Well, the Nazi's and Fascists were on the left. These Socialists stood just to the right of communism.
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"[Adolf Hitler on Nazism and socialism:] "Each activity and each need of the individual will thereby be regulated by the party as the representative of the general good. There will be no license, no free space, in which the individual belongs to himself. This is Socialism--not such trifles as the private possession of the means of production. Of what importance is that if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them then own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the party, is supreme over them, regardless whether they are owners or workers. All that, you see, is unessential. Our Socialism goes far deeper."
"Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings."
Adolf Hitler to Hermann Rauschning, quoted in The Ominous Parallels, by Leonard Peikoff C. 1982
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Any Questions?
The right-left model is something that the totalitarians use to describe themselves. Fascists on the right, communists on the left. I'm willing to accept their description of themselves. But, as you say, there is little practical difference between the two.
My point is that the old assumption that conservatives and libertarians are somewhere right of center of that continuum is false; the idea that believers in democracy are at the center, halfway between fascism and communism, is false. If you believe in liberty, you are not part of that model. If communism is on the left and fascism on the right, all that is at the "center" is just some blend of the two, which are not that different in any case.
Classic liberals should not allow themselves to be so characterized as "center" or "right of center".