Understandings about the meanings of words matter.Although our modern socialists' promise of greater freedom is genuine and sincere, in recent years observer after observer has been impressed by the unforeseen consequences of socialism, the extraordinary similarity in many respects of the conditions under 'communism' and 'fascism'. As the writer Peter Drucker expressed it in 1939,That is, communism did not work in Russia, but although the government accepted that as a reality, it did not admit it. Thus, it continued to call itself communists when in fact it was fascist. We think of Stalin, Mao, et al as communist - but where the rubber meets the road, all communists are fascists.'the complete collapse of the belief in the attainability of freedom and equality through Marxism has forced Russia to travel the same road toward a totalitarian society of unfreedom and inequality which Germany has been following. Not that communism and fascism are essentially the same. Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany.