Chapter 13. The Anarchist Tradition

¹ For those who have access to it, there is also a tolerable biographical notice prefixed to the second of the six volumes of Bakunin's published works.

¹Federalisme, Socialisme et Antithéologisme, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 24.

²Ibid. pp. 26, 30.

³Lettres aux Internationaux du Jura, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 255.

⁴Dieu et l'État, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 314.

⁶ Appendix to L'Empire Knouto-Germanique et la Révolution Sociale, Œuvres, vol. 3, p. 191.

⁶Lettres aux Internationaux du Jura, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 226.

¹Fédéralisme, Socialisme et Antithéologisme, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 39.

²Ibid. p. 144.

³L'Émpire Knouto-Germanique et la Révolution Sociale, Œuvres, vol. 3, p. 19.

⁴ Not that the title of this fragment was chosen by Bakunin.

¹Fédéralisme, Socialisme et Antithéologisme, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 89.

²Ibid. p. 64. The presumed dilemma recurs in substantially the same words in L'Empire Knouto-Germanique et la Révolution Sociale ŒEuvres, vol. 3, pp. 43–44), with an added defiance to ‘qui que ce soit’ to find a way of escape.

³Dieu et l'État, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 280.

⁴L'Émpire Knouto-Germanique et la Révolution Sociale: Seconde livraison, Œuvres, vol. 3, p. 62.

¹Dieu et l'État, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 304.

²Ibid. p. 316. His fellows may indeed be an obstacle to the attainment of God. There is a hard saying, not wholly to be explained away as an example of oriental hyperbole, that’ if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife and children, and brethren, and his sisters... he cannot be my disciple.’ Mr. Tawney, in summing up and commenting on the teaching of Luther, uses the significant words: ‘the soul is isolated from the society of men, that it may enter into communion with its Maker’ (Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, chapter II, (ii)).

³Ibid. pp. 317–318.

⁴ L'Émpire Knouto-Germanique et la Révolution Sociale, Œuvres, vol. 3, p. 48.

⁵ Bakunin's theology is somewhat too often on the level of the blasphemings of the village atheist; e.g. ‘Dieu est précisément une absurdité’ (Dieu et l'État, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 269). God is also ‘L'absurdité par excellence’ (ibid. p. 310). Even so, it is possible that Bakunin is insufficiently read in Divinity Faculties; it might be a useful college exercise to require theological students to write a reasoned refutation of the relevant passages of Dieu et l'État and of L'Empire Knouto-Germanique.

¹E.g. Fédéralisme, Socialisme et Antithéologisme, Œuvres, vol. 1, pp. 12, 143; Lettres aux Internationaux du Jura, vol. 1, p. 227; and almost throughout the six volumes.

²Lettres aux Internationaux du Jura, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 225.

³Fédéralisme, Socialisme et Antithéologisme, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 160; Lettres aux Internationaux du Jura, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 224.

⁴Les Ours de Berne et l'Ours de Saint Petersbourg, Œuvres, vol. 2, p. 24.

⁵L'Empire Knouto-Germanique et la Révolution Sociale, Œuvres, vol. 2, p. 326.

⁶Trois Conférences faites aux ouvriers du Val de Saint Imier, Œuvres, vol. 5, p. 312.

⁷Dieu et l'État, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 288.

⁸Lettres à un français sur la crise actuelle, Œuvres, vol. 2, p. 95.

¹ ‘L'établissement d'une autorité réglémentaire de quelque nature que ce fût. Fédéralisme, Socialisme et Antithéologisme, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 56.

²Fédéralisme, Socialisme et Antithéologisme, Œuvres, vol. 1, pp. 155–157.

³Les Ours de Berrie et l'Ours de Saint Petersbourg, Œuvres, vol. 2, p. 20.

⁴ See, e.g. Laveleye: Le Socialisme Contemporain, p. 237; Rae, Contemporary Socialism, p. 275.

⁵ Laveleye: op. cit. pp. 229, 234.

⁶ A very few sentences from these two documents may illustrate the shady underworld to which one side of Bakunin leads.

From the Revolutionary Catechism: ‘The revolutionist is a man under a vow. He ought to have no personal interests, no business, no sentiments, no property. He ought to occupy himself entirely with one exclusive interest, with one thought and one passion: the Revolution.... He has only one aim, one science: destruction. For that and nothing but that he studies mechanics, physics, chemistry and medicine. He observes with the same object, the men, the characters, the positions and all the conditions of the social order. He despises and hates existing morality. For him everything is moral that favours the triumph of the Revolution. Everything is immoral and criminal that hinders it.... Between him and society there is war to the death, incessant, irreconcilable.... He must make a list of those who are condemned to death, and expedite their sentence according to the order of their relative iniquities’ (Rae, op. cit. p. 275).

From the programme of the Alliance: ‘The association of international brothers desires the universal revolution, social, philosophic, economic and political at the same time, in order that of the existing order of things, founded on property, on exploitation, on the principle of authority, whether religious or metaphysic, whether bourgeoisement doctrinaire or even jacobinement révolutionnaire, there shall not rest one stone upon another, at first in the whole of Europe, and later in the rest of the world. To the cry of “Peace to the Workers!” “Freedom for the Oppressed!” and of “Death to the tyrants, the exploiters, and guardians of every kind!” we wish to destroy all States and all Churches, with all their institutions and their laws, religieuses, politiques, juridiques, financières, policières, universitaires, économiques, et sociales’ (Laveleye, op. cit. p. 234).

