BAKUNIN'S TEACHING
1.--GENERAL
1. Mikhail Alexandrovitch Bakunin was born in 1814 at Pryamukhino,
district of Torshok, government of Tver. In 1834 he entered the
Artillery School at St. Petersburg; in 1835 he became an officer, but
resigned his commission in the same year. He then lived alternately in
Pryamukhino and in Moscow.
In 1840 Bakunin left Russia. In the following years revolutionary plans
took him now to this part of Europe, now to that; in Paris he associated
much with Proudhon. In 1849 he was condemned to death in Saxony, but was
pardoned; in 1850 he was handed over to Austria and was condemned to
death there also; in 1851 he was handed over to Russia and was there
kept a prisoner first at St. Petersburg, then at Schluesselburg; in 1857
he was sent to Siberia.
From Siberia Bakunin escaped to London in 1865, by way of Japan and
California. He took up his revolutionary activities again at once, and
thereafter lived by turns in the most various parts of Europe. In 1868
he became a member of the _Association internationale des travailleurs_,
and soon afterward he founded the _Alliance internationale de la
democratie socialiste_. In 1869 he came into intimate relations with the
fanatic Nechayeff, but broke away from him in the next year. In 1872 he
was expelled from the _Association internationale des travailleurs_ on
the ground that his aims were different from those of the Association.
He died at Berne in 1876.
Bakunin wrote a number of works of a philosophical and political nature.
2. Bakunin's teaching about law, the State, and property finds its
expression especially in the "_Proposition motivee au comite central de
la Ligue de la paix et de la liberte_"[317] offered by him in 1868; in
the principles[318] of the _Alliance internationale de la democratie
socialiste_, drawn up by him in 1868; and in his work "_Dieu et
l'Etat_"[319] (1871).
Writings which cannot with certainty be assigned to Bakunin are here
disregarded. Among such we may name especially the two works "The
Principles of the Revolution"[320] and "Catechism of the
Revolution,"[321] in which Nechayeff's views are set forth. They are
indeed ascribed to Bakunin by some,[322] but their matter is in
contradiction to his other utterances as well as to his deeds; he even
used vehement language on several occasions against Nechayeff's
"Machiavellianism and Jesuitism."[323] Even on the assumption that they
are by Bakunin, they would at any rate express only a very insignificant
chapter in his development.
3. Bakunin designates his teaching about law, the State, and property as
"Anarchism." "In a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, all
privileged, chartered, official, and legal influence,--even if it were
created by universal suffrage,--in the conviction that such things can
but redound always to the advantage of a ruling minority of exploiters
and to the disadvantage of the vast enslaved majority. In this sense we
are in truth Anarchists."[324]
2.--BASIS
_Bakunin regards the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a
less perfect existence to the most perfect possible existence as the law
which has supreme validity for man._
"Science has no other task than the careful intellectual reproduction,
in the most systematic form possible, of the natural laws of corporeal,
mental, and moral life, alike in the physical and in the social world,
which two worlds constitute in fact only a single natural world."[325]
Now "science--that is, true, unselfish science"[326]--teaches us the
following: "Every evolution signifies the negation of its
starting-point. Since according to the materialists the basis or
starting-point is material, the negation must necessarily be
ideal."[327] That is, "everything that lives makes the effort to
perfect itself as fully as possible."[328]
Thus, "according to the conception of materialists, man's historical
evolution also moves in a constantly ascending line."[329] "It is an
altogether natural movement from the simple to the compound, from down
to up, from the lower to the higher."[330] "History consists in the
progressive negation of man's original bestiality by the evolution of
his humanity."[331]
"Man is originally a wild beast, a cousin of the gorilla. But he has
already come out of the deep night of bestial impulses to make his way
to the light of the mind. This explains all his former missteps in the
most natural way, and comforts us somewhat with regard to his present
aberrations. He has turned his back on bestial slavery, and is now
moving toward freedom through the realm of slavery to God, which lies
between his bestial and his human existence. Behind us, therefore, lies
our bestial existence, before us our human; the light of humanity, which
alone can light us and warm us, deliver us and exalt us, make us free,
happy, and brothers, stands never at the beginning of history, but
always only at its end."[332]
This "historical negation of the past takes place now slowly,
sluggishly, sleepily, but now again passionately and violently."[333] It
always takes place with the inevitable certainty of natural law: "we
believe in the final triumph of humanity on earth."[G] "We yearn for the
coming of this triumph, and seek to hasten it with united effort";[334]
"we must never look back, always forward alone; before us is our sun,
before us our bliss."[335]
3.--LAW
I. _In the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human
existence, one of the next steps, according to Bakunin, will be the
disappearance--not indeed of law, but--of enacted law._
Enacted law belongs to a low stage of evolution. "A political
