Editing Cult of personality (section)

==Purpose==
[[File:Napoleon at the Great St. Bernard - Jacques-Louis David - Google Cultural Institute.jpg|thumb|220px|''[[Napoleon Crossing the Alps]]'', [[Romanticism|romantic]] version by [[Jacques-Louis David]] in 1805]]
[[Jan Plamper]] argues while [[Napoleon III]] made some innovations in [[Second French Empire|France]], it was [[Benito Mussolini]] in Italy in the 1920s who originated the model of dictator-as-cult-figure that was emulated by Hitler, Stalin and the others, using the propaganda powers of a [[totalitarian state]].{{sfn|Plamper|2012|pp=4, 12–14}}

[[Pierre du Bois de Dunilac]] argues that the Stalin cult was elaborately constructed to legitimize his rule. Many deliberate distortions and falsehoods were used.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=du Bois |first1=Pierre |title=Stalin – Genesis of a Myth |journal=Survey. A Journal of East & West Studies |date=1984 |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=166–181}} See abstract in {{Cite book |first1=David R. |last1=Egan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C_7Xh2euykoC&pg=PA157 |title=Joseph Stalin: An Annotated Bibliography of English-Language Periodical Literature to 2005 |last2=Melinda A. Egan |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0810866713 |page=157}}</ref> The [[Kremlin]] refused access to archival records that might reveal the truth, and key documents were destroyed. Photographs were altered and documents were invented.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Strong |first1=Carol |last2=Killingsworth |first2=Matt |date=2011 |title=Stalin the Charismatic Leader?: Explaining the 'Cult of Personality' as a legitimation technique |journal=Politics, Religion & Ideology |volume=12 |issue=4 |pages=391–411 |doi=10.1080/21567689.2011.624410 |s2cid=144628885}}</ref> People who knew Stalin were forced to provide "official" accounts to meet the ideological demands of the cult, especially as Stalin himself presented it in 1938 in ''[[the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]]'', which became the official history.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Maslov |first=N. N. |date=1989 |title=Short Course of the History of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) – An Encyclopedia of Stalin's Personality Cult |journal=Soviet Studies in History |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=41–68 |doi=10.2753/RSH1061-1983280341}}</ref>

Historian [[David L. Hoffmann]] states "The Stalin cult was a central element of [[Stalinism]], and as such it was one of the most salient features of Soviet rule&nbsp;... Many scholars of Stalinism cite the cult as integral to Stalin's power or as evidence of Stalin's megalomania."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hoffmann |first=David L. |author-link=David L. Hoffmann |date=2013 |title=The Stalin Cult |journal=The Historian |volume=75 |issue=4 |page=909 |doi=10.1111/hisn.12023_65 |s2cid=145070443}}</ref>

In Latin America, [[Cas Mudde]] and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser link the "cult of the leader" to the concept of the ''[[caudillo]]'', a strong leader "who exercises a power that is independent of any office and free of any constraint." These [[populist]] [[strongman (politics)|strongmen]] are portrayed as "masculine and potentially violent" and enhance their authority through the use of the cult of personality. Mudde and Kaltwasser trace the linkage back to [[Juan Perón]] of [[Argentina]].<ref name=mudde />