Bakunin and authoritarianism

[Devrim]

I brought this up on another thread, but there wasn't a response. I am interested in what anarchists think of Bakunin's ideas on 'invisible dictatorship'.


It is necessary that in the midst of popular anarchy, which will make up the very life of the revolution, the unity of revolutionary thought and action should be embodied in a certain organ. That organ must be the secret and world-wide association of the international brothers.
...
The number of these individuals should not, therefore be too large. For the international organisation throughout Europe one hundred serious and firmly united revolutionaries would be sufficient.



[t]here is only one power and one dictatorship whose organisation is salutary and feasible: it is that collective, invisible dictatorship of those who are allied in the name of our principle.
...
this dictatorship will be all the more salutary and effective for not being dressed up in any official power or extrinsic character.


Devrim

[TheDevil'sApprentice]

I've not read Bakunin. I smell a different understanding of the word 'dictatorship' to that commonly held today. Similar to with 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. Some context would be nice.

Bakunin does not speak for the anarchist movement, now or then.

[Devrim]

No, I am not claiming that he does. I think that today's anarchism is very far removed from Bakuninism. I also think that there are a lot of anarchists who pay lip service to Bakunin without knowing what he believed in.

Devrim

[apathy maybe]

It wasn't responded to because it is bullshit.

Yes, before he become explicitly an anarchist, Bakunin had some strange ideas. However, as with all anarchist writers, we are free to take the good ideas, and leave the bad. Unlike certain Marxists who seem to (and I should stress seem to, they may not) believe that everything that Marx wrote is gospel (or Engles, or Lenin), anarchists don't accept everything that the great writers of the past wrote.

Another example that is often brought up is Kroptkin's (and others) support of the Allied side during World War One. Most anarchists then, and all (I would suggest, without having done a survey) anarchists now, of course reject this support.

That doesn't mean that all of Kroptkin's writings are invalidated though.

On the specific writings, here are a couple of links that might prove interesting:

http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/bakunin/sp000333.html
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1870/albert-richard.htm
Seems to talk about a sort of "vanguard", but not an obvious one, instead a hidden, educational vanguard. The most "class conscious" workers encouraging revolt in private, as opposed to forming into a party to advocate publicly.


So, just to make it clear, in his explicitly anarchistic writings (later on in his life), Bakunin rejects actual power being given to anybody, as all good anarchists do.

[Devrim]

It wasn't responded to because it is bullshit.

Yes, before he become explicitly an anarchist, Bakunin had some strange ideas. However, as with all anarchist writers, we are free to take the good ideas, and leave the bad. Unlike certain Marxists who seem to (and I should stress seem to, they may not) believe that everything that Marx wrote is gospel (or Engles, or Lenin), anarchists don't accept everything that the great writers of the past wrote.

These are not quotes from before Bakunin was an anarchist. We can say that Bakunin was certainly an anarchist by 1868 when he joined the International.

The first quote dates from 1869 and the second from 1870 as in the link that you provide shows.

Devrim

[Devrim]

So, just to make it clear, in his explicitly anarchistic writings (later on in his life), Bakunin rejects actual power being given to anybody, as all good anarchists do.

As for his later writings, he retired in 1873, and died in 1876, so they weren't much later.

Devrim

[Diagoras]

There are a few ways that one can approach Bakunin in this regard. One way is to regard Bakunin's idea of the "invisible dictatorship" as a poorly-worded and somewhat confused, but still defensible idea, akin to "leadership by example". Certainly later, his notion of the invisible dictatorship reflects this, with the "secret organization" acting as very committed propagandists and local organizers, but not possessing any sort of special institutional powers. Early on, Bakunin did have a bit of an infatuation with the ideas of Nechayev (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nechayev), which I suspect influenced his early ideas of this invisible dictatorship towards something a bit more suspect at first. However, he eventually split with Nechayev, and rejected his more ascetic, nihilistic, and "ends justify the means" approach towards violence and clandestine activities.

Here are some exerpts of Bakunin writing about his invisible dictatorship and towards Nechayev, after their split:


"To begin with, my views are different in that they do not acknowledge the usefulness, or even the possibility, of any revolution except a spontaneous or a people's social revolution. I am deeply convinced that any other revolution is dishonest, harmful, and spells death to liberty and the people. It dooms them to new penury and new slavery.... [He then notes that the greatly expanded power of the state and its military/police apparatus has] armed the state with such enormous power that all contrived secret conspiracies and non-popular attempts, sudden attacks, surprises and coups--are bound to be shattered against it. It can only be conquered by a spontaneous people's revolution.



"Thus the sole aim of a secret society must be, not the creation of an artificial power outside the people, but the rousing, uniting and organizing of the spontaneous power of the people; therefore, the only possible, the only real revolutionary army is not outside the people, it is the people itself. It is impossible to arouse the people artificially. People's revolutions are born from the course of events.... There are historical periods when revolutions are simply impossible; there are other periods when they are inevitable... I maintain that a popular social revolution is inevitable everywhere within Europe. Will it catch fire soon and where first? ... Nobody can foretell. Perhaps it will blaze up in a year's time, or even earlier, or perhaps in ten or twenty years. This does not matter, and the people who intend to serve it honestly do not serve for their own pleasure. All secret societies who wish to be really useful to it must, first of all, renounce all nervousness, all impatience..."



