That's quite a cool find...
And Furman's run on Tfs certainly made them into very emotional beings, conflicted and very 'human'. Wildman's art added more to the human aspect with his drawings of faces, etc.
It seems to what we know today that Soundwave is mis-speaking there, maybe in his point of view the Decepticons are a superior race (ala how Aryans, etc., considered themselves a superior race), as opposed to just separating a race by two factions... instead of factions it seems he is considering them to be separate races from the same, kind of like how African Americans, and Caucasians are described as different races, but still we are all part of the human race sharing many qualities, etc...