Attitudes to Communism and Facism

I long supported the idea that a person who describes people such as Stalin, Mao Zedong, Lenin, Fidel Castro etc as 'heros' or 'good men' is no better than the person who would say the same about Hitler.

People such as Stalin and Mao killed far more people than Hitler. They selected their victims on the basis of who their parents were (in an attempt to eliminate a 'class enemy' gene, one assumes), visiting the iniquities of the father on the child. They deliberately created a state of fear for those who weren't directly thrown into an environment of starvation, forced labour, disease, brutality and deprivation. Those who wear the hammer and sickle, or the Che t-shirt should hang their heads with the shame we would expect them to feel if they were forced to wear a Swastika.

Here is an article which I feel articulates my feelings very well. Alex Deane (debater) wrote a similar article a while ago, too.