True, all those historic figures had strong views on social progress. Generally speaking, that it was a very bad thing if it challenged prevailing authorities, and that the best way to curtail it was to control the venues in which it germinated, such as universities.
Thus Robespierre beheaded those who dared to protest the authority of the government.
And Stalin declared that the only good purpose of the University system was to serve the military and industrial interests of the state.
And Hitler simply burned books which promoted “Jewish intellectualism” by undermining German nationalism with all that hippy-dippy egalitarian nonsense.
Pol Pot cut out the middle-man directly, and simply shot western-educated intellectuals, university students and teachers who dared to protest.
Universities have always been the birthplace of new ideas. That’s what makes them dangerous to the mindset which seeks to “conserve,” unchanged, an existing power structure, political, economic or otherwise.