As a rule, there is no public consensus on the question of Stalin's personality cult. Stalin is either thoughtlessly exalted or desperately hated, but in order to approach this objectively - this is the real problem with this.
Do you know what is the easiest way to find out the truth about this or that era?
That's right, watch the films of that time. Moreover, it is important to understand that these films should be filmed exactly then - under Joseph Vissarionych. A modern movie about Stalin does not suit us at all - even if it was filmed by people who are neutral towards him and who guarantee full compliance with historical documents.
Thus, in this context, we are interested in films made before 1956, that is, before the twentieth congress of the CPSU. Plots can be about the past and about the future, this is just not fundamental.
But watching a bunch of tapes is difficult, and we kind of promised a “personality cult for dummies”. That's right, for an adequate immersion in the topic, just one movie is enough! And this movie is, of course, called The Fall of Berlin in 1949.
The most significant moment occurs at the 20th minute, when Stalin first appears in the frame (before that there were only portraits). Stalin digs the garden and the church choir begins to sing in the background, denoting a certain "mystery" of what is happening at the moment. Usually they sing like that when the saints are brought into the temple, or something extremely important and miraculous is happening.
After watching even such a small fragment, many things become clear. It immediately becomes clear why the Patriarchate was returned, why the shoulder straps were returned to the military, and much more.
Promotional video:
Here many may argue that this film is continuous propaganda and should not be seriously evaluated. I repeat that even the most "notorious" propaganda of the 1949 model is much more objective in historical terms than the most "neutral" modern picture based on genuine archival documents.
Simply, if such a mass movie is shot for a wide audience, it is assumed that the bulk of people will be in solidarity with what they will be shown from the big screen. Otherwise, people just won't go to the movies.
That is, if the film shows that the common people loved Stalin, then it really was so. This is an objective reality.