Bakunin wrote this in response to the failed Polish uprising of 1867, encouraging Russians to support Poland against the Russian government. This article has been translated from the French, which in turn was a translation from Russian. To see the French original, go here.
Friends and brothers,
These lines, which your friend Nicholas Platonovitch Oragev just wrote regarding the Polish insurrection, have reached one devoted sincerely and unlimitedly to the great cause of our national bondage and the general emancipation of enslaved people. One must recognize that the partial, premature insurrection of the Polish people threatens to arrest the evolution of progress in all slave states, especially Russia. The state of one's spirit in the... (From: Anarchy Archives.) “The Appeal to the Slavs” is a statement of Bakunin’s opinions as they emerged from the shock and disappointment of the failure of the 1848 revolution. First, he believed the bourgeoisie had revealed itself as a specifically counter-revolutionary force, and that the future hopes of revolution lay with the working class. Secondly, he believed that an essential condition of the revolution was the breakup of the Austrian Empire, and the establishment in Central and Eastern Europe of a federation of free Slav republics. Thirdly, he believed that the peasantry, and in particular the Russian peasantry, would prove a decisive force in bringing about the final and successful revolution. Referring to Bakunin’s call for the di... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Everything that lives, does so under the categorical condition of decisively interfering in the life of someone else....
The worse it is for those who are so ignorant of the natural and social law of human solidarity that they deem possible or even desirable the absolute independence of individuals in regard to one another. To will it is to will the disappearance of society.... All men, even the most intelligent and strongest are at every instant of their lives the producers and the product. Freedom itself, the freedom of every man, is the ever-renewed effect of the great mass of physical. intellectual, and moral influences to which this man is subjected by the people surrounding him and the environment in which he was born and in wh... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Is it necessary to repeat here the irrefutable arguments of Socialism which no bourgeois economist has yet succeeded in disproving? What is property, what is capital in their present form? For the capitalist and the property owner they mean the power and the right, guaranteed by the State, to live without working. And since neither property nor capital produces anything when not fertilized by labor — that means the power and the right to live by exploiting the work of someone else, the right to exploit the work of those who possess neither property nor capital and who thus are forced to sell their productive power to the lucky owners of both. Note that I have left out of account altogether the following question: In what way did prop... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) From: Bakunin's Writings, Guy A. Aldred Modern Publishers, Indore Kraus Reprint co. New York 1947
THE CLASS WAR
(1870)
Except Proudhoun and M. Louis Blanc almost all the historians of the revolution of l848 and of the coup d'etat of December, 1851, as well as the greatest writers of bourgeois radicalism, the Victor Hugos, the Quinets, etc. have commented at great length on the crime and the criminals of December; but they have never deigned to touch upon the crime and the criminals of June. And yet it is so evident that December was nothing but the fatal consequence of June and its repetition on a large scale.
Why this silence about June? Is it because the criminals of June are bourgeois republicans of whom the above named wri... (From: Anarchy Archives.) From: Bakunin's Writings, Guy A. Aldred Modern Publishers, Indore Kraus Reprint co. New York 1947
THE COMMUNE, THE CHURCH & THE STATE.
I am a passionate seeker for truth and just as strong an opponent of the corrupting lies, through which the party of order-this privileged, official, and interested representative of all religions, philosophical political, legal economical, and social outrage in the past and present-has tried to keep the world in ignorance. I love freedom with all my heart. It is the only condition under which the intelligence, the manliness, and happiness of the people, can develop and expand. By freedom, however, I naturally understand not its mere form, forced down as from above, measured and controlled by the... (From: Anarchy Archives.) Dear friend and brother,
Circumstances beyond my control prevent me from coming to take part in your great Assembly of March 13. But I would not want to let it pass without expressing my thoughts and wishes to my brothers in France.
If I could attend that impressive gathering, here is what I would say to the French workers, with all the barbaric frankness that characterizes the Russian socialist democrats.