legislation, whether it is based on a ruler's will or on the votes of
representatives chosen by universal suffrage, can never correspond to
the laws of nature, and is always baleful, hostile to the liberty of the
masses, if only because it forces upon them a system of external and
consequently despotic laws."[336] No legislation has ever "had another
aim than that of confirming, and exalting into a system, the
exploitation of the laboring populace by the ruling classes."[337] Thus
every legislation "has for its consequence at once the enslavement of
society and the depravation of the legislators."[338]
But mankind will soon leave behind it the stage of evolution to which
law belongs. Enacted law is indissolubly connected with the State: "the
State is a historically necessary evil,"[339] "a transitory form of
society";[340] "with the State, law in the jurists' sense, the so-called
legal regulation of popular life from above downward by legislation,
must necessarily fall."[341] Everybody feels already that this moment is
approaching,[342] the transformation is at hand,[343] it is to be
expected within the nineteenth century.[344]
II. _In the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach,
there will be no enacted law to be sure, but there will be law even
there._ What Bakunin predicts with regard to this next stage of
evolution enables us to perceive that according to his expectation norms
will then prevail which "are based on a general will,"[345] and which
even secure obedience by forcible compulsion if necessary,[346] so that
they are legal norms.
Among such legal norms of our next stage of evolution Bakunin mentions
that by virtue of which there exists a "right to independence."[347] For
me as an individual this means "that I as a man am entitled to obey no
other man, and to act only in accordance with my own judgment."[348]
But, furthermore, "every nation, every province, and every commune has
the unlimited right to complete independence, provided that its internal
constitution does not threaten the independence and liberty of the
adjoining territories."[349]
Likewise Bakunin regards it as a legal norm of the next stage of
evolution that contracts must be lived up to. To be sure, the obligation
of contracts has its limits. "Human justice cannot recognize anything as
creating an obligation in perpetuity. All rights and duties are founded
on liberty. The right of freely uniting and separating is the first and
most important of all political rights."[350]
Another legal norm mentioned by Bakunin as belonging to the next stage
of evolution is that by virtue of which "the land, the instruments of
labor, and all other capital, as the collective property of the whole of
society, will exclusively serve for the use of the agricultural and
industrial associations."[351]
4.--THE STATE
I. _In the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human
existence the State will shortly, according to Bakunin, disappear._ "The
State is a historically temporary arrangement, a transitory form of
society."[352]
1. The State belongs to a low stage of evolution.
"Man takes the first step from his bestial existence to a human
existence by religion; but so long as he remains religious he will never
reach his goal; for every religion condemns him to absurdity, guides him
into a wrong course, and makes him seek the divine in place of the
human."[353] "All religions, with their gods, demigods, and prophets,
their Messiahs and saints, are products of the credulous fancy of men
who had not yet come to the full development and entire possession of
their intellectual powers."[354] This holds good also, and particularly,
of Christianity: it is "the complete inversion of common-sense and
reason."[355]
The State is a product of religion. "In all lands it is born of a
marriage of violence, robbery, spoliation,--in short, of war and
conquest,--with the gods whom the religious enthusiasm of the nations
had gradually created."[356] "He who speaks of revelation speaks thereby
of revealers enlightened by God, of Messiahs, prophets, priests, and
lawgivers; and, if once these are recognized on earth as representatives
of the Deity, as sacred teachers of mankind chosen by God himself, then
of course they have unlimited authority. All men owe them blind
obedience; for no human reason, no human justice, is valid against the
divine reason and justice. As slaves of God, men must be also slaves of
the Church, and of the State so far as the Church hallows the
State."[357]
"No State is without religion, and none can be without religion. Take
the freest States in the world,--for instance, the United States of
America or the Swiss Confederacy,--and see what an important part divine
providence plays in all public utterances there."[358] "It is not
without good reason that governments hold the belief in God to be an
essential condition of their power."[359] "There is a class of people
who, even if they do not believe, must necessarily act as if they
believed. This class embraces all mankind's tormentors, oppressors, and
exploiters. Priests, monarchs, statesmen, soldiers, financiers,
office-holders of all sorts; policemen, _gendarmes_, jailers, and
executioners; capitalists, usurers, heads of business, and house-owners;
lawyers, economists, politicians of all shades,--all of them, down to
the smallest grocer, will always repeat in chorus the words of Voltaire,
that, if there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him; 'for
must not the populace have its religion?' It is the very
safety-valve."[360]
2. The characteristics of the State correspond to the low stage of
evolution to which it belongs.
