On the Question of Authoritarianism

The term “authoritarian” is a word often utilized in slander campaigns against socialist states like the former USSR, the current DPRK, and Cuba. The term itself is often utilized in capitalist propaganda to oppose any move towards scientific socialism, it stems from liberalism.

In this same regard, it is to no surprise the “Anti-Authoritarian” anarchists and left-communists have sided with the capitalists in their slander against socialist states for authoritarianism.

Even Marx and Engels had to deal with these arguments of authoritarianism.

As Engels once said:

“Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case, they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.”

The workers realize that this authoritarian demand for revolution is a direct result of suppression by the capitalists. The capitalists, suppressing the democratic demands of the workers, who collectively call for socialism, will learn that, if democracy of the people is suppressed, then that democracy must be forced by authoritarian measures if needed. It is the workers who, out of this radical democratic consideration, have called for blood of those who suppressed and abused them.

As Lenin said:

“Revolutions are festivals of the oppressed and exploited”

The anti-authoritarians, these opportunists who understand not the reality of the people, but instead stick to slandering the will of the people who built their ideal socialist state against all odds and aggression of their enemies.

Reformists, often the most loudest anti-authoritarians and biggest bootlickers of the capitalist system, participate alongside the anarchists and left-communists in the slander of the workers who united and partook in the destruction of the capitalist state and brought from its ashes their own state. The anti-authoritarians with their arguments of “But what about the dictatorship” or “The bureaucracy” or “Gulags and executions” are the same people who would in turn lick the boots of the capitalist bureaucracy/dictatorship, or build a bureaucracy of their own and would put in place gulags of their own vision and execute those who stood in their way. The socialist revolution and building of the socialist state stems from its very root the subject of democracy, for it was a collective majority of working people who demanded socialism, just to be suppressed by the capitalists, and in turn from that democratic demand, revolted to protect their demand.

Anti-Authoritarians call themselves the true revolutionaries, but they are anything but. Revolutionaries are those willing to guide, to unite, to push to the outcome of scientific socialism at all costs. However, these anti-authoritarians have done nothing but try to hinder it, it distracting the workers from revolutionary activities, to argue for bourgeoisie “democratic” measures in reaching socialism, or, act in a way that destroys the revolutionaries. Such examples are Fanya Kaplan, who tried to kill Lenin because she seen him as a traitor to the revolution. This was her statement to the Cheka:

“My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot at Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution. I was exiled to Akatoi for participating in an assassination attempt against a Tsarist official in Kiev. I spent eleven years at hard labour. After the Revolution I was freed. I favoured the Constituent Assembly and am still for it.”

http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/09/03/1918-fanya-kaplan-lenins-would-be-assassin/

These anti-authoritarians will slander actual revolutionaries and successful socialist states, or, if the revolutionaries are growing, will act in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and try to kill them.

The fact is, authoritarianism is nothing more than a slur by our enemies, who seek to distract the workers with mindless rhetoric, to keep them questioning the call of radical democracy; for socialism. With the understanding of authoritarianism, there can be no peaceful road to the socialist goal, for the enemies of socialism will deploy all extremes to crush it, thus, the extreme to enforce the will of the people, the socialist goal, must be taken; this extreme is revolution and the suppression of capitalist bootlickers and foot soldiers. It is either radical proletarian democracy or death.