Original title: "Bakunin’s Anarchism Reconsidered Review of Freedom or Death: The Theory and Practice of Mikhail Bakunin by Felipe Correa"
Jan 14, 2025
by Wayne Price
Anarchism, like Marxism, was the outcome of European mass movements in the 19th Century: the early socialist movements (later called “utopian” socialism), the movement for political democracy (against the monarchs and aristocrats), and the movement for workers’ rights. But if there is one person who may be described as the initiator of revolutionary anarchism, it would be Mikhail Bakunin (1814—76). Born into the lower-to-middle ranks of the Russian aristocracy, he was active in a range of popular movements, participated in several armed rebellions, spent a decade in Czarist prisons, and played a major role in the First International. This concluded in a sharp faction fight with Karl Marx, resulting in a split in the International.
He considered himself more a man of action than an intellectual. “I am not a philosopher, nor a system inventor like Marx.” (p. 43) While a fine orator, Bakunin’s writings were unsystematic, and he hardly completed a book. Yet there was a consistency to his work, as this volume demonstrates. His views inspired anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist activists throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and North and South America. His opinions remain relevant today, as we face authoritarianisms on the Right and the Left.
The author is Felipe Correa Pedro. Mark Bray calls him “among the world’s foremost scholars of anarchism…” (in a front-page blurb). A Brazilian anarchist scholar and activist, Correa is internationally known, although few of his works have been translated into English. (But see, for example, Correa 2021; 2022a; 2022b.) He describes himself as an “especifist anarchist” (an organizational dualist). He follows a revolutionary, class-struggle, anarchist-socialism which has developed from the work of Mikhail Bakunin. (I am also of this school of anarchism.) While plainly an admirer of Bakunin, he attempts to be as objective as he can, excluding hagiography and including Bakunin’s failures and contradictions.
Bakunin’s thinking is sometimes presented as though he had one set of ideas which did not change during his lifetime. Correa demonstrates that, as he lived, Bakunin developed his ideas. He made major changes in his concepts and program, while still keeping continuity. “To cut up and rearrange Bakunin’s writings without regard for the context or the period in which they were written risks the loss of a balanced presentation in favor of a purely personal interpretation.” (Dolgoff 1980; p. xi) His earlier beliefs were to culminate in his revolutionary anarchist-socialism (to use the term preferred by Errico Malatesta).
Correa divides Bakunin’s adult life into three main periods. These were, first, his Hegelian period (1836-43)—then his period of revolutionary pan-Slavism (1844-63)—finally his evolution from socialism to anarchism (1864-76).
The Philosophy of Freedom (1836-43)
As a young man in Czarist Russia, Bakunin became fascinated with German Idealist philosophers, particularly the dialectical philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel. Correa goes into Bakunin’s philosophical development in great detail, giving separate chapters to Bakunin’s Fichteian period, his “first Hegelian period,” his “second Hegelian period,” and his evolution out of philosophy and religion. “Bakunin was the greatest figure of Hegelianism in Russia between 1838 and 1840….” (p. 26)
Bakunin’s interpretation of Hegelian dialectics was very similar to that of the Left Hegelians of Germany; he was to move to Berlin and interact with this grouping—which included Marx and Engels. “In Germany, between 1840 and 1842, he rose to a prominent, if heterodox, position on the Hegelian Left.” (p. 26)
(It would be interesting for someone to contrast Bakunin’s period of Hegelianism with Marx’s early Hegelianism.)
The grouping also included “Max Stirner” (Casper Schmidt). His writings were later taken up by individualist anarchists. Contrary to the Marxists, there is no evidence of any interaction between the two, nor does Bakunin’s social anarchism have much similarity to Stirner’s egotism. To Bakunin, individuals only become free with others. He declared, “Man only becomes man…through collective or social labor….To be free, for man, means to be recognized, considered, and treated as such…in the consciousness of all free men, his brothers and sisters, his equals.” (pp. 338-9)
Correa quotes Hegel, when asked by Goethe to explain dialectics, as saying it was a “spirit of organized contradiction.” (p. 118) Dialectics presents the world as process—dynamic and holistic—which moves and organizes itself through contradiction, internal conflict, and negation of what-is. This applies to society as it does to nature. Societies can only be understood in terms of contradictions such as classes, as well as genders, nationalities, races, ages, and so on. It is these internal conflicts which hold societies together and which break them up in forward movement. “This dialectical method, which is concomitantly historical, permeates all Bakuninian writings from this period (cf. alienation…).” (p. 118)
Hegel’s dialectics presents the world’s processes as directional, moving toward ever greater consciousness and freedom. Just what this meant in practice varied. In Hegel’s youth, he was greatly influenced by the French Revolution and its expansion of human freedom. When older, he became reconciled to the Prussian status quo. He now saw the bureaucratic Prussian state as the historical culmination of the World Spirit.
Personally, I think that there are streams within nature and society which may lead to greater consciousness and freedom—as one branch of evolution led to humans. But other streams do not, as evolution also produced bacteria and cockroaches. I doubt that nature as a whole has an innate progressive directionality. Marx—or at least many Marxists—believed that the dialectic of history would inevitably result in stateless, classless, communism. However, while there are forces pushing in that direction (such as the class struggle), there are also reactionary forces pushing in the other direction (such as capitalist ideology). It is not really possible to know which will (“inevitably”) win out. Choosing socialist revolution is a decision and a commitment—with no guarantee of “inevitable” success.
In this period, Bakunin read some socialist literature, by William Weitling and others. Politically, he regarded himself as a radical, in the tradition of French republicanism, “the foundation of which,” writes Correa, “is the notion of self-government of the people…” (p. 85)
I will not review Correa’s lengthy and detailed analysis of Bakunin’s early Hegelian dialectics. An introductory book on Hegel’s philosophy may be more useful. However, to stay on the topic of Bakunin and philosophy, I will jump ahead to his socialist and anarchist period.
By this final period, Bakunin had rejected religion and theism, along with all philosophical Idealism. Morris writes, “Bakunin’s conception of reality, like that of Marx’s, is dialectical, materialist, and deterministic.” (1993; p. 78) In Correa’s view, it was not a “dialectical materialism,” although he does not explain why he thinks this. (In any case, Marx never used the term, which was invented by G. Plekhanov.) Instead, Correa calls Bakunin’s views “scientific-naturalist materialism.” He saw nature and matter as one, the whole of reality.
Bakunin saw nature as self-organized and lawful. He regarded “free will” as a theological concept. But he believed that nature—including society and the individual—was creative, that new things appeared through the dialectical process. He reconciled theory and practice. Theory was necessary as a guide, but only practice would prove the reality of perception and thinking. It was only through the unified activity of theory and practice, interacting with nature and other people, that humans creatively develop their potentialities and become fully free.
Pan-Slavism and National Self-Determination (1844-63)
Like almost all progressive people, Bakunin supported the struggle for national independence of the Polish people. At the time, Poland was mostly incorporated into the Russian empire, with large chunks also being owned by Prussia and by Austria. Officially, there was no “Poland.” (Just as colonists and imperialists today claim that there is no “Palestine” or that “Ukraine” does not really exist.)
A movement developed to tie the Polish national struggle to that of all the Eastern European Slavic peoples, including those oppressed by Turkey. The goal was a federation of all the countries with Slavic-based languages. A further expansion of the idea was to include the biggest Slavic country of all, Russia, in the federation.
Left pan-Slavism advocated a democratic federation of Slavs. This could not be achieved without revolutions in several lands—especially Poland and Russia. It was believed that these uprisings would lead to democratic rebellions throughout Europe. Conservatives did not like this. Polish nobility wanted independence, only in order to have a free hand in exploiting their own serfs. Russian pan-Slavists dreamed of an unified Slavic nation led by an enlightened Czar.
Bakunin worked within the broad pan-Slavist movement, cooperating with radical democrats but also with conservatives. While a revolutionary, he was by no means an anarchist yet. At times he veered toward a conservative, narrow nationalism. At other times he seemed to want to integrate national liberation with a social, as well as democratic, program. He called for revolutionary governments to be set up as dictatorships.
He proposed the formation of secret societies of revolutionaries, organized hierarchically, and managed as dictatorships. This was the beginning of his organizational dualism—support for broad organizations and movements, while also building relatively homogeneous organizations of militants committed to specific revolutionary programs, to operate inside and outside broader organizations.
By contrast, Marx and Engels rejected pan-Slavism. They supported the fight for Polish independence. However, they saw Czarist Russia as the greatest threat to progress in Europe. They wanted it defeated in war, preferably by a revolutionary democratic Germany. Further, they had contempt for the smaller, Eastern European, Slavic, countries: Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, and Croats. These they regarded as “unhistorical.” Such countries, they expected, would—and should—be taken over by larger nations, such as Germany, Poland, Italy, and Hungary. (This was similar to their support for the U.S.A. seizing half of Mexico, its land and people. That was supposedly progressive.)
At times, Bakunin expressed an extreme hatred of Germans, whom he blamed for the oppression of the Slavic peoples (only partly true in terms of Prussian and Austrian imperialism). His writings sometimes expressed racist-nationalist Germanophobia, a condemnation of all the German people. It ignored differences between German workers and the German ruling classes. At other times he raised opposition to Germanophobia, advocating support for all democratic struggles in German, as well as Slavic, countries. Both attitudes were to remain with him. His bigotry became particularly extreme when arguing with German Jews, such as Hess, Liebknecht, or with the German social democrats.
He especially raised such bigotry during his disputes with Marx, in his last period. Bakunin wrote, “Mr. Marx is a [German] patriot no less ardent than Bismarck….He desires the establishment of a great Germanic state, one that will glorify the German people….Marx…considers himself at least as Bismarck’s successor….” (Bakunin 1980; pp. 314-5) And further nonsense….
Bakunin’s anti-Germanism overlapped with Jew-hatred. He claimed that there was “a conspiracy of Russian and German Jews against” him. (p. 426) And “The Jews…are sworn enemies of every truly popular revolution.” (p. 426) This was not a central part of his beliefs, but Correa correctly says, “His antisemitism is indefensible and contradicts his positions of the revolutionary socialist period….” (p. 427) (After Bakunin’s death, Germanophobia was to be an issue when World War I broke out between two imperialist alliances. A small number of leading anarchists, including Peter Kropotkin, supported the Allied imperialists, partly out of fear and hatred of Germans.)
Bakunin may be said to have abandoned pan-Slavism, if that is defined as a commitment to narrow nationalism, let alone a hope for a united Slavdom led by the Czar. But he continued to support the struggles for national self-determination of Poland and the other Slavic countries. “His project of national liberation of the Slav peoples was not supplanted or completely reconsidered but incorporated into his revolutionary socialism….” (p. 430) It became integrated with the goal of class liberation of the peasants and workers oppressed by their national rulers.
Bakunin came to distinguish between the “homeland” and the “state.” It was natural for people to love their homeland, which meant their geography, their culture, their language, and their historical struggles for freedom. But “political patriotism” was an artificial, abstract, emotion whipped up by a ruling class in order to support the state. Bakunin opposed states but defended the right of all peoples to their homelands. “I feel, frankly and always, the patriot of all the oppressed homelands.” (p. 407)
He declared, “Every people, weak or strong, every nation, large or small, every province, every commune has the absolute right to be free, autonomous, to live and govern themselves according to their particular interests.” (p. 407) This is anarchism.
While participating in a movement for national liberation, anarchists fight against “nationalism,” because it serves the ruling classes. Correa writes, “Nationalism is intended to be a multi-classist movement…[but] anarchist anti-imperialism supports the need for a movement concentrated on the dispossessed classes….Anarchist anti-imperialism claims the concomitant end of both national domination and class and state domination in the struggling nation.…” (p. 408)
From Socialism to Anarchism (1864-76)
After a dozen years of imprisonment by the Czarist state, Bakunin escaped in 1861 and returned to Europe. After the defeat of a Polish uprising in 1863, he turned his main attention to Western Europe. He tried to set up secret revolutionary societies and attempted to influence a middle class liberal organization, the International League of Peace and Freedom, to little lasting effect. He was impressed by a number of big workers’ strikes and by the growth of the International Workingmen’s Association (the First International). “These strikes…considerably changed Bakunin’s positions on the transformative capacity of workers and the centrality of their movements….” (p. 262) From then on, he called himself a “revolutionary socialist.” He wrote to Marx, at the end of 1868, “My homeland is now the International.” (p. 301)
Bakunin rejected any vision of socialism as being government-owned industry and centralized planning. His socialism was heavily influenced by P.J. Proudhon, the first person to identify as an “anarchist.” (The movement which followed him generally called itself “mutualist” or “federalist,” rather than “anarchist.”) “His great inspiration is Proudhon.” (p. 262) From Proudhon, Bakunin took anti-statism and anti-electoralism, workers’ self-management of industry, decentralized democracy, and bottom-up federalism. However, he rejected Proudhon’s gradualism and reformism, his market socialism, and his opposition to strikes and to revolution. (Bakunin also rejected Proudhon’s misogyny. While the liberation of women was never at the center of his thinking, he included it whenever presenting his program.). Bakunin developed “a radicalization of Proudhonism.” (p. 262)
He was also influenced by other militants and theorists, such as Cesar de Paepe, who had been “mediating between Proudhon and Marx.” (p. 260) Correa mentions the influence of Karl Marx on Bakunin, but does not emphasize it as much as do other commentators (or as Marx and Engels did!). However, Correa notes that “at various times, [Bakunin] uses and defends Marxist ideas and even terminology.” (p. 264)
Bakunin made a turn toward revolutionary socialism, beginning in 1864. But it was only in 1868, Correa argues, that he really became an anarchist—while still a socialist.
