Socialists on homosexuality

[The Feral Underclass]

I have never heard of any applicability of Bakunin's current among the industrial proletariat

Because you're a philistine whose point of reference doesn't extend beyond the end of his nose. To have heard of its "applicability" you would first have to understand what it is. Go and read a fucking book, you insufferable prick.

[Rafiq]

Is it then wrong to identify different currents of anarchism, i.e. as though all share the same history? This is ridiculous.

The class character of Bakunin's theoretical foundations had no basis among the industrial proletariat. You mistaken me when I speak of applicability - I do not speak of the direct application of Bakunin's ideas, I speak of Bakunin's unique relevance all together. As muddied as is the class character of the anarchist tradition itself (something which you apparently insist on recognizing as homogeneous, not me) - what proletarian elements were among it had little at all to do with Bakunin in the unique sense. That was my point. If this is erroneous, then what part of "correct me of I'm wrong" is beyond you? The fact of the matter is that before the mass movement defined anarchism (i.e. anarcho-syndicalism) then Bakunin's anarchism was the anarchism of individual "terrorism" and petite-bourgeois radical politics. Anarchism's maturity culminated in its adherence among the American, British, Spanish, etc. industrial proletariat, after Bakunin. Is this wrong?

It does not matter how many books I have read (Funny, however, that it was Bakunin whom I read before the overwhelming majority of Marxists that I'm familiar with... Right at the beginning of my adherence to radical politics), if I have claimed something which betrays a sense of unfamiliarity with collectivist anarchism and its practical realities, then you're free to demonstrate this. Though how seriously should we take someone who had just previously insisted on the "illegitimacy" of what should be common knowledge to anyone who has shit for familiarity with Bakunin, only to go back on himself later when (unnecessarily) confronted with what only you would need as definite proof. Again, reason dictates that there would be no reason for anti-semitism to have been falsely attributed to Bakunin, none the less by Engels in the 19th century!

[Collective Reasons]

In fact most works by Bakunin are not online. I don't know if this is due to a lack of interest, jumpy publishers, or something else. In either case, unless someone on RL has access to the Archives Bakounine or his Ouevres etc., it seems we can't see the letter. But the preponderance of evidence is in this case surely on the side of people like Draper and other scholars not falsifying that letter.

The letter exists, and is document #71025 on the Bakunin CD-ROM. There are two variant drafts from the same period (71026, 71026A). It's long, but the quotations are substantially correct.

There will be a full English translation in one of the later volumes of the collected works edition currently in progress. (With a little luck, the first volumes will start to appear late in 2016.) So far, I'm not finding much like it in the other works, but there is still a lot of the correspondence to look through.

[motion denied]

What Draper book you referred to, 870?

[mushroompizza]

I heard Marx was a defender of homosexuality. Engels thought it was "capitalist" or something stupid like that. Lenin legalized homosexual marriage in Russia, the first country to do so, Stalin later prosecuted homosexuals and sent them to camps.

[RedWorker]

As far as I know, the following are two of the known points of the interaction between Marx, Engels and homosexuality:

1) Marx sending Engels a book he had received about homosexuality, Engels sending Marx a private letter attacking the "pedophile-homosexuals" described in the book.
2) Expulsing a female "free love" (involved with homosexuality?) militant (from the USA?) from the International, though the reasons for expulsion may have been others.

[Sewer Socialist]

I think that, in addition to criticizing socialists' inadequate and / or incorrect stances on homosexuality, it would be a nice balance to make more of an effort to point out those who were ahead of their time, those who helped to progress the left's stance on the issue.

Huey Newton gave a speech on the left and gay liberation in 1970, one year after Stonewall, and I think it was a significant part of the movement's history and relationship with the left, comparing it to the struggles of people of color. The speech also addresses the importance of women's struggle, as well as the importance of the direction, unity and co-operation of all these struggles against capital.

http://www.workers.org/2012/us/huey_p_newton_0524/

I'm not sure when Angela Davis (a lesbian) joined the Black Panthers, but if it predates the speech, she may have been an influence. She seems likely to have been an important part of the left's inclusion of homosexual struggle, but I don't know precisely.

[Art Vandelay]

I'm not sure when Angela Davis (a lesbian) joined the Black Panthers, but if it predates the speech, she may have been an influence.

Angela Davis was never a member of the Black Panther Party. She was a member of the CP.