Workers, no longer count on anyone but yourselves. Do not demoralize and paralyze your rising power in foolish alliances with bourgeois radicalism. The bourgeoisie no longer has anything to give you. Politically and morally, it is dead, and of all its historical magnificence, it has only preserved a single power, that... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) ldquo;Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism” was presented as a “Reasoned Proposal to the Central Committee of the League for Peace and Freedom”, by Bakunin at the first congress held in Geneva. The text was either lost or destroyed and Bakunin wrote this work in the form of a speech, never finished, like most of his works. It was divided into three parts. The first and second parts, which follow, deal with federalism and socialism, respectively; the third part, on “anti-theologism,” is omitted here, except for the diatribe against Rousseau’s theory of the state. Bakunin analyzes Rousseau’s doctrine of the social contract, makes distinctions between state and society, and discusses the relationship... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 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. The first was the simultaneous awakening in all the countries of the consciousness, courage, and spirit of the workers, following twelve or even ... (From: Anarchy Archives.) From Correspondance de Michel Bakunin, published and prefaced by Michel Dragmanov, 1896, Paris, France, pages 127-128.
Fragment of a letter from Bakunin to Herzen and Ogareff, 1861
....for a real and useful force of the highest degree. From this standpoint, it would therefore be a true crime to separate from you, before having used all means of reconciliation in order to find a total union; to sacrifice, if necessary, my self-esteem by renouncing certain less important beliefs. I will do this all the more willingly if we are pursuing, as it seems to me, the same goal, as it is only in the means of getting there that we differ. This would be, therefore, more than a crime on my part; it would be ineptitude. You have created a remarkab... (From: Anarchy Archives.) In Bohemia I wanted a decisive radical revolution which would overthrow everything and turn everything upside down, so that after our victory the Austrian government would not find anything in its old place.... I wanted to expel the whole nobility, the whole of the hostile clergy, after confiscating without exception all landed estates. I wanted to distribute part of these among the landless peasants in order to incite them to revolution, and to use the rest as a source of additional financing for the revolution. I wanted to destroy all castles, to burn all files of documents in all of Bohemia without exception, including all administrative, legal, and governmental papers, and to proclaim all mortgages paid, as well as all other debts not e... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) From: Bakunin's Writings, Guy A. Aldred Modern Publishers, Indore Kraus Reprint co. New York 1947
THE GERMAN CRISIS
Whosoever mentions the State, implies force, oppression, exploitation, injustice-all these brought together as a system are the main condition of present-day society. The State has never had, and never can have, a morality. Its only morality and justice is its own interest, its existence, and its omnipotence at any price; and before its interest, all interest of humanity must stand in the back-ground. The State is the negation of Humanity. It is this in two ways: the opposite of human freedom and human justice (internally), as well as the forcible disruption of the common solidarity of mankind (externally).The Univer... (From: Anarchy Archives.) God and the State by Michael Bakunin
WITH A PREFACE BY
CARLO CAFIERO AND ELISÉE RECLUS
First American Edition
Price 50 Cents
MOTHER EARTH PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION
10 East 125th Street
New York City
Preface to the First French Edition
One of us is soon to tell in all its details the story of the life of Michael Bakunin, but its general features are already sufficiently familiar. Friends and enemies know that this man was great in thought, will, persistent energy; they know also with what lofty contempt he looked down upon wealth, rank, glory, all the wretched ambitions which most human beings are base enough to entertain. A Russian gentleman related by marriage to the highest nobility of the empire, he was... (From: Anarchy Archives (The text is from Michael Bakunin....) 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.
Whom do we find under God's banner ! Emperors, kings, the official and the officious world; our lords and our nobles; all the privileged persons of Europe whose names are recorded in the Almana de Gotha; the guinea, pigs of the industrial, commercial and banking world; the patented professors of our universities; the civil service servants; the low and high police officers; the gendarmes; the jailers; the headsmen or hangmen, not forgetting the priests, who are now the black police enslaving our souls to the State; the... (From: Anarchy Archives.) To Citizen George Herwegh.
Paris. [Rue St. Augustins] 40
9 [r. sur Cirque]
To George
My dear friend, since the letter that I have written from Cologne, which I do not know if you have received, I have no longer written a single word. Many things have changed since then, but not our friendship, not the confidence that we have in one another. The thoughts that are essential to us, the aspirations that are essential to us non plus. I am convinced that from the first hour of our reunion we will understand each other as well ad as completely as before. My faith, my religion are still more confirmed in the face of all the troubles and all the abjections, in the heart of which I have lived for some months. And far from ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Men once believed that the establishment of universal suffrage would guarantee the freedom of the peoples. That, alas, was a great illusion, and the realization of that illusion has led in many places to the downfall and demoralization of the radical party. The radicals did not wish to deceive the people—or so the liberal papers assure us—but in that case they were certainly themselves deceived. They were genuinely convinced when they promised the people freedom through universal suffrage, and inspired by that conviction they were able to arouse the masses and overthrow the established aristocratic governments. Today, having learned from experience and power politics, they have lost faith in themselves and in their own principle... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Ethics: Morality of the State
The Theory of Social Contract.
