Storming Heaven
25th February 2006, 02:55
Recently the Socialist Alternative, an Australian magazine, ran an article on the 1st International, focusing on the conflict between Marx and Bakunin. What follows is an excerpt.
... Under the banner of "anti-authoritarianism", Bakunin set out to take over the International. Bakunin orientated to the mass of unorganised poor in the cities )the lumpen protetariat) and the peasantry rather than the working class. He thought they would be able to rise up and destroy society, but unlike the working class, would not be able to build the new. Bakunin's secret organisation modeled on the authoritarian Jesuit priest order would then step in and take control.
The "authoritarianism" Bakunin attacked was any coordinated, organised attempt by workers to act on their own behalf. It is this that made Bakunin's anarchism (as with anarchism today) profoundly anti-democratic and, despite his rhetoric, authoritarian.
Because he denounced any democratic decision-making, within the International or in the working class movement more generally, the question of what was to be done had to be resolved in practice by a chosen elite - namely himself and his inner circle ...
... Bakunin set up a secret society within the International, which tried to take over the General Council, but when that seemed doomed to failure, he determined to destroy the organisation ...
How accurate is this analysis? Evaluations from both Marxists and Anarchists would be good.
... Under the banner of "anti-authoritarianism", Bakunin set out to take over the International. Bakunin orientated to the mass of unorganised poor in the cities )the lumpen protetariat) and the peasantry rather than the working class. He thought they would be able to rise up and destroy society, but unlike the working class, would not be able to build the new. Bakunin's secret organisation modeled on the authoritarian Jesuit priest order would then step in and take control.
The "authoritarianism" Bakunin attacked was any coordinated, organised attempt by workers to act on their own behalf. It is this that made Bakunin's anarchism (as with anarchism today) profoundly anti-democratic and, despite his rhetoric, authoritarian.
Because he denounced any democratic decision-making, within the International or in the working class movement more generally, the question of what was to be done had to be resolved in practice by a chosen elite - namely himself and his inner circle ...
... Bakunin set up a secret society within the International, which tried to take over the General Council, but when that seemed doomed to failure, he determined to destroy the organisation ...
How accurate is this analysis? Evaluations from both Marxists and Anarchists would be good.