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Comment by blattimwind | Hacker News Reader

> Stuff like Jews are not true Germans or something. That side I would say is indeed incompatible with socialism.

I guess no one told the soviet union about their antisemitism being incompatible with their ideology.

Antisemitism absolutely was incompatible with official USSR ideology. So was any form of racism and nationalism. That doesn't mean it didn't exist of course, but it was never official policy as in Nazi Germany.

It's not true. Socialism can go well (and is going well) with many sorts of other *isms, simply by re-definition, or making compromises for "greater good". Soviet Union had some semi-hidden policies which broke its own pledges, but it also had a lot of official manifestations, which apparently weren't seen as uncomfortable. E.g. Soviet anthem mentioned "great Russia" in the first stanza. Official Kremlin guard was selected on a combination of ideological, and racial features. And, believe me, I can continue with this for a long time.

Antisemitism in Soviet Union followed from the way they understood equality. For example, they look at the distribution of university students and notice that Jews are over-represented while, say, Uzbeks are under-represented. That's not fair, let's fix this inequality with admissions quota.

I guess no one told the soviet union about their antisemitism being incompatible with their ideology.

The British Labour Party is similarly engulfed in an anti-Semitism scandal at the moment, it’s all over the papers.

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