Authoritarianism isn't a thing. No state wants to suppress dissent.
Dissent is suppressed when it needs to be because there's foreign powers trying to destabilize your state. Like when the most powerful country in the world creates a Central Intelligence Agency with the overt purpose of eradicating communism. Which they did covertly through the funding of internal dissent, terrorism and sabotage of infrastructure.
Unless you think the CIA just twiddled their thumbs for 70 years, of course. In that case I recommend reading the book 'Killing Hope' by William Blum.
wait, so you’re saying that even the fascist states (e.g. the nazis) were only trying to defend themselves against foreign powers trying to destabilize their state? or am i misinterpreting you?
a state doesn’t have a mind of its own, it consists of people and those people are often power-hungry and do actively want to suppress dissent regardless of what would be good for the state. the whole point of socialism is to dismantle hierarchies, but by placing a powerful leader without accountability on the top you have undermined the whole concept
maybe cia actions were what caused them to be authoritarian, but that doesn’t excuse their actions in any way. the moment they became authoritarian, cia had already defeated socialism
suppressing “dissent” in the form of e.g. refusing to follow laws about distribution of resources (within reason) is one thing, but suppressing dissenting voices is a whole different thing altogether and those two shouldn’t be lumped together in one category. the former is a part of the normal job of a state while the latter is authoritarianism
wait, so you’re saying that even the fascist states (e.g. the nazis) were only trying to defend themselves against foreign powers trying to destabilize their state? or am i misinterpreting you?
I was referencing socialist states, but yes they do both resist political pressure. The difference is fascist states are a minority class resisting domestic dissent by the majority class. It's a forced ideology undermining a natural uprising, which is why it draws so many parallels with socialism in its revolutionary anti-establishment sentiment but is as a result lacking in internal consistency. In other words it's reactionary.
The post WW1 German government was resisting political pressure from socialist factions that were especially dominant in Germany due to the aftermath of the war. There was constant turmoil including insurgencies, massacres, executions and of course the massive surge of the KPD into electoral politics that lead capitalists to fund the staunchly anti-communist Nazi party (read "Who Financed Hitler" by James Pool) and subsequently purged communist thought.
a state doesn’t have a mind of its own, it consists of people
The state is the monopoly of power in the hands of one class; they're a state because the interests of the people in it align. Though it can, the state doesn't have to be a conspiracy. What capitalists believe or think about on a personal level is irrelevant, their material interests lead them to support the same thing.
those people are often power-hungry
They're power hungry, so they appeal to the interests of the most powerless class in defiance of the most powerful class, only to then alienate the powerless class as well? They're power hungry so they isolate their state from the world stage and reduce themselves to running an impoverished nation? I think your view of 'authoritarianism' is shaped by the misconceptions about the cause of Nazi Germany addressed above.
Even if we assume this is true, it's not a useful observation. It avoids pinpointing the conditions we need to address. There isn't much we can do about an 'evil' dormant in an undefined subset of the population. You're just fingerpointing, which is a primer for fascism.
by placing a powerful leader without accountability on the top you have undermined the whole concept
First, there's no lack of accountability. Socialist parties consist of MILLIONS in members and hundreds to thousands in parliament, which is much larger than all parties in liberal democracies combined. Socialist countries don't have singular dictators but operate through massive debate and cooperation. What they lack are people promoting goals contrary to socialism (and yes this does lead to wrongful punishment, that's par for the course given the chaotic nature of covert war). Accountability and dissent are WILDLY different things that can't be conflated. Every state is accountable to the material interests it serves.
Second, the concept of socialism is abolition of the state. There's no 'rule' or empirical justification prescribing socialism to be an erratic transition rather than gradual. The point of communism isn't just electing different leaders. Where you think socialism must come from tolerance to an undefined time of unchecked capitalist rule before an abstract 'mass revolution' ushers in socialism, communists simply think socialism must come from intolerance to capitalist rule but concrete tolerance to state functions that can resist capitalist subjugation until they aren't needed anymore.
By tolerating the bureaucracy of capitalism for the sake of awaiting 'principled' instantaneous global revolution, you're already admitting you're willing to compromise for the goal of socialism. So it doesn't make sense to pretend your aversion to socialist states has anything to do with principled opposition to a similar bureaucratic structure serving the working class(by providing housing, education, healthcare and food) instead of elites.
You can believe Leninism is a flawed way to achieve socialism and maybe even doomed to fail, but if you can't even appreciate it as better than capitalism, you're just not a socialist.
maybe cia actions were what caused them to be authoritarian, but that doesn’t excuse their actions in any way. the moment they became authoritarian, cia had already defeated socialism
'Authoritarian' is just a state, no more powerful than any other, at war. I don't understand what you mean by 'excusing actions' when you admit it's caused by US intervention. You're saying their actions aren't excusable while personally providing the excuse.
And what's the point in a 'principled stance' when this stance consists of letting your own people be massacred and condemning billions of people to extreme poverty? What's the point of 'principles' when it consists of tolerating the mass genocide of the entire planet? You tolerate the obscenely rich and 'peaceful' because dominant tyranny of capitalism, but the minority socialist states that always form in the countries with the worst conditions must be flawless and overcome hurdles with complete ethical perfection.
You don't seem to appreciate that the struggle for socialism is a war, not civil debate. You demand people meet artillery fire with a cool headed essay recital and wonder why anarchist communes are nowhere to be found.