Man is not only the most individual being on earth-he is also the most social being. It was a great fallacy on the part of Jean Jacques Rousseau to have assumed that primitive society was established by a free contract entered into by savages. But Rousseau was not the only one to uphold such views. The majority of jurists and modern writers, whether of the Kantian school or of other individualist and liberal schools, who do not accept the theological idea of society being founded upon divine right, nor that of the Hegelian school-of society as the more or less mystic realization of objective morality- nor the primitive animal society of the naturalist school-take nolens... (From: Anarchy Archives.) The first topic for consideration today is this: will it be feasible for the working masses to know complete emancipation as long as the education available to those masses continues to be inferior to that bestowed upon the bourgeois, or, in more general terms, as long as there exists any class, be it numerous or otherwise, which, by virtue of birth, is entitled to a superior education and a more complete instruction? Does not the question answer itself? Is it not self-evident that of any two persons endowed by nature with roughly equivalent intelligence, one will have the edge - the one whose mind will have been broadened by learning and who, having the better grasped the inter- relationships of natural and social phenomena (what we might ... (From: Anarchy Archives.) We have shown how, as long as there are two or
more degrees of instruction for the various
strata of society, there must, of necessity, be
classes, that is, economic and political
privilege for a small number of the contented
and slavery and misery for the lot of the
generality of men.
As members of the International Working Men's
Association (IWMA/AIT), we seek equality and,
because we seek it, we must also seek integral
education, the same education for everyone.
But if everyone is schooled who will want to
work? we hear someone ask. Our answer to that
is a simple one: everyone must work and
everyone must receive education. To this, it
is very often objected that this mixing of
industrial with intellect... (From: Anarchy Archives.) Letter to the Comrades of the Jura Federation, October 12th, 1873
I cannot retire from public life without addressing to you these few parting words of appreciation and sympathy.
... in spite of all the tricks of our enemies and the infamous slanders they have spread about me, your esteem, your friendship, and your confidence in me have never wavered. Nor have you allowed yourselves to be intimidated when they brazenly accused you of being “Bakuninists,” hero-worshipers, mindless followers...
You have to the highest degree always conscientiously maintained the independence of your opinions and the spontaneity of your acts; the perfidious plots of our adversaries were so transparent that you could regard thei... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Source: Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff, 1971.
Letter From Bakunin to Elisée Reclus
February 15, 1875
YOU are right, the revolutionary tide is receding and we are falling back into evolutionary periods --- periods during which barely perceptible revolutions gradually germinate... The time for revolution has passed not only because of the disastrous events of which we have been the victims (and for which we are to some extent responsible), but because, to my intense despair, I have found and find more and more each day, that there is absolutely no revolutionary thought, hope, or passion left among the masses; and when these qualities are missing, even the most heroic efforts must fail and nothing ca... (From: Anarchy Archives.) From: La Correspondance de Michel Bakunin, "Lettres A Herzen et A Ogareff, Paris: Librairie Academique Didier, 1896.
Dear Herzen,
In all honesty, you have as much of a talent for misunderstanding my thoughts as you do my words.
I never had the slightest doubt about the usefulness, nay the necessity, to unite with the Polish people; I leave this matter to your very own argument. The only thing here which could lead me to doubts is that you yourself have no strong faith in this alliance, and if you think you saw discontent in my reaction, it was certainly not caused by Martianoff, but rather by the fear that you could still hesitate at the last moment. I was wrong; so much the better.
About the conflict in opinion between us and ... (From: Anarchy Archives.) From Correspondance de Michel Bakunin, published and prefaced by Michel Dragmanov, 1896, Paris, France, pages 121-124.
Letter from Bakunin to Herzen and Ogareff
October 3, 1861 San Francisco
My dear friends,
I was able to escape Siberia and after having traveled for a long time on the Amour and through the coasts and straits of Tartarie, in crossing Japan, I have finally arrived in San Francisco. But during this trip my savings, very modest as they were, have been completely exhausted and if I had not stumbled across a generous man who willingly loaned me 250 dollars to take the train from New York, I would have found myself in a terrible predicament. You, my friends, are too far away, and in this particular city I know no one. ... (From: Anarchy Archives.) From: Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff, 1971.
