¹ ‘K 50-letiu tov. Stalina’, Partiinoe stroitel' stvo, 1 (1930), p. 3Google Scholar, Pravda, 21 12 1929.Google Scholar

² Pravda, 21 01 1936, 16 08 1936, 21 12 1929, 10 02 1934, 21 01 1938.Google Scholar

³ For example, ‘Stalin was always with Lenin, never left him, never betrayed him’ (Pravda, 21 12 1929).Google Scholar

⁴ Pravda, 7 11 1930, 21 01 1931, 22 04 1932, 10 10 1932, 7 11 1932, 5 06 1930, 7 11 1930.Google Scholar

⁵ For an example of the lyrical treatment of this theme, see the lament by Krukova, M. S. cited in Sokolov, Y. M., Russian Folklore, (1938) trans. Smith, C. R. (Hatboro, Penn.: Gale Books, 1966), p. 674.Google Scholar

⁶ Pravda, 10 11 1931, 21 01 1938.Google Scholar

⁷ See Khrushchev's speech to the XVIII Congress of the CPSU cited in Rigby, T. H., Stalin (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1966), p. 113Google Scholar; Pravda, 14 03 1933, 21 12 1939.Google Scholar

⁸ Pravda, 6 07 1934, 11 04 1936, 7 11 1935, 30 07 1933, 19 06 1934, 19 09 1945.Google Scholar

⁹ Throughout the life of the cult the image of Stalin's relationship with Lenin remained ambiguous. Three different sorts of relationship were evident: Lenin's primacy, equality between the two, and Stalin's primacy. All three types of relationship are to be found in the cult from the mid-1930s. A more extensive analysis of this relationship will be found in the author's unpublished M.A. thesis, The Cult of Personality and the Search for Legitimacy: The Cases of Mao and Stalin (Monash University, 1973).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Popov, K., Partiia i rol' vozhdia, Partiinoe stroitel'stvo, 1 (1930), pp. 5–9.Google Scholar

¹¹ Pravda, 19 12 1939, 22 12 1939Google Scholar. Also see History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1942), Chaps. 7 and 8.Google Scholar

¹² Pravda, 19 12 1939, 21 12 1939.Google Scholar

¹³ Pravda, 21 12 1929, 19 12 1941.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Pravda, 6 01 1934.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Pravda, 10 09 1936, 28 08 1936Google Scholar; Rodnaia Rech', (Moscow, 1945), p. 251Google Scholar, cited in Rigby, , Stalin, p. 112.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Pravda, 1 01 1946.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Pravda, 25 06 1945Google Scholar, Bulganin, N., Stalin and the Soviet Armed Forces (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1950), p. 11.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Shvernik, N., Comrade Stalin – The Continuer of Lenin's Great Work (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1950), p. 8.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Shvernik, , Comrade Stalin, p. 3.Google Scholar

²⁰ For example, ‘Po otchetu tsentral'nogo komiteta AUCP(B)’, (1934)Google ScholarKPSS v rezoliutsiiakh i resheniiakh s'ezdov, konferenlsii i plenumov ts. k., Vol. 5, 1931–1941 (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1971), p. 129.Google Scholar

²¹ Bulganin cites a clear instance of this sentiment when he asserts that during the war the people and soldiers said: ‘Stalin is with us. Stalin says we will win, and if he says it, it will be so.’ Bulganin, , Stalin and the Soviet Armed Forces, p. 10.Google Scholar

²² To use Deutscher's phrase. Deutscher, I., Stalin: A Political Biography (Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin, 1966), p. 360.Google Scholar

²³ Pravda, 13 06 1936.Google Scholar

²⁴ Pravda, 21 12 1939.Google Scholar

²⁵ Pravda, 2 09 1935.Google Scholar

²⁶ Pravda, 1 02 1935.Google Scholar

²⁷ Although the image of Brezhnev has been undergoing embellishment for a number of years, the most rounded and complete picture of Brezhnev emerged at the time of his seventieth birthday in December 1976. The XXV Congress of the CPSU in early 1976 and the occasion of his elevation to the chairmanship of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in mid-1977 were also the scenes of much exaggerated praise of Brezhnev. For the Congress see Pravda, 26 02 1976 to 5 03 1976Google Scholar, and for his elevation Pravda, 17 06 1977 to 20 06 1977Google Scholar, and Kommunist, IX (1977), pp. 4–5Google Scholar. For some details of the public honouring of Brezhnev, see Brown, Archie, ‘Political Developments, 1975–1977’, in Brown, Archie and Kaser, Michael, eds., The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, 2nd edn. (London: Macmillan, 1978), pp. 309–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁸ The first instance of the use of this term in a direct reference to Brezhnev appears to have been 15 October 1976 in a speech by Kirilenko. Brown, , ‘Political Developments, 1975–1977’, p. 310Google Scholar. For other instances see the birthday greetings to Brezhnev from the Central Committee of the Komsomol, the Georgian party and government, and the Turkmen party and government (Pravda, 19 12 1976).Google Scholar

