Anarchism: A Criticism and History of the Anarchist Theory

by E. V. Zenker

The question has not unnaturally been raised, What had Bakunin the cosmopolitan to do at such an institution of national Chauvinism as the Congress? What had the ultra-radical Democrat and sworn enemy of the Czar to do with a congress held by the favour of Nicholas, and visited by orthodox Archimandrites, by the envoys of Slav princes, and privy councillors decorated with Russian orders? When the drama at Prague ended with a sanguinary insurrection and the bombardment of Prague, Bakunin disappeared, only to re-appear again, now in Saxony and now in Thuringia, under all kinds of disguises, and (as those who are well-informed maintain)[27] constantly occupied with the intention of causing a new insurrection at Prague. Here too he was in contradiction with the attitude that he had adopted both before and after this event, for he must have known what a sorry part the Czechs had played and still were playing as regards the Vienna Democracy and the efforts for Hungarian emancipation.

During the insurrection in May, 1849, we find Bakunin in Dresden, as a member of the provisional government, and taking a prominent part in the defence of the city against the Prussian troops. Bakunin here appears as a champion of the very same cause that he had attacked at the Prague Congress. After the fall of Dresden he went with the provisional government to Chemnitz, where on the 10th of May he was captured and condemned to death by martial law. The sentence, however, was not carried out, since Austria had demanded his extradition. Here he was also condemned at Olmutz to be hanged; but Austria handed this offender, who was so much in request, over to Russia, which country also wished to get hold of him. By a remarkable chance, Bakunin escaped the death to which here also he was condemned, by receiving a pardon from the Czar; he was imprisoned first in the fortress of SS. Peter and Paul, and then at that of Schlüsselburg; and in 1855, through the exertions of his influential relatives, was banished to Siberia. At that time a report had generally gained credence in Europe, although lacking any foundation, that Bakunin had by no means owed his life, that three countries had already condemned, to the chance favour of a monarch usually far from gracious; and the distrust of the apostle of Revolution was still more greatly increased when, in 1861, he succeeded in escaping from the penal settlement in the Amur district, and returned to Europe via Japan and America. Now the otherwise mysterious success of this escape has been explained. The Governor of the Amur (Muravieff-Amurski) happened to be a cousin of Bakunin's relation, Muravieff, and moreover (according to Bakunin's own statement),[28] a secret adherent of the revolutionary movement. He appears to have lived on a very intimate footing with Bakunin, and granted the exile all kinds of favours and freedom; and thus Bakunin was entrusted with the mission of travelling through Siberia in order to describe its natural resources. While on this journey he succeeded in embarking on a ship in the harbour of Nikolajewsk, and escaping. In 1861 he arrived in England, and settled in London, where he entered into relations with the members of the "International." As to the part that Bakunin played here, as he did later, as an agitator for Anarchist ideas, we will speak later when we come to the history of the spread of Anarchism.

When the Revolution broke out in Poland in 1863, Bakunin was one of the leaders of the expedition of Polish and Russian emigrants that was planned in Stockholm, and which was to revolutionise Russia from the Baltic coast. When this attempt also failed, he stayed sometimes in Russia and sometimes in Italy, devoting himself to Socialist agitation, and being always on every favourable opportunity active either as an apostle of Anarchist doctrine or as an agitator in the preparations and mise-en-scène of a revolution. We shall speak of this later. The last years of his life were spent alternately in Geneva, Locarno, and Bern, where he died on July 1, 1878, at the hospital, after refusing all nourishment, and thus hastening his end.

The Anarchist epoch of his life is included mainly in the last ten years of his career, so fertile in mistakes and changes of opinion. Anarchism owes its renascence to his active agitation, regardless of all consequences; and even in his writings the thinker lags far behind the agitator. Bakunin at best could only be called the theorist of action; his activity as an author was limited to scattered articles in journals and a few (mostly fragmentary) pamphlets. He was right in his answer to those critics who reproached him with this: "My life itself is but a fragment." Where could he have found in his life-long wanderings the peaceful leisure in which to develop his thoughts quietly or to express them in a work such as Proudhon's Justice or Stirner's Einziger? Besides, he lacked the gift of mental depth and firmly grounded knowledge. His style possesses something of his fluency as a demagogue, but his procedure in science reminds of the soaring dialectics of the revolutionary orator, full of repetitions, and attractive rather than convincing. In his case a pose always takes the place of an argument.