"If one considers the people as a revolutionary army, here is our General Staff, here is the precious material for a secret organization. "But this world must be really organized and moralized, while your system depraves it and prepares within it traitors to the system and exploiters of the people... Choose a hundred people by lot out of this world and put them in a situation which would enable them to exploit and oppress the people--one can be sure that they will exploit and oppress it. It follows that there is little original virtue in them. One must use their poverty-stricken condition which makes them virtuous in spite of themselves and, by constant propaganda and the power of organization, arouse this virtue, educate it, confirm it in them and make it passionately conscious. Whereas you [Nechayev] do the opposite: following the Jesuit system you systematically kill all personal human feeling in them... educate them in lying, suspicion, spying and denunciation....



"Let us first of all define more exactly the aim, meaning, and purpose of this [secret] organization. As I have mentioned several times above, according to my system it would not constitute a revolutionary army--we should have only one revolutionary army: the people--the organization should only be the staff of this army, an organizer of the people's power, not its own... A revolutionary idea is revolutionary, vital, real and true only because it expresses and only as far as it represents popular instincts which are the result of history. To strive to foist on the people your own thoughts--foreign to its instinct--implies a wish to make it subservient to a new state... The organization must accept in all sincerity the idea that it is a servant and a helper, but never a commander of the people, never under any pretext its manager, not even under the pretext of the people's welfare.



"The organization is faced with an enormous task: not only to prepare the success of the people's revolution through propaganda and the unification of popular power; not only to destroy totally, by the power of this revolution, the whole existing economic, social and political order; but, in addition ... to make impossible after the popular victory the establishment of any state power over the people--even the most revolutionary, even your power--because any power, whatever it called itself, would inevitably subject the people to old slavery in a new form. Therefore our organization must be strong and vital to survive the first victory of the people and--this is not at all a simple matter--the organization must be so deeply imbued with its principles that one could hope that even in the midst of the revolution it will not change its thoughts, or character or direction.



"Which, then, should be this direction? What would be the main purpose and task of the organization? To help the people achieve self-determination on a basis of complete and comprehensive human liberty, without the slightest interference from even temporary or transitional power...



"We are bitter foes of all official power, even if it were ultra-revolutionary power. We are enemies of all publicly acknowledged dictatorship; we are social-revolutionary anarchists. But you will ask, if we are anarchists, by what right do we wish to and by what method can we influence the people? Rejecting any power, by what power or rather by what force shall we direct the people's revolution? An invisible force--recognized by no one, imposed by no one--through which the collective dictatorship of our organization will be all the mightier, the more it remains invisible and unacknowledged, the more it remains without any official legality and significance."



"Imagine... a secret organization which has scattered its members in small groups over the whole territory of the Empire but is nevertheless firmly united: inspired by a common ideal... an organization which acts everywhere according to a common plan. These small groups, unknown by anybody as such, have no officially recognized power but they are strong in their ideal, which expresses the very essence of the people's instincts, desires and demands... Finally they are strong in their solidarity which ties all the obscure groups into one organic whole... these groups will be able to lead the popular movement without seeking for themselves privileges, honors or power, in defiance of all ambitious persons who are divided and fighting among themselves and to lead it to the greatest possible realization of the socio-economic ideal and to the organization of fullest liberty for the people. This is what I call the collective dictatorship of the secret organization.



"This dictatorship is free from all self-interest, vanity and ambition for it is anonymous, invisible and does not give advantage or honor or official recognition of power to a member of the group or to the groups themselves. It does not threaten the liberty of the people because it is free from all official character..."Bakunin to Nechayev specifically:




"You wished, and still wish, to make your own selfless cruelty, your own truly extreme fanaticism, into a rule of common life.... Renounce your system and you will become a valuable man; if, however, you do not wish to renounce it you will certainly become a harmful militant, highly destructive not to the state but to the cause of liberty..."I personally find the entire concept a bit fuzzy and superfluous, but it seems to amount to- the most class conscious and revolutionary elements in society working to raise class consciousness in their fellow workers towards a revolutionary scenario. I hate to use the term "vanguard", but I will :lol:. The goal of this element of the working class would not be oriented towards seizure of the state apparatus, however.

I think that he developed the idea with less than democratic ideas in mind (a la Nechayev) and simply modified and justified it later on. The Nechayev period was definitely not his finest hour, to be sure. In terms of representation of "what Bakunin believed", I think most anarchists would be willing to take his later explications of the concept as a fairer description of his actual ideas.

Hope this helps.

[davidasearles]

So, just to make it clear, in his explicitly anarchistic writings (later on in his life), Bakunin rejects actual power being given to anybody, as all good anarchists do.

Could there be a valid use of power conferred on someone? A local community designates someone to ride around with a silver star on the side of his/her car with blue lights on top to stop people driving down a highway going faster than a certain speed, would that be an invalid giving of power under the eyes of Bakunin?

Bakunin I believe crossed both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans by ship during the middle portion of the 19th century. Do you suppose that Bakunin (who was a pretty smart guy) would have stepped foot on a ship that he knew was not under the charge of someone given power to require even extraordinary measures to ensure safe passage of these tiny vessels over the open and commonly treacherous seas?

[apathy maybe]

Could there be a valid use of power conferred on someone? A local community designates someone to ride around with a silver star on the side of his/her car with blue lights on top to stop people driving down a highway going faster than a certain speed, would that be an invalid giving of power under the eyes of Bakunin?

Bakunin I believe crossed both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans by ship during the middle portion of the 19th century. Do you suppose that Bakunin (who was a pretty smart guy) would have stepped foot on a ship that he knew was not under the charge of someone given power to require even extraordinary measures to ensure safe passage of these tiny vessels over the open and commonly treacherous seas?
Define "power".

