Bakunin Library

Bakunin Library

Program of the Russian Socialist Democracy [Narodnoe Delo] (1868)

September 13, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[From the broadside: Program of the Russian Socialist Democracy. Drawn from the Newspaper “La Cause du peuple”, published in French, Geneva, 1868.] OUR PROGRAM We want the emancipation of the people, their intellectual, economic, social and political emancipation. I. The intellectual emancipation of the popular masses is indispensable in order for their political and social liberty to become complete and solid. Faith in God, the belief in the immortality of the soul, and, in general, all the idealist or supernatural utopias, necessarily based on a false principle, contrary to science, have been for the peoples a constant cause of slavery […]
Bakunin Library

Rereading Bakunin

September 11, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
The work that delayed the new edition of “God and the State” has had a very large silver lining. Not only has that book turned into something I’m finding really exciting to work on, but the improvements are going to allow some changes to the overall structure of the series, which I think will make the various volumes more accessible and useful to both beginners and those with some more thorough exposure to existing translations of Bakunin. I’m still working out the precise formatting of the critical portions of the volumes, but the general plan is fairly clear. Each volume […]
Bakunin Library

The Program of “La Démocratie” (1868)

September 11, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
La Voix de l’Avenir, May 24, 1868, Chaux-de-Fonds Need I say that as far as a foreigner my be allowed to meddle in your affairs, I sympathize with all my heart with your courageous enterprise and that I subscribe completely to your program? You have the noble ambition of restoring the press in your country to the heights from which it should never have descended, whatever the storms that have assailed it, and of once again accustoming is to seek our inspirations there, a habit that we have lost for nearly 19 years. Be sure that, in all countries, all […]
Bakunin Library

To the Compagnons of the International Workingmen’s Association of Locle and La Chaux de fond, Article 1 (1869)

September 10, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
(Progrès, no 6, Geneva, February 23, 1869 – March 1, 1869) To the Compagnons of the International Workingmen’s Association of Locle and La Chaux de fond. Friends and brothers, Before leaving your mountains, I felt the need to express to you one more time, in writing, my profound gratitude for the fraternal reception that you have given me. Isn’t it a marvelous thing that a man, a Russian, a former noble, who until now was perfectly unknown to you and who has for the first time set foot in your country, hardly arrived, finds himself surrounded by several hundred brothers! […]
Bakunin Library

Mikhail Bakunin, “What is Authority” (1870)

September 10, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
NOTE: This passage is generally known as part of “God and the State” (Dieu et l’État, first published in 1882), but it appears in Bakunin’s manuscript as part of “Sophismes historiques de l’école doctrinaire des communistes allemands,” the second section of the unfinished book L’Empire Knouto-Germanique et la Révolution Sociale (The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution.) This new translation seeks to clarify some passages that may appear contradictory in existing translations. In particularly the verb repousser, which previous translators have tended to simply render as “reject,” has been brought closer to its literal sense of “push back” and some […]
Bakunin Library

God and the State: The Lost Paragraphs

September 10, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
It’s generally known that “God and the State” is a fragment drawn from “Historical Sophisms of the Doctrinaire School of the German Communists,” the second installment of The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution, Bakunin’s great, unfinished work. But as that work is still unpublished in English, the fact is simply one more mystery regarding the famous text. There are parts of the context that are not so easy to provide: the first section is over 40,000 words in length and “Historical Sophisms” contains at least another 40,000 words, of which less than 30,000 appear in “God and the State.” […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Mikhail Bakunin, “What is Authority” (1870)

September 7, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
NOTE: This passage is generally known as part of “God and the State” (Dieu et l’État, first published in 1882), but it appears in Bakunin’s manuscript as part of “Sophismes historiques de l’école doctrinaire des communistes allemands,” the second section of the unfinished book L’Empire Knouto-Germanique et la Révolution Sociale (The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution.) This new translation seeks to clarify some passages that may appear contradictory in existing translations. In particularly the verb repousser, which previous translators have tended to simply render as “reject,” has been brought closer to its literal sense of “push back” and some […]
Bakunin Library

Collective protest of the dissident members of the 2nd Congress of Peace and Freedom

July 20, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[September 25, 1868] Considering that the majority of the delegates to the Congress of the League of Peace and Freedom have passionately and explicitly declared themselves against the economic and social equalization of classes and of individuals, and as no political program and action that does not aim at the realization of this principle could be accepted by the socialist democrats, by the conscientious and logical friends of peace and freedom, the undersigned believe it is their duty to separate from the League. Albert Richard J. Bedouch Hugo Byter Elisée Reclus Aristide Rey Victor Jaclard Keller Tucci Fanelli Friscia Bakounine […]