Totalitarian governments manipulate and apply anti-intellectualism to repress political dissent . During the Spanish Civil War ( 1936 – 1939 ) and the following fascist dictatorship ( 1939 – 1975 ) of General Francisco Franco , the reactionary repression of the White Terror ( 1936 – 1945 ) was notably anti-intellectual , with most of the 200,000 civilians killed being the Spanish intelligentsia , the politically active teachers and academics , artists and writers of the deposed Second Spanish Republic ( 1931 – 1939 ) . In the communist state of Democratic Kampuchea ( 1975 – 1979 ) , the Khmer Rouge régime of Pol Pot condemned all of the non-communist intelligentsia to death in the Killing Fields
White Terror
White Terror (Spain)
Anti-intellectualism