It’s kinda weird to have tons of huge portraits of just 1 person instead of art celebrating the masses or many different people or whatever.
I understand the impulse but now that we know enough to know that great man theory is a harmful way to think about events, how do we prevent large populations from falling into that hero worship mindset in future communist countries?
Why not both?
The USSR had plenty of art celebrating the masses. It also had art celebrating revolutionary leaders of the masses.
Humans also really love personifying things. Why try to reject that? Particularly if it helps with mobilising and organising people.
The issue with ‘great man theory’ is it subsumes the currents of history to the decisions of the individuals involved.
To put it a different way, ‘men make history, but not in circumstances of their choosing’.