Brutal, totalitarian communist works for me.
Those of the authoritarian bent make liberal use of words like “democracy”. That’s all they are to them - just words. Nothing democratic about them.
There is a difference in the way that people map political systems or ideologies.
Traditionally, a lot of people look at a spectrum of politics, and they look at the left on one side of the spectrum, and the right on the other side.
I don’t think, this is accurate, and I think a more representative model of political ideology is one that has full totalitarian government at one end of the spectrum, and total anarchy (no government) at the other end of the spectrum.
I think this is more accurate, And in this model, ideologies, such as fascism and communism are clustered at one end of the spectrum… The exact same end of the spectrum actually.
The fact that communism and fascism are actually not that far from each other was well recognized, leading up to World War II, where the Germans And the Soviets each recognized that there were people within their ideological sphere who were fully and willingly susceptible to being ideologically captured by the other side.
That is, a communist could in the right circumstances become fascist, and a fascist could readily be made a communist, regardless of the words that came out of their mouths.
It was coldly recognized that the other side was fertile recruiting ground for their own side.
And vice versa.