Among the differences between his pre-anarchist and anarchist periods: “In 1864, the popular masses were considered [by Bakunin] incapable of liberating themselves, and it was therefore necessary for minorities from the upper classes to organize themselves to act on the peasantry and especially the urban proletariat….From 1868 onwards, it held that workers are able to emancipate themselves and that those with privileged origins, if they so desire, must…act together with peasants and proletarians in the struggle for emancipation.
“[In the earlier period] the favored space is the secret society and therefore mass and public expressions are discarded….In the anarchist period, Bakunin defends organizational dualism, reconciling secret and public, cadre and mass expressions. Finally, in 1864, the model of secret society proposed by Bakunin…still has hierarchical and centralist features, which from 1868 onwards will be abandoned in favor of a federalist model of cadre organization.” (p. 300)
Correa calls Bakunin’s vision of a free socialism, “collectivist-federalist socialism.” This included, Bakunin wrote, “the taking over by autonomous collectivities, workers’ associations, agricultural or industrial, and communes of all social capital, all ownership of land, mines, dwellings, religious and public buildings, instruments of labor, raw materials, …and manufactured products.” (p. 386) There is a need to end the division between mental and manual labor. Distribution of goods would be based on the amount of labor contributed by each (able-bodied) worker. (This was “collectivism.” Later models of a “communist” anarchism—distribution “to each according to their need”—were developed by Kropotkin and others, as a modification of“collectivism.”) The self-managed “collectivities, workers’ associations, and communes” would coordinate through federations and networks (democratic planning from below).
Bakunin only occasionally described his views as “democratic,” usually reserving the term for the capitalist representative “democracies,” which he wanted to overthrow. He did call his anarchist association, the “Alliance of Socialist Democracy.” While “democracy” is not discussed by Correa, Morris argues, “If the term ‘democracy’ denoted government of the people, by the people, for the people, then this would imply no state, and Bakunin could therefore happily call himself a ‘democrat.’” (Morris 1993; p. 99)
Correa gives a summary of Bakunin’s analysis of how capitalism worked. Bakunin had been influenced by Proudhon and Marx, but his views, as summarized here, appear to be mostly that of Marx. Bakunin had read Marx’s Capital, and had made an effort to translate it. Even during his bitterest exchanges with Marx, Bakunin continued to express respect for Marx’s intellect and theoretical advances. (For an anarchist review of Marx’s economic analysis, see Price 2013.)
From Correa’s summary of Bakunin’s writings on political economy, Bakunin believed that capitalism was based on the exploitation of the workers. Through collective labor they produced value by producing commodities. The capitalists, owners of the means of production and other capital, owned the total product and only gave a fraction of its value back to the workers. The rest they kept as profit. The competition among the capitalists had a tendency toward centralization and monopolization. In its origins and in its continuation, the state was required to build up and to maintain the capitalist system. With cause, Correa calls this “the statist capitalist system.” (p.370)
Overall, with some differences, this seems consistent with Marx’s critique of political economy. Bakunin claims (in Correa’s summary) that the workers sell their “labor” as a commodity to the capitalists. Marx thought it better to say that the workers sell their “labor power,” their ability to work, to the capitalists as commodities, when the capitalists hire them. Their labor power is then expended in the process of labor during working hours.
More significantly, Bakunin implies that capitalism pushes workers’ wages to the very bottom, to what is just necessary biologically for the workers and their families to survive and work (which was the view of the classical bourgeois economists). Bakunin writes that capitalists must pay workers “the lowest possible wages…the labor…which is forced to be sold at the lowest value…[that which is] strictly necessary for the daily maintenance of their families….The worker is forced to sell his labor for almost nothing….” (p. 369)
The view that workers’ wages must be pushed toward the bottom, to “almost nothing,” has been used to claim that it is pointless to strike for higher wages. This has been called “the iron law of wages,” and was held by some “Marxists,” such as F. Lasalle (a founder of German social democracy). While this is a real tendency, there are counter-tendencies, as Marx pointed out. These include the capitalists’ need for increasingly educated and healthy workers to handle more sophisticated and complex machinery.
Also, the workers do not simply accept the downward pressure of the bosses. In many ways, not only including unions, they push back. A certain standard of living becomes accepted as mandatory in wealthier countries. The capitalists must accept this to some extent or face “labor unrest.” Especially during boom periods, when the business cycle is on an upswing, workers can gain benefits. Marx recognized this, but noted that even the better-off workers were still exploited and oppressed.
Correa declares, “The contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat, as fundamental as it is…is not the only one and cannot be understood as the primary one….” (p. 374) He cites the class conflict between landlords and peasants (not a big factor in the U.S. but still important on a world scale). Further, he refers to “the state bureaucracy, the clergy, and the intellectuals” as also “among the upper classes” which exploit and dominate “the rural proletariat and all the poor and marginalized.” (p. 374) This may be how Bakunin saw matters.
That there are non-capitalist contradictions and subsystems within capitalist society is not in question. Nor is it in doubt that the working class needs to be allied with every oppressed section of society. But it is industrial capitalism which mainly produces the goods and services by which everyone lives. This includes the surplus value which supports not only the capitalists but also the landlords, the state bureaucracy, the clergy, and the intellectuals. The powerful capital/labor dynamic pulls all subordinate conflicts into its orbit and makes them consistent with it. (That these subordinate systems, react back upon the specific ways that capitalism functions is also not in question.) This puts the international, multi-racial, bi-gendered, multi-sexually-oriented, multi-religious, proletariat in a central (“primary” if one insists) position to make a revolution.
Bakunin rejected “economic determinism,” writes Correa. However, in a footnote, Correa quotes Bakunin, as declaring (at various times), “At the basis of all historical, national, religious, and political problems…[is] the economic problem, the most important, the most vital of all….The whole intellectual and moral, political and social history of humanity is a reflection of its economic history…. One of Mr. Marx’s main scientific merits is to have enunciated and demonstrated this truth.” (p. 381-2) Correa calls Bakunin’s view “relative economic determination.” It seems consistent with a version of Marxist “historical materialism” (another term Marx never used).
The Split in the International
Bakunin and Marx shared the goal of an international revolution of the working class and all oppressed groups (peasants, women, colonized nationalities, etc.) to create a classless, stateless, free society. Yet they had deep and bitter differences.
In 1872 Marx organized the expulsion of Bakunin from the International. This was followed by a split of the majority of the organization into an alternate “Anti-Authoritarian International.” Correa goes into detail about the background of this conflict, from the time Bakunin and his comrades joined the International to the final split. I will not review this history. (I have discussed the split in the International elsewhere; see Price 2017.)
