ABSTRACT
Virtually every communist system, extinct or surviving, at one point or another, had a supreme leader who was both extraordinarily powerful and surrounded by a bizarre cult, indeed worship. In the past such cults were reserved for deities and associated with conventional religious behavior and institutions. These cults although apparently an intrinsic part of communist dictatorships are largely forgotten. Communist systems never acknowledged the contradiction between the cults and their official Marxist belief system, or for that matter that such cults existed at all. Arguably the cults represent a form of continuity between authority relations in traditional and communist societies. It may be argued that the cult of personality was a counterpart of, or complement to the atheistic policies of the same regimes. It is the problem of legitimation and the anti-religious disposition of the communist systems which offer the best explanation of the religious aspects of the cult.
