What they are saying is that "Authoritarian" is not a precise term that distinguishes anything and was just made up as a way to try to accuse AES states of being just as bad as fascist ones. It's a horseshoe theory term because any actually accurate term you would use to describe Hitler's or Mussolini's ideology would exclude the ideology of socialist states.
Maturin
joined 2 years ago
"AES" meaning "actually existing socialism." The debate over this word goes all the way back to Engels at least.
Someone else may help me find a link, because I remember reading a different article about this specifically, but these three definitely touch on it:
https://redsails.org/tankies/
https://redsails.org/brainwashing/
https://redsails.org/losurdo-on-totalitarianism/ (this one is about "totalitarianism" and the "horseshoe" theory I referenced above)