Mikhail Bakunin
Bakunin's Writings
Politics and the State (1871)
We have repelled energetically every alliance with bourgeois
politics, even of the most radical nature. It has been pretended,
foolishly and slanderously, that we repudiated all such Political
connivance because we wore indifferent to the great question of
Liberty, and considered only the economic or material side of
the problem. It has been declared that, consequently, we placed
ourselves in the ranks of the reaction. A German delegate at the
Congress of Basle gave classic expression to this view, when he
dared to state that, who ever did not recognize, with the German
Socialists Democracy, "that the conquest of political rights
(power) was the preliminary condition of social emancipation,"
was, consciously or unconsciously an ally, of the Caesars!
These critics greatly deceive themselves and, "consciously
or unconsciously," endeavor to deceive the public concerning
us. We love liberty much more than they do. We love it to the
point of wishing it complete and entire. We wish the reality and
not the fiction. Hence we repel every bourgeois alliance, since
we are convinced that all liberty conquered by the aid of the
bourgeoisie, their political means and weapons, or by an alliance
with their political dupes, will prove profitable for Messrs.
the bourgeois, but never anything more than a fiction for the
workers.
Messrs. the bourgeois of all parties, including the most advanced,
however cosmopolitan they are, when it is a question of gaining
money by a more and more extensive exploitation of the labor of
the people, are all equally fervent and fanatical in their patriotic
attachment to the state. Patriotism is in reality, nothing but
the passion for and cult of the national State, as M. Thiers,
the very illustrious assassin of the Parisian proletariat, and
the present savior of France, has said recently. But whoever says
"State" says domination; and whoever says "domination"
says exploitation. Which proves that the popular or "folk's"
State, now become and unhappily remaining today the catchword
of the German Socialist Democracy, is a ridiculous contradiction,
a fiction, a falsehood, unconscious on the part of those who extol
it, doubtlessly, but, for the proletariat, a very dangerous trap.
The State, however popular may be the form it assumes, will
always be an institution of domination and exploitation, and consequently
a permanent source of poverty and enslavement for the populace.
There is no other way, then, of emancipating the people economically
and politically, of .giving them liberty and well-being at one
and the same time than by abolishing the State, all States, and,
by so doing, killing, once and for all time, what, up to now,
has been called "Politics," i. e., precisely nothing
else than the functioning or manifestation both internal
and external of State action, that is to say, the practice,
or art and science of dominating and exploiting' the masses in
favor of the privileged classes.
It is not true then to say that we treat politics abstractly.
We make no abstraction of it, since we wish positively to kill
it. And here is the essential point upon which we separate ourselves
absolutely from politicians and radical bourgeois Socialists (now
functioning as social or radical democracy which is only a facade
for capitalistic democracy,). Their policy consists in the transformation
of State politics, their use and reform. Our policy, the only
policy we admit, consists in the total abolition of the State,
and of politics, which is its necessary manifestation.
It is only because we wish frankly to this abolition of the
State that we believe that we have the right to call ourselves
Internationalists and Revolutionary Socialists; for whoever wishes
to deal with polities otherwise than how we do; whoever does not,
like us, wish the total abo lition of politics, must necessarily
participate in the politics of a patriotic and bourgeois State.
In other words, he renounces, by that very fact, in the name of
his great or little national State, the human solidarity of all
peoples, as well as the economic and social emancipation of the
masses at home.
Next: The Commune, the Church,
and the State