What were the issues (leaving aside conflicts of personality)? Correa believes that the major issue involved party and power. After the Paris Commune, Marx made a big push to order every International branch to form a workers’ political party—to run in elections and compete for state power. Bakunin and his comrades opposed this program (although he supported each national section’s freedom to form a party or not). It was not merely a tactical matter of whether to vote. Marx and his comrades believed that the road to socialism was through seizing the state—either by elections or by revolutions which established new states (the “dictatorship of the proletariat”).
To the anarchists, the state was an instrument of minority class rule and could not be used for any other purpose. Instead, the road forward was through independent mass action, particularly by building militant unions. (The Marxists were also for building unions—that was not in dispute.) The post-revolutionary society would be a federation of workers’ councils and communal assemblies, not a state.
However, the actual attack by Marx against Bakunin was not explicitly over workers’ parties and elections. Instead, Bakunin was accused of forming secret societies, with the aim of either taking over the International or destroying it from within. Marxists still charge him with that. Really it was a conflict over Bakunin’s concept of organizational dualism.
Bakunin made a distinction between two types of organization. One was a mass organization of the working class, in this case the International. It included workers of varied views on politics and religion, united to fight for their interests, primarily economic. The other was a smaller, politically homogenous, grouping of “cadres,” which would act publicly or secretly, inside and outside the broader organization. Its goal was to advance its revolutionary program among the workers, in opposition to the various authoritarian forces which existed. This was then the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy. Both types of organizations were to be federalist, not centralist, in structure.
This was hardly undemocratic. Why shouldn’t Bakunin or anyone else be free to form a socialist caucus within the International? Marx himself had a network of fellow-thinkers throughout the International with whom he corresponded and collaborated, even if not a formal body, and he was allied with the Blanquists, who had their own, highly centralized, party.
However, Marx and his comrades accused Bakunin of organizing to take over the International (which was what Marx had been trying to do) or to destroy it (which was nonsense). The Marxists pointed out that Bakunin had been forming (or trying to form) secret associations (secret not only from the police but also from the members of the International) under his leadership. This was partly true, at least in Bakunin’s mind and imagination, if not in reality.
One of Bakunin’s young followers then was the Italian Errico Malatesta. Years later (in 1897), he commented, “In the [anarchist] movement’s early days there was a strong residue of Jacobinism and authoritarianism within us, a residue that I will not make so bold as to say we have destroyed utterly, but which has definitely been and still is on the wane.” (Turcato 2016; p. 335)
Correa discusses some of the worst things Bakunin wrote, in private letters and elsewhere. These indicate that he wanted a secret, collective, “dictatorship” over society by the Alliance. Correa gives reasons to downplay these authoritarian statements. In my opinion, he does not sufficiently acknowledge the elements of Jacobinism which still lingered in Bakunin’s thinking. Yet he is correct in showing how Bakunin’s anarchist-federalist dualism laid the basis for present-day revolutionary anarchism, which is not Jacobin or elitist but radically democratic and federalist.
In an afterward to this book, the Argentinean anarchist Rocio Soledad Lescano states that organizational dualism is among “the most important contributions proposed by Bakunin that are still valid today and are being put into practice by a portion of contemporary anarchism.” (p. 436) Today this is often referred to as especifisimo or neo-platformism.
This is sometimes confused with the Leninist vanguard party. They have some things in common, in the organization of revolutionaries who agree with each other and coordinate ideas and actions. But there are drastic differences, too. The Leninist party is centralized, directed from the top down (“democratic centralism”). The anarchist association is federalist, organized from the bottom up (which might be called democratic federalism). Most important of all, the Leninist party exists to win state power, while the anarchist association exists to promote the self-organization of the workers and oppressed.
Conclusion
Brian Morris wrote, “Bakunin’s anarchism has not been discussed anywhere with the seriousness it deserves.” (Morris 1993; pp. 73-4) This book is the serious discussion which Bakunin’s anarchism deserves.
It is a big book (475 pages) and covers many topics—not all of which are discussed in this review. It is somewhat academic, beginning with a bibliographic essay on the international literature about Bakunin. The thorough discussion of Bakunin’s philosophical development may be useful to specialists but not to most of those interested in Bakunin. Yet there is value in showing how his final, revolutionary anarchist, period carried on aspects of his earlier thinking.
Bakunin was constantly looking for ways to struggle for freedom. From Hegel he took a dynamic understanding of the world. From Proudhon he took a commitment to decentralized federalism and self-management, while rejecting Proudhon’s reformism. From Marx he gained an analysis of how capitalism works and other insights, while fighting against Marx’s strategy of taking state power.
Bakunin had to overcome certain elitist, and even racist, aspects of his thinking, which he may never have done completely. He was far from perfect. But it is the conclusion of Bakunin’s life, approximately his last decade, which is most important for today’s anarchist-socialists. He put together the fundamental theory and practice of revolutionary anarchism.
Today we face the rise of semi-fascist and outright fascist movements, threatening to take over even “democratic” governments. On the Left, there is the growth of authoritarian and statist versions of “socialism.” This includes “democratic socialism” (that is, reformist state socialism) and various regrowths of Marxist-Leninist trends (Stalinist-type “revolutionary” state socialisms). The vision of Mikhail Bakunin remains of extraordinary value as a guide to freedom and socialism.
References
Bakunin, Mikhail (1980). Bakunin on Anarchism. (Ed.: S. Dolgoff). Montreal Canada: Black Rose Books
Correa, Felipe (2024). Freedom or Death: The Theory and Practice of Mikhail Bakunin. (Trans.: Jonathan Payn). Montreal/NYC: Black Rose Books.
Correa, Felipe (2022a). “Elements of Anarchist Theory and Strategy. Felipe Correa Interviewed by Mya Walmsley.”
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32657
Correa, Felipe (2022b). “Power and Anarchism: Approximation or Contradiction?” https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32520?search_text=Felipe
Correa, Felipe (2021). “Anarchist Theory and History in Global Perspective.” https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32487?search_text=Felipe
Dolgoff, Sam (1980). “Prefatory Note.” Bakunin on Anarchism. (Ed.: S. Dolgoff). Montreal Canada: Black Rose Books. Pp. xi—xiii.
Morris, Brian (1993). Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom. Montreal/NYC: Black Rose Books.
Price, Wayne (2017). “The First International and the Development of Anarchism and Marxism.”
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/wayne-price-the-first-internati…
Price, Wayne (2013). The Value of Radical Theory; An Anarchist Introduction to Marx’s Critique of Political Economy. Oakland: AK Press.
Turcato, Davide (Ed.) (2016), “A Long and Patient Work…” The Anarchist Socialism of L’Agitazione, 1897—1898. Complete Works of Errico Malatesta. Vol. III. (Trans.: P. Sharkey). Chico CA: AK Press.
