The Cult of Stalin
The study is focussed on the image and myths of the leader that were developed in the 1930s and 1940s, and is based on ongoing research, particularly that undertaken in the last academic year with the generous assistance of the President's Research Fellowship, in the archives and libraries, mainly of Russia, and links with scholars in Russia, UK, Estonia, France, Germany and the US. Remarkably un-Marxist in its focus on the role of the Great Man in history, the cult, in its rejection of modernism, was also articulated in an apparently regressive way. However, the Stalin myth made ample and innovative use of the mass media, pointing to the importance that the leadership attached to it and suggesting that it was in some respects a novel phenomenon. The Stalin cult may be seen as an expression of Stalin's personal power: from relatively modest dimensions, it came to penetrate all aspects of political and civic life as well as furnishing a central myth in what amounted to a new civic religion. It became not merely a sign of Stalin's power and pre-eminence but also a constituent element of it. How this happened and worked in practice is one of the key problems this study seeks to address. The cult raises a number of questions about politics, society and culture under Stalin. How and why was such an un-Marxist device developed? What does it tell us about Stalin's popularity (or lack of it) and the bases of his power? What was Stalin's own role in the cult and why did he allow it to emerge and assume such overwhelming proportions?
