I was in 9th grade humanities class and tried to argue that point to the idiot teacher in charge, and got swatted down.
Fascism and Communism are both variations of statism.
The American Republic would be in the middle. Democracy would be closer to anarchy.
A one-dimensional model is too simplistic anyway—there are more than just two forces at work. And socialism, statism, communism, tyranny, etc. are all different sides of the same thing. It takes a lot of vigilance to maintain a system where government has enough power to function, but not enough to become a nuisance, let alone an intolerable dictatorship.