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A fifth columnist collaborates with an enemy to overthrow or subvert the current leadership. The term originated during the Spanish Civil War when General Emilio Mola referred to a group of rebels already present in the city he sought to conquer. The term gained popularity during World War II and is now used to describe anyone actively fighting for or supporting the enemy.
A fifth columnist is a person who is collaborating with an enemy or foreign power with the intention of overthrowing or in some way subverting the current leadership. The term derives from the idiom “the fifth column”, based on the comments of General Emilio Mola during the Spanish Civil War. It described a group of rebels loyal to his cause who were already present within the city he sought to conquer. The term has been used several times since, and a fifth columnist is now more loosely defined as anyone who is actively fighting for or supporting the enemy.
Mola was attempting in 1936 to besiege Madrid, Spain during the Spanish Civil War. He had surrounded the city with four columns of his soldiers. During a radio address, he said that his four columns of soldiers would be aided by another column of people already inside the city. The Fitchburg Sentinel newspaper in Massachusetts then used the term “fifth column” in an article on the siege, which was ultimately unsuccessful, on October 14, 1936.
The current fifth columnist group Mola was referring to was a faction of residents living in Madrid who opposed the loyalist government. The rebels formed a secret group and were intent on providing support to the troops Mola planned to send into the city. resistance of the idiom, the current fifth column was not effective in gaining control of Madrid.
The term gained popularity, especially during World War II. Both the British and the United States used the term to describe suspicious citizens and immigrants who were of German descent and believed to be sympathetic to Germany. in Eastern Europe during the same time period to denote groups of Polish and Czechoslovak citizens who aided in the capture of their own nations by Germany.
The term fifth column is an idiom, or the use of a phrase or word in a figurative manner as opposed to a literal manner. To call a person a fifth column is not to imply that he is in any way connected with the events in 1936 or actually makes a column of some sort. Rather, it implies that his actions or ideologies are similar to those in the original context. The term has come to refer to anyone who is a member of a subversive organization or otherwise actively seeks to undermine a larger power.
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