THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF
BAKUNIN: SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM



COMPILED AND EDITED BY G. P. Maximoff

PREFACE BY BERT F. HOSELITZ
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

INTRODUCTION BY RUDOLF ROCKER

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BAKUNIN BY MAX NETTLAU

1953


Contents



Publisher's Preface, by BERT F. HOSEUTZ 9
Introduction, by RUDOLF ROCKER 17
Mikhail Bakunin -- a Biographical Sketch, by MAX NETTLAU 29
PART I -- PHILOSOPHY
1 The World-Outlook 53
2 Idealism and Materialism 60
3 Science: General Outlook 68
4 Science and Authority 77
5 Modern Science Deals in Falsities 81
6 Man: Animal and Human Nature 83
7 Man as Conqueror of Nature 88
8 Mind and Will 92
9 Man Subject to Universal Inevitability 98
10 Religion in Man's Life 105
11 Man Had to Look for God Within Himself 114
12 Ethics: Divine or Bourgeois Morality 120
13 Ethics: Exploitation of the Masses 128
14 Ethics: Morality of the State 136
15 Ethics: Truly Human or Anarchist Morality 146
16 Ethics: Man the Product of Environment 152
17 Society and the Individual 157
18 Individuals Are Strictly Determined 164
19 Philosophy of History 169
PART II -- CRITICISM OF EXISTING SOCIETY
1 Property Could Arise Only in the State 179
2 The Present Economic Regime 182
3 Class Struggle in Society Inevitable 188
4 Checkered History of the Bourgeoisie 193
5 Proletariat Long Enslaved 199
6 Peasants' Day Is Yet to Come 203
7 The State: General Outlook 206
8 The Modern State Surveyed 210
9 Representative System Based on Fiction 2I7
10 Patriotism's Part in Man's Struggle 225
11 Class Interests in Modern Patriotism 232
12 Law, Natural and Invented 237
13 Power and Authority 248
14 State Centralization and Its Effects 256
15 The Element of Discipline 259
PART III -- THE SYSTEM OF ANARCHISM
1 Freedom and Equality 263
2 Federalism: Real and Sham 271
3 State Socialism Theories Weighed 277
4 Criticism of Marxism 283
5 Social-Democratic Program Examined 289
6 Stateless Socialism: Anarchism 294
7 Founding of the Workers' International 301
8 Economic Solidarity at Its Widest 308
9 What the Workers Lack 315
10 Fatherland and Nationality 324
11 Women, Marriage, and Family 326
12 Upbringing and Education 327
13 Summation 338|
PART IV -- TACTICS AND METHODS OF REALIZATION
1 The Rationale of Revolutionary Tactics 351
2 Economic Problem Underlies All Others 358
3 Socio-Economic and Psychological Factors 367
4 Revolution and Revolutionary Violence 371
5 Methods of the Preparatory Period 379
6 Jacobins of 1870 Feared Revolutionary Anarchy 389
7 Revolution by Decrees Doomed to Failure 397
8 Revolutionary Program for the Peasants 404
9 On the Morrow of the Social Revolution 409

Source Bibliography 416
Source Notes 417
Index 425