Anarcho-Syndicalist Review # 91 (Winter 2025)
Jan 14, 2025
by Wayne Price
Anarchism, like Marxism, was the outcome of European mass movements in the 19th Century: the early socialist movements (later called “utopian” socialism), the movement for political democracy (against the monarchs and aristocrats), and the movement for workers’ rights. But if there is one person who may be described as the initiator of revolutionary anarchism, it would be Mikhail Bakunin (1814—76). Born into the lower-to-middle ranks of the Russian aristocracy, he was active in a range of popular movements, participated in several armed rebellions, spent a decade in Czarist prisons, and played a major role in the First International. This concluded in a sharp faction fight with Karl Marx, resulting in a split in the International.
He considered himself more a man of action than an intellectual. “I am not a philosopher, nor a system inventor like Marx.” (p. 43) While a fine orator, Bakunin’s writings were unsystematic, and he hardly completed a book. Yet there was a consistency to his work, as this volume demonstrates. His views inspired anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist activists throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and North and South America. His opinions remain relevant today, as we face authoritarianisms on the Right and the Left.
The author is Felipe Correa Pedro. Mark Bray calls him “among the world’s foremost scholars of anarchism…” (in a front-page blurb). A Brazilian anarchist scholar and activist, Correa is internationally known, although few of his works have been translated into English. (But see, for example, Correa 2021; 2022a; 2022b.) He describes himself as an “especifist anarchist” (an organizational dualist). He follows a revolutionary, class-struggle, anarchist-socialism which has developed from the work of Mikhail Bakunin. (I am also of this school of anarchism.) While plainly an admirer of Bakunin, he attempts to be as objective as he can, excluding hagiography and including Bakunin’s failures and contradictions.
Bakunin’s thinking is sometimes presented as though he had one set of ideas which did not change during his lifetime. Correa demonstrates that, as he lived, Bakunin developed his ideas. He made major changes in his concepts and program, while still keeping continuity. “To cut up and rearrange Bakunin’s writings without regard for the context or the period in which they were written risks the loss of a balanced presentation in favor of a purely personal interpretation.” (Dolgoff 1980; p. xi) His earlier beliefs were to culminate in his revolutionary anarchist-socialism (to use the term preferred by Errico Malatesta).
Correa divides Bakunin’s adult life into three main periods. These were, first, his Hegelian period (1836-43)—then his period of revolutionary pan-Slavism (1844-63)—finally his evolution from socialism to anarchism (1864-76).
The Philosophy of Freedom (1836-43)
As a young man in Czarist Russia, Bakunin became fascinated with German Idealist philosophers, particularly the dialectical philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel. Correa goes into Bakunin’s philosophical development in great detail, giving separate chapters to Bakunin’s Fichteian period, his “first Hegelian period,” his “second Hegelian period,” and his evolution out of philosophy and religion. “Bakunin was the greatest figure of Hegelianism in Russia between 1838 and 1840….” (p. 26)
Bakunin’s interpretation of Hegelian dialectics was very similar to that of the Left Hegelians of Germany; he was to move to Berlin and interact with this grouping—which included Marx and Engels. “In Germany, between 1840 and 1842, he rose to a prominent, if heterodox, position on the Hegelian Left.” (p. 26)
(It would be interesting for someone to contrast Bakunin’s period of Hegelianism with Marx’s early Hegelianism.)
The grouping also included “Max Stirner” (Casper Schmidt). His writings were later taken up by individualist anarchists. Contrary to the Marxists, there is no evidence of any interaction between the two, nor does Bakunin’s social anarchism have much similarity to Stirner’s egotism. To Bakunin, individuals only become free with others. He declared, “Man only becomes man…through collective or social labor….To be free, for man, means to be recognized, considered, and treated as such…in the consciousness of all free men, his brothers and sisters, his equals.” (pp. 338-9)
Correa quotes Hegel, when asked by Goethe to explain dialectics, as saying it was a “spirit of organized contradiction.” (p. 118) Dialectics presents the world as process—dynamic and holistic—which moves and organizes itself through contradiction, internal conflict, and negation of what-is. This applies to society as it does to nature. Societies can only be understood in terms of contradictions such as classes, as well as genders, nationalities, races, ages, and so on. It is these internal conflicts which hold societies together and which break them up in forward movement. “This dialectical method, which is concomitantly historical, permeates all Bakuninian writings from this period (cf. alienation…).” (p. 118)
Hegel’s dialectics presents the world’s processes as directional, moving toward ever greater consciousness and freedom. Just what this meant in practice varied. In Hegel’s youth, he was greatly influenced by the French Revolution and its expansion of human freedom. When older, he became reconciled to the Prussian status quo. He now saw the bureaucratic Prussian state as the historical culmination of the World Spirit.
Personally, I think that there are streams within nature and society which may lead to greater consciousness and freedom—as one branch of evolution led to humans. But other streams do not, as evolution also produced bacteria and cockroaches. I doubt that nature as a whole has an innate progressive directionality. Marx—or at least many Marxists—believed that the dialectic of history would inevitably result in stateless, classless, communism. However, while there are forces pushing in that direction (such as the class struggle), there are also reactionary forces pushing in the other direction (such as capitalist ideology). It is not really possible to know which will (“inevitably”) win out. Choosing socialist revolution is a decision and a commitment—with no guarantee of “inevitable” success.
In this period, Bakunin read some socialist literature, by William Weitling and others. Politically, he regarded himself as a radical, in the tradition of French republicanism, “the foundation of which,” writes Correa, “is the notion of self-government of the people…” (p. 85)
I will not review Correa’s lengthy and detailed analysis of Bakunin’s early Hegelian dialectics. An introductory book on Hegel’s philosophy may be more useful. However, to stay on the topic of Bakunin and philosophy, I will jump ahead to his socialist and anarchist period.
By this final period, Bakunin had rejected religion and theism, along with all philosophical Idealism. Morris writes, “Bakunin’s conception of reality, like that of Marx’s, is dialectical, materialist, and deterministic.” (1993; p. 78) In Correa’s view, it was not a “dialectical materialism,” although he does not explain why he thinks this. (In any case, Marx never used the term, which was invented by G. Plekhanov.) Instead, Correa calls Bakunin’s views “scientific-naturalist materialism.” He saw nature and matter as one, the whole of reality.
Bakunin saw nature as self-organized and lawful. He regarded “free will” as a theological concept. But he believed that nature—including society and the individual—was creative, that new things appeared through the dialectical process. He reconciled theory and practice. Theory was necessary as a guide, but only practice would prove the reality of perception and thinking. It was only through the unified activity of theory and practice, interacting with nature and other people, that humans creatively develop their potentialities and become fully free.
