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The termsenemy of the people andenemy of the nation are designations for the political opponents and thesocial-class opponents of thepower group within a larger social unit, who, thus identified, can be subjected to political repression.[1] In political praxis, the termenemy 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 theSoviet Union (1922–1991) much featured the termenemy of the people to discredit any opposition, especially during the régime ofStalin (r. 1924–1953), when it was often applied toTrotsky.[2][3] In the 21st century, U.S. presidentDonald Trump regularly used theenemy of the people term against critical politicians, journalists andthe press.[4][5]
Like the termenemy of the state, the termenemy of the people originated and derives from theLatin:hostis publicus, apublic enemy of theRoman Empire. In literature, the termenemy of the people features in the title of the stageplayAn Enemy of the People (1882), byHenrik Ibsen, and is a theme in the stageplayCoriolanus (1605), byWilliam Shakespeare.
The expressionenemy of the people dates toImperial Rome.[6] TheSenate declared EmperorNero ahostis publicus in 68 CE.[7] Its direct translation is "public enemy". Whereas "public" is currently used inEnglish to describe something related to collectivity at large, with an implication towards government or the State, theLatin word "publicus" could, in addition to that meaning, also refer directly to people, making it the equivalent of thegenitive ofpopulus ("people"),populi ("popular" or "of the people"). Thus, "public enemy" and "enemy of the people" are, etymologically, nearsynonyms.
The wordsennemi du peuple were used extensively during theFrench Revolution. On 25 December 1793Robespierre 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] TheLaw of 22 Prairial in 1794 extended the remit of theRevolutionary 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]
TheSoviet Union made extensive use of the termvrag naroda (Russian:враг народа), literally meaningenemy of the people. The term was first used in a speech byFelix Dzerzhinsky, the first chairman of theCheka, after theOctober Revolution. ThePetrograd Military Revolutionary Committee printed lists of "enemies of the people", andVladimir Lenin invoked it in his decree of 28 November 1917:[10]
...all leaders of theConstitutional 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 the1936 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 theArticle 58 (RSFSR Penal Code),[13] and similar articles in the codes of the otherSoviet Republics.
At various times these terms were applied, in particular, toTsar Nicholas II and theImperial family,aristocrats, thebourgeoisie,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 theChinese Eastern Railway, abbreviated KVZhD, particularly the Russian population ofHarbin, China), and those consideredbourgeois nationalists (notablyRussian,Ukrainian,Belarusian,Armenian,Lithuanian, Latvian, andEstonian nationalists, as well asZionists and theBasmachi movement).[14][15]
After 1927, Article 20 of the Common Part of the penal code that listed possible "measures ofsocial defence" had the following item 20a: "declaration to be an enemy of the workers with deprivation of the union republic citizenship and hence of theUSSR 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 theCommunist Party in which he identifiedStalin 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 toWilliam Taubman in his biography of Khrushchev.[9]
According toPhilip Short, an author of biographies ofMao Zedong and Cambodia'sKhmer Rouge leaderPol 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 essayOn 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 enemytypology of theCommunist Albanian government used to denounce political or class opponents. The term is today consideredtotalitarian,derogatory andhostile. 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 orimprisoned.[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]
Regardingthe Nazi plan to relocate all Jews to Madagascar, the Nazi tabloidDer 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 ofenemies 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 notablyRamzan Kadyrov) calling for restoration of the Soviet approach to the "enemies of the people" defined as allnon-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 areopposed to the war should be labeled "enemies of society" and barred from returning to Russia.[34]
During the aftermath ofthe referendum on membership of the European Union, theDaily Mail was criticized for a headline describing judges (intheMiller case) as "Enemies of the People" for ruling that the process for leaving theEuropean Union (i.e. the triggering ofArticle 50) would require the consent of theBritish Parliament. TheMay administration had hoped to use the powers of theroyal prerogative to bypass parliamentary approval.[35] The paper issuedcharacter assassinations of all the judges involved in the ruling (Lord Chief JusticeLord Thomas, SirTerence Etherton, andLord Justice Sales), and received more than 1,000 complaints to theIndependent Press Standards Organisation.[36][37] TheSecretary 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 theBlack Panther Party[40][41][42] andStudents for a Democratic Society[43] were known to use the term. In one inter-party dispute in February 1971, for example, Black Panther leaderHuey P. Newton denounced two other Panthers as "enemies of the people" for allegedly putting party leaders and members in jeopardy.[41]
In 2020 theCommittee to Protect Journalists published a special report byLeonard 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]
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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