#NikitaKhrushchev denounced #Stalin in a speech to the party 70 years ago #OnThisDay

For the security agency that revelled in the repression of the Stalin era, a rebrand was necessary.

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https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/kgb-after-stalin

In the wake of Prime Minister Mark Carney's well-received speech in Davos, Switzerland recently, I thought it prudent to highlight one of the greatest rock songs ever written about political speeches and the politicians who utter them..."Cult of Personality" by Living Colour. This banger of a song won the 1989 Grammy for Best Rock Recording and the MTV award for Video of the Year. Click for the history or for the song, I'm just pleased to have you stop by. Enjoy. have a great rest of your day.

Reader’s Choice/Tom’s Top Tunes…Song #78/250: Cult of Personality by Living Colour https://tommacinneswriter.com/2026/02/09/readers-choice-toms-top-tunessong-78-250-cult-of-personality-by-living-colour/ ##CultOfPersonality, ##DavosSpeech, ##LivingColour, ##MarkCarney, ##Music, ##NikitaKhrushchev, ##ReadersChoice/TomsTopTunes

Reader’s Choice/Tom’s Top Tunes…Song #78/250: Cult of Personality by Living Colour

When was the last time you heard a really good speech? I’m talking about a speech so good that it has gone down in the annals of history? A speech like Winston Churchill’s “Never Surrender” or JFK’s “Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You…” or MLK’s “I Have a Dream” or even way back in time for Abraham Lincoln’s “Four Score and Seven Years Ago…” speeches. A truly historic speech is one in which the speaker helps their listeners to feel seen and understood by demonstrating a thorough grasp of whatever crisis happens to be unfolding at the time and then, most importantly, by providing a road map for everyone to follow so that they will feel safe and protected and, if luxury provides, even victorious in the end. A great political speech causes us to strive to be better versions of ourselves in a time of need. It steels our resolve and stiffens our backbone. It provides hope when things are at their bleakest. Regardless of what is going on, a truly great speech meets the moment.

In my lifetime, I haven’t heard a truly great and historic political speech authored in real time.. The closest I have come to hearing a great speech may have been Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau talking about the notion of a “just society” when I was still young or N.D.P. leader Jack Layton’s final opus before his tragic death where he intoned “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” But, generally speaking, the great mass of politicians in power during my lifetime have been mostly forgettable when it comes to the speeches they have delivered. They all blather on and on, making promises they have no power and/or intention of keeping. They speak to taking points and internal polling numbers rather than from the heart to our hearts. As such, as citizens we have become disinterested spectators in our own democratic process. Nowadays, when forced to listen to a political speech, we do so with expectations so low as to be almost non-existent.

That’s why Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent speech at the World Economic Forum Conference in Davos, Switzerland is so noteworthy. P.M. Carney is more a financial expert than he is a regular politician so when he approached the podium in Davos, he brought a lot of credibility with him before uttering a single word. As the former head of the Bank of Canada during the stock market crash of the early 2000s and as head of the Bank of England during Brexit, Carney has developed a sterling reputation as being someone who can keep a cool head in a crisis and, most importantly for those financiers in attendance in Davos, he is someone who can shelter assets during turbulent financial times. In his speech, Carney managed to meet the moment by talking about the “rupture” of the old, rules-based world order led by the United States and of the importance, as middle powers like Canada, of charting our own course in the world. Carney spoke about the fears and uncertainty that had been paralyzing financial markets around the world in light of the unpredictable and increasingly predatory behaviour coming out of Washington. By acknowledging the fears of those in that conference room and by providing a roadmap for the future, Carney took on the appearance of a leader that the world needed at that exact moment in time. His Davos speech was met with near universal acclaim, earning a standing ovation from those who were present. The Carney-Davos speech has been deemed as an important speech, one that will be remembered when the history of this era is written. Time will tell if that, in fact, turns out to be true but, for now anyway, it ranks as one of the best speeches I have ever heard from a politician in my lifetime. *(You can listen to it in its entirety here. You can read the full text, if you prefer, here and judge for yourself).

