The state exists because of class struggle, and will exist until class struggle is over. Class struggle cannot erode overnight, so the working classes should run the state, as is what Marxists propose, with which the proletariat will advance their collective class interests in collectivizing production and distribution and subverting attempts by reactionaries to overthrow it.

The anarchists that try to make the point that this phase is unnecessary still end up following through with it in practice, just by different names. The structures present in Catalonia were a form of state-like structures that were adopted by necessity, as sheer ideals alone cannot overturn reality.

I don’t think that’s the issue here, no, at least from what I can understand but I admit I am kinda confused about what you’re asking me here.

The liberal (or Western) view often posits a universal, procedural democracy (multi-party elections, civil liberties, etc.) as intrinsically good, and any concentrated state power as intrinsically suspicious( “dichotomy between democracy vs. authority.”) But Marxism-Leninism rejects this as an idealist and ahistorical abstraction. In any class society, the state is not a neutral arbiter; it is a dictatorship of a class an instrument of rule and authority by that class over others.

Liberals see authority itself as the problem. Marxists-Leninists see class-based authority as the problem esspecialy, authority by the exploiting class. We argue that the liberal dichotomy hides the reality: capitalism already has immense, unaccountable authority (over workers, colonized peoples, the unemployed, the indebted). The question is not “democracy or authority” but which class holds democracy for itself and which class wields authority against which other class.