The weaponization of “authoritarian”
As I previously argued in my March 2026 article “Beware Those Who ‘Condemn Both Sides,’” terms such as “authoritarian dictatorship” are routinely used by the so-called “collective West” to demonize states that resist Western imperialism, especially socialist ones.
This creates a simplistic formula well-suited for the Western mind: “Fascism is authoritarian, and communism is authoritarian. Therefore, both must be equally bad.” This is the same ridiculous logic used by liberals who engage in “both-sides” condemnations.
Westerners then regurgitate these talking points, wholly dismissing the correlation between anti-imperialist leadership and “authoritarian” labelling as a “pure coincidence.”
To these mouthpieces of empire, it is not strange at all that leaders who defy the imperialist West, from Russia’s Putin to China’s Xi, from Libya’s Gaddafi to Iran’s Khamenei, all just happen to be “dictators.”
Strangely, puppet leaders put into power following US-backed coups (such as Zelensky after Euromaidan) are never labeled as “dictators” no matter what they do, so long as they continue to serve American interests. As such, it is quite clear the term is applied selectively; it is not meant to describe governance as such but to punish defiance against the West.
The universal reality of state power
By definition, all states are authoritarian, exercising this power through the police, military, the law, and institutions. This is not unique to any one ideology such as fascism or communism but is a tool of state control that all states (including so-called “democratic” ones) use.
In the imperialist countries, the masses live under a dictatorship of capital and the bourgeoisie. They have the “freedom” to express their opinions widely, often choosing to engage in harmless protest parades or lobby their governmental representatives, and are “free” to do so—until their actions conflict with capitalist interests.
The emptiness of these “freedoms” is clearly evident today, especially in Imperialist America.
For instance, did “calling your representatives” end the genocide in Palestine? Did harmless protest parades like No Kings stop the American government from illegally kidnapping Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in a vile act of thuggery—or even just the deportations of immigrants? Did waving anti-Trump signs stop Imperialist America from bombing Iranian schoolgirls in Minab?
Dissent, when it does not threaten core imperial objectives, is tolerated, giving the image of a “free, non-authoritarian” society. When this line is crossed, the state responds quickly with force, revealing that bourgeois democracy does not offer any true protection against state violence and imperial aggression.
Rejecting false equivalence
This selective application of the term “authoritarian” reveals that Western discourse on “freedom” is designed to delegitimize resistance while legitimizing empire. By treating anti-imperialist struggle as equivalent to fascist tyranny, the so-called “collective West” erases the distinction between liberation and oppression.
This false equivalence must be staunchly opposed, and it must be recognized that the dictatorship of capital is far more coercive and manipulative than any “regime” it chooses to condemn. Until this imperial structure is completely razed to the ground, appeals to so-called “democratic values” are little more than rhetorical cover for ongoing exploitation and violence.
In 2009 the European Parliament instituted an annual commemoration on August 23rd, to “mark the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of All Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes”.
This is just one of several modern-day initiatives to perversely conflate Communism and Nazism, while transforming Wehrmacht and SS collaborators, Holocaust perpetrators, and fascists in countries liberated by the Red Army into victims, and laying blame for World War II at Soviets' feet.
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The CIA actively promoted the conflation of Communism and Nazism as a Cold War propaganda tool.
A key example is the agency's financial and promotional support for Hannah Arendt's 1951 work, "The Origins of Totalitarianism".
Arendt’s book argued that Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were structurally identical "totalitarian" regimes, basically whitewashing Fascism. The CIA, through front organizations like the "Congress for Cultural Freedom", covertly funded the book's translation, distribution, and widespread academic discussion. This campaign helped legitimize the idea that Soviet Communism was morally equivalent to Nazism, thereby undermining leftist sympathy in the West and framing the Cold War as a struggle between democracy and a uniquely evil system.
http://youtu.be/YQCeMM9fOK8?t=1373
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And No one ever mentions that the Socialists and Communists were the first prisoners in Nazi concentration camps...
http://youtu.be/iI3ucytnbXo?t=1041
Like the Communist Party of Germany, the leader of which, Ernst Thälmann, was tortured and executed by Nazi regime. Or Georg Schumann, German politician, resistance fighter against the Nazi regime, tortured and killed by Gestapo on January 11, 1945
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"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. "
-Martin Niemöller, German theologian and pastor, arrested by Gestapo and imprisoned in concentration camp as a political prisoner
Dictatorship of the proletariat vs dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is the key concept here