²⁹ In this regard note the interesting comment by Shevardnadze at the XXV Congress of the CPSU: ‘One of Leonid Il'ich's best qualities is that he does not clothe himself in the mantle of a superman…’, XXV s'ezd Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza. 24 fevralia – 5 marta 1976 goda. stenogrqficheskii otchet, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1976), p. 186.Google Scholar

³⁰ Pravda, 19 12 1976Google Scholar; Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), p. 4Google Scholar, Kommunist, IX (1977), p. 5Google Scholar; Partiinaia zhizn', II (1978), p. 5Google Scholar, and XIX (1978), p. 17. Brezhnev is sometimes also referred to as a ‘Marxist-Leninist’. Partiinaia zhizn', XXI (1977), p. 10Google Scholar, and XXI (1978), p. 8.

³¹ Pravda, 19 12 1976, 20 12 1976Google Scholar; Kommunist, XVIII (1976), p. 9Google Scholar, and VI (1977), p. 27; Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1979), p. 4.Google Scholar

³² Kommunist, 1 (1977), p. 42Google Scholar; Pravda, 18 12 1976, 19 12 1976Google Scholar, Partiinaia zhizn', XIII (1977), p. 16Google Scholar, XXIII (1977), p. 17, XIX (1978), p. 11, and XXI (1978), p. 8; Voprosy Istorii KPSS, 11 (1979). p. 13.

³³ Pravda, 19 12 1976Google Scholar; Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

³⁴ Pravda, 19 12 1976Google Scholar; Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), p. 6Google Scholar, V (1978), p. 4, and 1 (1979), p. 4.

³⁵ Pravda, 19 12 1976Google Scholar; Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), p. 3Google Scholar, XXIII (1977), p. 15, 11 (1978), p. 5, XXI (1978), p. 15; Kommunist, IX (1977), p. 5.Google Scholar

³⁶ Pravda, 19 12 1976, 20 12 1976.Google Scholar

³⁷ For example: ‘With your many-sided and tireless activity in t he post of General Secretary of the CC CPSU are linked the major successes of our party in the regions of domestic and foreign policy.’ Message to Brezhnev from the Moscow gorkom and Moscow city ispolkom. Pravda, 19 12 1976.Google Scholar

³⁸ For example, his statements were referred to as ‘the word of truth and high ideal’ in the birthday message from the Presidium of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers (Pravda, 19 12 1976).Google Scholar

³⁹ Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), p. 5Google Scholar, XIII (1977), p. 16, and XXIII (1977), p. 15.

⁴⁰ Pravda, 19 12 1976Google Scholar. The publication of volumes of his speeches, his memoirs and his biography have been the occasion for exaggerated praise of Brezhnev and his works. For example, see Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1978), pp. 11–18Google Scholar, XI (1978), pp. 8–12, XIX (1978), pp. 10–18, and XXI (1978), pp. 8–15; Voprosy Istorii KPSS, II (1979), pp. 3–13.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), pp. 3 and 6Google Scholar, IV (1978), p. 3, and 1 (1979), p. 4; Kommunist, IX (1977), p. 5.Google Scholar

⁴² Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), p. 6Google Scholar; Pravda, 19 12 1976Google Scholar. According to one writer, Brezhnev has given ‘selfless service to the working class, to the peasantry, and to the intelligentsia, constant care for the improvement of the life of our people, for the cause of the construction of communism’ (Partiinaia zhizn', XIII (1977), p. 17).Google Scholar

⁴³ Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), p. 3Google Scholar; Pravda, 19 12 1976.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Pravda, 19 12 1976Google Scholar; Kommunist, III (1978), p. 14.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ See a discussion of legitimacy and the leader cult in Rakowska-Harmstone, Teresa, ‘Toward a Theory of Soviet Leadership Maintenance’, in Cocks, Paul, Daniels, Robert V. and Heer, Nancy Whittier, eds., The Dynamics of Soviet Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1976), pp. 53–7.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ustav Kommunisticheskoi partii sovetskogo soiuza. Utverzhden XXII s'ezdom, chaslichnye izmeneniia vneseny XXIII s'ezdom KPSS (Moscow: Isdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1970), p. 14.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Ustav Komm. part., pp. 15, 16, and 17.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Ustav Komm. part., p. 17Google Scholar. In practice this post has existed from 4 April 1922 when Stalin was appointed to it, but the formal method of filling it was not specified until the XXIII Congress.

