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Voice of America analyzes Stalinist history of Trump's "enemies of the people" tweet
Link to tweet
http://www.voanews.com/a/donald-trump-attack-on-media-enemy-of-people-historic-echoes/3729946.html
"As an American diplomat, I stood up to petty tyrants who called journalists 'enemies of the people,'" tweeted Tom Malinowski, former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. "Guess that's not our policy anymore."
"It is one of the most controversial phrases in Soviet history," said Mitchell Orenstein, professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
-snip-
An "enemy of the people" in the Soviet Union was not necessarily a criminal, but more often someone stigmatized by social origin or pre-revolutionary profession. The label alone was akin to a terminal illness, and merely being a friend of an enemy of the people was a certain cause for official suspicion.
"What it basically meant was a death sentence," Orenstein told VOA.
-snip-
The principal founding father of the Soviet Union, communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, was fond of "the peoples' enemies" as a label, and decades later, China's dictator Mao Zedong denounced as "enemies of the people" those who criticized the Maoist policies and commands that led to the Great Famine and the death of tens of millions of Chinese.
One would hope "American presidents would be educated enough to know something like that," added Orenstein, who teaches one of the few courses on communism at an American university.
-snip-
"It is one of the most controversial phrases in Soviet history," said Mitchell Orenstein, professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
-snip-
An "enemy of the people" in the Soviet Union was not necessarily a criminal, but more often someone stigmatized by social origin or pre-revolutionary profession. The label alone was akin to a terminal illness, and merely being a friend of an enemy of the people was a certain cause for official suspicion.
"What it basically meant was a death sentence," Orenstein told VOA.
-snip-
The principal founding father of the Soviet Union, communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, was fond of "the peoples' enemies" as a label, and decades later, China's dictator Mao Zedong denounced as "enemies of the people" those who criticized the Maoist policies and commands that led to the Great Famine and the death of tens of millions of Chinese.
One would hope "American presidents would be educated enough to know something like that," added Orenstein, who teaches one of the few courses on communism at an American university.
-snip-
Waiting for Trump to add VOA to his list of media outlets who are "enemies of the people"...
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
I thought I read about it a couple of weeks ago.
Maybe, you've found another rogue leaker! 
