Escaping Capitalism and Authoritarianism: Embracing “Dual Power” for a Decentralized Future
In 1917, as Russia teetered on the edge of revolution, Vladimir Lenin articulated a radical concept in his writings: the idea of dual power. In the pamphlet The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution, Lenin observed that two sources of power had emerged in the wake of the February Revolution. One was the Provisional Government—a remnant of the old bourgeois order. The other was the network of Soviets—grassroots councils of workers, peasants, and soldiers that were not just resisting authority but actively building a new one.
The philosophical roots of the concept stretch back to Marx’s analysis of the state, class struggle, and the historical process of revolutionary change. In essence, “dual power” refers to the emergence of alternative institutions of popular power that directly challenge the legitimacy and authority of the existing state and capitalist structures. These parallel structures become embryos of a new society, not by reforming the old, but by replacing it from the ground up.
This notion of “dual power” wasn’t merely descriptive—it was prescriptive. Lenin argued that in order for a revolutionary transformation to succeed, the working class needed to build a parallel system of governance that could eventually supplant the old. Escaping capitalism and authoritarianism in the 21st century demands building decentralized, censorship-resistant, technologically empowered dual power systems. These must function not merely as resistance but as full replacements for legacy institutions of capital and control.
The Seed of Revolutionary Transformation: Lenin’s Core Insight
Lenin wrote:
“The fundamental feature of our revolution, one that must be understood before anything else, is that it has created a dual power.”
This duality meant that the old regime hadn’t yet been swept away, but its power was contested by a rising force with its own legitimacy. Soviets were not just protest organs—they were embryonic governments. They controlled logistics, distributed resources, and commanded allegiance. They represented an alternative system in action.
Dual power emerges when the oppressed create self-governing, self-sustaining institutions that carry out the functions of governance—distribution, decision-making, enforcement of norms—but do so according to fundamentally different principles than the capitalist state. These institutions don’t ask for permission; they build power in parallel, draining legitimacy and participation from the legacy system.
Today, the capitalist state retains overwhelming power. Yet it’s fragile. Climate collapse, surveillance, inequality, and mass disillusionment show that the system is past due. However, no revolution can succeed without a parallel structure to replace what exists. That’s where modern dual power must come in.
A Modern Dual Power: Decentralized, Censorship-Resistant, and Technologically Enabled
Unlike the time of the Russian civil war, we now have access to powerful tools of communication and coordination. One of the key challenges of any alternative system is motivating sustained participation. Lenin’s Soviets succeeded because they were rooted in immediate, material needs: food, housing, work. Today’s version must similarly reward and empower those who build it. To build a 21st-century dual power structure, we must use:
- Communication and Consensus: Using Technology as a Weapon of Liberation
Capitalism monopolizes communication channels, manipulates discourse, and fractures solidarity. A 21st-century dual power structure must consolidate decentralized communication networks—open-source platforms, mesh networks, blockchain-based forums—to facilitate real-time dialogue and decision-making.
Consensus mechanisms—liquid democracy, quadratic voting, and novel AI-assisted deliberation systems—can allow large groups to coordinate without centralized authority. Unlike corporate social media, which fragments and isolates, dual power communication tools must unify and mobilize.
- Censorship Resistance and Decentralization: Foundations of Autonomy
A dual power system cannot be beholden to centralized servers, ISPs, or state-mandated censorship. Peer-to-peer protocols, zero-knowledge proofs, encryption, and decentralized identifiers (DIDs) must be baked into the infrastructure.
These technologies aren’t just for privacy—they’re for freedom. Decentralization ensures that no one node of the system can be easily shut down. Every participant strengthens the network. Every act of communication, coordination, or mutual aid becomes a blow against the capitalist state.
- Reputation as Currency: Aligning Participation with Power
In capitalist systems, capital allocates resources. In a revolutionary dual power network, reputation must replace capital. Participation, contribution, and solidarity should determine one’s influence and access—not profit, inheritance, or property.
This reputation system must be transparent, durable, and resistant to gaming. It should track meaningful participation—cooperation, project execution, conflict resolution—not just popularity metrics. Smart contracts, consensus-based validations, and identity check-ins can help encode this logic.
- Leaderlessness as a Shield Against Authoritarianism
Marx’s warning was always clear: the revolution must abolish the conditions of tyranny, not replicate them. Every revolution risks re-centralization. Stalinism was not a failure of Marxism per se, but a failure to maintain horizontal, participatory structures.
A modern dual power system must be fundamentally leaderless. Not chaotic, but structured by swarm intelligence, not hierarchy. DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations), rotating delegates, and consensus-driven task allocation can replace traditional vertical power structures.
The capitalist state uses centralized control, surveillance, and gatekeeping to maintain power. A modern dual power must be censorship-resistant, able to persist even under repression. It must be leaderless, removing the choke points that authoritarianism exploits.
- Assignments Through Consensus: From Ideas to Action
Once consensus is reached on a collective goal or idea, assignments emerge organically. Not commands, but voluntary roles distributed across the network—logistics coordinators, tech developers, food growers, educators. These are tasks that users opt into based on skills, availability, or stake in the outcome. This turns consensus into action, rather than mere talk. These assignments are coordinated, ensuring that momentum is never lost and that responsibility is broadly shared. Every collective decision becomes a micro-revolution in itself.
- A Counter-Logistics System: Withdrawing from Capitalism Step by Step
Capitalism survives by monopolizing logistics—production, supply chains, distribution. To replace it, dual power must build its own. Think: distributed manufacturing (3D printing), local cooperatives linked by P2P supply chains, community-supported agriculture, and open hardware networks.
Every person who joins the network should decrease their reliance on the capitalist system. Whether it’s food, housing, energy, or communication, the alternative system must do it better—not just ideologically, but practically.
Toward Liberation: A Blueprint for the Now, One Node at a Time
Every person who joins the dual power structure—whether by growing food outside the market, building censorship-resistant tools, or organizing mutual aid—weakens the capitalist system by no longer needing it. The alternative grows stronger by subtraction.
This is how we create a parallel logistics network: cooperative housing and land trusts, distributed manufacturing (via tools like 3D printing), alternative currencies or barter systems, and digital platforms for planning and coordination. These are not utopian ideas—they already exist in scattered forms. The task is to link them, organize them, and align them around a shared vision. Dual power isn’t a protest. It’s not just mutual aid. It’s not an app. It’s a parallel civilization.
Revolutions do not begin by storming the palace—they begin by withdrawing consent, by creating the institutions that will make the old regime obsolete.
We must:
- Use modern tech to organize without being surveilled or silenced.
- Build structures that reward participation and resist centralization.
- Prioritize real-world logistics: food, housing, energy, and information.
- Create systems that scale by solving real problems—not by chasing spectacle.
Capitalism and authoritarianism can’t be overthrown in the abstract. They must be replaced functionally—by networks of real people, doing real things, for each other. We don’t need to wait for the collapse. We need to build while the old world decays. The technology exists. The knowledge exists. The will is forming. The dual power of the 21st century will not look like a barricade—it will look like a network, a swarm, a mesh of people who no longer ask permission to live free.
The revolution is not tomorrow. It’s the decision to build outside the system today.