Putin’s Battle To Control Reality
In 1956, three years after Stalin’s death, Russia’s First Party Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev, delivered a speech called, On The Cult Of Personality And Its Consequences, in which he roundly criticised Stalin’s foundationally dishonest, authoritarian brand of leadership:
The negative characteristics of Stalin, which, in Lenin’s time, were only incipient, transformed themselves during the last years into a grave abuse of power by Stalin, which caused untold harm to our party.
Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation, and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. […]
You see to what Stalin’s mania for greatness led? He had completely lost consciousness of reality.
The speech, which was never officially made public, nonetheless sent shockwaves through the Soviet Union and the Soviet Bloc. Once Stalin’s “cult of personality” had been revealed as a lie, all that was left was reality.
As I’ve watched the nightmare unfolding in Ukraine, I keep being dragged back to that question of reality. Primarily by Putin’s repeated attempts to deny it.
