MICHEL
BAKUNIN: COMMUNIST
GUY ALDRED
1920
FOREWORD.
“A
spectre,” wrote Karl Marx in 1847, “is haunting Europe, the spectre of
Communism. All the Powers of Old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to
exorcise this spectre.”
But the
exorcism has failed. In vain does the holy alliance reconstitute itself in
order to perform its chosen task. The spectre of 1847 is a mere sprite no
longer. It has emerged from the darkness in which it was wont formerly to play
the part of a miserable shadow. It has become an embodied spirit, a power
incarnate; and to-day it boldly and bravely assumes its place in history as the
Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Republic. “The Red Peril” is a shapeless ideal
no longer. It is a stern reality. It is a living consequence, an established
social fact. It is a thrilling, feeling, striving human institution. It has
descended from heaven to earth, put aside its godhead, and become possessed of
body, parts, and passions. How came this transformation to be effected?
The
answer is not a difficult one to be sure. Economic development played its part
and also the boundless audacity of a few brave pioneers, among whom Michel
Bakunin deserves a place for his tireless zeal and tremendous enthusiasm.
How far
persons may be deemed the embodiment of epochs is a debateable question. It is,
at least, certain that history gains in fascination from being treated as a
constant succession of biographies. Assuredly, more than Luther and his circle
were necessary to effect the Reformation. But who will deny that to glean the
characters of Luther, Melancthon, and Zwingl gives charm to our knowledge of
the period? And do not the boldness of the men and certain notable sayings
remain with us as matters of consequence to be remembered in song and story,
whilst the abstract principles for which they stood bore us not a little? Who of
us will care to follow all the technical work accomplished by Wicklif when he
pioneered the public reading of the Bible in English or turned aside from his
scholarly Latin to bold writing in our native tongue? We remember only that he
did these things. Forgetting his errors, in so far as he inclined towards
orthodoxy, we linger with admiration over his brave declaration when he stood alone
against interest and prejudice: “I believe that the Truth will prevail.” And
so, when we speak of the Free Press, we think of one man, Richard Carlile, as
typifying and embodying the struggle though assuredly his work was made
possible only by the devoted band of men and women who rallied round in the historic
battle for the free press.
In like
fashion, when we speak of the Russian Revolution and Communism our thoughts
turn to Michel Bakunin and Alexander Herzen. The latter was the father of
revolutionary Nihilism. But he repented of his offspring. Bakunin never
repented.
British
bourgeois critics of the Russian Revolution believe very much in the freedom of
capital which they confuse with the freedom of the individual. And knowing-
that Herzen and Bakunin believed strenuously in individual freedom, they
applaud Nihilism as a sort of improvement on Bolshevism. But there can be
nothing in common between the haves
and the have nots. The phrase “Nihilism”
or “Liberty” can no more reconcile opposing interests than the phrase “Democracy”
or “Religion.” Economic interests are realities. Phrases are only abstractions.
That
they may be convinced on this point, I invite their attention to the present
memoir. I have not told the story in all the detail that I might have done.
Several essays by Bakunin, and an appreciation by Wagner, that I intended to
reprint from the “ Herald of Revolt “ and the “ Spur “ I have reserved for separate
publication. I have compiled and selected from essays I have published since
1910, under various circumstances in prison, military detention, etc. I have
added a little new writing, ruthlessly eliminated repetition, and endeavoured
to give a true portrait of Bakunin in relation to the revolution and his epoch.
\My aim has been to picture the man as he was a mighty elemental force, often
at fault, always in earnest, strenuous and inspiring.
GUY A.
ALDRED.
Bakunin House, Glasgow, W.,
Nov., 1920.
MICHEL
BAKUNIN, COMMUNIST.
Michel
Bakunin was born in May, 1814, at Pryamuchina, situated between Moscow and Petrograd,
two years after his friend, Alexander Herzen, first saw the light by the fires
of Moscow. The future apostle of Nihilism was the son of a wealthy landed
proprietor, who boasted a line of aristocratic ancestors.. Economic conditions
had decided that his natural destiny was the army. Consequently, at the age of
fourteen, he entered the School of Artillery at St. Petersburg. Here he found,
among a large minority of the students at least, an underground current of Liberalism
which was only outwardly loyal and obedient to the behests of the Governmental
despotism. Amongst themselves, these rebel students cherished the memories of
the Decembrists of 1825, and handed round the poems: that some of the martyred rebels
had written as sacred literature, to be preserved and passed on from generation
to generation. Anecdotage of the martyrs themselves most of whom had belonged
to the First Cadet Corps and the Artillery Institute was also eagerly retailed
and jealously recited. Those of the Decembrists who had been sentenced to Siberia
were pitied for not having been able to share the honourable fate of those who
were executed. It was impossible for military despotism to efface memories of
heroic revolt or to silence entirely the genius of knowledge. So the revolutionary
enthusiasm continued to exist and to grow apace. That it influenced Bakunin is
certain; but to what extent we cannot say. For he was conscious more immediately
of the discord existing between himself and his environment. Thus, writing to
his parents, in. the autumn of 1829, Bakunin says:
“. . . Here
begins a new era in my life. Until now my soul and imagination were pure and
innocent. They were not stained in any way. But here, in the artillery school,
I became acquainted with the black, foul, low side of life. And if I was not
dragged into the sins, of which I was often the witness, I, at any rate, got so
used to it as to have ceased to wonder at anything now. I got used to lying,
for the art of lying in that useful society of ours was not only not considered
a sin: it: was unanimously approved. I never had a conscious religious feeling,
but I possessed a sort of religious. fooling which was associated closely with
my life at home. In the artillery school this feeling disappeared altogether.
There reigned among all the students instead, a cold indifference to everything
noble, great, or holy. All my spirituality seemed to go to sleep. During my
stay in this school I have lived in spiritual somnolence.”
At the
conclusion of his training he passed his examination with great eclat. Writing
home of this event, he said:
“At last
I passed as an officer, eighteen year old. Thus began truly a new epoch in my
life. From a condition of slavish military discipline, I suddenly gain personal
freedom. I, so to speak, burst upon the free world. I could not undertake to
describe the feelings that possessed me. I only can say that, thanks to this
vigorous change, I commenced to breathe freer, I began to feel nobler. After
such a prolonged spiritual sleep, my soul has awakened to spiritual life again.
