Enemy of the people


The term enemy of the people or enemy of the nation, is a designation for the political or class opponents of the subgroup in power within a larger group. The term implies that by opposing the ruling subgroup, the "enemies" in question are acting against the larger group, for example against society as a whole. It is similar to the notion of "enemy of the state". The term originated in Roman times as 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.
The Soviet Union made extensive use of the term until 1956, notably by Stalin. It is routinely used by authoritarian rulers, and since early 2017 it has been used on multiple occasions by US President Donald Trump to refer to news organizations and journalists who he perceives as critical of and biased against him, a practice that has been called "menacing" by a writer of an opinion piece and likened to McCarthyism by other authors and journalists.

Origins of the expression

The expression dates back to Roman times.
The Senate declared emperor Nero a hostis publicus in AD 68. 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, populi. Thus, "public enemy" and "enemy of the people" are, etymologically, near synonyms.
The words ":fr:Ennemi du peuple|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". 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".

Marxist–Leninist states

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union made extensive use of the term , 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:
Other similar terms were in use as well:
In particular, the term "enemy of the workers" was formalized in the Article 58, 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, "social parasites", Kavezhedists, those considered bourgeois nationalists.
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 majority 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, 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.
“Stalin originated the concept ‘enemy of the people.’ This term automatically made it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven. 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." From "The cult of the individual", a speech delivered to the 20th congress of the Communist Party of the USSR on 25 February 1956 by Nikita Khrushchev. For decades afterwards, "It was so omnipresent, freighted and devastating in its use under Stalin that nobody wanted to touch it.... except in reference to history and in jokes", according to an author of a biography of Khrushchev, William Taubman.
The term returned to Russian public discourse in the late 2000s with a number of nationalist and pro-government politicians calling for restoration of the Soviet approach to the "enemies of the people" defined as all non-system opposition.

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."

Albania

Enemy of the people in Albania was the enemy typology of the Communist Albanian regime 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.
After the communist take over in, many who were labeled with this term were executed or imprisoned. 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 6000 people. Thousands were sentenced to death. From 1945 to 1991, around 5000 men and women were executed and close to 100,000 were sent to prison as they were labeled enemies of the people. Many who were targeted held important leadership positions in the party and state structures of the regime. 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!". 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. In 1954, Hoxha condemned the American and British liberation of Albania calling them "enemies of the people". 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". 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".

Nazi Germany

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."

United States in the 1960s

In the United States during the 1960s, leftist organizations such as the Black Panther Party and Students for a Democratic Society 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.

Usage in the 2010s

United Kingdom

During the aftermath of the referendum on membership of the European Union, the Daily Mail was criticized for a headline describing judges as "Enemies of the People" for ruling that the process for leaving the European Union 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. The paper issued character assassinations of all the judges involved in the ruling, and received more than 1,000 complaints to the Independent Press Standards Organisation. 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.

Donald Trump

On 17 February 2017, President of the United States Donald Trump declared on Twitter that The New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS, and CNN were "fake news" and the "enemy of the people". Trump repeated the assertion on 24 February 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." At a 25 June 2018 rally in South Carolina, Trump singled out journalists as "fake newsers" and again called them "the enemy of the people." Some commentators tried to link these comments to a mass shooting at the offices of a newspaper publisher in Annapolis, Maryland, that took place only days later, on 28 June. On 19 July 2018, following the critical reaction to his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 15 July 2018 in Helsinki, Finland, Trump tweeted "The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media." The New York Times noted Trump's use of this phrase during his "moments of peak criticism" and use of the term by Nazi and Soviet propaganda.
On 2 August 2018, after Trump tweeted "FAKE NEWS media... is the enemy of the American People", multiple international institutions such as the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights criticized Trump for his attacks on the free press. On 16 August 2018, the United States Senate, in a symbolic rebuke to Trump, passed by unanimous consent a resolution affirming that the media is not "the enemy of the people" and reaffirming "the vital and indispensable role the free press serves."
From his inauguration on 20 January 2017 through 15 October 2019, Trump used Twitter to call the news media the "enemy of the people" 36 times.