History Analysis / TheHorseshoeEffect

While fascists and communists have not shared the world stage (or even the political stage in one country) very often, they were not always as violently opposed to one another as it might seem. During the UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic for instance both the NSDAP (aka the Nazi Party) and the KPD (the communist party) ran on nationalist populism, opposed the treaty of Versailles, tried to get votes by introducing popular ballot measures and even voted and introduced measures of no confidence in unison. It is to be noted that despite that "shared" populism, [[TooMuchAlike they were vehemently opposed to each other]], and violent, and sometimes deadly, fights between the two sides were not uncommon. Of course, once the Nazis took over in 1933, one of their first acts was to throw the communists and the socialists into jail and later on communists did provide many resistance fighters, even though some communists entered the SA and the NSDAP surprisingly fast upon the Nazi takeover, but then, we have to point out that there was also a certain amount of conservatives, liberals, centrists, social-democrats/socialists who also more than willingly joined the newly established Nazi power.

While fascists and communists have not shared the world stage (or even the political stage in one country) very often, they were not always as violently opposed to one another as it might seem. During the UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic for instance both the NSDAP (aka the Nazi Party) and the KPD (the communist party) ran on nationalist populism, opposed the treaty of Versailles, tried to get votes by introducing popular ballot measures and even voted and introduced measures of no confidence in unison. It is to be noted that despite that "shared" populism, they were vehemently opposed to each other, and violent, and sometimes deadly, fights between the two sides were not uncommon. Of course, once the Nazis took over in 1933, one of their first acts was to throw the communists and the socialists into jail and later on communists did provide many resistance fighters, even though some communists entered the SA and the NSDAP surprisingly fast upon the Nazi takeover, but then, we have to point out that there was also a certain amount of conservatives, liberals, centrists, social-democrats/socialists who also more than willingly joined the newly established Nazi power.

Similarly, a NecessarilyEvil act by a government seeking to root out dangerous terrorists in the interest of protecting their people can be virtually indistinguishable from a WitchHunt by SecretPolice seeking to stamp out political opposition. When human nature and paranoia creep in, the difference can become erased entirely. For instance, take an official government hearing tasked with seeking out subversives, radicals, and threats to the people... and then compare this suppression of Syndicalism and Democratic Centralism under Lenin to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee House Un-American Activities Committee]].
Likewise, later commentators find parallels between the American RedScare and use of mass-media to develop anti-communist propaganda to be a mirror image of Stalinist persecution (albeit far less violent) and propaganda.