verify whether the CDU/CSU
grouping referred to each of the elements of social security, i.e. social security system, welfare security,
community security and developmental security, in its 2017 election manifesto. The method used to
complete the study was content analysis. The study shows that the CDU/CSU Union in its common
manifesto of 2017 – Für ein Deutschland, in dem wir gut und gerne leben. Regierungsprogramm 2017–
2021, raised issues related to building the social security of citizens. The proposals that were included
in the program allow us to conclude that the CDU/CSU proposed a program that develops each of the
pillars of social security in part, but which is still lacking in some ways. It should be noted that the issue
of culture has been somewhat overlooked, which undoubtedly has a huge impact on the development
of social capital and human capital, despite its enormous impact on two of the pillars, community and
development. Other areas and proposals aimed at their development manage to fill this gap. It should
also be pointed out that in the electoral proposals included in the manifesto, the most developed pillar
was related to social security, implemented as part of the social policy of the state.
The first constitution of the Ottoman-Turkish Empire was adopted in 1876 – the Kânûn-ı
Esâsî (Eng. Fundamental Law). In its history, Turkey has had four constitutions. They were adopted in
1921, 1924, 1961, and 1982, with the latter being presently in force. Nowadays, the creation of a new
constitution is the main issue on Turkey’s political agenda. The government of Turkey and Mr. Recep
Tayyip Erdogan want to amend the constitution, and envisage creating an executive presidential system (Tur. Başkanlık sistemi), similar to that of the Russian Federation and the United States. Critics
are concerned about what Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s motivation may be. This article analyzes the historical roots of the constitution, its amendments, the presidential system in Turkey and the arguments of
the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) against the adoption of
a presidential system. The key issues that the authors address are the changes that could be made under
Turkey’s new constitution and whether all political power would be concentrated in president’s hands.
The purpose of this article is to analyze US foreign policy under the new White House administration and to present the most important aspects of Trump’s emerging doctrine, with the aim of
answering the following questions: what are the goals and tenets of, and the measures to implement,
the foreign policy outlined in the new US National Security Strategy? Which trends can be considered
dominant in Trump’s emerging doctrine? What challenges and threats to international security were
mentioned in the document? Do traditional US allies still play an important role in the superpower’s
security strategy? The thesis of this paper is that political realism is the main trend in Trump’s emerging
doctrine and that US foreign policy has taken a unilateral course, with a large dose of populism.
A Political Economy of Trans-Border Migration Crises and Human Trafficking in...Przegląd Politologiczny
Encouraged by porous border boundaries in Africa, trafficking in persons and objects is
a demand-driven global venture that has market potential for: commercial sex, cheap labour, terrorism, and drug-related crimes. Most African States, especially Nigeria, have been reputed as hardliners
in encouraging these illicit trends. Chief among the motivating factors include: domestic insecurity,
political instability, economic recession, and institutional failure, etc. Amongst other instigating factors however, this paper takes a cursory look at the relationship between the twin crime of trans-border
migration crises and human trafficking in Nigeria, and the attendant political economic implications on
the Nigerian polity. Data relied on are largely gotten from secondary sources. The paper employs the
neoclassical political economic theory of migration. Findings from conceptual and theoretical reviews
of literatures show that the incentive for human trafficking and migration-related offences is not only
profit driven but also a fall-out from institutional failure. The paper recommends a taut border security,
which can disallow border-related crimes like drug and human trafficking. The paper also sues for
people-oriented leadership that will eschew illicit crimes such as the above.
The aim of this study is to describe the legal bases of the migration policy of Armenia and its
practical implementation in 1995–2013. The author examined the international and national documents
that provide the legal bases of Armenia’s migration policy, as well as the balance between departures
and arrivals in the period 1995–2013, Armenian citizens’ reasons for emigrating and the occupations
of emigrants. The study was based on the following research methods: content, system and quantitative analysis. The results of the analyses performed indicate that the objectives of Armenia’s migration
policy were not completely fulfilled. Between 1995 and 2013, the number of emigrants declined, but
Armenia’s overall migration balance was negative. The majority of those leaving the country went to
Russia, followed by the other states of the CIS.
Negotiations with Terrorist Organizations for the Release of Abductees: Betwe...Przegląd Politologiczny
For decades, democratic countries have dealt with terrorist attacks carried out for the purpose
of negotiations, which is the preferred modus operandi for some terrorist organizations. To what extent
can a democratic regime effectively combat this abominable act while preserving a liberal or democratic character? Furthermore, these cases have become one of the most complicated dilemmas in both
domestic and foreign policy. The prevalent opinion is that it is not possible to avoid meeting some of
the demands of these terrorists. A government may even consent to paying a heavy price, so as to end
the situation sooner. Media coverage influences this price, as extensive coverage of the terrorist attacks
benefits the terrorists and thus increases their bargaining power. In contrast to the declarations of Israeli
leaders in negotiations in cases of abduction, Israel has adopted a very flexible approach and is not
interested in adopting the rigid approach of refusal to negotiate. The position of the opponents to negotiations with terrorist organizations is that the very negotiations with terrorist organizations legitimize
them and the terrorist attacks, thus devaluing claims that terrorism is not a legitimate means of achieving one’s aims, and prevents the use of force in these situations. When all the prisoner exchange deals
by the State of Israel are examined, approximately 7,500 terrorists have been released in the framework
of the different deals, including terrorists with blood on their hands, in return for 14 living soldiers and
civilians and 6 bodies of soldiers. A total of 1,027 terrorists were released in the Shalit deal alone.
The EU engagement in democracy promotion in post-Soviet Central Asia: the cas...Przegląd Politologiczny
When Soviet Union collapsed, there were different hypothesis regarding democratic reforms and political system changes in Kyrgyzstan. It was believed that Kyrgyzstan would develop its
independent policy and democratic governance. Since early 1990s European countries through OSCE,
and later through the EU launched development projects have been playing central role in democracy
promotion and civil society development in Central Asia. At the same time, as analysis show geopolitical interests of neighboring powerful states such as Russia and China increased in the region, which resulted the creation of regional institutions such as Shanhai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Collective
Security Organization (CSO), Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and Silk Road Belt Initiative (SRBI).
While being the fully-fledged member of China and Russia led regional institutions, Kyrgyzstan is under heavy political and economic influence. Besides, human rights situation in Kyrgyzstan like in other
Central Asian countries has been deteriorating for last few years.
Thus, the research paper focuses on interplay between Russia and China for geopolitical dominance
in the region, including how it negatively influences for political volatility, civil society suppression and
deterioration of human rights issues. Paper equally analyzes European countries engagement in human
rights and democracy promotion in Kyrgyzstan. The research considers important to analyze the EU
strategy in democratic reforms in Central Asia and to investigate why it matters for the EU.
Increasing the Effectiveness of EU Education Assistance in Uzbekistan. Revisi...Przegląd Politologiczny
The European Union has identified education in Central Asia as a key area of cooperation.