These few sentences may provide a sufficient glimpse into comprehensive Amorphism.

¹Fédéralisme, Socialisme et Antithéologisme, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 54.

²Ibid. p. 55.

¹Fédéralisme, Socialisme et Antithéologisme, Œuvres, vol. 1, pp. 14 et seq.

²Ibid. p. 12.

³Ibid. pp. 16–17.

⁴Ibid. p. 18.

⁵Les Ours de Berne et l'Ours de Saint Petersbourg, Œuvres, vol. 2, p. 39.

⁶Ibid. p. 57.

¹Dieu et l'État, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 275.

²Fédéralisme, Socialisme, et Antithéologisme, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 141; Dieu et l'État, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 266.

³Dieu et l'État, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 277.

⁴Ibid. p. 284.

⁵Ibid. p. 286.

¹Dieu et l'État, Œuvres, vol. 1, p. 295.

¹The Conquest of Bread, p. 7 (Chapman and Hall, cheap edition).

²Ibid. p. 33.

³Ibid. p. 103.

¹The Conquest of Bread, p. 227.

²Ibid. pp. 28–29, 230–231.

³Modern Science and Anarchism, p. 81.

⁴Ibid. pp. 82–83.

⁵Ibid. p. 80; The State, its historic rôle, p. 10.

¹The Conquest of Bread, p. 35.

¹The Conquest of Bread, p. 40.

²Ibid. p. 188.

³Ibid. p. 41.

¹Mutual Aid (cheap edition), p. 208.

²The Conquest of Bread, p. 57.

¹The Conquest of Bread, p. 64.

²Ibid. p. 80.

³Ibid. p. 107.

⁴Ibid. p. 108.

¹Modern Science and Anarchism, pp. 66–67.

²Ibid. p. 68.

³ It may be convenient to reproduce Kropotkin's own definition, as given in one passage where he is obviously aiming at precision of language: ‘The Anarchists conceive a society in which all the mutual relations of its members are regulated, not by laws, not by authorities, whether self-imposed or elected, but by mutual agreements between the members of that society, and by a sum of social customs and habits—not petrified by law, routine, or superstition, but continually developing and continually readjusted, in accordance with the ever-growing requirements of a free life, stimulated by the progress of science, invention, and the steady growth of higher ideals’ (Modern Science and Anarchism, p. 45).

⁴Modern Science and Anarchism, p. 84.

¹Mutual Aid is probably the most significant of Kropotkin's books, although less important for our immediate purpose.

²Modern Science and Anarchism, p. 21.

³Ibid. p. 35.

⁴Ibid. p. 68.

⁵Ibid. pp. 72–73, 35.

⁶Ibid. p. 87.

⁷The Conquest of Bread, p. 130.

⁸Ibid. p. 137.

⁹Ibid. pp. 130–131.

¹Roads to Freedom, e.g. pp. 12–13.

²Ibid. p. 192.

³Principles of Social Reconstruction, p. 45.

⁴Ibid. p. 65.

¹Principles of Social Reconstruction, pp. 59–61.

²Ibid. p. 137.

³Roads to Freedom, p. 177.

⁴Ibid. p. 105.

¹ The name of the poet deserves to be perpetuated: Hugh Bankhead.

¹Roads to Freedom, p. 112.

²Ibid. p. 114.

³Ibid. p. 115.

¹Roads to Freedom, p. 179.

²Ibid. pp. 118–120.

¹Roads to Freedom, p. 122.

²Ibid. p. 152; Principles of Social Reconstruction, p. 11.

³Roads to Freedom, p. 121.

⁴The Prospects of Industrial Civilization, p. 147.

⁵Roads to Freedom, pp. 127–130.

⁶Ibid. p. 144.

¹Roads to Freedom, p. 133.

²Ibid. p. 134.

³Ibid. pp. 134–135.

⁴Ibid. p. 198.

⁵Ibid. p. 197.

⁶Ibid. p. 200.

⁷The Prospects of Industrial Civilization, p. 72.

⁸Ibid. p. 75.

¹Roads to Freedom, p. 66.

¹ Mr. Bertrand Russell's vagabond, with his vagabond's wage, was perhaps rather a figure of comedy when he first emerged; but since then, his sinister figure has appeared in unexpected places. Taking the Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services (Cmd. 6404), if the reader follows the history of the man disqualified for normal benefit, he will find his ultimate fate in paragraph 371. Here it is proposed that National Assistance sufficient to meet needs adequately up to subsistence level should be extended to, among others, ‘men disqualified for unconditional unemployment benefit through refusal of suitable employment.’ Here, undisguised though in less picturesque language, is Mr. Russell's vagabond, who is here accorded a new status and official recognition, and is assured in advance that even if he consistently and constantly refuses work (and suitable work at that), he will nevertheless have all his needs supplied. Now it is one thing to say that in what purports to be a civilised State, even a conscientious objector to work should not be left to die in a ditch, when he makes his presence manifest; it is quite another thing to put in the shop window an announcement that all who refuse work will be adequately cared for. The inclusion of this element drawn from the anarchist tradition is something of a blot on an otherwise well-intentioned report.