At first I was surprised, surprised and glad at my new life. ... I was glad to
be free to go where I liked and when I liked at all times. . . . Except in the
lesson hours, I did not moot any of my fellow officers. I severed every
relation with them. Their presence always reminded me of the meanness and
infamy of my school life. I have awakened! A new life has opened out! A strong
moral feeling that has taken off of me the responsibility of my school life has
kindled in my soul. I have decided to work upwards to alter myself.”
The
truth is, Bakunin at this time was suffering from extreme conservatism. “The
Russians are not French,” he wrote to his parents. “They love their country and
adore their monarch, and to them his will is law. One could not find a single
Russian who would not sacrifice all his interests for the welfare of the
Sovereign and the prosperity of the fatherland.”
Bakunin
should have become an officer of the Guards as a matter of course. This would
have meant participating in the splendour of the Court. Bakunin had contrived
to anger his father, however, and to arouse the jealousy of the Director of
Artillery. As a punishment for this dual offence he was given a commission in
the line. This meant that he was doomed to spend his days in a miserable
peasant village far away from any centre of civilisation. A peasant’s hut had
been assigned to Bakunin for his new quarters. Here he took up his abode in
consequence. All social intercourse was abjured, and whole days were spent in
meditation. His military duties were entirely neglected until, at last, his
commanding officer was obliged to order him to resign his appointment. He now
sent in his papers consequently and returned to Moscow, where he was received
into “ a circle “ of youthful savants similarly situated to himself. This
circle was engrossed in German philosophy, and was especially keen on Hegel.
Its founder was Stankevitch, who had sat under Professor Pawlov at Moscow
University. This worthy pedant had introduced German philosophy into the University
curriculum ten years previously. But he had confined his attention to Schelling
and Oken. Stankevitch, however, had become fascinated with Hegel, and it was
the latter ‘s philosophy that seemed to him to be all-important. Consequently
he had introduced it to the select circle of his friends as a subject for serious
study. Amongst these were Alexander Herzen and Michel Bakunin.
________
Herzen
was the love child of a German mother and a Russian noble, and was recognised
by his father from the very first. In 1827 he was sent to the University of
Moscow to complete the studies he had commenced at home. At this time, reaction
was steadily triumphant throughout Russia. The Czar and his Court were
conspiring to close the universities entirety and to replace them by organised
military schools. Moscow, in particular, was suspect by the reaction as a
hotbed of liberal and revolutionary thought and plans. It boasted an ancient
foundation and a real tradition for learning. It demanded a real respect and an
independent life for its students and boasted professors who were actually free
spirits, inspired by a love of knowledge, and convinced of the dignity of
learning. Such professors declined to servilely flatter autocracy and developed
in the students a true sense of personality and responsibility. The students,
in their turn, secretly revered as saints and martyrs the rebels of 1825 who
had died on the gibbet or been driven into exile. Czarism and its agents made
increasing- warfare on the professors, who could develop their genius only at
the expense of secret denunciation and exile or removal. Devotion to knowledge
rendered a man suspect and placed him at the mercy of ignorant inspectors and
servile auxiliaries of the police department. Weak men bowed before the ruling
system, only to find their genius gone, their personality extinguished.
Lectures declined little by little into the hands of incapable masters, in whom
routine replaced talent. These men were kept in office by corruption and police
considerations. Meanwhile, knowledge banned, became loved. And the students in
their quest proved the truth of Moncure Conway’s words: “They who menace our
freedom of thought and speech are tampering with something more powerful than gunpowder.”
The French philosophers were forbidden. Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Morelli, Mably,
and Fourier were denied their place in the University library. Did Truth
despair on that account? Not at all. So much did the authorities dread the
French that they forgot to enquire if there were German ones. And so Hegel was
permitted Hegel whose method has inspired more thorough revolutionary thinking than
Voltaire. Feuerbach was allowed also Feuerbach who denied the existence of the
soul and repeated the Communist warcry, heard in the streets of Paris in those
days of revolution: “ ‘Property is Robbery.”
And so
the French philosophers were neglected and the Germans succeeded them in the
affections of the students. And the revolution proceeded apace.
Herzen
sought to understand the wonderful German philosophy. It excited his
imagination and fired his ambition. He assimilated its theories and wrote
seditious essays in consequence. His manuscripts were seized. A year’s
imprisonment followed. Then he was exiled to Perm, on the very borders of
Siberia, for his activities, more especially for taking part in a dinner
attended by the revolutionary students, who reverenced Hegel and sung revolutionary
songs. In solitude, he determined to fathom Hegel. Then he was permitted to
return to civilised life and to live at Vladimir. From here he fled to Moscow
and carried off from one of the imperial schools a young cousin to whom he was
engaged. He was forgiven for this escapade and permitted to live in Moscow, where
he joined the revolutionary study circle at which he met Bakunin. Entire nights
were spent in keenly discussing, paragraph by paragraph, the three volumes of
Hegel’s “ Logic,” the two volumes of his “ Ethics,” his “ Encyclopedia,” etc.
“People
who regarded one another with affection,” says Herzen, in describing these
study circles, “would have nothing to do with one another for weeks after a
disagreement respecting the definition of ‘the intercepting mind,’ and would
regard opinions concerning ‘the absolute personality’ and its autonomous
existence as personal insults. All the most insignificant pamphlets which
appeared in Berlin or the various provincial cities of Germany, which dealt
with German philosophy, and contained even the merest mention of Hegel, were
bought and read until in a few days they were torn and tattered and falling to
pieces.”
Actually
there were two distinct circles equally keen on the discussion of Western
philosophy. One was the Bakunin-Bielmsky-Stankievitch group. The other was the
group of Herzen and Ogariov. Little sympathy existed between these two
factions. The Herzen group was French in its outlook, and almost exclusively
political in its aim. The Bakunin faction was almost exclusively speculative in
its outlook and German in its thought. They were denounced as sentimentalists
by the Herzenites.
This was
the period of crisis for Bakunin and the friend over whom he exercised so great
an influence, Bielinsky. Both passed through the crisis and went over to the
extreme left before Stankievitch’s circle dissolved in 1839. They did more.
They passed from being Germanophiles and Francophotes to becoming Francophiles
and Germanophotes. The hindrance of such racial idealism proved as fatal when
French prejudices were favoured as when German ones were, except for a more
radical form of address, and a clearer outlook on the world of theology. Herzen
asserted that Hegel’s system was nothing less than the algebra of the revolution,
and that was all he appropriated from it. But it was badly formulated algebra
very likely the bad formulation was intentional. It had attracted a band of
immediate disciples, therefore, who were not nearly so closely allied to the
Hegelian teaching as the Socialists. For the Hegelian philosophy left men free
in a sense that no other philosophy had done or could do. It liberated the
world from obsolete conditions, and left no stone unturned in Christendom. It
proclaimed the idea that nothing was immutable and that every social condition
contained the germs of radical change.
