This is so ill-informed it makes my head hurt. Putin is a right-wing, capitalist, nationalist dictator, not a communist one. The west helped him into power partly because they feared a resurgence of communism in Russia after the disastrous Yeltsin years, and trusted him to do whatever it took to stop it.
The best and simplest explanation I had for this came from my history teacher.
Political divide is not a straight line moving either left or right from the centre.
It's circular.
Take that straight line and put the ends together.