Regarding the police, all real anarchists reject the notion that any sort of "police" (as they are currently understood) are a good and useful thing.

[davidasearles]

Define power?

Not me. I didn't come up with the word. I'm merely seeking clarification on what was written:

" Bakunin rejects actual power being given to anybody, as all good anarchists do."

I offered two examples above - the person with blue lights assigned to stop people going faster than a certain speed and the captain of a ship in treacherous waters. Would the authority, power or whatever that these people have been given be acceptable to anarchists?

[The Feral Underclass]

It was a stupid, ill-conceived and inexperienced idea.

[ZeroNowhere]

Unlike certain Marxists who seem to (and I should stress seem to, they may not) believe that everything that Marx wrote is gospel (or Engles, or Lenin), anarchists don't accept everything that the great writers of the past wrote.
I don't think anybody's going to be treating his poetry as gospel. :D

[griffjam]

This claim is often made by Leninists and other Marxists and expresses a distinct, even wilful, misunderstanding of the role revolutionaries should play in popular movements and the ideas of Bakunin on this issue. In actual fact, the term "invisible dictatorship" does not prove that Bakunin or anarchists are secret authoritarians, for reasons we will explain.
Marxists quote Bakunin's terms "invisible dictatorship" and "collective dictatorship" out of context, using it to "prove" that anarchists are secret authoritarians, seeking dictatorship over the masses. More widely, the question of Bakunin and his "invisible dictatorship" finds its way into the most sympathetic accounts of anarchist ideas. For example, Peter Marshall writes that it is "not difficult to conclude that Bakunin's invisible dictatorship would be even more tyrannical than a . . . Marxist one" and that it expressed a "profound authoritarian and dissimulating streak in his life and work." [Demanding the Impossible, p. 287] So, the question of setting the record straight about this aspect of Bakunin's theory is of more importance than just correcting a few Leninists. In addition, to do so will help clarify the concept of "leadership of ideas." For both these reasons, this essay, while initially appearing somewhat redundant and of interest only to academics, is of a far wider interest.
It is particularly ironic that Leninists (followers of a person who created an actual, very visible, dictatorship) accuse anarchists of seeking to create a "dictatorship" -- but then again, irony and a sense of humour is not usually noted in Leninists and Trotskyists. In a similar fashion, they (quite rightly) attack Bakunin for being anti-Jewish but keep quiet strangely quiet on Marx and Engels anti-Slavism. Indeed, Marx once published an article by Engels which actually preached race hatred and violence -- "that hatred of the Russians was and remains the primary revolutionary passion of the Germans; and since the revolution it extends to the Czechs and the Croatians . . . we . . . can safeguard the revolution only by the most determined terrorism against these Slavic peoples" and that the "stubborn Czechs and the Slovaks should be grateful to the Germans, who have taken the trouble to civilise them." [cited in Bakunin on Anarchism, p.432] Obviously being anti-Slavic is okay, being anti-Jewish is not (they also keep quiet on Marx's anti-Jewish comments). The hypocrisy is clear.
Actually, it is in their attempts to smear anarchism with closet authoritarianism that the authoritarianism of the Marxists come to the fore. For example, in the British Socialist Workers Party journal International Socialism number 52, we find this treat of "logic." Anarchism is denounced for being "necessarily deeply anti-democratic" due to its "thesis of the absolute sovereignty of the individual ego." Then Hal Draper is quoted arguing that "[o]f all ideologies, anarchism is the most fundamentally anti-democratic in principle." [p. 145] So, because anarchism favours individuals being free and making their own decisions, it is less democratic than Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism! Makes you wonder what they mean by democracy if ideologies which actively promote leader worship and party/leader dictatorships are more "democratic" than anarchism! Of course, in actuality, for most anarchists individual sovereignty implies direct democracy in free associations (see, for example, Robert Graham's excellent essay "The Anarchist Contract" in Reinventing Anarchy, Again). Any "democracy" which is not based on individual freedom is too contradictory to be take seriously.
But to return to our subject. Anarchists have two responses to claims that Bakunin (and, by implication, all anarchists) seek an "invisible" dictatorship and so are not true libertarians. Firstly, and this is the point we will concentrate upon, Bakunin's expression is taken out of context and when placed within its context it takes on a radically different meaning than that implied by critics of Bakunin and anarchism. Secondly, even if the expression means what the critics claim it does, it does not refute anarchism as a political theory (any more than Bakunin's racism or Proudhon's sexism and racism). This is because anarchists are not Bakuninists (or Proudhonists or Kropotkinites or any other person-ist). We recognise other anarchists as what they are, human beings who said lots of important and useful things but, like any other human being, they make mistakes and often do not live up to all of their ideas. For anarchists, it is a question of extracting the useful parts from their works and rejecting the useless (as well as the downright nonsense!). Just because Bakunin said something, it does not make it right! This common-sense approach to politics seems to be lost on Marxists. Indeed, if we take the logic of these Marxists to its conclusion, we must reject everything Rousseau wrote (he was sexist), Marx and Engels (their comments against Slavs spring to mind, along with numerous other racist comments) and so on. But, of course, this never happens to non-anarchist thinkers when Marxists write their articles and books.
However, to return to our main argument, that of the importance of context. What does the context around Bakunin's term "invisible dictatorship" bring to the discussion? Simply that whenever Bakunin uses the term "invisible" or "collective" dictatorship he also explicitly states his opposition to government (or official) power and in particular the idea that anarchist organisations should take such power. For example, the International Socialist review mentioned above quotes the following passage from "a Bakuninist document" to "prove" that the "principle of anti-democracy was to leave Bakunin unchallenged at the apex of power":
"It is necessary that in the midst of popular anarchy, which will constitute the very life and energy of the revolution, unity of thought and revolutionary action should find an organ. This organ must be the secret and world-wide association of the international brethren." This passage is from point 9 of Bakunin's "Programme and Purpose of the Revolutionary Organisation of International Brothers." In the sentence immediately before those quoted, Bakunin stated that "[t]his organisation rules out any idea of dictatorship and custodial control." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 172] Strange that this part of point 9 of the programme was not quoted! Nor do they quote Bakunin when he wrote, in point 4 of the same programme, "[w]e are the natural enemies of those revolutionaries -- future dictators, regimentors and custodians of revolution -- who. . . [want] to create new revolutionary States just as centralist and despotic as those we already know . . ." Nor, in point 8, that since the "revolution everywhere must be created by the people, and supreme control must always belong to the people organised into a free federation of agricultural and industrial associations . . . organised from the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary delegations . . . [who] will set out to administer public services, not to rule over peoples." [Op. Cit., p. 169, p. 172]
