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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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As I and many others use the term, "identity politics" refers to politics based on immutable identity characteristics (race, sex, caste, ethnicity etc.). It appears that (with the possible exception of the aristocracy, depending on how hereditary privileges worked at the time), none of the groups targeted by the communist regime meet this description: kulaks can sell their land and immediately become non-kulaks, industrialists can sell their factories.

We are not fighting against single individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. Do not look in materials you have gathered for evidence that a suspect acted or spoke against the Soviet authorities. The first question you should ask him is what class he belongs to, what is his origin, education, profession. These questions should determine his fate. This is the essence of the Red Terror. -Martin Latsis

The communists considered "kulak", "industrialist", and "capitalist" to be immutable characteristics. Their whole ideology was built on the idea that social conditions shaped individuals immutably. that was the whole point: to create a system which made immutably-good people, which would then self-perpetuate. New Soviet Man.