The State enslaves the governed. "The State is force; nay, it is the
silly parading of force. It does not propose to win love or to make
converts; if it puts its finger into anything, it does so only in an
unfriendly way; for its essence consists not in persuasion, but in
command and compulsion. However much pains it may take, it cannot
conceal the fact that it is the legal maimer of our will, the constant
negation of our liberty. Even when it commands the good, it makes this
valueless by commanding it; for every command slaps liberty in the face;
as soon as the good is commanded, it is transformed into the evil in the
eyes of true (that is, human, by no means divine) morality, of the
dignity of man, of liberty; for man's liberty, morality, and dignity
consist precisely in doing the good not because he is commanded to but
because he recognizes it, wills it, and loves it."[361]
At the same time the State depraves those who govern. "It is
characteristic of privilege, and of every privileged position, that they
poison the minds and hearts of men. He who is politically or
economically privileged has his mind and heart depraved. This is a law
of social life, which admits of no exceptions and is applicable to
entire nations as well as to classes, corporations, and individuals. It
is the law of equality, the foremost of the conditions of liberty and
humanity."[362]
"Powerful States can maintain themselves only by crime, little States
are virtuous only from weakness."[363] "We abhor monarchy with all our
hearts; but at the same time we are convinced that a great republic too,
with army, bureaucracy, and political centralization, will make a
business of conquest without and oppression within, and will be
incapable of guaranteeing happiness and liberty to its subjects even if
it calls them citizens."[364] "Even in the purest democracies, such as
the United States and Switzerland, a privileged minority faces the vast
enslaved majority."[365]
3. But the stage of mankind's evolution to which the State belongs will
soon be left behind.
"From the beginning of historic society to this day, there has always
been oppression of the nations by the State. Is it to be inferred that
this oppression is inseparably connected with the existence of human
society?"[366] Certainly not! "The great, true goal of history, the only
one for which there is justification, is our humanization and
deliverance, the genuine liberty and prosperity of all socially-living
men."[367] "In the triumph of humanity is at the same time the goal and
the essential meaning of history, and this triumph can be brought about
only by liberty."[368] "As in the past the State was historically
necessary evil, it must just as necessarily, sooner or later, disappear
altogether."[369] Everybody feels already that this moment is
approaching,[370] the transformation is at hand,[371] it is to be
expected within the nineteenth century.[372]
II. _In the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach,
the place of the State will be taken by a social human life on the basis
of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._
1. Even after the State is done away, men will live together socially.
The goal of human evolution, "complete humanity,"[373] can be attained
only in a society. "Man becomes man, and his humanity becomes conscious
and real, only in society and by the joint activity of society. He frees
himself from the yoke of external nature only by joint--that is,
societary--labor: it alone is capable of making the surface of the earth
fit for the evolution of mankind; but without such external liberation
neither intellectual nor moral liberation is possible. Furthermore, man
gets free from the yoke of his own nature only by education and
instruction: they alone make it possible for him to subordinate the
impulses and motions of his body to the guidance of his more and more
developed mind; but education and instruction are of an exclusively
societary nature. Outside of society man would have remained forever a
wild beast, or, what comes to about the same thing, a saint. Finally, in
his isolation man cannot have the consciousness of liberty. What liberty
means for man is that he is recognized as free, and treated as free, by
those who surround him; liberty is not a matter of isolation, therefore,
but of mutuality--not of separateness, but of combination; for every man
it is only the mirroring of his humanity (that is, of his human rights)
in the consciousness of his brothers."[374]
But men will be held together in society no longer by a supreme
authority, but by the legally binding force of contract. Complete
humanity can be attained only in a free society. "My liberty, or, what
means the same, my human dignity, consists in my being entitled, as man,
to obey no other man and to act only on my own judgment."[375] "I myself
am a free man only so far as I recognize the humanity and liberty of all
the men who surround me. In respecting their humanity I respect my own.
