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Title: Letter to Albert Richard (February 7, 1870) Author: Mikhail Bakunin Date: February 7, 1870 Language: en Topics: letter, Libertarian Labyrinth Source: Retrieved on 25th April 2021 from https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/bakunin-library/letter-to-albert-richard-february-7-1870/ Notes: Working translation by Shawn P. Wilbur
My friend and brother – Forgive me my long silence, and you will forgive
me for it I am sure when you know the cause of it. – In response to the
question that you ask me, you and Mme D. Z. [André Bastelica], I
respond: Yes, the affairs of Mr A. S. [Russia] are very serious and they
should become still more serious in the spring. The debacle in that
house is imminent, and God alone knows what will result from it! Will it
be a failed, fraudulent bankruptcy? Will it be a complete and open
bankruptcy? It is impossible to surmise. What is certain is that the
position is very serious, and that in a month, in two months at the
most, there will be a ruckus. This business has absolutely absorbed me
for a month – I have not had a moment to write a letter. We have done
all that it was possible to do – The bow is bent, arrow will take
flight, and then we will see what will occur. – We have nothing to
reproach ourselves for, for we have fulfilled our duty to the end. Ah!
My dear friend, how these lads work over there what disciplined and
serious organization and what power of collective action, where all the
individualities are effaced giv[ing] up even their names, [as well as]
all reputation, all conceit, all glory – taking for themselves only the
risks, the dangers, the harshest privations, but with that the
consciousness of being a force and of doing – You have not forgotten my
young savage? Well, he has returned – He has accomplished exploits that
among you no one would believe – He has suffered horribly, taken, beaten
half to death, liberated and starting again with more vigor. And they
are all like that – The individual has disappeared – and in the place of
the individuals the legion, invisible, unknown and present everywhere –
acting everywhere – dying and being reborn each day – they have been
apprehended by the dozens, they rise up by the hundreds – the individual
perish, but the legion is immortal – and each day more powerful –
because it has pushed deep roots into the world of the black hands and
drawn from this world a mass of recruits –
That is the organization that I have dreamed, that I still dream and
that I want for you – Unfortunately, you are still [attached to]
individual heroism, the need for individual display – to dramatic
effects and historic ostentations – This is why power escapes you and
[in the realm] of action there remains to you only rumors and phrases –
Do not write to me that I can become, if I desire it, the Garibaldi of
Socialism – I do not much care about becoming a Garibaldi and playing
any role. My dear friend, I will die and the worms will eat me – But I
want our idea to triumph. I want the black hands to be really
emancipated from all the authorities and all the heroes, present and to
come – I want for the triumph of our idea not the more or less dramatic
exhibition of my own person, not my power, but our power – the power of
our collectivity, of our organization and collective action, in favor of
which I am the first ready to abdicate and annul my name and my person.
My dear friend, the time of brilliant historical individualities is
passed, and so much the better. That is the true token of the triumph of
democracy – See with what rapidity the individualities are absorbed,
consumed, devoured by the collectivity, by that giant with several
millions heads that is called the people – And once again, so much the
better – Study well the character of our era – there is a characteristic
opposition of the mass against every authority and against every
individual who would like to impose themselves – The mass is right – it
is in [sympathy with] our program – No individual would have power any
longer – there would no longer be order, nor public authority – And what
must take its place, in order that the revolutionary anarchy does not
result in reaction – The collective action of an invisible organization
spread over a whole country – If we do not form that organization, we
will never escape from the powerlessness – You who love to think, have
you never reflected on the principal cause of the power and vitality of
the order of the Jesuits? Do you want me to name that cause? Well, my
friend, it is the absolute effacement of individuals in the will, the
organization and the action of the collective – And I ask you, for men
who are really strong, passionate and serious, is this such a great
sacrifice? It is the sacrifice of appearance to reality, of vainglory to
a real power, of phrases to action action – That is the sacrifice that I
ask of all our friends and of which I am always ready to give the first
example – I do not want to be Me, I want to be Us. For, I will repeat it
a thousand times, it is only on this condition that we will triumph,
that our idea will triumph – Well! that triumph, it is my only passion.
That is, my friends a preface to my long letter, which I will send to
you when affairs permit me to finish it – I await the rich cousin from
day to day and I am full of hope – So be patient –
Friends urge me to make a visit to Mme P. [Paris] – Yes – after the
arrival of the cousin – With regard to Mr D. U. [Benoit Malon], I have
done well not to respond to you right away, since that has given you the
time to change your opinion regarding him – It is not, however,
necessary to reject him, but preserve him only in the external fat that
covers your heart; not in the very depths – I would say the same thing
with regard to Mme D. [U] [Aristide Rey], not as an individual – he is
charming, but in collective relations – then he is useless and even
harmful – he is demoralizing – He is a being who will remain eternally
colorless and whose sentimentality will always deliver him up to
bourgeois socialism – My dear friend, I speak from experience – And I
assure you, I love you a great deal – but I love even more our cause, to
which we cannot give ourselves halfway – All or nothing – well, it will
never manage to constitute a whole. It is demoralized by the circle of
Elie Reclus and Mme André Léo, the nymph Egeria to all of them, who are
demoralized in their turn by the millionaire socialist, Saint-Simonian
Charles Le Monnier – So I ask you very seriously, dear friend, to keep
Mr and Mme D. U. outside of our private circle, without them suspecting
it however. Kept well outside, they could be useful and used on
occasion. – To undertake the great means, it is first necessary to have
a few means, [and] that is what I hope to find soon – with the arrival
of my cousin. Mme D. T. [The League of Peace and Liberty] is an
excellent and useful person, but is yet to be absolutely with us. Have
you see Mr C. S. [Paul Robin] who was going to make a visit to Mme P.?
He will be quite useful to us there, although it is not a strong man. He
has the microscopic and not telescopic mind. – I must say that the
persons with whom I am happiest at this hour, less naturally the friends
Mr A. S. – are Mr and Mme E. F. [Gaspar Sentinon and Rafael Farga i
Pellicer] – they have understood that in order to constitute a power,
collective action is required, but that this is impossible without
serious organization, which is in its turn impossible without the
observation of the rules – The observe they and they make some amazing
progress – Bu the way, Mr E. F. complains that you little or no [help]
with a compatriot whom he has recommended to you, and who has returned,
he says, as stupid, that is to say, as rabidly political and as little a
Socialist as when he left –
Adieu – respond swiftly and be patient. – Heaven will doubtless smile on
us in the end and from the moment when the holy dewdrops begin to fall,
I will direct them on your head – Long live the collectivity – long live
the socialists. When you write to Mme D. Z. [Louis Palix], give him
fraternal regards from me.
Burn this letter.
Your M.B.