However, the EU’s engagement in this area, which has faced considerable difficulties since the fall of
the Soviet Union, has so far not had the desired impact. Based on a case study of Uzbekistan, I argue in
this article that the EU should revise its strategy by adopting a more targeted approach, consistent with
the longer-term funding it is able to commit to Central Asia and better tailored to the local social context
through strong engagement with local stakeholders. Instead of imposing broad concepts designed in
Brussels – which have generally not been fully accepted or implemented by local political authorities
– this new approach would involve setting up specific projects with local input, such as the opening of
campuses of European universities, providing financial and logistical support for school infrastructure,
and increasing the involvement of potential employers. With local ownership, EU education assistance
will allow a new generation in Uzbekistan to breathe life into long-term reforms by drawing on the
European concepts of their instruction, rather than viewing them as imposed from outside.
Taiwan’s democracy and freedom of the press provide the Chinese authorities with an opportunity to use Taiwanese businessmen to influence Taiwan’s media outlets and politics. China uses
three inter-related strategies to influence Taiwan’s media in this way: persuading businessmen with
pro-China views to purchase Taiwanese media outlets, pressuring existing media owners, and placing
advertisements in Taiwan’s media in order to purchase political influence. In addition, the Chinese government also employs cyber-propaganda strategy to attack Taiwanese political parties and politicians.
The Regional Development of Democratization and Civil Society: Transition, Co...Przegląd Politologiczny
Different starting points, similar processes and different outcomes can be identified when comparing East Central Europe and East and South Asia. The two regions face similar global challenges, follow regional patterns of democratization and face crises. In communist times, East Central Europe was
economically marginalized in the world economy, while some parts of Asia integrated well in the global
economy under authoritarian rule. Europeanization and a favorable external environment encouraged the
former communist countries to opt for the Western-style rule of law and democracy. Different external
factors helped the Third Wave democracies in Asia, especially South Korea and Taiwan, which benefited
from the support of the United States and other global economic, military and cultural partnerships to
develop their human rights culture and democracy while facing their totalitarian counterparts, namely the
People’s Republic of China and North Korea. The very different positions Taiwan and Hungary have in
their respective regions follow from the different capacities of their transformation management since
1988–1989. Taiwan preserved its leading role and stable democracy despite the threat to its sovereignty
from the People’s Republic of China. Hungary never had such an influential and problematic neighbor
and was ensured security and welfare partnership by the European Union, which Taiwan lacked. While
Taiwan was less secure, economic and social conditions were more favorable for democratization than
those in Hungary. Hungary, in turn, held a leading position in democratization processes in the period of
post-communist transition which was lost during the crisis and conflicts of the last decade (after 2006 and
especially since 2010). Despite the fact that liberalization prepared the way for peaceful transition in both
countries and resulted in similar processes of democratic consolidation in the 1990s, Hungary joined the
‘loser’ group in its region, whereas Taiwan is among the top ‘winning’ countries in its region. Taiwan at the
moment is starting comprehensive reform processes toward enhanced democracy, civil rights and the rule
of law, and Hungarian development is criticized by many external and internal analysts as straying from the
path of European-style consolidated democracies towards illiberal trends and hybridization. Western global
concepts of democratization may help to identify similarities and differences, and compare stronger and
weaker factors in the democratic transitions in Asia and Europe within the Third Wave democracies.
National Income, Strategic Discontinuity, and Converging Trajectories of Macr...Przegląd Politologiczny
The framework of converging trajectories of macroeconomic policy initiatives is employed
in the context of strategic discontinuity to study the national income of an advancing economy. A model
of systemic changes based upon an equation of production and consumption is presented. In this study
of the Chinese economy of 1980–2014, over time, the dynamics of policy imbalance is found to decrease considerably, which is consistent with the decreasing trend of shrinking the differences among
the impact coefficients of government consumption, private investment, and private consumption.
The State of Air in the European Union and Quality of Europeans’ LifePrzegląd Politologiczny
This article aims to present the impact of air pollution on the quality of life of EU residents.
With the aid of institutional-legal and statistical analysis an attempt has been undertaken to answer the
following research questions: 1) negative concentrations whose pollution exceeds norms set out at EU
levels, 2) causes of above-norm pollution concentrations and 3) impact of pollution on the health of
Europeans. During the conducted research it was demonstrated that the quality of life of Europeans is
being lowered by a continuing above-norm concentration of air pollution whose exposure is related to
people feeling worse, numerous diseases related to the breathing system, circulation, nervous and even
reproductive system as well as increased death rate and shortening of life expectancy. The estimated
number of premature deaths in 2014 resulting from exposure to fine dust, ozone and carbon dioxide in
the EU amounted to 487,600. As the investigation shows, the best quality of life, taking into consideration air quality, is afforded by Finland, Ireland and Sweden
Towards authoritarianism. Internal situation in the Slovak Republic (1994–1998)Przegląd Politologiczny
This article discusses the internal situation of the Slovak Republic in the years 1994–1998,
the period in which the country was governed by the coalition of Movement for Democratic Slovakia,
the Slovak National Party and the Slovak Workers’ Association, and the prime minister was Vladimír
Mečiar. The main objective of the research was to analyse the actions undertaken by the coalition government in the context of violations of civil and political rights and freedoms, which could indicate an
authoritarian way of exercising power and the dismantling of a democratic state of law. In the analysed
period, the role of the parliamentary and nonparliamentary opposition was marginalised, the role of the
media limited, the rights of national and ethnic minorities violated. There was also an ongoing, sharp
conflict between Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar and President Michál Kováč. The effect of this governance was the union of almost all political forces and seizure of power after the elections in 1998. In
order to answer the research questions, the author used the method of institutional and legal analysis,
decision analysis and the statistical method. The research confirmed the hypothesis that, against the
background of other Visegrad Group countries, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, in the case of
Slovakia there were many instances of human rights violations in the period analysed. This led to the
drastic deterioration of bilateral relations with many countries and the slowdown of Slovakia’s accession to the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union.
cultural and social assimilation of immigrants, and systemic solutions – Pol...Przegląd Politologiczny
: The article presents the problem of migration and assimilation of newcomers in the countries
of residence. One of the main reasons for migration are economic and social considerations, this applies
to both non-European arrivals and internal migration. The aim of this study, conducted by scholars from
Norway and Poland, is to compare systemic solutions both within the social legislation and the functioning of the labor market with respect to Poles and Ukrainians, confronting them with existing barriers regarding the possibility of assimilation and obstacles related to the transformation of economic into
settlement migration. The methodological and theoretical basis of the team’s research is comparative
methods, including comparative politics. The research on immigrants was conducted using both quantitative methods – statistical and qualitative data analysis – and research using the in-depth interview
method. Poles and Ukrainians are not at the same stage of formal migration due to the formal plane. According to the analysis, Ukrainians have much greater opportunities for actual assimilation than Poles in
Norway. Smaller cultural differences and linguistic barriers to the Ukrainians in Poland are conducive
to this process. If the state and Polish society take advantage of this situation and enable the settlement
of Ukrainians and make their job offers more attractive, there is a chance that they will fill the emerging
demographic gap. It would be for the benefit of both societies.
