Classicide

Classicide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of a social class through persecution and violence. The term "classicide" was termed by sociologist Michael Mann as a term that is similar but distinct from the term genocide. An example 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 was committed by China during the Great Leap Forward, by North Vietnam as part of Land reform, and by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.