fragments

Bakunin Library

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 […]
Bakunin Library

Revolutionary Socialism in Russia (1875)

July 5, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
Revolutionary Socialism in Russia [1875] We have before us a very curious text, the translation of which the reader will find, added as an appendix, at the end of this article. It is a confidential circular, recently issued by Mr. le Comte Pahlen, minister of what is called justice in Russia. We find there an indisputable proof of the threatening invasions of revolutionary socialism in that country. Indeed, it is not the fanatical exaltation of a sectarian, nor the interested calculation of a socialist politician, it is the authorized voice of a statesman, minister of a great Empire, that speaks […]
Bakunin Library

Fragments concerning Freemasonry – B (1865)

July 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
FRAGMENTS CONCERNING FREEMASONRY [Summer-Fall 1865] B. Catechism of Freemasonry I. Theology Leaving aside the transcendent question, probably insoluble for man, of the Absolute and the existence or non-existence of an otherworldly and extra-human God; – Considering at the same time that as soon as man posits the truth and justice, the principle regulator of his acts, outside of his being, outside of his reason and conscience, he declares himself at that moment incapable of justice and truth, and posits the necessity of a revelation, and consequently the necessity of an absolute authority, which, in the form of the Church and […]
Bakunin Library

Fragments concerning Freemasonry – A (1865)

July 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
FRAGMENTS CONCERNING FREEMASONRY [Summer-Fall 1865] A. In order to become once again a living and useful body, Freemasonry must once again seriously take up the service of humanity. But what does these words mean today: to serve humanity? – Would it be to protect the innocents and the weak, to care for the sick, to feed and clothe the destitute, to give education to poor children? All of these works are extremely commendable and as practical applications of the principle of human fraternity, they are more or less part, according to the capacity of each, of the duties not only […]
Bakunin Library

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 […]
Anarchism

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 […]