Mikhail Bakunin
Bakunin's Writings
The Policy of the Council (1869)
The Council of Action does not ask any worker if he is of a
religious or atheistic turn of mind. She does not ask if he belongs
to this or that or no political party. She simply says: Are you
a worker ? If not, do you feel necessity of devoting yourself
wholly to the interests of the working class, and of avoiding
all movements that are opposed to it? Do you feel at one with
the workers? And have you the strength in you that is requisite
if you would be loyal to their cause? Are you aware that the workers
who create all wealth who have made civilization and fought for
liberty --and domed to live in misery, ignorance, and slavery?
Do you understand that the main root of all the evils that the
workers experience, is poverty? And that poverty--which is the
common lot of the workers in all parts of the world--is a consequence
of the present economic organization of society, and especially
of the enslavement of labor--i.e. the proletariat--under the yoke
of capitalism--i.e. the bourgeoisie.
Do you know that between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie
there exists a deadly antagonism which is the logical consequence
of the economic positions of the two classes? Do you know that
the wealth of the bourgeoisie is incompatible with the comfort
and liberty of the workers, because their excessive wealth is,
and can only be, built upon the robbing and enslavement of the
workers? Do you understand that, for the same reason, the prosperity
and dignity of the laboring masses inevitably demands the entire
abolition of the bourgeoisie? Do you realize that no single worker,
however intelligent and energetic he may be, can fight successfully
against the excellently organized forces of the bourgeoisie-a
fore which is upheld mainly by the organization of the State--all
States.
Do you not see that, in order to become a power, you must unite-not
with the bourgeoisie, which would be a folly and a crime, since
all the bourgeoisie, so far as they belong to their class, are
our deadly enemies? -Nor with such workers as have deserted their
own cause and have lowered themselves to beg for the benevolence
of the governing classes? But with the honest men, who are moving,
in all sincerity, towards the same goal as you? Do you understand,
against the powerful combinations, formed by the privileged classes
the capitalists or possessors of the means and instruments of
production and distribution, the divided or sectarian associations
of labor, can ever triumph? Do you not realize that, in order
to fight and to vanquish this capitalist combination, nothing
less than the amalgamation, in council and action, of all local,
and national labor associations--federating into an international
associations of the workers of all lands,--is required.
If you know and comprehend all this, come into our camp whatever
else your political or religious convictions are. But if you are
at one with us, and so long as you are at one with us, you will
wish to pledge the whole of your being, by your every action as
well as by your words, to the common cause, as a spontaneous and
whole-hearted expression of that fervor of loyalty that will inevitably
take possession of you. You will have to promise:
1. To subordinate your personal and even your family interest,
as well as political and religious bias and would be activities,
to the highest interest of our association, namely the struggle
of labor against Capital, the economic fight of the Proletariat
against the Bourgeoisie
2. Never, in your personal interests, to compromise with the
bourgeoisie.
3. Never try to attempt to secure a position above your fellow
workers, whereby you would become at once a bourgeois and an enemy
of the proletariat: for the only difference between capitalists
and workers is this: the former seek their welfare outside, and
at the expense of, the welfare of the community whilst the welfare
of the latter is dependent on the solidarity of these who are
robbed on the industrial field.
4 To remain ever and always to this principle of the solidarity
of labor: for the smallest betrayal of this principle, the slightest
deviation from this solidarity, is, in the eyes of the International,
the greatest crime and shame with which a worker can soil himself.
The pioneers of the Councils of Action act wisely in refusing
to make philosophic or political principles the basis of their
association, and preferring to have the exclusively economic struggle
of Labor against Capital as the sole foundation. They are convinced
that the moment a worker realizes the class struggle, the moment
he--trusting to his right and the numerical strength of his class--enters
the arena against capitalist robbery: that very moment, the for
of circumstances and the evolution of the struggle , will oblige
him to recognize all the political, socialistic, and philosophic
principles of the class-struggle. These principles are nothing
more or less than the real expression of the aims and objects
of the working-class. The necessary and inevitable conclusion
of these aims, their one underlying and supreme purpose, is the
abolition-from the political as well as from the social viewpoint
of:
1. The class-divisions existent in society, especially of these
divisions imposed on society by, and in the economic interests
of the bourgeoisie.
2. All Territorial States,Political Fatherlands and Nations,
and on the top of the historic ruins of this old word order, the
establishment of the great international federation of all local
and national productive groups.
From the philosophic point of view, the aims of the working
class are nothing less than the realization of the eternal ideas
of humanity, the welfare of man, the reign of equality, justice,
and liberty on earth, making unnecessary all belief in heaven
and all hopes for a better hereafter.
The great mass of the workers, crushed by their daily toil,
live in ignorance and misery. Whatever the political and religious
prejudices in which they have been reared individually may be,
this mass is unconsciously Socialistic: instinctively, and, through
the pinch of hunger and their position, more earnestly and truly
Socialistic than all the "scientific" and "bourgeois
Socialists" put together. The mass are Socialists through
all the circumstances of reasoning; and, in reality, the necessities
of life have a greater influence over these of pure reasoning,
because reasoning (or thought) is only the reflex of the continually
developing life--force and not its basis.
The workers do not lack reality, the zeal for Socialist endeavor,
but only the Socialist idea. Every worker, from the bottom of
his heart, is longing for a really human existence, i.e. material
comfort and mental development founded on justice, i.e., equality
and liberty for each and every man in work. This cannot be realized
in the existing political and social organization, which is founded
on injustice and bare-faced robbery of the laboring masses. Consequently,
every reflective worker becomes a revolutionary Socialist, since
he is forced to realize that his emancipation can only be accomplished
by the complete overthrow of present day society. Either this
organization of injustice with its entire machine of oppressive
laws and privileged institutions, must disappear, or else the
proletariat is condemned to eternal slavery.
This is the quintessence of the Socialist idea, whose germs
can be found in the instinct of every serious thinking worker.
Our object, therefore, is to make him conscious of what he wants,
to awaken in him a clear idea that corresponds to his instincts:
for the moment the class consciousness of the proletariat has
lifted itself up to the level of their instinctive feeling, their
intention will have developed into determination, and their power
will be irresistible.
What prevents the quicker development of this idea of salvation
amongst the Proletariat? Its ignorance; and, to a great extent,
the political and religious prejudices with which the governing
classes are trying to befog the consciousness and the natural
intelligence of the people. How can you disperse this ignorance
and destroy these strange prejudices? "The liberation of
the Proletariat must be the work of the Proletariat itself;"
says the preface to the general statute of the (First) International.
And it is a thousand times true! This is the main foundation of
our great association. But the working class is still very ignorant.
It lacks completely every theory. There is only one way out therefore,
namely--Proletarian liberation through action. And what will this
action be that will bring the masses to Socialism? It is the economic
struggle of the Proletariat against the governing class carried
out in solidarity. It is the Industrial Organization of the workers-the
Council of Action.
Next: The Organization of the
International