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Title: Last Letters Author: Michail Bakunin Date: 1873–1875 Language: en Topics: history Source: Retrieved on February 25th, 2009 from http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/index.htm Notes: From Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff, 1971.
I cannot retire from public life without addressing to you these few
parting words of appreciation and sympathy.
... in spite of all the tricks of our enemies and the infamous slanders
they have spread about me, your esteem, your friendship, and your
confidence in me have never wavered. Nor have you allowed yourselves to
be intimidated when they brazenly accused you of being “Bakuninists,”
hero-worshipers, mindless followers...
You have to the highest degree always conscientiously maintained the
independence of your opinions and the spontaneity of your acts; the
perfidious plots of our adversaries were so transparent that you could
regard their infamous insinuations only with the most profound
disgust...
Powerfully supported by your fellow workers of Italy, Spain, France,
Belgium, Holland, and America, you have once again repulsed the
dictatorial attempts of Mr. Marx and placed the great International
Workingmen’s Association back on the right road...
Your victory, the victory of freedom and of the International against
authoritarian intrigues, is complete. Yesterday, when victory seemed to
hang in the balance — although I for my part never doubted it — it would
have been impermissible for anyone to leave your ranks. But now that it
is a fait accompli, everyone has the freedom to act according to his
personal convenience.
I therefore take this opportunity, my dear comrades, to beg you to
accept my resignation as a member of the Jura Federation and of the
International.
... Do not believe that I resign mainly because of the personal disgust
and disappointments that I have suffered during the last few years.
Although I have not been altogether insensitive to these indignities, I
would have continued to endure them if I thought that my participation
in your struggles would help the cause of the proletariat. But I do not
think so any longer.
By birth and personal status — though certainly not by sympathy or
inclination — I am a bourgeois and, as such, the only useful work that I
can do among you is propagandize. But I am now convinced that the time
for grand theoretical discourses, written or spoken, is over. During the
last nine years more than enough ideas for the salvation of the world
have been developed in the International (if the world can be saved by
ideas) and I defy anyone to come up with a new one.
This is the time not for ideas but for action, for deeds. Above all, now
is the time for the organization of the forces of the proletariat. But
this organization must be the task of the proletariat itself. If I were
young, I would live among the workers and share their life of toil,
would together with them participate in this necessary work of
proletarian organization.
But neither my age nor my health allows this. I must, on the contrary,
have privacy and repose. Any effort, even a short journey, becomes for
me a very serious undertaking. I feel sufficiently strong morally, but
physically I tire too quickly, and I no longer have the necessary
strength for struggle. In the camp of the proletariat I can be only an
obstacle, not a help.
You see then, my friends, that I am obliged to offer my resignation.
Living far from you and from everyone, of what use would I be to the
International in general and the Jura Federation in particular? Your
great association in its militant and practical activities cannot permit
sinecures or honorary positions.
I will retire then, dear comrades, full of gratitude to you and sympathy
for your great and holy cause, the cause of humanity. With brotherly
concern I will avidly watch your progress, and salute with joy each of
your new triumphs. Until death I will be yours...
But before parting, permit me again to add these few words. The battle
that you will have to sustain will be terrible. But do not allow
yourselves to be discouraged and know that in spite of the immense
material resources of our adversaries, your final triumph is assured if
you faithfully fulfill these two conditions: adhere firmly to the great
and all-embracing principle of the people’s liberty, without which
equality and solidarity would be falsehoods, Organize ever more strongly
the practical militant solidarity of the workers of all trades in all
countries, and remember that infinitely weak as you may be as
individuals in isolated localities or countries, you will constitute an
immense irresistible force when organized and united in the universal
collectivity.
Farewell,
your brother,
M. Bakunin
You are right, the revolutionary tide is receding and we are falling
back into evolutionary periods — periods during which barely perceptible
revolutions gradually germinate... The time for revolution has passed
not only because of the disastrous events of which we have been the
victims (and for which we are to some extent responsible), but because,
to my intense despair, I have found and find more and more each day,
that there is absolutely no revolutionary thought, hope, or passion left
among the masses; and when these qualities are missing, even the most
heroic efforts must fail and nothing can be accomplished.
I admire the valiant persistence of our Jura and Belgian comrades, those
“Last Mohicans” of the International, who in spite of all the obstacles
and in the midst of the general apathy, obstinately set themselves
against the current of events and continue to act as they did before the
catastrophes, when the movement was growing and even the least efforts
brought results.
Their labor is all the more praiseworthy in that they will not see the
fruits of their sacrifices; but they can be certain that their labor
will not be wasted. Nothing in this world is ever lost; tiny drops of
water form the ocean.
As for myself, my dear friend, I am too old, too sick, and shall I
confess it? — too disillusioned, to participate in this work. I have
definitely retired from the struggle and shall pass the rest of my days
in intense intellectual activity which I hope will prove useful.
One of the passions which now absorb me is an insatiable curiosity;
having recognized that evil has triumphed and that I cannot prevent it,
I am determined to study its development as objectively as possible...
Poor humanity! It is evident that it can extricate itself from this
cesspool only by an immense social revolution. But how can this
revolution come about? Never was international reaction in Europe so
formidably organized against any movement of the people. Repression has
become a new science systematically taught in the military schools of
all countries. And to breach this well-nigh impregnable fortress we have
only the disorganized masses. But how to organize them, when they do not
even care enough about their own fate to know or put into effect the
only measures that can save them? There remains propaganda; though
doubtlessly of some value, it can have very little effect [in the
present circumstances] and if there were no other means of emancipation,
humanity would rot ten times over before it could be saved.
There remains another hope: world war. These gigantic military states
must sooner or later destroy each other. But what a prospect!