Reference to Yves Simon by Eugene Kennedy led me to this:
Communism and national socialism have come to resemble each other in so many respects that their historical diversity and their lasting opposition arouse wonder. In spite of common features that are profound and increasingly obvious, they prove altogether repugnant to effecting any kind of merger.
The task of fighting them would be greatly eased if followers, actual and potential, were led to believe that one system, i.e., the one which appeals to them, is substantially identical with the other, i.e., the one which they hate; but such identification never was very successful as a polemical instrument.
Conservatives in the 1930’s were given a fair chance to understand that naziism was but brown bolshevism;{1} yet many of them helped the Nazis. Today it seems that it should be easy for all concerned to recognize in communism the very features that they hated most in naziism; but not all do.
It’s from Simon’s Philosophy Of Democratic Government (Amazon). You can read it online here.
The Kennedy reference is to his and his wife Sara Charles’s 1997 book, Authority: The Most Misunderstood Idea in America, which I have even now waiting for me at the OP library.
As for the two-colors business, I wrote about liberalism as fascism for the Wed. Journal of OP&RF late in the ’08 campaign. This horrified leftist Oak Parkers, fascism being a word the left reserves for its enemies.
I argued that excessive governmental power (authority) was common to fascism and, for that matter, socialism. Will have to stay with Y. Simon et al. to see to what extent they back me up. As Bob McClory says in his comment below, with “perhaps even enlightenment” for me.
Blithe Spirit 