Re: Communism vs. Facism
Start with the fundamental principles and ideas and the rest falls into line. You can cut through quite a bit of the crap by saying that some people believe most decisions in a society should be made by a powerful centralized authority, and some people don't.
You can apply that simple parameter across a great many "-isms" and a great many nations and societies in history, and get very consistent and nearly-identical results.
The rest of it is mostly semantic kabuki dancing, designed to draw you away from the obvious.