A forecast of international migration flows into EU countries until 2050Przegląd Politologiczny
The subject of this paper is international migration into EU countries. The research objective
is a quantitative estimation of the volume of international migration flows into European countries and
their close neighbors until 2050. The forecast of international migration flows is based on the author’s
own model of global international migration. The model is based on a synergetic approach and assumptions that the level of migration is determined first of all by the number of existing migrants from that
country. The data used for the forecast is UN data on migration flows in 1990–2015, and the UN’s predictions regarding changes in population between now and 2050. The forecast is based on the medium
scenario of demographic development offered by the UN. Countries with a current population of more
than 5 million are taken into consideration as potential sources of immigration. The predicted values of
the total number of international migration flows to each of the EU and neighboring countries for each
five-year period until 2050 are determined. The predicted migration flows from EU countries are also
determined. It is concluded that the forecasts allow us to claim that the problem of migration will continue for EU countries. However, the essence of this problem is not the prevention of excess migration,
but attracting migrants to the countries of the ‘second Europe.’
‘वोटर्स विल मस्ट प्रीवेल’ (मतदाताओं को जीतना होगा) अभियान द्वारा जारी हेल्पलाइन नंबर, 4 जून को सुबह 7 बजे से दोपहर 12 बजे तक मतगणना प्रक्रिया में कहीं भी किसी भी तरह के उल्लंघन की रिपोर्ट करने के लिए खुला रहेगा।
31052024_First India Newspaper Jaipur.pdfFIRST INDIA
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role of women and girls in various terror groupssadiakorobi2
Women have three distinct types of involvement: direct involvement in terrorist acts; enabling of others to commit such acts; and facilitating the disengagement of others from violent or extremist groups.
हम आग्रह करते हैं कि जो भी सत्ता में आए, वह संविधान का पालन करे, उसकी रक्षा करे और उसे बनाए रखे।" प्रस्ताव में कुल तीन प्रमुख हस्तक्षेप और उनके तंत्र भी प्रस्तुत किए गए। पहला हस्तक्षेप स्वतंत्र मीडिया को प्रोत्साहित करके, वास्तविकता पर आधारित काउंटर नैरेटिव का निर्माण करके और सत्तारूढ़ सरकार द्वारा नियोजित मनोवैज्ञानिक हेरफेर की रणनीति का मुकाबला करके लोगों द्वारा निर्धारित कथा को बनाए रखना और उस पर कार्यकरना था।
01062024_First India Newspaper Jaipur.pdfFIRST INDIA
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In a May 9, 2024 paper, Juri Opitz from the University of Zurich, along with Shira Wein and Nathan Schneider form Georgetown University, discussed the importance of linguistic expertise in natural language processing (NLP) in an era dominated by large language models (LLMs).
The authors explained that while machine translation (MT) previously relied heavily on linguists, the landscape has shifted. “Linguistics is no longer front and center in the way we build NLP systems,” they said. With the emergence of LLMs, which can generate fluent text without the need for specialized modules to handle grammar or semantic coherence, the need for linguistic expertise in NLP is being questioned.
03062024_First India Newspaper Jaipur.pdfFIRST INDIA
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2024 is the point of certainty. Forecast of UIF experts
The cult of personality as an important feature of totalitarian propaganda
1. DOI : 10.14746/pp.2019.24.2.7
Marek Żyromski
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8397-8730
The cult of personality as an important feature
of totalitarian propaganda
Abstract: The totalitarian system, in contrast to the system of representative democracy (based on
impersonal procedures), is strongly related to the position of the leader. Therefore, the cult of the in-
dividual not only serves to consolidate the power of a totalitarian leader, but also contributes to the
legitimacy of the entire political system. The article presents the propagation and creation of the cult of
the individual around three leaders of totalitarian states: Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler.
Key words: propaganda, totalitarianism, individual worship, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler
1. Introduction
Nowadays a great increase of right-wing (or even antidemocratic) values and political
views can be observed in some European countries. Certainly, this can be connected
with the enormous flow of migrants to Europe, especially in 2015. Many surveys of po-
litical opinion show the growing position of such parties as German AFD (Alternative
für Deutschland) and Fronte Nationale in France. In the latest opinion poll in Germany
(carried out in the beginning of May 2016), AFD had gained as much as 15% of support.
Just a few weeks ago (at the end of April 2016), in the first round of the presidential elec-
tions in Austria, the best results were obtained by the candidates who openly presented
antidemocratic and nationalistic values. Nevertheless, the growth of anti-migrant atti-
tudes can also be observed in some countries which are not ‘in the first line of the battle,’
like Poland. However, there is still a long way from such political views to the victory
of fascist (or at least neo-fascist) parties in any European country. But you never know,
as Lisa Minnelli said to Michael York in the final scene of the famous movie Cabaret
(however in a rather non-political context).
In this article the cult of personality that emerged and developed in three totalitarian
states of interwar Europe will be analyzed, namely Italian fascism, German nazism and
Soviet communism. All three totalitarian dictators, i.e. Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler
and Joseph Stalin developed the cult of personality on a really enormous scale. Never-
theless, this cult of personality served not only to strengthen their position within the
totalitarian structure of power but also formed an important part of totalitarian propa-
ganda. That is what this article is about. In my most recent book I present and analyze the
question of the mutual relationship between propaganda and terror in the cases of some
totalitarian regimes (Żyromski, 2015)
Undoubtedly, taking into consideration the three above-mentioned totalitarian states
(Italy, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union) the greatest level of repression and terror
2. 96 Marek Żyromski PP 2 ’19
can be observed in the case of Stalinist Soviet Union. No one could be certain of their
social and political position or even their lives, especially during the Great Terror of
1937–1938. Therefore, Stalinist propaganda was not especially sophisticated because
the terror was more than sufficient to keep the population of the Soviet Union out of
politics and to maintain the dominant position of the communist party and of its leader
(vohzd), Joseph Stalin. Nevertheless, the cult of Stalin reached quite enormous propor-
tions. On the other hand, the level of repression in Italy during the reign of Mussolini
certainly was not as big as in the two other totalitarian states. Consequently, both the
fascist propaganda and the cult of Mussolini (the Duce) were more developed and it
was even in concordance with some important features of the Italian society. In my
opinion, the German Third Reich took an intermediate position in the relation between
propaganda and terror. Undoubtedly, the terror was terrible in Nazi Germany but this ter-
ror and repression was directed (before the outbreak of the Second World War) mainly
against some groups of German society like Jews or disabled people. Nevertheless, also
in the Third Reich, the cult of a totalitarian leader (the Führer) and dictator (Adolf Hitler)
reached an enormous level and some of its manifestations were very strange, indeed. It is
interesting that the position of a totalitarian dictator, and especially the cult of personality
was, at it seems, sometimes even greater than the level of propaganda itself, as was the
case in fascist Italy.
