I read the term in an absolutely russiagate-brained comment on reddit a while ago and it's haunted me ever since. The comment claims it was a well known Soviet concept but if you Google the phrase that reddit comment is the first result for it.
How many times over do you need to prestige your lib level before you can even come up with shit like this
I had it explained to me long before reddit was even a thing and from what I understand the history is super colonialist. "cargo cult" refers to Pacific Islanders who became dependent on supply planes through a series of occupations in the 20th century. after WWII, the Americans pulled out and left the people on many of these islands behind and took the supply chains with them. when faced with starving to death, the Islanders supposedly took up ritually repeating the aesthetic elements of the military base, believing that it was the rituals that had brought the planes in the first place.
it's truly heinous and fuck reddit for trying to blame that on the Soviets. that was an American genocide.