Bakunin Library Archives - Page 7 of 13 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Benjamin R. Tucker on Bakunin (1881)

April 11, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

Michael Bakounine. As announced in our last number, we present on this page, for the first time in America, a faithful portrait of the founder of Nihilism,— the physical lineaments of an heroic reformer, of whom we are willing to hazard the judgment that coming history will yet place him in the very front ranks of the world’s great social saviours. The grand head and face speak for themselves regarding the immense energy, lofty character, and innate nobility of the man. We should have esteemed it among the chief honors of our life to have known him personally, and […]

God and the State (continuation)

April 10, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

GOD AND THE STATE ————– EXTRACTS FROM UNEDITED MANUSCRIPTS OF MICHAEL BAKUNIN. (TRANSLATED FOR “LIBERTY” BY “N.”) [Liberty (UK) May, 1894] I. During the time of his staying in Marseilles in October 1870 until his departure from Locarno to the Jura in April 1871, Bakunin and wrote a long, though not finished, book, the first part of which was published in July 1871 as “L’Empire Knoutogermaique et la Révolution Sociale;” of the second part, “Sophismes historique de l’école des Communistes allemandes,” only a few pages were printed but not published: this part was rewritten at the end of 1872 […]

Ricardo Mella, “Free Cooperation and Communities”

January 28, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

Things have been a little quiet on this front, while I finish the introduction to “Anarchies and Anarchisms: 1840-1920.” But part of the work on that project has allowed me to make some more progress on the Collectivism Reader for this project. I’ve been looking at collectivism in Spain, and the “anarchism without adjectives” current that emerged from the conflict between collectivist and communist anarchists, and have finally the chance to get better acquainted with the work of figures like Tarrida del Mármal and Ricardo Mella. I’ve just posted a translation of an essay by Ricardo Mella, “Free Cooperation and […]

Henry Seymour, Michael Bakounine: A Biographical Sketch (1888)

January 8, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

MICHAEL BAKOUNINE: A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. BY HENRY SEYMOUR. Michael Bakounine was born of an ancient aristocratic Russian family in 1814. At an early age, his father, who was then a wealthy proprietor of Torchok in the governmental department at Twer, sent him to a cadet school in St. Petersburg; here he was soon entered as an artillery ensign. In those days this service was one which was reserved especially for the most favored nobles, the Czar’s traditional policy being to grant greater freedom of research in this than in other services. It is not to be wondered at, then, […]

Bakunin to Karl Marx, December 22, 1868

August 5, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

December 22, 1868. Geneva 123. Montbrillant. My old friend – Serno has shared with me the part of your letter that concerned me. You asked him if I continue to be your friend. – Yes, more than ever, dear Marx, because I understand better than ever how right you are in following, and in inviting us all to march on the wide road of economic revolution, and in denigrating those among us who would lose themselves on the paths of either national or exclusively political enterprises. I now do what you yourself commenced to do more than twenty years ago. […]

A Fragment from 1848

June 1, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

A Fragment from 1848 “The revolution will circle the earth!” Such was the prophetic cry that resounded in France at the end of the 18th century when the old world of lies, the world of an age-old servitude shaken by the powerful arms of an angry people, perceived the first cry. That call expressed the certainty that the revolution was a common call for all the peoples, the redemption of all the oppressed. And even more, the solidarity of men and nations in good as in evil: such is the last word of ancient civilization, but at the same time […]

Fundamental Principles of the New Slavic Politics (1848)

May 31, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Fundamental Principles of the New Slavic Politics. [June, 1848] Having traversed centuries of slavery, of painful struggles and suffering, the Slavs gather today for the first time in a general congress, and clasp hands for a fraternal alliance, declares solemnly before God and before the nations that the following principles will from now on form the basis of their new political existence. 1. Arrived last in the march of European civilization, tested and formed by longs misfortunes, they feel themselves called to accomplish what the other peoples of Europe have prepared by their previous development, what is regarded today […]

Happy 200th, Bakunin!

May 30, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Bakunin, and I’m personally celebrating by starting a new translation push. With one exception, the texts for the Bakunin Reader have been translated in draft form for a couple of months now, and I’ve been working on other aspects of the project while I’m waiting for that lone, but central translation to come in. There has been no shortage of relevant work to do, of course. The recent digitization project at the International Institute of Social History has made a number of related archives available online (Bakunin Papers, Max Nettlau Papers, Fédération […]

A fragment of a fragment

May 30, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[There are some genuinely fragmentary bits and pieces among the Bakunin texts, including this piece, which appears in a manuscript, copied by Max Nettlau and dated January-February 1876, but seems to have been composed in late 1870 or early 1871, probably in connection with The Knouto-Germanic Empire. I had worked through most of this before realizing it was probably from an earlier period, and I’ll just pass the finished portion along until I can return to the longer fragment in that other context.] Nevertheless we see today in France, this noble country of France, which seems to have received the […]

Bakunin’s recollections of youth

May 29, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Max Nettlau Contributions to the biography of Mikhail Bakunin La Société nouvelle, 1896 INTRODUCTORY REMARK It is only in these last two or three years that a mass of previously unknown documents, published for the first time, have begun to shed light on the lesser-known parts of Bakunin’s life, and even for the portions of that life that we believed sufficiently well known, an abundance of new and surprising facts present themselves. We cite, save the publications of theoretical writings after some manuscripts or rare publications, only the study of his relations with Byelinsky (by Milioukoff), the great correspondence with […]