Cult of Personality

“I sell the things you need to be. I'm the smiling face on your TV. I'm the cult of personality. I exploit you, still you love me. I tell you one and one makes three.”

“You gave me fortune. You gave me fame. You gave me power in your god's name. I'm every person you need to be”

     They were Earth-bound Gods among men. I have never been so stunned a group of people in my life. It’s astonishing, it’s riveting, it’s historical, and it’s a Cult of Personality. Does anyone else share my fascination for complete power and domination, with little work done getting there? Eva Peron, Martin Luther King Jr., Mao Zedong, Benito Mussolini, John F. Kennedy, Mahatmas Gandhi, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler, all major players in the upbringing and government in some of the most powerful countries in the world. But, today two of them, to me, are two of the most legendary men in history. These two have torn down and rebuilt Russia and Germany. It is a fact that one of them have said, “I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the Almighty Creator.”

     The first man I will start with is considered an evil tyrant and is internationally known by his last name, Hitler. Adolf Hitler went from a poor man on the streets to one of the most remembered dictators in history. But everyone has their humble beginnings. After he gained his citizenship, in 1932, he was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933. Months afterwards, he assumed full control of the government, using the high-ranking position to gain absolute power over Germany. Not only did Hitler become Chancellor of Germany, he also became the President and Führer of Germany. Führer Hitler instantly became dictator over Germany, improving the army, expanding the country and attacked Poland, thus starting World War II. He did say, “Germany will either be a world power or will not be one at all.” His face was everywhere no matter where you were, no one could escape his haunting eyes. Adolf Hitler will be remembered by being the man who took a country by storm and turned it into a superpower… And how he ordered the death of over 6 million Jews, but does that really makes him a murderer? Were his intentions actually cruel? Yes, according to his statement, “I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature.” He really didn’t slaughter the people himself, he just told his men to take care of business. “Jews were the German nation's true enemy, he wrote (in the first edition of Mein Kampf). They had no culture of their own, he asserted, but perverted existing cultures such as Germany's with their parasitism. As such, they were not a race, but an anti-race:”

"[The Jews'] ultimate goal is the denaturalization, the promiscuous bastardization of other peoples, the lowering of the racial level of the highest peoples as well as the domination of his racial mishmash through the extirpation of the volkish intelligentsia and its replacement by the members of his own people," he wrote. On the contrary, the German people were of the highest racial purity and those destined to be the master race according to Hitler. To maintain that purity, it was necessary to avoid intermarriage with subhuman races such as Jews and Slavs.... Germany could stop the Jews from conquering the world only by eliminating them. By doing so, Germany could also find Lebensraum, living space, without which the superior German culture would decay. This living space, Hitler continued, would come from conquering Russia (which was under the control of Jewish Marxists, he believed) and the Slavic countries. This empire would be launched after democracy was eliminated and a "Führer" called upon to rebuild the German Reich."

  

     “Death solves all problems- no man, no problem.” Joseph Stalin, the true definition of the term “mind games”. Stalin cleverly used the propaganda technique to make seem as if he is truly the Good guy. The world we live today sees Stalin as one of the true definitions of evil. He started a policy called the collectivization of farms in the Union, which caused a widespread famine. Over 30 million citizens died from starvation due to the policy. He didn’t kill them all, there wasn’t just enough food to feed everyone; someone had to go. He wasn’t excepting for his plan to fail horribly. So, does that make a bad person? Did Not President Herbert C. Hoover's plans and policies fail, to help end the Great depression? Did Not Americans show their negative feelings about Hoover and associated his name with their suffering like:"Hoover wagons", "Hoover heaters", and "Hoover houses". He says, “One death is a tragedy: one million is a statistic.” I can agree with Stalin because, after awhile people dying all together would be just a death toll, a rate, or a Statistic. “Graphic accounts detailing Stalin’s tendency to dispose of those who displeased him often seem too fanciful to be believed.  Indeed, whilst many of these may forever remain unresolved, certainly many men and women disappeared in suspicious circumstances.  Even more chilling are the alleged exterminations enacted apparently to satisfy his own amusement.” It’s not completely his fault if he was displeased by a person or was just bored, it is a Human Emotion. Maybe the person did something so malicious, that Stalin could not stand for it. “[…] Stalin could exercise great cruelty, even when in a playful mood.  It is common knowledge that Stalin prohibited his guards from entering his private bed chambers on pain of death.  One day, in a test of their resilience, Stalin decided to scream as if in great agony.  When his loyal guards came to their master’s aid, they were duly executed for failing to follow orders.” It is not his fault that he has disobedient and so called “loyal” guards… Now I sound crazy! He executed these loyal, faithful, and caring guards for checking on their leader who is bellowing in pain. That is Crazy. However, there are two sides to everything. Yes, he is the reason why many citizens have died, Yes, he executed people for fun but, Who Wouldn’t? Stalin has also done good things (I guess). He caused the massive industrialization of Russia, which assisted the nourishment of the economy. Stalin was nominated for Two Nobel Peace Prizes: 1945 and 1948, “for his involvement in bringing the Second World War to a close.” Stalin cared about education of his people. He created a education policy that “the structure and the contents of school education underwent the following process of “stabilization” in the next few years: (1) four years was laid down as the compulsory minimum of schooling for the rural districts, and seven years for the cities, (2) the new system of general education embraced the grades one to four” How are you a tyrant and you care about education. Education is one of the many substances that binds and holds countries and governments together.(Then what does that have to say about present-day America) He said, “Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”

     To sum this all up, Hitler and Stalin has their, major, flaws, like all other Regular humans but has done at least one or two good things. They are two major Cult of Personalities, that I have chosen, who’s names illuminated and resonated, to me, in history in the fabric of time. So I will make my exit with this question, “Would you make a better dictator?”

Cited Sources

The Stalinist years, 1931–53

Stalin Facts: 10 little known facts

Collectivization in the Soviet Union