[The Disillusionist]

Who cares what a bunch of old, dead, useless white people thought anyway? Does it really matter if Bakunin was an anti-semite? We take ideas that are useful to us, and we discard the rest. Marx, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Hoxha... some of their ideas were good, but as people, they're not relevant.

Applying this perspective to the question of homosexuality... let's say that every single one of the people mentioned in this thread was a rabid homophobe... does that mean that Socialism is inherently homophobic? Does it mean we should be homophobic like them? No.... of course not.... Again, we take what we can use from their ideas, and we discard the rest. We move beyond them.

It is only because these people have been elevated to some kind of pseudo-religious position in Leftist thought that we are even having this discussion. That's a huge part of the discussion on this site... a bunch of people poring over irrelevant minutiae and obscure quotes trying to determine the "true" views of their chosen revered prophets. Go to any church, and you'll find people having the same kinds of discussions.

I''ll say it again... let's move on. Let's bring leftism into the modern age and become relevant again... Forget the prophets, return to the dynamic power of theory. Theory can be updated, dead people cannot.

[Sewer Socialist]

Angela Davis was never a member of the Black Panther Party. She was a member of the CP.

Ah. Some sources say she was, but that would explain why there's no specific information about it when I try to search for it.

Did Angela Davis work to advance the cause of gay liberation in the '70s?

Disillusionist, I am trying to discuss Angela Davis, who is still alive, and Huey Newton, only dead because he was murdered in 1989, and neither of whom are white, though I'm not sure what those have to do with whether someone should be discussed. I think the background of the linking of the left and the gay liberation movement is indeed important.

[RedWorker]

Does it really matter if Bakunin was an anti-semite?

Yes. Because if he was, then he failed to understand many other concepts, among other things. And the impact on his theory would have to be analyzed: from that quote he seems to have assigned Jews an important role in capitalism, which suggests that his analysis may have been flawed.

[The Disillusionist]

Yes. Because if he was, then he failed to understand many other concepts, among other things. And the impact on his theory would have to be analyzed: from that quote he seems to have assigned Jews an important role in capitalism, which suggests that his analysis may have been flawed.

Why? Theory is theory, no matter what the views of the people who come up with it are. Theory can be tested and used independently of the people who first thought it up. We can look at Bakunin's theory independently of his personal views of Jews, and evaluate that theory for antisemitism. We don't need to know what his opinions were to determine if his theories were inherently antisemitic, we just need to think for ourselves. Isaac Newton was probably an asshole, but that doesn't mean that the theory of gravity is inherently an asshole theory.

But, the problem is that to evaluate theory independently of the opinions of the people who came up with it, you have to use science. Unfortunately, leftists don't believe in science, they're postmodernists, so this whole discussion is just going to keep going on, and people are going to keep linking theory with the opinions of useless dead people, and we're never going to make any progress here.

[Rafiq]

I''ll say it again... let's move on. Let's bring leftism into the modern age and become relevant again... Forget the prophets, return to the dynamic power of theory. Theory can be updated, dead people cannot.

That's very cute of you. The fact of the matter is that what you fail to understand is that the positions of these "dead people" reflect very much their ideological and theoretical foundations, their predispositions to this or that. These foundations remain and endure, because believe it or not: We still live in the same capitalist epoch, and what it universal about such theories remain, nevermind the peculiarities of its changing content in each according condition in capitalism - form remains. What ought "theory be updated" for? I mean, FROM WHAT POINT OF REFERENCE? From the moral desire to abolish capitalism and "achieve our goals"? What are our goals? How can we understand them without theory?

What that means is that regarding the "dynamic power of theory" cannot amount to arbitrarily picking and choosing what content you want from a theory - this is a disgusting logic! In your mind, you literally think we can just re-approach Bakunin, disregard his anti-semitism "because anti-semitism is bad and in a utilitarian way leads to the holocaust" (this stupid, philistine utilitarian thinking which doesn't even critically regard its moral foundations) and be on our merry fucking way with the "dynamic power of theory". A theoretical system is not a set of ideas which are isolated from each other. Bakunin's conception of the world allows him to be an anti-semite. Bakunin's anti-semitism is contingent upon everything about Bakunin, because from Proudhoun, it was not some marginal insane outburst divorced from the essence of his works, it was necessarily a logical conclusion to them.

