Even from people that never lived in a communist state
edit: im 17 and i hate communism
The more you know.
Even NATOPedia thinks they’re synonyms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_bourgeoisie
The only time they’re not synonyms is when the capitalist class finds kayfabe democracy insufficient, at which point they deploy fascism. That’s what’s been developing in many Western capitalist states around the world in recent years. The working class is more and more agitated by their deteriorating conditions under neoliberalism. Even the petit bourgeois feel threatened. The far-right surge isn’t organic, though: the capitalist class fuels it to maintain their position.
You scratch some accuratish points now that the comment is redone from the pre-edit slip-up.
Let’s sum it all to the audience: Western capitalist states are being agitated with far-right surges by the Eastern capitalist states to cause internal instability with have the same foreign sources, and yes, targeting to mislead the working classes. Even the “moderate” right wingers let that happen because they’d rather have fascists in power than lose capitalism.
Basically capitalists are infighting between the previous topic of bourgeois democracy & bourgeois dictatorship camps. East and West have integrated fascism in their systems, just with slightly different methods. Western capitalism that voting makes a difference, eastern capitalism lies that their dictatorships are something else and just a facade of fascism.
Both are pretty obvious ‘open secrets’ / kayfabe. Even the states don’t act like this with straight faces and many from the populations see through it all (and displays fascist state lie parrots as pretty comical — but it just bolsters the suffering). The critical mass is still in theater mode, which is enough for the oligarchies as it prevents revolutionary action.