Mikhail Bakunin
Bakunin, Mikhail
Influential Russian collectivist anarchist, revolutionary and major critic of Karl Marx who was eventually expelled from the International Workingmen's Association.
Notes on Bakunin's book 'Statehood and Anarchy' - Karl Marx
Marx responds to Bakunin's criticisms of Marx and Marxism. Marx's comments were written at the end of 1874 as he read Bakunin's book as part of his efforts to learn Russian and to study Russian society.
Marx's late writings on the Russian 'mir' (peasant commune) were influenced by Bakunin's descriptions of communal peasant society in 'Statehood and Anarchy'.
From Volume 24 of 'Marx & Engels - Collected Works'; Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1989.
The philosophical roots of the Marx-Bakunin conflict - Ann Robertson
Article about political differences between Bakunin and Marx, which correlated to the anarchist-Marxist split in the First International.
The author is biased in favour of Marx's views, but fails to give credit for Bakunin's influence on Marx (such as forcing him to clarify his views on the state) or those instances where Bakunin had more insight than Marx (such as on the evolution and counter-revolutionary nature of Social Democracy).
A Critique of the German Social Democratic Program - Bakunin
Bakunin makes an early and powerful critique of the statist, reformist, class-collaborationist and counter-revolutionary tendencies of emerging social democracy.
Bakunin's essay refutes the claims made by some Marxists, then and now, that early social democracy played a largely progressive role within the working class movement. In this particular case, Bakunin's comments are also far more radical than anything Marx and Engels were willing to say publicly at the time on the subject.
Bakunin, Mikhail, 1814-1876
The anarchist movement throws up many men and women, who become famous because of their actions, ideas and writings. Perhaps the best known of them all was the Russian anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin.
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin
Born May 30, 1814 Pryamukhino, Russia – died June 13, 1876 Bern, Switzerland.
Bakunin on trial
The ghost of Bakunin appears in a Chinese courtroom to haunt bureaucratic Maoism! The incident described below occurred in the aftermath of the Chinese 'Cultural Revolution'. The power battles between opposing factions of the ruling bureaucratic elite in Maoist China set in motion great upheavals and mobilizations of students and workers that sometimes went further than either ruling faction intended, as can be seen below.
From Articles for El Progress
The following are letters taken from a series of articles Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin wrote in the spring of 1869 for the journal El Progress of Geneva
God and the State
Bakunin's classic and highly influential atheist text setting out the anarchist critique of religion as bound up in legitimising the state.
The text is from Michael Bakunin, God and the State, 1916, New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association.
God and the State by Michael Bakunin [1814-1876]
Letters from "Correspondance de Michel Bakounine"
Letters from Bakunin to Herzen and Ogareff, from Correspondance de Michel Bakounine, published and prefaced by Michel Dragmanov, 1896, Paris, France.
Stateless Socialism: Anarchism
Stateless Socialism: Anarchism
by Mikhail Bakunin 1814-1876
From "The Political Philosophy of Bakunin" by G.P. Maximoff 1953, The Free Press, NY
Effect of the Great Principles Proclaimed by the French Revolution. 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.
Rousseau's Theory of the State
Rousseau's Theory of the State
by Michael Bakunin
. . . We have said that man is not only the most individualistic being on earth -- he is also the most social. It was a great mistake on the part of Jean Jacques Rousseau to have thought that primitive society was established through a free agreement among savages.
Power Corrupts the Best
Power Corrupts The Best
by Michael Bakunin (1867)
The State is nothing else but this domination and exploitation regularised and systemised. We shall attempt to demonstrate it by examining the consequence of the government of the masses of the people by a minority, at first as intelligent and as devoted as you like, in an ideal State, founded on a free contract.
Where I Stand
WHERE I STAND
By Michael Bakunin
I am a passionate seeker after truth (and no less embittered enemy of evil doing fictions) which the party of order, this official, privileged and interested representative of all the past and present religions, metaphysical, political, juridical and "social" atrociousness claim to employ even today only to make the world stupid and enslave it, I am a fanatical lover of truth and freedom which I consider the only surroundings in which intelligence, consciousness and happiness develop and increase.
Solidarity in Liberty
From: Bakunin's Writings, Guy A. Aldred Modern Publishers, Indore Kraus Reprint co. New York 1947
SOLIDARITY IN LIBERTY
Michael Bakunin
The Workers Path To Freedom (1867)
From this truth of practical solidarity or fraternity of struggle that I have laid down as the first principle of the Council of Action flows a theoretical consequence of equal importance. The workers are able to unite as a class for class economic action because all religious philosophies, and systems of morality which prevail in any given order of society are always the ideal expression of its real, material situation.
The Immorality of the State
The Immorality of the State
by Mikhail Bakunin [1814-1876]
Ethics: Morality of the State
The Theory of Social Contract.
Founding of the Worker's International
Founding of the Worker's International
by Mikhail Bakunin 1814-1876
From "The Political Philosophy of Bakunin" by G.P. Maximoff 1953, The Free Press, NY
Awakening of Labor on the Eve of the International. In 1863 and 1864, the years of the founding of the International, in nearly all of the countries of Europe, and especially those where modern industry had reached its highest development - in England, France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland - two facts made themselves manifest, facts which facilitated and practically made mandatory the creation of the International.
Revolutionary Catechism
A programmatic statement of 1866 (not to be confused with Nechayev's notorious Catechism).
The Capitalist System
THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM
by Michael Bakunin
This pamphlet is an excerpt from The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution and included in The Complete Works of Michael Bakunin under the title "Fragment." Parts of the text were originally translated into English by G.P. Maximoff for his anthology of Bakunin's writings, with missing paragraphs translated by Jeff Stein from the Spanish edition, Diego Abad de Santillan, trans. (Buenos Aires 1926) vol. III, pp. 181-196.
Politics and the State
From: Bakunin's Writings, Guy A. Aldred Modern Publishers, Indore Kraus Reprint co. New York 1947
POLITICS AND THE STATE
( 1871 )
We have repelled energeticly every alliance with bourgeois politics, even of the most radical nature. It has been pretended, foolishly and slanderously, that we repudiated all such Political connivance because we were indifferent to the great question of Liberty, and considered only the economic or material side of the problem.
God or Labour
From: Bakunin's Writings, Guy A. Aldred Modern Publishers, Indore Kraus Reprint co. New York 1947
GOD OR LABOUR
The two Camps
You taunt us with disbelieving in God, We charge you with believing in him. We do not condemn you for this. We do not even indict you. We pity you. For the time of illusions is past. We cannot be deceived any longer.
