BAKOUNINE
We have seen that in their criticism of the "political constitution,"
the "fathers" of anarchy always based themselves on the Utopian point of
view. Each one of them based his theories upon an abstract principle.
Stirner upon that of the "Ego," Proudhon upon that of the "Contract."
The reader has also seen that these two "fathers" were individualists of
the first water.
The influence of Proudhonian individualism was, for a time, very strong
in the Romance countries (France, Belgium, Italy, Spain) and in the
Slaav countries, especially Russia. The internal history of the
International Working Men's Association is the history of this struggle
between Proudhonism and the modern Socialism of Marx. Not only men like
Tolain, Chemalé or Murat, but men very superior to them, such as De
Paepe, _e.g._, were nothing but more or less opinionated, more or less
consistent "Mutualists." But the more the working class movement
developed, the more evident it became that "Mutualism" could not be its
theoretical expression. At the International Congresses the Mutualists
were forced by the logic of facts to vote for the Communist
resolutions. This was the case, _e.g._, at Brussels in the discussion on
landed property.[32] Little by little the left wing of the Proudhonian
army left the domain of Individualism to intrench itself upon that of
"Collectivism."
The word "Collectivism" was used at this period in a sense altogether
opposed to that which it now has in the mouths of the French Marxists,
like Jules Guesde and his friends. The most prominent champion of
"Collectivism" was at this time Michel Bakounine.
In speaking of this man we shall pass over in silence his propaganda in
favour of the Hegelian philosophy, as far as he understood it, the part
he played in the revolutionary movement of 1848, his Panslavist writings
in the beginning of the sixties, and his pamphlet, "Roumanow, Pougatchew
or Pestel"[33] (London, 1862), in which he proposed to go over to
Alexander II., if the latter would become the "Tzar of the Moujiks."
Here we are exclusively concerned with his theory of Anarchist
Collectivism.
A member of the "League of Peace and Liberty," Bakounine, at the
Congress of this Association at Berne in 1869, called upon the
League--an entirely bourgeois body--to declare in favour of "the
economical and social equalisation of classes and of individuals." Other
delegates, among whom was Chaudey, reproached him with advocating
Communism. He indignantly protested against the accusation.
"Because I demand the economic and social equalisation of classes and
individuals, because, with the Workers' Congress of Brussels, I have
declared myself in favour of collective property, I have been reproached
with being a Communist. What difference, I have been asked, is there
between Communism and Collectivism. I am really astounded that M.
Chaudey does not understand this difference, he who is the testamentary
executor of Proudhon! I detest Communism, because it is the negation of
liberty, and I cannot conceive anything human without liberty. I am not
a Communist, because Communism concentrates and causes all the forces of
society to be absorbed by the State, because it necessarily ends in the
centralisation of property in the hands of the State, while I desire the
abolition of the State--the radical extirpation of this principle of the
authority and the tutelage of the State, which, under the pretext of
moralising and civilising men, has until now enslaved, oppressed,
exploited, and depraved them. I desire the organisation of society and
of collective or social property from below upwards, by means of free
association, and not from above downwards by means of some authority of
some sort. Desiring the abolition of the State, I desire the abolition
of property individually hereditary, which is nothing but an institution
of the State, nothing but a result of the principle of the State. This
is the sense, gentlemen, in which I am a Collectivist, and not at all a
Communist."
In another speech at the same Congress Bakounine reiterates what he had
already said of "Statist" Communism. "It is not we, gentlemen," he said,
"who systematically deny all authority and all tutelary powers, and who
in the name of Liberty demand the very abolition of the "authoritarian"
principle of the State; it is not we who will recognise any sort of
political and social organisation whatever, that is not founded upon
the most complete liberty of every one.... But I am in favour of
collective property, because I am convinced that so long as property,
individually hereditary, exists, the equality of the first start, the
realisation of equality, economical and social, will be impossible."[34]
This is not particularly lucid as a statement of principles. But it is
sufficiently significant from the "biographical" point of view.
We do not insist upon the ineptitude of the expression "the economic and
social equalisation of classes;" the General Council of the
International dealt with that long ago.[35] We would only remark that
the above quotations show that Bakounine--
1. Combats the State and "Communism" in the name of "the most complete
liberty of everybody;"
2. Combats property, "individually hereditary," in the name of economic
equality;
3. Regards this property as "an institution of the State," as a
"consequence of the very principles of the State;"
4. Has no objection to individual property, if it is not hereditary; has
no objection to the right of inheritance, if it is not individual.