Bakunin
and his friend Bielinsky came to support these contentions of Herzen before the
dawn of the hungry and revolutionary forties. But at first both were
reactionary.
Whether
right or left, Bakunin insisted on thoroughness. He went to the very depths of
German metaphysical idealism and hesitated before none of the logical
consequences of his thought. He applauded it because it was the philosophy of
authority and order, and not Herzen’s algebra of revolution. He spoke with
contemptuous irony of the “philosophications” of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, d’Alembert,
and other French writers, who had assumed the gaudy and unmerited title of
philosophers. He denounces the turbulent and recriminative French and condemns “the
furious and sanguinary scenes of” their revolution, the “abstract and
illimitable” whirlwind which “shook France and all but destroyed her.” He
rejoiced that “the profound religious and aesthetic feeling of the German
people” saved it from such experiences. Hegel had reconciled Bakunin to reality
and oppression. “Yes,” he wrote, “suffering is good; it is that purifying flame
which transforms the spirit and makes it steadfast.”
He
declared that “reconciliation with reality in all its relations and under all
conditions is the great problem of our day,” and maintained that real education
was “that which makes a true and powerful Russian man devoted to the Czar.”
Hegel and Goethe were “the leaders of this movement of reconciliation, this
return from death to life.”
“In
France,” he added, “the last spark of Revelation has disappeared. Christendom,
that eternal and immutable proof of the Creator’s love for His creatures, has
become an object of mockery and contempt for all. . . . Religion has vanished,
bearing with it the happiness and the peace of France. . . . Without religion,
there can be no State and the Revolution was the negation of any State and of
all legal order. . . . The whole life of France is merely the consciousness of
the void. . . .’ Give us what is new, the old things weary us ‘such is the
watchword of the Young France. . . . The French sacrifice to the fashion, which
has been their sole goddess from all time, all that is most holy and truly
great in life.”
This “French
malady” had attacked the Russian intellectuals, who “filled themselves with
French phrases, vain words, empty of meaning, killing the soul in the germ, and
expelling from it all that is holy and beautiful.” Russian society had to “abandon
this babbling” and ally itself with “the German world with its disciplined
conscience “ and “ with our beautiful Russian reality.”
Thus
spoke the apostle of Czarism and Prussianism. No wonder he despised the
students at the Artillery School. No wonder, when he had passed through the
violent change which transformed him into an anarchist and enemy of Czarism, he
hated everything German and adored most things French. It may not have been reasonable.
But it was very human. And Bakunin was nothing if not human. By temperament he
was passionate and elemental. This fact explains the completion of his mental
change.
And so
Bakunin came to support the contentions of Herzen with a boldness and
irresistible dialectic that marked him out as the most brilliant member of a
brilliant group of disputants. Herzen was impressed with his incomparable “revolutionary
tact” and tireless energy. He had made himself thoroughly at home with the German
language and the German philosophy. Proudhon noted the effect of these studies
and masteries on his thought and style when he declared that Bakunin was a
monstrosity in his terse dialetic and his luminous perception of ideas in their
essence.
___________
Tourgenieff
once invented a Nihilist hero, named Bazaroff. This character lives in my mind
only because of his reply to a sceptical question. He was asked whether he, as a
Nihilist propagandist, imagined that he influenced the masses. And he replied: “A
halfpenny tallow dip sufficed to set all Moscow in a blaze.” Herzen’s name is
associated by his nativity with the immortal flames thus humbly originated. He
is the lighted tallow tip which began the mighty conflagration now threatening
to consume the whole of Capitalist society. Even as the flames spread, he
spluttered and went out. But he set fire to a rare torch in Bakunin one who was
destined to spread the smoke and the fire of revolution throughout the world.
This
world mission began in 1841, when Bakunin proceeded to Berlin to continue the
studies commenced at Moscow. He was now a red among reds. Philosopher, Rebel,
Socialist, he left Russia for the first time. The following- year he removed to
Dresden in order to gain a nearer acquaintance with Arnold Ruge, the
interpreter of Hegel, with whom he most sympathised, and to proclaim definitely
his rapture with Conservatism and his adhesion to the Hegelians “ of the left.”
“He did this in his first revolutionary essay, entitled the “ Reaction in
Germany,” contributed to Ruge’s “Jahrbucher” for 1842, Nos. 247--51. As if
anxious to emphasise his change of front on the relative worth of the French and
German spirit, Bakunin used the “nom-de-plume” of “Jules Elizard,” and had Ruge
pretend that it was a “ Fragment by a Frenchman.”
The
article itself showed that Bakunin had not altered his estimate of the French
and German spirit. He had merely changed sides consciously and deliberately. He
entered an uncompromising plea for revolution and Nihilism. The principle of
revolution, he declared, is the principle of negation, the everlasting spirit of
destruction and annihilation that is the fathomless and ever -creating fountain
of all life. It is the spirit of intelligence, the ever-young, the ever
new-born, that is not to be looked for among the ruins of the past. The champions
of this principle are something more than the mere negative party, the
uncompromising enemies of the positive; for the latter exists only as the
contrary of the negative, whilst that which sustains and elevates the party of
revolt is the all-embracing principle of absolute freedom, The French
Revolution erected the Temple of Liberty, on which it wrote the mysterious
words: “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.” It was impossible not to know and
feel that these words meant the total annihilation of the existing world of
politics and society. It was impossible, also, not to experience a thrill of
pleasure at the bare suggestion of this annihilation. But that was because “the
joy of destruction is also the joy of creation.”
The year
after the publication of this essay, Bakunin quitted Dresden for Paris, as he
believed he had learned all there was to be learned in Germany. In the French
capital he identified himself with all who were noted for their decided views
and revolutionary abandon. But a certain community of thought attracts him most
to Proudhon. The latter had answered the question “What is Property?” with
Brissot’s reply, given when still a revolutionary, and subsequently adopted by
Feuerbach and accepted by Bakunin. He declared without hesitation that “Property
holders are thieves.” His motto was the early Christian motto which appealed so
much to Bakunin: “ I will destroy and I will rebuild.” He possessed an intense
admiration for Hegel and believed, at least, philosophically, with Bakunin that
the process of destruction was also the process of construction. Hence Bakunin’s
friendship. It must be confessed, however, that Marx’s estimate of Proudhon as an
Utopian and a reformist who uttered bold and striking phrases is much more to
the point than Bakunin ‘s view of Proudhon as a social revolutionist of the
first water.