Certainly, the cult of personality cannot be only limited to the totalitarian regimes. It
is not even the invention of modern civilization and political culture. For instance, some
great political leaders of antiquity, like the first Roman emperor Augustus developed
quite a sophisticated cult of personality (Zanker, 1999). The figure of Octavianus Augus-
tus is especially important in this context because the position of this founder of Prin-
cipate (the early Roman Empire) was used as a model by Benito Mussolini in building
his own political position and his own cult of personality. Nevertheless, the first modern
political personality cult emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century when Napoleon
III received the crown in France in 1851. Jan Plamper, in the introduction to his very
famous book on the Stalin cult, enumerated five features of modern political personality
cults (Plamper, 2012, XVII). Before the modern era some personality cults were directed
only to the elite of the given society but now such political personality cults are ‘children
of mass politics’ because they are directed to the whole society. The second feature is
the use of mass media on an enormous scale. Additionally, the modern political person-
ality cults can be observed only in closed societies, they are children of a secular age
and they can be described as an exclusively “patricentric phenomenon” (Plamper, 2012,
XVIII). Two years after the publication by Plamper, Daniel Leese presented three more
features of modern political personality cults. It should be remembered that these three
features analyzed by Leese, in addition to Plamper’s five features, can be valid only in
case of party dictatorships that developed in Europe in the twentieth century. However,
all three political systems (fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union) can
best be presented as such party dictatorships. Daniel Leese described his three features
of modern political personality cults as follows: “firstly, (they) are often deeply imbued
with nationalism and tend to identify the fate of the nation with the fate of the party and
its current leader […] Secondly, the emergence of leader cults is strongly encouraged
through the lack of rules governing political ascent and survival […] Thirdly, party dicta-
3. PP 2 ’19 The cult of personality as an important feature of totalitarian... 97
tors mostly rely on mass festivals and rituals to stage participation and approval” (Leese,
2014, p. 342).
Undoubtedly, both the introduction and later on the development of different cults
of personality served to legitimize the totalitarian regime of power. Certainly, the no-
tion of legitimation of political power is not easy to analyze. As David Beetham pointed
out, the question of legitimation of political power has to be presented in three different
dimensions (more or less closely interconnected with one another): the legitimate path to
power, the use of power in concordance with some political and social preferences of the
given society and in concordance with some important legal basis of power (Beetham,
1991, 2001). The question of the legitimation of political power can best be presented in
terms of the political process. The given social and political order cannot be legitimate
forever. For instance, the communist power in Eastern Europe (for instance in Poland)
was not gained in a legitimate process because it was simply enforced by the Soviet Red
Army. Nevertheless, thanks to the process of rebuilding the economy and transforming
the social structure after the terrible Second World War, even this communist (or, after-
wards, socialist) power gained some level of social support. Of course, it was impossible
to measure, or even estimate, this level of support because there were no public opinion
polls. Yet the true nostalgia for the communist (or rather socialist) times testifies that
this power received some legitimacy. The situation is quite the opposite in the case of
fascist Italy and, even more, in the case of Nazi Germany. Although the fascists gained
their power in an illegitimate way (the march of the so-called ‘black shirts’ on Rome
in 1922), the social support for fascist power persisted practically until the end of the
regime in July 1943. On the other hand, the Nazis received power (almost) in a demo-
cratic and legitimate way, thanks to gaining first good and afterwards even better results
in parliamentary elections. Therefore, the Third Reich enjoyed significant social support
practically until the military disaster in Stalingrad (February 1943). However, even after
Stalingrad, the Nazi power did not collapse suddenly (like the fascist system in Italy)
and lasted until the suicide of Adolf Hitler. Thus, the political regime can not only gain
but also lose its political legitimacy. “The Communist, Nazi and Fascist regimes of the
twentieth century sought to legitimize themselves through a combination of appeals to
tradition, legal right and charisma. What is unique and striking about them is the way in
which they sought to construct legitimacy, by investing ideas, events, institutions, par-
ticular offices and personalities with charisma” (Rees, 2004, p. 3).
2. The cult of personality in the Soviet Union – Lenin and Stalin
In post-revolutionary Russia (and later in the whole of the Soviet Union), Lenin – the
leader of the communist revolution of 1917 – became a natural candidate for the po-
litical personality cult. Nina Tumarkin devoted a whole book to the question of Lenin’s
personality cult. “The cult of Lenin’s memory that dominated Communist Party ritual
in the 1920s […] The cult was built gradually during Lenin’s lifetime and just after his
death by people at all levels of Soviet political life” (Tumarkin, 1997, XVII). Neverthe-
less, as a kind of polemics, Allan Todd pointed out afterwards that, in his opinion, during
the lifetime of Lenin “(t)here was no leadership or personality cult […] after his death
4. 98 Marek Żyromski PP 2 ’19
a ‘cult of Lenin’was created by Stalin” (Todd, 2002, p. 42). But there is significant proof
that the personality cult of Lenin already developed during the life of the leader of the
communist revolution. As early as 1918, some places were named after Lenin (Davies,
Harris, 2014, p. 141). The most important representation of Lenin’s personality cult was
connected with his fiftieth birthday in 1920; by the way, the introduction of Stalin’s per-
sonality cult was also connected with the fiftieth birthday of the dictator celebrated in
1929 (although Stalin was actually born in 1878 and not in 1879). In the case of Lenin,
“Agitprop used his birthday to launch an agitational campaign around Lenin […] On
April 23, 1920, the central press was filled with greetings, paeans, and poems honoring
Lenin’s fiftieth birthday. Pravda and Izvestiia devoted almost all their news coverage
to the event and […] published articles praising Lenin written by leading members of
the party” (Tumarkin, 1997, p. 97). Some articles had been written by such Bolsheviks
as Trotsky, Zinoviev, Stalin or Bukharin. Moreover, Agitprop published two popular
biographies of Lenin – one book (by V. I. Nevsky) was published in as many as 200,000
copies. There were also some posters prepared which stressed the theme of Lenin’s link
with the people (narod). But the “press campaign of April 23, 1920, which deliberately
stressed the emotional bonding between Lenin and the people” (Tumarkin, 1997, p. 100)
was especially important. Besides, “in 1920 Lenin was not only the head of the first state
to call itself socialist, but was also the acknowledged leader of the international com-
munist movement” (Tumarkin, 1997, p. 99).
As in the case of other totalitarian dictators analyzed in this article, the process of
creating personality cult around Lenin served not only to strengthen his personal position
but also (or perhaps primarily) aimed to legitimate the power of communists who gained
power in an illegitimate way (thanks to the revolution against the existing order). “The
evident purpose of this press campaign was to strengthen the perceived legitimacy of the
party’s authority by concentrating it in the titanic talent and personal heroism of its ideal-
ized ruler. Lenin’s supporters self-consciously equated him with the party and its policies
[…] They were turning him into a mythical figure […] by celebrating the anniversary of
his birth as a holiday, they were making him a focus of party rituals” (Tumarkin, 1997,
p. 98).
Similar to Stalin, Lenin also had a rather ambivalent position and attitude toward the
cult of personality. “Lenin did hate to hear himself lauded in odes and speeches, disliked
being the recipient of flattery and extravagant gifts, and avoided photographers, painters
and sycophants […] He was supremely self-confident and had no need of such vanities.
What he sought throughout his life was the means to impose his will on a populace” (Tu-
markin, 1997, pp. 24–25). During the above-mentioned fiftieth anniversary of his birth
(organized by the Moscow party committee), Lenin entered the celebration only after
some initial speeches “suggesting that in future the party should find more appropriate
ways to mark anniversaries” (Davies, Harris, 2014, p. 138). On the other hand, Hitler,
and especially Mussolini, did not have such problems with the cult of personality.
