The Marxist-Leninist Position on Authority

So often you'll hear the liberal, anarchist or "democratic socialist" complain about the "authoritarianism" of communism, but the first question that needs to be asked is: who are the people being affected by this "authoritarianism" and who is this benevolent power enforcing its will on others? Why it's the large landholder and business owner (the Bourgeoise) at the end of the rifle in this "tyrannical" system. They who hold the rifle is the working class, the proletariat.

It's important to understand that, by definition, the state is a "special repressive force" [1], something that enacts the will of the ruling class unto other classes and perpetuates its ideology throughout. In any capitalist nation, it is the class interests of the bourgeoise that find its embodiment in the superstructure of society (politics, law, culture, education, media, etc.), perpetuated by its capitalist base. While the proletariat owns no capital and sells its labor for a wage, they are told by every institution of the bourgeoise that what is good for the ruling class is good for the worker; "tax cuts for the rich will let the wealth trickle down!" Even in "democratic" capitalist nations, we live in a dictatorship, a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoise. It is the bourgeoise, a minority in any society, that holds the political power, makes the economic decisions, and determines the condition of the worker. The political aims of this ruling class are to enshrine the rule of capital into law, accumulate wealth and influence for themselves, and retain a large enough population of working class people desperate enough to sell their labor for a subsistence wages. Even the Nordic model of capitalism abides by these principles, turning instead to the exploitation of the Global South for cheap labor, "exporting" the misery of the capitalist system in their own country abroad.

So when a group of working class people in a capitalist state start agitating for an alternative system, of course the capitalist media is going to do whatever it can to preserve itself! Capitalism, too, was once a progressive system. Through irreconcilable contradictions of the feudal system, the local bourgeoise took up arms and overthrew the aristocrats and lords of the era. Did these nobles just let it happen? Of course not! The French Revolution was stained with blood of royalist soldiers, revolutionaries, and aristocrats alike. The liberal cannot appreciate their system of "moral justice" without the reality of violence, bloodshed, and extreme repression of the old nobility that followed it. If a group of communist revolutionaries were to take prisoner a billionaire and proceed to tar and feather him in a public square, bourgeois (liberal) media would let it reach national headlines about the brutality and terrorist acts these communists are committing, and yet we celebrate the events of the American Revolution every year and serve patriotic imagery of the revolution on every street corner. The acts of a group of revolutionaries or freedom fighters will always be smeared and treated as dangerous to the average person, even if it's objectively in their best interests. The first and foremost goal of a political establishment is to maintain its position in power, by any means necessary.

When the oppressor is willing to use any means necessary to maintain its power, the oppressed must use any means necessary to topple said power and put itself in its place; the difference between a successful revolution and a failed revolution is the correct application of authority. I mentioned earlier how the state is a "special repressive force" that the ruling class uses to subject its will onto other classes, so why shouldn't a (new) state apparatus be used to repress the previous exploiting class and maintain the gains of a social revolution? If the ruling class is made up of the majority of society, the proletariat, then the use of "authoritarianism" isn't like that depicted so often in dystopic fiction, that of an enslaved society under rule of one autocrat, but rather a society that is ruled by the masses, ensuring its prosperity and safety. When the US calls itself a democracy, you have to ask: Democracy for who? Does the average person truly have control of their economic situation, the policies enacted by legislators, or the communities they live in? Lenin defined proletarian democracy as "replacing democracy for the rich by democracy for the poor"[2]. While this surely doesn't fit the definition of liberal democracy, freedom for "all", why should those who put down the masses, exploited them, and kept them from reaching their human potential be given the same power as the masses? Michael Parenti puts it perfectly, there are people, those "Who demand instant perfection the day after the revolution. They get up and say 'Are there civil liberties for the fascists? Are they gonna be allowed to have their newspapers? Are they gonna be able to keep all their farms?'" [3] The repression of these elements of society are vital or else the revolutionary government will either cease to exist or betray its people by making concessions to these former exploiters. There is no other way to reasonably achieve the liberation of the proletariat without using force to make it happen, because the bourgeoise will not go down without a fight.

Historically, every socialist revolution that ceased power from the ruling classes and survived had to do so through a hardened central government and the use of force. The Bolsheviks fought a civil war (with the opposition being backed by the US and European powers) for 5 years before finally establishing the USSR. And even after that, it was subject to constant threats, sabotage, and conflict with reactionaries and other counterrevolutionaries. Those Marxists who rose to power through electoralism in a capitalist system and/or didn't establish a means of dealing with the forces of reaction and counterrevolution have fallen on the wayside of history or were assassinated by those previously mentioned forces (see: Allende's Chile). 

The state can only "wither away" once the proletarian state (headed by the vanguard party) has eliminated all class differences, as the state is a means of class power, and private property[4]. How could these requisites be achieved without the use of force or coercion? The bourgeoise surely wouldn't hand over all of its private property and assimilate itself into the proletariat if you asked them kindly. To this note, the anarchist fantasy of "abolishing" the state (while proclaiming to be an anti-authoritarian) is completely absurd if you recognize the material reality of the situation. The anarchist wants to eliminate private property and all class differentiations in one stroke, but has no method of doing so, the position is adventuristic and non-materialist. The only way to achieve a communist future is through a necessary period of repression and violence, but not against the average person, not against the peasant farmer or office laborer, but against the large landlord, the billionaires, the war profiteers, and the rest of the exploitative elements of the bourgeois class. Even if you own a house (or two!), have a nice car, and live relatively well-off, you aren't the target of the communists. The target of the communists are the people who are hindering human progress and development by their affinity for infinite wealth and power.

1. F. Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific [Ch.3] (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm)

2. V. Lenin, "Democracy" and Dictatorship (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/dec/23.htm)

3. M. Parenti, US interventionism, the 3rd world, and the USSR" [1:24:17] (https://youtu.be/xP8CzlFhc14?si=tqfeD7dFSVwuKxOV)

4. Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring [p.177] (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/anti_duhring.pdf)