Pan-Slavism and National Self-Determination (1844-63)
Like almost all progressive people, Bakunin supported the struggle for national independence of the Polish people. At the time, Poland was mostly incorporated into the Russian empire, with large chunks also being owned by Prussia and by Austria. Officially, there was no “Poland.” (Just as colonists and imperialists today claim that there is no “Palestine” or that “Ukraine” does not really exist.)
A movement developed to tie the Polish national struggle to that of all the Eastern European Slavic peoples, including those oppressed by Turkey. The goal was a federation of all the countries with Slavic-based languages. A further expansion of the idea was to include the biggest Slavic country of all, Russia, in the federation.
Left pan-Slavism advocated a democratic federation of Slavs. This could not be achieved without revolutions in several lands—especially Poland and Russia. It was believed that these uprisings would lead to democratic rebellions throughout Europe. Conservatives did not like this. Polish nobility wanted independence, only in order to have a free hand in exploiting their own serfs. Russian pan-Slavists dreamed of an unified Slavic nation led by an enlightened Czar.
Bakunin worked within the broad pan-Slavist movement, cooperating with radical democrats but also with conservatives. While a revolutionary, he was by no means an anarchist yet. At times he veered toward a conservative, narrow nationalism. At other times he seemed to want to integrate national liberation with a social, as well as democratic, program. He called for revolutionary governments to be set up as dictatorships.
He proposed the formation of secret societies of revolutionaries, organized hierarchically, and managed as dictatorships. This was the beginning of his organizational dualism—support for broad organizations and movements, while also building relatively homogeneous organizations of militants committed to specific revolutionary programs, to operate inside and outside broader organizations.
By contrast, Marx and Engels rejected pan-Slavism. They supported the fight for Polish independence. However, they saw Czarist Russia as the greatest threat to progress in Europe. They wanted it defeated in war, preferably by a revolutionary democratic Germany. Further, they had contempt for the smaller, Eastern European, Slavic, countries: Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, and Croats. These they regarded as “unhistorical.” Such countries, they expected, would—and should—be taken over by larger nations, such as Germany, Poland, Italy, and Hungary. (This was similar to their support for the U.S.A. seizing half of Mexico, its land and people. That was supposedly progressive.)
At times, Bakunin expressed an extreme hatred of Germans, whom he blamed for the oppression of the Slavic peoples (only partly true in terms of Prussian and Austrian imperialism). His writings sometimes expressed racist-nationalist Germanophobia, a condemnation of all the German people. It ignored differences between German workers and the German ruling classes. At other times he raised opposition to Germanophobia, advocating support for all democratic struggles in German, as well as Slavic, countries. Both attitudes were to remain with him. His bigotry became particularly extreme when arguing with German Jews, such as Hess, Liebknecht, or with the German social democrats.
He especially raised such bigotry during his disputes with Marx, in his last period. Bakunin wrote, “Mr. Marx is a [German] patriot no less ardent than Bismarck….He desires the establishment of a great Germanic state, one that will glorify the German people….Marx…considers himself at least as Bismarck’s successor….” (Bakunin 1980; pp. 314-5) And further nonsense….
Bakunin’s anti-Germanism overlapped with Jew-hatred. He claimed that there was “a conspiracy of Russian and German Jews against” him. (p. 426) And “The Jews…are sworn enemies of every truly popular revolution.” (p. 426) This was not a central part of his beliefs, but Correa correctly says, “His antisemitism is indefensible and contradicts his positions of the revolutionary socialist period….” (p. 427) (After Bakunin’s death, Germanophobia was to be an issue when World War I broke out between two imperialist alliances. A small number of leading anarchists, including Peter Kropotkin, supported the Allied imperialists, partly out of fear and hatred of Germans.)
Bakunin may be said to have abandoned pan-Slavism, if that is defined as a commitment to narrow nationalism, let alone a hope for a united Slavdom led by the Czar. But he continued to support the struggles for national self-determination of Poland and the other Slavic countries. “His project of national liberation of the Slav peoples was not supplanted or completely reconsidered but incorporated into his revolutionary socialism….” (p. 430) It became integrated with the goal of class liberation of the peasants and workers oppressed by their national rulers.
Bakunin came to distinguish between the “homeland” and the “state.” It was natural for people to love their homeland, which meant their geography, their culture, their language, and their historical struggles for freedom. But “political patriotism” was an artificial, abstract, emotion whipped up by a ruling class in order to support the state. Bakunin opposed states but defended the right of all peoples to their homelands. “I feel, frankly and always, the patriot of all the oppressed homelands.” (p. 407)
He declared, “Every people, weak or strong, every nation, large or small, every province, every commune has the absolute right to be free, autonomous, to live and govern themselves according to their particular interests.” (p. 407) This is anarchism.
While participating in a movement for national liberation, anarchists fight against “nationalism,” because it serves the ruling classes. Correa writes, “Nationalism is intended to be a multi-classist movement…[but] anarchist anti-imperialism supports the need for a movement concentrated on the dispossessed classes….Anarchist anti-imperialism claims the concomitant end of both national domination and class and state domination in the struggling nation.…” (p. 408)
From Socialism to Anarchism (1864-76)
After a dozen years of imprisonment by the Czarist state, Bakunin escaped in 1861 and returned to Europe. After the defeat of a Polish uprising in 1863, he turned his main attention to Western Europe. He tried to set up secret revolutionary societies and attempted to influence a middle class liberal organization, the International League of Peace and Freedom, to little lasting effect. He was impressed by a number of big workers’ strikes and by the growth of the International Workingmen’s Association (the First International). “These strikes…considerably changed Bakunin’s positions on the transformative capacity of workers and the centrality of their movements….” (p. 262) From then on, he called himself a “revolutionary socialist.” He wrote to Marx, at the end of 1868, “My homeland is now the International.” (p. 301)
Bakunin rejected any vision of socialism as being government-owned industry and centralized planning. His socialism was heavily influenced by P.J. Proudhon, the first person to identify as an “anarchist.” (The movement which followed him generally called itself “mutualist” or “federalist,” rather than “anarchist.”) “His great inspiration is Proudhon.” (p. 262) From Proudhon, Bakunin took anti-statism and anti-electoralism, workers’ self-management of industry, decentralized democracy, and bottom-up federalism. However, he rejected Proudhon’s gradualism and reformism, his market socialism, and his opposition to strikes and to revolution. (Bakunin also rejected Proudhon’s misogyny. While the liberation of women was never at the center of his thinking, he included it whenever presenting his program.). Bakunin developed “a radicalization of Proudhonism.” (p. 262)
He was also influenced by other militants and theorists, such as Cesar de Paepe, who had been “mediating between Proudhon and Marx.” (p. 260) Correa mentions the influence of Karl Marx on Bakunin, but does not emphasize it as much as do other commentators (or as Marx and Engels did!). However, Correa notes that “at various times, [Bakunin] uses and defends Marxist ideas and even terminology.” (p. 264)
Bakunin made a turn toward revolutionary socialism, beginning in 1864. But it was only in 1868, Correa argues, that he really became an anarchist—while still a socialist.
