💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › anarchist-federation-basic-bakunin.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 06:53:04. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Basic Bakunin Author: Anarchist Federation Date: 2014 Language: en Topics: Mikhail Bakunin, marxism, Karl Marx, federalism, nationalism, anarcho-syndicalism, unions, anti-state, state socialism, capitalism, morality, religion, anti-religion, democracy, class, revolution, self-organization, mutual aid, the state, anarcho-communism, libertarian communism, communism Source: Retrieved on 2021-01-13 from http://afed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/Basic-Bakunin.pdf
This edition is dedicated to Colin Parker, one of the founding members
of the Anarchist Communist Federation (later shortened to the Anarchist
Federation) who drafted the first edition and has provided invaluable
insight into each revision, helping to keep the revolutionary flame
alive.
[]
This pamphlet will examine the anarchist ideas of Mikhail Bakunin.
Despite having often been reviled, distorted or ignored since, these
ideas were a huge influence upon the 19^(th) century socialist movement.
On reading this pamphlet, we hope that it will become apparent that
Bakunin has a lot to offer us today, that his ideas make up a coherent
and well-argued body of thought, and show that there is good reason for
him to be described as the grandfather of modern anarchism.
Bakunin held some views that are rightfully rejected in the modern
anarchist movement, such as the left-wing Slavic nationalism of his
youth and the anti-Semitism he carried through his whole life, but we
can simultaneously criticise those negative aspects of his character
whilst still drawing upon those ideas which do stand up to scrutiny.
The following terms will be used in this pamphlet:
Absolutism
A system of government where power is held by one person or a very
select group of people.
Anarchism
An economic and political system based upon removing oppressive and
exploitative structures in society (such as capitalism and the state),
and building a society where everyone has an equal input into decisions
that affect their life.
Authoritarianism
A form of government where obedience to a formal authority is required
and a hierarchy is maintained.
Bourgeois
Also known as the ruling class or capitalist class. Those who own the
land, housing and work places and have their needs met through the work
of others.
Capitalism
An economic and political system based around exploiting those forced to
sell their labour, in which a country’s trade and industry are
controlled by private owners for profit.
Class
A set of people given a shared title based on something they hold in
common.
Communism
An economic and political system based around common ownership of the
means of production (such as factories, fields and workshops), where
goods are made available based upon need and ensuring the well-being of
all.
Consensus
Having general agreement from everyone involved in a decision.
Determinism
A set of philosophical ideas that say the for every event, including
human actions, there exist conditions that could cause no other event.
This position argues that everything happens due to the conditions that
came before (also known as cause and effect), and that there could have
been no other outcome possible.
Egalitarian
A person who believes in the equality of all people.
Emancipation / Liberation
Gaining the maximum possible freedom to made political and economic
choices for yourself, and with this being available to everybody.
Hierarchical
The nature of hierarchy. A system in which members of an organization or
society are ranked according to relative status or authority.
Idealism
A set of philosophical ideas that say that reality as we know it exists
solely in our minds, and it is these thoughts that create change around
us. Someone following this school of thought is called an idealist.
Libertarian
One who advocates maximising individual rights and minimising the role
of the state.
Materialism
A set of philosophical ideas that say that physical thought and action
creates changes around us. Someone following this school of thought is
called a materialist.
Marx, Karl
Karl Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher,
economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary
socialist. Marx’s work in economics laid the basis for the current
understanding of labour and its relation to capital, and has influenced
much of subsequent economic thought. Bakunin and Marx, while in broad
agreement about the way capitalism functions, ended up as figureheads of
a disagreement over how to oppose capitalism.
Mutual Aid
Acting in cooperation with another group.
Praxis
The cycle of using your ideas and skills to plan practical actions, then
having the outcome from those actions used to refine and improve your
ideas and skills. This in turn informs future actions, which then
improve the next wave of ideas, and so on.
Socialism
An economic and political system based around the social ownership of
our places of work and co-operative management of the economy. Similar
to communism, however not always in agreement on how society should be
managed or how produce should get distributed.
Solidarity
Unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals
with a common interest; mutual support within a group.
State, The
The collected institutions that create and enforce laws created by a
small minority of people within a given territory. Through laws the
state claims that only it has the right to grant the use of violence.
The state uses the law to justify and protect a capitalist economy.
Bakunin saw revolution in terms of the overthrow of one oppressing class
by another oppressed class and the destruction of political power as
expressed as the state and social hierarchy. According to Bakunin,
society is divided into two main classes which are fundamentally opposed
to each other. The oppressed class, he variously described as commoners,
the people, the masses or the workers, makes up a great majority of the
population. Under usual conditions it is not conscious of itself as a
class, though it has an instinct for revolt and whilst unorganised, is
full of vitality. The numerically much smaller oppressing class however
is conscious of its role and maintains its ascendancy by acting in a
purposeful, concerted and united manner.
The basic differences between the two classes, Bakunin maintained, rests
upon the ownership and control of property, which is disproportionately
in the hands of the minority class of capitalists. The masses, on the
other hand, have little to call their own beyond their ability to work.
He correctly identifies that wealth is generated by working people but
that we are denied the fruits of our labour.
