Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (1814—1876) was a Russian revolutionary and the principal theorist of collectivist anarchism. His participation in uprisings across Europe, his imprisonment, his exile to Siberia, and his escape through Japan and the United States made him a figure of legend within revolutionary movements. His political legacy, however, rests on his arguments rather than his adventures.
Core ideas
- Critique of the state: Bakunin argued that the state is not a neutral instrument that can be seized and redirected but a structure that generates domination regardless of who holds it. A revolutionary state would reproduce hierarchy, bureaucracy, and coercion under new management. This critique applied to Marx’s program directly: Bakunin predicted that a dictatorship of the proletariat would become a dictatorship over the proletariat.
- The anarchist-communist split: Bakunin’s conflict with Karl Marx in the First International (the International Workingmen’s Association) defined the central division in revolutionary politics. Marx argued that the working class must seize state power as a transitional step; Bakunin argued that seizing state power reproduces domination. Marx expelled Bakunin from the International in 1872. The split established anarchism and authoritarian socialism as distinct and often opposed traditions.
- Collectivist anarchism: Bakunin advocated the collective ownership of the means of production, organized through free federation of workers’ associations. Unlike later anarcho-communists such as Pyotr Kropotkin, Bakunin retained a principle of remuneration according to labor performed.
- Revolutionary federalism: social organization should proceed from the bottom up — from the commune to the federation — with no central authority empowered to compel obedience. Coordination without command.
Notable works
- God and the State (Dieu et l’État, written 1871, published posthumously 1882)
- Statism and Anarchy (Gosudarstvennost’ i anarkhiya, 1873)
Related
- Anarchism — the political tradition he shaped
- Karl Marx — his principal antagonist in the First International
- Emma Goldman — carried anarchist thought into American practice
- Pyotr Kropotkin — developed anarcho-communism from Bakunin’s collectivism