The new issue of Black Flag: Anarchist Review is now available:
This year’s second issue is a special to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of Michael Bakunin. This follows our Peter Kropotkin (Autumn 2025) and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (Spring 2025) specials and has the same format – articles on Bakunin, by Bakunin and reviews of works by or on him. Many of the articles by Bakunin have been newly translated, some of them for the first time (as far as we are aware).
While best known for his struggle against Marx in the (First) International and his correct prediction that the so-called workers’ State would generate a new ruling class, there is much more to Bakunin than that. He wrote on a wide range of subjects which activists today will find of interest – the nature of a social revolution, union organising, nationalism and national liberation, atheism, the need for a specific anarchist organisation, amongst others. This issue of Black Flag includes writings on all these subjects.
It is important to stress that the conflict within the International was not a personal one. Bakunin was a champion of a tendency which had existed within it since the start, one which could be termed (to use a later word) syndicalist – one which argued for struggle on the economic terrain and favoured federalist socio-economic organisation which prefigured the socialist world desired. This inevitably brought the federalist-wing of the International into conflict with Marx who favoured political action (electioneering) and centralised political organisation (parties). Bakunin championed this tendency (which proved to be the majority of the International) and became its best-known advocate.
As becomes clear from the writings included in this issue, Bakunin advocated syndicalist tactics and specific anarchist organisation. However, this is often ignored by commentators upon him and anarchism. Instead, Bakunin’s constructive ideas are replaced with suggestions that he was an advocate of pan-destruction and terrorism. Suffice to say, comparing hostile accounts of Bakunin to anarchist ones and the reader would not be condemned if they concluded that there were about two different people with the same name.
Often criticism is based on works for which any actual evidence of Bakunin’s authorship is lacking or, at best, limited, superficial or dubious. These date from his short association – and infatuation – with the Russian Nihilist Sergi Nechaev and many of the commentators seem blissfully unaware of any research conducted since Marx and Engels first made the assertion, research which shows that Bakunin had no role in the infamous works written during that short period and that Nechaev was their author. This explains why their content is so at odds with Bakunin’s other writings, whether public or private.
Distortion matters, however. The attacks by Marx and Engels seem to have lead John Most to conclude that terrorism was the anarchist strategy while the International Working People’s Association (IWPA) English-language journal The Alarm in Chicago publishing Nechayev’s Catechism of a Revolutionary under Bakunin’s name. This leads to the bizarre situation of some proclaiming the IWPA as non-anarchist because they were proto-syndicalists when, in reality, they were following Bakunin’s actual (syndicalist) strategy within the International as we have discussed in previous issues of Black Flag Anarchist Review.
None of this means that Bakunin cannot be criticised. Like Proudhon, all too often he is better read in an edited form. Like Proudhon, he was anti-Semitic and his writings on Marx are sometimes marred by it. However, his bigotries are not fundamental to his critique – and he also rejects Proudhon’s sexism, being a strong advocate of equality between the sexes and women’s rights. He was also far too optimistic about the possibility of a social revolution – as one commentor rightly observed, Bakunin all too often acted like someone who mistook the second for the nineth month of pregnancy. Finally, his fascination for conspiracy and secrecy – while understandable given his personal history and the social context – was often taken too far while his term “invisible dictatorship” was unfortunate because it is misleading when taken out of context (as it almost always is). However, this aspect of his ideas is all too often exaggerated and distorted while its useful aspects ignored.
Still, we are anarchists and not “Bakuninists” and do not blindly follow anyone, no matter how important their contributions are to the cause. We can recognise someone as being an important thinker and activist as well as a flawed individual (like everyone else). The writings included should show why Bakunin is still of interest to anarchists and other activists today.
Original translations which appear in Black Flag: Anarchist Review eventually appear on-line here:
https://anarchistfaq.org/translations/index.html
This year we aim to continue to cover a range of people and subjects. These will hopefully include Guy Aldred, the Haymarket events, the Spanish Revolution, the founding of Freedom, amongst others.
However, this work needs help otherwise at some stage it will end. Contributions from libertarian socialists are welcome on these and other subjects! We are a small collective and always need help in writing, translating and gathering material, so please get in touch if you want to see Black Flag Anarchist Review continue.
This issue’s editorial and contents are:
Editorial
Welcome to the second issue of Black Flag in 2026!
Following on from our Kropotkin (Volume 2, Number 3) and Proudhon (Volume 5, Number 1) specials, this issue is a Bakunin special to mark the 150th anniversary of his death in 1876. We include articles on and by Bakunin, including new translations as well as reprints of his writings from the anarchist press.
