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Title: Bakunin: Ignorance or Lies? Author: Anarcho Date: September 22, 2008 Language: en Topics: Mikhail Bakunin, critique Source: Retrieved on 28th January 2021 from https://anarchism.pageabode.com/?p=152 Notes: A short critique of a sadly typical Leninist account of Bakunin by a leading member of the British SWP.
I had the distinct displeasure of looking at Mike Gonzalez’s new book,
“A Rebel’s Guide to Marx,” recently. Gonzalez, for those who do not
know, is a long time leading member of the SWP hierarchy. Given how the
SWP seem incapable of writing anything truth or accurate about
anarchism, I was prepared for the worse when it came to his account of
Marx’s conflict with Bakunin. I was not disappointed.
According to Gonzalez Bakunin was no friend of the working class because
he was opposed to working class people organising! This was because it
would result in “authoritarianism.” He was addicted to conspiracy,
arguing for secret cells which would attack the state on behalf of the
working class and was opposed to Marx’s dictum that the emancipation of
the workers was the task of the workers themselves.
What a travesty of the truth! Anyone even faintly familiar with
Bakunin’s ideas would know that he was utterly in favour of working
class organisation. He continually stressed the need for “the social
(and therefore anti-political) organisation and power of the working
masses of the cities and villages.” [The Political Philosophy of
Bakunin, p. 300] Hell, you do not need to read Bakunin to know this, you
can read Marx and Engels. According to Marx, Bakunin’s theory consisted
of urging the working class to “only organise themselves by
trades-unions” and “not occupy itself with politics.” Engels asserted
that in the “Bakuninist programme a general strike is the lever employed
by which the social revolution is started” and that they admitted “this
required a well-formed organisation of the working class” (i.e. a trade
union federation). [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and
Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 48, p. 132 and p. 133]
Ignoring the misrepresentations of Marx and Engels about the theories of
their enemies, they did get the basic point of Bakunin’s ideas – the
centrality of trade union organisation and struggle as well as the use
of strikes and the general strike – right.
As for the claim that Bakunin was opposed to the idea of working class
self-emancipation, that is equally false (ironically, Gonzalez follows
Lenin who explicitly held the position he falsely ascribes to Bakunin).
Bakunin continually quoted Marx’s (originally Flora Tristan’s) words
from the Preamble to the General Rules of the First International —
“That the emancipation of the workers must be accomplished by the
workers themselves.” Far more than Marx, Bakunin argued that workers’
can only free themselves by a “single path, that of emancipation through
practical action” namely “workers’ solidarity in their struggle against
the bosses” by trades unions and solidarity. The “collective experience”
workers gain in the International combined with the “collective struggle
of the workers against the bosses” will ensure workers “will necessarily
come to realise that there is an irreconcilable antagonism between the
henchmen of reaction and [their] own dearest human concerns. Having
reached this point, [they] will recognise [themselves] to be ...
revolutionary socialist[s].” [The Basic Bakunin, p. 92 and p. 103]
In contrast Marx placed his hopes for working class self-emancipation on
a political party which would conquer “political power.” As history soon
proved, Marx was mistaken — “political power” can only be seized by a
minority (i.e. the party, not the class it claims to represent) and if
the few have the power, the rest are no longer free (i.e. they no longer
govern themselves). That the many elect the few who issue them orders
does not signify emancipation! It is because of this that anarchists
stress self-management of working class struggle and organisation from
below. Anarchists are (to use Bakunin’s words) “convinced that
revolution is only sincere, honest and real in the hands of the masses,
and that when it is concentrated in those of a few ruling individuals it
inevitably and immediately becomes reaction.” [Michael Bakunin: Selected
Writings, p. 237]
This did not mean Bakunin rejected the need for revolutionaries to
organise within the class struggle. Like Marx, he saw the need for a
political grouping, to help convince others of the validity of anarchist
ideas. However, for Bakunin the political group did not aim to seize
political power (unlike Marxists) and so it “rule[d] out any idea of
dictatorship and custodial control.” Rather the “revolution would be
created by the people, and supreme control must always belong to the
people organised into a free federation of agricultural and industrial
associations ... organised from below upwards by means of revolutionary
delegation.” All the political group could do was to “help the people
towards self-determination on the lines of the most complete equality
and the fullest freedom in every direction, without the least
interference from any sort of domination.” [Michael Bakunin: Selected
Writings, p. 172 and p. 191]
Needless to say, Gonzalez fails to discuss these key aspects of the
Marx-Bakunin conflict – and whom history subsequently proved right! Nor,
while praising the Paris Commune, does he note that many of its key
aspects (such as federalism, revocable mandates, co-operatives, etc.)
were prefigured in the works of Proudhon in 1840s and Bakunin in 1860s.
Like the Russian Soviets of 1917, this popular revolt a marked
similarity with Bakunin’s discussions of revolutionary change. As he put
it, the “future organisation must be made solely from the bottom
upwards, by free association or free federation of workers, firstly in
their unions, then in the communes, regions, nations and finally in a
great federation, international and universal.” [Michael Bakunin:
Selected Writings, p. 206]
Similarly, Gonzalez’s notion that Bakunin saw revolution in terms of
conspiracies launching insurrections on behalf of the people is equally
a distortion of the anarchist’s ideas. As becomes clear from reading
Bakunin, he saw revolution as coming from below and rooted in social
struggle and popular organisation.
I welcome people criticising or critiquing anarchism or individual
anarchists as it allows us to strengthen our ideas. I do have a problem
with people attacking anarchism/anarchists for positions we/they do not
actually hold. To assert, for example, that Bakunin opposed working
class organisation is either a lie or shows the utter ignorance of the
author. It suggests either that the SWP does not care about the facts or
it means that you can become a leading member of its hierarchy and know
absolutely nothing about a subject but feel able to expose that
ignorance in print.
Neither option puts Gonzalez in a good light — but at least he can
console himself that his failing is shared by most, if not all, of his
comrades.