Date: Sun, 30 May 2004 20:02:54 +0100
Subject: The Revolutionary Ideas of Bakunin


The Revolutionary Ideas of Bakunin
http://struggle.ws/anarchism/writers/anarcho/history/bakunin.html

The Revolutionary Ideas of Bakunin
May 30th is the 190th anniversary of the birth of 
Michael Bakunin. Undoubtedly, Bakunin is one of the key 
anarchist thinkers and activists of the 19th century. 

Building upon the federalist and libertarian socialist 
ideas of his friend Pierre-Joseph Proudhon as well as 
those in the European labour movement, Bakunin shaped 
anarchism into its modern form. His revolutionary, class 
struggle based anarchism soon became the dominant form 
of anarchism in the First International. He combated the 
state socialism of Marx and Engels and laid the 
foundations for both communist-anarchism and anarcho-
syndicalism. His predictions about Marxism have been 
confirmed and his critique of capitalism, the state and 
religion as just as valid as when they were first 
expounded. Both the Russian and Spanish revolutions have 
confirmed the power of his ideas on revolution.

Yet Bakunin's ideas are less well known than they should 
be outside the anarchist movement. This is due to the 
fact that Marxists hate him while liberals cannot 
understand him. Their combined distortions of his ideas 
have ensured that many radicals have failed to read him 
and see for themselves the power of his theories. So why 
should we be interested in what a dead Russian had to 
say in the 1860s and 1870s?

I
Bakunin's revolutionary ideas where rooted in 
materialism. For him, "facts are before ideas" and the 
ideal was "but a flower, whose root lies in the material 
conditions of existence." From this base he produced a 
coherent defence of individual freedom and its basis in 
a free society and co-operation between equals. 
Rejecting the abstract individualism of liberalism and 
other idealist theories, he saw that real freedom was 
possible only when economic and social equality existed: 
"No man can achieve his own emancipation without at the 
same time working for the emancipation of all men around 
him. My freedom is the freedom of all since I am not 
truly free in thought and in fact, except when my 
freedom and my rights are confirmed and approved in the 
freedom and rights of all men who are my equals." 

For Bakunin, "man in isolation can have no awareness of 
his liberty . . . Liberty is therefore a feature not of 
isolation but of interaction, not of exclusion but 
rather of connection." As capitalist ideology glorifies 
the abstract individual, it "proclaims free will, and on 
the ruins of every liberty founds authority." This was 
unsurprising, as every development "implies the negation 
of its point of departure." Thus "you will always find 
the idealists in the very act of practical materialism, 
while you see the materialists pursuing and realising 
the most grandly ideal aspirations and thoughts." This 
is obvious today when the "libertarian" right's defence 
of individual liberty never gets far from opposing 
taxation while defending "the management's right to 
manage" to maximise profits. Abstract individualism 
cannot help but justify authority over liberty. 
Anarchism, however, "denies free will and ends in the 
establishment of liberty."

This meant that anarchism "rejects the principle of 
authority." While Engels never could understand what 
Bakunin meant by this, the concept is simple. For 
Bakunin, "the principle of authority" was the "eminently 
theological, metaphysical and political idea that the 
masses, always incapable of governing themselves, must 
submit at all times to the benevolent yoke of a wisdom 
and a justice, which in one way or another, is imposed 
from above." Instead of this, Bakunin advocated what 
latter became known as "self-management." In such an 
organisation "hierarchic order and advancement do not 
exist" and there would be "voluntary and thoughtful 
discipline" for "collective work or action." "In such a 
system," Bakunin stressed, "power, properly speaking, no 
longer exists. Power is diffused to the collectivity and 
becomes the true expression of the liberty of everyone, 
the faithful and sincere realisation of the will of all 
. . . this is the only true discipline, the discipline 
necessary for the organisation of freedom." 

