Bakunin Library Archives - Page 8 of 13 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

James Guillaume, “Federalism” (1871)

March 31, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

In the second issue of Solidarité, dated April 1871, James Guillaume contributed this piece on the federative principle, in the context of the Paris Commune. Note the use of Proudhon’s concept of “collective force.” I’m working on translating a series of texts on nationality and the federative principle, to go with forthcoming issues of LeftLiberty. _____ Federalism. The true character of the revolution that was accomplished at Paris commence has been outlined in so marked a fashion that you, even the minds most unfamiliar with political theories, can now perceive it clearly. The revolution of Paris is federalist. The Parisian […]

The Bears of Berne and the Bear of Saint-Petersburg (1870)

March 31, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE BEARS OF BERNE AND THE BEAR OF SAINT-PETERSBURG ___________ Patriotic lament for a humiliated and hopeless Switzerland March, 1870 The Russian government has judged our Federal Council well, when it dared to demand the extradition of the Russian patriot Nechayev. Everyone knows that the order has been given to all the cantonal police to seek and arrest that revolutionary, as intrepid as tireless, who, after having escaped twice from the claws of the czar, that is from death preceded by the most dreadful tortures, would probably have believed, that once having taken refuge in the Swiss republic, he would […]

“My dear Grand Papa” (1824)

March 31, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

My dear Grand Papa. I congratulate you on your big day. I wish you great joy, and to pass this day very happily. I promised you to always do better and better, and I make my best efforts to keep my word, and another time I will do better still. This great party is so uncommon, but for that reason very diverting. My sisters and brothers are very contents with this party, and congratulate you on your big day, and wish you much joy. My sisters have made you some presents, but, me, I have nothing to give you at […]

Bakunin, Plan for a revolutionary association (fragment)

March 31, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[From an undated manuscript, probably written in 1866.] Plan for a revolutionary association. ───────── 1) Those only can be international brothers who accept in their entirety and in their spirit these principles their bases for revolutionary politics. 2) An international brother must put the interests of the general revolution of Europe above the exclusive and narrow interests of his own country; he must at least understand that even by sacrificing to the general revolution the fleeting interests of his country, he assures that much better its permanent emancipation. 3) The international brothers must not be brothers in name, but in […]

Undated fragment on pan-Slavism and anarchism

March 30, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Manuscript fragment: …and which has consequently rendered impossible at present the constitution of a centralist, bureaucratic and military Slavic State… In the end that fine Slavic brotherhood, which could no longer exist from the moment that the Slavs, sacrificing Abel to Cain, received the latter, as their elder brother, into their midst… in a word all the precious elements that the Slavs have guarded, in the midst of the terrible vicissitudes that they have experienced for centuries, which, rendered fertile by a new spirit—that of great justice, great liberty and universal fraternity—could well become one day those of a new […]

Letter to Zamfir Arbore, September 1873

March 26, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Letter to Zamfir Arbore (Zamfir Ralli), September 1873, Locarno, Switzerland.] My friend Ralli, So you are already informed about the Congress of Geneva, the decision has been taken to remove the General Council. Three propositions have been made, all three by people who do not understand very well what is necessary for us, anarchists; some propose to organize, by replacing the suppressed General Council, [with] a common central commission, others want three commissions, and a third group proposes to delegate the powers to one of the federations for the general administration of the international. It has occurred to none of […]

Counter-Proposal on Resistance Funds (1869)

March 20, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[“Reaction to a report of the Central Section of Geneva of the I.W.A., adopted in a session of the Alliance on August 14, [1869].”] Counter-Proposal 1) There must be created in each section, corporation or society in the International Association a resistant fund [caisse de résistance]. 2) In order to form that fund, each corporative section or society, by a decision taken in the general assembly, modifiable by later assemblies, of the section or corporative society will impose [a contribution] on all its members, always conforming to the rate of their wages. 3) No shareholder, except in very serious cases […]

Bakunin Library

Bakunin, Two Speeches to the Congress of the IWA at Basle (1869)

March 20, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Two Speeches to the Congress of the IWA at Basle [L’Egalité, September 18, October 1, 1869, Geneva] I. Between the collectivists who think that after having voted for collective property, it becomes useless to vote for the abolition of the right of inheritance, and the collectivists who, like us, think that it is useful and even necessary to vote for it, there is only a simple difference in point of view. They place themselves fully in the future, and taking collective property as their point of departure, find that there is no more place to speak of the right […]

Bakunin Library

On Cooperation (1869)

March 20, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

ON COOPERATION [L’Egalité, September 4, 1869; Guillaume’s note (Oeuvres, t.IV, p.210) suggests this article may be by Charles Perron. What should be the character and what will be the means of the economic agitation and of the laborers of the International, before that social revolution that alone could emancipate them in a complete and definitive manner? The experience of recent years indicates two ways, one negative, the other positive: the strike funds andcooperation. Under this general word cooperation, we mean all the known systems of consumptions of mutual credit or of credit to labor or production. In the application […]

Bakunin, “To the Brothers of the Alliance in Spain” (1872)

March 17, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Marx, as a thinker, is on the right track. He has established as a principle that all the political, religious and legal evolutions in history are not causes, but effects of the economic evolutions. It is a great and productive thought, that he has not absolutely invented: it has been glimpsed, expressed in part, by many others than him; but finally, to him belongs the honor of having solidly established it and having posited it as the basis of his whole economic system. On the other hand, Proudhon understand and felt liberty beaucoup much better than him—Proudhon, when he did not engage in doctrine and metaphysics, had the true instinct of the revolutionary—he adored Satan and he proclaimed an-archy. It is quite possible that Marx could raise himself theoretically to an even more rational system of liberty than Proudhon—but he lacks Proudhon’s instinct.

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