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The terms enemy of the people and enemy of the nation are designations for the political opponents and for the social-class opponents of the power group within a larger social unit, who, thus identified, can be subjected to political repression. [1] In political praxis, the term enemy of the people implies that political opposition to the ruling power group renders the people in opposition into enemies acting against the interests of the greater social unit: society, the nation, etc.
In the 20th century, the politics of the Soviet Union (1922–1991) much featured the term enemy of the people to discredit any opposition, especially during the régime of Stalin (r. 1924–1953), when it was often applied to Trotsky. [2] [3] In the 21st century, the former U.S. president Donald Trump (r. 2017–2021) regularly used the enemy of the people term against critical politicians and journalists. [4] [5]
Like the term enemy of the state , the term enemy of the people originated and derives from the Latin : hostis publicus, a public enemy of the Roman Empire. In literature, the term enemy of the people features in the title of the stageplay An Enemy of the People (1882), by Henrik Ibsen, and is a theme in the stageplay Coriolanus (1605), by William Shakespeare.
The expression enemy of the people dates to Imperial Rome. [6] The Senate declared Emperor Nero a hostis publicus in 68 CE. [7] Its direct translation is "public enemy". Whereas "public" is currently used in English to describe something related to collectivity at large, with an implication towards government or the State, the Latin word "publicus" could, in addition to that meaning, also refer directly to people, making it the equivalent of the genitive of populus ("people"), populi ("popular" or "of the people"). Thus, "public enemy" and "enemy of the people" are, etymologically, near synonyms.
The words ennemi du peuple were used extensively during the French Revolution. On 25 December 1793 Robespierre stated: "The revolutionary government owes to the good citizen all the protection of the nation; it owes nothing to the Enemies of the People but death". [8] The Law of 22 Prairial in 1794 extended the remit of the Revolutionary Tribunal to punish "enemies of the people", with some political crimes punishable by death, including "spreading false news to divide or trouble the people". [9]
The Soviet Union made extensive use of the term vrag naroda (Russian: враг народа), literally meaning enemy of the people. The term was first used in a speech by Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first chairman of the Cheka, after the October Revolution. The Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee printed lists of "enemies of the people", and Vladimir Lenin invoked it in his decree of 28 November 1917: [10]
...all leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party, a party filled with enemies of the people, are hereby to be considered outlaws, and are to be arrested immediately and brought before the revolutionary court. [11]
Other similar terms were in use as well:
The term "enemy of the people" was used in the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union, in Article 131 about public property: "Persons who encroach on public, socialist property are enemies of the people." [12]
The term "enemy of the workers" was formalized in the Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code), [13] and similar articles in the codes of the other Soviet Republics.
At various times these terms were applied, in particular, to Tsar Nicholas II and the Imperial family, aristocrats, the bourgeoisie, clerics, business entrepreneurs, anarchists, kulaks, monarchists, Mensheviks, Esers, Bundists, Trotskyists, Bukharinists, the "old Bolsheviks", the army and police, emigrants, saboteurs, wreckers (вредители, "vrediteli"), "social parasites" (тунеядцы, "tuneyadtsy"), Kavezhedists (people who administered and serviced the Chinese Eastern Railway, abbreviated KVZhD, particularly the Russian population of Harbin, China), and those considered bourgeois nationalists (notably Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Armenian, Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian nationalists, as well as Zionists and the Basmachi movement). [14] [15]
After 1927, Article 20 of the Common Part of the penal code that listed possible "measures of social defence" had the following item 20a: "declaration to be an enemy of the workers with deprivation of the union republic citizenship and hence of the USSR citizenship, with obligatory expulsion from its territory". Nevertheless, most "enemies of the people" suffered labor camps, rather than expulsion.
