It was known to those paying attention.
As a typical LIV of the times, I had no clue.
I suspect a lot of my generation was also clueless.
News was what your parents listened to while you were doing HS homework or grooving to the beat (or whatever –).
Then the Vietnam War and Watergate sucked all the oxygen out of the college room.
I don’t consider myself uneducated — I even have an MA in Political Science! — but I don’t remember ever hearing about the massive murders in Russia even in the context of studying the Cuban Missile Crisis: the Soviets were our enemies because they were Communists, and none of the details of WHY were brought up.
I suspect that was deliberate on the part of some professors, who were left-leaning (not yet all of them!) and not inclined to sully the Soviets, and the others assumed you somehow knew it already and so it wasn’t talked about (that happens a lot in academia).

Enough was known about it by the 60s and 70s that IMHO there was no excuse for being sympathetic to that cause.

It was actually in 1956 that many of the Soviet crimes were revealed. See this. Among many American Communists at the time, that caused them to either renounce Communism or to at least experience some disillusionment and become less active in the cause. It was a real watershed.

Now, in my dotage, I have finally come to hate all Communists (even those that hide underneath the “socialist” coverlet.). American Communists especially.

* * *
If I might venture: in (our) salad days – sixties and early seventies – the extent of the deliberate carnage in Soviet Russia and other Communist-style countries was still not general knowledge. Duranty and the NYT, but other MSM outlets as well, simply didn’t push the facts out to the public.
So, the Red-diaper-babies (are historians of the future going to wonder why 21st-century Republicans in the Deep South are being called “communists”?) had a somewhat excusable naivete about their ideological masters.

Now, with all that has been revealed about the communists of Russia, Asia, and the southern Americas, that excuse has been shredded and burned.

They support Communism KNOWING that it is an ideology that inevitably, unavoidably, kills people and destroys lives, and they are fighting to impose it on the USA anyway.

Hate is perhaps not too strong an emotion.

That’s what I don’t understand. Has TDS made them incapable of reason? It appears so. For such as me, (with one foot in the grave, but still trying to live) it just doesn’t compute. I have experienced anger , even rage, but I never (at least IMO) was suicidal.

Once again, the only real remedy is a resounding defeat for the Dems up and down the ticket in November. Praying that Lee Smith is right.

Well, yes… And indeed “stifling regulation, deficit spending, high taxes, anti-business policies, etc.” is certainly destructive enough as it goes…but it’s been shown to take TOO FREAKING LONG…
…and so (Thus Sprach Czar-Obama)…the time has come to fast track (“Our patience is not infinite”(?); “The Transformation of America (Inc.) has been delayed long enough by those deplorable criminals”(?): yes, it is time to BURN UP those racist cities, incinerate those racist neighborhoods, destroy those racist small businesses, but also (to be fair) the racist bigger ones, too.
All the while claiming the new “divine right” of thugs (AKA “social justice”, well, supra-ethical thugs, let’s call them) AND—this, of course, is the key—blaming to the hilt Trump and his nefarious minions of fallen fifth columnists—deplorables all—who are gung ho on destroying the American Dream, according to those supra-ethical thugs and their masters and supporters in the Democratic Party and the MSCM).

Yessir, it’s Good (sura-ethical thugs) vs. Evil (racist deplorable)!

(But then we all knew that….)

As for the end game, well it goes like this:
1.
The VIOLENCE spreads and ramps up (remember: all Trump’s fault, of course).
And so Trump’s hand is forced—which is the violence-spreaders dearest hope (even if, in the same breath, Trump is the violence spreader—and he must finally crack down…) Yes, THE TYRANT must finally crack down—which is what HE wanted to do from the very outset you see, which is PROOF—remember, these geniuses are Russia Hoaxers—that HE instigated the violence from the outset—very clever, that Trump monster.)
2.
AND/OR—-no, let’s go with “AND”, actually—the widespread, unrelenting VIOLENCE means that holding elections becomes very, very tricky, perhaps even (nigh?) impossible. WHICH IS WHY—obviously!—THE ONLY WAY TO HOLD ELECTIONS IS BY GOING POSTAL…which Trump will NOT agree to. Hence, Trump, THE TYRANT…. (see #1, above)…. In fact, precisely because of the violence—TRUMP-INSPIRED, of course—elections might (gasp!) have to be delayed!! (Which makes TRUMP a SUPER-TYRANT and his supporters SUPER-DEPLORABLES all…(see #1 above).

3. Conclusion:
And so it is clearly proven (see #1 and #2 above) that Trump is a TYRANT who MUST be destroyed. Taken out. Dealt with.
Ditto for all supporters of THE TYRANT.
SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS, right? I mean, hey, we all know THAT. At least that. (Just make sure you look where you’re leaping after the deed is done…)

….which probably means we’re either looking at another round of impeachment proceedings, or even—because the Dear, Beloved Republic just can’t afford to wait—a hard coup.

(Well, you did ask….)

Pb seems to work curing stupid,