Anarchism and Socialism Part 5

"It is certain," Bakounine admits, "that at first things won't work in an absolutely peaceful manner; there will be struggles; public order, that arch saint of the bourgeois, will be disturbed, and the just deeds which will result from such a state of things may const.i.tute what one is agreed to call a civil war. But do you prefer to hand over France to the Prussians?... Moreover, do you fear that the peasants will devour one another; even if they tried to do so in the beginning, they would soon be convinced of the material impossibility of persisting in this course, and then we may be sure they would try to arrive at some understanding, to come to terms, to organise among themselves. The necessity of eating, of providing for their families, and the necessity therefore of safeguarding their houses, their families, and their own lives against unforeseen attacks, all this would soon force them individually to enter into mutual arrangements. And do not believe, either, that in these arrangements, _arrived at outside all official tutelage_" (italicised by Bakounine), "by the mere force of events, the strongest, the richest, will exercise a predominant influence. The wealth of the wealthy, no longer guaranteed by juridical inst.i.tutions, will cease to be a power.... As to the most cunning, the strongest, they will be rendered innocuous by the collective strength of the ma.s.s of the small, and very small peasants, as well as by the agricultural proletarians, a ma.s.s of men to-day reduced to silent suffering, but whom the revolutionary movement will arm with an irresistible power. Please note that I do not contend that the agricultural districts which will thus reorganise themselves, from below upwards, will immediately create an ideal organisation, agreeing at all points with the one of which we dream.

What I am convinced of is that this will be a _living_ organisation, and as such, one a thousand times superior to what exists now. Moreover, this new organisation being always open to the propaganda of the towns, as it can no longer be held down, so to say petrified by the juridical sanction of the State, it will progress freely, developing and perfecting itself indefinitely, but always living and free, never decreed nor legalised, until it attains as reasonable a condition as we can hope for in our days."

The "idealist" Proudhon was convinced that the political const.i.tution had been invented for want of a social organisation "immanent in humanity." He took the pains to "discover" this latter, and having discovered it, he could not see what further _raison d'etre_ there was for the political const.i.tution. The "materialist" Bakounine has no "social organisation" of his own make. "The most profound and rational science," he says, "cannot divine the future forms of social life."[41]

This science must be content to distinguish the "living" social forms from those that owe their origin to the "petrifying" action of the State, and to condemn these latter. Is not this the old Proudhonian ant.i.thesis of the social organisation "immanent in humanity," and of the political const.i.tution "invented" exclusively in the interests of "order?" Is not the only difference that the "materialist" transforms the Utopian programme of the "idealist," into something even more Utopian, more nebulous, more absurd?

"To believe that the marvellous scheme of the universe is due to chance, is to imagine that by throwing about a sufficient number of printers'

characters at hazard, we might write the Iliad." So reasoned the Deists of the 18th century in refuting the Atheists. The latter replied that in this case everything was a question of time, and that by throwing about the letters an infinite number of times, we must certainly, at some period, make them arrange themselves in the required sequence.

Discussions of this kind were to the taste of the 18th century, and we should be wrong to make too much fun of them now-a-days. But it would seem that Bakounine took the Atheist argument of the good old times quite seriously, and used it in order to make himself a "programme."

Destroy what exists; if only you do this often enough you are bound at last to produce a social organisation, approaching at any rate the organisation you "dream" of. All will go well when once the revolution has come to stay. Is not this sufficiently "materialist?" If you think it is not, you are a metaphysician, "dreaming" of the impossible!

The Proudhonian ant.i.thesis of the "social organisation" and the "political const.i.tution" reappears "living" and in its entirety in what Bakounine is for ever reiterating as to the "social revolution" on the one hand, and the "political revolution" on the other. According to Proudhon the social organisation has unfortunately, up to our own days, never existed, and for want of it humanity was driven to "invent" a political const.i.tution. According to Bakounine the social revolution has never yet been made, because humanity, for want of a good "social"

programme had to content itself with political revolutions. Now that this programme has been found, there is no need to bother about the "political" revolution; we have quite enough to do with the "social revolution."

Every cla.s.s struggle being necessarily a political struggle, it is evident that every political revolution, worthy of the name, is a social revolution; it is evident also that for the proletariat the political struggle is as much a necessity as it has always been for every cla.s.s struggling to emanc.i.p.ate itself. Bakounine anathematises all political action by the proletariat; he extols the "social" struggle exclusively.

Now what is this social struggle?

Here our Proudhonian once again shows himself adulterated by Marxism. He relies as far as possible upon the Rules of the International Workingmen's a.s.sociation.

