"Balázs Apor’s book is a very welcome addition to the growing field of research on leader cults in communist countries. The author does not limit himself to analyzing the Rákosi cult in Stalinist Hungary, but also opens up a heuristic dialog with scholarship on the Stalin cult, the Sovietization of Central and Eastern Europe, and nationalism. The result is a well-written, clearly structured, and original monograph that sheds light on the way the periphery of the postwar Soviet sphere of influence functioned and how a crucial feature of Stalinist political culture – the party leader cult, which emerged across the communist world – expanded beyond the Soviet Union."
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