(As an aside, we can understand why Leninists would not willing to quote point 8, as Bakunin's position is far in advance of Marx's on the structure of revolutionary society. Indeed, it was not until 1917, when Lenin supported the spontaneously created Soviets as the framework of his socialist state -- at least in rhetoric, in practice, he did not -- that Marxists belatedly discovered the importance of workers' councils. In other words, Bakunin predicted the rise of workers' councils as the framework of a socialist revolution -- after all the Russian soviets were, originally, "a free federation of agricultural and industrial associations." It must be embarrassing for Leninists to have one of what they consider as a key contribution to Marxism predicted over 50 years beforehand by someone Marx called an "ignoramus" and a "non-entity as a theoretician.")
Similarly, when we look at the situations where Bakunin uses the terms "invisible" or "collective" dictatorship (usually in letters to comrades) we find the same thing -- the explicit denial in these same letters that Bakunin thought the revolutionary association should take state/governmental power. For example, in a letter to Albert Richard (a fellow member of the anarchist "Alliance of Social Democracy") Bakunin states that "[t]here is only one power and one dictatorship whose organisation is salutary and feasible: it is that collective, invisible dictatorship of those who are allied in the name of our principle." He then immediately adds that "this dictatorship will be all the more salutary and effective for not being dressed up in any official power or extrinsic character." Earlier in the letter he argues that anarchists must be "like invisible pilots in the thick of the popular tempest. . . steer it [the revolution] not by any open power but by the collective dictatorship of all the allies -- a dictatorship without insignia, titles or official rights, and all the stronger for having none of the paraphernalia of power." Explicitly opposing "Committees of Public Safety and official, overt dictatorship" he explains his idea of a revolution based on "workers hav joined into associations . . . armed and organised by streets and quartiers, the federative commune." [Op. Cit., p. 181, p. 180 and p. 179] Hardly what would be expected from a would-be dictator?
As Sam Dolgoff notes, "an organisation exercising no overt authority, without a state, without official status, without the machinery of institutionalised power to enforce its policies, cannot be defined as a dictatorship. . . Moreover, if it is borne in mind that this passage is part of a letter repudiating in the strongest terms the State and the \zauthoritarian statism of the 'Robespierres, the Dantons, and the Saint-Justs of the revolution,' it is reasonable to conclude that Bakunin used the word 'dictatorship' to denote preponderant influence or guidance exercised largely by example. . . In line with this conclusion, Bakunin used the words 'invisible' and 'collective' to denote the underground movement exerting this influence in an organised manner."
This analysis is confirmed by other passages from Bakunin's letters. In a letter to the Nihilist Sergi Nechaev (within which Bakunin indicates exactly how far apart politically they where -- which is important as, from Marx onwards, many of Bakunin's opponents quote Nechaev's pamphlets as if they were "Bakuninist," when in fact they were not) we find him arguing that:
[I]"These [revolutionary] groups would not seek anything for themselves, neither privilege nor honour nor power. . . [but] would be in a position to direct popular movements . . . [via] [B]the collective dictatorship of a secret organisation. . . The dictatorship. . . does not reward any of the members. . . or the groups themselves. . . with any. . . official power. It does not threaten the freedom of the people, because, lacking any official character, it does not take the place of State control over the people, and because its whole aim. . . consists of the fullest realisation of the liberty of the people. "This sort of dictatorship is not in the least contrary to the free development and the self-development of the people, nor its organisation from the bottom upward. . . for it influences the people exclusively through the natural, personal influence of its members, who have not the slightest power. . .to direct the spontaneous revolutionary movement of the people towards. . . the organisation of popular liberty. . . This secret dictatorship would in the first place, and at the present time, carry out a broadly based popular propaganda. . . and by the power of this propaganda and also by organisation among the people themselves join together separate popular forces into a mighty strength capable of demolishing the State." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, pp. 193-4]
The key aspect of this is the term "natural influence." In a letter to Pablo, a Spanish member of the Alliance, we find Bakunin arguing that the Alliance "will promote the Revolution only through the natural but never official influence of all members of the Alliance. . ." This term was also used in his public writings. For example, we find in one of his newspaper articles Bakunin arguing that the "very freedom of every individual results from th[e] great number of material, intellectual, and moral influences which every individual around him and which society. . . continually exercise on him" and that "everything alive . . . intervene[s] . . . in the life of others. . . [so] we hardly wish to abolish the effect of any individual's or any group of individuals' natural influence upon the masses." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 140, p. 141]
Thus "natural influence" simply means the effect of communicating which others, discussing your ideas with them and winning them over to your position, nothing more. This is hardly authoritarian, and so Bakunin contrasts this "natural" influence with "official" influence, which replaced the process of mutual interaction between equals with a fixed hierarchy of command and thereby induced the "transformation of natural influence, and, as such, the perfectly legitimate influence over man, into a right." [cited by Richard B. Saltman, The Social and Political Thought of Michael Bakunin, p. 46]
As an example of this difference, consider the case of a union militant (as will become clear, this is the sort of example Bakunin had in mind). As long as they are part of the rank-and-file, arguing their case at union meetings or being delegated to carry out the decisions of these assemblies then their influence is "natural." However, if this militant is elected into a position with executive power in the union (i.e. becomes a full-time union official, for example, rather than a shop-steward) then their influence becomes "official" and so, potentially, corrupting for both the militant and the rank-and-file who are subject to the rule of the official.
