IGHAEL ^■ CTEP WRITINGS Edited and Introduced bv ARTHUR LEHNING ^ EVERGREEN E-629 $4.95 WRITINGS OF THE LEFT SERIES WRITINGS OF THE LEFT General Editor: ralph miliband Professor o f Politics at Leeds University MICHAEL BAKUNIN SELECTED WRITINGS MICHAEL BAKUNIN SELECTED WRITINGS Edited and Introduced by ARTHUR LEHNING Editor Archives Bakounine, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam Translations from the French by STEVEN cox Translations from the Russian by OLIVE STEVENS JONATHAN CAPE THIRTY BEDFORD SQUARE LONDON THIS COMPILATION FIRST PUBLISHED 1973 INTRODUCTION AND COMPILATION © 1973 BY ARTHUR LEHNING TRANSLATIONS BY STEVEN COX AND OLIVE STEVENS © 1973 BY JONATHAN CAPE LTD JONATHAN CAPE LTD, 30 BEDFORD SQUARE, LONDON WCI Hardback edition isb n o 224 00893 5 Paperback edition isb n o 224 00898 6 Condition o f Sale This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated with­ out the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition in­ cluding this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY EBENEZER BAYLIS AND SON LTD THE TRINITY PRESS, WORCESTER AND LONDON GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE It is often claimed nowadays that terms like Left and Right have ceased to mean very much. This is not true: the distinc­ tion endures, in as sharp a form as ever, between those who, on the one hand, accept as given the framework, if not all the features, of capitalist society; and those who, on the other, are concerned with and work for the establishment of a socialist alternative to the here and now. This, ultimately, is what the Left is about. But the Left is itself endlessly fragmented over matters great as well as small. It always has been. But it is probably true that the Left has never been more divided than now. This is not surprising. For the great certitudes represented by the traditional mass movements of the Left — social democracy and orthodox communism— have, for different reasons, long ceased to be acceptable to the generations which came to political consciousness in the fifties and sixties. This is why those years have, for so much of the Left, been marked by extreme confusion, division and search. Such a situation has many negative aspects. But it would be wrong to think of it as altogether negative. For the confusions, the divisions and the uncertainties betoken also a very healthy rejection of easy answers to complex problems; and no one on the Left who thinks at all seriously can now doubt that the creation of what could properly be called a socialist society is a very complex enterprise indeed. It is precisely the awareness of its complexity which has led, in recent years, to a rediscovery — the term is not too strong— of a revolutionary literature, much of which had earlier been all but submerged in a great ideological freeze. None of this literature provides ‘answers’ to the questions which are posed by the socialist project. But what is best in it does at least suggest how the questions have been approached and tackled by successive generations of men and movements of the Left. In the last decade or so, a fair amount of this heritage of the revolutionary Left has become more easily available than 5 GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE before. But much of it, as far as the English reader is concerned, remains too little known, and for one reason or another difficult to get at. ‘Writings of the Left’ is intended to fill the gaps. Each of the volumes in this series will deal, by way of selected texts, either with the work of individual thinkers; or with particular episodes in the history of the Left; or with specific themes in socialist thought. These volumes will speak, not in the voice of the Left (there is no such voice) but in the many different voices of the Left, and on matters which remain central to socialist theory and practice. RALPH MILIBAND CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 9 i From a Letter of Bakunin to his Sisters 3 1 ii The Reaction in Germany 37 h i From a Letter of Bakunin to Herzen and Ogarev 59 iv Principles and Organization of the International Brotherhood 64 v On Federalism and Socialism 94 vi God and the State 111 v i i State and Society 136 v i i i On Science and Authority t 55 ix Four Anarchist Programmes t66 x Revolutionary Organization and the Secret Society 178 xi The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State 195 x i i The Political Theology o f Mazzini 214 x i i i O n M arx and M arxism 232 GLOSSARY OF NAMES 271 EXPLANATORY NOTES 279 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 287 INTRODUCTION Michael Bakunin, the greatest of the Russian revolutionaries of the nineteenth century, played