“A Tremendous Applause. Everyone Stands up”: the Specificities of the Personality Cults in the 1930s on the Example of the General Secretary of Komsomol A. V. Kosarev

Abstract

This article analyses the formation and development of personality cults in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Taking the idea of the mutual influence between ideology and broad masses as its basis, the author’s objective is a better understanding of the evolution of the Soviet political system in this time, as well as the genesis of the cult of A. V. Kosarev, general secretary of the Communist youth league’s Central Committee. Based on various sources, including archival materials and published documents, press materials, and memoirs, the author examines the formation, enhancement, and decline of the adulation of this head of the Komsomol, praised by his subordinates and colleagues as “Stalin’s pupil” and a “vigorous leader of Soviet youth.” One important topic is the examination of mechanisms Kosarev used to control the development and improvement of his glorification, as well as to restrain efforts by Komsomol subordinates to emulate his example. The cult of Kosarev was one of the last cults of the personality of the Bolshevik leadership, destroyed by Stalin during the Terror. The dismissal and arrest of the Komsomol Secretary General at the end of November 1938 put an end not only to praises of Kosarev himself, but also to the special role of the Komsomol. In the shadow of the cult of the “great and wise leader” there was no longer room for cults of the “little Stalin.”