Editing Character assassination (section)

==In a totalitarian regime==
The effect of a character assassination driven by an individual is not equal to that of a state-driven campaign.
The state-sponsored destruction of reputations, fostered by political propaganda and cultural mechanisms, can have more far-reaching consequences. One of the earliest signs of a society's compliance to loosening the reins on the perpetration of crimes (and even massacres) with total impunity is when a government favors or directly encourages a campaign aimed at destroying the dignity and reputation of its adversaries, and the public accepts its allegations without question. The mobilisation toward ruining the reputation of adversaries is the prelude to the mobilisation of violence in order to annihilate them. Generally, official dehumanisation has preceded the physical assault of the victims.<ref name="Rojas">{{cite book |last1=Rojas |first1=Rafael |last2=Blanco |first2=Juan Antonio |last3=de Aragon |first3=Uva |last4=Montaner |first4=Carlos Alberto |last5=Faya |first5=Ana Julia |last6=Lupi |first6=Gordiano |title=Aim, Fire! Character Assassination in Cuba |publisher=Eriginal Books |location=Miami |year=2012 |page=12 |isbn=978-1-61370-974-0}}</ref>

Specific examples include [[Zersetzung]], by the [[Stasi]] secret service agency of [[East Germany]], and ''[[kompromat]]'' in Russia.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bailey |first1=Anna |last2=Barron |first2=Sheelagh |last3=Curro |first3=Costanza |last4=Teague |first4=Elizabeth |title=Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 2 |date=2018 |publisher=UCL Press |isbn=978-1-78735-190-5 |pages=420–486 |chapter=Control:: instruments of informal governance|jstor=j.ctt20krxgs.13 }}</ref> It was also prevalent during the [[McCarthyism|Red Scare]] in the United States, being carried out by both the government and the media.{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}}