Letter to the Comrades of the Jura Federation
Mikhail Bakunin 1873
October 12, 1873
October 12, 1873
I cannot retire from public life without addressing to you .these few parting words of appreciation and sympathy.
... in spite of all the tricks of our enemies and the infamous slanders they have spread about me, your esteem, your friendship, and your confidence in me have never wavered. Nor have you allowed yourselves to be intimidated when they brazenly accused you of being "Bakuninists," hero-worshipers, mindless followers...
You have to the highest degree always conscientiously maintained the independence of your opinions and the spontaneity o... (From: Anarchy Archives.) Introduction
The ill-fated uprising in Lyons of September 5, 1870, led by Bakunin, Richard, and other members of the secret vanguard organization the Alliance, occurred shortly before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War (July 19, 1870-January 28, 1871).
The “Letter to Albert Richard”, written shortly before the Lyons uprising, is important primarily because it deals with the crucial question of the relationship between the revolutionary minority and the masses. It is also relevant because of relevance to the development of the Russian Revolution and because it sums up Bakunin’s alternative to what he saw as authoritarian revolutions.
Albert Richard (1846–1925) was a French anarchist from Lyon... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) From La Correspondance de Michel Bakunin, published and prefaced by Michel Dragmanov, 1896, Paris, France, pages 180-183.
Letter from Bakunin to Herzen and Ogareff1
August 17, 1863 Stockholm My dear friends,
This is the third letter I am sending you from this place. Two months ago, I had the opportunity to send you the first directly, the second by your agent in Switzerland who, on your command, was supposed to come to Stockholm, but who was likely sidetracked by unexpected occurrences and contented himself with sending me a letter through Nordstrom. I immediately responded, with an extended letter attached, pleading with him to immediately send you the letter; I would be very angry if it was not sent to you. However, I can re... (From: Anarchy Archives.) From La Correspondance de Michel Bakunin, published and prefaced by Michel Dragmanov, 1896, Paris, France, pages 133-135.
The Cloche and the Polish People
October 3, 1862
Herzen,
I completely disagree with you; I do not think it would be possible to reply to the letter written by the Varsovie Committee only by publishing my Proclamation to Russian officers in the Cloche. I hold a firm conviction that we must respond to this official Polish document with a document, more precisely a letter addressed to the Committee itself, in which we will summarize our principles and our hopes for Russia and Little Russia, countersigned by the three of us. It seems to me that justice and our dignity demand it. We take full responsibility for ... (From: Anarchy Archives.) [This long letter to La Liberté (dated October 5, 1872), never completed and never sent, was written about a month after the expulsion of Bakunin from the International Workingmen’s Association by the Hague Congress of September 2–7, 1872.]
To the Editors of La Liberté
Gentlemen:
Since you published the sentence of excommunication which the Marxian Congress of the Hague has just pronounced against me, you will surely, in all fairness, publish my reply. Here it is.
The triumph of Mr. Marx and his group has been complete. Being sure of a majority which they had been long preparing and organizing with a great deal of skill and care, if not with much respect for the principles of morality, t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 21 October 1874, Lugano
I received your letter. As for friendship, R-S, let’s not talk about it. After all you've cooked up against me (I now know about this to the tiniest detail) to call ourselves friends would be a horrific lie on both of our parts. You did all you could to kill me physically, morally, and socially by pretending up to the bitter end to be my friend, and if you didn’t succeed in doing so it wasn’t for lack of trying.
The perspicacious and intelligent Cafiero was nothing but an instrument in your hands, and you were the one who used him. I'd like to believe that you fooled yourself by taking the inspiration of your impatient and immoderate ambition for devotion to the cause. It’s unden... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 2 June 1870 Locarno
DEAR FRIEND,
I now address you and, through you, your and our Committee. I trust that you have now reached a safe place where, free from petty squabbles and cares, you can quietly consider your own and our common situation, the situation of our common cause.
Let us begin by admitting that our first campaign which started in 1869 is lost and we are beaten. Beaten because of two main causes; first – the people, who we had every right to hope would rise, did not rise. It appears that its cup of suffering, the measure of its patience, has not yet overflowed. Apparently no self-confidence, no faith in its rights and its power, has yet kindled within it, and there were not enought men acting in c... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