Indeed, this notion of "natural" influence (or authority) was also termed "invisible" by Bakunin -- "[I]t is only necessary that one worker in ten join the [International Working-Men's] Association earnestly and with full understanding of the cause for the nine-tenths remaining outside its organisation nevertheless to be influenced invisibly by it. . ." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 139] So, as can be seen, the terms "invisible" and "collective" dictatorship used by Bakunin in his letters is strongly related to the term "natural influence" used in his public works and seems to be used simply to indicate the effects of an organised political group on the masses. To see this, it is worthwhile to quote Bakunin at length about the nature of this "invisible" influence:
[I]"It may be objected that this. . . [invisible] influence. . . suggests the establishment of a system of authority and a new government. . . [but this] would be a serious blunder. The organised effect of the International on the masses. . . is nothing but the entirely natural organisation -- neither official nor clothed in any authority or political force whatsoever -- of the effect of a rather numerous group of individuals who are inspired by the same thought and headed toward the same goal, first of all on the opinion of the masses and only then, by the intermediary of this opinion (restated by the International's propaganda), on their will and their deeds. But the governments. . . impose themselves violently on the masses, who are forced to obey them and to execute their decrees. . . The International's influence will never be anything but one of opinion and the International will never be anything but the organisation of the natural effect of individuals on the masses." [Op. Cit., pp. 139-40] Therefore, from both the fuller context provided by the works and letters selectively quoted by anti-anarchists and his other writings, we find that rather than being a secret authoritarian, Bakunin was, in fact, trying to express how anarchists could "naturally influence" the masses and their revolution. As he himself argues:
"We are the most pronounced enemies of every sort of [B]official power. . . We are the enemies of any sort of publicly declared dictatorship, we are social revolutionary anarchists. . . if we are anarchists, by what right do we want to influence the people, and what methods will we use? Denouncing all power, with what sort of power, or rather by what sort of force, shall we direct a people's revolution? By a force that is invisible. . . that is not imposed on anyone. . . [and] deprived of all official rights and significance." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, pp. 191-2] Continually opposing "official" power, authority and influence, Bakunin used the term "invisible, collective dictatorship" to describe the "natural influence" of organised anarchists on mass movements. Rather than express a desire to become a dictator, it in fact expresses the awareness that there is an "uneven" political development within the working class, an unevenness that can only be undermined by discussion within the mass assemblies of popular organisations. Any attempt to by-pass this "unevenness" by seizing or being elected to positions of power (i.e. by "official influence") would be doomed to failure and result in dictatorship by a party -- "triumph of the Jacobins or the Blanquists [or the Bolsheviks, we must add] would be the death of the Revolution." [Op. Cit., p. 169]
This analysis can be seen from Bakunin's discussion on union bureaucracy and how anarchists should combat it. Taking the Geneva section of the IWMA, Bakunin notes that the construction workers' section "simply left all decision-making to their committees . . . In this manner power gravitated to the committees, and by a species of fiction characteristic of all governments the committees substituted their own will and their own ideas for that of the membership." To combat this bureaucracy, "the construction workers. . . sections could only defend their rights and their autonomy in only one way: the workers called general membership meetings. Nothing arouses the antipathy of the committees more than these popular assemblies. . . In these great meetings of the sections, the items on the agenda was amply discussed and the most progressive opinion prevailed. . ." [Op. Cit., p. 247]
Given that Bakunin considered "the federative Alliance of all working men's [sic!] associations. . . [would] constitute the Commune" made up of delegates with "accountable and removable mandates" we can easily see that the role of the anarchist federation would be to intervene in general assemblies of these associations and ensure, through debate, that "the most progressive opinion prevailed." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170, p. 171] Rather than seek power, the anarchists would seek influence based on the soundness of their ideas, the "leadership of ideas" in other words. Thus the anarchist federation "unleashes their [the peoples] will and gives wider opportunity for their self-determination and their social-economic organisation, which should be created by them alone from the bottom upwards . . . The [revolutionary] organisation . . . [must] not in any circumstances. . . ever be their [the peoples] master . . . What is to be the chief aim and pursue of this organisation? To help the people towards self-determination on the lines of the most complete equality and fullest human freedom in every direction, without the least interference from any sort of domination. . . that is without any sort of government control." [Op. Cit., p. 191]
Having shown that the role of Bakunin's revolutionary organisations is drastically different than that suggested by the selective quotations of Marxists, we need to address two more issues. One, the so-called hierarchical nature of Bakunin's organisations and, two, their secret nature. Taking the issue of hierarchy first, we can do no better than quote Richard B. Saltman's summary of the internal organisation of these groups:
"The association's 'single will,' Bakunin wrote, would be determined by 'laws' that every member 'helped to create,' or at a minimum 'equally approved' by 'mutual agreement.' This 'definite set of rules' was to be 'frequently renewed' in plenary sessions wherein each member had the 'duty to try and make his view prevail,' but then he must accept fully the decision of the majority. Thus the revolutionary association's 'rigorously conceived and prescribed plan,' implemented under the 'strictest discipline,' was in reality to be 'nothing more or less than the expression and direct outcome of the reciprocal commitment contracted by each of the members towards the others.'" [The Social and Political Thought of Michael Bakunin, p. 115] While many anarchists would not agree 100 per cent with this set-up (although we think that most supporters of the "Platform" would) all would agree that it is not hierarchical. If anything, it appears quite democratic in nature. Moreover, comments in Bakunin's letters to other Alliance members support the argument that his revolutionary associations were more democratic in nature than Marxists suggest. In a letter to a Spanish comrade we find him suggesting that "all [Alliance] groups. . . should. . . from now on accept new members not by majority vote, but unanimously." In a letter to Italian members of the IWMA he argued that in Geneva the Alliance did not resort to "secret plots and intrigues." Rather:
"Everything was done in broad daylight, openly, for everyone to see . . . The Alliance had regular weekly open meetings and everyone was urged to participate in the discussions. . . The old procedure where members sat and passively listened to speakers talking down to them from their pedestal was discarded. "It was established that all meetings be conducted by informal round-table conversational discussions in which everybody felt free to participate: not to be talked [B]at, but to exchange views . . . "[Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 386, pp. 405-6]
