Imperial monarchies can transform into constitutional monarchies through democratization, with the progressive, or left, and conservative, or right, camps ruling by choice. Some imperial monarchies directly turn into “people’s democratic dictatorships” through communist revolutions, which are just communist dictatorships in practice. Based on leftist ideology, these so-called “people’s democracies” become communist autocratic regimes. Both left-wing and right-wing political parties have the potential to become authoritarian and totalitarian.
The right-wing regime of Adolf Hitler was a historical catastrophe, but was the left-wing regime of Joseph Stalin not also a historical catastrophe? And what about communist China under Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) rule? Whether right or left, only in a true democratic system can the meaning and value of progressivism and conservatism be realized.