People are so fucking stupid because they MORTIFY Marx THEORETICALLY by reducing him to "just a dead guy" or a figure, an object of our historical gaze who existed in the 19th century. They don't understand that in the 19th century, there existed an epoch which stood on its own two feet, regardless of our gaze upon it, a capitalist totality which wouldn't have allowed Marx to have been myopic on many issues, including anti-semitism or homosexuality. That is why there is no pathological trace of any of these things in Marx. If you criticize Marx, or any 'dead person', you need to actually recognize that these are men who dedicated their lives to theory for decades upon decades, more than you ever will. Marx did not come up with his ideas arbitrarily out of his ass - the period between the 1830's to the 1880's might seem like the glimpse of an eye to you, but more happened than you can ever imagine, virtually nothing outside of our scope. So it goes to show that saying "Marx wasn't able to see that" or "This is too outdated to accommodate for" is a nonsensical criticism - be honest and criticize Marx as though you were one of his opponents while he lived.

[Rafiq]

But, the problem is that to evaluate theory independently of the opinions of the people who came up with it, you have to use science. Unfortunately, leftists don't believe in science, they're postmodernists, so this whole discussion is just going to keep going on, and people are going to keep linking theory with the opinions of useless dead people, and we're never going to make any progress here.

For fuck's sake. My fucking god. Bakunin's anti-semitism is not some kind of trivial personal reservation like some kind of personal characteristic - who the FUCK are you to pick and choose what constituted a personal idiosyncrasy, and a core part of a theory that is up for evaluation? Marx may have personally had an aversion toward Jews, but that has fuck all to the absence of any theoretical predisposition to anti-semitism, and the same goes for blacks. Marx spoke of "niggers" and Engels too was hardly politically correct, but that had fuck all to do with their theoretical approach to blacks.

But Bakunin's and Prodhouns anti-semitism extends far beyond some kind of personal reservation about individuals, it designates structurally a CONCEPTION OF THE WORLD. You keep trying to intimidate people with "science" but you don't know what science actually is - you arrogantly assume that your epistemology is built on solid foundations as though the question of what constitutes science is not a controversial one. The word "science" for you is the same as divine law for the religious - it merely designates a structural apparatus which is given a monopoly over truth, regardless of its CONTENT.

[The Disillusionist]

That's very cute of you. The fact of the matter is that what you fail to understand is that the positions of these "dead people" reflect very much their ideological and theoretical foundations, their predispositions to this or that. These foundations remain and endure, because believe it or not: We still live in the same capitalist epoch, and what it universal about such theories remain, nevermind the peculiarities of its changing content in each according condition in capitalism - form remains. What ought "theory be updated" for? I mean, FROM WHAT POINT OF REFERENCE? From the moral desire to abolish capitalism and "achieve our goals"? What are our goals? How can we understand them without theory?

What that means is that regarding the "dynamic power of theory" cannot amount to arbitrarily picking and choosing what content you want from a theory - this is a disgusting logic! In your mind, you literally think we can just re-approach Bakunin, disregard his anti-semitism "because anti-semitism is bad and in a utilitarian way leads to the holocaust" (this stupid, philistine utilitarian thinking which doesn't even critically regard its moral foundations) and be on our merry fucking way with the "dynamic power of theory". A theoretical system is not a set of ideas which are isolated from each other. Bakunin's conception of the world allows him to be an anti-semite. Bakunin's anti-semitism is contingent upon everything about Bakunin, because from Proudhoun, it was not some marginal insane outburst divorced from the essence of his works, it was necessarily a logical conclusion to them.

People are so fucking stupid because they MORTIFY Marx THEORETICALLY by reducing him to "just a dead guy" or a figure, an object of our historical gaze who existed in the 19th century. They don't understand that in the 19th century, there existed an epoch which stood on its own two feet, regardless of our gaze upon it, a capitalist totality which wouldn't have allowed Marx to have been myopic on many issues, including anti-semitism or homosexuality. That is why there is no pathological trace of any of these things in Marx. If you criticize Marx, or any 'dead person', you need to actually recognize that these are men who dedicated their lives to theory for decades upon decades, more than you ever will. Marx did not come up with his ideas arbitrarily out of his ass - the period between the 1830's to the 1880's might seem like the glimpse of an eye to you, but more happened than you can ever imagine, virtually nothing outside of our scope. So it goes to show that saying "Marx wasn't able to see that" or "This is too outdated to accommodate for" is a nonsensical criticism - be honest and criticize Marx as though you were one of his opponents while he lived.