⁴⁹ This situation is not unique to the election of the General Secretary but also applies to the election of the Politburo and the Secretariat by the Central Committee and of the Central Committee by the Congress.

⁵⁰ Sverdlov was not called General Secretary, but being the only Central Committee Secretary he carried out the equivalent functions.

⁵¹ Once again, the Central Committee's action was initiated elsewhere, and in effect simply registered the result of a political battle that had already been fought and won prior to the Committee meeting.

⁵² It is interesting in this connection to note Gilison's point that as well as the absence of formal guidelines, there is no clear precedent to follow in regard to the style of leadership expected of a party leader since neither Lenin's nor Stalin's positions could be duplicated. See Gilison, Jerome M., ‘New Factors of Stability in Soviet Collective Leadership’, World Politics, XIX (1967), 563–81, p. 568CrossRefGoogle Scholar. We could also add that dissatisfaction with Khrushchev's style of leadership effectively prevented this from becoming a model for his successors.

⁵³ The absence of institutionalization of this position is matched by a vagueness about the relationships between the leading bodies of the political structure – the Politburo, Secretariat, and Presidium of the Council of Ministers. See Rigby, T. H., ‘The Soviet Leadership: Towards a Self-Stabilizing Oligarchy?’, Soviet Studies, XXII (1970–1971), 167–91, p. 169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁴ For a discussion of the leadership in terms of networks of relationships between individual leaders based on ‘power inequalities among the leaders resulting from differential access to “fixed” positional resources’, see Hodnett, Grey, ‘Succession Contingencies in the Soviet Union’, Problems of Communism, XXIV (1975), 1–21, p. 131Google Scholar. On the question of institutionalization, see pp. 14–15.

⁵⁵ See a discussion of this in Gilison, , ‘New Factors of Stability in Soviet Leadership’, pp. 572–3.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ We should not assume that a General Secretary inevitably wants to expand his power to the limit. For an argument that Brezhnev is satisfied with a position in which he does not completely dominate his colleagues despite indications ‘that he has become undisputed leader’, see Hough, Jerry F., ‘The Brezhnev Era: The Man and the System’, Problems of Communism, XXV (1976), 1–17, pp. 1–6.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ For the view that the Soviet leadership is the scene of continual struggles for power between individual members, see Meyer, Gerd, ‘The Impact of the Political Structure on the Recruitment of the Political Elite in the USSR’, in Cohen, Lenard J. and Shapiro, Jane P., eds., Communist Systems in Comparative Perspective (New York: Anchor Books, 1974), 195–221, p. 204.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Here lies a possible source of divided loyalties, when a party member is the subject of institutionally based demands for loyalty from the party, of which he may be a long-time member, and from one of the functionally based institutions in which he may have made his professional career.

⁵⁹ For a discussion of the formation of such alliances, see Meyer, , ‘The Impact of the Political Structure on the Recruitment of the Political Elite in the USSR’, pp. 204–8.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ On nomenklatura see Lebed, A., ‘The Soviet Administrative Elite: Selection and Deployment Procedures’, Studies on the Soviet Union, V (1965), 47–55Google Scholar, and Harasymiw, Bohdan, ‘Nomenklatura: The Soviet Communist Party's Leadership Recruitment System’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, II (1969), 493–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶¹ This was significant for Khrushchev's power in the 1950s. For one aspect of this see Rigby, T. H., ‘Khrushchev and the Resuscitation of the Central Committee’, Australian Outlook, XIII (1959), 165–80, p. 174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶² On ‘family groups’ see Armstrong, John A., The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite (New York: Atlantic Books, 1959), pp. 82 and 84Google Scholar, and Fainsod, Merle, Smolensk Under Soviet Rule (New York: Knopf, 1958), pp. 85–6, 111, 151, 270–3.Google Scholar

⁶³ See Rigby, , ‘The Soviet Leadership’, p. 177Google Scholar, where it is argued that this relationship is based on ‘mutual aid’.

