this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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[–] davel@lemmy.ml 31 points 5 months ago (91 children)

Friedrich Engels, 1872, On authority

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.

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[–] BurgerPunk@hexbear.net 30 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Mark Twain Two Reigns of Terror Quote never gets old. People are blind to all the normalized terror around them that happens soley because one class seeks to maintain its dominance over the class they exploit to make thier lifestyles possible.

[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 29 points 5 months ago (4 children)

You may or may not be making a valid point, but you need to be clearer about who you are referring to and in which context.

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[–] somenonewho@feddit.de 22 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Seriously. I might not be a great "Marx Scholar" and I don't think the revolution will just be a peaceful process "whished into existence" but I don't think Marx was Dunkin g on anti authoritarians here and to presume the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is the long term free society of Marx ideals is utter garbage. Communism will be anti-authoritarian or it will not be.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 8 points 5 months ago

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 7 points 5 months ago (15 children)

Marx and Engels considered the mere act of revolution to be authoritarian. Advocating for a worker state is at some level authoritarian.

Jumping straight to statelessness is Anarchism, not Marxism, and has a much lower success rate at lasting any amount of time.

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[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 months ago

The dictatorship of the proletariat literally just means that the bourgeoisie are suppressed politically until they can be integrated into the rest of society, it doesn't mean a dictatorship, it means a democracy where the former oppressors don't get a seat at the table.

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] imnotfromkaliningrad@lemmy.ml 19 points 5 months ago (9 children)

we have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. but the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of god and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable.

karl marx

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