This is all very post-modernist. Again, because Newton was probably a bigot in some way or another, we should reject his theories because they must have somehow been inherently bigoted? Theories are ideas which can be evaluated by others. Using the scientific method, we can evaluate ideas, and differentiate theories from baseless opinions. So yes, it is entirely possible to divorce Bakunin's economic/political theories from his anti-semitism, we just take those theories and evaluate them on their own merit. Again, the only reason you don't see that this is possible is because you view these people are prophets. Oh, and your argument that we can't fully criticize dead people's theories because they "dedicated their lives to theory for decades and decades, more than you ever will" is yet another ridiculous example of this kind of prophet worship.

Also, you have such a narrow perspective it's almost impossible to comprehend. We have to criticize Marx "as though you were one of his opponents while he lived"? What? Again, the scientific method lets us continue to evaluate and modify these theories after the thinkers that created them are long dead. The only thing that criticizing Marx in the context of his own period gets us is stuck in Marx's own time period. Again, let's move into the modern age, shall we? It's not the 19th century anymore. We know new things now. Continuing with my Newton example... if I only approached Newton's theories from a perspective restricted to that of his own time period, I would be absolutely incapable of comprehending relativity, or molecular physics, or anything like that, because that was outside of Newton's scope of thought. Worshiping Newton would have just led to stagnation, and no new progress would have been made. The same goes for the worship of old dead people, like Marx.

[The Disillusionist]

For fuck's sake. My fucking god. Bakunin's anti-semitism is not some kind of trivial personal reservation like some kind of personal characteristic - who the FUCK are you to pick and choose what constituted a personal idiosyncrasy, and a core part of a theory that is up for evaluation? Marx may have personally had an aversion toward Jews, but that has fuck all to the absence of any theoretical predisposition to anti-semitism, and the same goes for blacks. Marx spoke of "niggers" and Engels too was hardly politically correct, but that had fuck all to do with their theoretical approach to blacks.

But Bakunin's and Prodhouns anti-semitism extends far beyond some kind of personal reservation about individuals, it designates structurally a CONCEPTION OF THE WORLD. You keep trying to intimidate people with "science" but you don't know what science actually is - you arrogantly assume that your epistemology is built on solid foundations as though the question of what constitutes science is not a controversial one. The word "science" for you is the same as divine law for the religious - it merely designates a structural apparatus which is given a monopoly over truth, regardless of its CONTENT.

Who are you to disagree with me? You aren't privy to any more information than me, and the only evidence that Bakunin was anti-semitic is in some obscure letter than almost no one can even find. He didn't include it in his actual books about theory. How is that bigotry any more significant to Bakunin's theory than Marx or Engel's bigotry was to their own theories? Your so-called truth is meaningless, because it isn't scientific, it's just opinion backed by dead authorities. Your truth is entirely faith-based, yet you constantly insist that it is science that is biased.

On top of that, even if Bakunin had based his theories entirely around anti-semitism... we are able to still able to evaluate those theories. It's not like anti-semitism is some kind of undercover theory-virus that sneaks in without anyone noticing... We can evaluate Bakunin's theories for bigotry, and we can either reject or modify his theories to suit our own purposes, removing bigotry.

[Rafiq]

Also, you have such a narrow perspective it's almost impossible to comprehend. We have to criticize Marx "as though you were one of his opponents while he lived"? What? Again, the scientific method lets us continue to evaluate and modify these theories after the thinkers that created them are long dead. The only thing that criticizing Marx in the context of his own period gets us is stuck in Marx's own time period. Again, let's move into the modern age, shall we? It's not the 19th century anymore. We know new things now. Continuing with my Newton example... if I only approached Newton's theories from a perspective restricted to that of his own time period, I would be absolutely incapable of comprehending relativity, or molecular physics, or anything like that, because that was outside of Newton's scope of thought. Worshiping Newton would have just led to stagnation, and no new progress would have been made. The same goes for the worship of old dead people, like Marx.

