The Stalin Cult in East Germany and the Making of the Postwar Soviet Empire, 1945-1961

Alexey Tikhomirov

doi:10.5771/9781666911909

Summary

This book examines the construction, dissemination, and reception of the Stalin cult in East Germany from the end of World War II to the building of the Berlin Wall. By exporting Stalin’s cult to the Eastern bloc, Moscow aspired to symbolically unite the communist states in an imagined cult community pivoting around the Soviet leader. Based on Russian and German archives, this work analyzes the emergence of the Stalin cult’s transnational dimension. On one hand, it looks at how Soviet representations of power were transferred and adapted in the former “enemy’s” country. On the other hand, it reconstructs “spaces of agency” where different agents and generations interpreted, manipulated, and used the Stalin cult to negotiate social identities and everyday life. This study reveals both the dynamics of Stalinism as a political system after the Cold War began and the foundations of modern politics through mass mobilization, emotional bonding, and social engineering in Soviet-style societies. As an integral part of the global history of communism, this book opens up a comparative, entangled perspective on the ways in which veneration of Stalin and other nationalistic cults were established in socialist states across Europe and beyond.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-6669-1189-3
ISBN-Online: 978-1-6669-1190-9
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 370
Product type: Book Titles

1. Dedication No access
2. Contents No access
3. List of Figures No access
4. List of Figures No access
5. Acknowledgments No access
6. Abbreviations No access
1. Goals and Objectives of This Study No access
2. Sources and Levels of Analysis No access
3. Terminology: “Personality Cult” or “Stalin Cult”? No access
4. Historiographical Overview No access
5. Research Methodology No access
6. Structure of the Book No access
7. Notes No access
1. The Patriarchal and Familial Foundations of the Ruler Cult No access
2. 1. Spatialization of the Ruler Cult and Unification of the Cult Community No access
  2. Ritual Unification of the Cult Community No access
3. Personality Cults and Historical Change No access
4. Notes No access
1. The Stalin Cult between the Center and the Periphery: Sovietization as Symbolic Politics No access
2. The Boundaries of the “Dictatorship of Discourse”: Creating a Unified Discursive Space of Socialism No access
3. Notes No access
1. The Politics of Hate: Toward an Emotional Economy of Victor and Vanquished No access
2. “Liberator,” Not “Victor”: Myths of the Beginning in Postwar Germany No access
3. Stalin as Guarantor of Peace, Spiritual Father, and Teacher: Representations of Guilt and the Question of German National Honor No access
4. The Stalin Cult in the SED: The Sovietization of East German Political Culture No access
5. The Stalin Cult in Public Spaces No access
6. In a Line and at the Bierstube: Popular Opinions about Stalin in Nonofficial Public Spheres No access
7. Notes No access
1. Exporting the Stalin Cult to East Germany: Logistics, Methods, and Agents of Ideological Transfer No access
2. Respect, Gratitude, and Love for Stalin: Emotions and Feelings in the Empire of Stalinism No access
3. 1. From “Darkness” to “Light”: Subjectivity and Self-Improvement in the Micro-Rituals of the Stalin Cult No access
  2. Between the Factory and the Mass Organization: Political Classes and Hierarchies in the Cult Community No access
  3. The Stalin Cult in the Macro-Rituals of Constructing the State, the Nation, and the Empire: Producing Shared Meanings and Securing Hierarchies No access
  4. Provincializing the Cult: Stalin’s Birthday in Saxony No access
  5. Stalin’s Death and Funeral: Mourning Ceremonies and Representations of Social Consensus No access
4. “The ‘Enemies of the People’ Are the Enemies of Stalin”: Vigilance in Uncertain Times No access
5. Life and Work Stalinist-Style: The Stalinallee and Stalinstadt No access
6. Notes No access
1. The Potential for Conflict in Official Public Spheres No access
2. The Times and Spaces of Iconoclasm No access
3. Dishonoring the Regime and the Emotional Work of East German Society No access
4. Symbolic Competition between the Stalin Cult and the Hitler Cult No access
5. Notes No access
1. Walter Ulbricht and Reactions to Him Inside the SED No access
2. Popular Responses to De-Stalinization in East German Society No access
3. The Crisis in Public Symbolism and the Search for Representations of Power after Stalin No access
4. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
1. Archival Sources No access
2. Published Primary Sources No access
3. Document Collections No access
4. Secondary Sources No access
Index No access Pages 361 - 368
About the Author No access Pages 369 - 370