Freedom, as Bakunin argued, is a product of connection, 
not of isolation. How a group organises itself 
determines whether it is authoritarian or libertarian. 
By the term "principle of authority" Bakunin meant 
hierarchy rather than organisation and the need to make 
agreements. He rhetorically asked "does it follow that I 
reject all authority?" and answered quite clearly: "No, 
far be it from me to entertain such a thought." He 
acknowledged the difference between being an authority -
- an expert -- and being in authority. Similarly, he 
argued that anarchists "recognise all natural authority, 
and all influence of fact upon us, but none of right." 
He stressed that the "only great and omnipotent 
authority, at once natural and rational, the only one we 
respect, will be that of the collective and public 
spirit of a society founded on equality and solidarity 
and the mutual respect of all its members."

Given his love of freedom and hostility to hierarchy, 
Bakunin also rejected the state, capitalism and 
religion. In essay "God and the State" Bakunin argued 
the necessity of atheism, arguing that "if God is, man 
is a slave; now, man can and must be free, then, God 
does not exist" for the "idea of God implies the 
abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most 
decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends 
in the enslavement of mankind, both in theory and in 
practice." Not mincing his words, he stated that "if God 
really existed it would be necessary to abolish him."

As well as opposing divine authority, he rejected more 
concrete ones as well. The state, he argued, is an 
instrument of class rule. It "is the organised 
authority, domination and power of the possessing 
classes over the masses" and "denotes force, authority, 
predominance; it presupposes inequality in fact." This 
inequality in power is required to maintain class 
society and so the state has evolved a hierarchical and 
centralised structure: "Every state power, every 
government, by its nature places itself outside and over 
the people and inevitably subordinates them to an 
organisation and to aims which are foreign to and 
opposed to the real needs and aspirations of the 
people." For Bakunin, a popular or truly democratic 
state was impossible as every state meant "the actual 
subjection of . . . the people . . . to the minority 
allegedly representing it but actually governing it."

His critique of capitalism built upon Proudhon's. Under 
capitalism "the worker sells his person and his liberty 
for a given time" and "concluded for a term only and 
reserving to the worker the right to quit his employer, 
this contract constitutes a sort of voluntary and 
transitory serfdom." Property meant for the capitalist 
"the power and the right, guaranteed by the State, to 
live . . . by exploiting the work of someone else." For 
Bakunin, the consistent libertarian must also be a 
socialist, as "only associated labour, that is, labour 
organised upon the principles of reciprocity and co-
operation, is adequate to the task of maintaining . . . 
civilised society."

His opposition to oppression was not limited to just the 
economy. He opposed sexism and supported the equality 
and liberty of women. His opposition to imperialism is 
well known. Unlike Marx and Engels, who happily 
supported imperialism against "backward" peoples, for 
Bakunin "every people, like every person, . . . has a 
right to be itself."

II
Bakunin was no passive critic of the existing system. In 
his eyes there were three methods to escape the misery 
of capitalism: the pub, the church and social 
revolution. The first was "debauchery of the body," the 
second "of the mind." Only the last offered genuine hope 
and so he took part in the First International and saw 
collective class struggle and organisation as the means 
of both fighting for improvements today and as the means 
of creating a free society. "Organise the city 
proletariat in the name of revolutionary Socialism," he 
argued, "and in doing this unite it into one preparatory 
organisation together with the peasantry." Prefiguring 
anarcho-syndicalism, he stressed that anarchists should 
take an active part in the labour movement for "to 
create a people's force capable of crushing the military 
and civil force of the State, it is necessary to 
organise the proletariat." 

The strike played a key role in his ideas, as it was 
"the beginnings of the social war of the proletariat 
against the bourgeoisie" and "awaken" in the masses "the 
feeling of the deep antagonism which exists between 
their interests and those of the bourgeoisie" and 
establishes "very fact of solidarity." They "create, 
organise, and form a workers' army, an army which is 
bound to break down the power of the bourgeoisie and the 
State, and lay the ground for a new world." Bakunin 
supported the general strike, for "with the ideas of 
emancipation that now hold sway over the proletariat, a 
general strike can result only in a great cataclysm 
which forces society to shed its old skin."

