Why is Bakunin Marx's Rival?

[ComradeRed]

Why is Bakunin Marx's Rival?

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2004, 05:45 AM
Why is Bakunin Marx's Rival?
Of course there are two different versions, the Marxist version and the Bakuninist version, but I think both seek to exonherate their ideological "father." I think the real answer is that they were both to blame.

Bakunin was an anti-semite and had an apparent hatred for Germans in general. Marx was a stubborn old mule who refused to compromise his position and even went as far as moving the International out of Europe as to make it mroe difficult for the Bakuninists to attend, ultimatly destroying it.

Bakunin was the thorn in Marx's side. According to Bakunin Marx wanted to become the great German leader. The great statesman who would lead the proletariat to victory. Bakunin challanged Marx's authority on the international and consistently attacked his opinions when he thought they were wrong. I think becoming the intellectual father of an entire political movement and ideology must have some effect on ones personality and it is possible that Bakunin was right when he said Marx felt arrogantly superior. Having some Slavic upstart challange you may have annoyed Marx more than his actual politics.

Who knows really? they were both human, they both had personality flaws and I think both men should have found another way to disagree. But such is the tradition of the left. We all believe we're right.

[Ian]

I don't think there is much question about their influences on each other, but I personally think that without Bakunin Marx wouldn't have done as good a job as he did on Das Kapital, Bakunin breathing down Marx's neck would have made Ol' Karl's ego a bit worried, I don't find it mere chance that in the 5 or 6 years (after his rise from utter obscurity to widespread support in revolutionary circles) before Bakunin's death Marx wrote his best works.

[FuckWar]

One major factor in their diagreement is that, as an anarchist, Bakunin had no tolerance for Marx's theory of social revolution by replacing an ols ruling class with a new one (dictatorship of the proletariat).
Another difference was that Bakunin was a real anarchist- an activist and rabble rouser. He spent most of his time out and about chillin with the proletariat. His few written works are sometimes unfinished, and contain footnotes that are pages long where he rants about soemthing completely not on his current topic. Very anarchistic and real in essence.

Marx, on the other hand, spent most of his time reading stuff and then writing more stuff and saying how things out to be. That is important, but Bakunin was more in favor of taking power away from the state and ending the misery of the Proletariat, whereas Marx wanted to see every possiblilty of whether it would happen, when, and what would result. Therefore, Bakunin always thought Marx a bourgoie bookworm and Marx thought Bakunin uneducated and impulsive, which are both contrasting and valuable assets to the revolution.

[Essential Insignificance]

I recently read some extracts from a paper that Marx wrote in 1874.

While reading Bakunin’s "Statism and Anarchy", Marx wrote down some jottings, making comments and critiquing, paragraph by paragraph, Bakunins’s work.

It kind of reads like a dialogue. :lol:

Very funny, yet very enlightening. :lol:

[The Feral Underclass]

I would very much like to se this. I got the feeling when reading Statism and Anarchy that the entire book was dedicated to Bakunin's dislike of Marx

Do you have it?

[Essential Insignificance]

Do you mean Statism and Anarchy or Marx’s quasi-critique; I have neither of them. I’m not even sure if the latter has been ;''properly'' published and distributed in recent years.

But I do wish to read Bakunin’s, as I have read very little of him, only a few short papers from the net. I don’t even think I would be able to get my hands on it, but I'm unquestionably going to try.

I get all of Marxist manuscripts from the Communist party ''dirt cheap'', but there, ideology is Marxist-Leninist, more latter then the former, like all Leninist parties. So they have, obviously no anarchist works, what so ever, available.

What do you mean by ''dedicated'' and ''dislike''; that there were purely subjective and personal?

Marx himself was the master of them, he wrote many throughout his life, same as lengthily as 300 pages. :lol:

I just wish I could get my hands on them, but I'm dubious that they have been published in recent years.

[The Feral Underclass]

I was talking about this article.

[PRC-UTE]

It seems like a personality clash from what I've gathered. I'm strongly influenced by the ideas of both men and think the whole thing to be really funny in a way.

Marx was not fond of the slavs; Bakunin was anti-semetic and anti-German as someone else said.

Their ideas were really very similar - Marx believed the masses would make a revolution so did Bakunin. Marx distrusted any dictator taking over the revolution just as Bakunin did. Marx never spoke of a transitional period or vanguard party. Most of the nonsense associated with marxism is a result of the bolsheviks who really distorted dialectical materialism to achieve their own party's power.

[Monty Cantsin]

"Marx never spoke of a transitional period or vanguard party. Most of the nonsense associated with marxism is a result of the bolsheviks who really distorted dialectical materialism to achieve their own party's power. "

not quite right, he talked about a transitional period the rest i agree with.