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The west is in great danger of repeating a deadly historical mistake: treating success itself as a crime.
In 1929 Stalin launched the policy of “dekulakisation” – the deliberate destruction of the most productive peasants in the Soviet Union. Kulaks were not the richest aristocrats; they were simply the hardest-working, most competent farmers who had managed to create a slightly better life for their families. They were demonised as “class enemies” had their land, tools and livestock confiscated, and were deported, imprisoned or executed. Millions died in the resulting Holodomor famine.
The justification was always the same: equality and justice demanded tearing down those who had “too much.”
Sound familiar? Today, the political rhetoric has shifted from “kulaks” to “the rich”, “the 1%” and “millionaires and billionaires”. The language is softer, but the underlying sentiment is identical: successful people are portrayed as immoral exploiters whose wealth must be seized for the “common good”. Wealth taxes, windfall taxes and open calls to “eat the rich” are presented as moral imperatives.
The lesson from Soviet history is clear. Once a society accepts the premise that it is legitimate to destroy a productive class in the name of equality, it doesn’t stop at the very rich. It eventually consumes the merely successful, then the middle class and finally destroys the very wealth creation the country depends on.
Envy disguised as justice has a deadly track record. We should recognise it when we see it.
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