In other words:
1. Bakounine is quite at one with Proudhon so far as concerns the
negation of the State and Communism;
2. To this negation he adds another, that of property, individually
hereditary;
3. His programme is nothing but a total arrived at by the adding up of
the two abstract principles--that of "liberty," and that of "equality;"
he applies these two principles, one after the other, and independently
one of the other, in his criticism of the existing order of things,
never asking himself whether the results of these two negations are
reconcilable with one another.
4. He understands, just as little as Proudhon, the origin of private
property and the causal connection between its evolution and the
development of political forms.
5. He has no clear conception of the meaning of the words "individually
hereditary."
If Proudhon was a Utopian, Bakounine was doubly so, for his programme
was nothing but a Utopia of "Liberty," reinforced by a Utopia of
"Equality." If Proudhon, at least to a very large extent, remained
faithful to his principle of the contract, Bakounine, divided between
liberty and equality, is obliged from the very outset of his argument
constantly to throw over the former for the benefit of the latter, and
the latter for the benefit of the former. If Proudhon is a Proudhonian
_sans reproche_, Bakounine is a Proudhonian adulterated with
"detestable" Communism, nay even by "Marxism."
In fact, Bakounine has no longer that immutable faith in the genius of
the "master" Proudhon, which Tolain seems to have preserved intact.
According to Bakounine "Proudhon, in spite of all his efforts to get a
foothold upon the firm ground of reality, remained an idealist and
metaphysician. His starting point is the abstract side of law; it is
from this that he starts in order to arrive at economic facts, while
Marx, on the contrary, has enunciated and proved the truth, demonstrated
by the whole of the ancient and modern history of human societies, of
peoples and of states, that economic facts preceded and precede the
facts of political and civil law. The discovery and demonstration of
this truth is one of the greatest merits of M. Marx."[36] In another of
his writings he says, with entire conviction, "All the religions, and
all the systems of morals that govern a given society are always the
ideal expression of its real, material condition, that is, especially of
its economic organisation, but also of its political organisation, the
latter, indeed, being never anything but the juridical and violent
consecration of the former." And he again mentions Marx as the man to
whom belongs the merit of having discovered and demonstrated this
truth.[37] One asks oneself with astonishment how this same Bakounine
could declare that private property was only a consequence of the
principle of authority. The solution of the riddle lies in the fact that
he did not understand the materialist conception of history; he was only
"adulterated" by it.
And here is a striking proof of this. In the Russian work, already
quoted, "Statism and Anarchy," he says that in the situation of the
Russian people there are two elements which constitute the conditions
necessary for the social (he means Socialist) revolution. "The Russian
people can boast of excessive poverty, and unparalleled slavery. Their
sufferings are innumerable, and they bear these, not with patience, but
with a profound and passionate despair, that twice already in our
history has manifested itself in terrible outbursts: in the revolt of
Stephan Razine, and in that of Pougatschew."[38] And that is what
Bakounine understood by the material conditions of a Socialist
revolution! Is it necessary to point out that this "Marxism" is a little
too _sui generis_?
