Anarchism's Greatest Hits NO.1
Mikhail Bakunin

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 a 
Russian, Mikhail Bakunin. 
Anarchists do not have god-like leaders, nor all-knowing 
prophets.  Nobody gets it right all the time and nobody is 
above criticism.  Whoever does not make mistakes is either 
(a) not human, or (b) someone who never does anything at 
all.  It is possible to take inspiration from the actions and 
ideas of others without falling into the trap of uncritical 
hero-worship.  

First steps to freedom
Born in 1814 in Tsarist Russia, Bakunin quickly developed a 
burning hatred of injustice.  At age 21, after a couple of years 
in uniform, he resigned from the army and began to mix in 
democratic circles.   Nine years later he met up with radicals 
like Proudhon and Marx in Paris.  By this stage he had 
formulated a theory which saw freedom being achieved by a 
general rising, linked to revolutions in the subject nations.  
His passionate campaigning for democracy and anti-
colonialism made him 'public enemy number one' in the 
eyes of most European monarchies.  In 1848 he was expelled 
from France for making a speech in support of 
independence for Poland.  His passion for liberty and 
equality, and his condemnations of privilege and injustice 
gave him an enormous appeal in the radical movement of 
the day.  
The following year Bakunin rushed to Dresden where he 
played a leading role in the May insurrection.  This led to his 
arrest and he was sentenced to death.  The Austrian 
monarchy also wanted him, so he was extradited and again 
sentenced to death.  But before the hangman could put the 
noose around his neck, Russia demanded his extradition 
and he spent the following six years jailed without trial in 
the Peter and Paul Fortress.  Release from jail was followed 
by exile in Siberia.  

Escape from Siberia
In 1861 he made a dramatic escape and returned to Europe by 
way of Japan, the Panama Canal and San Francisco!  For the 
next three years he threw himself into the struggle for Polish 
independence.  Then he began to rethink his ideas.  Would 
national independence, in itself, lead to liberty for working 
people?  This took him away from nationalism and towards 
anarchism.  
In 1868 he joined the International Working Men's 
Association (also known as the First International), a 
federation of radical and trade union organisations with 
sections in most European countries.  Very rapidly his ideas 
developed and he became a famous exponent of anarchism.   
While agreeing with much of Marx's economic theory, he 
rejected his authoritarian politics and the major division 
within the International was between the anarchists and the 
Marxists.
While Marx believed that socialism could be built by taking 
over the state, Bakunin looked forward to its destruction 
and the creation of a new society based on free federations of 
free workers.  This soon became the policy of the 
International in Italy and Spain, and grew in popularity in 
Switzerland, Belgium and France.  After failing to defeat the 
anarchist idea, Marx and his followers resorted to a 
campaign of smears and lies against Bakunin.  

A movement is born
A committee set up to investigate the charges found, by a 
majority, Bakunin guilty and voted to expel him.  The Swiss 
section called a further congress, where the charges were 
found to be false.  An international conference also 
vindicated Bakunin, and went on to adopt the anarchist 
position of rejecting any rule by a minority.
Defeated, Marx and his followers moved the General 
Council of the International to New York where it faded 
into irrelevance.  The ideas developed by Bakunin in the last 
decade of his life went on to form the basis of the modern 
anarchist movement.  Worn out by a lifetime of struggle, 
Bakunin died in Switzerland on July 1st 1876.
His legacy is enormous.  Although he wrote manifestos, 
articles and books he never finished a single sizable work.  
Being primarily an activist he would stop, sometimes 
literally in mid-sentence, to play his part in struggles, strikes 
and rebellions.  What he left to posterity is a collection of 
fragments.  Even so, his writings are full of insights that are 
as relevant today as they were in his time.

The danger of dictatorship
While understanding that ideas and intellectuals have an 
important role to play in the revolution, a role of education 
and articulating peoples' needs and desires, he issued a 
warning.  He cautioned them against trying to take power 
and create a "dictatorship of the proletariat".  The notion 
that a small group of people, no matter how well meaning, 
could execute a coup d'etat for the benefit of the majority 
was a "heresy against common sense".  Long before the 
Russian revolution he warned that a new class of 
intellectuals and semi-intellectuals might seek to step into 
the shoes of the landlords and bosses, and deny working 
people their freedom.  
In 1873 he foretold, with great accuracy, that under the 
"dictatorship of the proletariat" of the Marxists the party 
leaders would "concentrate the reins of government in a 
strong hand" and "divide the the masses into two great 
armies - industrial and agricultural - under the direct 
command of state engineers who will constitute a new 
privileged scientific and political class".
Bakunin understood that government is the means by 
which a minority rules.  In so far as 'political power' means 
the concentration of authority in a few hands, he declared, it 
must be abolished.  Instead there must be a 'social 
revolution' which will change the relationship between 
people and place power in the hands of the masses through 
their own federation of voluntary organisations.
"It is necessary to abolish completely and in principle and in 
practice, everything that may be called political power, for as 
long as political power exists there will always be rulers and 
ruled, masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited".  
Who now can say he was not right?

Joe King

A selection of books from the revolutionary with a beard

Bakunin on Anarchy (edited by Sam Dolgoff)

A huge and comprehensive anthology of his writings.  By far 
the best collection available in the English language.

Basic Bakunin (edited by Robert M Cutler)

Writings from his time in the International Workingmens' 
Association; covering revolutionary socialism, the general 
strike, co-operation, all-round education, and more.  Only 
one of these articles has previously appeared in a complete 
English translation.  

and a few pamphlets...

God and the State by Michael Bakunin

Cheap version of his book; which combines an introduction 
to anarchism, a manifesto of atheism and a summing up of 
his thoughts.

Marxism, Freedom and the State by Michael Bakunin

In the more than a century since these passages were written 
the worship of the state has become a religion over a very 
large part of the globe, and we have seen in practice the 
fulfilment of Bakunin's gloomy forbodings on the 
destination of Marxist socialism.  History itself has shown 
the relevance of his arguments.

The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State by Michael 
Bakunin

For a few weeks in 1871 the workers of Paris took control of 
their city.  

On Violence by Michael Bakunin

His letter to Sergei Nechaev (infamous Russian terrorist) 
where he tackles the subject by expressing his faith in 
humanity and in the process rejecting the option of 
terrorism

Bakunin and Nechaev by Paul Avrich
What exactly was the relationship between Bakunin and 
Nechaev?  Are Marxists correct to say Bakunin was an 
advocate of terrorism?


