These existed long before the concept of communism, we can debate communisms merits (of which it has some but not many) or we can actually discuss the crimes against humanity being perpetrated by a dual capitalist/communist society regardless of their political theory of choice.
We aren't talking about magnitude and frequency. If we were I could point out that communist governments tend to be younger and dealing with more domestic strife as a young government may lead to a higher likelihood of crimes being committed by the government regardless of political economic theory.
These phenomenons are not new and arguably were perfected before communism existed. Please don't muddy the waters to make this an attack on a political philosophy when these behaviors are an affront to human life regardless of who perpetrates them.
I think it's fair to note that there is a lot of correlation between these kinds of atrocities and communist regimes. It's also fair for you to note that correlation isn't causation, and the cause (or causes) could be other things, such as the age of the regime. To which others could rebut further (e.g., this isn't the 18th or 19th century any more / genocide and ethnic violence are now exceptional / there are lots of countries to model oneself after; a young government could be "forgiven" for violations by rogue officers or soldiers but atrocities perpetrated under communist governments are routinely top-down policy; etc). This is reasonable debate and it's how we understand and solve issues collectively. Analysis like this is exactly the opposite of "muddying the waters".
I agree with your point. I don't imagine the parent would dispute a link between the Nazis' genocides and a fascist ideology (or at least I hope he wouldn't), but for some reason trying to understand this atrocity through the lens of political ideology is "muddying the waters".
The problem is that communism centralizes control (obviously of the economy, but in effect many other things) and when control gets centralized, bad things like this are more likely to happen.
The same is true of centralization in democracy, but to a lessor effect due to the distributed nature of power in democracies.
Decentralization on its own isn't the answer either.
Look at what happened in USA after the Civil War. Progress was gradually erased on the state and town level. "States' rights" became a fig leaf for oppression of former slaves. The Constitution guaranteed them equal human rights, but reality was something different because the federal government gave up. It's hard to believe that this lasted until the 1960s.
These existed long before the concept of communism, we can debate communisms merits (of which it has some but not many) or we can actually discuss the crimes against humanity being perpetrated by a dual capitalist/communist society regardless of their political theory of choice.