1870 Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Mikhail Bakunin, “Philosophical Considerations on the Divine Phantom, the Real World and Man” (1870)

June 13, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

Bakunin’s great unfinished work, The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution, covers a lot of ground, but one of its more interesting sections, the “Appendix” called “Philosophical Considerations on the Divine Phantom, the Real World and Man,” is concerned with questions that will be familiar to readers of its best-known fragment, “God and the State.” It is again a question of Bakunin’s elaboration and defense of materialism, with sections on “The System of the World” and “Religion.” Much of the focus is on the nature and proper subject matter of science. Part of the account takes the form of a critique of positivist philosophy, as pursued by the followers of Auguste Comte.

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Proclamations for 1870

January 16, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] EMPEROR NORTON PROJECT: [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] April 19, 1870 Norton’s Proclamation. Emperor Norton issued the following proclamation yesterday: Whereas, We, Norton I,. Dei Gratia, Emperor of North America, &c., being desirous of seeing the Central Pacific Railroad completed by having a good solid double track, and also having it warmed by means of heated pipes, so as to melt the snows during the winter, etc. And, whereas, we are in need of all our funds for this and other affairs of a personal nature. And whereas, the China merchants, Koopmanschap & Co. of San Francisco, have for a long time […]

Mikhail Bakunin, “The Reveille of the Peoples” (1870)

April 15, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

The Germans have just rendered an immense service to the French people. They have destroyed its army. The French army! That terrible instrument of imperial despotism, that unique reason for the existence of the Napoleons! As long as it existed, bristling with its fratricidal bayonets, there was no salvation for the French people. France could have a pronunciamento as in Spain, a military revolution, but never liberty. Paris, Lyon and so many other worker cities of France, know it well. Today that immense army, with its formidable organization, no longer exists. France can be free. It will be free, thanks […]

Mikhail Bakunin, from “Philosophical Considerations on the Divine Phantom, the Real World and Man” (1870)

April 6, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Here is a selection from the beginning of the “Appendix” to The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution, which Bakunin wrote in November-December, 1870.] Philosophical Considerations on the Divine Phantom, the Real World and Man 1. The System of the World This is not the place to enter into philosophical speculations about the nature of Being. However, as I find myself forced to use this word, nature, often, I believe I should say what I mean by it. I could say that nature is the sum of all really existing things. But that would give a completely dead idea of […]

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 […]

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.” […]

Mikhail Bakunin, “What is Authority” (1870)

September 8, 2016 anarchisms_w4l2ii

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 … Continue reading →

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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 […]

Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis (1870)

January 19, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis (September 1-8, 1870, Locarno, Switzerland) Letter to a Frenchman ___________ My dear friend, The latest events have placed France in such a position, that it can no longer be saved from a long and terrible slavery, from ruin, poverty, and annihilation, except by a rising en masse of the armed people. Your principal army being destroyed, — and that is no longer in doubt today, — there remains to France only two outcomes: either to submit sheepishly, shamefully, to the insolent yoke of the Prussians, to bow beneath the staff of […]

William B. Greene’s 1870 “Mutual Banking”

July 6, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

Since this post was written, most of Greene’s works on mutual credit have become available in various digital archives. Here are some links: Equality (1849) Mutual Banking (1850) The Radical Deficiency Of The Existing Circulating Medium, And The Advantages Of A Mutual Currency (1857) Mutual Banking, Showing The Radical Deficiencies Of The Existing Circulating Medium, And The Advantages Of A Free Currency (1870) I’ve been spending more time scanning and proofing than posting lately. The most important result of that is that William Batchelder Greene’s 1870 Mutual Banking, Showing The Radical Deficiencies Of The Existing Circulating Medium, And The Advantages […]