On 25 February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev delivered a speech to the Communist Party in which he identified Stalin as the author of the phrase and distanced himself from it, saying that it made debate impossible. [16] "This term automatically made it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven," Khrushchev said. "It made possible the use of the cruelest repression, violating all norms of [...] legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations ... The formula ‘enemy of the people’ was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals." [17]
For decades afterwards, the phrase "was so omnipresent, freighted and devastating in its use under Stalin that nobody [in Russia] wanted to touch it. ... except in reference to history and in jokes", according to William Taubman in his biography of Khrushchev. [9]
According to Philip Short, an author of biographies of Mao Zedong and Cambodia's Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, in domestic political struggles Chinese and Cambodian communists rarely if ever used the phrase "enemy of the people" as they were very nationalistic and saw it as an alien import. [9]
In 1957, in the speech and in the essay On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People , Mao said that: "At the present stage, the period of building socialism, the classes, strata and social groups which favour, support and work for the cause of socialist construction all come within the category of the people, while the social forces and groups which resist the socialist revolution and are hostile to or sabotage socialist construction are all enemies of the people." [18]
Enemy of the people (Alb: Armiku i popullit) in Albania were the enemy typology of the Communist Albanian government used to denounce political or class opponents. The term is today considered totalitarian, derogatory and hostile. There are still some politicians who use the term on political opponents with the intention of dehumanization. [19]
After the communist takeover, many who were labeled with this term were executed or imprisoned. [20] Enver Hoxha declared religious leaders, landowners, disloyal party officials, clerics and clan leaders as "enemies of the people". This is said to have led to the death of 6,000 people. [21] Thousands were sentenced to death. [22] From 1945 to 1992, around 5,000 men and women were executed and close to 100,000 were sent to prison as they were labeled enemies of the people. [23] Many who were targeted held important leadership positions in the party and state structures of the regime. [24] Hoxha also used the term against the Soviet Union and the US when he spoke: "as to ’Albania being only one mouthful’, watch out, gentlemen, for socialist Albania is a hard bone that will stick in your throat and choke you!". [25] On 1 June 1945, The Albanian Central Commission for the Discovery of Crimes, of War Criminals and Enemies of the People requested the International Commission for the Discovery of Crimes and War Criminals to hand over a number of Albanian war criminals found in concentration camps in Italy such as Bari, Lecce, Salerno and others. [26] In 1954, Hoxha condemned the American and British liberation of Albania calling them "enemies of the people". [27] In the 1960s, many Albanian migrants returned from Austria and Italy after having fled in the 1940s, and despite having been promised not to be punished, were immediately arrested as "enemies of the people". [28] In 1990, Ismail Kadare applied for political asylum in France, which was granted, resulting in him being condemned by Albanian officials as an "enemy of the people". [29]
Regarding the Nazi plan to relocate all Jews to Madagascar, the Nazi tabloid Der Stürmer wrote that "The Jews don't want to go to Madagascar – They cannot bear the climate. Jews are pests and disseminators of diseases. In whatever country they settle and spread themselves out, they produce the same effects as are produced in the human body by germs. ... In former times sane people and sane leaders of the peoples made short shrift of enemies of the people. They had them either expelled or killed." [30]
The term returned to post-Soviet Russia in the late 2000s with a number of nationalist and pro-government politicians (most notably Ramzan Kadyrov) calling for restoration of the Soviet approach to the "enemies of the people" defined as all non-system opposition. [31] [32] [33]
On 28 December 2022, Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, said that Russians who fled Russia after the invasion of Ukraine and are opposed to the war should be labeled "enemies of society" and barred from returning to Russia. [34]
During the aftermath of the referendum on membership of the European Union, the Daily Mail was criticized for a headline describing judges (in the Miller case) as "Enemies of the People" for ruling that the process for leaving the European Union (i.e. the triggering of Article 50) would require the consent of the British Parliament. The May administration had hoped to use the powers of the royal prerogative to bypass parliamentary approval. [35] The paper issued character assassinations of all the judges involved in the ruling (Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas, Sir Terence Etherton, and Lord Justice Sales), and received more than 1,000 complaints to the Independent Press Standards Organisation. [36] [37] The Secretary of State for Justice, Liz Truss, issued a three-line statement defending the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, which some saw as inadequate due to the delayed response and failure to condemn the attacks. [38] [39]
