Table of Contents

Introduction: Leader Cults, Varieties and Preconditions; E.A.Rees PART I: THE MAKING OF THE CULT: METHODS AND INDIVIDUALS Stalin and the Making of the Stalin Cult in the 1930s; S.Davies 'A Very Modest Man': Béla Illés or How to Make a Career through the Leader Cult; Á.V.Klimó Leader in the Making: The Role of Biographies in Constructing the Cult of Mátyás Rákosi; B.Apor PART II: THE FUNCTIONS OF THE LEADER CULT The Stalin Cult, Bolshevik Rule and Kremlin Interactions in the 1930s; B.Ennker Grandpa Lenin and Uncle Stalin: Soviet Leader Cults for Little Children; C.Kelly Georgian Koba or Soviet 'Father of the Peoples'? The Stalin Cult and Ethnicity; J.Plamper Working Towards the Centre: Leader Cults and Spatial Politics in Pre-war Stalinism; M.Rolf PART III: BEYOND MOSCOW: THE CULT'S PERIPHERIES Exporting the Leader: The Stalin Cult in Poland and East Germany (1944/45-1956); J.C.Behrends President of Poland or 'Stalin's Most Faithfull Pupil'? The Cult of Boleslaw Bierut in Stalinist Poland; I.Main Georgi Dimitrov: Three Manifestations of his Cult; M.Wien Leader Cults in the Western Balkans (1945-1990): Josip Broz Tito and Enver Hoxha; S.Sretenovic & A.Puto PART IV: THE DILEMMAS OF DE-STALINISATION: CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN LEADER CULT PATTERNS IN THE POST-STALIN PERIOD 'I've Held, and I Still Hold Stalin in the Highest Esteem': Discourses and Strategies of Resistance to De-Stalinisation in the USSR, 1953-1962; P.Jones Surviving 1956: Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and 'The Cult of Personality' in Romania; A.Mocanescu The Second Step of a Ladder: The Cult of the First Secretaries in Poland; M.Zaremba

About the Author

S. DAVIES Senior Lecturer, University of Durham, UK B. ENNKER Professor of History, University of Tübingen, Germany C. KELLY Professor of History, New College Oxford, UK A.V. KLIMO Visiting Professor, International University, Bremen, Germany I. MAIN Researcher A. MOCANESCU Researcher, University of Durham, UK J. PLAMPER Research Fellow, University of Tübingen, Germany A. PUTO Researcher, European University Institut, Florence, Italy M. ROLF Assistant Lecturer, Department of History, Humbolt University, Berlin S. SRETENOVIC Researcher, European University Institut, Florence, Italy M. WIEN Researcher, European University Institut, Florence, Italy M. ZAREMBA Professor, University of Warsaw, Poland