His activity in the First International brought him into 
conflict with Marxism. He rejected Marx's ideas for 
numerous reasons. He opposed the participation of 
radicals in bourgeois elections, correctly predicting 
that when "the workers . . . send common workers . . . 
to Legislative Assemblies . . . The worker-deputies, 
transplanted into a bourgeois environment . . . will in 
fact cease to be workers and, becoming Statesmen, they 
will become bourgeois." The descent of Marxist social-
democracy into reformism and opportunism confirmed 
Bakunin's worse fears.

Instead of political action, Bakunin argued for "the 
social (and therefore anti-political) organisation and 
power of the working masses of the cities and villages." 
This meant that the "proletariat . . . must enter the 
International [Workers' Association] en masse, form 
factory, artisan, and agrarian sections, and unite them 
into local federations" for "the sake of its own 
liberation." Anarchism, however, "does not reject 
politics generally. It will certainly be forced to 
involve itself insofar as it will be forced to struggle 
against the bourgeois class. It only rejects bourgeois 
politics . . . [as it] establishes the predatory 
domination of the bourgeoisie."

As for Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat," Bakunin 
rejected it for two reasons. Firstly, if taken 
literally, the term at the time meant a dictatorship by 
a minority. As Marx himself admitted, the peasantry and 
artisans made up the majority of the working masses in 
every European country bar the UK. This meant Marx's 
vision of "revolution" excluded the majority of working 
people. Bakunin objected that this was "nothing more or 
less than a new aristocracy, that of the urban and 
industrial workers, to the exclusion of the millions who 
make up the rural proletariat and who . . . will in 
effect become subjects of this great so-called popular 
State."

Secondly, he doubted whether the whole proletariat would 
actually govern in the new state. Rather "by popular 
government" the Marxists "mean government of the people 
by a small number of representatives elected by the 
people. So-called popular representatives and rulers of 
the state elected by the entire nation on the basis of 
universal suffrage . . . is a lie behind which lies the 
despotism of a ruling minority is concealed." Lenin's 
regime proved him right, quickly becoming the 
dictatorship over the proletariat.

Bakunin's opposition to the "workers' state" had nothing 
to do with organising or defending a revolution, as 
Marxists claim. Bakunin was well aware of the need for 
both after destroying the state and abolishing 
capitalism. For him, the anarchist abolition of the 
state did not mean the workers (to quote Marx) "lay down 
their arms." Bakunin was clear that "in order to defend 
the revolution . . . volunteers will . . . form a 
communal militia." These would "federate. . . for common 
defence." The communes would "organise a revolutionary 
force capable of defeating reaction" and "it is the very 
fact of the expansion and organisation of the revolution 
for the purpose of self-defence among the insurgent 
areas that will bring about the triumph of the 
revolution." 

No, Bakunin's opposition to Marxism rested on the 
question of power. If working class emancipation was to 
be genuine, the state had to be destroyed. For if "the 
whole proletariat . . . [are] members of the government 
. . . there will be no government, no state, but, if 
there is to be a state there will be those who are ruled 
and those who are slaves." Thus anarchists do "not 
accept, even in the process of revolutionary transition, 
either constituent assemblies, provisional governments 
or so-called revolutionary dictatorships; because we are 
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."

Instead of a "revolutionary" government ruling the 
masses from above in a centralised state, an anarchist 
revolution would be based on a federation of communes 
and workers' councils. The very process of collective 
class struggle would, for Bakunin create the basis of a 
free society. The "federative Alliance of all working 
men's [sic!] associations . . . [would] constitute the 
Commune" and so the "future social organisation must be 
made solely from the bottom upwards, by the free 
association or federation of workers, firstly in their 
unions, then in the communes, regions, nations and 
finally in a great federation, international and 
universal." The councils from bottom to top would be 
composed of "delegates . . . vested with plenary but 
accountable and removable mandates."