“Since labour, which is the production of wealth, is collective,
wouldn’t it seem logical that the enjoyment of this wealth should also
be collective?” [1]
Bakunin was astute enough to understand that the differences between the
two main classes are not always clear cut. He pointed out that it is not
possible to draw a hard line between the two classes, though as in most
things, the differences are most apparent at the extremes. Between these
extremes of wealth and power there is a hierarchy of social strata which
can be assessed according to the degree to which they exploit each other
or are exploited themselves. The further away a given group is from the
workers, the more likely it is to be part of the exploiting category and
the less it suffers from exploitation. Between the two major classes
there is a middle class or middle classes who are both exploiting and
exploited, depending on their position of social hierarchy.
In contrast to Marx’s ideas about the urban proletariat being the
primary revolutionary force in society, Bakunin instead considered both
urban and rural workers together as the masses who are the most
exploited and who form, in Bakunin’s view, the great revolutionary class
which alone can sweep away the present economic system. Unfortunately,
the fact of exploitation and its resultant poverty are in themselves no
guarantee of revolution. Extreme poverty is, Bakunin thought, likely to
lead to resignation if the people can see no possible alternative to the
existing order. Perhaps, if driven to great depths of despair, the poor
will rise up in revolt. Revolts however tend to be local and therefore,
easy to put down. In Bakunin’s view, three conditions are necessary to
bring about popular revolution. They are:
emancipation
Without these three factors being present, plus a united and efficient
self-organisation, no liberation can possibly come from a revolution.
Bakunin had no doubts that revolution must necessarily involve
destruction to create the basis of the new society. He stated that,
quite simply, revolution means nothing less than war, that is the
physical destruction of people and property. Spontaneous revolutions
involve, often, the vast destruction of property. Bakunin noted that
when circumstances demanded it, the workers would destroy even their own
houses, which more often than not, do not belong to them. The negative,
destructive urge is absolutely necessary, he argued, to sweep away the
past. Destruction is closely linked with construction since the “more
vividly the future is visualised, the more powerful is the force of
destruction.” [2]
Given the close relationship between the concentration of wealth and
power in capitalist societies, it is not surprising that Bakunin
considered economic questions to be of paramount importance. It is in
the context of the struggle between labour and capital that Bakunin gave
great significance to strikes by workers. Strikes, he believed, have a
number of important functions in the struggle against capitalism. They
are necessary as catalysts to wrench the workers away from their ready
acceptance of capitalism; they jolt them out of their condition of
resignation. Strikes, as a form of economic and political warfare,
require unity to succeed, thus welding the workers together. During
strikes, there is a polarisation between employers and workers. This
makes the latter more receptive to the revolutionary propaganda and
destroys the urge to compromise and seek deals. Bakunin thought that as
the struggle between labour and capital increases, so will the intensity
and number of strikes. The ultimate strike is the general strike. A
revolutionary general strike, in which class conscious workers are
infused with anarchist ideas will lead, Bakunin thought, to the final
explosion which will bring about anarchist society.
“Strikes awaken, in the masses of people, all the
socialist-revolutionary instincts that reside deep in the heart of every
worker … [and] when those instincts, stirred by the economic struggle,
are awakened in the masses of workers, who are arising from their own
slumber, then the propagation of the socialist-revolutionary idea
becomes quite easy.” [3]
Bakunin’s ideas are revolutionary in the fullest sense, being concerned
with the destruction of economic exploitation and social/political
domination and their replacement by a system of social organisation
which is based upon solidarity and mutual aid. Bakunin offered a
critique of capitalism (in which authority and economic inequality went
hand in hand), and state socialism (which is one sided in its
concentration on economic factors whilst grossly underestimating the
dangers of social authority).
Bakunin based his consistent and unified theory of social relations upon
three connected points, namely:
solidarity)
His anarchism is consequently concerned with the problem of creating a
society of freedom within the context of an egalitarian system of mutual
interaction. The problem with existing societies, he argued, is that
they are dominated by states that are necessarily violent, anti-social,
and artificial constructs which deny the fulfilment of humanity.
Whilst there are, in Bakunin’s view, many objectionable features within
capitalism, apart from the state (e.g. the oppression of women, wage
slavery), it is the state which nurtures, maintains and protects the
oppressive system as a whole. The state is defined as an anti-social
machine which controls society for the benefit of an oppressing class or
elite. It is essentially an institution based upon violence and is
concerned with its maintenance of inequality through political
repression. In addition the state relies upon a permanent bureaucracy to
help carry out its aims. The bureaucratic element, incidentally, is not
simply a tool which it promotes. All states, Bakunin believed, have
internal tendencies toward self-perpetuation, whether they be capitalist
or socialist and are thus to be opposed as obstacles to human freedom.
It might be objected that states are not primarily concerned with
political repression and violence and that liberal democratic states, in
particular, are much interested in social welfare. Bakunin argues that
such aspects are only a disguise, and that when threatened, all states
reveal their essentially violent natures.
And developments within Britain over the last couple of decades tends to
substantiate another feature of the state which Bakunin drew attention
to – the tendency towards authoritarianism and absolutism. He believed
that there were strong pressures in all states to move towards military
dictatorship but that the rate of such development will vary according
to factors such as demography, culture and politics.
Finally, Bakunin noted that states tend toward warfare against other
states. Since there is no internationally accepted moral code between
states, then rivalries between them will be expressed in terms of
military conflict. In his own words:
“So long as States exist there will be no peace. There will only be more
or less prolonged respites – armistices concluded by the perpetually
belligerent states – but as soon as a state feels sufficiently strong to
destroy this equilibrium to its advantage, it will never fail to do so.”
