Hi Hive account@littleboy, what a topic.
I am from the Czech Republic (part of the former communist block) and to mention communism is still really very painfull for some people, current existence of the communist party itself is, in my opinion, slap in the face to all its victims.
I was only four during the fall of the Berlin war, so I did not experience the tough part of communism but when I ask my parents, especially my father, he thinks of it as a dark era, where one had to be careful on each step and prison was a living and very real threat.
Everything was possible if you had "a friend" on the right place (shopping, university, etc...) Once he said to me, it was like a living in a glass bowl, you know something is going on out there, but you never know how much the glass interfere your sight.
Well, I think the basic ideology has some nice thoughts, but the way it was used and crippled to rule over countries, this is what I truly hate and view as bad! Equality? Where?! Equality for those who blindly followed (seemin´one) and not at all equal shit for those who disobeyed...