It is a continuation of a historic West-imitation that's as old as taking on Roman Catholicism or adopting the Renaissance in Matthias Corvinus' court.

Hungarians in the 80s didn't long for some different philosophical organization of society. They wanted the cool Western things, good home appliances, higher salaries, vacations abroad, jeans, shoes, porn magazines, Western pop rock punk music, Coca Cola, McDonald's etc.

So shortly after the change of system in 1989 edgier kids also started to adopt the teen rebel fashion including Che. Just like there were a few goths and emo kids in every class later on. And today it's kpop and whatever is trending on tiktok.

Western Kids larp communism so eastern kids larp the larp. Its not unlike importing Buddhism and mindfulness from California. People adopt it because it is cool in the West and adopt the western interpretation of it.

Imagine if a hip Indian tech worker in Bangalore adopts Californian Buddhism. It would not be because of the local history of Buddhism, but the coolness factor put on it by Silicon Valley. It's like when pizza was backimported to all of Italy, after it got popular in America, even though it was a much more local thing in a small part of Italy before.

They would had GLADLY spit on the graves of every Communist they came across. Killed so many members of my family.

- a theoretical economic model that is opposed to capitalism

- the atrocious regimes of the 20th century calling themselves communism you are referring to that have vanishingly few things to do with the first.

Vanishingly few people in Western Europe support these atrocious regimes. And therefore, communism the way you are using it. What's more, there's not much propaganda for communism here (I believe there was propaganda in the past, though). The confusion is usually here and people mostly don't see communism with a good eye because of the confusion (or because they are knowledgeable and oppose the theory - which is a better reason to be against it). Now, it's true that we have weaker feelings about it than in the US (and, I guess, the parts of the words that suffered from the atrocious regimes).

(The usual response to this is that theoretical communism invariably leads to these atrocious regimes, but I believe we don't know this - invariably, it seems they've been set up by possibly sadist assholes with huge egos and thirsts for power, we haven't tried without - as well as we don't know if it would work. I don't have any further useful point to make in this discussion so I probably won't engage in it.)

As a Hungarian, this is just not true. The Western view of communism has been imported and the more time goes on, the more the younger generations base their views on what's cool in the West vs what their old and uncool grandparents blabber on about.

With the Internet and media and travel options and exchange semesters etc. the Western European attitude is diffusing into the east as well. It was already cool to wear Che t shirts 20 years ago in Budapest. Though of course Budapest has always been a West oriented cosmopolitan liberal city, so copying the west in this is not so surprising.

Worship of this mass murderer is repugnant:

“We don’t need proof to execute a man. We only need proof that it’s necessary to execute him.”

“We executed many people by firing squad without knowing if they were fully guilty. At times, the Revolution cannot stop to conduct much investigation.”

“My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood…I’d like to confess, Papa, at that moment I discovered that I really like killing.”

“We must eliminate all newspapers; we cannot make a revolution with free press.”

“We send to Guanahacabibes [i.e., Cuban labor camp] people who have committed crimes against revolutionary morals…it is hard labor…the working conditions are harsh…”