A cannibal, who treats his prisoner as a wild beast and eats him, is
himself not a man, but a beast. A slaveholder is not a man, but a
master."[376] "The more free men surround me, and the deeper and broader
their freedom is, so much deeper, broader, and more powerful is my
freedom too. On the other hand, every enslavement of men is at the same
time a limitation of my freedom, or, what is the same thing, a negation
of my human existence by its bestial existence."[377] But a free society
cannot be held together by authority,[378] but only by contract.[379]
2. How will the future society shape itself in detail?
"Unity is the goal toward which mankind ceaselessly moves."[380]
Therefore men will unite with the utmost amplitude. But "the place of
the old organization, built from above downward upon force and
authority, will be taken by a new one which has no other basis than the
natural needs, inclinations, and endeavors of men."[381] Thus we come to
a "free union of individuals into communes, of communes into provinces,
of provinces into nations, and finally of nations into the United States
of Europe and later of the whole world."[382]
"Every nation,--be it great or small, strong or weak,--every province,
and every commune has the unlimited right to complete independence,
provided that its internal constitution does not threaten the
independence and liberty of the adjoining territories."[383]
"All of what are known as the historic rights of nations are totally
done away; all questions regarding natural, political, strategic, and
economic boundaries are henceforth to be classed as ancient history and
resolutely disallowed."[384]
"By the fact that a territory has once belonged to a State, even by a
voluntary adhesion, it is in no wise bound to remain always united with
this State. Human justice, the only justice that means anything to us,
cannot recognize anything as creating an obligation in perpetuity. All
rights and duties are founded on liberty. The right of freely uniting
and separating is the first and most important of all political rights.
Without this right the League would be merely a concealed centralization
still."[385]
5.--PROPERTY
I. _In the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human
existence, according to Bakunin, we must shortly come to the
disappearance--not indeed of property, but--of property's present form,
unlimited private property._
1. Private property, so far as it fastens upon all things without
distinction, belongs to the same low stage of evolution as the State.
"Private property is at once the consequence and the basis of the
State."[386] "Every government is necessarily based on exploitation on
the one hand, and on the other hand has exploitation for its goal and
bestows upon exploitation protection and legality."[387] In every State
there exist "two kinds of relationship,--to wit, government and
exploitation. If really governing means sacrificing one's self for the
good of the governed, then indeed the second relationship is in direct
contradiction to the first. But let us only understand our point
rightly! From the ideal standpoint, be it theological or metaphysical,
the good of the masses can of course not mean their temporal welfare:
what are a few decades of earthly life in comparison to eternity? Hence
one must govern the masses with regard not to this coarse earthly
happiness, but to their eternal good. Outward sufferings and privations
may even be welcomed from the educator's standpoint, since an excess of
sensual enjoyment kills the immortal soul. But now the contradiction
disappears. Exploiting and governing mean the same; the one completes
the other, and serves as its means and its end."[388]
2. Private property, when it exists in all things without distinction,
has such characteristics as correspond to the low stage of evolution to
which it belongs.
"On the privileged representatives of head-work (who at present are
called to be the representatives of society, not because they have more
sense, but only because they were born in the privileged class) such
property bestows all the blessings and also all the debasement of our
civilization: wealth, luxury, profuse expenditure, comfort, the
pleasures of family life, the exclusive enjoyment of political liberty,
and hence the possibility of exploiting millions of laborers and
governing them at discretion in one's own interest. What is there left
for the representatives of handwork, these numberless millions of
proletarians or of small farmers? Hopeless misery, not even the joys of
the family (for the family soon becomes a burden to the poor man),
ignorance, barbarism, an almost bestial existence, and this for
consolation with it all, that they are serving as pedestal for the
culture, liberty, and depravity of a minority."[389]
The freer and more highly developed trade and industry are in any place,
"the more complete is the demoralization of the privileged few on the
one hand, and the greater are the misery, the complaints, and the just
indignation of the laboring masses on the other. England, Belgium,
France, Germany, are certainly the countries of Europe in which trade
and industry enjoy greatest freedom and have made most progress. In
these very countries the most cruel pauperism prevails, the gulf between
capitalists and landlords on the one hand and the laboring class on the
other is greater than in any other country. In Russia, in the
Scandinavian countries, in Italy, in Spain, where trade and industry are
still embryonic, people but seldom die of hunger except on extraordinary
occasions. In England starvation is an every-day thing. And not only
individuals starve, but thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of
thousands."[390]
3. But mankind will soon have passed the low stage of evolution to which
private property belongs.
