There's something to be said for the view that as long as an alternative was available in Socialism or Communism next door then the Capitalists would compromise and play benign with the citizenry. When the threat receded after the Soviet edifice began to crumble in the late eighties-nineties they no longer felt the need to compromise nor tolerate.
At the same time the apparent triumph of hard polemic Anti-communists (Thatcher and Reagan) gave impetus to a triumphalist attitude and hardening of conviction in the old capitalist states which acted to undermine or overwhelm any leftist tendencies in the Nordic/ North western European regions.

-Its frightening to see how thin the veneer of civilisation actually is in the capitalist West: as it wears through you can see the old racist /Nazi skin beginning to re-appear just beneath the surface.