What you still don't understand is that Newton's potential bigotry, or shitty politics, was NOT a logical extension of his work in pertinence to the natural sciences, but this can hardly be said about the theoretical foundations, regarding politics and economics - in Prodhoun and Bakunin in pertinence to both of their anti-semitism. Do you understand the difference? You cannot "modify" something arbitrarily to suit your ends. A better example would be to claim "Why can't we divorce Newton's superstitious mysticism from his science"? And the reason for this is because again, Newton was not distinguished by his mysticism, but quite on the contrary, his contribution to the emergence of bourgeois science as a discipline, and that Newton's theories can very well be pre-supposed, "modified and evaluated" because they practically, for the first time, deal with such questions of physics in a scientific matter. This is hardly the case for Bakunin, because virtually EVERYTHING that Bakunin dealt with was dealt with by Marx as well!

The fact of the matter is that what made Bakunin distinct from Marx is what pathologically sustained his anti-semitism. What you don't understand is that unlike the field of physics, the fields which Marx pertain to cannot have their theoretical foundations change, only the CONTENT that which is approximated by such foundations can be. That is to say, new anthropological evidence, and so on, at this point is not going to do much as to alter how you're going to approach, approximate and evaluate these things. The content of Marxism might change, but its theoretical foundations will not. Conversely, for the natural sciences, which must regularly deal with changes that affront a definite standard of reason and challenge dominant paradigms, theoretical foundations change - but in matters that pertain to the social sciences, which we ourselves are a PART OF, create and compose of, which has not been divorced from us, mortified and abstracted in such a way that we can approach in an "unbiased" manner, the question of Marx being myopic in matters which he was most certainly able to address, and which he for the most part actually did largely address is a nonsensical one. The arguments leveled against Marx when he lived, and the arguments that are leveled against him today are, if not the same - inferior today as they were in their depth and profoundness as they were in the 19th century.

I'll give you just one example: Some thought they had "debunked" historical materialism by pointing out that in fact, the English revolution was not a bourgeois revolution at all, but was purely religious, since many of the anti-monarchists were not of bourgeois descent. But Marx and Engels had already, explicitly stated that many of the landowning classes, who had much to gain from international trade and commerce, had sided with the bourgeoisie, and whose relations to production were already bourgeois in nature. But the haughty, narrow minded philistines could only make the distinction between the urban, clear-cut bourgeoisie of the towns, and of the guilds, and the agrarian landowning classes. They thought they found something that upset the Marxist narrative on the English revolution, when in fact they found nothing that wasn't addressed a hundred years prior.

Who are you to disagree with me? You aren't privy to any more information than me, and the only evidence that Bakunin was anti-semitic is in some obscure letter than almost no one can even find. He didn't include it in his actual books about theory. How is that bigotry any more significant to Bakunin's theory than Marx or Engel's bigotry was to their own theories? Your so-called truth is meaningless, because it isn't scientific, it's just opinion backed by dead authorities. Your truth is entirely faith-based, yet you constantly insist that it is science that is biased.

On top of that, even if Bakunin had based his theories entirely around anti-semitism... we are able to still able to evaluate those theories. It's not like anti-semitism is some kind of undercover theory-virus that sneaks in without anyone noticing... We can evaluate Bakunin's theories for bigotry, and we can either reject or modify his theories to suit our own purposes, removing bigotry.

Are you FUCKING kidding me? You're so fucking ARROGANT with your SHITTY epistemology that you would dare call into question my ability to "disagree with you". According to you, it's because I don't have "more information" - what a SICKENING, barbaric epistemology? What kind of fucking child thinks this way? You literally SPEAK FOR ME, I don't even have to point out the fact that you see arguments as, rather than occupying a shared place of collective reason, some kind of dick-waving contest between who has the most sceptors of legitimacy that qualifies them to "disagree" with the other. Well fuck you! And the fact of the matter is that - if you were paying attention to the FUCKING thread, we DID find the letter, but nevermind that - Bakunin's anti-semitism is something that has been well known for a long time, and we might entertain the idea that it's some kind of bizarre outburst if not for the fact that Prodhoun, whom Bakunin referred to as "our master" was an avid and explicit anti-Semite, even from a theoretical standpoint.

