Bakunin Library

Bakunin Library

Paul Eltzbacher, “A Synopsis of Bakunin’s Teaching” (1900)

January 17, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
A Synopsis of Bakunin’s Teaching[1] To escape its wretched lot the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. The two first are the rum-shop and the church, the third is the social revolution. A cure is possible only through the social revolution — that is, through the destruction of all institutions of inequality, and the establishment of economic and social equality. The revolution wall not be made by anybody. Revolutions are never made, neither by individuals nor yet by secret societies. They come about automatically, in a measure; the power of things, -the current of events and facts, […]
Bakunin Library

Hippolyte Havel, “Bakunin” (1914)

January 17, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
BAKUNIN BY HIPPOLYTE HAVEL. No man can emancipate himself, except by emancipating with him all the men around him. My liberty is the liberty of everyone, for I am not truly free, free not only in thought but in deed, except when my liberty and my rights find their confirmation, their sanction, in the liberty and the rights of all men, my equals. — Bakunin. THE LIFE OF BAKUNIN Mikhail Alexandrovitch Bakunin was descended from an old aristocratic family, which according to tradition had emigrated to Russia from Transylvania. He was born on his father’s estate at Pryamukhino, district of […]
Bakunin Library

Max Nettlau, “The St. Imier Congress of the International” (1922)

January 17, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE ST. IMIER CONGRESS OF THE INTERNATIONAL, September 15 and 16, 1872. This September our Swiss comrades in the Jura mountains will commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the anti-authoritarian Congress of the old International held at St. Imier, September 15 and 16, 1873; and they will also recall the memory of the Jurassian Federation of the International, which for many years stood in the front ranks of the struggles of the ‘60s and ‘70s which created the Anarchist and revolutionary Syndicalist movements of our time. The Congress in question did more: it saved the continuity of the internationalist movement and […]
Bakunin Library

Max Nettlau, “Marx and Engels and the IWMA” (1907)

January 17, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
Marx and Engels and the International Working Men’s Association, 1872 to 1876. I. F. A. Sorge, a German refugee of 1849, the chief American correspondent of Marx and Engels in the seventies and eighties, a few months before his death published a volume of letters addressed to him by Marx (1868-1881), Engels (1872-1895), J. Ph. Becker, Dietzgen and others (Stuttgart, 1906, xii., pp. 422, 8vo.) We have already had glimpses of Marx’s personal life and doings in F. Lassalle’s letters addressed to him during the fifties, in Marx’s own letters to Dr. Kugelmann during the sixties, and in his letters […]
Bakunin Library

Max Nettlau, “Michael Bakunin” (1914)

January 16, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”]   [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Michael Bakunin. by Max Nettlau Most centenarians, even when born much later and still among us, are but dried-up relics of a remote past; whilst some few, though gone long since, remain full of life, and rather make us feel ourselves how little life and energy there is in most of us. These men, in advance of their age, prepared new ways for coming generations, who are often but too slow to follow them up. Prophets and dreamers, thinkers and rebels they are called, and of those who, in […]
Bakunin Library

Mikhail Bakunin, “Madame Léo and l’Egalité” (1869)

January 11, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
Madame Léo and l’Egalité [L’Egalité(Geneva), March 13 & 27, 1869] We have inserted this letter all the more willingly because it eloquently summarizes the reasons that militate in favor of a rapprochement of the different democratic parties. We will take the occasion to explain ourselves once and for all on the subject. We understand the lofty sentiment which has dictated the letter we have just read, but we cannot let ourselves be led by these impulses of the heart; we know too well that they have always managed to doom the people’s cause, and we cannot, and must not forget […]
Bakunin Library

Mikhail Bakunin, “Nechayev: Is He a Political Criminal or Not?” (1872)

January 11, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
 NECHAYEV Is he a political criminal or not? We have published, on August 16, a document protesting against the arrest of a man who is held, rightly or wrongly, for Nechayev, the Russian political agitator. In publishing this document, we have had the strongest desire to see this beau right that the Swiss guarantee aux émigrés, this right of asylum which we enjoy, preserve intact its original purity and sanctity. The Russian government pursues Nechayev, as every despotic government does, when a man has made an attempt, even a fruitless attempt, to overthrow it. Everyone understands how, at any price, […]
Bakunin Library

From Louise Michel’s “The Imperial Bastard”

November 8, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve been reading bits and pieces of Louise Michel’s novels, as part of a larger project to get a general sense of what’s out there, and naturally with some eye to what might be worth translating in the future. One of the titles I’ve been looking at today is a massive work, Le Bâtard Impérial, co-written with Jean Winter and published in 1883. One of the major plot-lines of the novel involves Yvan, who has been an executioner in Russian prisoners, and who, through a plot twist that seems to involve mistaken identities and one of Michel’s favorite plot devices, […]
Bakunin Library

An Anarchist-Collectivist View of Collectivist Anarchism

October 31, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] It’s been a while since I’ve been able to post a progress report. The first round of proposals brought a mixed sort of feedback, which led to another long round of research and strategizing. Thanks to everyone who contributed feedback, even if it was of a sort I ultimately couldn’t accommodate. I’ll have more complete details soon, but the good news is that we’ve settled on an initial set of 6 volumes: a general Bakunin Reader, The Knouto-Germanic Empire, the writings on Mazzini, two additional volumes of essays, and a collectivist anarchist reader, featuring a number of Bakunin’s allies. […]