[dragonwriter]

> The USSR was never institutionally racist.

I think you are misusing “institutionally” and mean something more like “openly” or “explicitly”, because everything you cite in support of this describes rather than refutes institutional racism.

[_pi]

> because everything you cite in support of this describes rather than refutes institutional racism.

Please expand on this.

[dragonwriter]

Institutional racism includes institutional policies, practices, and structures with racially/ethnically biased effects, not just those with explicit racial/ethnic targeting, and even moreso not just those based on racial/ethnic animus.

The justifications upthread are a mix of explaining deliberate bias as not based on animus and explaining biased effects as not being deliberate bias; neither refutes institutional racism.

[_pi]

Okay how about this. Tell me which policies of the USSR were racist, who they were racist against and why you think they were racist.

[kelnos]

You mention one yourself:

> institutionally targeted programs were to enforce political control and break nationalistic tendencies of ethnic groups.

If that's not "institutional racism", I don't know what is.

[_pi]

"enforce political control and nationalistic tendencies of ethnic groups"?

This literally means stop nationalist secession movements. Literally no country on earth basically lets their citizens secede dude. Russians were ALSO the target of such programs.

It's like saying state atheism is uniquely Islamophobic or uniquely anti christian or uniquely antisemitic.

I'm not saying it's not repression. It totally is, but it's not racist.