I don't have any romantic view of communism. I am not a communist or advocat for it. I think you are not understanding the purpose of my writing.

You are very focused on the pain and suffering that the individual under a particular regime feels. That is you main focus.

While that certainly matters, that is not the focus of my writing or my interest. I am not writing a history of suffering or torture.

My interest is in political processes and power struggles. What matters to me is how you avoid dictatorship, not in analyzing how each dictatorship may torment its victims.

The diffierence between Nazism and Communism is then of profound importance. You only focus on what happens AFTER they get power. I am focused on the leadup.

Communist dictatorships happened through violent revolutions in dictatorships or by violent invasions.

That is also why I talk about socialism. Communism is a branch of socialism, the one geared towards violent revolution as a means of creating a socialist state. Wherever there is democracy, democratic socialism always wins over communism. That is important to observe. Hence if we are to talk about communism and socialism broadly, it is not an ideology threatening modern democracies.

The same cannot be said for Fascism and Nazism which has repeatedly through history brough down vibrant democracies. Often they have achieved this by scaremongering about democratic socialists.

Thus when people spread fear about socialism and communism within democracies, they are often being useful idiots to far-right extremists. Let me clarify, I think it is perfectly valid to criticize communist dictatorships whether China, North Korea or others.

But it is quite another thing to suggest that democratic socialists within a western country are somehow errand boys for Stalin, Mao or Ceaușescu.

It is why the difference in ideology is important. Socialism allows different exprssions. You can have democratic socialists and revolutionary communists. Nazism in its ideology is always totalitarian and anti-democratic. That is an important distinction to understand.

I find that there are far too many people from the former East Block who have this attitude "I know what it is really like, because I lived through it."

Yes, you know what that particular kind of regime and ideology was like. You don't necessarily know socialism in a broader context. A lot of us have had other experiences having had actually democratically minded socialists in power. Our experience isn't any less valid. It is not like the most horrible and oppressive experience is the only true one.