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Comparing Communism to Fascism as ideologies is not quite the same as whether somebody identifying as a Communist is likely to be as unsavoury and dangerous a person as somebody identifying as a Fascist. You can make a strong case for the ideologies being equally antithetical to human freedom and happiness but faced with two lifts, one occupied by a bloke wearing a swastika and the other by one sporting a hammer and sickle, ok you'd take the stairs, but if you couldn't, if you had to get in one of these lifts, you'd surely join the commie. Anybody says otherwise I'm not believing them.

That’s cultural conditioning, though. Most of us of a certain age grew up on films depicting the evil Germans at war and with the holocaust front and centre as exhibit A of their evil. The gulag archipelago wasn’t even widely known in the west until our adulthood, and how many top billing films are there about it?

There certainly is some of that. But it's also the point about fascism having violence and hatred in its dna whereas communism to the naive or unwary can be an idealistic set of ideas centred on equality and the emancipation of the poor. The only ideal in fascism is the supremacy of a race or people or nation. And 'strongman' is a feature not a bug, ie it celebrates in concept authoritarian rule. So I'm going to cut less slack to somebody signing up for that compared to somebody saying they believe in communism. Not much, don't get me wrong, but to my mind there is a clear difference when boiled down to the individual believer in this way.

There’s also the motivations of the mass movements that both ideologies required. It’s understandable, rational and even admirable that a barely emancipated Russian peasant who can hardly feed his children would want a fairer redistribution of wealth, even if the ultimate consequences were terrible. You can fathom the motives of a comparatively privileged German bouncing off defeat in one imperial war wanting to make Germany great again by stealing from and destroying its own minorities and subjugating other nations, but it’s not close to admirable even if the end result was similarly awful for them.

Yes absolutely. This is a PB repeater, isn't it, Fascism v Communism, and it surprises me slightly that it is, because to me it's clear that whilst both are abominations only one is wholly without mitigation as to intent and motivation.

To anyone who lived in the twentieth century - or even knows any twentieth century history - both are reprehensible.

I was stronger - 'abominations' I went with.

Shall I tell you what really annoys me? (Among other things)

There are numerous people who (a) aren't good people, and (b) have been treated pretty poorly.

But somehow, because of the mistreatment, they are elevated to the position of martyr.

Lucy Connelly is one. She definitely didn't deserve the sentence she got (and probably didn't deserve a custodial one at all). But she is still someone who professed hersellf (at the very least) unbothered by people being burned to death. That's not a nice person.

And then there's Kilmar Armando Ábrego García. Even if you determine that the traffic stop in Tennessee was not him being involved in people smuggling, you still need to remember that his ex-wife got a protective order against him for domestic violence. He's also probably not a very nice person.

Finally there's Charlie Kirk. Should he have been shot? Hell no. People should be allowed to go around without fear of violence irrespective of their political views. But did he say some pretty vile things? Yeah... I think so.

I know. It's almost as if the world doesn't divide neatly into goodies and baddies*, heroes and villains, saints and sinners.
Nuances abound. All we can do is recognise this.
Lamemtably, millions do not.

*'baddie', now, my ten year old, giggling at the hopeless antiquity of her father, means a well presented young woman - the superlative of which is 'baddie boss'. But I'm confident most on here aren't reading in that sense.

Has communism worked anywhere?

I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked

Spain, perhaps

Chile, definitely

Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.

And the situation in Spain was also messy. The west worked very hard not to categorise Franco as fascist after WW2; undignified grovelling towards terrible people who might be useful isn't a novelty in diplomacy.

Besides, there was a Spanish economic miracle, but it came after junking the actual fascists from government, replacing them with Opus Dei technocrats to run the economy (as in da Vinci Code and Ruth Kelly) and softening the regime to another fairly standard military dictatorship. Spain under Phase One Francoism was going absolutely nowhere.

Speaking of Opus Dei and Roman Catholicism, the Duchess of Kent's funeral today at Westminster Cathedral was the first Roman Catholic funeral of a member of our royal family since the early 16th century

Has communism worked anywhere?

I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked

Spain, perhaps

Chile, definitely

Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.

And the situation in Spain was also messy. The west worked very hard not to categorise Franco as fascist after WW2; undignified grovelling towards terrible people who might be useful isn't a novelty in diplomacy.

Besides, there was a Spanish economic miracle, but it came after junking the actual fascists from government, replacing them with Opus Dei technocrats to run the economy (as in da Vinci Code and Ruth Kelly) and softening the regime to another fairly standard military dictatorship. Spain under Phase One Francoism was going absolutely nowhere.

Speaking of Opus Dei and Roman Catholicism, the Duchess of Kent's funeral today at Westminster Cathedral was the first Roman Catholic funeral of a member of our royal family since the early 16th century

I'm sorry to be really pedantic, but Mary I had a Requiem Mass at Westminster Abbey in 1558.

Shall I tell you what really annoys me? (Among other things)

There are numerous people who (a) aren't good people, and (b) have been treated pretty poorly.

But somehow, because of the mistreatment, they are elevated to the position of martyr.

Lucy Connelly is one. She definitely didn't deserve the sentence she got (and probably didn't deserve a custodial one at all). But she is still someone who professed hersellf (at the very least) unbothered by people being burned to death. That's not a nice person.

And then there's Kilmar Armando Ábrego García. Even if you determine that the traffic stop in Tennessee was not him being involved in people smuggling, you still need to remember that his ex-wife got a protective order against him for domestic violence. He's also probably not a very nice person.

Finally there's Charlie Kirk. Should he have been shot? Hell no. People should be allowed to go around without fear of violence irrespective of their political views. But did he say some pretty vile things? Yeah... I think so.

Also George Floyd, whose death managed to change the Western world