When in 1922 Lenin fell ill, a complete propaganda apparatus was created in order
to perpetuate his authority by establishing the first institutions of the Lenin cult. In the
very next year, Lenin survived a major stroke (March 9, 1923) and, as early as April
1923, the Moscow party organization decided to establish the Lenin Institute in Moscow
(with Kamieniev at its head). Even during Lenin’s lifetime his personality cult was based
5. PP 2 ’19 The cult of personality as an important feature of totalitarian... 99
mainly on visual propaganda. During the revolution of 1917 about half the population
was formed by illiterate people. Therefore, such posters were important, cartoons and
other “propaganda trains and ships, which carried the message to the far-flung corners
of the new state” (Todd, 2002, p. 42). Just after the death of Lenin the discussion began
to build his mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow. “The Lenin Mausoleum combined
elements of the Russian practice of venerating tsars and saints. It was designed as an
awe-inspiring shrine and place of pilgrimage, situated at the very heart of the country’s
capital” (Leader, 2004, p. 6).
Undoubtedly, the Lenin cult fully developed after his death. This cult of personality
was used deliberately to strengthen the position of other leading people in the Soviet
Union (like Trotsky and later Stalin) and to legitimize the power of the communist party.
“A regime that derives its legitimacy from a single ruler risks instability upon his death.
But if after death that ruler becomes the object of a cult […] then that cult can serve as
a stabilizing force. This is precisely what happened with Lenin. The cult established
nationwide upon his death was based on one theme: Lenin lives! […] Many statements
stressed the immortality of Lenin’s cause” (Tumarkin, 1997, p. 165). The cult of Lenin
even transformed to become a kind of secular religion. As Nina Tumarkin wrote, perhaps
in too poetic a mood: “the full-blown cult of Lenin was an organized system of rites and
symbols whose collective function was to arouse in the cult’s participants and specta-
tors the reverential mood necessary to create an emotional bond between them and the
party personified by Lenin. Stylized portraits and busts of Lenin were its icons, his ideal-
ized biography its gospel, and Leninism its sacred writings. Lenin Corners were local
shrines [...] and its central shrine was the mausoleum on Red Square” (Tumarkin, 1997,
pp. 2–3).
After the long struggle for power, the fiftieth anniversary of Stalin’s birth in 1929
(although he was born in 1878) marked not only the beginning of his dictatorial posi-
tion in the Soviet Union but started the personality cult of Stalin on a really enormous
scale. “Stalin’s fiftieth birthday in December 1929 saw the launch of a personality cult
to rival Lenin’s” (Merridale, 1990, p. 23). Interestingly, Stalin celebrated only his round
birthdays (50, 60 and 70), while Hitler celebrated his birthdays every year and Mussolini
simply avoided any single notice of his age, birthdays or health problems. “The cult
began on 21 December 1929, when on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday Stalin was
glorified on a broad scale in various media – first and foremost in central newspapers like
Pravda” (Plamper, 2012, XIV). As in the case of Lenin, also on the occasion of Stalin’s
birthday as many as eight pages of Pravda “were filled with laudatory articles by fellow
Party bosses” (Plamper, 2012, p. 29).
However, a significant break in Stalin’s personality cult could be observed soon. In
Plamper’s opinion, this break lasted about three and half years and was connected either
with the terrible results of the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture in 1931–1932
or with the process of the concentrating of power in Stalin’s hands. Nevertheless, in
1929, Stalin gained his practically dictatorial position, so the first factor seems to me to
be more important.
Similar to the cult of Lenin, “the Stalin cult was an overwhelmingly visual phenom-
enon [...] 1926 census had revealed an illiteracy rate of 34.6% for males and 63.3% for
females” (Plamper, 2012, XV). At first, there emerged some posters, oil paintings and
6. 100 Marek Żyromski PP 2 ’19
photographs but in 1937 the movie Lenin in October appeared in cinemas with Mikhail
Romm as Stalin. Undoubtedly, “in the collective imagination Stalin had become indis-
tinguishable from his portrait. Stalin’s portraits had saturated Soviet space and through
portraits Soviet citizens formed an image of their omnipresent leader” (Plamper, 2012,
XIII). Jan Plamper introduced the notion of ‘cult products’ which in practice dominated
the Soviet space, especially in towns. The Stalin portraits, posters, drawings, statues,
busts, films, plays, poems, and songs were simply everywhere. There was no escape
from these ‘cult products.’ Similar to portraits of Lenin, Stalin’s portraits were hung in
the so-called ‘red corners’ in town flats and village houses of Soviet citizens. It is inter-
esting that in a similar way as sacred icons before the October Revolution, these portraits
had to be covered in times of family quarrels. Certainly Stalin was fully aware of the sig-
nificance of the visual side of his personality cult because he personally and deliberately
analyzed every picture before its publication. In sharp contrast with the Third Reich (or
even Italy during the dictatorship of Mussolini), in the Soviet Union “there never was
anything like a ‘Stalin cult ministry’” (Plamper, 2012, XX).
Victoria E. Bonnell analyzed Soviet political posters under Lenin and Stalin and she
observed the significant change in their mutual presentation. On the picture painted in
1925 Stalin was depicted as the best pupil or even closest collaborator of Lenin. “Posters
graphically depicted the relationship between the two men creating a visual subtext that
implied a connection between Stalin’s sacred aura and his association with Lenin” (Bon-
nell, 1999, p. 156). Only in the time of the terrible forced collectivization of Soviet agri-
culture in 1931, Lenin invariably took precedence visually. This changed “on May Day
1932, when identically sized full-face portraits of Lenin and Stalin hung in Moscow’s
Pushkin Square. It was not long before some artists began to accentuate Stalin’s image,
at the expense of Lenin’s” (Bonnell, 1999, p. 157). Starting in 1933, Stalin was presented
on posters and pictures simply as the living genius. “A 1936 poster with a portrait of
Stalin appeared in an edition of 250,000” (Bonnell, 1999, p. 160). Also in the mid-1930s,
Stalin began appearing in connection with some successes of Soviet industry, sport or
even with some expeditions and flights of Artic explorers and aviators. Similar to Stalin,
Mussolini also presented himself as the embodiment of modernity and high technique.
At that time we can observe “Stalin’s automatic identification with the successes of So-
viet economic and social policy, and by the growing ritualization of greetings, pledges
and tributes to the leader. By the late 1930s, glorification of his wisdom, strength and
courage, his unique contribution to the development of Marxism–Leninism, and his his-
toric achievement in building socialism in the USSR was mandatory in all spheres of
public life” (Barber, 1993, p. 38).
Whereas the celebrations of Stalin’s sixtieth birthday occurred in December of 1939,
during the Second World War (however for Russians the war started in earnest on June
22, 1941), the seventieth birthday of the dictator took place after the war, in 1949. “A tre-
mendous manifestation of the ideological front and of support for the Soviet Union oc-
curred with the celebration of Stalin’s seventieth birthday in December 1949” (Aman,
1992, p. 28). In contrast to celebrations of Stalin’s fiftieth and sixtieth birthdays, the
celebration in 1949 emerged as a really international affair. “Stalin’s 70th
birthday in
1949 was the most extensive celebration of his leader cult” (Behrends, 2004, p. 161).
