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Title: Stateless Socialism: Anarchism Author: Michail Bakunin Language: en Topics: federalism Source: Retrieved on February 24th, 2009 from http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/stateless.html][dwardmac.pitzer.edu]]. Proofread online source [[http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=674, retrieved on July 15, 2020. Notes: From The Political Philosophy of Bakunin by G.P. Maximoff, 1953, The Free Press, NY
From the time when the Revolution brought down to the masses its Gospel
— not the mystic but the rational, not the heavenly but the earthly, not
the divine but the human Gospel, the Gospel of the Rights of Man — ever
since it proclaimed that all men are equal, that all men are entitled to
liberty and equality, the masses of all European countries, of all the
civilized world, awakening gradually from the sleep which had kept them
in bondage ever since Christianity drugged them with its opium, began to
ask themselves whether they too, had the right to equality, freedom, and
humanity.
As soon as this question was posed, the people, guided by their
admirable sound sense as well as by their instincts, realized that the
first condition of their real emancipation, or of their humanization,
was above all a radical change in their economic situation. The question
of daily bread is to them justly the first question, for as it was noted
by Aristotle, man, in order to think, in order to feel himself free, in
order to become man, must be freed from the material cares of daily
life. For that matter, the bourgeois, who are so vociferous in their
outcries against the materialism of the people and who preach to the
latter the abstinences of idealism, know it very well, for they
themselves preach it only by word and not by example.
The second question arising before the people — that of leisure after
work — is the indispensable condition of humanity. But bread and leisure
can never be obtained apart from a radical transformation of existing
society, and that explains why the Revolution, impelled by the
implications of its own principles, gave birth to Socialism.
...Socialism is justice. When we speak of justice, we understand thereby
not the justice contained in the Codes and in Roman jurisprudence —
which were based to a great extent upon facts of violence achieved by
force, violence consecrated by time and by the benedictions of some
church or other (Christian or pagan), and as such accepted as absolute
principles, from which all law is to be deduced by a process of logical
reasoning — no, we speak of that justice which is based solely upon
human conscience, the justice to be found in the consciousness of every
man — even in that of children — and which can be expressed in a single
word: equity.
This universal justice which, owing to conquests by force and religious
influences, has never yet prevailed in the political or juridical or
economic worlds, should become the basis of the new world. Without it
there can be neither liberty, nor republic, nor prosperity, nor peace.
It then must govern our resolutions in order that we work effectively
toward the establishment of peace. And this justice urges us to take
upon ourselves the defense of the interests of the terribly maltreated
people and demand their economic and social emancipation along with
political freedom.
We do not propose here, gentlemen, this or any other socialist system.
What we demand now is the proclaiming anew of the great principle of the
French Revolution: that every human being should have the material and
moral means to develop all his humanity, a principle which, in our
opinion, is to be translated into the following problem:
To organize society in such a manner that every individual, man or
woman, should find, upon entering life, approximately equal means for
the development of his or her diverse faculties and their utilization in
his or her work. And to organize such a society that, rendering
impossible the exploitation of anyone’s labor, will enable every
individual to enjoy the social wealth, which in reality is produced only
by collective labor, but to enjoy it only in so far as he contributes
directly toward the creation of that wealth.
The carrying out of this task will of course take centuries of
development. But history has already brought it forth and henceforth we
cannot ignore it without condemning ourselves to utter impotence. We
hasten to add here that we vigorously reject any attempt at social
organization which would not admit the fullest liberty of individuals
and organizations, or which would require the setting up of any
regimenting power whatever. In the name of freedom, which we recognize
as the only foundation and the only creative principle of organization,
economic or political, we shall protest against anything remotely
resembling State Communism, or State Socialism.
The only thing which, in opinion, the State can and should do, is first
to modify little by little inheritance law so as to arrive as soon as
possible at its complete abolition. That law being purely a creation of
the State, and one of the conditions of the very existence of the
authoritarian and divine State can and should be abolished by freedom in
the State. In other words, State should dissolve itself into a society
freely organized in accord with the principles of justice. Inheritance
right, in our opinion, should abolished, for so long as it exists there
will be hereditary economic inequality, not the natural inequality of
individuals, but the artificial man inequality of classes — and the
latter will always beget hereditary equality in the development and
shaping of minds, continuing to be source and consecration of all
political and social inequalities. The task of justice is to establish
equality for everyone, inasmuch that equality will depend upon the
economic and political organization society — an equality with which
everyone is going to begin his life, that everyone, guided by his own
nature, will be the product of his own efforts. In our opinion, the
property of the deceased should accrue to social fund for the
instruction and education of children of both sexes including their
maintenance from birth until they come of age. As Slavs and as Russians,
we shall add that with us the fundamental social idea, based upon the
general and traditional instinct of our populations, is that land, the
property of all the people, should be owned only by those who cultivate
it with their own hands.
We are convinced gentlemen, that this principle is just, that it is
essential and inevitable condition of all serious social reform, and
consequently Western Europe in turn will not fail to recognize and
accept this principle, notwithstanding the difficulties of its
realization in countries as in France, for instance where the majority
of peasants own the land which they cultivate, but where most of those
very peasants will soon end up by owning next to nothing, owing to the
parceling out of land coming as the inevitable result of the political
and economic system now prevailing in France. We shall, however, refrain
from offering any proposals on the land question...We shall confine
ourselves now to proposing the following declaration:
“Convinced that the serious realization of liberty, justice, and peace
will be impossible so long as the majority of the population remains
dispossessed of elementary needs, so long as it is deprived of education
and is condemned to political and social insignificance and slavery — in
fact if not by law — by poverty as well as by the necessity of working
without rest or leisure, producing all the wealth upon which the world
now prides itself, and receiving in return only such a small pan thereof
that it hardly suffices to assure its livelihood for the next day;
“Convinced that for all that mass of population, terribly maltreated for
centuries, the problem of bread is the problem of mental emancipation,
of freedom and humanity;
“Convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice and
that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality;
“The League [for Peace and Freedom] loudly proclaims the necessity of a
radical social and economic reconstruction, having for its aim the
emancipation of people’s labor from the yoke of capital and property
owners, a reconstruction based upon strict justice — neither juridical
nor theological nor metaphysical justice, but simply human justice —
upon positive science and upon the widest freedom.”
It is necessary to abolish completely, both in principle and in fact,
all that which is called political power; for, so long as political
power exists, there will be ruler and ruled, masters and slaves,
exploiters and exploited. Once abolished, political power should be
replaced by an organization of productive forces and economic service.
Notwithstanding the enormous development of modern states — a
development which in its ultimate phase is quite logically reducing the
State to an absurdity — it is becoming evident that the days of the
State and the State principle are numbered. Already we can see
approaching the full emancipation of the toiling masses and their free
social organization, free from governmental intervention, formed by
economic associations of the people and brushing aside all the old State
frontiers and national distinctions, and having as its basis only
productive labor, humanized labor, having one common interest in spite
of its diversity.
This ideal of course appears to the people as signifying first of all
the end of want, the end of poverty, and the full satisfaction of all
material needs by means of collective labor, equal and obligatory for
all, and then, as the end of domination and the free organization of the
people’s lives in accordance with their needs — not from the top down,
as we have it in the State, but from the bottom up, an organization
formed by the people themselves, apart from all governments and
parliaments, a free union of associations of agricultural and factory
workers, of communes, regions, and nations, and finally, in the more
remote future; the universal human brotherhood, triumphing above the
ruins of all States.
Outside of the Mazzinian system which is the system of the republic in
the form of a State, there is no other system but that of the republic
as a commune, the republic as a federation, a Socialist and a genuine
people’s republic — the system of Anarchism. It is the politics of the
Social Revolution, which aims at the abolition of the State, and the
economic, altogether free organization of the people, an organization
from below upward, by means of a federation.
...There will be no possibility of the existence of a political
government, for this government will be transformed into a simple
administration of common affairs.
Our program can be summed up in a few words:
Peace, emancipation, and the happiness of the oppressed.
War upon all oppressors and all despoilers.
Full restitution to workers: all the capital, the factories, and all
instruments of work and raw materials to go to the associations, and the
land to those who cultivate it with their own hands.
Liberty, justice, and fraternity in regard to all human beings upon the
earth.
Equality for all.
To all, with no distinction whatever, all the means of development,
education, and upbringing, and the equal possibility of living while
working.
Organizing of a society by means of a free federation from below upward,
of workers associations, industrial as well as a agricultural,
scientific as well as literary associations — first into a commune, then
a federation communes into regions, of regions into nations, and of
nations into international fraternal association.
In a social revolution, which in everything is diametrically opposed to
a political revolution, the actions of individuals hardly count at all,
whereas the spontaneous action of masses is everything. All that
individuals can do is to clarify, propagate, and work out ideas
corresponding to the popular instinct, and, what is more, to contribute
their incessant efforts to revolutionary organization of the natural
power of the masses — but nothing else beyond that; the rest can and
should be done by the people themselves. Any other method would lead to
political dictatorship, to the re-emergence of the State, of privileges
of inequalities of all the oppressions of the State — that is, it would
lead in a roundabout but logical way toward re-establishment of
political, social, and economic slavery of the masses of people.
Varlin and all his friends, like all sincere Socialists, and in general
like all workers born and brought up among the people, shared to a high
degree this perfectly legitimate bias against the initiative coming from
isolated individuals, against the domination exercised by superior
individuals, and being above all consistent, they extended the same
prejudice and distrust to their own persons.
Contrary to the ideas of the authoritarian Communists, altogether
fallacious ideas in my opinion, that the Social Revolution can be
decreed and organized by means of a dictatorship or a Constituent
Assembly — our friends, the Parisian Social-Socialists, held the opinion
that that revolution can be waged and brought to fits full development
only through the spontaneous and continued mass action of groups and
associations of the people.
Our Parisian friends were a thousand times right. For, indeed, there is
no mind, much as it may be endowed with the quality of a genius; or if
we speak of a collective dictatorship consisting of several hundred
supremely endowed individuals — there is no combination of intellects so
vast as to be able to embrace all the infinite multiplicity and
diversity of the real interests, aspirations, wills, and needs
constituting in their totality the collective will of the people; there
is no intellect that can devise a social organization capable of
satisfying each and all.
Such an organization would ever be a Procrustean bed into which
violence, more or less sanctioned by the State, would force the
unfortunate society. But it is this old system of organization based
upon force that the Social Revolution should put an end to by giving
full liberty to the masses, groups, communes, associations, and even
individuals, and by destroying once and for all the historic cause of
all violence — the very existence of the State, the fall of which will
entail the destruction of all the iniquities of juridical right and all
the falsehood of various cults, that right and those cults having ever
been simply the complaisant consecration, ideal as well as real, of all
violence represented, guaranteed, and authorized by the State.
It is evident that only when the State has ceased to exist humanity will
obtain its freedom, and the true interests of society, of all groups, of
all local organizations, and likewise of all the individuals forming
such organization, will find their real satisfaction.
Abolition of the State and the Church should be the first and
indispensable condition of the real enfranchisement of society. It will
be only after this that society can and should begin its own
reorganization; that, however, should take place not from the top down,
not according to an ideal plan mapped by a few sages or savants, and not
by means of decrees issued by some dictatorial power or even by a
National Assembly elected by universal suffrage. Such a system, as I
have already said, inevitably would lead to the formation of a
governmental aristocracy, that is, a class of persons which has nothing
in common with the masses of people; and, to be sure, this class would
again turn to exploiting and enthralling the masses under the pretext of
common welfare or of the salvation of the State.
I am a convinced partisan of economic and social equality, for I know
that outside of this equality, freedom, justice, human dignity,
morality, and the well-being of individuals as well as the prosperity of
nations are all nothing but so many falsehoods. But being at the same
time a partisan of freedom — the first condition of humanity — I believe
that equality should be established in the world by a spontaneous
organization of labor and collective property, by the free organization
of producers’ associations into communes, and free federation of
communes — but nowise by means of the supreme tutelary action of the
State.
It is this point which mainly divides the Socialists or revolutionary
collectivists from the authoritarian Communists, the partisans of the
absolute initiative of the State. The goal of both is the same: both
parties want the creation of a new social order based exclusively upon
collective labor, under economic conditions that are equal for all —
that is, under conditions of collective ownership of the tools of
production.
Only the Communists imagine that they can attain through development and
organization of the political power of the working classes, and chiefly
of the city proletariat, aided by bourgeois radicalism — whereas the
revolutionary Socialists, the enemies of all ambiguous alliances,
believe, on the contrary, that this common goal can be attained not
through the political but through the social (and therefore
anti-political) organization and power of the working masses of the
cities and villages, including all those who, though belonging by birth
to the higher classes, have broken with their past of their own free
will, and have openly joined the proletariat and accepted its program.
Hence the two different methods. The Communists believe that it is
necessary to organize the forces of the workers in order to take
possession of the political might of the State. The revolutionary
Socialists organize with the view of destroying, or if you prefer a more
refined expression, of liquidating the State. The Communists are the
partisans of the principle and practice of authority, while
revolutionary Socialists place their faith only in freedom. Both are
equally the partisans of science, which is to destroy superstition and
take the place of faith; but the first want to impose science upon the
people, while the revolutionary collectivists try to diffuse science and
knowledge among the people, so that the various groups of human society,
when convinced by propaganda, may organize and spontaneously combine
into federations, in accordance with their natural tendencies and their
real interests, but never according to a plan traced in advance and
imposed upon the ignorant masses by a few “superior” minds.
Revolutionary Socialists believe that there is much more of practical
reason and intelligence in the instinctive aspirations and real needs of
the masses of people than in the profound minds of all these learned
doctors and self-appointed tutors of humanity, who, having before them
the sorry examples of so many abortive attempts to make humanity happy,
still intend to keep on working in the same direction. But revolutionary
Socialists believe, on the contrary, that humanity has permitted itself
to be ruled for a long time, much too long, and that the source of its
misfortune lies not in this nor in any other form of government but in
the principle and the very existence of the government, whatever its
nature may be.
It is this difference of opinion, which already has become historic,
that now exists between the scientific Communism, developed by the
German school and partly accepted by American and English Socialists,
and Proudhonism, extensively developed and pushed to its ultimate
conclusions, and by now accepted by the proletariat of the Latin
countries. Revolutionary Socialism has made its first brilliant and
practical appearance in the Paris Commune.
On the Pan-German banner is written: Retention and strengthening of the
State at any cost. On our banner, the social-revolutionary banner, on
the contrary, are inscribed, in fiery and bloody letters: the
destruction of all States, the annihilation of bourgeois civilization,
free and spontaneous organization from below upward, by means of free
associations, the organization of the unbridled rabble of toilers, of
all emancipated humanity, and the creation of a new universally human
world.
Before creating, or rather aiding the people to create, this new
organization, it is necessary to achieve a victory. It is necessary to
overthrow that which is, in order to be able to establish that which
should be...