[4]
In contrast to Marx’s ideas about the state, Bakunin maintained that all
forms of government were unjust and that true democracy could not simply
be instilled by degrees or by putting the right people in charge, but
required a total transformation of society.
God as an idea was deeply repulsive to Bakunin and flew in the face of
reason and rational thought. He saw the idea of God as a human creation,
an absolute abstraction without reality, content and determination. In
other words it is absolute nothingness. God and religion are both human
fantasies, a distortion of life on earth. The belief in God destroys
human solidarity, liberty, co-operation and community. Human love
becomes transferred to the nonsense of love for something which does not
exist and into religious charity. For Bakunin, God and religion were the
enemies of all oppressed classes and indeed their role was to contribute
to exploitation and oppression in concert with the ruling class. The
acceptance of the idea of God was for Bakunin the denial of humanity,
freedom and justice. He argued that if God is truth, justice and
infinite life then humanity must be “falsehood, gross injustice and
death”.[5] Bakunin further argues that by accepting the existence of God
humanity becomes enslaved, and that because humanity is capable of
intelligence, justice and freedom, it follows that there is no such
thing as God.
Religions for Bakunin are the result of human fantasy in which heaven is
a mirage. Once installed, God naturally becomes the master to whom
people bow down. Of course, Bakunin recognized that God does not exist
and that religion is a human form of organising and controlling the
masses. He proposed that whoever takes it upon themselves to become
prophet, revealer or priest (God’s representative on earth) becomes the
teacher and leader. From that role religious leaders end up “commanding,
directing and governing over earthly existence”.[6] So, slaves of God
become slaves of the Church and State insofar as the latter is given the
blessing of organised religion. The organised religions of the world,
particularly Christianity, have always allied themselves with domination
and even persecuted religions discipline their followers, laying the
ground for a new tyranny. All religions, but again especially
Christianity, were in the words of Bakunin “founded on blood”.[7] How
many innocent victims have been tortured and murdered in the name of the
religion of love and forgiveness? How many clerics, even today, asks
Bakunin, support capital punishment?
Bakunin believed that God does not exist, and that this is good enough
reason for opposing religion. However he also states that religions must
be combated because they create an intellectual slavery which, in
alliance with the state, results in political and social slavery.
Religions demoralise and corrupt people. They destroy reason and “fill
people’s minds with absurdities”.[8] Religion is an ancient form of
ideology which, in alliance with the state, can be reduced to a simple
statement — ‘We fool you, we rule you.’ [9]
Political commentators and the media are constantly singing the praises
of the system of representative democracy in which every few years or so
the electorate is asked to put a cross on a piece of paper to determine
who will control them. This system works well insofar as the capitalist
system has found a way of gaining legitimacy through the illusion that
somehow the voters are in charge of running the system. Bakunin’s
writings on the issue of representative democracy were made at the time
when it barely existed in the world. Yet he could see on the basis of a
couple of examples (the United States and Switzerland) that the widening
of the franchise does little to improve the lot of the great mass of the
population. True, as Bakunin noted, politicians are prepared to issue
all sorts of promises, but these all disappear the day after the
election. The workers continue to go to work and the bourgeoisie takes
up once again the problems of business and political intrigue.
Today, in the United States and Western Europe, the predominant
political system is that of liberal democracy. In Britain the electoral
system is patently unfair in its distribution of parliamentary seats,
insofar as some parties with substantial support get negligible
representation. However, even where strict proportional representation
applies, the Bakuninist critique remains scathing – the representative
system requires that only a tiny section of the population concern
itself directly with legislation and governing.
Bakunin’s objections to representative democracy basically rest on the
fact that it is an expression of the inequality of power which exists in
society. Despite constitutions guaranteeing the rights of citizens and
equality before the law, the reality is that the capitalist class is in
permanent control. So long as the great mass of the population has to
sell its labour power in order to survive, there cannot be democratic
government. So long as people are economically exploited by capitalism
and there are gross inequalities of wealth, there cannot be real
democracy.
But as Bakunin made clear, if by some quirk a socialist government were
elected, in real terms things would not improve much. When people gain
power and place themselves ‘above’ society, he argued, their way of
looking at the world changes. From their exalted position of high office
the perspective on life becomes distorted and seems very different to
those on the bottom. The history of socialist representation in
parliament is primarily that of reneging on promises and becoming
absorbed into the manners, morality and attitudes of the ruling class.
Bakunin suggests that such backsliding from socialist ideas is not due
to treachery, but because participation in parliament makes
representatives see the world through a distorted mirror. A workers
parliament, engaged in the tasks of governing would, said Bakunin in his
1870 work On Representative Government and Universal Suffrage, end up a
chamber of “determined aristocrats, bold or timid worshippers of the
principle of authority who will also become exploiters and oppressors.”
“Bourgeois socialism is a sort of hybrid, located between two
irreconcilable worlds, the bourgeois world and the workers’ world [...]
