I read somewhere that no protestant country ever went communist. How likely is it that living with a hierarchical, intrusive and controlling religion conditions people to accept a government of the same nature?
Perhaps, but every country that has essentially given up its Protestant heritage has replaced it with progressive socialism, including Britain, Germany, and the US. Even in Israel, you basically have the religious parties and the socialist parties. If you can't have faith in God, you have to replace it with faith in the one thing bigger than yourself, the government.
“I read somewhere that no protestant country ever went communist”
First, no country ever “went communist”. They had communist governments imposed upon them by force. No people of any country ever willingly accepted or supported communism.
Second, you do not know of the former East Germany which was a Protestant country that was taken over and controlled by communists.
It certainly is consoling to think of the historic Protestant countries this way, as bastions of faith and freedom: Latvia, Estonia, Finland, (oops, those three were Communist) the United Kingdom, northern Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway...
South Africa, Swaziland, Kenya, Botswana, Liberia, and Malawi aren't doing great, are they?
A lot of the Caribbean Islands are majority Protestant, and I don't think they're great bastions of freedom either.
several Protestant countries became communist...East Germany and Czechoslovakia come to mind.
And of course China was atheistic.