print

Character Assassination. Three Chronicles of the Soviet Period

Egorova-Gantman E.V.,

Political Profiler, President, gatanegro@yandex.ru

Egorova E.M.,

Political Profiler, CEO, elizaegorova@gmail.com

DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2019.04.12

Rubric: DIXI!

For citation:

Egorova-Gantman E.V., Egorova E.M. Character Assassination. Three Chronicles of the Soviet Period. – Polis. Political Studies. 2019. No. 4. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2019.04.12

Abstract

The article is the result of research into a kind of political communication poorly studied in Russia, which is very popular in actual political life – an attack on an opponent’s reputation with the goal of destroying it and depriving the opponent of support from significant target groups. A study of character assassination from the moment of the bourgeois revolution in Russia until the collapse of the Soviet Union shows the continuity of methods and techniques and the use of similar themes and subjects throughout this period. Public perception of character assassination in relation to the victims of the attack in general reflects the tendency of support of the head of the state, if the population recognizes him as the leader. The article discusses three cases showing the most important tendencies of character assassination in a certain historical period: the character assassination of Lenin as a German spy; the character assassination of Tukhachevsky and a group of military leaders as the organizers of the “military-fascist conspiracy”; and the character assassination of Sakharov as an anti-Soviet human rights activist. The notion of a “foreign agent” has become the umbrella element of all studied character assassination campaigns. These cases make it possible to see the behavior of the attackers and their victims, the main methods and topics used to kill the reputation, the use of various types of media, the reaction of society, ways to defense against the character assassination. 

Keywords

character assassination, charismatic leader, political communication, foreign agent, Ad Hominem, guilt by association, name-calling, labeling, status reduction.

 Full Text 

Character Assassination throughout the Ages. 2014. Ed. by Icks M., Shiraev E. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hill G. 2014. Go Spy the Land: Being the Adventures of IK8 of the British Secret Service. London: Biteback Publishing.

McPadden C.P. 2006. Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (1893-1937): Practitioner and Theorist of War. – The Land Warfare Papers. URL: https://www.ausa.org/sites/default/files/LWP-56-Mikhail-Nikolayevich-Tukhachevsky-1893-1937-Practitioner-and-Theorist-of-War.pdf (accessed 17.05.2019).

Montefiore S.S. 2014 Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. London: Phoenix.

Naveh S. 1993. Mikhail Nokolaevich Tukhachevsky. – Stalins Generals. Ed. by H. Shukman. New York: Grove Press.

Samoilenko S. 2016. Character assassination. – Encyclopedia of Corporate Reputation. Ed. by C. Carroll. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE. P. 115-118.

Shiraev E. 2010. Character Assassination: An interdisciplinary Approach. George Mason University. URL: https://characterattack.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/character-assassination-an-interdisciplinary-approach.pdf (accessed 13.05.2019)

Stoecker S. 1998. Forging Stalin’s army: Marshal Tukhachevsky and the Politics of Military Innovation. Boulder, CO, USA: Westview Press.

Antologiya samizdata [Anthology of Samizdat]. 2005. Vol. 3. Moscow: International Institute for Humanitarian and Political Studies. (In Russ.)

Chukovskaya L. 1990. Protsess isklyucheniya: ocherk literaturnykh nravov [Process of Elimination: an Essay on Literary Morals]. Moscow: Novoe vremya. (In Russ.)

Kerenskii A.F. 1993. Rossiya na istoricheskom povorote. Memuary [Russia is at a Historic Turn. Memoirs]. Moscow: Respublika. (In Russ.)

Kuznechevskii B. 2017. Stalin. Fenomen vozhdya: voina s sobstvennym narodom ili stremlenie oschastlivit’ ego lyuboi tsenoi [Stalin. The Phenomenon of the Leader: the War with his Own People or the Desire to Make Him Happy at Any Cost]. Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf. (In Russ.)

Lenin V. 1974. Doklad V s”ezdu RSDRP po povodu peterburgskogo raskola i svyazannogo s nim uchrezhdeniya partiinogo suda [V Congress of the RSDLP on the St. Petersburg Split and the Associated Establishment of the Party Court]. – Lenin V. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [Complete Works]. Vol. 15. Moscow: Politizdat. (In Russ.)

Martyushev F.I. 1997. Zhertvy i palachi [The Executioners and the Victims]. Ekaterinburg: SV-96. (In Russ.) URL: https://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfcd/auth/?num=3366&t=page (accessed 21.05.2019)

Minakov S. 2016. Zagovor krasnykh marshalov. Tukhachevskii protiv Stalina [The Plot of Red Marshals. Tukhachevsky against Stalin]. Moscow: Algoritm.

Orlov F. 1898. Mark Tullii Tsitseron. Ego zhizn’ i deyatel’nost’ [Marcus Tullius Cicero. His Life and Work]. St. Petersburg: Obshchestvennaya pol’za. (In Russ.)

Sakharov A.D. 1996. Vospominaniya [Memories]. Ed. by E. Kholmogorova, Yu. Shikhanovich. Moscow: Prava cheloveka. Vol. 1. (In Russ.)

Sokolov B.V. 1999. Mikhail Tukhachevskii: zhizn’ i smert’ “krasnogo marshala” [Mikhail Tukhachevsky: life and death of the red Marshal]. Smolensk: Rusich. 512 s. (In Russ.) URL: http://militera.lib.ru/bio/sokolov/index.html (accessed 17.05.2019).

Sokolov B.V. 2008. Tukhachevskii [Tukhachevsky]. Moscow. Molodaya gvardiya.

Solomin A. 2017. Byl Lenin nemetskim agentom? [Was Lenin a German Agent?] – Diletant. (In Russ.) URL: http://diletant.media/articles/35587130 (accessed 16.05.2019).

Spiridovich A.I. 2005. Istoriya bol’shevizma v Rossii ot vozniknoveniya do zakhvata vlasti [The History of Bolshevism in Russia from its Inception to the Seizure of Power]. 1883-1903-1917. Moscow: EKSMO, Algorytm. (In Russ.)

Sukhanov N.N. 1991. Zapiski o revolyutsii [Notes on the Revolution]. Vol. 2. Moscow: Politizdat. (In Russ.)

Vasil’ev I.P. 2001. Pokazaniya po delu o vooruzhennom vystuplenii v iyule 1917 goda [Testimony in the Case of the Armed Intervention in July 1917]. – Taina oktyabr’skogo perevorota [The Mystery of the October Revolution]. St. Peterburg: Aleteya. (In Russ.)

Tsygankov A.P. 1995. Sovremennye politicheskie rezhimy: struktura, tipologiya, dinamika [Modern Political Regimes: Structure, Typology, Dynamics]. Moscow: Interpraks. (In Russ.) 

See also: