Liberty as protection against counterrevolution

Great post at A Very Public Sociologist. Here's a sample:

The workers' state constructed on the bones of what went before would likely be more democratic and free than any form of political rule possible under capitalism, but there remains a key contradiction at its heart. As the rule of the workers become more consolidated and a greater proportion of society falls under its conscious democratic direction the need for security against counterrevolution from within and without remains pressing until capitalism is decisively defeated on a global scale. The Russian revolution and the history of the USSR demonstrates the negative resolution of this contradiction. Actual counterrevolution and the threat of it saw the infant workers' state in that country relied on militarily defeating those who wished to overthrow it. But in so doing, exacerbated by the backwardness and devastation of the country the state became increasingly bureaucratised and turned into the very opposite of a socialist state.