I would point that witches, if you think of them as people who follow pagan doctrines and knowledge not sanctioned by church also existed. What did not exist wa

I would point that witches, if you think of them as people who follow pagan doctrines and knowledge not sanctioned by church also existed. What did not exist was old women flying in brooms. The medieval witch hunt existed to hunt ideology dangerous to the medieval status quo. If these real witches did not exist, the myth created by propaganda involving evil women flying in brooms also would not exist. Likewise, communists are also people with ideology anathema and dangerous to the current capitalist status quo. I also would point that while real communist exist, the propaganda of children-eater communists do not exist. But the exaggerated propaganda would not exist if the real thing did not exist. Anyway, communists always would be persecuted and vilified in a capitalist world because they are against private property, a central principle for capitalist societies. It does not matter if they try to advocate their ideas democratically via elections or not (Salvador Allende was violently overthrow anyway). This would change only if the ideology somehow become harmless to the status quo. Likewise, a medieval society never would allow pagan ideologies not aligned with the church, because this is against the core principle of medieval societies.