Nicely put. It is
hubris of the first order to believe, as certain members of these governments do, that one can establish or "reform" a culture by fiat. That assumption is central to progressives in the United States as well, those who stubbornly decline to get onboard being regarded as "bitter clingers" to put it politely.
Of course it's irrational, it is contrary to all historical evidence, and belief in this power of the state resides principally in those for whom that power is an article of faith, not rational conviction. And they are as dangerous and difficult to persuade otherwise as all cultists are.
Yes. I have been fighting the compulsion behind egalitarian/humanist or collectivist pursuits for much of my life. I realized in my freshman year at one of the most "liberal" colleges in America, that the self-righteous Leftists actually had no rational basis for their pursuits; that they were pursuing emotion driven wish lists--seeking to misuse Government and other "useful" vehicles, to try to force the world they wished was real on the rest of us.
In six decades since, I have encountered very very few of those you refer to as "cultists," who could actually offer any rational argument for their belief system--and none (not one) who could actually offer an argument, which on balance would justify the ongoing social engineering to which we in the West have been subjected since the 1940s.