Right, but that's just the classic occupier tactic - target the (usually independent-minded) intelligentsia of conquered territories to suppress any budding national liberation movements. But OP was talking about Maoist purges of their own intelligentsia. Bolsheviks indiscriminately purged the nobility, which certainly did disproportionally affect intelligentsia, but they weren't ideologically anti-intellectual the way some Maoist strains or Khmer Rouge were.

Yeah, I was being charitable to Stalin, and considering the population those Republics as "his" people (which of course they never were). But I do see the distinction you are making here.