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question concerning the co-operate ownership of all of the means of production
which had already been superficially discussed by the Brussels Congress, was now for
the first time put squarely before the delegates. Those who were opposed to private
ownership of land won a sweeping victory. The followers of Proudhon were
irrevocably swamped. New dissensions, however, arose at the Congress. It was at
Basle that the famous Bakunin first made his appearance as the representative of a
separate movement.
Where did he come from? We have already met him in Berlin at the beginning
of the forties. We know that he had been influenced by the same philosophic currents
which had influenced Marx and Engels. In 1848 he was connected with those of the
German emigrants in Paris who had organised a revolutionary legion in order to
invade Germany. During the revolution itself he was in Bohemia where he was trying
to unite the Slav revolutionists. He later took a part in the insurrection of the Saxon
revolutionists at Dresden, was arrested, condemned to death, but handed over to
Nicholas I, who incarcerated him in the Schlusselburg fortress. A few years later, in
the reign of Alexander II, he was exiled to Siberia from which he escaped, making his
way through Japan and America back to Europe. This happened in 1862. At first he
plunged into Russian affairs, joined Alexander Herzen (1812-1870) wrote a few
pamphlets dealing with Slav and Russian questions and in which he again insisted
upon the necessity of a revolutionary alliance of the Slavs, and made an unsuccessful
attempt to join the Polish insurrection. In 1864 he met Marx in London, from whom
he learned of the founding of the International and to whom he promised his co-
operation. He left for Italy, however, where he became engrossed in something
entirely different. Bakunin now held the same view that he had in 1848, that is that
Marx exaggerated the importance of the working class. According to him, the
intelligentsia, the student class, the representatives of the bourgeois democracy,
particularly from among the middle classes, were a much stronger revolutionary
element. While the International was struggling with the difficulties it was at first
encountering and was gradually becoming the most influential international
organisation, Bakunin was trying to organise his own revolutionary society in Italy.
He then migrated to Switzerland, and there joined the bourgeois League for Peace
and Freedom, and was even elected to the central committee of that organisation. In
1868 he left the League, but instead of joining the International, he and his friends
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founded a new society, the International Social-Democratic Alliance, which came to
be generally known as the Alliance.
The new society took a highly revolutionary stand. It declared implacable war
upon God and the State. It demanded of its members that they be atheists. The
economic programme was not distinguished by any particular clarity. It demanded
the economic and social levelling of all classes. Despite its revolutionary character,
the new organisation did not even propose a consistent socialist programme; it
confined itself to a demand for the abolition of the right of inheritance. Anxious not
to frighten away members of other classes, it was careful not to stress its definite
class character. The new society applied to the General Council that it be taken into
the International as a separate organisation, with its own constitution and its own
programme.
We are now approaching the most embarrassing point. Since Marx wielded a
great influence in the General Council, he is usually held responsible for all the
decisions that were made by the Council. Although this is not always correct, in this
case Marx was chiefly responsible. Thus, if we should believe not only Bakunin's
partisans but even those Marxists who are inclined to defend the great bungler,
though very sincere revolutionist, Bakunin, Marx acted too precipitously when he
insisted upon a decisive refusal. We, of course, are not so soft-hearted as to feel that
the refusal to admit into the International a group that was guilty of hobnobbing with
the bourgeoisie was too peremptory.
Let us recall another circumstance. Bakunin sent the programme of the new
Alliance to Marx; he also mailed a personal letter under separate cover. This was
about four years after Bakunin had written from Italy promising to work for the
International. It was now disclosed that not only did he not keep his promise, but
that he even exerted all his strength in favour of a bourgeois movement. True, he
wrote that he now understood better than he ever had before how right Marx was in
having chosen the broad highway of economic revolution; he ridiculed those who
wandered astray along the path of purely national and political enterprises. He added
with pathos:
"Since taking leave solemnly and publicly from the bourgeoisie
at the Berne Congress, I no longer know any other society, any
other environment, than the world of the workers. My country is
now the International, of which you are one of the most
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important founders. So you see, my dear friend, that I am your
disciple, and proud of my title."
This letter always evokes from Bakunin's friends tears of tenderness and a
feeling of indignation against the heartless Marx who so relentlessly pushed away the
hand that was stretched out to him. Even Mehring remarked that there were no
reasons to doubt the sincerity of these assurances.
We do not wish to doubt Bakunin's sincerity. But let us try to place ourselves
in Marx's predicament. He was, to be sure, a hard man, but even Mehring would
have to admit that up to the end of 1868 his attitude toward Bakunin was that of
extreme tolerance. The mere reading of it should make it plain why this sentimental
letter should have appeared very unconvincing to Marx. It was written not by a
youngster, but by a man who was in his fifties, who once joined the "proletarian
world" only to desert it in favour of the "bourgeois world." Now, after having
bothered with it for four years, and after having become completely disenchanted, he
wished to stride "along the broad highway" again by joining the International, and
advanced the most incongruous claims. Marx, who had accepted Bakunin too
trustingly in 1864, was now more careful. He was proved to have been right.
When the General Council categorically refused Bakunin's request, the latter
announced that his society resolved to disband and to transform its sections, which
would continue to hold to their own theoretical programme, into sections of the
International. The General Council agreed to admit the sections of the former
Alliance only on a common basis.
It would seem that everything turned out well. But no; very soon Marx
developed well-founded suspicions that Bakunin had simply deceived the General
Council, that having officially disbanded his society, in reality he left its central
organisation intact for the purpose of subsequently capturing the International. This
is the crux of the whole controversy. We might admit that Marx was not a good-
natured man, and that Bakunin was very good, even angelic. This is beside the point.
We have known for a long time that Bakunin was guilty of sundry little sins. All men
are sinful. Bakunin's defenders have to answer definitely: Was there or was there not
such a secret organisation in existence? Did or did not Bakunin permit himself to
deceive the General Council when he assured it that he had disbanded his
organisation?
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