As there has at all times been oppression of the nations by the State,
so has there also always been "exploitation of the masses of slaves,
serfs, wage-workers, by a ruling minority."[391] But this exploitation
is no more "inseparably united with the existence of human society"[392]
than is that oppression. "By the force of things themselves"[393]
unlimited private property will be done away. Everybody feels already
that this moment is approaching,[394] the transformation is already at
hand,[395] it is to be expected within the nineteenth century.[396]
II. _In the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach,
property will be so constituted that there will indeed be private
property in the objects of consumption, but in land, instruments of
labor, and all other capital, there will be only social property. The
future society will be collectivist._
In this way every laborer has the product of his labor guaranteed to
him.
1. "Justice must serve as basis for the new world: without it, no
liberty, no living together, no prosperity, no peace."[397] "Justice,
not that of jurists, nor yet that of theologians, nor yet that of
metaphysicians, but simple human justice, commands"[398] that "in future
every man's enjoyment corresponds to the quantity of goods produced by
him."[399] The thing is, then, to find a means "which makes it
impossible for any one, whoever he may be, to exploit the labor of
another, and permits each to share in the enjoyment of society's stock
of goods (which is solely a product of labor) only so far as he has, by
his labor, directly contributed to the production of this stock of
goods."[400]
This means consists in the principle "that the land, the instruments of
labor, and all other capital, as the collective property of the whole of
society, shall exclusively serve for the use of the laborers,--that is,
of their agricultural and industrial associations."[401] "I am not a
Communist, but a Collectivist."[402]
2. The collectivism of the future society "by no means demands the
setting up of any supreme authority. In the name of liberty, on which
alone an economic or a political organization can be founded, we shall
always protest against everything that looks even remotely similar to
Communism or State Socialism."[403] "I would have the organization of
society, and of the collective or social property, from below upward by
the voice of free union, not from above downward by means of any
authority."[404]
6.--REALIZATION
_The change that is promptly to be expected in the course of mankind's
progress from its bestial existence to a human existence,--the
disappearance of the State, the transformation of law and property, and
the appearance of the new condition,--will come to pass, according to
Bakunin, by a social revolution; that is, by a violent subversion of the
old order, which will be automatically brought about by the power of
things, but which those who foresee the course of evolution have the
task of hastening and facilitating._
I. "To escape its wretched lot the populace has three ways, two
imaginary and one real. The two first are the rum-shop and the church,
the third is the social revolution."[405] "A cure is possible only
through the social revolution,"[406]--that is, through "the destruction
of all institutions of inequality, and the establishment of economic and
social equality."[407] The revolution will not be made by anybody.
"Revolutions are never made, neither by individuals nor yet by secret
societies. They come about automatically, in a measure; the power of
things, the current of events and facts, produces them. They are long
preparing in the depth of the obscure consciousness of the masses--then
they break out suddenly, not seldom on apparently slight occasion."[408]
The revolution is already at hand to-day;[409] everybody feels its
approach;[410] we are to expect it within the nineteenth century.[411]
1. "By the revolution we understand the unchaining of everything that
is to-day called 'evil passions,' and the destruction of everything that
in the same language is called 'public order'."[412]
The revolution will rage not against men, but against relations and
things.[413] "Bloody revolutions are often necessary, thanks to human
stupidity; yet they are always an evil, a monstrous evil and a great
disaster, not only with regard to the victims, but also for the sake of
the purity and perfection of the purpose in whose name they take
place."[414] "One must not wonder if in the first moment of their
uprising the people kill many oppressors and exploiters--this
misfortune, which is of no more importance anyhow than the damage done
by a thunderstorm, can perhaps not be avoided. But this natural fact
will be neither moral nor even useful. Political massacres have never
killed parties; particularly have they always shown themselves impotent
against the privileged classes; for authority is vested far less in men
than in the position which the privileged acquire by any institutions,
particularly by the State and private property. If one would make a
thorough revolution, therefore, one must attack things and
relationships, destroy property and the State: then there is no need of
destroying men and exposing one's self to the inevitable reaction which
the slaughtering of men always has provoked and always will provoke in
every society. But, in order to have the right to deal humanely with men
without danger to the revolution, one must be inexorable toward things
and relationships, destroy everything, and first and foremost property
and its inevitable consequence the State. This is the whole secret of
the revolution."[415]
"The revolution, as the power of things to-day necessarily presents it
before us, will not be national, but international,--that is, universal.