In the preamble of these Rules it is laid down that the subjection of the worker to capital lies at the bottom of all servitude, political, moral and material, and that therefore the economic emanc.i.p.ation of the workers is the great end to which all political movements must be subordinated as a means. Bakounine argues from this that "every political movement which has not for its immediate and direct object the final and complete economic emanc.i.p.ation of the workers, and which has not inscribed upon its banner quite definitely and clearly, the principle of _economic equality_, that is, the integral rest.i.tution of capital to labour, or else the social liquidation--every such political movement is a bourgeois one, and as such must be excluded from the International." But this same Bakounine has heard it said that the historical movement of humanity is a process in conformity with certain laws, and that a revolution cannot be improvised at a moment's notice.

He is therefore forced to ask himself, what is the policy which the International is to adopt during that "more or less prolonged period of time which separates us from the terrible social revolution which everyone foresees to-day?" To this he replies, with the most profound conviction, and, as if quoting the Rules of the International:

"Without mercy the policy of the democratic bourgeois, or bourgeois-Socialists, must be excluded, which, when these declare that political freedom is a necessary condition of economic emanc.i.p.ation, can only mean this: political reforms, or political revolutions must precede economic reforms or economic revolutions; the workers must therefore join hands with the more or less Radical bourgeois, in order to carry out the former together with them, then, being free, to turn the latter into a reality against them. We protest loudly against this unfortunate theory, which, so far as the workers are concerned, can only result in their again letting themselves be used as tools against themselves, and handing them over once more to bourgeois exploitation."

The International "commands" us to disregard all national or local politics; it must give the working-cla.s.s movement in all countries an "essentially economic" character, by setting up as final aim "the shortening of the hours of labour, and the increase of wages," and as a means "the a.s.sociation of the working ma.s.ses, and the starting of funds for fighting." It is needless to add that the shortening of the hours of labour must, of course, be obtained without any intervention from the accursed State.[42]

Bakounine cannot understand that the working cla.s.s in its political action can completely separate itself from all the exploiting parties.

According to him, there is no other _role_ in the political movement for the workers than that of satellite of the Radical bourgeoisie. He glorifies the "essentially economic" tactics of the old English Trade Unions, and has not the faintest idea that it was these very tactics that made the English workers the tail of the Liberal Party.

Bakounine objects to the working cla.s.s lending a hand in any movement whose object is the obtaining or the extension of political rights. In condemning such movements as "bourgeois," he fancies himself a tremendous revolutionist. As a matter of fact he thus proves himself essentially Conservative, and if the working cla.s.s were ever to follow this line of inaction the Governments could only rejoice.[43]

The true revolutionists of our days have a very different idea of Socialist tactics. They "everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things;"[44] which does not prevent them (but quite the contrary) from forming the proletariat into a party separate from all the exploiter parties, opposed to the whole "reactionary ma.s.s."

Proudhon, who we know had not any overwhelming sympathy for "politics,"

nevertheless advised the French workers to vote for the candidates who pledged themselves to "const.i.tute value." Bakounine would not have politics at any price. The worker cannot make use of political liberty: "in order to do so he needs two little things--leisure and material means." So it is all only a bourgeois lie. Those who speak of working-cla.s.s candidates are but mocking the proletariat. "Working-cla.s.s candidates, transferred to bourgeois conditions of life, and into an atmosphere of completely bourgeois political ideas, ceasing to be actually workers in order to become statesmen, will become bourgeois, and possibly will become even more bourgeois than the bourgeois themselves. For it is not the men who make positions, but, on the contrary, positions which make the men."[45]

This last argument is about all Bakounine was able to a.s.similate of the materialist conception of history. It is unquestionably true that man is the product of his social environment. But to apply this incontestable truth with advantage it is necessary to get rid of the old, metaphysical method of thought which considers things _one after the other, and independently one of the other_. Now Bakounine, like his master, Proudhon, in spite of his flirtation with the Hegelian philosophy, all his life remained a metaphysician. He does not understand that the environment which makes man may change, thus changing man its own product. The environment he has in his mind's eye when speaking of the political action of the proletariat, is the bourgeois parliamentary environment, that environment which must necessarily fatally corrupt labour representatives. But the environment of the _electors_, the environment of a working-cla.s.s party, conscious of its aim and well organised, would this have no influence upon the elected of the proletariat? No! Economically enslaved, the working cla.s.s must always remain in political servitude; in this domain it will always be the weakest; to free itself it must begin by an economic revolution.

Bakounine does not see that by this process of reasoning he inevitably arrives at the conclusion that a victory of the proletariat is absolutely impossible, unless the owners of the means of production voluntarily relinquish their possessions to them. In effect the subjection of the worker to capital is the source not only of political but of moral servitude. And how can the workers, morally enslaved, rise against the bourgeoisie? For the working cla.s.s movement to become possible, according to Bakounine, it must therefore first make an economic revolution. But the economic revolution is only possible as the work of the workers themselves. So we find ourselves in a vicious circle, out of which modern Socialism can easily break, but in which Bakounine and the Bakounists are for ever turning with no other hope of deliverance than a logical _salto mortale_.

