Authoritarianism

Communist flag mocking the libertarian Gadsden flag

"Authoritarianism" is an idealist and loosely defined concept that is often used by liberals (liberalism being the ideology of capitalism) to demonize both past and present socialist states and dismiss any argument in support of these states. The term is used by anarchists in the same manner as well.

Bourgeois definition

Authoritarianism is defined in the Cambridge dictionary as "the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom." The Encyclopedia Britannica says that it is, "in politics and government, the blind submission to authority and the repression of individual freedom of thought and action." The Collins dictionary writes that authoritarianism is "... the belief that people with power, especially the State, have the right to control other people's actions."

While different bourgeois dictionaries give it slightly different definitions, a common thread is that authoritarianism is a state in which personal freedoms are curbed for the benefit of the state.

This lack of a single, precise, objective definition exposes the word's idealist usage, whereby its suitability in regards to a government is based on subjective and personal criteria rather than objective and observable criteria. In other words, if the above definitions of authoritarianism are to be used as presented, then every country in the world would be considered authoritarian because all states restrict freedoms in some aspects (through laws) and require blind submission or strict obedience to authority (it is illegal to disobey the police or treat them like they treat you).

Analysis

The usage of the word authoritarianism comes from the fact that during the Cold War, the imperial core needed something to separate them from and seem like a better alternative than the socialist world. The concept of personal freedom was used to this end: it was said that people in the West lived in the "free world", which was also referred to as the first world (and socialist states under the Warsaw Pact forming the second world). Freedom became paramount, and anything that infringed on any ounce of perceived freedom was denounced as authoritarian and thus inherently undesirable. As Stalin said, however:

It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment. Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.

Marxists recognize that all states wield authority, as do revolutions (being an inherently authoritarian act, imposing the will of one class onto another class), and will at times tighten that authority, and at other times relax it. For example, authority was tightened in most Allied countries during the Second world war as censorship and rationing took effect, and a draft was reinstated in countries that previously had abolished compulsory military service, with prison penalties or even sometimes the possibility of execution for dodging it.

As such, authoritarianism is a meaningless concept meant to instantly shut down any possible discussion about socialism on the grounds that it might restrict the freedom of a (relatively) privileged class, while greatly expanding the quality of life and opportunities of the exploited majority.

Anti-Communists of all stripes enjoy referring to successful socialist revolutions as “authoritarian regimes”.

• Authoritarian implies these places are run by totalitarian tyrants.
• Regime implies these places are undemocratic or lack legitimacy.

This pejorative label is simply meant to frighten people, to scare us back into the fold (Liberal Democracy).

There are three main reasons for the popularity of this label in Capitalist media:

Firstly, Marxists call for a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (DotP), and many people are automatically put off by the term “dictatorship”. Of course, we do not mean that we want an undemocratic or totalitarian dictatorship. What we mean is that we want to replace the current Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie (in which the Capitalist ruling class dictates policy).

Secondly, democracy in Communist-led countries works differently than in Liberal Democracies. However, anti-Communists confuse form (pluralism / having multiple parties) with function (representing the actual interests of the people).

Finally, this framing of Communism as illegitimate and tyrannical serves to manufacture consent for an aggressive foreign policy in the form of interventions in the internal affairs of so-called “authoritarian regimes”, which take the form of invasion (e.g., Vietnam, Korea, Libya, etc.), assassinating their leaders (e.g., Thomas Sankara, Fred Hampton, Patrice Lumumba, etc.), sponsoring coups and colour revolutions (e.g., Pinochet’s coup against Allende, the Iran-Contra Affair, the United Fruit Company’s war against Arbenz, etc.), and enacting sanctions (e.g., North Korea, Cuba, etc.).

Even the CIA, in their internal communications (which have been declassified), acknowledge that Stalin wasn’t an absolute dictator:

Even in Stalin’s time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by a lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist’s power structure.

— CIA. (1953, declassified in 2008). Comments on the Change in Soviet Leadership

The “authoritarian” nature of any given state depends entirely on the material conditions it faces and threats it must contend with. To get an idea of the kinds of threats nascent revolutions need to deal with, check out Killing Hope by William Blum and The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins.

Failing to acknowledge that authoritative measures arise not through ideology, but through material conditions, is anti-Marxist, anti-dialectical, and idealist.

Difference with authority

While anarchists recognize that states carry authority (the power to make laws and issue orders), and that the state will wield this authority as it wants regardless of laws, they believe that by having declared to have abolished the state (thus establishing anarchy), they have abolished all authority as well. As Engels wrote, however:

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?