A few
months after this meeting, Proudhon was obliged to leave Paris for Lyons.
Bakunin was induced by his Polish friends to go to Switzerland. Two years later
he was involved in the trial of the Swiss Socialists. He was thereupon deprived
of his rank as a Russian officer and his rights of nobility. In all, he
whittled away five years in the Swiss villages. Proceeding to Paris at the end
of this time, he here threw himself wholeheartedly into the struggle for
freedom. His activity brought him into contact with Marx. Nearly a
quarter-of-a-century later, writing in the year that witnessed the disaster of
the Commune and the beginnings of the Parliamentary debacle, Bakunin recorded
his impression of his great German colleague and opponent:
“Marx
was much more advanced than I was as he remains to-day, not more advanced out incomparably
more learned than I am. I knew then nothing of political economy. I had not yet
rid myself of metaphysical abstractions, and my Socialism was only instinctive.
He, though younger than I, was already an Atheist, an instructed materialist, a
well-considered Socialist. It was just at this time (1847) that he elaborated
the first foundations of his present system. We saw each other fairly often,
for 1 respected him much for his learning and his passionate and serious
devotion always mixed, however, with personal vanity to the cause of the
proletariat. 1 sought eagerly his conversation, which was always instructive
and clever, when it was not inspired by a paltry hate, which, alas! happened
only too often. But there was never any frank intimacy between us. Our
temperaments would not suffer it. He called me a sentimental idealist, and he
was right. I called him a vain man, perfidious, and crafty; and I, also, was right.”
_________
November
29, 1847, was the anniversary of the Insurrection of Warsaw. On this date Paris
witnessed Bakunin ‘s pronouncement of his celebrated speech to the Poles. For
the first time a Russian was seen to offer a hand of Brotherhood to this much persecuted
people, and renounce publicly the Government of St. Petersburg. His oration
formed the prototype of countless other speeches of Russian and Polish
revolutionists. It acknowledged the grievous injustice done to the Polish
nation by Russia, and promised that the revolution of the future would not only
make amends for this, but would remove all the existing differences between the
two leading Slav families. It would, consequently, unite the lands east of the
Order into a proper and beneficient federative Republic.
It must not be concluded from this speech that
Bakunin was anticipating the Poland of Pilsudski and the Allied financiers, the
tool of the counter-revolution. He was anticipating a Soviet Poland and a
Soviet Russia, two allied lands in which all power and authority would be
rested in the hands of toilers and exist only in response to real needs of
social organisation and the people’s well-being. Hence his speech made a great
sensation. The Czar’s Government placed a reward of 10,000 roubles on the
venturesome orator’s head, and demanded his expulsion from Paris. His every
move was now watched by Russian agents. Guizot who but a few years before had
been too polite to refuse the Russian Government’s request for Marx’s expulsion
consequently expelled him from Paris. Like Marx, he went to Brussels; but he
had scarcely reached here when Paris expelled Guizot and Louis Phillippe from
France. The new Provisional Government that now invited the “brave and loyal
Marx” to return to the country whence tyranny had banished him, and where he,
like all fighting in the sacred cause, the cause of the fraternity of all peoples”
would be welcome—also welcomed Bakunin. He accordingly returned to Paris and
passionately threw himself into the new political life that then began. But men
like Marx and Bakunin who took the Republican ideal in earnest and realised the
material revolution that must precede its realisation were a menace to the
Lamartine and Marast Government. Bakunin’s departure was a relief to it. He
went to the Slavo-Polish Congress assembled at Breslau, and afterwards attended
the Congress convened at Prague on 1st June, 1848. Here his famous Slavonic program
was written. Up to the time that Windisgraetz dispersed the Congress with
Austrian cannon, Bakunin worked with the Slavonians. These events inspired Marx’s
famous chapters on “ Revolution and Counter-Revolution. “Treating of this
political storm period, Marx sings the praises of the generous bravery, the nobility,
and the far-sightedness of the spontaneous revolt of the Viennese populace in
the cause of Hungarian freedom. He contrasts their action with the “cautious
circumspection” of Hungarian Statesmanship. Parliamentarians he dismisses as
poor, weak-minded men, so little accustomed to anything like success during their
generally very obscure lives that they actually believed their Parliamentary
amendments more important than external events.
The most
important passages are those treating of the part played by the military in
times of revolution. We are often told by so-called Marxists, the former
slanderers of Bakunin and the present enemies of Bolshevism, that “we” must capture the Parliamentary machine
in order to control the armed forces. Without discussing who the “we” is
who is going to capture this machine, one may venture to cite the following
excerpts from Marx’s pages, proving that Parliament does not control the army nor
even the executive authority.
“But we
repeat: these, armies, strengthened by the Liberals as a means of action
against the more advanced parties . . . turned themselves against the Liberals
and restored to power men of the old system. When Radetzky in his camp beyond
the Adige received the first orders from the responsible ministers at Vienna,
he exclaimed: ‘Who are these ministers? They are not the government of Austria.’
Austria is now nowhere but in my camp; ‘ I and my army, we are Austria; and
when we have beaten the Italians, we shall reconquer the Empire for the
Emperor.’ And old Radetzky was right,
but the imbecile ‘responsible’ ministers at Vienna heeded him not.”—Ch. IX.
“The
army again was the decisive power in the State, and the army belonged not to
the middle classes but to themselves. . . . The . . . army, more united than
ever, flushed with victory in minor insurrections and foreign warfare . . . had
oniy to be kept in constant petty conflicts with the people, and the decisive
moment once at hand, it could, with one great blow, crush the Revolutionists,
and set aside the presumptions of the middle class parliamentarians. ‘ ‘ Ch. X.
In these
trenchant words, Marx describes how the Austrian army regained its confidence
at Prague and sounds the call of battle and social
revolutionary-anti-parliamentarism. He thus identifies himself and his work
with the struggle and endeavour of Bakunin.
During
this storm-period, Herzen left Russia never to return to it again. For a time
he had returned to the service of the State and spent his spare time in writing
novels, romances, and studies of manners. But the meanness of his occupation
outraged his self-respect. Once more he took up the struggle against Czarism.
Once more his pen denounced despotism. He wrote boldly and bitterly and
encountered persecution as a matter of course. Then he abandoned his office as
a barrister and went into exile.
It was
now that Herzen proclaimed his gospel of universal negation, the need to
destroy completely the existing political world. He denounced bourgeois
republicanism, whatever means were employed to bring it about. His goal was the
Socialist Republic, which was to be brought into existence by burying existing
society under its own ruins. Once abolished, the old society could never
reconstitute itself. But another society would emerge inevitably a better and
truer society without doubt. Herzen could not see beyond that society. He did
not know what was to follow it. But he knew it could not be the end. In this sense,
regarding life as a constant ferment, and viewing the old society as a regime
of death, Herzen saluted the prospects of revolution with the words:
“Death
to the old world! Long live chaos and destruction! Long live death! Place for
the future.”
Out of
the chaos, Socialism was to emerge:
“Socialism
will be developed in all its phases, even to its uttermost consequences, the
absurd. Then, once again, there will come forth the cry of negation from the
titantic breast of the revolutionary minority. Once more, the mortal struggle
will recommence. But in the struggle Socialism will take the place of the
present Conservatism, to be conquered in its turn by a revolution unknown to
us. The eternal game of life, cruel as death, inevitable as birth, constitutes
the flux and reflux of history, ‘perpetuum mobile’ of life.”
Thus
thought and wrote Herzen “Before the Storm” which swept over Europe in 1848.
That storm left power in the hands of the hated bourgeois, “ the prize beasts
of the ‘ National.’ He develops his theory with greater force “After the Storm:”
“We are
not called upon to gather the fruits of the past, but to be its torturers and
persecutors. We must judge it, and learn to recognise it under every disguise,
and immolate it for the sake of the future.”
In these
words, Herzen challenged the entire constitutional theory of a gradual conquest
of political power by the proletariat under Capitalism. He denied that Jesus
had conquered Constantine by the Church establishing itself in the Capitol. He
saw the original plan of tyranny being developed and improved in detail, but
never abandoned nor destroyed. The Reformation headed by Luther did not
emancipate the people. It only saved clericalism. The French Revolution did not
destroy authority. It conserved it. But the coming Social Revolution would
uproot and destroy. It would not widen the power of States but destroy their
entire political structure.
As one
follows Herzen in the development of this theory, one knows that his message is
radically at one with Marx. It is the message of the class struggle. And it
foreshadowed, without a doubt, the revolutionary negation of parliamentarism,
and the establishment of Soviet responsibility.
_______
Quitting
Prague, Bakunin fled to Germany, where he was received with open arms by the
Radical element. Here he remained concealed for sometime, first at Berlin, then
at Dessau, Cothen, and various towns in Saxony. Everywhere pursued and expelled
by the police, he was a wanderer until the end of April, 1849, when he
succeeded in finding employment, under an assumed name, at the University of
Leipsic. Here a circle of Bohemian students embraced both his revolutionary and
panslavistic doctrines.
Bakunin
now united in opposition to Palacky whom Marx denounced the Slavonian democrats
with the Hungarian independence movement and the German revolutionists.
Subsequently he took command at the defence of Dresden and acquired a glory which
even his enemies have not denied. From the 6th to the 9th May, he was the very
life and soul of its defence against the Prussian and Saxon troops. On the
later date, when all was lost, Bakunin ordered the general retreat to Frieberg
with the same proud dignity as he had issued his commands for resisting the siege
and had insisted, only the day before, on the European importance of this
desperate enterprise. At Chemnitz he was seized by treachery, with two of his
companions; and from that time 10th May, 1849 commenced his long martyrdom.
Even then his proud and courageous demeanour did not desert him. twenty-seven
years afterwards, one of the Prussian officers who had guarded the prisoner on
the way through Altenburg still remembered the calmness and intrepidity with
which the tall man in fetters replied to a lieutenant who interpellated him, “
that in politics the issue alone can decide what is a great action and what a
crime.”
From
August, 1849, to May, 1850, Bakunin was kept a prisoner in the fortress of
Konistein. He was then tried and sentenced to death by the Saxon tribunal. In
pursuance of a resolution passed by the old Diet of the Bund in 1836, he was delivered
up to the Austrian Government and sent (chained) to Prague instead of being
executed.
The
Austrian Government attempted in vain to extort from him the secrets of the
Slavonian movement. A year later it sentenced him to death, but immediately
commuted the death sentence to one of perpetual imprisonment. In the interval
he had been removed from the fortress at Gratz to that at Almutz, as the Government
was terrified by the report of a design to liberate him. Here he passed six
months chained to the wall. After this, the Austrian Government surrendered him
to the Russian. The Austrian chains were replaced by native irons of twice the
weight. This was in the autumn of 1851, when Bakunin was taken through Warsaw
and Vilna to St. Petersburg, to pass three weary years in the fortress of
Alexis. At Vilna, in spite of the threats of the Russian Government, the Poles
gathered in the streets to pay the last tribute of silent respect to the heroic
Russian orator of 27th November, 1847. As Bakunin drove past them in the
sledge, they bowed their heads with an affection never assumed in the presence of
emperors. Bakunin understood. His fortitude during six years’ confinement in
Russian dungeons showed that he was not unworthy of their devotion.
In 1854,
at the beginning- of the Crimean War, Bakunin was transferred to the casemates
of the dreaded fortress of Schliisselburg, which actually lie beneath the level
of the Neva. When Alexander II. ascended the throne in August, 1856, he
halfpardoned many political refugees and conspirators, including the Decembrists
of 1825. Bakunin was not among them. When his mother petitioned the Emperor,
the latter replied, with affability, “ As long as your son lives, madame, he
will never be free.” However, 1857 saw Bakunin ‘s release from prison and
removal to Eastern Siberia as a penal colonist. Three years later, the Emperor
refused to let Bakunin return to Russia, as he saw in him “ no sign of remorse.”
After eight years’ imprisonment and four years’ exile, he had to look forward
still to a long series of dreary years in Siberia.
Two of
these dreary years had gone when, in 1859, the Russian Government annexed the
territory of the Amur. A brighter prospect was offered Bakunin by permission to
settle here, and to move about almost as he pleased.
A new
flame was kindled throughout Russia Garibaldi had unfurled the Italian flag of
freedom. Bakunin, at 47 years of age and with his pulse full of vigour, could
not remain a tame and distant spectator of these events. He determined to
escape from Siberia. This he successfully carried out by extending his
excursions as far as Novo-Nikolaievsk, where he secretly boarded an American clipper,
on which he reached Japan. He was the first political refugee to seek shelter
there.- Thence he arrived at San Francisco, crossed the Isthmus of Panama, and
came to New York. On 26th December, 1861, he landed at Liverpool, and the next
day he was with his comrades in London.
