Purge
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2008-07-12T16:32:29Z
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/* Historical use of the term */
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In [[history]] and [[political science]], to '''purge''' is to remove people considered by the group in power to be "undesirable" from a [[government]], [[political party]], a profession, or from community or society as a whole, often by violent means. Restoration of people from a purge is known as '''rehabilitation'''.
==Historical use of the term==
The earliest use of the term itself was the [[English Civil War]]'s [[Pride's Purge]]. In [[1648]], the moderate members of the English [[Long Parliament]] were expunged by the army. Parliament would suffer subsequent purges under the Commonwealth including the purge of the entire [[House of Lords]]. Counter-revolutionaries such as royalists were purged as well as more radical revolutionaries such as the [[Levellers]]. After the [[English Restoration|Restoration]], obstinate republicans were purged while some fled to [[New England]].
The term "purge" is often associated with the [[Stalinism|Stalinist]] and [[Maoism|Maoist]] regimes. Those who were purged (among them artists, scientists, teachers, people in the military, but also many long-time [[communism|communists]] who dared to disagree with the party leadership) were sent to [[labor camp]]s or [[execution (legal)|executed]]. The most notorious of [[CPSU purges]]
was the [[Great Purge]] initiated by [[Joseph Stalin]] during the [[1930]]s. [[Deng Xiaoping]] was known for the distinction of returning to power multiple times after surviving multiple purges.
After France's liberation by the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] in 1944, purges were processed by the [[Free French]] and mostly the [[French Resistance]] against former collaborationnists, the so called ''[[Vichy France|vichystes]]''. The legal term was known as ''[[épuration légale]]'' ("legal purge"). Similar processes in other countries and on other occasions were [[denazification]] and [[decommunization]].
==Purge in fiction==
*In the ''[[Star Wars]]'' films, an event called [[Great Jedi Purge]] happened, when [[Sith|Sith Lord]] turned ruler of the [[Star Wars galaxy|galaxy]] [[Palpatine]] ordered his troops to chase and kill his enemy, the [[Jedi]], under Order 66. Few survived the purge.
*In the TV series ''[[Lost (TV series)|Lost]]'', most [[DHARMA Initiative]] members were killed by a group they called "[[Others (Lost)|Hostiles]]" on an event called "The Purge" by [[Characters of Lost#Mikhail Bakunin|Mikhail Bakunin]].
* PURgE is the nickname for a guild of MMO players spread across the world. Purgatory, or PURgE was originally formed in the currently all but defunct MMO Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) in the summer of 2002. PURgE players can be found in World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea, and Vanguard, just to name a few of the games with currently active PURgE guilds.
==See also==
* [[Political repression]]
* [[Political cleansing]]
[[Category:Political and cultural purges| ]]
[[Category:Political repression]]
[[Category:Persecution]]
[[Category:Informal legal terms]]
[[cs:Čistka]]
[[de:Säuberung]]
[[es:Purga (política)]]
[[fr:Épuration (politique)]]
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[[ja:公職追放]]
[[pl:Czystka]]
[[pt:Expurgo]]
[[sl:Čistka]]