The corrupting influence of the Parliamentary environment on working-cla.s.s representatives is what the Anarchists have up to the present considered the strongest argument in their criticism of the political activity of Social-Democracy. We have seen what its _theoretical_ value amounts to. And even a slight knowledge of the history of the German Socialist party will sufficiently show how in practical life the Anarchist apprehensions are answered.

In repudiating all "politics" Bakounine was forced to adopt the tactics of the old English Trade Unions. But even he felt that these tactics were not very revolutionary. He tried to get out of the difficulty by the help of his "Alliance," a kind of international secret society, organised on a basis of frenetic centralisation and grotesque fancifulness. Subjected to the dictatorial rule of the sovereign pontiff of Anarchy, the "international" and the "national" brethren were bound to accelerate and direct the "essentially economic" revolutionary movement. At the same time Bakounine approved of "riots," of isolated risings of workers and peasants which, although they must inevitably be crushed out, would, he declared, always have a good influence upon the development of the revolutionary spirit among the oppressed. It goes without saying that with such a "programme" he was able to do much harm to the working cla.s.s movement, but he was not able to draw nearer, even by a single step, to that "immediate" economic revolution of which he "dreamed."[46] We shall presently see the result of the Bakounist theory of "riots." For the present let us sum up what we have said of Bakounine. And here, he shall help us himself.

"Upon the Pangermanic banner" [_i.e._, also upon the banner of German Social-Democracy, and consequently upon the Socialist banner of the whole civilised world] "is inscribed: The conservation and strengthening of the State at all costs; on the Socialist-revolutionary banner" (read Bakounist banner) "is inscribed in characters of blood, in letters of fire: the abolition of all States, the destruction of bourgeois civilisation; free organisation from the bottom to the top, by the help of free a.s.sociations; the organisation of the working populace (_sic!_) freed from all trammels, the organisation of the whole of emanc.i.p.ated humanity, the creation of a new human world."

It is with these words that Bakounine concludes his princ.i.p.al work "Statism and Anarchy" (Russian). We leave our readers to appreciate the rhetorical beauties of this pa.s.sage. For our own part we shall be content with saying that it contains absolutely no human meaning whatsoever.

The absurd, pure and simple--that is what is inscribed upon the Bakounist "banner." There is no need of letters of fire and of blood to make this evident to any one who is not hypnotised by a phraseology more or less sonorous, but always void of sense.

The Anarchism of Stirner and of Proudhon was completely individualist.

Bakounine did not want individualism, or to speak more correctly, one particular phase of individualism. He was the inventor of "Collectivist-Anarchism." And the invention cost him little. He completed the "liberty" Utopia, by the "equality" Utopia. As these two Utopias would not agree, as they cried out at being yoked together, he threw both into the furnace of the "permanent revolution" where they were both at last forced to hold their tongues, for the simple reason that they both evaporated, the one as completely as the other.

Bakounine is the _decadent_ of Utopism.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] "Statism and Anarchy," Appendix A. But for Russia the "science" of Bakounine was quite equal to divining the future forms of social life; there is to be the Commune, whose ulterior development will start from the actual rural commune. It was especially the Bakounists who in Russia spread the notion about the marvellous virtues of the Russian rural commune.

[42] See Bakounine's articles on the "Politics of the International" in the _Egalite_ of Geneva, August, 1869.

[43] The anathemas p.r.o.nounced by Bakounine against political liberty for a time had a very deplorable influence upon the revolutionary movement in Russia.

[44] Communist Manifesto, p. 30.

[45] _Egalite_, 28th August, 1869.

[46] On the action of Bakounine in the International, see the two works published by the General Council of that organisation: _Les Pretendus Scissions dans l'Internationale_, and _L'Alliance de la Democratic Sociale_. See also Engels' article _Die Bakunisten an der Arbeit_, reprinted in the recently published pamphlet, _Internationales aus dem Volkstaat_ (_i.e._, a series of articles published in the _Volkstaat_,) 1873-75. Berlin, 1894.

CHAPTER VII

THE SMALLER FRY

Among our present-day Anarchists some, like John Mackay, the author of "Die Anarchisten, Kulturgemalde aus dem Ende des xix. Jahrhunderts,"

declare for individualism, while others--by far the more numerous--call themselves Communists. These are the descendants of Bakounine in the Anarchist movement. They have produced a fairly considerable literature in various languages, and it is they who are making so much noise with the help of the "propaganda by deed." The prophet of this school is the Russian refugee, P. A. Kropotkine.