⁶⁴ When this occurs, clients often try to switch their allegiance. In this way Brezhnev was able to ‘inherit’ many of Khrushchev's former clients. See Hodnett, , ‘Succession Contingencies in the Soviet Union’, p. 9Google Scholar. For the fate of some sets of clients on the demise of their patron, see Meyer, , ‘The Impact of the Political Structure on the Recruitment of the Political Elite in the USSR’, p. 208.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Rigby, , ‘The Soviet Leadership’, p. 177.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ For examples of leaders placing their clients in institutional structures nominally controlled by their rivals as a ‘check’ or ‘balance’ against the effective control of those organizations by their competitors, see Meyer, , ‘The Impact of the Political Structure on the Recruitment of the Political Elite in the USSR’, p. 209.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Tatu has differentiated between ‘clients’ who owed their whole careers to a patron, ‘allies’ whose careers were largely independent of the patron but who owed current high office to their support for the patron at a crucial stage in his career, and ‘independents’. See Tatu, M., Power in the Kremlin: From Khrushchev to Kosygin (New York: Viking Press, 1968), p. 24Google Scholar. In these terms, the cult would be aimed at reinforcing the commitment of a patron's clients and allies, and winning over the independents and clients and allies of other patrons.

⁶⁸ This is not meant to imply that support for leaders results solely from career considerations. Agreement on policy issues can also be a significant factor.

⁶⁹ This is not to suggest that cults are restricted to the top leaders. When a patron or potential patron gains a position anywhere in the political structure which gives him scope for patronage and access to controlled media exposure, a cult may be developed around him in an attempt to consolidate his position through the attraction of a personal following. Such a cult may be instrumental in his further ascension of the political ladder. Clearly the profile projected in such cults will be much more modest than in cults of the top leaders, and their geographical extent will be regionally limited. Such cults may effectively constitute subcults of a patron higher up.

⁷⁰ In this sense all clients have a personal interest in fostering the development of the cult because by strengthening the position of their patron, they hope to secure their personal futures. In this way the leader cult can develop some independence from the control of the leader at the centre, reflecting the zeal with which his supporters promote his image. The important role played by clients in promoting a leader's cult explains the emphasis leaders have placed on having their clients in controlling positions in the media. Khrushchev's appointment of his son-in-law Alexei Adzhubei as editor-in-chief of Izvestiia is probably the most blatant of such acts.

⁷¹ Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), pp. 4 and 7Google Scholar, XXIII (1977), p. 15, 11 (1978), pp. 5 and 6, IV (1978), p. 5, XXI (1978), p. 8, and 1 (1979), p. 5. Interesting in this regard is the formulation used in connection with the framing of the new Constitution adopted in 1977. It was reported to have been drawn up ‘under the guidance and with the active participation of the Central Committee, its Politburo and personally the General Secretary of the CC CPSU and Chairman of the Constitutional Commission, comrade L. I. Brezhnev’. If the 1977 Constitution is to become known as the ‘Brezhnev Constitution’ in the style of the ‘Stalin Constitution’ of 1936, there is no sign of it yet. For this formulation see Paniinaia zhizn', XIII (1977), p. 16, 11Google Scholar (1978), p. 6, and XIX (1978), p. 19.

⁷² Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), p. 4Google Scholar; Pravda, 19 12 1976.Google Scholar

⁷³ Pravda, 19 12 1976Google Scholar. Indeed it has even been claimed that the thousands of greetings sent to Brezhnev on his birthday and his election as Chairman of the Presìdìum of the Supreme Soviet are a clear demonstration of the unity between party and people. The implication is that they show popular support for the party rather than affection for Brezhnev personally. Kommunist, XII (1977), p. 26.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Partiinaia zhizn', XIII (1977), p. 24Google Scholar; Pravda, 19 12 1976.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Pravda, 19 12 1976.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Pravda, 17 10 1964, 5 11 1964, 6 12 1964Google Scholar; Partiinaia zhizn', XX (1964), pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Pravda, 20 12 1976Google Scholar. It is also reflected in titles of articles like the following by Zasorin, V., ‘Kollektivnost’ v rabote – vazneishaia cherta leninskogo stilia, Partiinaia zhizn', III (1969).Google Scholar

⁷⁸ One qualification should be added to this statement: some discussions of the collective nature of party work have acknowledged an important role by individual leaders of the collectivity. For example, see Kommunist, XVIII (1976), pp. 21–2Google Scholar, and some of the articles in the ‘For a Leninist style of work’ theme of the ‘party life’ section of Pravda.