The difference is that THIS ISN'T ABOUT FUCKING BIGOTRY. You can talk about how you like Blacks, how you think they're all merry fellows while giving an avid justification for support of the confederacy during the civil war - it would STILL demonstrate that you are THEORETICALLY a racist. And it is INFINITELY worse than calling someone a "nigger" in a letter - what counts are your positions on such world-historical matters that concern the very structural foundation of racism. It is not a matter of political correctness, it is a matter of a pretense to an understanding of THE WORLD. If you go on talking about Jewish conspiracies to dominate the world that are "not only unbound by the borders of nations, but also that of political opinion", THAT ISN'T MERELY BIGOTRY, IT IS PATHOLOGICALLY ANTI-SEMITIC TO THE CORE. Marx and Engels would have NEVER been able to even talk such cack, because it is a pretense to an understanding of the world which is antithetical to a scientific understanding of it. Do you see the fucking difference? Yes it is that antisemitism is a pathology which speaks VOLUMES about the ENTIRETY of someone's theoretical and political worth, but you still appear to be mistaken: No one claims Bakunin was wrong only because he was an anti-semite, but that bizarre nonsense like antisemitism was a logical conclusion of Bakunin's petite-bourgeois ideological foundations and his pathetic theoretical poverty. That's the fucking point.

So no, you can't "modify or reject" his theories to suit your own purposes, because you cannot pre-suppose that your "purposes" are somehow a utilitarian given, ITSELF divorced from theoretical evaluation. Even if they are, your purposes are clearly not our purposes - yours concern STUPID fucking feel-good abstractions about "making the world a better place for humanity" while ours concern the victory of the proletariat and the destruction of the class enemy. Frankly, even from this utilitarian standpoint, Bakunin's petite-bourgeois depravity has no place among us, it is incompatible with our aims, it cannot be reconciled with our language. You're so pathetic because in claiming that you want to "modify or reject" things arbitrarily to suit your own ends, you reveal the poverty of your understanding of science. You don't "modify or reject" theories about physics to suit some kind of moral platitude, you do it for the practical purpose of conceiving the physical world around you in a more consistent, cohesive, and probable way. Likewise, you don't "reject or modify" Bakunin's theories on the basis of some moral platitude, to "suit your ends", you do it insofar they are relevant in attempting to critically evaluate the social world around you. Bakunin was not only distinguished by what he thought about the world, but by his programmic theories about how the proletariat ought to go about in their struggle. He was the man of the individual terrorist, the marginal petite-bourgeoisie, the agrarian displaced classes, and so on. Marxism may be contingent upon an OPPOSITION to capitalism, Communism, but if it ended simply with this we would end up with bourgeois perversions like Utopian or petite-bourgeois socialism. From this opposition opens up the space of scientific freedom, free from the designations of ruling ideology, just as from the bourgeois opposition to the ancien regime opened up the space of scientific freedom in the domain of the natural sciences, with all of their obfuscations (metaphysical distortions like the nonsensical implications people draw from the double-slit experiment) grounded in their social relevance.

You cannot "remove" bigotry politely, because the pathological foundations of anti-semitism would remain. Good job with your fucking garbage political correctness, see how far that will get you. People who I am sure you consider respectable gentlemen, scum like Pinker, Richard Lynn, and Hernstein - are perfectly politically correct and are by no means bigots. Yet they are infinitely more vile in their racism, in their reactionary fervor than the typical politically incorrect ignorant man. Like answer me this question: When Bakunin talks about "this whole Jewish world", do you actually think he's saying "Oh, I'm just being politically incorrect, you caught me on the wrong day, I'd never say this on the level of serious theory, I'm just kidding around". It speaks VOLUMES about his conception of the conditions of capitalism and therefore the nature of the struggle for "liberation".

[Collective Reasons]

Bakunin's and Prodhouns anti-semitism extends far beyond some kind of personal reservation about individuals, it designates structurally a CONCEPTION OF THE WORLD.

What's your evidence for this claim?

[The Feral Underclass]

The evidence for the claim is a single letter that Bakunin wrote. How this means the entire foundation of Bakunin's ideas is predicated on hatred of Jews is yet to be explained.

[Rafiq]

It does not matter if it was a single letter - to possess the ability to claim that there's some big Jewish conspiracy is contingent upon a plethora of other positions - it is not something which you can "marginally" ascribe to, it reveals the ideological character of the author himself. The only way one could dismiss this is if one could demonstrate that Bakunin was joking, or temporarily went insane... Such an idea becomes almost impossible when you're confronted with the reality that, whom bakunin referred to as "our master", Prodhoun, was deeply anti-Semitic.