For instance, as part of the preparations – “VOKS, the Soviet agency for cultural ex-
7. PP 2 ’19 The cult of personality as an important feature of totalitarian... 101
change and propaganda abroad, sent 1455 portraits of Stalin to Poland” (Behrends, 2004,
p. 165). In the opposite direction, socialist Poland prepared and sent as many as 563,340
letters to Stalin. Of course, there was nothing spontaneous in these letters. In the socialist
state of Poland the “party state demonstrated that it had the means to mobilize society for
these festivities” (Behrends, 2004, p. 165). Nevertheless, as early as 1945, in Warsaw,
the capital of Poland, one of the main streets in the center (Aleje Ujazdowskie) changed
its name in favor of Marshal Stalin (Aleja Marszałka Stalina). “Communist propaganda
claimed that Stalin personally represented Polish interests in the international arena”
(Behrends, 2004, p. 164). On the other hand, Warsaw was the only capital city in Eastern
Europe in which there was no monument to Stalin. However, the great Palace of Culture
and Science (Pałac Kultury i Nauki) fulfilled a similar function, which during the com-
munist time was named after Stalin. After the Second World War some cities in Eastern
Europe (mainly industrial cities) changed their names in favor of Stalin; for instance,
in Poland Katowice became Stalinogród and on August 23, 1950 the Romanian city of
Braşov changed its name to Oraşul Stalin (the city of Stalin – Stalingrad) (Anders, 1992,
p. 41).
3. Benito Mussolini – Duce ha sempre ragione
The leader (Duce, derived from Latin Dux) is always right. Such was the last (tenth)
oath pledged by members of the Italian youth organization ONB (Opera Nationale Balil-
la). “Mussolini’s photograph was distributed to children who received a gift package for
the Epiphany (Befana fascista)” (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997, p. 79). There was even soap
in the shape of Mussolini. In schools every classroom was adorned with a picture of
Mussolini and pupils started (and finished) their school day with some reverence toward
the Duce. Italians have always liked to talk a lot and almost with no end (ad kalendas
Graecas). During the fascist era such endless discussions finished quite often with this
well-known sentence: Duce ha sempre ragione. This slogan had been invented by the
young fascist Leo Longanes and appeared in a book published in 1926.
In contrast to Lenin and Stalin, but similar to Hitler (with Goebbels), Mussolini had
his ‘cult minister.’Achile Starace, Fascist Party General Secretary (1931–1939), not only
created but also orchestrated the personality cult of Mussolini. Nevertheless, in the very
beginning of Mussolini’s career “the cult of the Duce owed much of its early momentum to
Arnaldo Mussolini, who used his position as editor of Il Popolo d’Italia to portray his elder
brother as a man of incomparable ability. From the mid-1920s the cult accelerated rapidly”
(Duggan, 2008, p. 477). Margherita Sarfatti, a close friend of Mussolini, wrote his biog-
raphy with a characteristic title Dux (1925–1926). This book had 17 editions selling about
200,000 copies just in Italy and it was translated into 18 languages. “As a journalist and
propagandist, Mussolini was quick to see the potential of radio and cinema, and the 1930s
saw his regime make increasing use of the mass media” (Neville, 2015, p. 113). Both Stalin
and Hitler liked to see as many movies as was possible. During such private film shows,
they could also discuss some important political problems with their close collaborators.
It was Mussolini who ordered the building of the greatest (at that time) film studio in the
world, the famous Cinecittà situated on the south-eastern outskirts of the Italian capital
8. 102 Marek Żyromski PP 2 ’19
Rome. “He was the first politician of the twentieth century to make use of modern com-
munication techniques. Mussolini subsidized several films about his accomplishments, his
rambling speeches, voluminous tomes, an autobiography, and several authorized biogra-
phies were sold in glossy editions” (Merriman, 2010, p. 1008).
Mussolini was certainly the best educated among totalitarian dictators analyzed in
this article. Only the Duce spoke foreign languages and, for instance, could hold conver-
sations with Hitler without an interpreter. “An enormous variety of media were used to
propagate the cult of the Duce. Newspapers were obliged to give extensive coverage to
his daily activities and report his speeches in glowing terms” (Duggan, 2008, p. 478). As
in the case of other totalitarian dictators, many ‘cult products’ (to use Plamper’s term)
were used to propagate the achievements (both real and false) of the Duce. In every Ital-
ian town (and perhaps also in every village) there were “innumerable paintings, posters,
sculptures, statues and medals. Radio and film became increasingly important vehicles
of the cult during the 1930s” (Duggan, 2008, p. 478). Perhaps on every street and al-
most in every house the portrait or at least a photograph of Mussolini hung, very often
there was also some graffiti of the Duce. “Every year the fascist party printed a calendar
iconographically dominated by Mussolini and encouraged every good citizen to buy it”
(Falasca-Zamponi, 1997, p. 78).
An allusion to the Duce’s ‘messianic status’ played a very important role in the cult
of Mussolini. The situation was similar in the case of Hitler, but not in the case of Stalin
(perhaps a little bit in the case of Lenin’s posthumous cult). “By the early 1930s, Italian
journalists were required to capitalize He, Him, and His when referring to the Duce, as
they did when mentioning God or Jesus Christ. All Italians at age eighteen had to take
an oath to obey Mussolini. Italian press agents worked to enhance his image abroad”
(Merriman, 2010, p. 1008).
Quite similar to Hitler, in the case of Mussolini there were two important (but com-
pletely different) motifs which were used intensively. First of all, some propagandists
stressed the simple origin of the Duce, which enabled him to keep close and perhaps
even intimate relations with the Italian people. At the same time, however, Mussolini
was presented in many ‘cult products’ as the great statesman, attributed with almost su-
pernatural intuition. Mussolini’s simple origins, together with his parents and the place
of his birth, received almost a religious significance. “The Duce’s blacksmith father be-
came the carpenter Joseph while his patient and long-suffering mother, the schoolteacher
Rosa, took the part of Mary” (Duggan, 2008, p. 479). Similarly, the little family house
in the tiny village of Predappio (in the region of Emilia Romagna) functioned in Italian
mass tourism. However, in this case, tourism was very close to a religious pilgrimage.
“Visitors were invited to see themselves as pilgrims and behave with reverence” (Dug-
gan, 2008, p. 479).
It is interesting that the second above-mentioned motive of the Duce’s cult (i.e. his
presumed supernatural possibilities) were demonstrated in practice just after the fascist
march on Rome in 1922. The first ‘divine’ intervention of Mussolini took place as early
as June 1923 during his visit to Sicily. “At the time the Volcano Etna was erupting. The
moment Mussolini arrived, however, the lava stopped its flow, and according to jour-
nalists’ reports, a whole village was saved from destruction” (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997,
p. 71). Afterwards, in just one year (from the end of 1925 to the end of 1926) Mussolini
9. PP 2 ’19 The cult of personality as an important feature of totalitarian... 103
survived four attempts on his life. The situation obviously strengthened the myth of spe-
cial powers possessed by the Duce – especially his ‘immortal’ qualities. The case of Hit-
ler’s myth (who survived over 40 attempts on his life), especially after July 20, 1944 was
quite similar. Starting in 1925, Mussolini’s speeches were transmitted live by radio. The
process of the growing deification of Mussolini achieved its peak perhaps in the summer
of 1929 when La Tribuna (of July 25, 1929) published the Christian credo changed in
favor of the Duce: “I believe in the high Duce – maker of the Blackshirts – and in Jesus
Christ his only protector” etc. (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997, p. 64). Such presumed superhu-
man qualities separated Mussolini from the Italian people.