Moreover, we find Bakunin being out-voted within the Alliance, hardly what we would expect if they were top-down dictatorships run by Bakunin (as Marxists claim). The historian T.R. Ravindranathan indicates that after the Alliance was founded "Bakunin wanted the Alliance to become a branch of the International [Worker's Association] and at the same time preserve it as a secret society. The Italian and some French members wanted the Alliance to be totally independent of the IWA and objected to Bakunin's secrecy. Bakunin's view prevailed on the first question as he succeeded in convincing the majority of the harmful effects of a rivalry between the Alliance and the International. On the question of secrecy, he gave way to his opponents. . ." [Bakunin and the Italians, p. 83]
These comments and facts suggest that the picture painted by Marxists of Bakunin and his secret societies is somewhat flawed. Moreover, if Bakunin did seek to create a centralised, hierarchical organisation, as Marxists claim, he did not do a good job. We find him complaining that the Madrid Alliance was breaking up ("The news of the dissolution of the Alliance in Spain saddened Bakunin. he intensified his letter-writing to Alliance members whom he trusted. . . He tried to get the Spaniards to reverse their decision") and we find that while the "Bakuninist" Spanish and Swiss sections of the IWMA sent delegates to its infamous Hague congress, the "Bakuninist" Italian section did not (and these "missing" votes may have been enough to undermine the rigged congress). Of course, Marxists could argue that these facts show Bakunin's cunning nature, but the more obvious explanation is that Bakunin did not create (nor desire to create) a hierarchical organisation with himself at the top. As Juan Gomez Casa notes, the Alliance "was not a compulsory or authoritarian body . . . [I]n Spain [it] acted independently and was prompted by purely local situations. The copious correspondence between Bakunin and his friends . . . was at all times motivated by the idea of offering advice, persuading, and clarifying. It was never written in a spirit of command, because that was not his style, nor would it have been accepted as such by his associates." Moreover, there "is no trace or shadow or hierarchical organisation in a letter from Bakunin to Mora . . . On the contrary, Bakunin advises 'direct' relations between Spanish and Italian Comrades." The Spanish comrades also wrote a pamphlet which "ridiculed the fable of orders from abroad." [Anarchist Organisation, pp. 37-8, p.25 and p. 40] This is confirmed by George R. Esenwein who argues that "[w]hile it is true that Bakunin's direct intervention during the early days of the International's development in Spain had assured the pre-dominance of his influence in the various federations and sections of the FRE [Spanish section of the International], it cannot be said that he manipulated it or otherwise used the Spanish Alliance as a tool for his own subversive designs." Thus, "though the Alliance did exist in Spain, the society did not bear any resemblance to the nefarious organisation that the Marxists depicted." [Anarchist Ideology and the Working Class Movement in Spain, p. 42] Indeed, as Max Nettlau points out, those Spaniards who did break with the Alliance were persuaded of its "hierarchical organisation. . . not by their own direct observation, but by what they had been told about the conduct of the organisation in the abovementioned countries" (which included England, where no evidence of any Alliance group has ever been recorded!) [cited by Casa, Op. Cit., pp. 39-40]. In addition, if Bakunin did run the Alliance under his own personal dictatorship we would expect it to change or dissolve upon his death. However the opposite happened -- "the Spanish Alliance survived Bakunin, who died in 1876, yet with few exceptions it continued to function in much the same way it had during Bakunin's lifetime." [George R. Esenwein, Op. Cit., p. 43]
Moving on to the second issue, the question of why should the revolutionary organisation be secret? Simply because, at the time of Bakunin's activism, many states where despotic monarchies, with little or no civil rights. As he argued, "nothing but a secret society would want to take this [arousing a revolution] on, for the interests of the government and of the government classes would be bitterly opposed to it." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 188] For survival, Bakunin considered secrecy an essential. As Juan Gomez Casas notes, "[I]n view of the difficulties of that period, Bakunin believed that secret groups of convinced and absolutely trustworthy men were safer and more effective. They would be able to place themselves at the head of developments at critical moments, but only to inspire and to clarify the issues." [Op. Cit., p. 22] Even Marxists, faced with dictatorial states, have organised in secret. And as George R. Esenwein points out, the "claim that Bakunin's organisation scheme was not the product of a 'hard-headed realism' cannot be supported in the light of the experiences of the Spanish Alliancists. It is beyond doubt that their adherence to Bakunin's program greatly contributed to the FRE's [Spanish section of the First International] ability to flourish during the early part of the 1870s and to survive the harsh circumstances of repression in the period 1874-1881." [Op. Cit., p. 224f] However, few, if any, anarchists would agree with this position now, shaped as it was by Bakunin's personal experiences in Tsarist Russia and other illiberal states (and let us not forget that Bakunin had been imprisoned in the Peter and Paul prison for his activities).
This is not to suggest that all of Bakunin's ideas on the role and nature of anarchist groups are accepted by anarchists today. Most anarchists would reject Bakunin's arguments for secrecy and love of conspiracy, for example (particularly as secrecy cannot help but generate an atmosphere of deceit and, potentially, manipulation). Anarchists remember that anarchism did not spring fully formed and complete from Bakunin's (or any other individual's) head. Rather it was developed over time and by many individuals, inspired by many different experiences and movements. Because of this, anarchists recognise that Bakunin was inconsistent in some ways, as would be expected from a theorist breaking new ground, and this applies to his ideas on how anarchist groups should work within, and the role they should play, in popular movements. Most of his ideas are valid, once we place them into context, some are not. Anarchists embrace the valid ones and voice their opposition to the invalid ones.
In summary, any apparent contradiction (a contradiction which Marxists try hard to maintain and use to discredit anarchism by painting Bakunin as a closet dictator) between the "public" and "private" Bakunin disappears once we place his comments into context within both the letters he wrote and his overall political theory. In fact, rather than promoting a despotic dictatorship over the masses his concept of "invisible dictatorship" is very similar to the "leadership of ideas" concept. As Brian Morris argues, those who, like Leninist Hal Draper, argue that Bakunin was in favour of despotism only come to "these conclusions by an incredible distortion of the substance of what Bakunin was trying to convey in his letters to Richard and Nechaev" and "[o]nly the most jaundiced scholar, or one blinded by extreme antipathy towards Bakunin or anarchism, could interpret these words as indicating that Bakunin conception of a secret society implied a revolutionary dictatorship in the Jacobin sense, still less a 'despotism'" [Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom, p. 144, p. 149]

