Cult of personality
Etymology
The phrase entered global use through Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 "Secret Speech," which denounced the "cult of the individual" (Russian "kult lichnosti") built around Stalin. Karl Marx had earlier used the German "Personenkultus" in a critical 1877 letter, but the Khrushchev speech fixed the modern sense.
noun phrase · /KULT uv per-suh-NAL-ih-tee/
The deliberate construction of an idealized, heroic, and often worshipful public image around a single leader.
What it names
The machinery of adoration — portraits, slogans, and mythmaking — by which a ruler is elevated from politician to object of near-religious devotion.
Example
State television ran his image on the hour and schoolchildren sang his praises — a cult of personality assembled brick by deliberate brick.
Related idea
A tool often wielded by a demagogue, who stirs the crowd through raw emotional appeal; the cult of personality is the longer-term monument built to sustain such a figure’s hold after the initial rally has ended.