he is no fan of those tests, or of thenAEC, but he doesn’t pontificate.nThere is no wailing and gnashing ofnteeth. Instead, he holds the MissnA-bomb of 1951 contest, advertisesnAtomic Coiffures, has the schoolnblood tests conducted in the “FunnRoom,” and then has Rose quietlynwonder why everyone in town is beingnasked to wear dog tags. The few frighteningnmoments are brief, and Corrnpulls back from each, wise enough tonknow that melodrama would ruin hisnfilm.nThe movie ends with the setting offnof the bomb. Rose has been found andnbrought home, everyone is forgiven,nthe two younger girls are wakened, andnboom! Off it goes. As the cloud rises,nBarbara Jo, the littiest one, says in hernhigh voice, “It’s beautiful,” and ofncourse it is.nKate Dalton writes from New York.nARTnBig Brother Sits forna Portraitnby Inga Karetnikova andnIgor Golomstockn”It is highly desirable that peoplenheading the party movement, be, atnlast, depicted in powerfulnRembrandt colors in all their robustnvitality.”n—K. MarxnWhat Khrushchev in his secret speechnat the XX Congress of the Soviet CommunistnParty called “Stalin’s cult ofnpersonality” is, in fact, the most commonnand the most stable componentnof totalitarianism — the cult of thenleader.nIt is easy to see why Fascists andnNational Socialists should embracenthe concept of the decisive role of thenindividual in history, but such a notionnseems to contradict the very essencenof Marxism, according to whichnhistory is shaped by masses dividedninto classes. Despite this apparent contradiction,nhowever, the deification ofnleaders lies at the heart oiall totalitariannsystems. No matter what he isncalled—Fiihrer, Chairman, Duce, ornGeneral Secretary of the Politburo—nthe leader occupies the place of sacrednimportance, from which, along a descendingnline, all other spiritual valuesnare applied. “What values can wenthrow onto the scales of history? First,nthe value of our people . . . andnsecond—and I would dare to say, anneven greater value—the unique personalitynof our Fiihrer, Adolf Hitler,”ndeclared Heinrich Himmler, reinforcingnhis words with all the might of thenGestapo. Goebbels’ slogan, “AdolfnHitler is Germany, and Germany isnAdolf Hitler,” was echoed by the Sovietnslogan, “We say ‘party,’ and meann’Lenin’; we say ‘Lenin,’ and meann’party'” (with the subsequent additionn”Stalin is Lenin today”).nIdeas of this kind constitute thencornerstone of art in any totalitarianncountry. But they were most elaboratednin theory and most developed innpractice in the art of National Socialismnand Socialist Realism. The Sovietnart magazine Iskusstvo made the pointnsuccinctly: “Workers of art mustnsculpt, carve, depict on monumentalncanvases, preserve for future generationsnthe immense image of the leader.”nSignificantly, in the creation ofnthis “immense image,” the personalntastes, self-appraisal, or even initialninclinations of the Soviet and Nazinleaders were more or less irrelevant.nThus Hitier, for example, selectedn* -^^ V • ^ ” ^ *• ^^^sh.n^^n^’ r. •nonly one, rather small portrait of himselfnfor the important Munich ArtnExhibition of 1938, and his favoritenartists were modest German sentimentalnrealists of the I9th century likenEduard Griitzner and Franz Defregger.nA similar sort of art adorned thensecret bedroom at Stalin’s dacha nearnMoscow (although in this case theynwere cheap reproductions of the worksnof the Russian sentimental realists ofnthe 19th century, cut from the popularnmagazine Ogonyok). But Stalin, unlikenHitler, clearly enjoyed the multiplicitynof his “Godlike” depictions.nOn the other hand, Lenin —nbrought up in the tradition of Russiannliberalism—would hardly have beennpleased, viewing his innumerable depictionsnor learning that his dried-outnmummy has become the country’snmain object of worship.nBut it was precisely Lenin who, inn1918, with his plan for “MonumentalnPropaganda,” laid the foundation fornthe Soviet cult of the leader. Havingnplaced this plan at the center of hisncultural policy, Lenin, of course, wasnnot trying to use it for his own glorification.nAccording to his plan, the listnof people to be “monumentalized”nincluded only the names of dead heroesnand martyrs of the revolution.nThe history of National Socialist artnopens with the exact same cult—nwhich might be called “the Cult of then/n^SfiN-^**.^^ i^.n* « . •nMarks, Engels, Lenin, Stalin; N. Zhickow, artist; pencil, 1949nnnynif^/n<- -T;-‘-nSEPTEMBER 1986 / 41n