In contrast to Stalin (and to a lesser degree also to Hitler), Mussolini liked to travel
very much. After a fascist march on Rome in just one year (from November 1922 to
October 1923) Mussolini visited most (3/4) regions of Italy. In many places people had
never before seen an Italian head of government. “Mussolini in contrast to his predeces-
sors, travelled all over Italy to deliver speeches, and he often returned to the same city
more than once” (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997, p. 85). The Duce not only presented his views
in speeches but he quite often engaged in some dialogues with the crowd who usually
gathered in the central square (piazza) of a town. Before the fascist march on Rome,
Gabriele D’Annunzio operated in the same way in Fiume (modern Rijeka in Croatia).
“Emotional appeals and direct communication helped Mussolini to enlarge his own audi-
ence […] His face was a spectacle in itself, appropriately coordinated with Mussolini’s
oratorical tone and body movements” (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997, p. 86). Undoubtedly,
such poses that seem very strange for us today were fully in concordance with the char-
acter of the Italian people.
In contrast to Mussolini, Stalin probably used the plane only once going to a Teheran
conference at the end of November 1943 (the flight from Baku), and Hitler used some
planes mainly during his political campaigns, like in his famous ‘flights over Germany.’
Mussolini on the other hand even obtained a pilot’s license. Benito Mussolini, in general,
liked to make some experiments with new sports and with new modern mechanical ve-
hicles (like fast cars, motors or airplanes). Besides, “airplanes were symbols of a new era,
and aviators, like actors, were saluted as stars” (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997, p. 70). The next
instance of Mussolini’s ‘divine’ possibilities occurred in North Africa. “In 1937 newspa-
pers reported the news that rains had finally begun to ease the long drought in Tripolitania
and Libya. Incidentally, the rain had come at the time of Mussolini’s visit to the area in
March 1937. […] His power overcame human limits” (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997, p. 71). In
the opinion of Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, the divine character of Mussolini was con-
veyed by three important features: immortality, omnipotence and omnipresence (or rather
his continuous visibility). Besides, “the image of omnipotence that the regime propagan-
dized reflected Mussolini’s own desire to supervise all decisions and take care of every
single question facing the regime” (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997, p. 67). In practice, there was
no escape from the picture and presentation of Mussolini in fascist Italy. “Through his
presence Mussolini watched over people: like God, he could see everything […] The eye
of Mussolini resembled God’s eye” (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997, p. 82). “Regime’s propagan-
dists spread an extreme and in retrospect ludicrous personality cult in which Mussolini was
elevated into an all-seeing and all-knowing god, a Man who Italians were assured, radiated
a divine light and possessed an omniscient intuition” (Bosworth, 2005, p. 3).
10. 104 Marek Żyromski PP 2 ’19
Benito Mussolini was a spectacle of his own. He appeared in fascist propaganda as
an eternally young and virile man, although he was one of the oldest fascists in Italy.
Perhaps his sexual achievements also served to present such an image. Mussolini was
certainly the ideal man, ideal at least for the Italian population. “Mussolini insisted that
this image of the young Duce persist during the regime” (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997, p. 71).
In contrast to Stalin (who celebrated every tenth birthday) and Hitler (who celebrated his
birthday every year), Mussolini not only did not celebrate his birthdays at all but no jour-
nalist could ever write on this or on the current age of the Duce. It was also impossible to
mention his health (the Duce, like Hitler, had severe digestive problems) and no newspa-
per could write that he became a grandfather. Although Mussolini liked to play with his
favorite cat, it is perhaps impossible to find any picture or photograph of the Duce with a
cat. On the other hand, there are many photographs of Mussolini with a lion (in practice
a bigger cat, anyway) or sitting on a horse. Usually such pictures had been taken in villa
Torlonia, the great residence in Rome rented by the Duce for a symbolic 1 lire.
Just like in other cases of totalitarian dictators, the cult of the Duce served not only
to strengthen the power and position of Mussolini himself. “The cult of the Duce was in
many respects the principal unifying force in the fascist regime” (Duggan, 2008, p. 479).
On the other hand, the cult of personality had been developed at the expense of the
position of the fascist party, Fascist National Party (PNF – Partito Nationale Fascista).
The myth of Mussolini (Mussolinismo) certainly reflected his own wish for power. At
the same time, however, “people believed in Mussolini more than in the party and they
often differentiated the regime’s faults from those of the Duce” (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997,
p. 55). Nevertheless, such is perhaps the fate of all the dictatorial and/or totalitarian re-
gimes (or even some authoritarian systems). Such attitude is also in concordance with
the famous myth of a good tsar and bad ministers.
4. Adolf Hitler – ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Führer
The cult (or myth) of Hitler was created and developed together with the process of
centralizing power in his hands, which was encapsulated in the sentence: one state (the
Third Reich), one nation, one leader (ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Führer). Some information
on Hitler’s cult appeared earlier in the previous subchapters. First of all, the cult of Hitler
had been created, developed and orchestrated by just one man, Joseph Goebbels. “Goeb-
bels’greatest achievement as a propagandist was the creation of Hitler’s myth – the Füh-
rerkult” (Zeman, 1973, p. 35). In his very good and detailed biography of Goebbels, Pe-
ter Longerich showed that the Nazi propaganda minister simultaneously fulfilled many
functions connected with Hitler’s cult (Longerich, 2014). Goebbels supervised all media
that existed in the Third Reich (press, radio and later on also television), he took care of
many ceremonies which created the close relationship between the Führer and the Ger-
man people, like Hitler’s birthday (Führer Geburtstag), and many military parades and
‘spontaneous’ demonstrations.
In many aspects, Nazi Germany imitated ‘the older brother’ of fascist Italy. For in-
stance, the famous German architect Albert Speer had been sent not only to Greece but
also to Italy to see some examples of classical architecture. In a similar way, Benito
11. PP 2 ’19 The cult of personality as an important feature of totalitarian... 105
Mussolini for quite a long time served as a role model for Adolf Hitler. “While Musso-
lini kept a bust of Napoleon in his study, Adolf Hitler [...] had long kept a bust of Benito
Mussolini in his” (Kertzer, 2014, p. 199). This situation changed gradually together with
the growing economic, and especially military position of Nazi Germany.
Similar to the position of Benito Mussolini, in the case of Hitler the Nazi propaganda
presented a double picture of this totalitarian dictator: “[t]he necessary double image of
Hitler as a superman and a man of the people” (Zeman, 1973, p. 35). It was Goebbels
who repeatedly emphasized the simplicity and modesty of Adolf Hitler. Similar to Mus-
solini, in whose office (on the first floor of Palazzo Venezia on Piazza Venezia in Rome)
the light was deliberately switched on long into the night (like some candles on Napo-
leon’s desk in the past), the Führer was presented by the German propaganda machine as
the leader who worked all day (and even great part of night) for the sake of the German
people (Volk). Goebbels presented the presumed loneliness of Hitler, who had resigned
from his private life and private happiness for his people. At the same time Hitler, in
a similar way to Mussolini, was presented in Goebbels’ propaganda as the great leader
who ended the greatest economic crisis in the whole of German history and who worked
very hard to restore the former glory of German Reich, also in terms of international
relations. Even before gaining power in 1933, the important part of the cult of the Führer
had been formed by some quasi-religious motives and ideas.
