Cult of personality Quote by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

““Was it only that explosion of atavism which is now evasively called "the cult of personality" that was so horrible? Or was it even more horrible that during those same years, in 1937 itself, we celebrated Pushkin's centennial? And that we shamelessly continued to stage those self-same Chekhov plays, even though the answers to them had already come in? Is it not still more dreadful that we are now being told, thirty years later, "Don't talk about it!"? If we start to recall the sufferings of millions, we are told it will distort the historical perspective! If we doggedly seek out the essence of our morality, we are told it will darken our material progress! Let's think rather about the blast furnaces, the rolling mills that were built, the canals that were dug... no, better not talk about the canals… Then maybe about the gold of the Kolyma? No, maybe we ought not to talk about that either… Well, we can talk about anything, so long as we do it adroitly, so long as we glorify it…””

— Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn