That was PR. According to his 1971 development notes as well as his own statements at the time and those of Walter Murch, he specifically modeled the Empire after us Americans, and the Rebels if anything were meant to be the Vietcong (and worse, tastelessly implied that the American Minutemen were exactly like the Vietcong).
If you wonder why I root for the Empire now instead of the Rebel Alliance (I rooted for the Rebels as a kid partly BECAUSE I thought they were meant to be Americans. Lucas crushed that view back in 2012.), that’s why. I don’t like rooting for Communists, ESPECIALLY if I only did so due to being tricked. And it looks like you fell for it as well.
He always had absolute hatred and contempt for all of mankind. He just hid it well.
Currently, Lucas is among the most intellectually dishonest people alive.
However, flashback to Lucas of 1977 Star Wars for this little gem to solidify my point about his own correlations between the Galactic Empire and the Soviet Union, per the article referenced below:
“Biggs has no patience for these excuses. “What good’s all your uncle’s work if the Empire takes it over? You know they’ve already started to nationalize commerce in the central systems? It won’t be long before your uncle’s just a tenant slaving for the greater glory of the Empire.” (Scene runs from 2:38 to 5:42 time stamp.)
That one line of dialogue transforms the Empire from a militaristic antagonist with an entirely unknown policy agenda to a totalitarian government with a state-run economy that bears a strong resemblance to both Hitler’s National Socialism and Stalin’s “socialism in one country.”
The scene in which Biggs urges Luke to fight to defend the free market may not have made it into the final film, but the implications it makes about Imperial economic policy live on. According to Wookiepedia, an online encyclopedia of the Star Wars expanded universe, Emperor Palpatine’s version of the anti-capitalist policies of his Nazi and Soviet counterparts was known as “imperialization,” a program that included “the state control and centralization of economic procedures… [and] commercial enterprises.” A major subplot in the recent novel Star Wars: Thrawn shows how imperialization ruined the mining planet Lothal, replacing innovation with cronyism and leading to forced labor, environmental destruction, and a massacre of peaceful protestors.”
We can go back and forth all day about what Lucas and the Disney psychopaths currently say/do.
However, upon close inspection of Biggs’ talking points to Luke, the Empire’s collectivization efforts are straight out of the Soviet playbook.