speeches Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Speech on the 17th Anniversary of the Polish Revolution

July 19, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Speech delivered November 29, 1847 and published in La Réforme, December 14, 1847. Gentlemen, This is a very solemn moment for me. I am Russian, and I come into the midst of this large assembly, which has gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the Polish revolution, whose very presence here is a sort of challenge, a threat, like a curse thrown the face of all the oppressors of Poland; – I come here, gentlemen, animated by a profound love and unalterable respect for my homeland. I am not unaware of how unpopular Russia is in Europe. The Polish regard it, […]

Speech at Malmö, Sweden, March 30, 1863

July 2, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

The working documents of an international movement can pose complicated problems for translators. Here, for example, is the text of a speech, apparently written in French, first reported in English, then translated back to French for the Collected Works from a Russian translation, though it is not immediately clear from which source the Russian translation was made. Now I have translated the second French version into English. In this case, given the simplicity of the sentiments expressed, all of this translation probably obscures very little in the text, but we can easily imagine cases where the vagueries of document preservation […]

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 […]

Speech of the citizen Bakunin to a public assembly of foreign socialists (1868)

January 19, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Speech of the citizen Bakunin to a public assembly of foreign socialists November 23, 1868 [After saying that the Assembly had not only gathered to pay homage to the memory of the brave republican Baudin, murdered by the brigands of December, but also to express its devotion to the principles of the democratic and social Republic, the citizen Bakunin expressed himself in these terms:] We are socialists, [he said,] that is to say that we all want: Equality of political, economic and social conditions for all; Equality of the means of support, education, and instruction for all children of both […]