Marxists only recognize authority as a valid concept, and that it exists all around us in a dialectical state: Engels noted, for example, the authority of the steam machine (that cannot be turned off once started) or the authority of nature itself (through natural disasters and events).

Liberals do not understand either and by and large believe that because their states grants them some token personal freedoms (that they can take away at any time, being the sole guarantor of these privileges), do not wield authority against them despite all capitalist states in the world employing both an army and a police force.

Racist component

There is increasingly a racist component in the usage of the word authoritarianism, due to the fact that China is the most prominent socialist state in the world today and a target of vicious slander in the media due to their growing economy that has overtaken the United States of America's in terms of GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Authoritarianism has become something "uncivilised" people do, who only seem to understand power when applied through force—not like the enlightened liberals who understand "civilised" soft power and ignore the military operations to assassinate foreign heads of state and replace them with compradors their governments have conducted.

Response to Anarchists and Libertarian Socialists

Marxists and Anarchists have the same vision for a stateless, classless, moneyless society free from oppression and exploitation. However, Anarchists like to accuse Marxists of being “authoritarian”. The problem here is that “anti-authoritarianism” is a self-defeating feature in a revolutionary ideology. Those who refuse in principle to engage in so-called “authoritarian” practices will never carry forward a successful revolution. Anarchists who practice self-criticism can recognize this:

The anarchist movement is filled with people who are less interested in overthrowing the existing oppressive social order than with washing their hands of it. …

The strength of anarchism is its moral insistence on the primacy of human freedom over political expediency. But human freedom exists in a political context. It is not sufficient, however, to simply take the most uncompromising position in defense of freedom. It is necessary to actually win freedom. Anti-capitalism doesn’t do the victims of capitalism any good if you don’t actually destroy capitalism. Anti-statism doesn’t do the victims of the state any good if you don’t actually smash the state. Anarchism has been very good at putting forth visions of a free society and that is for the good. But it is worthless if we don’t develop an actual strategy for realizing those visions. It is not enough to be right, we must also win.

…anarchism has been a failure. Not only has anarchism failed to win lasting freedom for anybody on earth, many anarchists today seem only nominally committed to that basic project. Many more seem interested primarily in carving out for themselves, their friends, and their favorite bands a zone of personal freedom, “autonomous” of moral responsibility for the larger condition of humanity (but, incidentally, not of the electrical grid or the production of electronic components). Anarchism has quite simply refused to learn from its historic failures, preferring to rewrite them as successes. Finally the anarchist movement offers people who want to make revolution very little in the way of a coherent plan of action. …

Anarchism is theoretically impoverished. For almost 80 years, with the exceptions of Ukraine and Spain, anarchism has played a marginal role in the revolutionary activity of oppressed humanity. Anarchism had almost nothing to do with the anti-colonial struggles that defined revolutionary politics in this century. This marginalization has become self-reproducing. Reduced by devastating defeats to critiquing the authoritarianism of Marxists, nationalists and others, anarchism has become defined by this gadfly role. Consequently anarchist thinking has not had to adapt in response to the results of serious efforts to put our ideas into practice. In the process anarchist theory has become ossified, sterile and anemic. … This is a reflection of anarchism’s effective removal from the revolutionary struggle.

— Chris Day. (1996). The Historical Failures of Anarchism

Engels pointed this out well over a century ago:

A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned.

…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 … and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule…

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.

— Friedrich Engels. (1872). On Authority

The pure (libertarian) socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.

— Michael Parenti. (1997). Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

Counter-examples

Authoritarianism as understood by liberals and anarchists does not apply to former and current socialist states despite their insistence.

USSR

A Russian village, late 19th century

The Soviet Union inherited a feudal system when it came about in Russia, serfdom having been abolished only 70 years earlier (or around two generations). In just two more generations, they went from a rural country prone to famines and poverty to having a robust industry, better labour laws than any capitalist country at the time, as well as allowing women in universities and in positions of government.

Secondly, the presence of the USSR strengthened the demands of the proletariat in the capitalist world, as the bourgeoisie feared a similar revolution. It was during the existence of the USSR that the international proletariat received benefits such as health insurance, retirement benefits, the 8-hour workday, and even paid leave.

People's Republic of China

Compared to the USA and many other nations, the PRC has a low number of police officers per-capita. The U.S. also has the highest incarceration on earth (both per-capita and in totality, the latter of which being significant since the USA has ~1/4 of the population of the PRC); the People's Republic of China eradicated extreme poverty in 2022.

See also

• Totalitarianism
• Tyranny
• Authoritarian capitalism