You're not wrong to think of them in those terms.
If you want to define things like that, go ahead, but the original definitions are useful.
Precise language gives us a better understanding of what we're up against.
Well exactly, when you call them progressives and think they are different from commies, you are playing exactly into their propaganda to make people believe that they are 'not' communist psycopaths
Progressivism is every bit as totalitarian and destructive as communism, but is a distinct ideology that allows the adherents a more believable false claim of having the moral high ground.
Both were offshoots of the revolutionary spirit unleashed in France in 1789.