this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
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"authoritarian" is a thought-terminating buzzword employed by spineless liberals too terrified of the idea of wielding power for good to actually do anything to help
Hi, anarchist here. What word should we use to differentiate y'all from us? Liberals use tankie to mean anyone further left than biden (and it obv has a strong negative connotation), and y'all define authoritarian and state in a way that makes those labels unhelpful. Without having to know someone's specific ideology, what word should be used if not authoritarian?
"Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is. It is the act by which one part of the population imposes its will on the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannons — by the most authoritarian means possible; and the victors, if they do not want to have fought in vain, must maintain this rule by means of the terror which their arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if the communards had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach them for not having used it enough?
Therefore, we must conclude one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they are only sowing confusion; or they do know, in which case they are betraying the proletarian movement. In either case, they serve reaction." - Frederick Engels.