The Proto-Indo-European words for axle and horse are reconstructed as *h₂eḱs and *h₂éḱwos, so I'm not sure you can make a strong argument that *nókʷts (night) changed more than them.

I'd even go so far as to say that the inadvertent suppression of democracy due to "fear of communism" wasn't inadvertent at all. As much as the West loves democracy, they really only seem to want it when it's to their benefit. A democratic resource-rich nation might have a bunch of annoying citizens that vote not to allow the systematic exploitation of their country. Dictatorships and juntas are much more reliable to control.