Enemy of the people: Difference between revisions
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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".<ref>''Le but du gouvernement constitutionnel est de conserver la République ; celui du gouvernement révolutionnaire est de la fonder. […] Le gouvernement révolutionnaire doit au bon citoyen toute la protection nationale ; il ne doit aux Ennemis du Peuple que la mort.'' (speech at the [[National Convention]], [https://books.google.de/books?id=ik2jUBnhZbgC&pg=PA392&lpg=PA391 source])</ref> |
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".<ref>''Le but du gouvernement constitutionnel est de conserver la République ; celui du gouvernement révolutionnaire est de la fonder. […] Le gouvernement révolutionnaire doit au bon citoyen toute la protection nationale ; il ne doit aux Ennemis du Peuple que la mort.'' (speech at the [[National Convention]], [https://books.google.de/books?id=ik2jUBnhZbgC&pg=PA392&lpg=PA391 source])</ref> |
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==Marxist–Leninist states== |
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The [[Soviet Union]] made extensive use of the term ([[Russian language]]: '''враг народа''', ''"vrag naroda"''), as it fit well with the idea that the people were in control. The term was used by [[Vladimir Lenin]] after coming to power, as early as in the decree of 28 November 1917: |
The [[Soviet Union]] made extensive use of the term ([[Russian language]]: '''враг народа''', ''"vrag naroda"''), as it fit well with the idea that the people were in control. The term was used by [[Vladimir Lenin]] after coming to power, as early as in the decree of 28 November 1917: |
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The term returned to the public discourse in late 2000's with a number of nationalist and pro-government politicians (most notably [[Ramzan Kadyrov]]) called for restoration of the Soviet approach to the "enemies of the people" defined as all [[non-system opposition]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.pravda.info/society/5632.html | title=Опубликован шорт-лист претендентов на звание "враг народа в левом движении" | date=2006 | accessdate=January 13, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/news/2016/01/13/n_8111345.shtml | title=Кадыров призвал относиться к внесистемной оппозиции как к врагам народа | date=2015 | accessdate=January 13, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.znak.com/urfo/news/06-12-14-44/1032579.html | title=На площадке путинского "Народного фронта" предложили вернуть в употребление статус "враг народа" | date=2014 | accessdate=January 13, 2016}}</ref> |
The term returned to the public discourse in late 2000's with a number of nationalist and pro-government politicians (most notably [[Ramzan Kadyrov]]) called for restoration of the Soviet approach to the "enemies of the people" defined as all [[non-system opposition]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.pravda.info/society/5632.html | title=Опубликован шорт-лист претендентов на звание "враг народа в левом движении" | date=2006 | accessdate=January 13, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/news/2016/01/13/n_8111345.shtml | title=Кадыров призвал относиться к внесистемной оппозиции как к врагам народа | date=2015 | accessdate=January 13, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.znak.com/urfo/news/06-12-14-44/1032579.html | title=На площадке путинского "Народного фронта" предложили вернуть в употребление статус "враг народа" | date=2014 | accessdate=January 13, 2016}}</ref> |
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===China=== |
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In [[Mao Zedong]]'s 1957 speech ''[[On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People]]'', he comments 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."<ref>[https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch04.htm ''On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People'' (February 27, 1957), first pocket ed., pp.2–3.]</ref> |
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==Nazi Germany== |
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Regarding [[Madagascar Plan|Hitler's 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."<ref>{{cite news|title=The Germ|url=https://www.phdn.org/archives/www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/antisem14.htm|work=Der Stürmer|issue=38|date=September 1938}}</ref> |
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==Recent usage== |
==Recent usage== |
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Revision as of 18:21, 25 February 2017
The term enemy of the people is a fluid designation of political or class opponents of the group using the term. The term implies that the "enemies" in question are acting against society as a whole. It is similar to the notion of "enemy of the state". The term originated in Roman times as Latin: hostis publicus, typically translated into English as the "public enemy". The term in its "enemy of the people" form has been used for centuries in literature (An Enemy of the People, the play by Henrik Ibsen, 1882). Currently this form is mostly used as a reference to Soviet phraseology.[1]
Origins of the expression
The expression dates back to Roman times.[2] The Senate declared emperor Nero a hostis publicus in AD 68.[3]
The words ennemi du peuple were extensively used 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".[4]
Marxist–Leninist states
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union made extensive use of the term (Russian language: враг народа, "vrag naroda"), as it fit well with the idea that the people were in control. The term was used by Vladimir Lenin after coming to power, as early as in the decree of 28 November 1917:
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.[5]
Other similar terms were in use as well:
- enemy of the labourers (враг трудящихся, vrag trudyashchikhsya)
- enemy of the proletariat (враг пролетариата, vrag proletariata)
- class enemy (классовый враг, klassovyi vrag), etc.
In particular, the term "enemy of the workers" was formalized in the Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code),[6] 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 KVZhD (China Far East Railway), particularly the Russian population of Harbin, China), those considered bourgeois nationalists (notably Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Armenian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian nationalists, Zionists, Basmachi).[7]
An enemy of the people could be imprisoned, expelled or executed, and lose their property to confiscation. Close relatives of enemies of the people were labeled as "traitor of Motherland family members" and prosecuted. They could be sent to Gulag, punished by the involuntary settlement in unpopulated areas, or stripped of citizen's rights. Being a friend of an enemy of the people automatically placed the person under suspicion.
