In East Germany in 1949, you had a left coalition like in the 1948 Italian election. It gained 66% of the vote to the 34% of the opposition. In the 1947 Hungarian election, the communists got the most votes.

So how come we never hear that Eastern Europe became communist democratically? After all, they can point to election numbers as you do. Well, the Red Army occupied them some say. But the US armed forces occupied Italy - they still do. Well, the USSR, a foreign power meddled in the elections. The US and CIA admit how massively they meddled in Italy's 1948 (and subsequent) elections.

I can easily say that the non-communist and non-communist aligned parties in Eastern Europe "didn't even come close to winning" after World War II and the people of those countries democratically decided to become communist. After all, Hungary became communist after World War I without Russian intervention, a fact few in the West remember.

It's odd to see the US and CIA admitting after decades they interfered in and fixed the Italian 1948 elections, yet you still hold up the phony results, yet everyone can easily discount the elections in eastern Europe after World War II, where Russia simply did the same thing the US did.