International Workingmen’s Association

Blazing Star Library

Address of the Internationals

May 2, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] ADDRESS OF THE INTERNATIONALS. The title of the International Association is sometimes rendered, in English, in translated documents, as follows, “Workingmen’s International Association,” and it is wrongly affirmed, in view of this fact, that the International Association of Working-People aims mainly to secure the welfare of the masculine element among the working-people, leaving the interests of the women at the mercy of the men. Many persons, misled by a simple error of translation, entirely mistake the aim of the association. It appears to be the dream of many otherwise estimable working-men, […]
Working Translations

The Present Institutions of the International from the Point of View of the Future (1869)

March 20, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
In the Archives Bakounine, this text is attributed to César de Paepe. Les institutions actuelles de l’Internationale au point de vue de l’avenir. L’Association internationale des Travailleurs porte dans ses flancs la régénération sociale. Il en est beaucoup qui conviennent que si l’Association vient à réaliser son programme, elle aura effectivement instauré le règne de la justice, mais qui croient que certaines institutions actuelles de l’Internationale ne sont que temporaires, et destinées à disparaître. Nous voulons montrer que l’Internationale offre déjà le type de la société à venir, et que ses diverses institutions, avec les modifications voulues, formeront l’ordre social […]
Bakunin Library

To the Compagnons of the International Workingmen’s Association of Locle and La Chaux de fond, Article 1 (1869)

September 10, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
(Progrès, no 6, Geneva, February 23, 1869 – March 1, 1869) To the Compagnons of the International Workingmen’s Association of Locle and La Chaux de fond. Friends and brothers, Before leaving your mountains, I felt the need to express to you one more time, in writing, my profound gratitude for the fraternal reception that you have given me. Isn’t it a marvelous thing that a man, a Russian, a former noble, who until now was perfectly unknown to you and who has for the first time set foot in your country, hardly arrived, finds himself surrounded by several hundred brothers! […]
Bakunin Library

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 Library

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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Bakunin Library

The Policy of the International (III & IV) (1869)

February 20, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Policy of the International III L’Égalité, August 21, 1869; If the International at first showed itself indulgent toward the subversive and reactionary ideas, whether in politics and religion, that the workers might have when joining it, it was not through indifference toward these ideas. We cannot tax it with indifference since it detests them and rejects them with all the strength of its being, every reactionary idea being the overturning of the very principle of the Revolution, as we have already demonstrated in our preceding articles. That indulgence, we repeat again, is inspired by a high wisdom. Knowing perfectly […]
Bakunin Library

The Policy of the International (I & II) (1869)

February 19, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Policy of the International I L’Égalité, August 7, 1869; “We have believed until now, said La Montagne, that political and religious opinions were independent of the profession of member of the International; and, as for us, that is the terrain on which we place ourselves.” We could believe, at first glance, that Mr. Coullery was right. For, in fact, in accepting a new member the International does not ask him whether he is religious or an atheist, whether or not he belongs to any political party. It simply asks him: Are you a worker, or if you are not, […]
Bakunin Library

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 […]