However, I am not the only person who enjoys a good speech. Did you know that there is a Grammy-winning song that stands as a repository of some of the greatest political speeches of all time? It is true. In 1988, a band called Living Colour released their debut album Vivid. Living Colour was a very unique rock band because it was made up entirely of musicians who were black. Now there are plenty of all-black R&B, Soul or Hip Hop bands but Living Colour are one of the very few to have broken the colour barrier as a complete band in the genre of rock. The lead track on Vivid was a song called “Cult of Personality”. That song has become one of the most popular rock songs in the past forty years. It was awarded the Grammy for Best Rock Recording, as well as the MTV Video of the Year award, too. What makes that accomplishment ever more unusual is that “Cult of Personality” is a song that uses many snippets from famous political speeches, spoken by the politicians who initially uttered them. In fact, if you listen to this song in the links below, I challenge you to try and identify the speeches and the speakers as the song goes along. According to lead guitarist Vernon Reid, the idea behind the song was to examine what it was that drew ordinary people to political leaders of all stripes, regardless as to whether the leader was popular or feared. In the end, the band decided that the ultimate factor was the charisma that the leader exuded. Some leaders are just a perfect match for their moment in history whether that results in someone like Adolf Hitler coming to power or someone like Martin Luther King. Regardless of how unusual the subject matter of this song may seem, the end result is a song that is an absolute banger! While Living Colour still perform today and have plenty of strong songs, “Cult of Personality” is, by far and away, their signature song and, like I said, it is easily one of the most recognizable and popular songs of its generation.

Ironically enough, the title of the song “Cult of Personality” comes from a famous speech itself. In the 1950s, Russian dictator Joseph Stalin died. A few years later, in the political vacuum that followed, a man named Nikita Khrushchev made a play for power by giving a speech entitled On The Cult of Personality and Its Consequences. In that speech, Khrushchev publicly criticized Stalin’s reign. He did so by, among other things, pointing out that Stalin ruled by fiat or, by what pleased him, rather than what was necessarily good for the country of Russia. According to Khrushchev, Stalin eliminated political enemies and surrounded himself with sycophants who all learned to only tell Stalin what he wanted to hear and to always enthusiastically endorse his policies, no matter what the impact was on ordinary Russian citizens. He called this slavish devotion to one man, rather to the needs of the country above all to be something called a “cult of personality”. That speech became famous within Communist circles and helped to inspire an earnest group of rock n’ rollers a half century later to create their biggest hit. 

I think it goes without saying that we are seeing a terrific example of the cult of personality in real time right now in our world. Prime Minister Mark Carney certainly has come to that conclusion and alluded to it in his famous Davos speech. In some ways, when a leader of a country that for many decades has been regarded as a leader of the free world begins a transformation into the realm of a cult of personality, he may end up being easier to deal with from an outsider’s perspective. In Stalin’s time, he demanded political acquiescence and public fawning or else. In Carney’s speech, he mentioned the folly of trying to appease someone like that. In his words, “there is a strong tendency for countries to go along, to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety. Well, it won’t.”  Carney also authored memorable and important lines such as “If we’re (as a middle powers) are not at the table, we’re on the menu”, as well as the kicker, “Nostalgia is not a strategy”. No, it certainly is not. We will see in time if Mark Carney’s words provide a template for other leaders to navigate their way through a world in which several of the most influential leaders are in full-blown “cult of personality” mode. For now, I trust our Prime Minister to know best how to chart the proper course for Canada during these turbulent times. In the meantime, I will crank “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour and will play it on repeat. Not every hit song needs to be about finding true love or breaking up with the one you thought was the love of your life. Sometimes a song needs to shake us out of our dazed and charmed state so we can accurately and knowledgably reassess the merits of those leaders that we entrust with our future. Personally, I’m not sure what the red hats see in the orange one but, then again, I am Canadian. I have a smart Prime Minister who is able to give a good speech when he needs to.

The link to the video for the song “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour can be found here. The lyrics version is here.

The link to the official website for Living Colour can be found here.

The link to the official website for The World Economic Forum can be found here.

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