Ian Kershaw devoted one of his books to the question of Hitler’s myth (Kershaw, 2009).
Because there is still no book analyzing the cult of the Führer, which is in sharp contrast to
the position of Mussolini and Stalin, whose personality cults have been analyzed in sepa-
rate books and in many articles, the book of Kershaw is so important. Ian Kershaw enumer-
ated as many as seven important bases of Hitler’s myth (Kershaw, 2009, pp. 253–254).
Firstly, Hitler was treated as the embodiment of the German nation (Volk), who at the
same time rose over some particular interests of many groups of German society. Such
social attitudes had been strengthened by the well-known incorruptibility and lack of
egoistic motives in Hitler’s life. Similar to Stalin, Hitler had no great personal fortune
and, similar to Mussolini, he owed the greatest part of his income to dividends from his
book (Mein Kampf).
The second base of Hitler’s myth had been created by the previously mentioned eco-
nomic prosperity achieved after the great economic crisis that hit Germany in the late
1920s. Goebbels’ propaganda presented Hitler as the sole architect of this German eco-
nomic miracle who ended the great unemployment, who boosted the German economy
and who introduced better living standards for many groups of the German society (in-
cluding workers).
The third base of Hitler’s myth is connected with the famous ‘night of the long knives’
of June 1934 when the whole leadership of the SA (Sturmabteilungen) was massacred.
The German propaganda machine presented it as the proof of the so-called ‘people’s
justice,’ embodied by the Führer himself.
Ian Kershaw listed as the fourth base the moderation of Hitler in internal German
policy which was in contrast with some much more radical and even extremist elements
in the Nazi movement. By the way, in quite a similar way, Stalin presented himself as
a modest and moderate man amongst the Soviet communists – of course before he ob-
tained supreme, despotic power.
12. 106 Marek Żyromski PP 2 ’19
The fifth base of Hitler’s myth is connected with international relations. The German
propaganda machine presented him as the fanatic defender of German rights who rebuilt
the military and political position of Germany on the international stage. When the first
diplomatic and political successes of Germany came in the second half of the 1930s (the
demilitarization of Rhineland, the naval agreement with Great Britain, the Anschluss of
Austria and the Munich conference), Adolf Hitler was presented by Goebbels’ propa-
ganda as a genial statesman. By the way, quite similar motifs appeared also in the case
of other totalitarian dictators (analyzed in this article).
The sixth base of Hitler’s myth emerged in the first part of the Second World War (before
the aggression on the Soviet Union of June 22, 1941), when the German strategy seemed to
be the best (Blitzkrieg). Especially the invasion of France, which Hitler started against the
strong opposition from many of his generals, strengthened the position of the Führer as the
great military commander. Nevertheless, at the same time, Goebbels’ propaganda machine
presented the image of Hitler as someone who understood the position and some needs of a
simple soldier perfectly well because he fought as such in the First World War.
The last, seventh base of Hitler’s myth is related to some important fears that al-
ready existed in German society. Hitler was presented in German propaganda as the
protector of the German nation from real (or perhaps imagined) enemies – like Jews
or communists.
Similar to other totalitarian dictators analyzed in this article, Adolf Hitler also had
many authoritarian and egocentric attitudes and behaviors. He had no tolerance for any
critics or even for any opinions only slightly different from his own. Nevertheless, Hitler
(in a similar way to Stalin) remained somewhat skeptical about the cult of personality
that had been created around the position of the Führer, at least in the first years after
receiving political power (January 30, 1933).
Similar to the cult of personality built around other totalitarian dictators, in the case of
Hitler this cult fulfilled mainly some internal functions. Thanks to this cult of the Führer,
the attention of the German society had been diverted from many problems of daily life.
This cult of personality (similar to those of Stalin or Mussolini) had some importance on the
international stage as well. Thanks to this cult of personality, Goebbels’propaganda showed
the great support of German society for the Führer. Undoubtedly, the situation strengthened
the position of the Third Reich in the realm of foreign policy. Together with the weakness of
Western democratic states and politicians (the so-called ‘appeasement’) the cult of personal-
ity, as it seems, can be treated also as one of the factors and causes of the Second World War.
Jan C. Behrends draws our attention to the important feature which is characteristic only of
Hitler’s cult of personality: “While Hitler, like Stalin, represented a state with totalitarian
aspiration, participation in his cult was limited by racial restrictions. Hitler was the Führer of
the Germans and the Aryan ‘master race’” (Behrends, 2004, p. 163).
5. Conclusions
It is beyond doubt that all cults of personality analyzed in this article that emerged
and developed around some totalitarian dictators had a lot in common. First of all, these
modern cults of personality were closely connected with great masses of the respective
13. PP 2 ’19 The cult of personality as an important feature of totalitarian... 107
society. Just like modern European totalitarian dictators (especially Mussolini and Hit-
ler) aroused from the system of representative democracy, also these cults of personality
had to center not on the elite (social and political) but had to be directed to social masses.
“All cults around political leaders presented their Duce, Führer, or vozhd’ as men who
came from the masses, yet at the same time transcended the masses. These leader cults
were interrelated” (Plamper, 2012, p. 25).
Moreover, the cults of personality analyzed in this article reflected the individual
traits and attitudes of each totalitarian dictator. “The dictators we are studying were [...]
one-man institutions of power. In such cases personality traits and the political game the
dictators play merge quite unavoidably” (Levin, 1997, p. 122). As Kevin McDermott
wrote, it is simply impossible to distinguish the question of power and the personality of
persons in power. It is certainly especially true in the case of some totalitarian dictators.
“Like Hitler, Stalin was able to stamp his character on the style and substance of state
politics – personality and power cannot be separated” (McDermott, 2014, p. 76).
Nowadays there is no totalitarian regime in Europe and perhaps North Korea can be
labeled as the only existing totalitarian system in the world. On the other hand, the evo-
lution of many states and societies toward hard nationalistic values and attitudes could
provoke the emergence of some populist leaders who quite easily can transform towards
the authoritarian (or perhaps even totalitarian) rule. Therefore, it seems important to al-
ways remember some experiences connected with the position and rule of the totalitarian
regimes in some European countries. Undoubtedly, the cult of personality formed a very
significant part of the position of the totalitarian dictators and, at the same time, formed
an important element of the process of legitimation of totalitarian power.
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Kult jednostki jako istotna cecha propagandy totalitarnej
Streszczenie
Ustrój totalitarny, w przeciwieństwie do systemu demokracji przedstawicielskiej (opartego na bez-
osobowych procedurach), jest mocno związany z pozycją przywódcy,. Stąd też kult jednostki nie tylko
służy utrwaleniu władzy totalitarnego przywódcy, ale przyczynia się do legitymizacji całego syste-
mu politycznego. W artykule zaprezentowano propagowanie i tworzenie kultu jednostki wokół trzech
przywódców państw totalitarnych: Stalina, Mussoliniego i Hitlera.
Słowa kluczowe: propaganda, totalitaryzm, kult jednostki, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler
Article submitted: 10.03.2019; article accepted: 19.04.2019.