Bakunin
is in London! Bakunin buried in dungeons, lost in Eastern Siberia, re-appears
in the midst of us full of life and energy. He returns more hopeful than ever,
with redoubled love for freedom’s holy cause. He is invigorated by the sharp
but healthy air of Siberia. With his resurrection, how many images and shadows
rise from the dead! The visions of 1848 reappear. We feel no longer that 1848
is dead! It has only changed its place in the order of time!”
Such
were the greetings with which all English lovers of freedom and members of the
revolutionary working class committees welcomed the- approach of the new year
1862!
To
justify these expectations, Bakunin settled down to the part editorship of
Herzen’s “Kolokol.”
_____
“The slightest
concession, the smallest grace and compassion will bring us hack to the past
again, and leave our fetters untouched. Of two things we must choose one.
Either we must justify ourselves and go on, or we must falter and beg for mercy
when we have arrived half-way.”
In these
terms, written in a mood of uncompromising Nihilism, Herzen condemned his own
career. When he published his pamphlet “Before the Storm,” in Rome, it did not
seem possible that the world would have to wait long for the inevitable conflagration.
The downfall of all existing institutions seemed imminent. Socialism was the
gospel of youth, the hope of humanity, the goal to be attained. And it seemed
as though the youth of the world was about to come into its own. Herzen revelled
in the thought that the spring-time was at hand:
“When
the spring comes, a young and fresh life will show itself over the whitened
sepulchres of the feeble generations which will have disappeared in the
explosion. For the age of senile barbarity, there will be substituted a
juvenile barbarity, full of disconnected forces. A savage and fresh vigour will
invade the young breasts of new peoples. Then will commence a new cycle of
events and a new volume of universal history. The future belongs to Socialist
ideas.”
But the
1848 upheaval failed. Herzen prophesised more vigorously than ever. He
clamoured strenuously and ably for universal destruction. But his faith in “words
and flags, in the deification of humanity, and the illusion that salvation can
be only effected by the Church of European civilization” declined. The west in
which he placed so much hope was dead. And he began his weary “return to Russia”
in thought, though not in fact. For he lived and died in exile.
“We were
young two years ago; to-day we are old,” he wrote in 1850. The crushing of the
French Labour movement angered and disheartened him. He became ashamed of his precious
affection for Europe, “blushed for his prejudices,” declared that he knew
nothing of the lands he had loved from the distance, and had embellished them
with “marvellous colours” because they were as “forbidden fruit” to him.
Universal sorrow at the general check received by the revolution throughout
Europe disturbed his outlook and he poured out his sense of hopelessness and
despair in his work, “From the Other Shore.”
But he
could not quite give up his faith in revolution. The West had failed but there
was Russia. Why should not Russia become a Socialist State without passing
through Capitalism? Herzen saw no reason: and so in 1851 he penned the
prophetic words: “The man of the future in Russia is the moujik, just as in France
he is the artisan.”
He saw
Russia emancipating the world and continued in this faith down to the renewal
of his association with Bakunin in London. At this time he developed his ideas
in “The Old World and Russia.” All the States the Roman, Christian, and feudal institutions,
the parliamentary, monarchial, and republican centres—but not the people of Europe will perish. The coming revolution, unlike
any previous change, would destroy the bases of the States In line with which
understanding of the social issue, Herzen opposed himself to reformism in the
following words:
“We can
do no more plastering and repairing. It has become impossible to move in the
ancient forms without breaking them. Our revolutionary idea is incompatible
entirely with the existing state of things.”
“A
constitution is only a treaty between master and slave.” This declaration was
made by Herzen also. It at once became the motto of the Russian extremists, who
were few compared with the constitutionalists who wanted either a limited
monarchy or a republic.
But the
boldness of his thought was paralysed by the Russian character of his outlook.
He attempted to turn opportunist in practice in order to bring about
insurrectionary movements in Russia, and became disheartened by failure. He
compromised with the religious sectarians and conspired with the peasants. The intrigue
collapsed, and he repudiated the Nihilism he had abandoned in order to intrigue.
For practical reasons, he retreated from his revolutionary position, and left
his colleague, Michel Bakunin, to spread the flame of universal destruction.
But Herzen’s retreat was in direct opposition to all that he taught and believed.
To
Bakunin he wrote, stating that he had no faith in revolutionary measures and
now stood for Liberalism. He neither wished to march ahead of, nor remain
behind, the progress of mankind. The latter would not and could not follow him
in his passion for destruction, which Bakunin mistook for a passion for
creation.
The
trouble was not with the revolutionary programme. It rested with Herzen’s
anti-revolutionary compassion for his fatherland above other lands. Concessions
were made to religion and political conspiracy. He failed the social revolution
and then denied its truth because his work seemed to end in smoke. The vapour
was Herzen not Nihilism.
_______
Whereas
Herzen appealed to a Russian audience, Bakunin demanded a European one. He
remained the Slav at heart, and on the International stage paraded his hatred
of the Teuton.
In
London he assured his admirers that he would devote the rest of his life to the
war with Czarism. He wanted to be “a true and free Russian,” however, and to
keep off the Tartars in the East and “to maintain the Germans in Germany.” This
Nationalist touch marred all his work and seriously detracted from his
revolutionary vigor in moments of crisis. But it did not seem to hamper his
energy.
Herzen’s
paper stood for the reform of Russian officialdom, not its destruction. But he
was no match for Bakunin ‘s energy, zeal, and abandon. More and more did the “Kolokol”
become identified with the latter’s Nihilism, his applause of the negative principle,
and his denunciation of all positive institution. This altered policy was
maintained down to 1865, when the “Kolokol” was transferred from London to
Geneva only to die.
Four
years later Bakunin delivered his famous speech to the Peace Congress at Berne.
He impeached modern civilisation as having been “founded from time immemorial
on the forced labour of the enormous majority, condemned to lead the lives of
brutes and slaves, in order that a small minority might be enabled to live as
human creatures. This monstrous inequality,” he discovered, rested
“Upon
the absolute separation between headwork and hand-labour. But this abomination
cannot last; for in future the working classes ate resolved to make their own
politics. They insist that instead of two classes, there shall be in future
only one, which shall offer to all men alike, without grade or distinction, the
same starting point, the same maintainence, the same opportunities of education
and culture, the same means of industry; are, indeed, by virtue of laws, but by
the nature of the organisation of this class which shall oblige everyone to
work with his head as with his hands.”
