Embedded Files
KEY IDEA
KEY IDEA
Totalitarian leaders often create a Cult of Personality. A Cult of Personality is a situation in which a dictator deliberately presents himself to the people of his country as a great person who should be admired, loved, and even worshiped. To accomplish this dictators rely on indoctrination-instruction in the governments beliefs-in order to control their people. Usually totalitarians rely on THREE strategies to indoctrinate their subjects: propaganda, youth groups, and the elimination of dissenters.
The Great Purge
The Great Purge
The Young Communists
The Young Communists
Stalin took total control of the education system in the Soviet Union. In Russia the purpose of education was to glorify the leader and his policies and to convince all subjects to unconditionally support the leader.
This process usually begins with the youth. In the U.S.S.R. Stalin created the Young Communists. Like most students, the Young Communists spent their days learning about math and science, but were also indoctrinated to love their leader.
The Great Purge
The Great Purge
In 1937 Stalin launched the Great Purge--the systematic elimination of people who threatened his rule.
It started within the Bolshevik party itself. Any communist who Stalin thought was a threat or even not supportive enough was eliminated. Stalin's secret police would murder that person as well as his or her entire family.
As seen in the images above and below, Stalin's secret police would also work to erase the likeness of purged by from the historical record by altering images.
When the Great Purge ended in 1938, thousands had been murdered or sent to labor camps like the Gulag (see video below) and Stalin stood as the uncontested ruler of the Soviet Union.
The Gulag
The Gulag
One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic
One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic
Joseph Stalin
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