Since I realize I have been overposting like an amphetamine-high freak, and since I don't think this conversation is going to go anywhere, I shall now cease after this final comment.
I think the "F-word" is so loaded with ideological and emotional connotations that it is extremely difficult for people to look at instances of actually existing F's. For instance, any F state must be the most evil state imaginable, even though I can easily rattle off a long list of names of regimes far more repressive than some of the F ones -- like those in China, Saddam's Iraq (hell, probably today's Iraq), North Korea, and loads of countries in the Middle East. Fuck, Cuba is likely more repressive than Fascist Italy. (Admittedly, none of these states are militarized or aggressive, except Iraq.)
I strongly suspect this is due to the attempt to shove all forms of F into a single bag with "Holocaust" written on it, and as well to a romanticized view of the Spanish Civil War (not that I know much of anything about the SCW).