I don’t recommend dehumanizing anybody, not even our oppressors, but my interest in that is not so much for engaging their viewpoints as it is for seeing our oppressors realistically. The very same Axis personnel who committed horrific atrocities against thousands of innocents could also still give the impression of being well adjusted, polite, neighbourly people, at least when they were off‐duty. I remember reading somewhere about psychologists who tested surviving Axis war criminals but failed to find signs of insanity.
Dehumanization serves a purpose for anticommunists because it encourages them to shoot first and ask questions later (if ever). They’re less likely to feel pangs of conscience as long as they see their targets as inhuman, thereby continuing to do their jobs. There have been some exceptions in history, like Milovan Popović, but generally speaking anticommunists find it easier, faster, and less expensive to simply imprison or massacre us than address the root causes of our grievances.