If he said this today, that is probably the word that he would have used. However, I do not think that equity was a common word back then. I sometimes wonder if equality and equity was some kind of conceptual bait and switch, but sometimes commonly used language just changes. For example, gender and sex used to refer to the same thing.
EDIT: Equity was probably not in their vocabulary back then because it would have been too "on the nose" for the communistic idea that it was. Communism was more widely hated back then, and more people had a better understanding of what it was, so they had to sneak communistic ideas into the public consciousness using less obvious vocabulary. So ideas of equity were snuck into our desire for equality, which was supposed to be shorthand for equal treatment under the law, not that we were actually equal in all things.
I think he meant equity.
If he said this today, that is probably the word that he would have used. However, I do not think that equity was a common word back then. I sometimes wonder if equality and equity was some kind of conceptual bait and switch, but sometimes commonly used language just changes. For example, gender and sex used to refer to the same thing.
EDIT: Equity was probably not in their vocabulary back then because it would have been too "on the nose" for the communistic idea that it was. Communism was more widely hated back then, and more people had a better understanding of what it was, so they had to sneak communistic ideas into the public consciousness using less obvious vocabulary. So ideas of equity were snuck into our desire for equality, which was supposed to be shorthand for equal treatment under the law, not that we were actually equal in all things.