Calling opponents racist equated them with Nazis in Soviet rhetoric

Evidence

But it is not only for Israelis that the word racist still evokes the Nazi mean­ ing, with all its appalling associations. The Russians, too, use it largely in that sense. In Eastern Europe, in general, the problem of color is of minor importance, the colonial experience is of an entirely different character, and the memory of the Nazis and their enormities is still vivid. This memory, and the fear and revulsion it arouses, has been much used in Russia, where the word racist has undergone another process of semantic development, related on the one hand to the Nazi past, and on the other to the internal problems of the Soviet Union. Specifically, in the technical vocabulary of Soviet vituperation, the term racist is applied to nationalist movements linking the non-Slavic peoples of the Union with their kin elsewhere. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1363 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Establishment critics branded anti-nuclear protesters as proto-Nazi collaborators — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2345; Business opponents rhetorically equated the New Deal with totalitarianism — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1444; The Soviet term ‘racist’ labeled non-Slavic nationalist movements, not Russians (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• In Soviet usage, the word racist meant Nazi-linked irredentism, not color prejudice. #expands (0.95) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1363