Дискурсите на социализма
The Discourses of Socialism

Instituting the Figure of the Enemy in the Documents of State Security

Author(s): Rositsa Lyubenova
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Sociology, Social development, Social differentiation, Sociology of Politics
Published by: Пловдивски университет »Паисий Хилендарски«
Keywords: socialism; State Security; enemy; enemy speeches; discourse; ideology
Summary/Abstract: This text aims to highlight the ways in which the image of the enemy in State Security documents is built and functions, as well as its functioning in the socialist reality – In the creation and consolidation of social differences, unequal treatment and social exclusion. By systematizing the implicit and essential features of the “enemy”, this analysis attempts to reconstruct the social conditions for its “emergence”, the establishment of the monopoly on its identification and naming. Through the confrontation between the “enemy” and the „New Man”, a value-defined clash of ideologically constructed figures takes place. A similar collision also takes place at a pre-ideological level between the lexemes of „enemy” and „people” in the combination of „enemies of the people”. They include, on one hand, the meaning and value implications of origin and belonging (genus), proximity, indivisibility and nativity (native), but also of unity, community, common blood, fate, history, etc. At the same time, in the same phrase, the „enemy,” we find a whole palette of negatively coloured meanings such as hatred, animosity, malice, enmity, ill-treatment. In practice, a doubling of the meaningful load of the two lexemes is done in their combination. The pages of the documents also reveal a specific discourse reproducing the so-called „Enemy speeches” that challenge the act of production as both symbolic domination and impenetrability and/or limited chances of access to the order of discourse. In fact, the discourse of the documents gives visibility to enemy elements and the audibility of their speeches. There is a fracturing in the situation of impenetrable access to the order of discourse and the creation of an anti-ideological discourse, which in essence questions the legitimacy of the identity-donors, can be registered.

• Details
• Contents