Enemy of the people

Enemy of the People

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Enemy of the people

The term enemy of the people is a fluid designation of political or class

Social class

Social class refers to the hierarchy distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or cultures. Usually most societies have some notion of social class , but concretely defined social classes are not found in every known type of human societies....
opponents of the group using the term. Its usage is derogatory, and meant to imply that the "enemies" are acting against society as a whole. It is similar to the notions of "public enemy

Public Enemy

Public Enemy, also known as PE, is an influential hip hop music group from Long Island, New York, known for its politically charged lyrics, criticism of the media, and active interest in the concerns of the African American community....
" and "enemy of the state

Enemy of the state

An enemy of the state is a person accused of certain crimes against the state, such as treason. Describing individuals in this way is sometimes a manifestation of political repression....
". The term has an extensive history. Its earliest use may have been by the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, where the Senate

Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the Greek historian Polybius, our principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government....
used the term to apply to the Emperor

Emperor

An emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress is the female equivalent. As a title, "empress" may indicate the wife of an emperor or a woman who rules in her own right ....
Nero

Nero

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus , born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also called Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, was the fifth and final Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty....
as a pretext for his arrest.

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Encyclopedia

The term enemy of the people is a fluid designation of political or class

Social class

Public Enemy

Enemy of the state

Roman Empire

Roman Senate

Emperor

Nero

Jacobin Club

The Jacobin Club was the largest and most powerful political club of the French Revolution. It originated as the Club Benthorn, formed at Versailles as a group of Brittany deputies to the Estates-General of 1789 of 1789....
during the radical phase of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudalism for the aristocracy and Roman Catholic Church clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Age of Enlightenment principles of cit...
(the Reign of Terror

Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror or simply The Terror was a period of violence that occurred fifteen months after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobin Club, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution." Estimates vary widely as to how many were kil...
) and by the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
and other authoritarian countries.

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union made extensive use of the term (Russian language

Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
: ???? ??????, "vrag naroda"), as it fit in well with the idea that the people were in control. The term was used by Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin , born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov and also known by the pseudonyms V.I. Lenin and N. Lenin, was a Russians revolutionary, a Bolshevik Communism politician, the principal leader of the October Revolution and the first head of the USSR....
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."

Other similar terms were in use as well:

enemy of the labourers (???? ??????????, "vrag trudyashchikhsya")
enemy of the proletariat (???? ????????????, "vrag proletariata")
class enemy (????????? ????, "klassovyi vrag"), etc.

In particular, the term "enemy of the workers" was formalized in the Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)
Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)

Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on February 25, 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times....
, and similar articles in the codes of the other Soviet Republics
Republics of the Soviet Union

The Republics of the Soviet Union were, according to the Article 76 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, Sovereign Soviet Socialist states that had united with other Soviet Republics to become the Soviet Union....
.

At various times these terms were applied, in particular, to Tsar Nicholas II and the Imperial family, aristocrats, the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie

Bourgeoisie is a classification used in analyzing human societies to describe a social class of people. Historically, the bourgeoisie comes from the middle or merchant classes of the Middle Ages, whose status or power came from employment, education, and wealth, as distinguished from those whose power came from being born into an aristocrati...
, cleric
Cleric

A cleric , clergyman , or churchman is a member of the clergy of a religion, especially one who is a priest, preacher, or other religious professional....
s, business entrepreneurs
Robber baron (industrialist)

Robber baron is a term that revived in the 19th century in the United States as a reference to businessman and bankers who dominated their respective industry and amassed huge personal fortunes, typically as a direct result of pursuing various anti-competitive or unfair business practices....
, anarchists
Anarchism

Anarchism is a political philosophy encompassing anarchist schools of thought which consider the state to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable....
, kulak
Kulak

Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent and well-endowed peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged as a result of the Stolypin reform which began in 1906....
s, monarchists
Monarchism

Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch....
, Mensheviks, Esers
Socialist-Revolutionary Party

The Socialist-Revolutionary Party was a Russian political party active in the early 20th century....
, Bundists
General Jewish Labor Union

The General Jewish Labour Union of Lithuania, Poland and Russia, in Yiddish the Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter Bund in Lite, Poyln un Rusland , generally called The Bund or the Jewish Labor Bund, was a Jewish political party in several European countries operating predominantly between the 1890s and the 1930s with remnants o...
, Trotskyists
Trotskyism

Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an Orthodox Marxism and Bolshevik-Leninism, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party....
, Bukharinists, the "old Bolsheviks", the army and police, emigrants, saboteurs
Sabotage

Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening an enemy, oppressor or employer through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction....
, wreckers
Wrecking (Soviet crime)

Wrecking , was a crime specified in the criminal code of the Soviet Union in the Joseph Stalin era.It is often translated as "sabotage"; however "wrecking" and "diversionist acts" and "counter-revolutionary sabotage" were distinct sub-articles of Article 58 , and the meaning of "wrecking" is closer to "undermining"....
(?????????, "vrediteli"), "social parasites
Parasitism (social offense)

Social parasite is a derogatory term denoting a group or class in society which is considered to be detrimental to others, by taking advantage of them in some way....
" (????????, "tuneyadtsy"), Kavezhedists (people who administered and serviced the KVZhD (China Far East Railway
China Far East Railway

The Chinese Eastern Railway or was a railway in northeastern China . It connected Chita and the Russian Far East. English-speakers have sometimes referred to this line as the Manchurian Railway....
), particularly the Russian population of Harbin
Harbin

is a sub-provincial city and the Capital of the Heilongjiang in Northeast China. It lies on the southern bank of the Songhua River. Harbin is ranked as the tenth largest city in China, serving as a key political, economic, scientific, cultural and communications center of Northeastern China....
, China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
), those considered bourgeois nationalists
Bourgeois nationalism

Bourgeois nationalism is a term from Marxist phraseology. It refers to the practice of dividing people by nationality, Race , ethnicity, or religion, which were alleged to deflect them from class warfare....
(notably Ukrainian
Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south....
, Lithuania
Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest....
n, Latvia
Latvia

Latvia The Latvians are a Baltic peoples culturally related to the Estonians and Lithuanians, with the Latvian language having many similarities with Lithuanian language, but not with the Estonian language....
n, Estonia
Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Finland across the Gulf of Finland, to the west by Sweden across the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russia ....
n nationalists, Zionists
Zionism

Zionism is the international Jewish political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine....
, Basmachi), and members of certain ethnic groups (see Population transfer: Soviet Union
Population transfer

Population transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion....
).

An enemy of the people could be imprisoned, expelled or executed, and his property could be confiscated. Close relatives of enemies of the people were labeled as "traitor of Motherland family members
NKVD Order ? 00486

The NKVD Order ? 00486 instructed about political repression of wives of enemy of the people also known as "traitors of the Motherland, members of Right-Trotskyist spying-diversional organizations convicted by NKVD Order ? 00447 since 1 August 1936"....
" and prosecuted. They could be sent to Gulag
Gulag

The Gulag was the government agency that administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet Union. Gulag is the Russian acronym for The Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies of the NKVD....
, punished by the involuntary settlement
Involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union

Forced settlements in the Soviet Union took several forms. Though the most notorious was the Gulag labor camp system of penal labor, resettling of entire categories of population was another method of political repression in the Soviet Union....
in unpopulated areas, or stripped of citizen's rights
Lishenets

A lishenets , from Russian word ???????, "deprivation", properly translated in this context as a disenfranchised, was a person stripped of the right of voting in the Soviet Union of 1918 — 1936....
. 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

Lishenets

A lishenets , from Russian word ???????, "deprivation", properly translated in this context as a disenfranchised, was a person stripped of the right of voting in the Soviet Union of 1918 — 1936....
(???????, derived from Russian word ???????, deprivation), because by the Soviet Constitution they were deprived of the right of voting
Voting

Voting is a method for a Group such as a meeting or an Constituency to decision making or express an opinion ? often following discussions, debates or election campaigns....
. This automatically translated into a deprivation of various social benefits; some of them, e.g., rationing
Rationing

Rationing is the controlled distribution of resources and scarcity goods or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time....
, 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.

See also

Persona non grata
Persona non grata

Persona non grata , literally meaning "an unwelcome person," is a term used in diplomacy with a specialised and legally defined meaning. The opposite of persona non grata is persona grata....
Ostracism
Ostracism

Ostracism was a procedure under the Athenian democracy in which a prominent citizen could be exile from the city-state of Athens for ten years....

Further reading
Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois
Stéphane Courtois

St?phane Courtois is a France historian.He is currently employed as research director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique , in the G?ode at University Paris X....
, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press

Harvard University Press

Harvard University Press is a publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. It was established on January 13, 1913....
, 1999, hardcover, 858 pages, ISBN 0-674-07608-7