In view of the threatened league of all privileged interests and all
reactionary powers in Europe, in view of the terrible instrumentalities
that a shrewd organization puts at their disposal, in view of the deep
chasm that to-day yawns between the _bourgeoisie_ and the laborers
everywhere, no revolution can count on success if it does not speedily
extend itself beyond the individual nation to all other nations. But the
revolution can never cross the frontiers and become general unless it
has in it the foundations for this generality; that is, unless it is
pronouncedly socialistic, and, by equality and justice, destroys the
State and establishes liberty. For nothing can better inspire and uplift
the sole true power of the century, the laborers, than the complete
liberation of labor and the shattering of all institutions for the
protection of hereditary property and of capital."[416] "A political and
national revolution cannot win, therefore, unless the political
revolution becomes social, and the national revolution, by the very fact
of its fundamentally socialistic and State-destroying character, becomes
a universal revolution."[417]
2. "The revolution, as we understand it, must on its very first day
completely and fundamentally destroy the State and all State
institutions. This destruction will have the following natural and
necessary effects. (a) The bankruptcy of the State. (b) The cessation
of State collection of private debts, whose payment is thenceforth left
to the debtor's pleasure. (c) The cessation of the payment of taxes, and
of the levying of direct or indirect imposts. (d) The dissolution of the
army, the courts, the corps of office-holders, the police, and the
clergy. (e) The stoppage of the official administration of justice, the
abolition of all that is called juristic law and of its exercise. Hence,
the valuelessness, and the consignment to an _auto-da-fe_, of all titles
to property, testamentary dispositions, bills of sale, deeds of gift,
judgments of courts--in short, of the whole mass of papers relating to
private law. Everywhere, and in regard to everything, the revolutionary
fact in place of the law created and guaranteed by the State. (f) The
confiscation of all productive capital and instruments of labor in favor
of the associations of laborers, which will use them for collective
production. (g) The confiscation of all Church and State property, as
well as of the bullion in private hands, for the benefit of the commune
formed by the league of the associations of laborers. In return for the
confiscated goods, those who are affected by the confiscation receive
from the commune their absolute necessities; they are free to acquire
more afterward by their labor."[418]
The destruction will be followed by the reshaping. Hence, (h) "The
organization of the commune by the permanent association of the
barricades and by its organ, the council of the revolutionary commune,
to which every barricade, every street, every quarter, sends one or two
responsible and revocable representatives with binding instructions. The
council of the commune can appoint executive committees out of its
membership for the various branches of the revolutionary administration.
(i) The declaration of the capital, insurgent and organized as a
commune, that, after the righteous destruction of the State of authority
and guardianship, it renounces the right (or rather the usurpation) of
governing the provinces and setting a standard for them. (k) The summons
to all provinces, communities, and associations, to follow the example
given by the capital, first to organize themselves in revolutionary
form, then to send to a specified meeting-place responsible and
revocable representatives with binding instructions, and so to
constitute the league of the insurgent associations, communities, and
provinces, and to organize a revolutionary power capable of defeating
the reaction. The sending, not of official commissioners of the
revolution with some sort of badges, but of agitators for the
revolution, to all the provinces and communities--especially to the
peasants, who cannot be revolutionized by scientific principles nor yet
by the edicts of any dictatorship, but only by the revolutionary fact
itself: that is, by the inevitable effects of the complete cessation of
official State activity in all the communities. The abolition of the
national State, not only in other senses, but in this,--that all foreign
countries, provinces, communities, associations, nay, all individuals
who have risen in the name of the same principles, without regard to the
present State boundaries, are accepted as part of the new political
system and nationality; and that, on the other hand, it shall exclude
from membership those provinces, communities, associations, or
personages, of the same country, who take the side of the reaction. Thus
must the universal revolution, by the very fact of its binding the
insurgent countries together for joint defence, march on unchecked over
the abolished boundaries and the ruins of the formerly existing States
to its triumph."[419]
II. "To serve, to organize, and to hasten"[420] "the revolution, which
must everywhere be the work of the people"[421]--this alone is the task
of those who foresee the course of evolution. We have to perform
"midwife's services"[422] for the new time, "to help on the birth of the
revolution."[423]
To this end we must, "first, spread among the masses thoughts that
correspond to the instincts of the masses."[424] "What keeps the
salvation-bringing thought from going through the laboring masses with a
rush? Their ignorance; and particularly the political and religious
prejudices which, thanks to the exertions of the ruling classes, to this
day obscure the laborer's natural thought and healthy feelings."[425]
"Hence the aim must consist in making him completely conscious of what
he wants, evoking in him the thought that corresponds to his impulses.
