Principle 5: Anoint yourself high priest of the ideology and claim supreme authority over its sacred dogma.
Vizier Letter - Joseph Stalin
“The actor on the political scene cannot help “playing an act” by concealing the true nature of his political actions behind the mask of a political ideology... On the other hand, politicians have an ineradicable tendency to deceive themselves about what they are doing by referring to their policies not in terms of power but in terms of either ethical and legal principles or biological necessities. In other words, while all politics is necessarily pursuit of power, ideologies render involvement in that contest for power psychologically and morally acceptable to the actors and their audience.
— Hans J. Morgenthau
When Lenin died in 1924, Stalin was given the task of arranging the funeral. Where others saw tedium, Stalin saw an opportunity to anoint himself as Lenin’s successor.
His earlier years at the seminary had ingrained in him an understanding of the power of symbolism, ritual, and ceremony. Observing how priests, who presented themselves as guardians of divine truth, gained influence over pious believers, Stalin aimed to transform Lenin’s legacy into a quasi-religious cult, with Lenin as the secular messiah of communism and Stalin as its high priest. To this end, Lenin’s body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum for permanent public display, allowing devout communists to make pilgrimages to their leader’s shrine.
As for the funeral, Stalin created an ideological spectacle, meticulously choreographing the procession through Moscow, involving party leaders, the Red Army, and workers’ delegations. Along with Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Bukharin, Stalin personally carried Lenin’s body to its final resting place. Like a priest in the pulpit, he then delivered a eulogy filled with reverence and sacred oaths:
“Leaving us, comrade Lenin left us a legacy of fidelity to the principles of the Communist International. We swear to you, comrade Lenin, that we will not spare our own lives in strengthening and broadening the union of labouring people of the whole world!”
Krupskaya watched in disgust at Stalin’s hypocrisy as he used her husband’s legacy to consolidate his hold over the Communist Party, which must have been even more painful given the remembrance that Lenin had spent his final days trying to remove him.
Following the funeral, any of her husband’s public comments that conflicted with Stalin’s policies were banned, and any admissions of mistakes or flaws in Lenin’s record were redacted. Like a divine being, Stalin aimed to portray him as perfect and beyond criticism. Akin to a state religion, Stalin ensured that the state cult traced a direct lineage from Marx to Lenin—and now to Stalin.
Foundational texts such as Marx’s Capital and Lenin’s The State and Revolution became equivalent to the Communist Qur’an, while Stalin’s Short Course and official biography served as the Hadith and Seerah; they were guides for interpreting and embodying the sacred ideology.
Stalin’s Short Course was an official textbook designed to provide a definitive narrative of the history and ideology of the Soviet Communist Party. Serving both as a tool of indoctrination and a vehicle for Stalin’s consolidation of power, the book presented a heavily revised version of the Party’s history, glorifying Stalin’s role while erasing or vilifying his rivals.
It also presented a binary moral narrative: history was recast as a cosmic struggle between the righteous Leninist path—now perfected by Stalin—and the malevolent forces of deviation, treachery, and counter-revolution.
Stalin was the divinely ordained custodian of ideological purity and the protector against evil.
Vizier’s advice:
People are less inspired by rational arguments and policies than by a leader who embodies their ideology or religion. Such leaders validate the cherished values at the core of their identity.
But what is ideology? It is the glue that binds disparate people into a unified group, forging powerful emotional bonds as they root their identities in its fertile ground.
So, if you want to rule, cultivate ideology and portray yourself as its devout leader. If successful, you will be rewarded with the allegiance of fanatical believers.
As the leader of the ideology, control the definitions of right and wrong, good and evil, and you will have power not only over the state but also over the majority of minds that comprise it.