Later
on, Bakunin repudiated Communism in a passage that has so often been
misinterpreted, that we reproduce it at length:
“Communism
I abhor, because it is the negation of liberty, and without . liberty I cannot
imagine anything truly human. I abhor it because it concentrates all the
strength of society in the State, and squanders that strength in its service;
because it places all property in the hands of the State, whereas my principle
is the abolition of the State itself. I want the organisation of society and
the distribution of property to proceed from below, by the free voice of
society itself; not downwards from above, by the dictate of authority. I want
the abolition of personal hereditary property, which is merely an institution
of the State, and a consequence of State principles. In this sense I am a
Collectivist not a Communist.”
Here
Bakunin propounds the old Anarchist fallacy of the State creating property,
instead of espousing the sound doctrine that property necessitates and
conditions the State. He fights the shadow for the substance. His aspiration as
to social organisation all Communists share. And when he repudiates Communism for
Collectivism, they know he is giving a different meaning to these terms from
that which we give to them.
Actually,
he is expressing his fear of a dictatorship. But since he believed in violence,
which is the essence of dictatorship, we do not see the point of his objection.
No one believes in a permanent authoritarian society. All realise that there
must be a transitional period during which the workers must protect the
revolution and organise to crush the counter-revolution. Every action of the working
class during that period must be organised, must be power-action, and
consequently dictatorial. It is impossible either for Bakunin or for anyone
else to escape from reality in this matter. To destroy power the workers must secure power. There is no other
way.
The
address becomes happier when the author turns to the question of religion: but
since he repeats, word for word, whole passages subsequently reproduced in “
God and the State,” there is no need to cite his reflections. Bakunin’s one
great consistency was his hatred of God and the idealists.
_______
Bakunin’s
pan-slavism was the fatal contradiction that paralysed his revolutionary
endeavour. This will be seen from his pamphlet “Romanoff, Pugatscheff, or
Festal,” published in 1862. In this, he announced his willingness to make peace
with absolutism provided that the son of the Emperor Nicholas would consent to
be “ a good and loyal Czar,” a democratic ruler, and would put himself at the
head of a popular assembly in order to constitute a new Russia, and play the
part of the saviour of the Slav people.
“Does
this Romanoff mean to be the Czar of the peasants, or the Petersburgian emperor
of the house of Holstein-Gottorp? This question will have to be decided soon,
and then we shall know what we are and what we have to do.”
The Czar’s
silence angered Bakunin, and he returned again to Nihilism as he would have
done in any case. Bakunin was altogether too loyal to the cause of revolution
to compromise with Czars for any length of time. But the weakness was there,
and the fact must be recorded. It found expression once again with the outbreak
of the Franco-Prussian War and the German invasion of France. Bakunin forgot
the youth to whom he had issued his revolutionary appeals. All his ancient
Russian enmity of the Germanic race from whose thinkers he had imbibed the milk
of his philosophic doctrines came out. He at once addressed an appeal to the
peasantry of all countries, imploring them “to come to drive out the Prussians.”
The cause of France, he said, was the cause of humanity. And the powerful
Muscovite Press agreed with him. Bakunin was at one with ruling class Russia.
In backing France, he was acting as became a Russian and a patriot, not as became
an Anarchist and an Internationalist. This is obvious from the company in which
he found himself.
_________
Bakunin
outlined the case against Germany, and enunciated his theory of the historic
mission of the French, in his “Letters to a Frenchman about The Present Crisis,”
written in September, 1870, and his pamphlet on “The Knouto-Germanic Empire.” He
disowned nationalism and race, and the Napoleons, Bismarcks, and Czars who
fostered patriotism in order to destroy the freedom of all nations. In his
eyes, this was a very mean, very narrow and very interested passion. It was
fundamentally inhuman and had no other purpose than the conservation of the
power of the national State that is, the attempted exploitations and privileges
inside a nation.
“When
the masses become patriotic they are stupid, as are to-day a part of the masses
in Germany, who let themselves be slaughtered in tens of thousands with a silly
enthusiasm, for the triumph of that great unity, and for the organisation of
that German Empire, which, if founded on the ruins of usurped France, will
become the tomb of all hopes for the future.”
In
penning that, he did not recall his own pan-Slavic utterances, and advocacy of
racial antagonisms involving the continuation of government and the support of
militarism.
History
was shaved shamefully so as to oppose the France of 1793 to the Germany of
Bismarck. Nothing was said about revolutionary Germany. The France which
demanded Napoleons, supported Royalism, and favoured bourgeois Republicanism,
was dismissed. Bakunin was enabled, by these means, to picture the world as
waiting on the initiation of France for its advance towards liberty. France was
to drive back Germany, exile her traitor officials and inaugurate Socialism!
“ What I
would consider a great misfortune for the whole of humanity would be the defeat
and death of France as a great national manifestation: the death of its great
national character, the French spirit; of the courageous, heroic instincts, of
the revolutionary daring, which took with storm, in order to destroy, all
authorities that had been made holy by history, all power of heaven and earth.
If that great historical nature called France should be missed at this hour, if
it should disappear from the world-scene; or, what would be much worse if the
spirited and developed nature should fail suddenly from the honoured height which
she has attained, thanks to the work of the heroic genius of past generations
into the abyss and continue her existence as Bismarck’s slave: a terrible
emptiness will engulf the whole world. It would be more than a national
catastrophe. It would be a world-wide misfortune, a universal defeat.”
We need
add only that the great “French Spirit” murdered in cold blood its communards
in the famous May-June days of 1871.
________
As a
national manifestation, the French Spirit was confined within territorial boundaries.
It has been seen that Bakunin believed also in a Russian nationalism, bounded
on the East by the Tartars, and on the West by the Germans. Given these
frontiers, it is impossible not to believe in a German race, bounded on the West
by France and on the East by Russia. Thus Bakunin believed in upholding the
States of Europe. He aimed at the status quo. Yet he said:
“Usurpation
is not only the outcome, but the highest aim of all states, large or small,
powerful or weak, despotic or liberal, monarchic, aristocratic, or democratic.
... It follows that the war of one State upon another is a necessity and common
fact, and every peace is only a provisional truce.”
This
idea was not worked out at some other time, under different circumstances, but
in these “Letters to a Frenchman” eulogising the national spirit. He asserted
that all States were bad, and there could be no virtuous State:
“Who
says State, says power, oppression, exploitation, injustice ail these established
as the prevailing system and as the fundamental conditions of the existing
society. The State never had a morality, and can never have one. Its only
morality and justice is its own advantage, its own existence, and its own
omnipotence at any price. Before these interests, all interests of mankind must
disappear. The State is the negation of manhood.”