If once the thoughts of the laboring masses have mounted to the level
of their impulses, then will their will be soon determined and their
power irresistible."[426]
Furthermore, we must "form, not indeed the army of the revolution,--the
army can never be anything but the people,--but yet a sort of staff for
the revolutionary army. These must be devoted, energetic, talented men,
who, above all, love the people without ambition and vanity, and who
have the faculty of mediating between the revolutionary thought and the
instincts of the people. No very great number of such men is requisite.
A hundred revolutionists firmly and seriously bound together are enough
for the international organization of all Europe. Two or three hundred
revolutionists are enough for the organization of the largest
country."[427]
Here, especially, is the field for the activity of secret
societies.[428] "In order to serve, organize, and hasten the general
revolution"[429] Bakunin founded the _Alliance internationale de la
democratie socialiste_. It was to pursue a double purpose: "(a) The
spreading of correct views about politics, economics, and philosophical
questions of every kind, among the masses in all countries; an active
propaganda by newspapers, pamphlets, and books, as well as by the
founding of public associations. (b) The winning of all wise, energetic,
silent, well-disposed men who are sincerely devoted to the idea; the
covering of Europe, and America too so far as possible, with a network
of self-sacrificing revolutionists, strong by unity."[430]
FOOTNOTES:
[317] Printed in "_OEuvres de Michel Bakounine_" (1895) pp. 1-205, under
the title "_Federalisme, socialisme et antitheologisme_."
[318] Printed in "_L'Alliance de la democratie socialiste et
l'Association internationale des travailleurs_" (1873) pp. 118-35.
[319] Only fragments have been printed: one under the title "_L'Empire
knoutogermanique et la Revolution sociale_" (1871), a second under the
title "_Dieu et l'Etat_" (1882), a third under the same title in
"_OEuvres de Michel Bakounine_" (1895) pp. 261-326.
[320] Printed in Dragomanoff, "_Michail Bakunins sozial-politischer
Briefwechsel mit Alexander Iw. Herzen und Ogarjow_," German translation
by Minzes (1895) pp. 358-64.
[321] A part is printed in French translation, in "_L'Alliance de la
democratie socialiste et l'Association internationale des travailleurs_"
(1873) pp. 90-95, the rest in Dragomanoff pp. 371-83.
[322] "_L'Alliance de la democratie socialiste et l'Association
internationale des travailleurs_" p. 89; Dragomanoff p. IX.
[323] Ba. "_Briefe_" pp. 223, 233, 266, 272.
[324] Ba. "_Dieu_" p. 34.
[325] _Ib._ p. 33.
[326] _Ib._ p. 3.
[327] _Ib._ p. 52.
[328] Ba. "_Proposition_" p. 104.
[329] Ba. "_Dieu_" p. 52.
[330] _Ib._ p. 7.
[331] _Ib._ p. 16.
[332] _Ib._ p. 16.
[333] _Ib._ p. 16.
[334] Ba. "_Proposition_" p. 155.
[335] Ba. "_Dieu_" p. 16.
[336] _Ib._ pp. 27-8.
[337] Ba. "_Programme_" p. 382.
[338] Ba. "_Dieu_" p. 30.
[339] Ba. "_Dieu_" _OEuvres_ p. 287.
[340] _Ib._ p. 285.
[341] Ba. "_Programme_" p. 382.
[342] Ba. "_Articles_" p. 113.
[343] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 125.
[344] _Ib._ p. 125.
