I believe that there is something mysterious and interesting about "cults of personality" (and no I am not talking about the song). Merriam Webster's dictionary definition defines a "cult of personality" as, "a situation in which a public figure (such as a political leader) is deliberately presented to the people of a country as a great person who should be admired or loved." I find obsessions in "benevolent" dictators myself, and I sometimes wonder if I fall for all the weird crazy propaganda of those particular leaders. People that are impervious to this propaganda are much stronger than most historians. I believe most history nerds and strong political activists easily fall victim to "perfect political/military leaders." Those that are more critical of these regimes typically are forced to live under them. An example of this was when I lived very briefly in Istanbul, Turkey. I had my bizarre history-crush on Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, but what was odd is that everyone else had a crush on him too. The only person that just despised him was my professor at Koc University. She did so much to try and convince me that he was a cruel dictator. I was thinking that she was nuts; I wanted to ask, "have you even looked at the wonderful things he gave you?" I did not realize till after I got back from Turkey that she was right.
They shove down your throat everything there is about Ataturk. There are flags everywhere in that country; it is required to have a statue of Ataturk in every town and city. It is also against the law to criticize this man in anyway. It sounds a lot like Erdogan which is slightly ironic. They come from two different philosophies, but they are essentially the same person. Erdogan tries to embody himself as the next Ataturk by placing a photo of him and Ataturk next to one another in public places. It is alarming when you take the blinders off and see what is really going on around you. I wanted that obsession to live with me for a long time; I believe that I, once again, wanted to fill an empty void. It is hard to find heroes in history, especially ones that control entire countries.
You might ask, "how do cults of personality fall under the topic of history?" Well, in the 20th century thousands of people fell for these terrible policies presented by these so-called "great men." It is so relevant in current events with Kim Jung UN (I have to capitalize "UN" otherwise it auto-corrects and I have not figured out how to turn it off, so I guess I will just scream his name from now on). Just watch some videos of the people of North Korea shout to him and praise him as if he is a god. That is how propaganda has been perfected in the 20th century. You can convince a good majority of your populace to either worship him or pretend to worship him. To a smaller degree, cult leaders use the same method. Those that follow a religious cult leader see them as perfect humans and disciples of god or gods. Hitler successfully used propaganda, Stalin mastered it, and Mao Zedong perfected it.
This whole series I on cults of personality will analyze specific people and the lessons we can learn from them (basically "what not to do"). These totalitarian regimes brainwashed people by the thousands, and they had nothing to show for it. The populace suffered under these men because people refused to stick their head out from the curtain. No one spoke up for those speaking the truth and ended up persecuted by the regime. Now, most of those cult leaders are dead and there are huge populations still healing from the Cult of Personality.
Here is a great video of how the Kim family has created a cult of personality in North Korea
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNmEdrc-Mok
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