Among the differences between his pre-anarchist and anarchist periods: “In 1864, the popular masses were considered [by Bakunin] incapable of liberating themselves, and it was therefore necessary for minorities from the upper classes to organize themselves to act on the peasantry and especially the urban proletariat….From 1868 onwards, it held that workers are able to emancipate themselves and that those with privileged origins, if they so desire, must…act together with peasants and proletarians in the struggle for emancipation.
“[In the earlier period] the favored space is the secret society and therefore mass and public expressions are discarded….In the anarchist period, Bakunin defends organizational dualism, reconciling secret and public, cadre and mass expressions. Finally, in 1864, the model of secret society proposed by Bakunin…still has hierarchical and centralist features, which from 1868 onwards will be abandoned in favor of a federalist model of cadre organization.” (p. 300)
Correa calls Bakunin’s vision of a free socialism, “collectivist-federalist socialism.” This included, Bakunin wrote, “the taking over by autonomous collectivities, workers’ associations, agricultural or industrial, and communes of all social capital, all ownership of land, mines, dwellings, religious and public buildings, instruments of labor, raw materials, …and manufactured products.” (p. 386) There is a need to end the division between mental and manual labor. Distribution of goods would be based on the amount of labor contributed by each (able-bodied) worker. (This was “collectivism.” Later models of a “communist” anarchism—distribution “to each according to their need”—were developed by Kropotkin and others, as a modification of“collectivism.”) The self-managed “collectivities, workers’ associations, and communes” would coordinate through federations and networks (democratic planning from below).
Bakunin only occasionally described his views as “democratic,” usually reserving the term for the capitalist representative “democracies,” which he wanted to overthrow. He did call his anarchist association, the “Alliance of Socialist Democracy.” While “democracy” is not discussed by Correa, Morris argues, “If the term ‘democracy’ denoted government of the people, by the people, for the people, then this would imply no state, and Bakunin could therefore happily call himself a ‘democrat.’” (Morris 1993; p. 99)
Correa gives a summary of Bakunin’s analysis of how capitalism worked. Bakunin had been influenced by Proudhon and Marx, but his views, as summarized here, appear to be mostly that of Marx. Bakunin had read Marx’s Capital, and had made an effort to translate it. Even during his bitterest exchanges with Marx, Bakunin continued to express respect for Marx’s intellect and theoretical advances. (For an anarchist review of Marx’s economic analysis, see Price 2013.)
From Correa’s summary of Bakunin’s writings on political economy, Bakunin believed that capitalism was based on the exploitation of the workers. Through collective labor they produced value by producing commodities. The capitalists, owners of the means of production and other capital, owned the total product and only gave a fraction of its value back to the workers. The rest they kept as profit. The competition among the capitalists had a tendency toward centralization and monopolization. In its origins and in its continuation, the state was required to build up and to maintain the capitalist system. With cause, Correa calls this “the statist capitalist system.” (p.370)
Overall, with some differences, this seems consistent with Marx’s critique of political economy. Bakunin claims (in Correa’s summary) that the workers sell their “labor” as a commodity to the capitalists. Marx thought it better to say that the workers sell their “labor power,” their ability to work, to the capitalists as commodities, when the capitalists hire them. Their labor power is then expended in the process of labor during working hours.
More significantly, Bakunin implies that capitalism pushes workers’ wages to the very bottom, to what is just necessary biologically for the workers and their families to survive and work (which was the view of the classical bourgeois economists). Bakunin writes that capitalists must pay workers “the lowest possible wages…the labor…which is forced to be sold at the lowest value…[that which is] strictly necessary for the daily maintenance of their families….The worker is forced to sell his labor for almost nothing….” (p. 369)
The view that workers’ wages must be pushed toward the bottom, to “almost nothing,” has been used to claim that it is pointless to strike for higher wages. This has been called “the iron law of wages,” and was held by some “Marxists,” such as F. Lasalle (a founder of German social democracy). While this is a real tendency, there are counter-tendencies, as Marx pointed out. These include the capitalists’ need for increasingly educated and healthy workers to handle more sophisticated and complex machinery.
Also, the workers do not simply accept the downward pressure of the bosses. In many ways, not only including unions, they push back. A certain standard of living becomes accepted as mandatory in wealthier countries. The capitalists must accept this to some extent or face “labor unrest.” Especially during boom periods, when the business cycle is on an upswing, workers can gain benefits. Marx recognized this, but noted that even the better-off workers were still exploited and oppressed.
Correa declares, “The contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat, as fundamental as it is…is not the only one and cannot be understood as the primary one….” (p. 374) He cites the class conflict between landlords and peasants (not a big factor in the U.S. but still important on a world scale). Further, he refers to “the state bureaucracy, the clergy, and the intellectuals” as also “among the upper classes” which exploit and dominate “the rural proletariat and all the poor and marginalized.” (p. 374) This may be how Bakunin saw matters.
That there are non-capitalist contradictions and subsystems within capitalist society is not in question. Nor is it in doubt that the working class needs to be allied with every oppressed section of society. But it is industrial capitalism which mainly produces the goods and services by which everyone lives. This includes the surplus value which supports not only the capitalists but also the landlords, the state bureaucracy, the clergy, and the intellectuals. The powerful capital/labor dynamic pulls all subordinate conflicts into its orbit and makes them consistent with it. (That these subordinate systems, react back upon the specific ways that capitalism functions is also not in question.) This puts the international, multi-racial, bi-gendered, multi-sexually-oriented, multi-religious, proletariat in a central (“primary” if one insists) position to make a revolution.
Bakunin rejected “economic determinism,” writes Correa. However, in a footnote, Correa quotes Bakunin, as declaring (at various times), “At the basis of all historical, national, religious, and political problems…[is] the economic problem, the most important, the most vital of all….The whole intellectual and moral, political and social history of humanity is a reflection of its economic history…. One of Mr. Marx’s main scientific merits is to have enunciated and demonstrated this truth.” (p. 381-2) Correa calls Bakunin’s view “relative economic determination.” It seems consistent with a version of Marxist “historical materialism” (another term Marx never used).
The Split in the International
Bakunin and Marx shared the goal of an international revolution of the working class and all oppressed groups (peasants, women, colonized nationalities, etc.) to create a classless, stateless, free society. Yet they had deep and bitter differences.
In 1872 Marx organized the expulsion of Bakunin from the International. This was followed by a split of the majority of the organization into an alternate “Anti-Authoritarian International.” Correa goes into detail about the background of this conflict, from the time Bakunin and his comrades joined the International to the final split. I will not review this history. (I have discussed the split in the International elsewhere; see Price 2017.)