“So long
as there is a State, war will never cease. Each State must overcome or be
overcome. Each State must found its power on the weakness, and, if it can,
without danger to itself, on the abrogation of other States. To strive for an
International justice and freedom and lasting peace, and therewith seek the
maintainence of the State, is a ridiculous naivete.”
Bakunin
had to escape this very charge of ridiculous naivete.
_______
The
German Social Democrats believed in a progressive series of State reforms and
German unity with Prussia as the head of the centralising movement. By seizing
on this fact, Bakunin w r as able to give point to his case for the French
Spirit. Unless, however, he could make the German Social Democrats amenable to
that spirit, he remained the apologist for the French State. He carefully
pointed out, therefore, that the German Social Democrats were anxious to go
beyond their programme, and were waiting to solidate with the French workers to
proclaim the Universal Socialist Republic of the proletaires. In this way, he
destroyed entirely the significance of the French Spirit. And he did not write
the truth. The German Social Democrats were not waiting to solidate with the French
workers. The French workers were not willing to initiate the Socialist
Republic. So cleverly did Bakunin reconcile his contradictions, that he buried
his superstition and Anarchism in the same logical grave. It is well that this
was only a passing aberration, that Bakunin was so sincerely proletarian that
the Commune of Paris found him its defender and eulogist, and our gratitude for
his vigour and audacity in consequence exceeds our regrets at his lapses. We
recall that all his contemporaries, including- Marx, nodded, and that the age
of the giants who never fail and are superior to circumstance has not arrived.
______
Bakunin
closed his stormy career at Berne on 1st July, 1876. He had founded his Social
Democratic Alliance and been expelled from the Marxist International. His
heroism and tireless zeal commanded the respect of all who survived, and it was
decided at his funeral to reconcile the Social Democrats and the Anarchists in one
association, and to bury minor differences namely, the questions of
Parliamentarism and State reforms! This idea of compromise was supported by the
Anarchists and Social Democrats throughout Europe. , Marvellous words of regard
were paid to Bakunin ‘s. memory. On 7th August, the Jura Federation assembled at
Chaux-de-Fonds and sent a fraternal greeting, drawn up by James Guillaume, to
the German Social Democratic Congress at Gotha. Four weeks later, Wilhelm
Liebknecht replied in the following terms:
“The
Congress of the German Socialists has commissioned me to express to you my
delight over the fact that the Congress of the Federation of Jura has expressed
itself in favour of the union of all Socialists.”
The
eighth International Congress of the International was held at Berne a month
later. The German Social Democratic Party sent a delegate who expressed the
following hope of union:
“The
German Social Democracy expresses the desire that the Socialists may treat each
other with mutual consideration, so that, if a complete union is not possible,
there may be established at least, a certain understanding, in accordance with
which everyone may pursue peacefully his way.”
At the
banquet, which concluded the Congress, Cafiero, the disciple of Bakunin, drank
to the health of the German Socialists; and De Paepe toasted the memory of
Michel Bakunin. “ Anarchism “ kept company with State reforms and Socialism was
regarded as a Parliamentary issue, over which one must not grow passionate. All
Bakunin ‘s fiery words against the State, all his talk of the Revolution, his
hurrying across Europe to boost first one and then another insurrection had
ended seemingly in vapour, smoke!
But the
thing was impossible. The events of the storm years, 1848 and 1871, had made
the same impression on Marx as on Bakunin. Both believed in revolutionary
violence, in insurrectional politics, in the Commune and not the Empire.
Whatever their personal quarrel and their difference as to the rigid
interpretation of the Marxian formula, both were genuine social revolutionists,
the real pioneers of the new social order, the masters from whom John Most drew
his inspiration. In their differences, each side erred. In their fundamental
aspiration, both were at one. Not so with Lassalle from whom the Social
Democrats drew their fatal inspiration, whose motto, “Through universal
suffrage to victory,” they substituted, after the downfall of the Commune and
the defeat of the proletariat, for Marx’s magnificent: “Workers of all lands,
unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! You have a world to gain!”
“To set
about to make a revolution,” said Lassalle the father of that European Social
Democracy which buried itself and attempted to murder outright the European
proletariat in the world war of 1914-18 “ is the folly of immature minds, which
have no notion of the laws of history.” In this spirit he interpreted the
events of 1848 and 1849 as an argument for direct universal suffrage! With the
movement founded to maintain this principle and work towards this middle class
end, the Anarchists seriously thought of identifying themselves! They imagined
this to be an honour to Bakunin, just as the Marxists thought they were
honouring Marx by repudiating his revolutionary principles.
_______
“And so
you think that Marx and Bakunin were at one,” said my friend.
“Yes,” I
replied, “I think that they were at one. I believe that they were one in
purpose and in aspiration. But they accomplished distinct tasks and served
different functions. It would not do for us all to act the same part. Fitted by
temperament to enact a peculiar role, each man felt his work to be a special
call, the one aim of life. This developed strong personality. And when the two
strong personalities came into conflict through the nature of their respective
tasks, the natural antagonisms of their temperament displayed themselves. Then
came fools, who called themselves disciples of the wise men, and magnified
their accidental collisions into vital discords of purpose. Do we not know the friend
who persuades us to quarrel? And do we not know the ‘disciples’ who are
actually street brawlers of a refined order? Marx and Bakunin have suffered at
the hands of these mental numskulls.”
“But how
would you define the difference between the two men,” pursued my friend.
“Very
easily,” I answered, “Marx defined the Social Revolution, whilst Bakunin
expressed it. The first stood for the invincible logic of the cause. The second
concentrated in his own person its unquenchable spirit. Marx was an impregnable
rock of first principles, remorselessly composed of facts. He dwarfed the intelligence
of Capitalist society and witnessed to the indestructability of Socialism. He
incarnated the proletarian upheaval. He was the immovable mountain of the
revolution. Bakunin, on the other hand, was the tempest. He symbolised the
coming flood. Both were great brave men; and together they gave completeness to
the certitude of revolution. They promised success by land and by water. They
symbolised inexhaustible patience, unwearying stability, inevitable growth, and
tireless, resistless attack. Who can conceive of a world not made up of land
and water? Who can conceive of the Social Revolution without the work of Marx and
Bakunin?”
But my
friend was not convinced, so we turned to other subjects.
