Okay, I just finished up reading Anti-Duhring after a few months and that's kind of a misrepresentation. Things had to be centralized in order to wield effective power against the bourgeoisie. The whole "The Bolsheviks betrayed the revolution" thing is also a bit off, since IIRC the biggest difference between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks was that the Bolsheviks believed that collaboration with the economic ruling class was futile and worked against winning the class war.
Y'all... without some sort of "authoritarian" element, how can the working class enforce its will upon the ruling class? I want the working class to be in charge and for the means of production (factories and shit like that) to be owned by the workers who use those machines for the benefit of themselves and the rest of the working class. We aren't gonna get those factories, land, etc without being "authoritarian" and dictating terms to our oppressors. And since we can't peacefully force these oligarchs to give up their assets we'll have to use force, and force means that we really need tanks and people who are more militaristically minded.
Maybe instead of shitting on "tankies" maybe understand that they're working towards the same goal of the empowerment of the working class, and try to ally with them? You might not agree with their ideology but if we can work together towards a better future for the working class, then why shit on them?
Idk. Maybe this is too nuanced for a community that seems to be focused on dunking on "tankies" (I'm still not really sure what that exactly means, I'd appreciate comments with people's personal definition of what they consider a "tankie"), but I genuinely think we'd be better off trying to reconcile and work together.
Makes sense, and thank you for the clarification!