Everything you say here is spot on. There was a quote posted a while back here on FR written in the New York Times circa 1925-ish. I want to say it was Goebbels, yes the Nazi, who stated (paraphrase) that there was not a dimes worth of difference between the Commies and the Nazis.
Nazis and Communists were like the Bloods and the Crips, no real difference, other than the uniforms, just two gangs fighting over the same “turf.”