A far better comparison would be to the "hakencruz", or "crooked cross"-the Nazi symbol people mistakenly called a swastika- thdo so ie small number of people who fly the "hammer and sickle" flag today do so in support of the original ideals of the Russian Revolution that were betrayed by Lenin's vanguard party structure and then crushed by Stalin's right-wing Great Slavic Nationalist dictatorship. A Stalin could have emerged under any system or ideology-theflag which happened to be flying over Moscow in his day had nothing to do with his deeds. The Confederate and Nazi flags represented nothing but hatred, violence exploitation and slaughter: the hammer and sickle simply represents a betrayed dream of liberation which could always be revived and run as freely and beautifully as Stalin and Mao ran it ghoulishly. I hate Stalinism and Maoism as much as anyone, but the symbol cannot be held responsible for the deeds of those who betrayed and besmirched it.