What were the issues (leaving aside conflicts of personality)? Correa believes that the major issue involved party and power. After the Paris Commune, Marx made a big push to order every International branch to form a workers’ political party—to run in elections and compete for state power. Bakunin and his comrades opposed this program (although he supported each national section’s freedom to form a party or not). It was not merely a tactical matter of whether to vote. Marx and his comrades believed that the road to socialism was through seizing the state—either by elections or by revolutions which established new states (the “dictatorship of the proletariat”).
To the anarchists, the state was an instrument of minority class rule and could not be used for any other purpose. Instead, the road forward was through independent mass action, particularly by building militant unions. (The Marxists were also for building unions—that was not in dispute.) The post-revolutionary society would be a federation of workers’ councils and communal assemblies, not a state.
However, the actual attack by Marx against Bakunin was not explicitly over workers’ parties and elections. Instead, Bakunin was accused of forming secret societies, with the aim of either taking over the International or destroying it from within. Marxists still charge him with that. Really it was a conflict over Bakunin’s concept of organizational dualism.
Bakunin made a distinction between two types of organization. One was a mass organization of the working class, in this case the International. It included workers of varied views on politics and religion, united to fight for their interests, primarily economic. The other was a smaller, politically homogenous, grouping of “cadres,” which would act publicly or secretly, inside and outside the broader organization. Its goal was to advance its revolutionary program among the workers, in opposition to the various authoritarian forces which existed. This was then the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy. Both types of organizations were to be federalist, not centralist, in structure.
This was hardly undemocratic. Why shouldn’t Bakunin or anyone else be free to form a socialist caucus within the International? Marx himself had a network of fellow-thinkers throughout the International with whom he corresponded and collaborated, even if not a formal body, and he was allied with the Blanquists, who had their own, highly centralized, party.
However, Marx and his comrades accused Bakunin of organizing to take over the International (which was what Marx had been trying to do) or to destroy it (which was nonsense). The Marxists pointed out that Bakunin had been forming (or trying to form) secret associations (secret not only from the police but also from the members of the International) under his leadership. This was partly true, at least in Bakunin’s mind and imagination, if not in reality.
One of Bakunin’s young followers then was the Italian Errico Malatesta. Years later (in 1897), he commented, “In the [anarchist] movement’s early days there was a strong residue of Jacobinism and authoritarianism within us, a residue that I will not make so bold as to say we have destroyed utterly, but which has definitely been and still is on the wane.” (Turcato 2016; p. 335)
Correa discusses some of the worst things Bakunin wrote, in private letters and elsewhere. These indicate that he wanted a secret, collective, “dictatorship” over society by the Alliance. Correa gives reasons to downplay these authoritarian statements. In my opinion, he does not sufficiently acknowledge the elements of Jacobinism which still lingered in Bakunin’s thinking. Yet he is correct in showing how Bakunin’s anarchist-federalist dualism laid the basis for present-day revolutionary anarchism, which is not Jacobin or elitist but radically democratic and federalist.
In an afterward to this book, the Argentinean anarchist Rocio Soledad Lescano states that organizational dualism is among “the most important contributions proposed by Bakunin that are still valid today and are being put into practice by a portion of contemporary anarchism.” (p. 436) Today this is often referred to as especifisimo or neo-platformism.
This is sometimes confused with the Leninist vanguard party. They have some things in common, in the organization of revolutionaries who agree with each other and coordinate ideas and actions. But there are drastic differences, too. The Leninist party is centralized, directed from the top down (“democratic centralism”). The anarchist association is federalist, organized from the bottom up (which might be called democratic federalism). Most important of all, the Leninist party exists to win state power, while the anarchist association exists to promote the self-organization of the workers and oppressed.
Conclusion
Brian Morris wrote, “Bakunin’s anarchism has not been discussed anywhere with the seriousness it deserves.” (Morris 1993; pp. 73-4) This book is the serious discussion which Bakunin’s anarchism deserves.
It is a big book (475 pages) and covers many topics—not all of which are discussed in this review. It is somewhat academic, beginning with a bibliographic essay on the international literature about Bakunin. The thorough discussion of Bakunin’s philosophical development may be useful to specialists but not to most of those interested in Bakunin. Yet there is value in showing how his final, revolutionary anarchist, period carried on aspects of his earlier thinking.
Bakunin was constantly looking for ways to struggle for freedom. From Hegel he took a dynamic understanding of the world. From Proudhon he took a commitment to decentralized federalism and self-management, while rejecting Proudhon’s reformism. From Marx he gained an analysis of how capitalism works and other insights, while fighting against Marx’s strategy of taking state power.
Bakunin had to overcome certain elitist, and even racist, aspects of his thinking, which he may never have done completely. He was far from perfect. But it is the conclusion of Bakunin’s life, approximately his last decade, which is most important for today’s anarchist-socialists. He put together the fundamental theory and practice of revolutionary anarchism.
Today we face the rise of semi-fascist and outright fascist movements, threatening to take over even “democratic” governments. On the Left, there is the growth of authoritarian and statist versions of “socialism.” This includes “democratic socialism” (that is, reformist state socialism) and various regrowths of Marxist-Leninist trends (Stalinist-type “revolutionary” state socialisms). The vision of Mikhail Bakunin remains of extraordinary value as a guide to freedom and socialism.
References
Bakunin, Mikhail (1980). Bakunin on Anarchism. (Ed.: S. Dolgoff). Montreal Canada: Black Rose Books
Correa, Felipe (2024). Freedom or Death: The Theory and Practice of Mikhail Bakunin. (Trans.: Jonathan Payn). Montreal/NYC: Black Rose Books.
Correa, Felipe (2022a). “Elements of Anarchist Theory and Strategy. Felipe Correa Interviewed by Mya Walmsley.”
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32657
Correa, Felipe (2022b). “Power and Anarchism: Approximation or Contradiction?” https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32520?search_text=Felipe
Correa, Felipe (2021). “Anarchist Theory and History in Global Perspective.” https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32487?search_text=Felipe
Dolgoff, Sam (1980). “Prefatory Note.” Bakunin on Anarchism. (Ed.: S. Dolgoff). Montreal Canada: Black Rose Books. Pp. xi—xiii.
Morris, Brian (1993). Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom. Montreal/NYC: Black Rose Books.
Price, Wayne (2017). “The First International and the Development of Anarchism and Marxism.”
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/wayne-price-the-first-internati…
Price, Wayne (2013). The Value of Radical Theory; An Anarchist Introduction to Marx’s Critique of Political Economy. Oakland: AK Press.
Turcato, Davide (Ed.) (2016), “A Long and Patient Work…” The Anarchist Socialism of L’Agitazione, 1897—1898. Complete Works of Errico Malatesta. Vol. III. (Trans.: P. Sharkey). Chico CA: AK Press.
Anarcho-Syndicalist Review # 91 (Winter 2025)
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