The Cult of the Leader in Newspaper Articles, Speeches and Letters: The Naming of Lenin Boulevard in Budapest and the Functioning of Political Propaganda

Abstract

In the late 1940s, the Communists seized power in Hungary and soon established a Stalinist-type dictatorship. One of the most important figures in the pantheon of the new regime was Vladimir Lenin, but until the autumn of 1950, the authorities did not name any public space in Budapest’s central districts after him, whose symbolic significance would speak of the greatness of the leader of the world proletariat. This was all the more surprising to contemporaries because by then many streets and squares in the heart of the city bore the names of Soviet politicians and military officers. Because of the importance attached to the cult of Lenin in the propaganda of the dictatorial regime and the absence of the leader’s name on the map of the centre of the capital, individuals and groups of citizens alike began to approach the competent authorities with proposals to name a place in Budapest in honour of the revolutionary that corresponded to his greatness. The authors of the letters tried their best to adapt their arguments to the real or perceived expectations of the authorities. In this context, it is reasonable to ask: how did individual citizens and entire social groups begin to express the opinions and assessments broadcast by the ideologists of the communist regime? How were the architects of public opinion able to use the initiatives addressed to the competent authorities for propaganda aimed at strengthening the legitimisation of existing social relations? This phenomenon can be observed in the example of the naming of Lenin Boulevard in Budapest in 1950, one of the capital’s central streets, in honour of the founder of the system. In this case, a two-way relationship was formed between the architects of public opinion and other groups of society, and their individual members, which, like the symbolic appropriation of space by the naming, was designed to reinforce the political and ideological legitimacy of the dictatorship. Describing and analysing this specific process can contribute not only to an understanding of the functioning of political propaganda, but also to an understanding of the functioning of various cults.