A significant fraction of the enemies of the people were given this label not because of their hostile actions against the workers' and peasants' state, but simply because of their social origin or profession before the revolution: those who used hired labor, high-ranking clergy, former policemen, merchants, etc. Some of them were commonly known as lishentsy (лишенцы, derived from Russian word лишение, deprivation), because by the Soviet Constitution they were deprived of the right of voting. This automatically translated into a deprivation of various social benefits; some of them, e.g., rationing, were at times critical for survival.
Since 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.
The term returned to the public discourse in late 2000's with a number of nationalist and pro-government politicians (most notably Ramzan Kadyrov) called for restoration of the Soviet approach to the "enemies of the people" defined as all non-system opposition.[8][9][10]
China
In Mao Zedong's 1957 speech On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, he comments 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."[11]
Nazi Germany
Regarding Hitler's 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."[12]
Recent usage
United Kingdom
During the aftermath of Brexit, the Daily Mail was heavily criticized for a headline describing the judges which ruled (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.[13] 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).[14][15]
IPSO received over 1,000 complaints about the piece,[14] and the judgement summary from the ruling stated that the judiciary was independent from the government and was merely advising the government about the correct legal process.[16] Former Lord Chief Justice Igor said the homophobic attacks on one of the judges were "very unpleasant",[17] and in November 2016 the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines said the public should be "very alarmed" over the piece.[14] Lord Neuberger spoke out about the press criticism of judges in an interview broadcast by the BBC on 16 February 2017.[18]
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.[19][20] Chair of the Bar Council, Chantal-Aimee Doerries QC,[21] condemned the attacks made by the Daily Mail and similar stories in the newspapers Daily Express and The Sun.[22] To help defend the judges against abuse, the Bar Council launched a scheme to teach secondary school children about the importance and impartiality of the British judiciary system.[23][24]
United States of America
On February 17, 2017 President Donald Trump said on Twitter, "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!" Trump declared these news organizations "fake news" and an enemy of the people.[25] [26] Trump repeated the assertion on February 24 at the Conservative Political Action Conference, saying "A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people and they are. They are the enemy of the people." [27]
For the 1930's term used to describe criminals in the United States see Public enemy.
See also
Non-communist:
References
- ^ . Benedikt Sarnov,Our Soviet Newspeak: A Short Encyclopedia of Real Socialism., Moscow: 2002, ISBN 5-85646-059-6 (Наш советский новояз. Маленькая энциклопедия реального социализма.)
- ^ see also Paul Jal (1963): Hostis (publicus) dans la littérature latine de la fin de la République, footnotes 1 and 2
- ^ Albino Garzetti (2014): From Tiberius to the Antonines: A History of the Roman Empire AD 14-192, p. 220 (online)
- ^ Le but du gouvernement constitutionnel est de conserver la République ; celui du gouvernement révolutionnaire est de la fonder. […] Le gouvernement révolutionnaire doit au bon citoyen toute la protection nationale ; il ne doit aux Ennemis du Peuple que la mort. (speech at the National Convention, source)
- ^ Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, 1999, hardcover, 858 pages, ISBN 0-674-07608-7
- ^ Article 58, an excerpt online
- ^ [1]
- ^ "Опубликован шорт-лист претендентов на звание "враг народа в левом движении"". 2006. Retrieved January 13, 2016.
- ^ "Кадыров призвал относиться к внесистемной оппозиции как к врагам народа". 2015. Retrieved January 13, 2016.
- ^ "На площадке путинского "Народного фронта" предложили вернуть в употребление статус "враг народа"". 2014. Retrieved January 13, 2016.
- ^ On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (February 27, 1957), first pocket ed., pp.2–3.
- ^ "The Germ". Der Stürmer. No. 38. September 1938.
- ^ "British newspapers react to judges' Brexit ruling: 'Enemies of the people'". The Guardian. 4 November 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
- ^ a b c "Daily Mail's 'Enemies of the People' front page receives more than 1,000 complaints to IPSO". The Independent. 10 November 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
- ^ "Is Donald Trump 'Mr. Brexit'?". The New York Times. 27 January 2017. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
- ^ "Brexit: Those judges aren't 'enemies of the people', they are upholding British law". International Business Times. 4 November 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
- ^ "Former Lord Chief Justice Attacks Homophobic Campaign Against Brexit". Pink News. 8 November 2016. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
- ^ "Attacks on judges undermine law – Supreme Court president". BBC News. 16 February 2017. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
- ^ Worley, Will. "Liz Truss breaks her silence but fails to condemn backlash over Brexit ruling". The Independent. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
- ^ "Liz Truss defends judiciary after Brexit ruling criticism". The Guardian. 5 November 2016. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
- ^ "Brexit ruling: Lord Chancellor backs judiciary amid row". BBC News. 5 November 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
- ^ "Brexit: lawyers confront Liz Truss over 'dangerous' abuse of judges". The Guardian. 5 November 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
- ^ "Barristers Launch Campaign To Teach Teens About Brexit After Being Branded 'Enemies Of The People'". The Huffington Post. 24 January 2017. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
- ^ "Barristers launch PR drive in schools to explain why judges are not the 'enemies of the people'". The Daily Telegraph. 24 January 2017. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
- ^ "Donald J. Trump on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2017-02-18.
- ^ Trump called the news media an ‘enemy of the American People.’ Here’s a history of the term. By Amanda Erickson February 18, 2017
- ^ "Trump: 'Enemy Of The People' Media Makes Up Anonymous Sources". Retrieved 2017-02-24.
Further reading
- Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, 1999, hardcover, 858 pages, ISBN 0-674-07608-7