International Communism and the Cult of the Individual

Kevin Morgan is Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at the University of Manchester, UK. He has published extensively on the history of the communist movement including the three volumes of his Bolshevism and the British Left (2006-13). He is a founding editor of the journal Twentieth Century Communism.

“Kevin Morgan has provided us with a masterful analysis of these cults of the individual in international communism between the 1920s and 1956. His history is also an explicitly transnational and comparative one, and he succeeds admirably in demonstrating how valuable such a perspective is in understanding both commonalities and differences in the communist movements of the world. … this book on international communism has a distinct Western-centric focus.” (Stefan Berger, Moving the Social, Vol. 62, 2019)“Kevin Morgan has performed an inestimable service for students of international communism. … as a study of non-Soviet communism, Morgan’s book is excellent. Now that it has been published, one cannot claim to understand communism outside the SovietUnion without having read it and incorporated into one’s own analysis of the phenomenon the many insights it thankfully contains.” (Jay Bergman, English Historical Review HER, Vol. 135(564), October, 2018)“This is a work of considerable accomplishment and erudition. It displays a deep familiarity with the available literature on individual leaders. It is enlivened with telling insights into the appeal of the cult, its multi-faceted forms, the variations between countries, and the appeal which it carried for followers and acolytes.” (E. A. Rees, European History Quarterly, Vol. 47 (4), 2017)“Morgan’s wide-ranging and penetrating discussion greatly advances our understanding of personality cults in general. … This very fine and thoroughly researched book will be of great interest to scholars of political leadership and of communist and fascist movements. Not only are its case studies superbly conducted; it offers a conceptual framework that can be adapted and applied to many movements and leaders who are beyond the remit of the book itself.” (Stephen Gundle, Labour History Review, Vol. 82 (3), 2017)

• 1. Introduction: Wherever a Communist Party is at Work.- 2. Cult Developments, 1917-56.- 3. Cult Variations.- 4. Cults of Office.- 5. Cults of Circumstance.- 6. Cult Representations.- 7. Concluding Reflections: No Saviour from on High?.