What did Khrushchev mean by the cult of individual in his “Secret Speech”?

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1. Spellbound says

   The Cult of the Individual refers to the raising of the status of Stalin from that of a mere mortal to the semi-divine .
   Stalin's image was everywhere, in every office, on the walls of factories, on posters, statues "graced" prominent position in most towns. Some of his written works, notably the "History of the Communist Party", known as the "Short Course" were required reading, and passages had to be learnt by heart.
   Stalin was praised in the press as the "Great Genius of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism"; he was portrayed as an expert in every field, able to understand complex problems that had baffled even the most educated of experts.
   The deification of Stalin led to towns, cities, factories, cars, tanks and children being named in his honour.

   Such was the power of the cult, that, it has been reported, that when his death was announced on the radio, even political prisoners in the Gulag, were moved to tears.

   Stalin's crimes were, according to Khrushchev, the fostering of the cult of the individual, his conduct with regard to the Party during the war, and the waves of purges which swept the country in the 1930s – notably the purge of the senior army officers, which robbed the country of its most able military minds on the eve of the German invasion. He was very careful not claim that Stalin's economic policies were criminal; the Five Year Plans and the collectivisation of agriculture were to remain the bedrock of Soviet economic policy until the collapse of the whole system.

   See: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/… http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/apr/26…

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