In the United States during the 1960s, organizations such as the Black Panther Party [40] [41] [42] and Students for a Democratic Society [43] were known to use the term. In one inter-party dispute in February 1971, for example, Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton denounced two other Panthers as "enemies of the people" for allegedly putting party leaders and members in jeopardy. [41]
In 2020 the Committee to Protect Journalists published a special report by Leonard Downie Jr. titled "The Trump Administration and the Media". [44] In the very beginning the report stated:
Trump has habitually attacked the news media in rallies, responses to reporters’ questions, and many hundreds of tweets. He has repeatedly called the press “fake news,” “the enemy of the people,” “dishonest,” “corrupt,” “low life reporters,” “bad people,” “human scum” and “some of the worst human beings you’ll ever meet.” [44]
From his inauguration in January 2017 through October 15, 2019, Trump called the news media the "enemy of the people" 36 times on Twitter. [45]
Enver Halil Hoxha was an Albanian communist politician who was the ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 until his death, a member of its Politburo, chairman of the Democratic Front of Albania, and commander-in-chief of the Albanian People's Army. He was the twenty-second prime minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954 and at various times was both foreign minister and defence minister of the country.
Stalinism is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalin had previously made a career as a gangster and robber, working to fund revolutionary activities, before eventually becoming General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Stalinism included the creation of a one man totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, forced collectivization of agriculture, intensification of class conflict, a cult of personality, and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which Stalinism deemed the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time. After Stalin's death and the Khrushchev Thaw, a period of de-Stalinization began in the 1950s and 1960s, which caused the influence of Stalin's ideology to begin to wane in the USSR.
A satellite state or dependent state is a country that is formally independent but under heavy political, economic, and military influence or control from another country. The term was coined by analogy to planetary objects orbiting a larger object, such as smaller moons revolving around larger planets, and is used mainly to refer to Central and Eastern European member states of the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, as well as to Mongolia and Tuva between 1924 and 1990, all of which were economically, culturally, and politically dominated by the Soviet Union. While primarily referring to the Soviet-controlled states in Central and Eastern Europe or Asia, in some contexts the term also refers to other countries under Soviet hegemony during the Cold War, such as North Korea, Cuba, and some countries in the American sphere of influence, such as South Vietnam. In Western usage, the term has seldom been applied to states other than those in the Soviet orbit. In Soviet usage, the term applied to states in the orbit of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, whereas in the West the term to refer to those has typically been client states.
Mehmet Ismail Shehu was an Albanian communist politician who served as the Prime Minister of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1954 to 1981. He was known as a close confidant of Enver Hoxha and served in various high-ranking positions in the government.
The Sino-Soviet split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) during the Cold War. This was primarily caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Leninism, as influenced by their respective geopolitics during the Cold War of 1947–1991. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sino-Soviet debates about the interpretation of orthodox Marxism became specific disputes about the Soviet Union's policies of national de-Stalinization and international peaceful coexistence with the Western Bloc, which Chinese leader Mao Zedong decried as revisionism. Against that ideological background, China took a belligerent stance towards the Western world, and publicly rejected the Soviet Union's policy of peaceful coexistence between the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc. In addition, Beijing resented the Soviet Union's growing ties with India due to factors such as the Sino-Indian border dispute, and Moscow feared that Mao was too nonchalant about the horrors of nuclear warfare.
The Party of Labour of Albania (PLA), also referred to as the Albanian Workers' Party (AWP), was the ruling and sole legal party of Albania during the communist period (1945–1991). It was founded on 8 November 1941 as the Communist Party of Albania but changed its name in 1948 following a recommendation by Joseph Stalin. The party was dissolved on 13 June 1991 and succeeded by the Socialist Party of Albania and the new Communist Party of Albania. For most of its existence, the party was dominated by its First Secretary, Enver Hoxha, who was also the de facto leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985.
