Ender, socialism claims itself as the "true" form of democracy. It's just another interpretation of the word "democracy", you can share it or not. It's aplication in the real world, has commonly derived in autocratic governments, ergo the socialist system has flaws, as well as capitalism has its own flaws (poverty, exclusion, etc.).
But you can always remain with the theory, and its allegiance to democracy (a very particular sense of democracy). The nazis, on the other hand, defined theirselves as an anti-democratic movement... Which is why they are more easily accepted as the bad guys anywhere in the world you can be.
So summing up, OT feels universal because the bad guys are universally evil. Not politically evil. The Empire is against life itself, not against free market, and that's why you, and a cuban could feel the same way towards SW.
I just find it hard to express these kind of things in a foreign language, and just wanna point out that the aim of this post wasn't to keep on with the off-topic but to (intend to) make a point about the universality of a story, and the risk of destroying it.
PS: I just found out you could (considering my english isn't pretty good) read this better in JRR Tolkien's "On fairy tales" and "Letters". (when he speaks of allegories).