Wonderful stuff, guys.

I wouldn’t select the existence of secret police as a concomitant of communism. Even we have secret police, as did the Nazis etc etc.

I think more specific to communism were closed borders where you could be shot for trying to escape the workers’ paradise.

I spent almost three years in West Germany in the US Army in the mid-60s. The inner German border to the DDR was an obscenity.

In my time it had a double-apron barbed wire fence with an inverted triangular sign with a skull and crossbones in the middle and at each side; Achtung! Minen! DDR.

On the other side of the fence was a minefield and 10m of frequently raked sand which would show deep footprints if anyone ventured towards the fence.

Farther over was a weird road made of Besser blocks on their sides and about every 20 minutes a pissy-sounding commie 2 stroke motorcycle with a sidecar and two armed soldiers would go by.

I think that kind of border is the perfect illustration of the big lie of communism and the workers paradise.

We have to put up a border fence to keep people out. The commies have to put up a border fence (or wall) to keep their own citizens in under pain of death.