Draft of my writing have fun reading.
On Authoritarianism
The modern use of the term authoritarianism is not rooted in the core of Marxism, Dialectical analysis, and by proxy, the scientific method, which we use to understand our revolutionary struggle against capital. It is no longer a term of true Marxists; it is the tool of the revisionist and of the sophist to shut down historical analysis of Socialist states and revolutions. In doing so, denouncing and diluting our revolutionary path, which is forged in the study of our historical victories and failures.
We must understand that authority, the imposition of ones will over another's, is an infallible core of our society. The Industrial revolution and the factories and industry which followed requires the workers to give up their own autonomy to one of the collectives to maintain it. As Engels explains within On Authority,
"We have seen, besides, that the material conditions of production and circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority. Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with the various phases of the development of society."
Authority, as expertly concluded, is neither good nor evil. We are not moralists. It is the inevitable outcome of the advancement and the increasing complexity of means of production that powers our revolutionary movement. Within the question of authority, whether we reject or accept authority, we must first understand who is holding that authority, who is the oppressor, and who are the oppressed. We, as Marxists, will reject the authority of the bourgeoisie, but we must come to accept the authority of the proletariat, the revolutionary class that will bring forth liberation of all classes under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Authority to Marxism
Now, one may shout that Engel used the term "What has changed?" The Historic use of authoritarianism in Marxist theory is one of dispelling critiques of Anarchists, which rely on the idea that authority is the core of oppression within society, and that an Anarchist revolution would rid us of these chains. Of course, historically, anarchist revolutions have failed to rid themselves of authority, and even of the state. Authoritarianism, or the use of authority, is the core of all revolutions, as Engels correctly states again in On Authority.
"A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is an act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon, all of which are highly authoritarian means. And the victorious party must maintain its rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted more than a day if it had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie?"
We have as Marxists have moved far past the need to use our time to defend ourselves from Anarchists Critique making our needed use of Authoritarian and Authoritarianism useless within discussions. Nonetheless, some supposed Marxists will denounce previous Proletarian revolutions and states as authoritarian and parade their enlightened morality above others. The most noticeable form of this is the denunciation of Lenin, Stalin, and of Marxist Leninism as a whole. These cowardly insults and rejections of these revolutions were created within the political struggle between Western capitalist states and the USSR and the growing communist movements. These anti-authoritarian, these 'libertarian' socialists are no better than the capitalists whom we fight in our revolutionary struggle. They are opportunists who view Marxism not as a tool of true change or true revolution but as a tool to reap the benefits of the exploitive system we seek to destroy. Orwell will compare our revolution to that of animals running the farm in the smugness only found within a man who has only benefited from the oppressive capitalist system.
Conclusion
We must realize authoritarianism and the idea of anti-authoritarianism are forms of idealism; they deny our material reality and place one's own bias. To deny authority one must either deny the reality of our post industrial revolution society or must support the repression and retardation of change and the degradation of our means of production. In no way can a Marxist be anti-authoritarian as doing so they would be committed to an idea antithetical with Marxism and our materialist analysist.
The term's use by capitalists and anarchists has become nothing more than the replacement of totalitarianism, a term used to shun our revolutions. Their use is no more than a tool to denounce and shut down conversations, and the historical analysis of past successes of Marxism. In doing so, it upholds capitalism so familiarly to the words Tankie, Terrorists, and Regime. Why must we accept this title they have placed upon us, which we have denounced in its idiocy so completely? Will we now call our glorious states regimes just because our enemy declares us so? Do we declare our loyalty to a revisionist USSR just because we are told so? Are our revolutionaries now savage terrorists because we are deemed so? Then why do my fellow revolutionaries accept their title of authoritarian?
