Spunk Library

Mikhail Bakunin

    from Workers Solidarity No 47

    paper of the Irish anarchist
    Workers Solidarity Movement

Anarchism's Greatest Hits NO.1
Mikhail Bakunin

The anarchist movement throws up many men and
women, who become famous because of their actions, ideas
and writings.  Perhaps the best known of them all was a
Russian, Mikhail Bakunin.
Anarchists do not have god-like leaders, nor all-knowing
prophets.  Nobody gets it right all the time and nobody is
above criticism.  Whoever does not make mistakes is either
(a) not human, or (b) someone who never does anything at
all.  It is possible to take inspiration from the actions and
ideas of others without falling into the trap of uncritical
hero-worship.

First steps to freedom
Born in 1814 in Tsarist Russia, Bakunin quickly developed a
burning hatred of injustice.  At age 21, after a couple of years
in uniform, he resigned from the army and began to mix in
democratic circles.   Nine years later he met up with radicals
like Proudhon and Marx in Paris.  By this stage he had
formulated a theory which saw freedom being achieved by a
general rising, linked to revolutions in the subject nations.
His passionate campaigning for democracy and anti-
colonialism made him 'public enemy number one' in the
eyes of most European monarchies.  In 1848 he was expelled
from France for making a speech in support of
independence for Poland.  His passion for liberty and
equality, and his condemnations of privilege and injustice
gave him an enormous appeal in the radical movement of
the day.
The following year Bakunin rushed to Dresden where he
played a leading role in the May insurrection.  This led to his
arrest and he was sentenced to death.  The Austrian
monarchy also wanted him, so he was extradited and again
sentenced to death.  But before the hangman could put the
noose around his neck, Russia demanded his extradition
and he spent the following six years jailed without trial in
the Peter and Paul Fortress.  Release from jail was followed
by exile in Siberia.

Escape from Siberia
In 1861 he made a dramatic escape and returned to Europe by
way of Japan, the Panama Canal and San Francisco!  For the
next three years he threw himself into the struggle for Polish
independence.  Then he began to rethink his ideas.  Would
national independence, in itself, lead to liberty for working
people?  This took him away from nationalism and towards
anarchism.
In 1868 he joined the International Working Men's
Association (also known as the First International), a
federation of radical and trade union organisations with
sections in most European countries.  Very rapidly his ideas
developed and he became a famous exponent of anarchism.
While agreeing with much of Marx's economic theory, he
rejected his authoritarian politics and the major division
within the International was between the anarchists and the
Marxists.
While Marx believed that socialism could be built by taking
over the state, Bakunin looked forward to its destruction
and the creation of a new society based on free federations of
free workers.  This soon became the policy of the
International in Italy and Spain, and grew in popularity in
Switzerland, Belgium and France.  After failing to defeat the
anarchist idea, Marx and his followers resorted to a
campaign of smears and lies against Bakunin.

A movement is born
A committee set up to investigate the charges found, by a
majority, Bakunin guilty and voted to expel him.  The Swiss
section called a further congress, where the charges were
found to be false.  An international conference also
vindicated Bakunin, and went on to adopt the anarchist
position of rejecting any rule by a minority.
Defeated, Marx and his followers moved the General
Council of the International to New York where it faded
into irrelevance.  The ideas developed by Bakunin in the last
decade of his life went on to form the basis of the modern
anarchist movement.  Worn out by a lifetime of struggle,
Bakunin died in Switzerland on July 1st 1876.
His legacy is enormous.  Although he wrote manifestos,
articles and books he never finished a single sizable work.
Being primarily an activist he would stop, sometimes
literally in mid-sentence, to play his part in struggles, strikes
and rebellions.  What he left to posterity is a collection of
fragments.  Even so, his writings are full of insights that are
as relevant today as they were in his time.

The danger of dictatorship
While understanding that ideas and intellectuals have an
important role to play in the revolution, a role of education
and articulating peoples' needs and desires, he issued a
warning.  He cautioned them against trying to take power
and create a "dictatorship of the proletariat".  The notion
that a small group of people, no matter how well meaning,
could execute a coup d'etat for the benefit of the majority
was a "heresy against common sense".  Long before the
Russian revolution he warned that a new class of
intellectuals and semi-intellectuals might seek to step into
the shoes of the landlords and bosses, and deny working
people their freedom.
In 1873 he foretold, with great accuracy, that under the
"dictatorship of the proletariat" of the Marxists the party
leaders would "concentrate the reins of government in a
strong hand" and "divide the the masses into two great
armies - industrial and agricultural - under the direct
command of state engineers who will constitute a new
privileged scientific and political class".
Bakunin understood that government is the means by
which a minority rules.  In so far as 'political power' means
the concentration of authority in a few hands, he declared, it
must be abolished.  Instead there must be a 'social
revolution' which will change the relationship between
people and place power in the hands of the masses through
their own federation of voluntary organisations.
"It is necessary to abolish completely and in principle and in
practice, everything that may be called political power, for as
long as political power exists there will always be rulers and
ruled, masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited".
Who now can say he was not right?

Joe King

A selection of books from the revolutionary with a beard

Bakunin on Anarchy (edited by Sam Dolgoff)

A huge and comprehensive anthology of his writings.  By far
the best collection available in the English language.

Basic Bakunin (edited by Robert M Cutler)

Writings from his time in the International Workingmens'
Association; covering revolutionary socialism, the general
strike, co-operation, all-round education, and more.  Only
one of these articles has previously appeared in a complete
English translation.

and a few pamphlets...

God and the State by Michael Bakunin

Cheap version of his book; which combines an introduction
to anarchism, a manifesto of atheism and a summing up of
his thoughts.

Marxism, Freedom and the State by Michael Bakunin

In the more than a century since these passages were written
the worship of the state has become a religion over a very
large part of the globe, and we have seen in practice the
fulfilment of Bakunin's gloomy forbodings on the
destination of Marxist socialism.  History itself has shown
the relevance of his arguments.

The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State by Michael
Bakunin

For a few weeks in 1871 the workers of Paris took control of
their city.

On Violence by Michael Bakunin

His letter to Sergei Nechaev (infamous Russian terrorist)
where he tackles the subject by expressing his faith in
humanity and in the process rejecting the option of
terrorism

Bakunin and Nechaev by Paul Avrich
What exactly was the relationship between Bakunin and
Nechaev?  Are Marxists correct to say Bakunin was an
advocate of terrorism?

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  RBR