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It very much is. The campus protests and the crackdown on them are common in both, and Hamas and the Palestinian resistance also mirror the Viet Cong in both their tactics — using tunnels, taking hostages, guerilla warfare — and their goal of driving out the occupation and reuniting their country.
Just as capitalist states are “authoritarian” against working class interests, socialist states are “authoritarian” against capitalist interests.
The state is a tool for one class to oppress another. The goal of (most) communists is to transition from capitalism — where the capitalist class is in power — to a stateless, classless communist society via socialism — where the working class is in power.
Public perception of which is more “authoritarian” therefore depends on which class is currently in power and is able to manufacture consent, and that is the capitalist class in the vast majority of the world right now since the USSR’s overthrow.