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Classicide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of a social class through persecution and violence.^[1][2] The term "classicide" was termed by sociologist Michael Mann as a term that is similar but distinct from the term genocide. Examples includes Joseph Stalin's mass killing of the affluent middle-class peasant Kulaks who were identified as "class enemies" by the Soviet Union. Similar classicide has been committed by China during the Great Leap Forward, by North Vietnam as part of Land reform, and by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.

[classicide page[1]]

Classicide is a term first used by Frederick Schwarz in his book the three faces of revolution.^[3] It was used later by Micheal Mann as a well defined term. Classicide has since been used by sociologists^[1][2] to describe the unique forms of genocide that pertains to the annihilation of a class through murder or displacement. Commonly used to describe the ideals of Karl Marx^[4] and the destruction of the upper class to form a equal working class.^[3][1][2][4]

In 1929, at the beginning of his dictatorship, Joseph Stalin demanded the "liquidation of kulak's as a class". ^[5] The Kulak's were peasants who were deemed as "wealthy" by Stalin in 1929, although the wage difference between them and the other peasants was 50¢. The idea for dekulakization first arose in 1918 from Vladamir Lenin, who claimed that the Kulak's were "freeloaders".^[6] The oppression of kulaks didn't end until 1932, throughout this time Kulak's were being evicted from their homes, having their land confiscated, shot, imprisoned, deported, or being sent to local work camps.^[3] Although the term classicide was never formally used to describe Stalin's destruction of the kulaks, Stalin did say that they had "... gone over from a policy of limiting the exploiting tendencies of the kulak to a policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class." ^[7] During the punishment of the kulaks under Stalin's leadership an estimated 14.5 million peasants died from starvation or punishment. ^[8]

In 1947, during the Chinese Civil War, three years before the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong won the hearts of the Communist Party and the peasant class by introducing a new land reform. This land reform encouraged the mass murder of landlords and well-off peasants in order to redistribute the land to the peasant class and other landless workers. Classicide is defined as the "extermination of a class" (Phillips).^[9] The idea of killing landlords was first outlined by Kang Sheng, expert in terror tactics, in 1947. Ren Bishi, a member of the communist party's central committee, stated that "30,000,000 landlords and rich peasants had to be destroyed" (Rudolph J).^[10] The reform was an open door for violence when Mao insisted that the peasants themselves should do the killing. Landlords were tortured. They were dismembered, buried alive, strangled, shot, etc. There is no way to know exactly how many people were killed but the numbers range anywhere from one million to 28 million.

Historian, Walter Scheidel says that the violence of the land reform had a significant impact on economic inequality as well. Since so many landlords and rich peasants gave up their land, landless workers and peasants received more land. "Middling" peasants now made up 90 percent of landowners. In 1958-1962 the communist party introduced an economic and social campaign. Lead by Mao, the campaign's goal was to transform the country from an agrarian economy to a socialist society. This was known as The Great Leap Forward and was fiercely known to have caused the Great Chinese Famine. During this famine, 20-43 million people died of starvation, 2.5 million from torture, and 1-3 million from suicide. 30-40 percent of the houses were reduced to rubble. Homes were then torn down in order to make fertilizer, canteens, straighten roads or to punish owners. People were tortured into revealing what assets they had. All of this lead to the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976. The Great Proletarian Culture Revolution was a sociopolitical movement. The movement was launched by Mao Zedong in hopes to preserve the true Communist ideology. The landlord class faded away and Mao was accused of being a dictator, which he had no problem with because he said that was his intent.

In 1969 in the midst of the Vietnam war^[11], President Nixon ^[12]staged massive attacks on Cambodian soil due to his beliefs that there were communist base camps as well as supplies and infantry hidden in Cambodia by the Viet Cong^[13]. Nixon also believed the Viet Cong enemy was bombing US soldiers from bases established in Cambodia as well. Cambodia’s then-president Lon Nol ^[12]was initially unaware and did not address any of the Nixon bombings so they lasted from 1969-1975.

Victims of the US attacks saw the American enemy as rich, upper-class and viewed Lon Nol as possessed the same characteristics as Nixon--rich and powerful. Pol Pot^[14] recognized the fear and hatred the people of Cambodia had towards the upper class and used this hostile environment as a tactic to gain control over the lower and upper classes which brought the Khmer Rouge reign his control.

To enforce his control over the regime, he would need to cleanse the country of anyone who fit the description of 'upper class’, and also the ‘Khmer minority’^[11] who shared cultures with the former leader, Nol. Supporters of Nol were primarily rich, upper-class elite. Therefore, Pol Pot targeted these individuals. Anyone who was educated including doctors, lawyers, and teachers were murdered.^[14] Following the bombings, by Americans, Pol Pot persuaded victims of the bombings to join the Khmer Rouge by playing on their fearful state of mind. Anyone who would not cooperate was simply murdered.

Pol Pot’s actions eventually led to displacement and created refugees. He soon abolished civil and political liberties^[14] which allowed his policies for genocide to be permissible and remained unchecked. Although the majority of the Khmer population massacred were mostly Vietnamese immigrants and Cham minority^[11], over 2 million Khmer natives were still murdered^[14]. Children were ripped from their families and their parents were killed in cold blood, soldiers and foreign language speakers were not excluded in the killings either. Pol Pot continued his raids by attacking border towns of Vietnam, which eventually ended his reign. Many natives of Cambodia believed that if it weren’t for the Vietnamese army fighting back, the killings would have lasted longer.^[13]

Ho Chi Minh, the former leader of North Vietnam, instituted land reform in the 1950's to redistribute land from the holdings of landlords to the peasantry.^[15] The landlords in North Vietnam became targets of smear campaigns by the government, in hopes that the peasantry would revolt against the upper class. Stories of rape, murder, and exploitation of the peasantry by landlords were told to gain the lower classes's support.^[16] The government purged landlords as a class. They were executed by firing squads, stoning, and starvation with some being put into reeducation programs.^[17] The number of landlords killed during the years of the land reform, range from 5,000 to 50,000.^[18] While the term classicide hasn't been used to distinguish the event, the term "class genocide" appears in Micheal Lind's book, Vietnam: The Necessary War.

Anti-homeless laws can criminalize homelessness and begging.^[19] Measures that prohibit natural human survival needs is referred to as anti-homeless laws.^[20] “Critics of homeless criminalization claim that such measures do nothing to actually solve homelessness and in fact make matters worse. Homeless people find it harder to secure employment, housing, or federal benefits with a criminal record, and therefore penalizing the act of being homeless makes exiting such a situation much more difficult.”^[21] Court rulings on anti-homeless laws can either challenge or reinforce the laws and can lead to exclusion of the homeless from society.^[22] “Unfortunately, over the past 25 years, cities across the country have penalized people who are forced to carryout out life-sustaining activities on the street and in public spaces; despite the fact these communities lack adequate affordable housing and shelter space. Ultimately, many of these measures are designed to move homeless persons out of sight, and at times out of a given city.” ^[20]