chapotraphouse

Well, the cultural revolution is a different thing, I was mostly talking about post ww2 Eastern Europe, where it is seen as a national tragedy that the 1%-ers and the far right high ranking state officials had to work as peasants for a couple of years in the 50s. I think almost all of them through their education (privilege) and through their connections were able to get back to a kind of "soviet" "middle class" lifestyle after a few years, and they were literally paid reparations after the fall of communism (which obviously led to gigantic corruption).

Something similar also happened at the universities, where students from peasant and proletarian background were given preference over students who came from a privileged background, even though people who came from formerly rich/middle class families usually had better scores. Again this is seen as a crime of communism, even though we factually know that being from privileged family gives you all kinds of advantages. Commies just wanted to flip the script, so the old intelligentsia does not become the new intelligentsia as well.