It corrupts the proletariat doubly: first, by adulterating and
distorting its principle and program; second, by impregnating it with
impossible hopes accompanied by a ridiculous faith in the bourgeoisie’s
approaching conversion, thereby trying to draw it into bourgeois
politics and to make it an instrument thereof.”[10]
The point that Bakunin makes time and time again in his writings is that
no one can govern for the people in their interests. Only personal and
direct control over our lives will ensure that justice and freedom will
prevail. To abdicate direct control is to deny freedom. To grant
political sovereignty to others, whether under the mantle of democracy,
republicanism, the people’s state, or whatever, is to give others
control and therefore domination over our lives. As Bakunin made clear,
economic facts are much stronger than political rights. So long as there
is economic exploitation there will be political domination by the rich
over the poor.
It might be thought that the referendum, in which people directly make
laws, would be an advance upon the idea of representative democracy.
This is not the case according to Bakunin, for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, the people are not in a position to make decisions on the basis
of full knowledge of all the issues involved. Also, laws may be a
complex, abstract, and specialized nature and that in order to vote for
them in a serious way, the people need to be fully educated and have
available the time and facilities to reflect upon and discuss the
implications involved. The reality of referenda is that they are used by
full-time politicians to gain legitimacy for essentially bourgeois
issues. It is no coincidence that Switzerland, which has used the
referendum frequently, remains one of the most conservative countries in
Europe. With referenda, the people are guided by politicians, who set
the terms of the debate. Thus despite popular input, the people still
remain under bourgeois control.
Finally, on the whole concept of the possibility of the democratic
state: Bakunin thought that the democratic state is a contradiction in
terms since the state is essentially about force, authority and
domination and is necessarily based upon an inequality of wealth and
power. Democracy, in the sense of self-rule for all, means that no one
is ruled. If no one rules, there can be no state. If there is a state,
there can be no self-rule.
Bakunin’s opposition to Marx involves several separate but related
criticisms. Though he thought Marx was a sincere revolutionary, Bakunin
believed that the application of the implementation of Marx’s political
forms of organisation would necessarily lead to the replacement of one
repression (capitalist) by another (state socialist).
Bakunin himself provided the first translation of both the Communist
Manifesto and sections of Capital into Russian. The Italian anarchist
Covelli, himself close to Bakunin’s ideas, produced the first discussion
on Capital in Italian, whilst yet another Italian anarchist, Carlo
Cafiero, again on Bakunin’s wavelength, produced an abridgement of
Capital that was considered by Marx as the best yet written. It was then
edited, introduced and annotated in French by Bakunin’s closest
associate James Guillaume.
As the Reponse de Quelques Internationaux (1872) noted, many of the Jura
Internationalists (comrades to Bakunin) had read Capital:
“They have read it, and all the same they have not become Marxists; that
must appear very singular to these naïve types. How many, on the
contrary, in the General Council, are Marxists without ever having
opened the book of Marx.”
Bakunin always had profound respect for Marx’s economic work, in
particular Capital, and even during the height of the campaign of hatred
and slander waged against him by Marx and his followers, maintained this
favourable view of Marx’s economic analyses.
However Bakunin opposed what he considered to be the economic
determinism in Marx’s thought. Put in another way, Bakunin was against
the idea that all the structures of a society – its laws, morality,
science, religion, etc. – were “but the necessary after effects of the
development of economic facts”.[11] Rather than these things being
primarily determined by economic factors (i.e. the mode of production),
Bakunin allowed much more for the active intervention of human beings in
the realisation of their destiny. Bakunin was very much a materialist,
and he criticised Proudhon for his idealism (which could fly in the face
of the reality of a situation). However his materialism and his
understanding of how society was structured and functioned was not a
mechanistic concept and gave room for the actions of determined
individuals and minorities.
“The action of the working class must be the synthesis of the
understanding of the “mechanics of the universe” – the mechanics of
society – and “the effectiveness of free will” – conscious revolutionary
action. There lies the foundation of Bakunin’s theory of revolutionary
action.” [12]
More fundamental was Bakunin’s opposition to the Marxist idea of
dictatorship of the proletariat which was, in effect, a transitional
state on the way to stateless communism. Marx and Engels, in the
Communist Manifesto of 1848, had written of the need for labour armies
under state supervision, the backwardness of the rural workers, the need
for centralised and directed economy, and for widespread
nationalisation. Later, Marx also made clear that a workers’ government
could come into being through universal franchise. Bakunin questioned
each of these propositions.
The state, whatever its basis, whether it be proletarian or bourgeois,
inevitably contains several objectionable features. States are based
upon coercion and domination. Bakunin proposed that this domination
would very soon cease to be that of the proletariat over its enemies but
would become a state over the proletariat. This would arise, Bakunin
believed, because of the impossibility of a whole class, numbering
millions of people, governing on its own behalf. Necessarily, the
workers would have to wield power by proxy by entrusting the tasks of
government to a small group of politicians.
Once the role of government was taken out of the hands of the masses, a
new class of experts, scientists and professional politicians would
arise. This new elite would be far more secure in its domination over
the workers by means of the mystification and legitimacy granted by the
claim to acting in accordance with scientific laws (a major claim by
Marxists). Furthermore, given that the new state could masquerade as the
true expression of the people’s will, the institutionalising of
political power gives rise to a new group of governors with the same
self-seeking interests and the same cover-ups of its dubious dealings.