The basic structure created by the revolution would be 
based on the working classes own combat organisations, 
as created in their struggles within, but against, 
oppression and exploitation. And these, not a ruling 
party, would make the decisions: "Since revolution 
everywhere must be created by the people and supreme 
control must always belong to the people organised in a 
free federation of agricultural and industrial 
associations . . . organised from the bottom upwards by 
means of revolutionary delegation." The revolutionary 
group "influences the people exclusively through the 
natural, personal influence of its members, who have not 
the slightest power" within popular organisations.

Yet Bakunin's vision of revolution was not purely 
directed at the state, it was directed also against 
capitalism. A free society was based on "the land, the 
instruments of work and all other capital" becoming "the 
collective property of the whole of society and be 
utilised only by the workers, in other words by the 
agricultural and industrial associations." Thus one of 
the firsts act of the revolution was the workers making 
"a clean sweep of all the instruments of labour, every 
kind of capital and building." For "no revolution could 
succeed . . . unless it was simultaneously a political 
and a social revolution." The social revolution to be, 
at the same time, the abolition of the state and of 
capitalism.

The new, free, society would be organised "from the 
bottom-up," as a "truly popular organisation begins from 
below, from the association, from the commune. Thus 
starting out with the organisation of the lowest nucleus 
and proceeding upward, federalism becomes a political 
institution of socialism, the free and spontaneous 
organisation of popular life." Economically, wage 
slavery would be replaced by co-operative production, 
which would "flourish and reach its full potential only 
in a society where the land, the instruments of 
production, and hereditary property will be owned and 
operated by the workers themselves: by their freely 
organised federations of industrial and agricultural 
workers." 

In this way, "every human being should have the material 
and moral means to develop his humanity." Bakunin's 
anarchism was about changing society and abolishing all 
forms of authoritarian social relationship, putting life 
before the spirit-destroying nature of the state and 
capitalism. For the anarchist "takes his stand on his 
positive right to life and all its pleasures, both 
intellectual, moral and physical. He loves life, and 
intends to enjoy it to the full." 

III
Bakunin's ideas of what to replace capitalism with are 
still valid, as are his suggestions on how to achieve 
socialism. The Paris Commune was a striking confirmation 
of many of his ideas, as were the soviets of the Russian 
Revolution and the collectives of the Spanish. His 
critique of Marxism has been proven right: Social 
democracy became as reformist as he predicted while 
Bolshevism was as authoritarian. These suggest that 
Bakunin's ideas are worth considering today. Not, 
though, to mindless repeat but to built on and 
development.

Of course there are many aspects of Bakunin's ideas 
which are not discussed here, both positive and 
negative. His bigotry against Jews and Germans are 
examples of the latter, as is his fondness for secret 
societies. For all that, Bakunin is rightfully 
considered a key anarchist thinker. This is because 
anarchists are not "Bakuninists" and can reject the 
personal flaws and failings of any important anarchist 
thinker. Anarchists agree that in many aspects of his 
ideas and life Bakunin was wrong. This does not detract 
from the positive ideas he contributed to the 
development of anarchist theory and practice.

The Anarchist Federation's pamphlet "Basic Bakunin" is a 
good, cheap and short introduction to the ideas of 
Bakunin. Those looking for a more substantial account of 
his life and ideas then "Bakunin: The Philosophy of 
Freedom" by Brian Morris is highly recommended. The best 
(and most expensive) acount of Bakunin's ideas is 
Richard B. Saltman's "The Social and Political Thought 
of Michael Bakunin." 

However, reading Bakunin's writings first hand is always 
the best. Freedom Press' "Marxism, Freedom and the 
State" is a good, short, collection of texts. "Bakunin 
on Anarchism" is a comprehensive collection of his works 
while "The Basic Bakunin" contains some important essays 
from the late 1860s and early 1870s. Bakunin's classic 
essay "God and the State" is still available and is 
highly recommended while his only book "Statism and 
Anarchy" is worth reading (but the critique of Marxism 
within it is only a very small part of the whole). 
Volume one of the anarchist anthology "No Gods, No 
Masters" contains a representative collection of his key 
anarchist works.