[345] Ba. "_Dieu_" _OEuvres_ p. 281.
[346] Ba. "_Statuts_" pp. 129-31.
[347] Ba. "_Proposition_" pp. 17-18.
[348] Ba. "_Dieu_" _OEuvres_ p. 281.
[349] Ba. "_Proposition_" pp. 17-18.
[350] Ba. "_Proposition_" p. 18.
[351] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 133.
[352] Ba. "_Dieu_" _OEuvres_ p. 285.
[353] Ba. "_Proposition_" p. 134.
[354] Ba. "_Dieu_" p. 19.
[355] _Ib._ p. 87.
[356] Ba. "_Dieu_" _OEuvres_ p. 287.
[357] Ba. "_Dieu_" p. 20.
[358] _Ib._ p. 97.
[359] _Ib._ p. 9.
[360] _Ib._ p. 11.
[361] Ba. "_Dieu_" _OEuvres_ p. 288.
[362] Ba. "_Dieu_" pp. 29-30.
[363] Ba. "_Proposition_" p. 154
[364] _Ib._ p. 10.
[365] Ba. "_Dieu_" _OEuvres_ pp. 287-8.
[366] Ba. "_Dieu_" p. 14.
[367] _Ib._ p. 65.
[368] _Ib._ p. 53
[369] Ba. "_Dieu_" _OEuvres_ p. 287.
[370] Ba. "_Articles_" p. 113.
[371] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 125.
[372] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 125.
[373] Ba. "_Dieu_" p. 11.
[374] Ba. "_Dieu_" _OEuvres_ pp. 277-8.
[375] _Ib._ p. 281.
[376] _Ib._ p. 279.
[377] _Ib._ p. 281.
[378] _Ib._ p. 283.
[379] Ba. "_Proposition_" pp. 16-18.
[380] _Ib._ p. 20.
[381] Ba. "_Proposition_" p. 16.
[382] _Ib._ pp. 16-17.
[383] _Ib._ pp. 17-18.
[384] _Ib._ p. 17.
[385] _Ib._ p. 18.
[386] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 128.
[387] Ba. "_Dieu_" _OEuvres_ p. 324.
[388] _Ib._ pp. 323-4.
[389] Ba. "_Proposition_" pp. 32-3.
[390] Ba. "_Proposition_" pp. 26-7.
[391] Ba. "_Dieu_" p. 14.
[392] _Ib._ p. 14.
[393] Ba. "_Programme_" p. 382.
[394] Ba. "_Articles_" p. 113.
[395] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 125.
[396] _Ib._ p. 125.
[397] Ba. "_Proposition_" pp. 54-5.
[398] _Ib._ p. 59.
[399] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 133.
[400] Ba. "_Proposition_" p. 55.
[401] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 133.
[402] Ba. "_Discours_" p. 27.
[403] Ba. "_Proposition_" p. 56.
[404] Ba. "_Discours_" p. 28.
[405] Ba. "_Dieu_" p. 10.
[406] _Ib._ p. 18.
[407] _Ib._ p. 45.
[408] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 132.
[409] _Ib._ p. 125.
[410] Ba. "_Articles_" p. 113.
[411] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 125.
[412] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 129.
[413] _Ib._ p. 126.
[414] Ba. "_Volkssache_" p. 309.
[415] Ba. "_Statuts_" pp. 127-8.
[416] _Ib._ p. 125.
[417] _Ib._ p. 131.
[418] Ba. "_Statuts_" pp. 129-30. [Bakunin is writing in a world where
the Church is everywhere part of the State machine. Would his words
about Church property apply equally, according to him, in the United
States, where the Church property is in general made up of the free
gifts of individual believers? Perhaps; for he would have no love for
the Church even here, and he is obviously hostile to anything in the
nature of mortmain. If so, how about college property?]
[419] Ba. "_Statuts_" pp. 130-31.
[420] _Ib._ p. 125.
[421] _Ib._ p. 131.
[422] Ba. "_Volkssache_" p. 309.
[423] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 132.
[424] _Ib._ p. 132.
[425] Ba. "_Articles_" p. 103.
[426] Ba. "_Articles_" p. 103.
[427] Ba. "_Statuts_" p. 132.
[428] _Ib._ p. 132.
[429] _Ib._ p. 125.
[430] _Ib._ pp. 125-6.
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