Actually, I have a whole sublemmy dedicated to promoting exactly this.
What the article is describing is actually a mark of a state withering away if military commanders start turning into warlords. It appears to be in the incipient phases.
The ideal, if you want to get nice behavior out of people, is to be strict and fair at the same time with them. If people are nice to you, you treat them ten times more nicely. If people are mean to you, you treat them ten times more meanly, and seek out every opportunity to break their happiness until they surrender. You do not have to be evil; it is not good to always be mean like the evil people do, since they create enemies who will come to you for support, and that is their weakness. You just have to be just and measured, rewarding those who do you well, and punishing those who do you wrong.
The practical effect of any sort of gun (or bullet) control would be to disarm the working class. I will not be disarmed under any circumstances, and the vast majority of American workers, convinced communists or not, will agree with me on refusing to disarm.
“Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.” (Marx, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm)
Tankie here. I would agree on the following point – that we are not the same. But, neither are communities where most people are respectful of others’ liberties the same as, or suited to the same kind of rule as, communities where most people are authoritarians. Anarchism doesn’t work among authoritarian populations.
In some places, there isn’t a whole lot of class struggle – I could see anarchism working in those places, but not with most modern people. Those are typically isolated places where people are self-sustaining and disconnected from modern industry, places where states can’t naturally grow on account of the pre-existing lack of class struggle in those areas.
I’ve had success acting like a high-pressure marketer to my family. It’s what the regime does, and it works.
First, you get or download an alternative product without asking anyone.
Second, you ask them politely the first time to try it.
Third, if they do not listen, you paralyze their brains and activities with a fight until they listen. Trump does this to great effect on the conservative base.
When you deal with people who don’t care about protecting their privacy, you’re dealing with people who have authoritarian values. You have to be an authoritarian to them because that’s what they’ve been conditioned to respond to.