It could be in the History forum

[Rhyfelwyr]

In the historical sense, it was. For example, the Spanish Civil War.

Spanish Anarchists (on the left) versus Conservative Dictatorship led by Franco (on the right)
Libertarian Forces versus Authoritative Forces

This is only one particular example, and even then I think you are simplifying things too much. The Spanish Republicans were a mix of everything from anarchists to authoritarian communists (some groups even taking orders from Moscow), to nationalists that wanted freedom from Madrid.

Further to the left meant more liberty, more freedoms, rights, and measures against authority, such as the separation of powers, to the point to basically anarchy, in the sense of no authoritative forces.
Further to the right meant more restrictions of freedoms, rights, and measures of authority, such as enforcement of serfdom, feudal rights, totalitarian powers.

But only when talking about the situation in Spain. The exact opposite is true in other cases.

I'm not trying to drive the line that people on the left want big government and want to steal our freedoms. The point is just that the left and right have at different times stood for authoritarian measures, and other times they haven't.

Probably the thing that confuses this issue most is the fact we put market liberals and fascists under the one label of being 'right-wing'. Remember, to people in the 30's/40's, fascism was seen as the 'third way' to drive a middle ground between the excesses of communism/capitalism.

The rise of the left in Europe resulted in the breakdown of many monarchies and feudal states into constitutional monarchies (such as Britain), Republics (such as France), etc.

In what way could the events of the seventeenth century in Britain be said to have been lead by the left? There was no such things at that time (apart from fringe groups). Even Marxist historians portray Britian's constitutional monarchy as a result of a bourgeoisie revolution.

Communism in those stages meant something else compared to the USSR, which was a left-backed revolution which was perverted from within. More accurate version of Communism would be the Paris Commune or the Communist forces of Spain. Since the USSR was perverted by ursurper powers from within, it shifted across to the other side of the spectrum and onto the right, and kept the name as merely a guise.

While some people might apply to no true Scotsman fallacy here, I tihink you have a fair point. However, I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation of what communism is. Marx called for a lot of measures that seem out of touch with your views on the left and individual liberty, for example he called for the extermination of minority ethnic groups that might be anti-revolutionary. He was also very critical of the more moderate forms of socialism and even the likes of Robert Owen (might actually have been Engels that spoke out against him) since he thought they only delayed the revolution.

This gets more confusing in international debates as America has this perverse scale based on economics and not authority.

I would say ideology is the best way to measure things, and even then it would require far more than one straight line from left-right. I don't even know why we feel this need to ram everything into one nice and easy black and white worldview, if you think about it its pretty ridiculous to think politics will ever be that simple.