Anarcho-Socialism

1 The conflict within the International that brought Marx and Bakunin up against one another has usually been discussed in terms of a comparison between principles (“libertarian socialism” versus “authoritarian socialism,” for example) or in terms of personal relations. The object of the present contribution, in contrast to those approaches, is to compare the political practices of Marx and Bakunin within the context of the IWA. This does not mean that the personal (and national) relationship between the two played no role; Bakunin wrote on this specific subject. [1] Nor does it mean that the attempt to set up such a comparison between practices disregards any question of an opposition between political principles. The idea is to enrich that opposition, to make it more precise, and to flesh it out, as opposed to the attitude taken by too many commentators, which is overdetermined by the later history of the relations between communism and anarchism, or who just transpose the hostility, the maneuvering, and the reciprocal ignorance that governed the relationship between these two thinkers. [2] In this way we avoid the risks associated with a retrospective reading, but it is also necessary to place at a distance the consciousness the actors themselves had of the process in which they were involved, and to relate the personal conflict to the split that caused the First International to break up. As we shall see, although Bakunin often only reformulated the positions of sections or of whole federations of the International, the question is more delicate when it comes to Marx.

AUGUST H. NIMTZ, Marxism Versus Anarchism: The First Encounter, Science & Society, Vol. 79, No. 2, Special Issue: RED ON BLACK: Marxist Encounters with Anarchism (APRIL 2015), pp. 153-175

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Partial online archive of this anarchist-communist journal published in New York from 1919. 10 issues were produced.

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The debate between Karl Marx and Michael Bakunin over the correct road to socialism turns on their respective views of the state. In this thesis I argue that their disagreement can most fundamentally be cashed out in terms of the divergent conceptions of human nature that each holds. Contra the claims of some philosophers, Marx does indeed have a theory of human nature. This theory is separable into two parts: human nature in general, and human nature as historically conditioned. Against Marx's view, Bakunin believes that certain features of human nature obtain trans-historically. He claims that human beings are characterized by instincts for both revolution and socialism, as well as an instinctual love of power. Flowing from these differing views, I argue, are the varying conceptions of post-revolutionary society that each proffers. The dictatorship of the proletariat presupposes the mutable nature of ideological categories and the development of revolutionary consciousness in response to capitalism's imminent demise. Bakunin's critique of the proletarian state, and his more general critique of the state per se, are each founded on the idea that a lust for power is a human nature based constant. His positive alternative is designed to forestall the activation of this lust. In the end I make two points. First, Bakunin's view of human nature subverts his libertarian program: if love of power is an inviolable feature of humanity, socialism is not a real option. Second, Marx's view is the more perspicuous. If the fledgling society is to survive, a state apparatus will doubtless be necessary immediately following the revolution. And the people at its helm will not be power-lusters.

or: an imprecise definition of terms

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