Bakunin proposed that another problem posed by the state system was that
a centralised government would further strengthen the process of
domination. The state as owner, organiser, director, financier, and
distributor of labour and economy would necessarily have to act in an
authoritarian manner in its operations. As can be seen in so-called
socialist states such as Russia and Cuba, a command economy must act
with decisions flowing from top to bottom; it cannot meet the complex
and various needs of individuals and, in the final analysis, is a
hopeless, inefficient giant. Marx believed that centralism, from
whatever quarter, was a move toward the final, state led solution of
revolution. According to Bakunin:
“The political and economic organization of social life must not, as at
present, be directed from the summit to the base – the centre to the
circumference – imposing unity through forced centralization. On the
contrary, it must be reorganized to issue from the base to the summit –
from the circumference to the centre – according to the principles of
free association and federation.” [13]
This means that in practical terms that rather than being directed by a
centralised state, an anarchist society would involve individuals and
groups organising on a federative basis. Factory councils, community
groups, and other groups would form horizontal networks through
voluntary association to direct wider action that involved more than
just their group.
Bakunin’s predictions have been borne out by reality. The Bolsheviks
seized power in 1917, talked incessantly of proletarian dictatorship and
soviet power, yet inevitably, with or without wanting to, created a vast
bureaucratic police state. Many state socialists and party communists
claim this is down to the state being subject to non-ideal conditions,
however the methods they suggest inevitably lead to these outcomes.
Most of the left in Britain view the present structures of trade unions
in a positive light. This is true for members of the Labour Party, both
left and right, and many Marxist organisations. These bodies wish to
capture or retain control of the unions, pretty much as they stand, in
order to use them for their own purposes. As a result, there are
frequently bitter conflicts and manoeuvrings for control within the
unions.
Bakunin laid the foundations of the anarcho-syndicalist approach to
union organization and recognised the general tendency of non-anarchist
unions to decay into personal fiefdoms and bureaucracy over a century
ago. Arguing in the context of union organisation of the period within
the International Workingmen’s Association, he gave examples of how
unions can be stolen from the membership whose will they are supposed to
be an expression of. He identified several interrelated features which
lead to the usurpation of power by union leaders.
Firstly, he indicated a psychological factor which plays a key part.
Honest, hard-working, intelligent and well-meaning militants win through
hard work the respect and admiration of their fellow members and are
elected to union office. They display self-sacrifice, initiative and
ability. Unfortunately, once in positions of leadership, these people
soon imagine themselves to be indispensable and their focus of attention
centres more and more on the machinations within the various union
committees.
The one time militant thus becomes removed from the everyday problems of
the rank and file members and assumes the self-delusion which afflicts
all leaders, namely a sense of superiority.
Given the existence of union bureaucracies and secret debating chambers
in which leaders decide union actions and policies, ruling elite arises
within the union structures, no matter how democratic those structures
may formally be. With the growing authority of the union committees
etc., the workers become indifferent to union affairs with the
exception, Bakunin asserts, of issues which directly affect them e.g.
dues payment, strikes, and so on. Unions have always had great problems
in getting subscriptions from alienated memberships. A solution which
has been found in the ’check off’ system by which unions and employers
collaborate to remove the required sum at source i.e. from the pay
packet. Where workers do not directly control their union, as Bakunin
thought they should, and delegate authority to committees and full-time
agents, several things happen. Firstly, so long as union subscriptions
are not too high, and back dues are not pressed too hard for, the
substituting bodies can act with virtual impunity. This is good for the
committees but brings almost to an end the democratic life of the union.
Power gravitates increasingly to the committees and these bodies, like
all governments, substitute their will for that of the membership. This
in turn allows expression for personal intrigues, vanity, ambition and
self-interest. Many intra-union battles, which are ostensibly fought on
ideological grounds, are in fact merely struggles for control by
ambitious self-seekers who have chosen the union for their career
structure. This careerism occasionally surfaces in battles between rival
leftists, for example where no political reasons for conflict exist. In
the past the Communist Party offered a union career route within certain
unions and such conflicts constantly arose, a route still used by
members of the Labour Party and various socialist parties today.
Within the various union committees, which are arranged on a
hierarchical basis (mirroring capitalism), one or two individuals come
to dominate on the basis of superior intelligence or aggressiveness.
Ultimately, the unions become dominated by bosses who hold great power
in their organisations, despite the safeguards of democratic procedures
and constitutions. Over the last few decades, many such union bosses
have become national figures, especially in periods of Labour
government. Bakunin was aware that such union degeneration was
inevitable but only arises in the absence of rank and file control, lack
of opposition to undemocratic trends and the accession to union power to
those who allow themselves to be corrupted. Those individuals who
genuinely wish to safeguard their personal integrity should, Bakunin
argued, not stay in office too long and should encourage strong rank and
file opposition. Union militants have a duty to remain faithful to their
revolutionary ideals.
Personal integrity, however, is an insufficient safeguard – other
institutional and organisational factors must also be brought into play.
These include regular reporting to the proposals made by the officials
and how they voted, in other words frequent and direct accountability.
Secondly, such union delegates must draw their mandates from the
membership being subject to rank and file instructions. Thirdly, Bakunin
suggests the instant recall of unsatisfactory delegates. Finally, and
most importantly, he urged the calling of mass meetings by ordinary
members and other expressions of grassroots activity to circumvent those
leaders who acted in undemocratic ways. Mass meetings inspire passive
members to action, creating a camaraderie which would tend to repudiate
the so-called leaders.
