The hardline Communists in the Soviet Union were VERY conservative, and the fact that they were set the stage for their downfall. The Communists in Red China are also quite conservative, but they have been playing a much more clever game economically and have learned to adapt to new situations. Liberals who are also radicals start revolutions...conservatives soon take over the new system and proceed to entrench and defend its basic values while new liberals who are also radicals conspire against them. It was not the (Russian) conservatives who overthrew Communism in Russia, it was the (Russian) conservatives who defended it.

A conservative American is the sworn enemy of a conservative Communist. They hate one another because they are, in basic nature, so alike. They both want to perpetuate an existing form of massively centralized power (communist in one case, corporate in the other) and perpetuate rule over the many by the privileged few.