Vozdh

There are a few different words that can be translated into English as leader from the Russian language, such as líder (лидер), nachálʹnik (начальник), or glavá (глава). There’s another word, vozdh (вождь), which was attached to the dictator Joseph Stalin in his attempts to build a cult of personality during his rule of the Soviet Union.

In the Bible, the word vozhd is frequently used to describe figures like Jesus and Moses. It has far more spiritual significance than something like nachálʹnik, a word that might be used to describe the boss of a company. Alongside its connotations with Christianity, the word would also be used in a military setting to describe a figurehead leading people into unfamiliar territory with a superior sense of guidance.

When the Bolsheviks took power after the 1917 Revolution, they began to use the word in political and ideological language, quite possibly to fill the perceived need of the Russian people to derive spiritual significance from the new leadership of the country. After the fall of the monarchy, the use of language was weaponised to fill this new-found vacuum of Tsarist symbolism.

Lenin though was very keen to refuse personal glorification, avoiding the fixation of himself as the only 'vozhd' but instead promoting a collective use of the term shared amongst many different leaders across the Soviet leadership. Upon Lenin's death and Stalin's gradual monopolisation of power in the country, this all began to change. Despite publicly claiming devotion should only be directed towards the “working class, its party, (and) its state”, the policies and propaganda implemented by the new dictator didn’t reflect this supposedly modest directive.

Once in power, Stalin appropriated and amplified Lenin’s symbolic authority, positioning himself as his natural successor. As Stalin’s authoritarian rule grew, so did his campaign to establish himself as father and ultimate leader of the proletariat, frequently appearing in newspapers and other forms of propaganda as vozhd narodov (вождь народов), translated into English as ‘Leader of the Peoples’.

The weaponisation of this particular Russian word reached its peak in the 1930s but Stalin remained the vozhd until his death. While other Soviet leaders have also been referred to as vozhd, the term has never been used again as strongly as during Stalin’s cult. Putin has often sought to promote Stalin's legacy in modern-day Russia and the country's current dictator has himself been referred to as vozhd informally in the media, but no leader since has employed the term quite like Uncle Joe.