Bakunin based his analysis on unions of the period. As such, his
critique of the unions was perceptive and acute; in particular his usual
perceptions of the alienating nature of power as with the increasing
bureaucratization of union officials. Bakunin’s thought on the question
of workers organizations and how they should be structured laid the
foundations for the birth of anarcho-syndicalism in Spain, France and
elsewhere.
However, in the two centuries after his birth, the integration of the
unions into the capitalist system has advanced at a rapid pace. Union
leaderships often directly sabotage workers struggles. Rank and file
organisation within the trade union and attempts to ‘democratise’ the
trade unions are no answer to the question of how workers should
organise. Successful struggles now are increasingly of the wildcat kind,
outside the control of the union leaderships, and often organised
outside the unions. Where unions have declared strikes themselves, they
have either been forced to do so because of the anger and discontent of
the membership or are taking symbolic actions with little chance of
victory that will quell the militancy of those in the workplace.
Anarcho-syndicalist unions have often been engaged in sharp fights with
the employers and the State. Nevertheless, there is always a dynamic of
being forced to mediate in struggles that has led to serious divisions
within the syndicalist movement inside specific countries and on a
worldwide level. Bakunin was acutely aware of the dangerous nature of
officialdom and how ordinary workers, by taking official positions,
could become alienated from their fellows. He was less aware of the
mediating role of the unions themselves in the fight to secure better
pay and conditions, and the tendency to become controllers of the
workforce, of labour, themselves.
Above all else, Bakunin believed in the necessity of collective action
to achieve anarchy. After his death there was a strong tendency within
the anarchist movement towards the abandonment of organisation in favour
of small group and individual activity. This development, which
culminated in individual acts of terror in the late nineteenth century
France, isolated anarchism from the wider working classes.
Bakunin, being consistent with other aspects of his thought, saw
organisation not in terms of a centralised and disciplined army (though
he thought self-discipline was vital), but as the result of
decentralised federalism in which revolutionaries could channel their
energies through mutual agreement within a collective. It is necessary,
Bakunin argued, to have a coordinated revolutionary movement for a
number of reasons. If anarchists acted alone, without direction, they
would inevitably end up moving in different directions and would, as a
result, tend to neutralise each other. Organisation is not necessary for
its own sake, but is necessary to maximise strength of the revolutionary
classes, in the face of the great resources commanded by the capitalist
state. Bakunin placed a strong emphasis on internationalism, arguing the
importance of not only the federation of workers’ associations within a
single country but also across national borders. This underpinned his
work in the International Workingmen’s Association (also know as the
First International). In contrast to the Slavic nationalism of his
earlier years, Bakunin later publicly spoke against nationalism. In a
speech in 1867 he called for a rejection of “the false principle of
nationality.” [14]
However, from Bakunin’s standpoint, it was the spontaneous revolt
against authority by the people which is of the greatest importance. The
nature of purely spontaneous uprisings is that they are uneven and vary
in intensity from time to time and place to place. The anarchist
revolutionary organization must not attempt to take over and lead the
uprising but has the responsibility of clarifying goals, putting forward
revolutionary propaganda, and working out ideas in correspondence with
the revolutionary instincts of the masses. To go beyond this would
undermine the whole self-liberatory purpose of the revolution. A
revolutionary elite overthrowing the government has no place in
Bakunin’s thought.
Bakunin then, saw revolutionary organization in terms of offering
assistance to the revolution, not as a substitute. It is in this
context, and alongside the violent repression by the state at the time,
that we should interpret Bakunin’s call for a “secret organisation” [15]
of that vanguard. The vanguard, it should be said, has nothing in common
with that of the Leninist model which seeks actual, direct leadership
over the working class. Bakunin was strongly opposed to such approaches
and stated:
“no member... is permitted, even in the midst of full revolution, to
take public office of any kind, nor is the (revolutionary) organization
permitted to do so... it will at all times be on the alert, making it
impossible for authorities, governments and states to be established”
[16]
The vanguard was, however, to influence the revolutionary movement on an
informal basis, relying on the talents of its members to achieve
results. Bakunin thought that it was the institutionalisation of
authority, not natural inequalities that posed a threat to the
revolution. The vanguard would act as a catalyst to the working classes’
own revolutionary activity and was expected to fully immerse itself in
the movement. Bakunin’s vanguard then, was concerned with education and
propaganda, and unlike the Leninist vanguard party, was not to be a body
separate from the class, but an active agent within it.
In response to claims of the First International fomenting revolution,
Bakunin responded:
“This, very simply, is to mistake the effect for the cause: the
International has not created the war between the exploiter and the
exploited; rather, the requirements of that war have created the
International.” [17]
The other major task proposed by Bakunin for the revolutionary
organization was that it would act as the watchdog for the working
class. Then, as now, authoritarian groupings posed as leaders of the
revolution and supplied their own members as governments in waiting. The
anarchist vanguard has to expose such movements in order that the
revolution should not replace one representative state by an allegedly
revolutionary one. A so-called workers’ government, or dictatorship of
the proletariat, would try to oppose working class self-organisation,
thus:
“They appeal for order, for trust in, for submission to those who, in
the course and the name of the revolution, seized and legalised their
own dictatorial powers; this is how such political revolutionaries
reconstitute the state. We on the other hand, must awaken and foment all
the dynamic passions of the people.” [18]
Throughout Bakunin’s criticisms of capitalism and state socialism he
constantly argues for freedom. It is not surprising, then, to find that
in his sketches of future anarchist society the principle of freedom
takes precedence. He outlined a number of revolutionary structures as
essential to promote the maximum possible individual and collective
freedom. The societies envisioned in Bakunin’s programs are not utopian,
in the sense of being detailed fictional communities that are free of
troubles, but rather suggest the basic minimum skeletal structures which
would guarantee freedom. The character of future anarchist societies
will vary, said Bakunin depending on a whole range of historical,
cultural, economic and geographical factors.
