‘Authoritarianism’ is a liberal dogwhistle that has no basis in socialism. Countries that break with the bourgeoisie & imperialism necessarily require a strong state to defend themselves from capitalist restoration & reaction. That’s not ‘authoritarian’, it’s working class power.

Stupid middle class liberals like this will never be able to build socialism because any attempt to take power from the exploiters and landlords will be deemed as ‘authoritarian’ and building the state to defend against global imperialism will make you a ‘regime’. Pure silliness.

You can only be a socialist if you defend any and all countries that break with the imperialist system—for our country, if ever we desire for the workers a life beyond exploitation, will necessarily break with this system and face similar accusations. We must have solidarity.

No socialist country is ‘authoritarian’, if you want to talk about ‘authoritarianism’ then look at any capitalist country—not even talking about the Saudi Arabias but the ‘democratic’ US, France, UK, etc these are the most reactionary ‘regimes’ to have ever existed.

These liberals, like the foolish feller I’m quoting, will cry hell about ‘atrocities’ of socialism but say nothing about the everyday atrocity of the wage labour system and the historic atrocities that built the capitalist countries of the West. We must reject these people.