… Bureaucratic opportunists and unprincipled technicians and would-be technicians find it difficult to engage in any sort of reasoned argument. Argument means principle, and principle is precisely what opportunists are always weak on. Stalin could never out-argue Trotsky or Bukharin; he just had the bureaucracy with him, which, unfortunately, turned out to be enough.
What bureaucrats and power elites always want is for the opposition to shut up and go away, to obey orders, to accept their assigned tasks, to […] “go along with the program.” The last thing they want is widespread discussion…
Rothbard, Libertarian Forum volume 2, p. 970