why is it that in a country like the dprk china and the USSR. there where cults surrendering leaders. such as Kim-il-sung Kim-jong-il Josef Stalin etc
I dont think thats true. Rather, western media have a cult of personality, and pretend that every single thing happening in countries like the DPRK is done by a single person. In reality, someone like Kim Jong-Un likely doesnt have a tenth of the power that western journalists ascribe to him.
A lot of the famous communist leaders, like Lenin, were actually against things that could be perceived as a cult of personality. Lenin didn’t want to be memoralized as he has become as he felt it would betray the fact that it wasn’t him that led to revolution, but the working class and the vanguard.
It’s a very valid point and MLs know that, but I think it was Stalin that also noticed that people still desired to uphold him and celebrate pivotal figures. There’s a line between celebrating people important to the movement who were great theorists and organizers while also knowing the struggle is amongst the working class. The reverence socialist countries have for prior leaders is out of respect as others here have already said and for commemorating their importance to their liberation movement.
Happy cakeday.
To add another interesting point: the anti-communist west itself exaggerates to its own audience, the cult of personality for these leaders, even where one barely existed, or at least to a much lesser degree. Why? Because a really simple trick (that works well on gullible westerners), is to claim that a country is entirely controlled by a single “authoritarian” leader, and then blame all the country’s faults on that one person.
They did it with Mao, Stalin, Fidel, and they’re doing it now with Xi, Maduro, etc. People are barely aware that the Xi was elected by 3000 members of the NPC, they think all these leaders appointed themselves somehow lol.
I also encourage people to read the statements of Stalin or Mao comparing themselves or their achievements to Lenin or other precursors, Stalin tried to resign many times and wasn’t allowed to do so.
Communist countries having banners, paintings, and statues of the ‘great leaders’ isn’t unlike Americans using Washington’s image to visually describe their patriotism. That’s really all it is, respect for the “founders” of communism in their country or the “founders” of ideology for their particular form of Marxism. It doesn’t really have much of a life outside of this. (other than in NazBol types, and western depictions of communists)
Peasants in Russia and the EX-SR states still proudly display framed pictures of Lenin and Stalin, because they represent a better time for those regions. Modern communists the world over proudly display Lenin out of respect for the importance of Leninism in modern communist theory. DPRK displays the Kim family out of admiration of Il-sung and he and his son’s contributions to the Juche ideology.
It’s a western narrative that these are “cults of personality”, built by people who cultishly support figures like Thatcher, or Reagan, or Obama. They looked at communist countries proudly displaying their historic leaders and their important figures for ideology, and decide to create a myth around this. Specifically to push an anti-communist ideal that communism was for the mentally unwell. Orwell likened Communists to “sandal wearers”, for instance.
