"Strike funds have for their sole object to provide the necessary money in order to make possible the costly organization and maintenance of strikes. And the strike is the beginning of the social war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, while still within the limits of legality.[T] Strikes are a valuable weapon in this twofold connection; first, because they electrify the masses, give fresh impetus to their moral energy, and awaken in their hearts the profound antagonism which exists between their interests and those of the bourgeoisie, by showing them ever clearer the abyss which from this time irrevocably separates them from that class; and, second, because they contribute in large measure to provoke and to constitute among the workers of all trades, of all localities, and of all countries the consciousness and the fact itself of solidarity: a double action, the one negative and the other positive, which tends to constitute directly the new world of the proletariat by opposing it, almost absolutely, to the bourgeois world." [(46)]
In another place he says: "Once this solidarity is seriously accepted and firmly established, it brings forth all the rest—all the principles—the most sublime and the most subversive of the International, the most destructive of religion, of juridical right, and of the State, of authority divine as well as human—in a word, the most revolutionary from the socialist point of view, being nothing but the natural and necessary developments of this economic solidarity. And the immense practical advantage of the trade sections over the central sections consists precisely in this—that these developments and these principles are demonstrated to the workers not by theoretical reasoning, but by the living and tragic experience of a struggle which each day becomes larger, more profound, and more terrible. In such a way that the worker who is the least instructed, the least prepared, the most gentle, always dragged further by the very consequences of this conflict, ends by recognizing himself to be a revolutionist, an anarchist, and an atheist, without often knowing himself how he has become such." [(47)]
This is as far as Bakounin gets in the statement of his new program of action, as this article, like many others, was discontinued and thrown aside at the moment when he comes to clinching his argument. The mountain, however, had labored, and this was its mouse. It is chiefly remarkable as a forecast of the methods adopted by the syndicalists a quarter of a century later. Nevertheless, one cannot escape the thought that Bakounin's advocacy of a purely economic struggle was only a last desperate effort on his part to discover some method of action, aside from his now discredited riots and insurrections, that could serve as an effective substitute for political action. In reality, Bakounin found himself in a vicious circle. Again and again he tried to find his way out, but invariably he returned to his starting point. In despair he tore to pieces his manuscript, immediately, however, to start a new one; then once more to rush round the circle that ended nowhere.
Marx and Engels ignored utterly the many and varied assaults that Bakounin made upon their theoretical views. They were not the least concerned over his attacks upon their socialism. They had not invented it, and economic evolution was determining its form. It was not, indeed, until 1875 that Engels deals with the tendencies to State socialism, and then it was in answer to Dr. Eugene Duehring, privat docent at Berlin University, who had just announced that he had become "converted" to socialism. Like many another distinguished convert, he immediately began to remodel the whole theory and to create what he supposed were new and original doctrines of his own. But no sooner were they put in print than they were found to be a restatement of the old and choicest formulas of Proudhon and Bakounin. Engels therefore took up the cudgels once again, and, no doubt to the stupefaction of Duehring, denied that property is robbery, [(48)] that slaves are kept in slavery by force, [(49)] and that the root of social and economic inequality is political tyranny. [(50)] Furthermore, he deplored this method of interpreting history, and pointed out that capitalism would exist "if we exclude the possibility of force, robbery, and cheating absolutely...." Furthermore, "the monopolization of the means of production ... in the hands of a single class few in numbers ... rests on purely economic grounds without robbery, force, or any intervention of politics or the government being necessary." To say that property rests on force "merely serves to obscure the understanding of the real development of things." [(51)] I mention Engels' argument in answer to Dr. Duehring, because word for word it answers also Bakounin. Of course, Bakounin was a much more difficult antagonist, because he could not be pinned down to any systematic doctrines or to any clear and logical development or statement of his thought. Indeed, Marx and Engels seemed more amused than concerned and simply treated his essays as a form of "hyper-revolutionary dress-parade oratory," to use a phrase of Liebknecht's. They ridiculed him as an "amorphous pan-destroyer," and made no attempt to refute his really intangible social and economic theories.
However, they met Bakounin's attacks on the International at every point. On the method of organization which Bakounin advocated, namely, that of a federalism of autonomous groups, which was to be "in the present a faithful image of future society," Marx replied that nothing could better suit the enemies of the International than to see such anarchy reign amidst the workers. Furthermore, when Bakounin advocated insurrections, uprisings, and riots, or even indeed purely economic action as a substitute for political action, Marx undertook extraordinary measures to deal finally with Bakounin and his program of action. A conference was therefore called of the leading spirits of the International, to be held in London in September, 1871. The whole of Bakounin's activity was there discussed, and a series of resolutions was adopted by the conference to be sent to every section of the International movement. A number of these resolutions dealt directly with Bakounin and the Alliance, which it was thought still existed, despite Bakounin's statement that it had been dissolved.[U] But by far the most important work of the conference was a resolution dealing with the question of political action. It is perhaps as important a document as was issued during the life of the International, and it stands as the answer of Marx to what Bakounin called economic action and to what the syndicalists now call direct action. The whole International organization is here pleaded with to maintain its faith in the efficacy of political means. Political action is pointed out as the fundamental principle of the organization, and, in order to give authority to this plea, the various declarations that had been made during the life of the International were brought together. Once again, the old motif of the Communist Manifesto appeared, and every effort was made to give it the authority of a positive law. Although rather long, the resolution is too important a document not to be printed here almost in full.
"Considering the following passage of the preamble to the rules: 'The economic emancipation of the working classes is the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means;'
"That the Inaugural Address of the International Working Men's Association (1864) states: 'The lords of land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defense and perpetuation of their economic monopolies. So far from promoting, they will continue to lay every possible impediment in the way of the emancipation of labor.... To conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working classes;'
"That the Congress of Lausanne (1867) has passed this resolution: 'The social emancipation of the workmen is inseparable from their political emancipation;'
"That the declaration of the General Council relative to the pretended plot of the French Internationals on the eve of the plébiscite (1870) says: 'Certainly by the tenor of our statutes, all our branches in England, on the Continent, and in America have the special mission not only to serve as centers for the militant organization of the working class, but also to support, in their respective countries, every political movement tending toward the accomplishment of our ultimate end—the economic emancipation of the working class;'
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