The basic problem was to lay down the minimum necessary conditions which
would bring about a society based upon justice and social welfare for
all and would also generate freedom. The negative destructive features
of the programs are all concerned with the abolition of those
institutions which lead to domination and exploitation. The state,
including the established church, the judiciary, state banks and
bureaucracy, the armed forces and the police are all to be swept away.
Also, all ranks, privileges, classes and the monarchy are to be
abolished. The positive, constructive features of the new society all
interlink to promote freedom and justice. For a society to be free,
Bakunin argued, it is not sufficient to simply impose equality. Freedom
can only be achieved and maintained through the full participation in
society of a highly educated and healthy population, free from social
and economic worries. Such an enlightened population can then be truly
free and able to act rationally on the basis of a popularly controlled
science and a thorough knowledge of the issues involved.
Bakunin advocated complete freedom of movement, opinion, and morality
where people would not be accountable to anyone for their beliefs and
acts in so much as they did not inhibit those same freedoms in another.
Freedom, he believed, must be defended by freedom:
“[For to] advocate the restriction of freedom on the pretext that it is
being defended is a dangerous delusion.” [19]
A truly free and enlightened society, Bakunin said, would adequately
preserve liberty not through bureaucratic laws created and upheld by a
minority, but would uphold the libertarian ideal through the collective
consensus of each individual community while still respecting the
contrary opinions that exist within these communities.
This is not to say that Bakunin did not think that a society has the
right to protect itself. He firmly believed that freedom was to be found
within society, not through its destruction. Those people who acted in
ways that lessen freedom for others have no place; these include all
parasites that live off the labour of others. Work, the contribution of
one’s labour for the creation of wealth, forms the basis of political
rights in the proposed anarchist society. Those who live by exploiting
others do not deserve political rights. Others, who steal, violate
voluntary agreements within and by society, inflict bodily harm, and the
such, can expect to be punished by the laws which have been created by
that society. The condemned criminal, on the other hand, can escape
punishment by society by removing himself/herself from society and the
benefits it confers. Society can also expel the criminal if it so
wishes. Basically Bakunin set great store on the power of enlightened
public opinion to minimise antisocial activity.
Bakunin proposed the equalisation of wealth, though natural inequalities
which are reflected in different levels of skill, energy and thrift,
should he argued be tolerated. The purpose of equality is to allow
individuals to find full expression of their humanity within society.
Bakunin was strongly opposed to the idea of hired labour which if
introduced into an anarchist society, would lead to the reintroduction
of inequality and wage slavery. He proposed instead collective effort
because it would, he thought, tend to be more efficient. However, so
long as individuals did not employ others, he had no objection to them
working alone.
Through the creation of associations of labour which could coordinate
worker’s activities, Bakunin proposed the setting up of an industrial
assembly in order to harmonise production with the demand for products.
Such an assembly would be necessary in the absence of the market.
Supplied with statistical information from the various voluntary
organisations, which would be federated, production could be specialised
on an international basis so that those countries with in built economic
advantages would produce most efficiently for the general good. Then,
according to Bakunin, waste, economic crisis and stagnation “will no
longer plague mankind; the emancipation of human labour will regenerate
the world.” [20]
Turning to the question of the political organisation of society,
Bakunin stressed that society should be built in such a way as to
achieve order through the realisation of freedom on the basis of the
federation of voluntary organisations. In all such political bodies
power is to flow “from the base to the summit – from the circumference
to the centre”.[21] In other words, such organisations should be the
expressions of individual and group opinions, not directing centres
which control people. On the basis of federalism, Bakunin proposed a
multi-tier system of responsibility for decision making which would be
binding on all participants, so long as they supported the system. Those
individuals, groups or political institutions which made up the total
structure would have the right to secede. Each participating unit would
have an absolute right to self-determination, to associate with the
larger bodies, or not. Starting at the local level, Bakunin suggested as
the basic political unit, the completely autonomous commune. The commune
would elect all of its functionaries, law makers, judges, and
administrators of communal property.
The commune would decide its own affairs but, if voluntarily federated
to the next tier of administration, the provincial assembly, its
constitution must conform to the provincial assembly. Similarly, the
constitution of the province must be accepted by the participating
communes. The provincial assembly would define the rights and
obligations existing between communes and pass laws affecting the
province as a whole.
Further levels of political organisation would be the national body,
and, ultimately, the international assembly. As regards international
organisation, Bakunin proposed that there should be no permanent armed
forces, preferring instead, the creation of local citizens’ defence
militias.
Thus, from root to branch, Bakunin’s outline for anarchy is based upon
the free federation of participants in order to maximise individual and
collective well-being.
Bakunin’s conception of individual freedom was not to do with
selfishness or isolationism, as some use the term. Instead, his idea of
individual liberty was deeply socially embedded and he acknowledged that
we are social beings whose individual liberty is bound up with
collective liberty.
