It's not a misplaced fear. But it's not the people the communists need to fear the most, it's usually their closest friends, colleagues, and family who do them in.
Yeah, all you have to do is watch the Kim Klan over in NK. The knives there are always out and busy. Now if only Farrakhan would only take out the “two reverends,” or maybe they all go in a circular firing squad. We could have “rev Wright” officiate at their joint funeral, where the mourners could sing a couple of verses of GD Amerika.
Shortly after Lenin came to power he survived 2 assassination attempts. The more famous one was by a woman called Fanya Kaplan.
From wiki
Kaplan said during her interrogation that she considered Lenin to be “a traitor to the Revolution” for dissolving the Constituent Assembly and for outlawing other leftist parties