>>What has happened to prior “sign carriers”?
The revolutionaries who upset the establishment to put the Bolsheviks into power don’t fare well, because they usually aren’t happy with the new order either. Especially once the realities of “From each according to his abilities, and to each according to his needs” begins to sink in and they find themselves being herded into a factory or a farm instead of just getting a bunch of free stuff that they they thought they’d get.
So, the Marxists usually dispose of them quickly. After all, you can’t make communism work with a horde of useless eaters. (You can’t make it work without them either, but at least you can prolong the lie a bit longer if everyone is working themselves to death.)
That's the thing that the LIVs and other dependents of the Demoncrat party don't get. Once (if) the conservative resistance is removed, next up are going to be THEM.