It is said that during the period of his association with the "International" Bakunin had had the intention of setting forth his ideas in two large works, one of which would have been a criticism of the existing arrangements of the State, property, and religion, while the other would have treated of the problems of the European nations, especially the Slavs, and have shown their solution by social revolution and anarchy. But, of course, these two works were never written, and there remain to us only some remnants of numerous fragmentary and formless manuscripts, originating in the period of 1863-73. Among these is a Catechism of Modern Freemasonry, the Revolutionary Catechisms, not to be compared with the later catechism of Netschajew, which was wrongly ascribed to Bakunin; also the wordy essay on Federation, Socialism, and Anti-theology, which as a proposal designed for the central committee of the League of Freedom and Peace at Geneva, but never published, presents a short reprint of Proudhon's Justice; and lastly, a fragment published in 1882 by C. Cafiero and Elisée Reclus, after his manuscript, Dieu et l'État, which seems intended to lay a philosophic foundation for Bakunin's Anarchism.

This fragment, in which Bakunin follows the lead of the great materialists and Darwinians, begins with Hegelianism. Man (it says) is of animal origin; all development proceeds from the "animal nature" of man, and strives to reach the negation of this, or humanity. "Animality" is the starting-point; "humanity," its opposite, is the goal of development. The first human being, the pitheco-anthropus, distinguished itself, according to Bakunin, from other apes, by two gifts: the capacity for thinking, and, thereby, for raising itself. Bakunin, therefore, distinguishes three elements in all life: (1) animality; (2) thought; and (3) rising. To the first corresponds social and private economy; to the second, science; to the third, freedom. After establishing these peculiar categories, Bakunin never troubles about them again throughout his book, and does not know what use to make of them; they were nothing but a pretty philosophic pose, sand thrown in one's eyes. He goes farther, and declares next that he intends to penetrate into the reason "of the idealism of Mazzini, Michelet, Quinet, and [sic!] Stuart Mill." Again we hear nothing more throughout this fragmentary work of the thus announced refutation of Mill's idealism. It is limited to giving a rather shallow reproduction of Proudhon's contrast between religion and revolution.

"The idea of God," says Bakunin, "implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive denial of human freedom, and leads necessarily to the enslaving of humanity, both in theory and practice.... The freedom of man consists solely in following natural laws, because he has recognised them himself as such, and not because they are imposed upon him from without by the will of another, whether divine or human, collective or individual.... We reject all legislation, every authority, and every privileged, recognised official and legal influence, even if it has proceeded from the exercise of universal suffrage, since it could only benefit a ruling and exploiting minority against the interests of the great enslaved majority." And so forth.

Here already, in this partial repetition of Proudhon's views, we see Bakunin go far beyond Proudhon in an essential point, the question of universal suffrage. Proudhon had already perceived in "the organisation of universal suffrage" the only possible means of realising his views. Bakunin rejects this view, and, as will be shown later, this question formed the chief stumbling-block in his differences with the "International." But in a much more important and decisive point Bakunin goes farther than Proudhon, or rather sinks behind him.

Proudhon always based all his hopes on the diffusion of knowledge; the demo-cracy was to be changed into a demo-pædy, and thus gradually led up to Anarchy of its own accord. Bakunin anathematises knowledge just as much as religion; for it also enslaves men. "What I preach," he says in the book quoted, "is to a certain extent the revolt of life against knowledge, or rather against the domination of knowledge, not in order to do away with knowledge—that would be a crime of high treason against humanity (læsæ humanitatis)—but in order to bring it back to its place so surely that it would never leave it again.... The only vocation of knowledge is to illuminate our path; life alone, in its full activity, can create, when freed from all fetters of dominion and doctrine." He also thinks that knowledge should become the common possession of all, but to the question as to whether men should, until this takes place, follow the directions of knowledge, he answers at once, "No, not at all."

In these two divergences from Proudhon lies the essential difference between the modern and the older Anarchism. Bakunin rejects the proposal to bring about Anarchy gradually by a process of political transformation by means of the use of universal suffrage, equally with the gradual education of mankind up to this form of society by knowledge. Not by evolution, but by revolt, revolution, and similar means is Anarchy to be installed to-day—Anarchy in the sense of the setting free of all those elements which we now include under the name of evil qualities, and the annihilation of all that is termed "public order." Everything else will look after itself.