Cult Personality facts
While investigating facts about Cult Personality, I found out little known, but curios details like:
The extent of North Koreas personality cult is such that in 2012 a 14-year-old North Korean schoolgirl drowned while attempting to rescue portraits of the two "supreme leaders" from a flood.
Fidel Castro hated cults of personality. In Cuba, there are no statues of him, no streets or buildings named after him, and no official portraits of him.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 27 of the best facts about Cult Personality I managed to collect.
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Before his death, Fidel Castro's last wish was to avoid being a "personality cult"; because of this, Cuba prohibits the use of Castro's name in the names of "institutions, parks, streets and other public places, as well as any honorary titles or medals."
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The Heaven's Gate cult was covered by a niche insurance policy that would pay out $1 Million per person if they were abducted, impregnated, or killed by aliens.
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Stalingrad changed their name to Volgograd not after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. but in 1961. The Soviet government didn't like the personality cult surrounding Stalin.
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The term 'cult of personality' was first used by Karl Marx
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Jim Jones, leader of almost 1,000 cult members who committed mass suicide by drinking cyanide, was the first white person in Indiana to adopt a black child.
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The religious cult, Heaven’s Gate, purchased alien abduction insurance which would cover up to 50 members and would pay out $1 million per person (the policy covered abduction, impregnation, or death by aliens).
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There was a real Colonel Kurtz, Brandos character in Apocolypse Now...He was an Australian army officer recruited by the CIA to train Vietnamese hill tribes to disrupt Viet Kong supply lines...The CIA later fearing a personality cult had develope drew up plans to have him assassinated
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On January 10, 9 AD, after several years of cultivating a personality cult, Wang Mang proclaimed himself Emperor of China. However, he was an incompetent ruler and was besieged and killed by rebels in 23 AD. The Xin dynasty remains the shortest dynasty in China’s history.
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A 39-person cult committed mass suicide so they could board a spaceship in the blue ion tail of the comet Hale-Bopp
What is true about cult personality?
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Almost half of North Korea's budget is spent maintaining the Kim family's cult of personality.
The Soviet press described Stalin as "Great", "Beloved", "Bold", "Wise", "Inspirer", and "Genius"; the national anthem and music, films, poetry, and paintings praised him by name; and many cities were renamed after the dictator. Stalin himself did not encourage this "cult of personality". - source
A shift in popular personality cult was evident in Soviet propaganda, "where at first Lenin would be the dominating figure over Stalin, but as time went on became first only equal, and then smaller and more ghostly, until he was reduced to the byline on the book Stalin was depicted reading." - source
A "cult of personality" arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods to create an idealized, heroic, and at times worshipful image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise.
Austria's far right leader Jörg Haider built up a homoerotic cult of personality during his life but it was only after his death that he was "outed" as gay - source
The culture of the People's Republic of China before 1978 was highly influenced by the personality cult of Mao Zedong. Most people were required to recite the Quotations of Chairman Mao and printed material at that time usually quoted Mao's words in bold as well as in the preface
Chinese premier Zhou Enlai co-produced, wrote, and directed a play to promote the personality cult of Chairman Mao, titled "March Forward under the Banner of Mao Zedong Thought". It was staged repeatedly in Beijing in order to ensure that all residents would be able to see it
When Deng Xiaoping visited North Korea in 1978, he looked up at the 70-foot statue of Kim Il Sung and noticed with fury that it was covered from head to toe in gold. He complained to his hosts about wasted Chinese aid money on a personality cult and the gold was replaced with bronze
The solos in the song Cult of Personality have the same length in both versions of the song
There was a multi thousand person cult in Oregon. The leader had 96 Rolls-Royce cars on the property.