Throughout most of this pamphlet Bakunin has been allowed to speak for
himself. In this final section it might be valuable to make an
assessment of Bakunin’s ideas and actions. With the dominance of Marxism
in the world labour and revolutionary movements in the twentieth
century, it became the norm to dismiss Bakunin as muddle-headed or
irrelevant. However, during his lifetime he was a major figure who
gained much serious support. Marx was so pressured by Bakunin and his
supporters that he had to destroy the First International by dispatching
it to New York. In order that it should not succumb to anarchism, Marx
killed it off through a bureaucratic manoeuvre. With the collapse of the
Soviet Union, and the turning of China and Cuba towards the market and
the ever increasingly obvious corruption of its bureaucratic elite,
Bakunin’s ideas and revolutionary anarchism have new possibilities. If
authoritarian, state socialism has proved to be intrinsically flawed,
then libertarian communist ideas once again offer a credible
alternative.
The enduring qualities of Bakunin and his successors are many, but
serious commitment to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the
state must rank high. Bakunin was much more of a doer than a writer, he
threw himself into actual insurrections, much to the trepidation of
European heads of state. This militant tradition was continued by
Malatesta, Makhno, Durruti, and many other anonymous militants. Those
so-called anarchists who adopt a gradualist approach are an insult to
anarchism. Either we are revolutionaries or we degenerate into giving
ineffective lip-service that only preserves the status quo.
Bakunin forecast the dangers of state socialism. His predictions of a
militarised, enslaved society dominated by a Marxist ruling class came
to pass in a way that even Bakunin could not have fully envisaged.
Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin outstripped even the Tsars in their arrogance
and brutality. After decades of reformist socialism which have
frequently formed governments, Bakunin’s evaluations have been proved
correct. In Britain we have the ultimate insult to working people in the
form of ’Socialist Lords’. For services to capitalism, Labour MP’s are
ultimately granted promotion to the aristocracy.
Bakunin fought for a society based upon justice, equality and freedom.
Unlike political leaders of the left he had great faith in the
spontaneous, creative and revolutionary potential of working people. His
beliefs and actions reflect this approach.
Revolutionaries can learn much of value from his federalism, his
militancy and his contempt for the state, which in the twenty first
century has assumed gigantic and dangerous proportions. Bakunin has much
to teach us, but we too must develop our ideas in the face of new
challenges and opportunities. We must retain the revolutionary core of
his thought yet move forward.
With this in mind, the Anarchist Federation is constantly looking to
develop a revolutionary anarchist praxis founded on Bakunin’s ideas, but
going much further to suit the demands of present-day capitalism.
We welcome the challenge!
Bakunin on Anarchy, ed. Sam Dolgoff.
The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, ed. G.P. Maximoff.
The Basic Bakunin — Writings 1869–1871, ed. Robert M. Cutler.
Mikhail Bakunin — From Out of the Dustbin, ed. Robert M. Cutler.
The Social and Political Thought of Michael Bakunin,
Richard B. Saltman.
Michael Bakunin: The Philosophical Basis of His Anarchism, Paul
McLaughlin. Available at:
Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom, Brian Morris.
Bakunin: The Creative Passion, Mark Leier.
Editors Note: The collections by Dolgoff and Maximoff are a bit of a
mixed bag, with the now out of print Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings
by Arthur Lehning offering a better selection of his work. Saltman’s,
McLaughlin’s and Morris’s work go a long way towards rehabilitating the
life and thought of Bakunin after so many works savaging him as a
confused and clownish figure. Leier’s biography is an easy read and is a
good antidote to the hatchet job of a biography written by E.H. Carr.
Wilbur)
[1] Mikhail Bakunin — From Out of the Dustbin, ed. Robert M. Cutler.
[2] Introduction to Selected Works of Bakunin, Arthur Lehning.
[3] Vsesvetnyi Revoliutsionnyi Soiuz Sotsial’noi demokratii [World
Revolutionary Union of Social Democracy], M. Bakunin, in Archives
Bakounine, 8 vols. in 9 by 1984 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1961–), quoted in
Out of the Dustbin.
[4] The Immorality of the State in The Political Philosophy of Bakunin,
G. P. Maximoff.
[5] God and the State, M. Bakunin.
[6] God and the State, M. Bakunin.
[7] God and the State, M. Bakunin.
[8] God and the State, M. Bakunin.
[9] The Pyramid of Capitalist System, cartoon, 1911.
[10] Mikhail Bakunin — From Out of the Dustbin, ed. Robert M. Cutler.
[11] Marxism, Freedom and the State, M. Bakunin.
[12] Putting The Record Straight on Bakunin, Alliance Syndicaliste
Revolutionnaire et Anarcho- Syndicaliste :
[13] Putting The Record Straight on Bakunin, Alliance Syndicaliste
Revolutionnaire et Anarcho- Syndicaliste :
[14] Statism and Anarchy, M. Bakunin.
[15] Bakunin, 1869, quoted in The Basic Bakunin, p.150.
[16] Letter to Nechaev, M. Bakunin, 2^(nd) June 1870.
[17] Bakunin, 1869, quoted in The Basic Bakunin, p.150.
[18] Letter to Albert Richard, 1870, quoted by Dolgoff.
[19] Revolutionary Catechism, M. Bakunin, 1866.
[20] Revolutionary Catechism, M. Bakunin, 1866.
[21] Revolutionary Catechism, M. Bakunin, 1866.