an important role in the democratic movements and revolutions of Western Europe. H e began to formulate his anarchist and atheist ideas in 1864, and propagated them from 1868 onwards in the International Working Men’s Association — the First International. In France, Russia, French-speaking Switzerland, Italy and, above all, Spain, his ideas were widely circulated and gained converts. Bakunin’s main historical achievement lies in his having linked- the libertarian ideas of anarchism with the movement f or the emancipation of the working classes, and in his having sown the seeds of anti-authoritarian socialism and of the theory and practice of anarcho-syndicalism. Making a meaningful selection of his written work is, however, a difficult task. During his lifetime Bakunin wrote a great deal, generally without much apparent concern for cohesion. In his standard biography o f Bakunin, E. H. Carr wrote: ‘There are few whose life and thought, have exerted such immense influence on the world as Michael Bakunin, andyet who left such an inadequate and confused account of their views.’ This cannot be denied. T h e turbulent life of this revolutionary did not take place in the reading-room of a great library. To a large extent, his influence was the result of his enormous epistolary activity. He could write some twenty- four letters in one day — manv of them having the proportions of a pamohlet.* His writings were nearly always part of his activities as a revolutionary, whether propagandist or organ­ izer. The greater part of them remained unpublished during his lifetime. Even now, the process o f editing has not been completed; but when all his works are accessible, it should be * Unfortunately most of his correspondence from r 864 to his death in 1876 is lost—nearly all his letters to Spain, Italy, the Jura, and an important part of his Russian correspondence. Because of their revolutionary activities, Bakunin and his friends had to destroy letters and documents on several occasions. 9 10 SELECTED WRITINGS evident that they constitute a coherent social philosophy, with a complementary theory of revolutionary practice. In connection with the philosophical depth and originality of Bakunin’s revolutionary writings, it may be useful to remind the still sceptical reader of two points. One ill too obvious, is that, especially in English-speaking countries, few of the agencies which have had the responsiDihty of disseminating revolutionary ideas have had much knowledge of Bakunin; and when they did have the knowledge, they larked the incentive to analyse or propagate his works. The other point is that Bakunin, being primarily a man of action, always wrote for men and women whom he was trying to trigger into acting, or else to guide while they were acting. And this souci d ’efficarite meant that his style, his words themselves, had to be adapted to his immediate audience. Thus the difficulty that we ex­ perience in ascertaining the meaning of many of his para­ graphs, especially when comparing them with others, stems largely from the fact that he is speaking to different audiences, rather than from his supposedly incoherent mind. Further­ more, the apparent lack of cohesion in his system is partly to be accounted for in terms o f his eventful life, which did not allow him much respite for polished theoretical works. If the reader wants to understand Bakunin’s influence in his own time, he must go beyond, the written word and meet the propagandist! His personality was perfectly fitted to the demands of the task. ‘Impossible’, wrote E H. Carr, ‘to convey to posterity that sense of overwhelming power which was always present to those who knew him in life.’ Bakunin had the rare gift of persuading people to d( vote their lives to his cause, and of quickly forming inlimalr bonds with them if they seemed useful to him for his revolutionary purpose. The sceptical and critical Alexander I ler/.en recognized in Bakunin’s character an exceptional quality, < v<in greatness, in that, having grasped two or three characteristics of his en­ vironment, he detached from it the revolutionary current and immediately set about propelling this lurllier, intensifying it, making it a passionate, vital question. The eldest son of a Russian aristocrat of eighteenth century liberal culture, a career diplomat who had lived for years in I INTRODUCTION 11 Florence and Naples, Michael Aleksandrovic Bakunin was born on M ay 30th, 1814, at the estate of Premukhino, in the province of Tver, to the north-west of Moscow. An army career was planned for him, and he entered the Artillery School at St Petersburg; but at the age of twenty-one he resigned from the army and started to study philosophy in Moscow.