[Pogue]

Weren't Kropotkin, Bakunin and Proudhon all guilty of saying and indeed doing things which completely went against anarchism? Such as racism, parliamentary activity, etc?

[griffjam]

Weren't Kropotkin, Bakunin and Proudhon all guilty of saying and indeed doing things which completely went against anarchism? Such as racism, parliamentary activity, etc?


...they [Marxists] (quite rightly) attack Bakunin for being anti-Jewish but keep quiet strangely quiet on Marx and Engels anti-Slavism. Indeed, Marx once published an article by Engels which actually preached race hatred and violence -- "that hatred of the Russians was and remains the primary revolutionary passion of the Germans; and since the revolution it extends to the Czechs and the Croatians . . . we . . . can safeguard the revolution only by the most determined terrorism against these Slavic peoples" and that the "stubborn Czechs and the Slovaks should be grateful to the Germans, who have taken the trouble to civilise them." [cited in Bakunin on Anarchism, p.432] Obviously being anti-Slavic is okay, being anti-Jewish is not (they also keep quiet on Marx's anti-Jewish comments). The hypocrisy is clear.


It is unfortunately common for many Marxists, particularly Leninist influenced ones, to concentrate on personalities and not politics when discussing anarchist ideas. In other words, they attack anarchists rather than present a critique of anarchism. This can be seen, for example, when many Leninists attempt to "refute" the whole of anarchism, its theory and history, by pointing out the personal failings of specific anarchists. They say that Proudhon was anti-Jewish and sexist, that Bakunin was racist, that Kropotkin supported the Allies in the First World War and so anarchism is flawed. Yet this is irrelevant to a critique of anarchism as it does not address anarchist ideas but rather points to when anarchists fail to live up to them. Anarchist ideas are ignored by this approach, which is understandable as any critique which tried to do this would not only fail but also expose the authoritarianism of mainstream Marxism in the process.

Even taken at face value, you would have to be stupid to assume that Proudhon's misogyny or Bakunin's racism had equal weighting with Lenin's and the Bolsheviks' behaviour (for example, the creation of a party dictatorship, the repression of strikes, free speech, independent working class organisation, the creation of a secret police force, the attack on Kronstadt, the betrayal of the Makhnovists, the violent repression of the Russian anarchist movement, etc.) in the league table of despicable activity. It seems strange that personal bigotry is of equal, or even more, importance in evaluating a political theory than its practice during a revolution.

Moreover, such a technique is ultimately dishonest. Looking at Proudhon, for example, his anti-Semitic outbursts remained unpublished in his note books until well after his ideas and, as Robert Graham points out, "a reading of General Idea of the Revolution will show, anti-Semitism forms no part of Proudhon's revolutionary programme." ["Introduction", The General Idea of the Revolution, p. xxxvi] Similarly, Bakunin's racism is an unfortunate aspect of his life, an aspect which is ultimately irrelevant to the core principles and ideas he argued for. As for Proudhon's sexism it should be noted that Bakunin and subsequent anarchists totally rejected it and argued for complete equality between the sexes. Likewise, anarchists from Kropotkin onwards have opposed racism in all its forms (and the large Jewish anarchist movement saw that Bakunin's anti-Semitic comments were not a defining aspect to his ideas). Why mention these aspects of their ideas at all?