I shall not here stop to consider the doctrines of the Individualist-Anarchist of to-day, whom even their brethren, the Communist-Anarchists, look upon as "bourgeois."[47] We will go straight on to the Anarchist-"Communist."

What is the standpoint of this new species of Communism? "As to the method followed by the Anarchist thinker, it entirely differs from that of the Utopists," Kropotkine a.s.sures us. "The Anarchist thinker does not resort to metaphysical conceptions (like 'natural rights,' the 'duties of the State' and so on) to establish what are, in his opinion, the best conditions for realising the greatest happiness of humanity. He follows, on the contrary, the course traced by the modern philosophy of evolution.... He studies human society as it is now, and was in the past; and, without either endowing men altogether, or separate individuals, with superior qualities which they do not possess, he merely considers society as an aggregation of organisms trying to find out the best ways of combining the wants of the individual with those of cooperation for the welfare of the species. He studies society and tries to discover its tendencies, past and present, its growing needs, intellectual and economical, and in this he merely points out in which direction evolution goes."[48]

So the Anarchist-Communists have nothing in common with the Utopians.

They do not, in the elaborating of their "ideal," turn to metaphysical conceptions like "natural rights," the "duties of the State," etc. Is this really so?

So far as the "duties of the State" are concerned, Kropotkine is quite right; it would be too absurd if the Anarchists invited the State to disappear in the name of its own "duties." But as to "natural rights" he is altogether mistaken. A few quotations will suffice to prove this.

Already in the _Bulletin de la Federation Jurasienne_ (No. 3, 1877), we find the following very significant declaration: "The sovereignty of the people can only exist through the most complete autonomy of individuals and of groups." This "most complete autonomy," is it not also a "metaphysical conception?"

The _Bulletin de la Federation Jurasienne_ was an organ of Collectivist Anarchism. At bottom there is no difference between "Collectivist" and "Communist" Anarchism. And yet, since it might be that we are making the Communists responsible for the Collectivists, let us glance at the "Communist" publications, not only according to the spirit but the letter. In the autumn of 1892 a few "companions" appeared before the a.s.size Court of Versailles in consequence of a theft of dynamite at Soisy-sous-Etiolles. Among others there was one G. Etievant, who drew up a declaration of Anarchist-Communist principles. The tribunal would not allow him to read it, whereupon the official organ of the Anarchists, _La Revolte_, undertook to publish this declaration, having taken great pains to secure an absolutely correct copy of the original. The "Declaration of G. Etievant" made a sensation in the Anarchist world, and even "cultured" men like Octave Mirbeau quote it with respect along with the works of the "theorists," Bakounine, Kropotkine, the "unequalled Proudhon," and the "aristocratic Spencer!" Now this is the line of Etievant's reasoning:

No idea is innate in us; each idea is born of infinitely diverse and multiple sensations, which we receive by means of our organs. Every act of the individual is the result of one or several ideas. The man is not therefore responsible. In order that responsibility should exist, will would have to determine the sensations, just as these determine the idea, and the idea, the act. But as it is, on the contrary, the sensations which determine the will, all judgment becomes impossible, every reward, every punishment unjust, however great the good or the evil done may be. "Thus one cannot judge men and acts unless one has a sufficient criterion. Now no such criterion exists. At any rate it is not in the laws that it could be found, for true justice is immutable and laws are changeable. It is with laws as with all the rest (!). For if laws are beneficent what is the good of deputies and senators to change them? And if they are bad what is the good of magistrates to apply them?"

Having thus "demonstrated" "liberty," Etievant pa.s.ses on to "equality."

From the zoophytes to men, all beings are provided with more or less perfect organs destined to serve them. All these beings have therefore the right to make use of their organs according to the evident will of mother Nature. "So for our legs we have the right to all the s.p.a.ce they can traverse; for our lungs to all the air we can breathe; for our stomach to all the food we can digest; for our brain to all we can think, or a.s.similate of the thoughts of others; for our faculty of elocution to all we can say; for our ears to all we can hear; and we have a right to all this because we have a right to life, and because all this const.i.tutes life. These are the true rights of man! No need to decree them, they exist as the sun exists. They are written in no const.i.tution, in no law, but they are inscribed in ineffaceable letters in the great book of Nature and are imprescriptible. From the cheese-mite to the elephant, from the blade of gra.s.s to the oak, from the atom to the star, everything proclaims it."

If these are not "metaphysical conceptions," and of the very worst type, a miserable caricature of the metaphysical materialism of the eighteenth century, if this is the "philosophy of evolution," then we must confess that it has nothing in common with the scientific movement of our day.