The Sino-Albanian split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the People's Republic of China in the period 1972–1978.
Anti-Sovietism or anti-Soviet sentiment are activities that were actually or allegedly aimed against the Soviet Union or government power within the Soviet Union.
Neo-Stalinism is the promotion of positive views of Joseph Stalin's role in history, the partial re-establishing of Stalin's policies on certain or all issues, and nostalgia for the Stalinist period. Neo-Stalinism overlaps significantly with neo-Sovietism and Soviet nostalgia. Various definitions of the term have been given over the years. Neo-Stalinism is being actively promoted by Eurasianist currents in various post-Soviet states and official rehabilitation of Stalin has occurred in Russia under Vladimir Putin. Eurasianist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, an influential neo-Stalinist ideologue in Russian elite circles, has praised Stalin as the “greatest personality in Russian history”, comparing him to Ivan the Terrible who established the Tsardom of Russia.
"Public enemy" is a term which describes individuals whose activities are seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society.
The People's Socialist Republic of Albania, officially the People's Republic of Albania from 1946 until 1976, and from 1991 to 1992 as the Republic of Albania, was the communist state in Albania from 1946 to 1991. It succeeded the Democratic Government of Albania (1944–1946).
The establishment of diplomatic relations between Albania and the Soviet Union happened on April 7, 1924. Both countries were also allies in the Warsaw Pact. Albania has an embassy in Moscow. Russia has an embassy in Tirana.
Albania and China established diplomatic relations on November 23, 1949. Albania has an embassy in Beijing and China has an embassy in Tirana.
Beqir Balluku was an Albanian politician, military leader, and Minister of Defense of Albania. Balluku assisted Enver Hoxha in carrying out the 1956 purge within the Party of Labour. However, in 1974, Balluku himself, along with a group of other government members was accused by Hoxha of an attempted coup d'état against the Albanian People's Republic. He was executed the next year.
The Albanian–Soviet split was the gradual worsening of relations between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the People's Republic of Albania, which occurred in the 1956–1961 period as a result of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's rapprochement with Yugoslavia along with his "Secret Speech" and subsequent de-Stalinization, including efforts to extend these policies into Albania as was occurring in other Eastern Bloc states at the time.
On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, popularly known as the Secret Speech, was a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956. Khrushchev's speech was sharply critical of the rule of the deceased General Secretary and Premier Joseph Stalin, particularly with respect to the purges which had especially marked the last years of the 1930s. Khrushchev charged Stalin with having fostered a leadership cult of personality despite ostensibly maintaining support for the ideals of communism. The speech was leaked to the West by the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet, which received it from the Polish-Jewish journalist Wiktor Grajewski.
The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictatorship of Joseph Stalin.
Anti-revisionism is a position within Marxism–Leninism which emerged in the mid-1950s in opposition to the reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. When Khrushchev pursued an interpretation that differed from his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, anti-revisionists within the international communist movement remained dedicated to Stalin's ideological legacy and criticized the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and his successors as state capitalist and social imperialist. During the Sino-Soviet split, the Communist Party of China, led by Mao Zedong; the Party of Labour of Albania, led by Enver Hoxha; and some other communist parties and organizations around the world denounced the Khrushchev line as revisionist.
De-Stalinization comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power, and his 1956 secret speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", which denounced Stalin's cult of personality and the Stalinist political system.
Joseph Stalin, second leader of the Soviet Union, died on 5 March 1953 at his Kuntsevo Dacha after suffering a stroke, at age 74. He was given a state funeral in Moscow on 9 March, with four days of national mourning declared. On the day of the funeral, of the hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens visiting the capital to pay their respects, at least 109 were later acknowledged to have died in a human crush.
For decades, Soviet reference books referred to him only as an anti-Soviet plotter and "enemy of the people" – if they referred to him at all. Stalin's historians air-brushed Trotsky from every official photograph.
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