Nor were Marx and Engels free from racist, sexism or homophobic comments yet no anarchist would dream these were worthy of mention when critiquing their ideology (for those interested in such matters, Peter Fryer's essay "Engels: A Man of his Time" should be consulted. This is because the anarchist critique of Marxism is robust and confirmed by substantial empirical evidence (namely, the failures of social democracy and the Russian Revolution).

If we look at Kropotkin's support for the Allies in the First World War we discover a strange hypocrisy on the part of Marxists as well as an attempt to distort history. Why hypocrisy? Simply because Marx and Engels supported Prussia during the Franco-Prussian war while, in contrast, Bakunin argued for a popular uprising and social revolution to stop the war. As Marx wrote to Engels on July 20th, 1870:
"The French need to be overcome. If the Prussians are victorious, the centralisation of the power of the State will be useful for the centralisation of the German working class. Moreover, German ascendancy will transfer the centre of gravity of the European worker's movement from France to Germany . . . On a world scale, the ascendancy of the German proletariat the French proletariat will at the same time constitute the ascendancy of our theory over Proudhon's." [quoted by Arthur Lehning, Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 284] Marx, in part, supported the deaths of working class people in war in order to see his ideas become more important than Proudhon's! The hypocrisy of the Marxists is clear - if anarchism is to be condemned for Kropotkin's actions, then Marxism must be equally condemned for Marx's.
This analysis also rewrites history as the bulk of the Marxist movement supported their respective states during the conflict. A handful of the parties of the Second International opposed the war (and those were the smallest ones as well). The father of Russian Marxism, George Plekhanov, supported the Allies while the German Social Democratic Party (the jewel in the crown of the Second International) supported its nation-state in the war. There was just one man in the German Reichstag in August 1914 who did not vote for war credits (and he did not even vote against them, he abstained). While there was a small minority of the German Social-Democrats did not support the war, initially many of this anti-war minority went along with the majority of party in the name of "discipline" and "democratic" principles.

In contrast, only a very small minority of anarchists supported any side during the conflict. The bulk of the anarchist movement (including such leading lights as Malatesta, Rocker, Goldman and Berkman) opposed the war, arguing that anarchists must "capitalise upon every stirring of rebellion, every discontent in order to foment insurrection, to organise the revolution to which we look for the ending of all of society's iniquities." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 2., p. 36] As Malatesta noted at the time, the pro-war anarchists were "not numerous, it is true, but [did have] amongst them comrades whom we love and respect most." He stressed that the "almost all" of the anarchists "have remained faithful to their convictions" namely "to awaken a consciousness of the antagonism of interests between dominators and dominated, between exploiters and workers, and to develop the class struggle inside each country, and solidarity among all workers across the frontiers, as against any prejudice and any passion of either race or nationality." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 243, p. 248 and p. 244] By pointing to Kropotkin, Marxists hide the facts that he was very much in a minority within the anarchist movement and that it was the official Marxist movement which betrayed the cause of internationalism, not anarchism. Indeed, the betrayal of the Second International was the natural result of the "ascendancy" of Marxism over anarchism that Marx had hoped. The rise of Marxism, in the form of social-democracy, ended as Bakunin predicted, with the corruption of socialism in the quagmire of electioneering and statism. As Rudolf Rocker correctly argued, "the Great War of 1914 was the exposure of the bankruptcy of political socialism." [Marx and Anarchism]

[apathy maybe]

While I basically agree with what you have written, can you please link to An Anarchist FAQ when pasting stuff from there?

[ZeroNowhere]

The Anarchist FAQ doesn't do too well on the matter of not exaggerating people's authoritarianism.
Also, heh, "Marx's anti-Jewish comments". That paragraph does a good job undermining its own credibility.

[Bilan]

^^ Yup.
I think you're just being a bit stubborn if you're going to try and argue Bakunin did not hold traits of which he accused Marx of - namely, 'authoritarianism'.
The invisible dictatorship is so obvious, as opposed to fuzzy or 'being misinterpreted by Leninists', in its intentions and nature.

Bakunin was wrong. He has little to do with modern anarchist thought, anyway, because his ideas are irrelevant and wrong.

Devrim is right in pointing this out, but he knows as well as the rest of us that you can't judge the modern anarchist movement on the ideas of Bakunin.

[Devrim]

Bakunin was wrong. He has little to do with modern anarchist thought, anyway, because his ideas are irrelevant and wrong.

Devrim is right in pointing this out, but he knows as well as the rest of us that you can't judge the modern anarchist movement on the ideas of Bakunin.

Yes, of course I know this and you are right. I don't think that modern anarchism has much to do with Bakunism at all.

Personally, I respect the politics of some anarchists, and reject the politics of others. I think that there are much more important political arguments than the Bakunin/Marx one. It is not the defining political division.

To take a serious look at the politics of many of the 'icons' is never wrong though. I think that there are many things to criticise in Marx.

I think that many anarchists don't know enough about their predecessors to make a critical judgement.

Devrim

[ZeroNowhere]

The Bakunin-Marx thing was hardly any major argument. While Bakuninites and some Leninists like to portray it as being somehow important, it was not at all important or interesting. Neither of them 'won', the main difference was that Bakunin seems to have made more misrepresentations of Marx than Marx and Engels made of him, which isn't much to grant victory to either side.