Castro Cult Of Personality Analysis

Authoritarian leaders are able to maintain their power through a plethora of methods. These methods, which span on the personal, domestic, and international level, have allowed leaders such as Stalin and Castro to control their country and stay in power as long as they pleased; they are able to to not only control but captivate their people, while still maintaining international stability. In the Soviet Union, Stalin was able to maintain power on a personal level with his people by creating a Cult of Personality. The Cult of Personality was created by the huge amount of propaganda of Stalin distributed through almost all forms of communication in the Soviet Union. He was typically seen as a strong father figure, and was portrayed numerous
In public, Fidel was a very confident and charismatic man. He was very articulate, using his long speeches to raise the morale of his people and sway Cuban public opinion. From the very start, Castro had very good relations with the Cuban people. He had started from nothing, from a group of guerrillas in the Sierra Madres, but was able to overthrow Batista in 1959. Due to the culture of Cuba, with the integration of the rural and urban classes, Castro was able to get the support of many people. He would typically feign weakness and acceptance of defeat by asking the people if he should step down, to which they promptly put him back in power. Castro would also personally go out into countryside and oversee how the farmers or urban populace were doing; he would oversee how they lived, and more importantly, the implementation of his new plans, such as the Agrarian Social Reform of 1959. The fact that he himself would go out and connect with all types of people really added to the general love the people had for him. He was also a man who accepted defeat, such as when the quota of 10 million pounds of harvested sugar cane did not come true in 1970. Internationally, he even held up his appearance by visiting countries such as the United States, and portraying himself as a charismatic and gracious revolutionary. He was able to stunningly hold up his appearance to the people
As with any authoritarian state, a necessary tool needed to control any discontent was through the use of force. For Stalin, he implemented this through Gulags and the Secret Police. Any type of outright dissent to Stalin would result in the individual being sent to the Gulag, a treacherous work camp in Siberia, where prisoners could either work to create various projects, and in many cases die in the process. 2 million people were deported to the Gulags, and hundreds of thousands died. But this was just the beginning- Stalin instilled a greater use of force in the Soviet Union, the Great Terror, which lasted from 1936 to 1938. It consisted of a campaign to eradicate any ex-kulaks, clergy members, criminals, anyone who could possibly pose a threat to the new communist paradise Stalin was creating. It also consisted of a huge removal of anyone suspected of supporting Trotsky, especially those with positions in the Communist party itself. This led to about 6 million arrests, 3 million executions, and 2 million deaths on account of people being sent to the Gulags. The Secret Police was the method through which Stalin was able to enforce this huge removal of possible dissent. The People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs was the enforcement agency that carried out the will of the Communist Party. They would secretly assassinate or arrest any individual who posed a threat. And Stalin had also instilled several facets into his