I keep hearing the term in political discourse, and rather than googling it, I’m asking the people who know better than Google.
I keep hearing the term in political discourse, and rather than googling it, I’m asking the people who know better than Google.
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The problem with this argument is that you’re looking for some idealistic version of communism without any regard as to it’s actual feasibility. You want communism with western liberal democratic packaging, a communism that explicitly rejects any kind of violence or force against class enemies, afraid of being accused of repression, and that leaves the door wide open for counterrevolutionary forces to seize back control. You want something that works better as protest than as practical implementation. It’s just Eurocommunism for the 21st century. There’s a reason why this kind of communism only exists in the developed western world. It clings onto the notion of western superiority, and regards communists of the global south to be barbaric, authoritarian, and oppressive.
There’s also a reason why this ideology is not the platform of practically any active and actually existing communist party in the world. It’s the communism of idealists who haven’t read theory, or understood theory. It borrows heavily from the “marketplace of ideas” where the opponents of the revolution can be defeated purely by a good argument.
Furthermore, I’m wondering “authoritarian compared to whom, exactly?” Look around you. Violence unleashed on peaceful protesters everywhere, asking for anything from less police violence to don’t cut or freeze wages to tax dollars for citizens not genocide.
I’m not exactly optimistic about socialists winning elections in my country, maybe I can ask the billionaires politely?
All states are “authoritarian,” in that all states are means by which one class exerts its authority over the others. Communists support the working class being in charge of that authority, all communists (unless you count anarchists) support the use of the state against capitalists and fascists, and the majority of practicing communists support socialist states.
Ha ha yeah, the good ol “authoritarianism exists everywhere!” Argument
You know well and good when someone says a government is authoritarian they mean things like speech being controlled and unable to criticize the government, being heavily restricted in your freedom of movement, being heavily restricted in the information you’re allowed to access or possess and so on and so forth
Those tactics are employed by every state in the interest of whichever class is in control, against whichever class is in opposition, to the extent necessary to preserve the existing property relations. All communists support wielding the state against capitalists, fascists, and reactionaries that would topple the socialist system.
There it is again. The classic “everything is authoritarian so the word doesn’t mean anything” routine. It’s funny how that only shows up when someone calls tankies authoritarian. Communism isn’t bad because some western pundit said so, it’s bad when it turns into an excuse to justify control.
The idea of giving power to the people is great, but pretending censorship and repression are just “necessary tactics” ruins it. If the system can’t survive without silencing people, it’s not socialism anymore, it’s just another hierarchy wearing red paint.
If that were the case, we would expect similar social and economic outcomes in both cases. Then, why did the USSR have the lowest recorded wealth and income inequality in history? Why did it have guaranteed employment, guaranteed housing at a cost of 3% of the average income, universal free healthcare and free education to the highest level? Why did it have walkable and public transit-oriented urban planning with services accessible by foot (look up the word “mikroraion” on Wikipedia)? Why could unions remove factory managers if they so decided, and why was there a newspaper to each workplace in which workers could write their complaints and their ideas? Why were the highest-earning individuals university professors and artists and not political bureaucrats?
In which more than just airing complaints, something would be done
at least as far as Pat Sloan writes in ~1937
The chapter “A People’s Press” https://comlib.encryptionin.space/epubs/soviet-democracy/
Analysis of authority isn’t to “make excuses.” Analysis of authority is critical in analyzing class struggle and the state. You’re saying it’s just as bad for workers to silence fascists and capitalists as it is for capitalists to silence workers, then hide behind phrasemongering.