But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. 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 dumbass lib doesn't know what they're talking about. "Authoritarianism" is a nonsense concept. Especially when you consider the authoritarianism of capitalism. If anything, the authoritarianism of Marxist movements is a good thing. It's what allows them to destroy the servants of reaction. Neither the Bolsheviks nor the CPC would have made it very far if they were unwilling to suppress anti-communists.
We've seen what happens when leftists insist on being "anti-authoritarian." Their movement is quickly infiltrated and subverted by reactionaries or they become liberal as they're unwilling to purge opportunists.
The lib in this discussion is right that Marxism results in authoritarianism, but that's what's required for any revolution to be successful, regardless of the revolution's ideology.
--Fredrick Engels, 1874
Full text here.
The dumbass lib doesn't know what they're talking about. "Authoritarianism" is a nonsense concept. Especially when you consider the authoritarianism of capitalism. If anything, the authoritarianism of Marxist movements is a good thing. It's what allows them to destroy the servants of reaction. Neither the Bolsheviks nor the CPC would have made it very far if they were unwilling to suppress anti-communists.
We've seen what happens when leftists insist on being "anti-authoritarian." Their movement is quickly infiltrated and subverted by reactionaries or they become liberal as they're unwilling to purge opportunists.
The lib in this discussion is right that Marxism results in authoritarianism, but that's what's required for any revolution to be successful, regardless of the revolution's ideology.