Adopting the names of left leaning styles of government does nothing to change their actual oligarch and kleptocratic styles is leadership, so that does not apply.

Unless we’re to believe that Nazi Germany was somehow just a bunch of misguided socialists…

Soviet Russia wasn’t exactly a model of progressivism though— it was a rigidly hierarchical society with extreme wealth disparity.

Same for the other examples.

The NTS fallacy is about redefining terms to cherry-pick data. Those regimes don’t match any version of ‘progressive’ I’ve ever seen.

There was literally a slip split in the first international. You can’t blame those aligning with the lesser influential side for the things the authoritarians did. “The Left” is a far too broad concept to apply the No True Scotsman fallacy to.

Edit: typo

It is an inversion of it, actually. The sugar starts on the porridge, so the trueness of the Scotsman can’t be found.

Stalin wasn’t progressivism, actually the opposite, it was the conservative part of the party, that inspired the other dictators.

It’s a well documented fact that authoritarians utilize leftist terminology as the keystone of their propaganda/branding strategy. The masses, sadly, will always accept charismatic, strongly-worded branding over genuine ideals. There is nothing “no true scottsman” about it.