Liberals, let alone members of the liberal intelligentsia, rarely figure in discussions of postsocialist racism. The pride of place goes to the institutional racism of the East European states, the violence of the far-right, and the everyday racism of the ethnic (Slavic) majority. And yet the reactions of a number of East European public liberal figures to George Floyd’s murder and the subsequent protests in the US lay bare a capacious reservoir of racial prejudice among them. This talk historicizes its emergence, identifying its origins in anti-communist ideologies of the last half-century.