While combating Mazzini from the standpoint of the materialist
conception of history, Bakounine himself is so far from understanding
the true import of this conception, that in the same work in which he
refutes the Mazzinian theology, he speaks, like the thorough-faced
Proudhonian that he is, of "absolute" human morality, and he bolsters up
the idea of this morality--the morality of "solidarity,"--with such
arguments as these:
"Every actual being, so long as he exists, exists only by virtue of a
principle which is inherent in himself, and which determines his
particular nature; a principle that is not imposed upon him by a divine
law-giver of any sort" (this is the "materialism" of our author!), "but
is the protracted and constant result of combinations of natural causes
and effects; that is not, according to the ludicrous idea of the
idealists, shut up in him like a soul within its body, but is, in fact,
only the inevitable and constant form of his real existence. The human,
like all other species, has inherent principles quite special to itself,
and all these principles are summed up in, or are reducible to, a single
principle, which we call _solidarity_. This principle may be formulated
thus: No human individual can recognise his own humanity, nor,
therefore, realise it in his life except by recognising it in others,
and by helping to realise it for others. No man can emancipate himself,
except by emancipating with him all the men around him. My liberty is
the liberty of everyone, for I am not truly free, free not only in
thought but in deed, except when my liberty and my rights find their
confirmation, their sanction, in the liberty and the rights of all men,
my equals."[39]
As a moral precept, solidarity, as interpreted by Bakounine, is a very
excellent thing. But to set up this a morality, which by the way is not
at all "absolute," as principle "inherent" in humanity and determining
human nature, is playing with words, and completely ignoring what
materialism is. Humanity only exists "by virtue" of the principle of
solidarity. This is coming it a little too strong. How about the "class
war," and the cursed State, and property, "individually hereditary"--are
these only manifestations of "solidarity," inherent in humanity,
determining its special nature, etc., etc? If this is so, everything is
all right, and Bakounine was wasting his time in dreaming of a "social"
revolution. If this is not so, this proves that humanity may have
existed "by virtue" of other principles than that of solidarity, and
that this latter principle is by no means "inherent" in it. Indeed,
Bakounine only enunciated his "absolute" principle in order to arrive at
the conclusion that "no people could be completely free, free with
solidarity, in the human sense of the word, if the whole of humanity is
not free also."[40]
This is an allusion to the tactics of the modern proletariat, and it is
true in the sense that--as the rules of the International Workingmen's
Association put it--the emancipation of the workers is not a merely
local or national problem, but, on the contrary, a problem concerning
every civilised nation, its solution being necessarily dependent upon
their theoretical and practical cooperation. It is easy enough to prove
this truth by reference to the actual economic situation of civilised
humanity. But nothing is less conclusive, here as elsewhere, than a
"demonstration" founded upon a Utopian conception of "human nature." The
"solidarity" of Bakounine only proves that he remained an incorrigible
Utopian, although he became acquainted with the historical theory of
Marx.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] " ... Among those who call themselves Mutualists, and whose
economic ideas incline, on the whole, to the theories of Proudhon, in
the sense that they, like the great revolutionary writer, demand the
suppression of all levies of capital upon labour, the suppression of
interest, reciprocity of service, equal exchange of products on the
basis of cost price, free reciprocal credit, several voted for the
collective ownership of the land. Such, _e.g._, are the four French
delegates, Aubry of Rouen, Delacour of Paris, Richard of Lyons,
Lemonnier of Marseilles, and among the Belgians, Companions A. Moetens,
Verricken, De Paepe, Marichal, etc. For them there is no contradiction
between Mutualism applicable to the exchange of services and the
exchange of products on the basis of cost price, that is to say, the
quantity of labour contained in the services and the products, and
collective property applicable to the land, which is not a product of
labour, and therefore does not seem to them to come under the law of
exchange, under the law of circulation."--Reply to an article by Dr.
Coullery in the "Voix de l'Avenir," September, 1868, by the Belgians
Vanderhouten, De Paepe, Delasalle, Hermann, Delplanque, Roulants,
Guillaume Brasseur, printed in the same newspaper and reprinted as a
document in the "Mémoire of the Fédération Jurasienne," Souvillier,
1873, pp. 19-20.
[33] "Roumanow" is the name of the reigning family in Russia--derived
(if we overlook the adultery of Catherine II., admitted by herself in
her memoirs) from Peter III., the husband of Catherine II., and Prince
of Holstein-Gottorp. Pougatchew, the pretended Peter III., was a
Cossack, who placed himself at the head of a Russian peasant rising in
1773. Pestel was a Republican conspirator, hanged by Nicolas in 1826.
[34] See the documents published with the "Mémoire de la Fédération
Jurasienne," pp. 28, 29, 37.
[35] "The equalisation of classes," wrote the General Council to the
"Alliance" of Bakounine, who desired to be admitted into the
International Working Men's Association, and had sent the Council its
programme in which this famous "equalisation" phrase occurs, "literally
interpreted comes to the harmony of capital and labour, so
pertinaciously advocated by bourgeois Socialists. It is not the
equalisation of classes, logically a contradiction, impossible to
realise, but on the contrary, the abolition of classes, the real secret
of the proletarian movement, which is the great aim of the International
Working Men's Association."
[36] "Statism and Anarchy, 1873" (the Russian place of publication is
not given), pp. 223-224 (Russian). We know the word "Statism" is a
barbarism, but Bakounine uses it, and the flexibility of the Russian
language lends itself to such forms.
[37] "La Théologie Politique de Mazzini et l'Internationale, Neuchatel,
1871," pp. 69 and 78.
[38] Ibid. Appendix A, p. 7.
[39] "La Théologié Politique de Mazzini," p. 91.
[40] Ibid. pp. 110, 111.