Born into the Russian aristocracy in 1814, he became a left-Hegelian and republican. He met both Proudhon and Marx when he came to Western Europe to study. An advocate of pan-Slavism, he was a keen participant in the 1848 Revolution, taking to the barricades in Prague and Dresden. Imprisoned and sentenced to death, he was extradited multiple times before being handed to the Tsar and placed in solitary confinement in 1851. Exiled to Siberia in 1857, he escaped and returned to Western Europe. After the failure of the 1863 Polish revolt, Bakunin turned to socialism as he realised that the peasants were not interested in helping the Polish nobility to rule and exploit them. After failing to convince the League of Peace and Freedom to embrace the social question, he joined the International in 1868 and became a leading champion of collectivism within it – and became an anarchist.
Accounts of Bakunin’s anarchist politics are a mixed bag. Many of the hostile ones base themselves on texts for which the evidence that Bakunin wrote them is lacking. Some mix his earlier ideas with his anarchist ones. The obvious problems with both these dubious activities rarely hinder their acceptance by non-anarchists. Unsurprisingly, such accounts begin with Marx and Engels in their diatribes seeking to combat Bakunin’s rising influence within the International. Suffice to say, what anarchists take from Bakunin has little or no resemblance to such articles as the texts we include here show – both those on and by Bakunin.
We start with articles on Bakunin, starting with two written to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth, followed by two written for the 100th anniversary of his death. We follow this with more recent accounts of his ideas, seeking to show the importance of Bakunin as both an activist and as a thinker to revolutionary anarchism.
Then we move onto Bakunin’s own writings, grouped by theme. While best remembered for his struggle against, and prescient critique of, Marx within the International, Bakunin’s legacy is far greater as this selection of writings show. We include texts on a range of subjects, including the labour movement, federalism, socialism, social revolution, the role of anarchist groups and libertarian education. We have decided to reprint some of Bakunin’s articles which we have published in previous issues to make them easily accessible to readers and to present all the relevant writings in a single issue of Black Flag. All should be of interest to anarchists and radicals today – particularly given that Bakunin has usually been proven correct in his analysis, not least as regards Marxism.
While Bakunin advocated what became known as revolutionary syndicalism (as noted by the French syndicalists themselves), as Max Nettlau suggests his ideas were wider than that and so he cannot be reduced to simply being a syndicalist. His advocacy of the importance of anarchists organising as anarchists to influence the labour movement from within is an obvious point of divergence. So as well as being a precursor of syndicalism, he was also a precursor of especifismo – recognising the need, necessity, of a specific anarchist federation.
We end with reviews of works about and by Bakunin which should be of interest to those seeking to discover more about Bakunin’s life and ideas. Mark Leier’s 2006 biography, Bakunin: The Creative Passion, covers both well.
If you want to contribute rather than moan at those who do, whether its writing new material or letting us know of on-line articles, reviews or translations, then contact us:
blackflagmag@yahoo.co.uk
Contents
On Bakunin
- M. Baginski, “Michael Bakunin (1814-1914)”, Mother Earth, May 1914
- N. [Max Nettlau], “Michael Bakunin”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, June 1914
- “Putting the record straight on Mikhail Bakunin”, Libertarian Communist Review No. 2, 1976
- Sam Dolgoff, “Bakunin’s Impact on Russian Anarchism”, Freedom’s Anarchist Review, 6 November 1976
- Iain McKay, Will the real Bakunin please stand up?
- Andrew Flood, “Bakunin’s idea of revolution & revolutionary organisation”, Red and Black Revolution, Number 6, Spring 2002
- Iain McKay, The Revolutionary Ideas of Bakunin
- Wayne Price, Bakunin on National Self-Determination
- Robert Graham, The Anarchist Bakunin
By Bakunin
Introductory
- Federalism, Socialism and Anti-Theologism, 1868
- “The Programme of La Démocratie”, La Voix de l’Avenir, 24 May 1868
- Truly Human Discipline, 1870
- The Capitalist System, November-December 1870
The International
- To Karl Marx, 22 December 1868
- “Integral Education”, L’Égalité, 31 July 1869 to 21 August 1869
- “Policy of the International”, L’Égalité, 7 to 28 August 1869
- To Albert Richard, 12 March 1870
- Protest of the Alliance, 4 to 24 July 1871
- “The Organisation of the International”, L’Almanach du Peuple pour 1872
- Protest of the Alliance (continued), 4 to 24 July 1871
- To the editors of La Liberté, 5 October 1872
- “To the comrades of the Jura Federation”, Bulletin de la Fédération Jurassienne, 12 October 1873
The Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune
- To Albert Richard, 1 April 1870
- Letters to a Frenchman on the current crisis, September 1870
- French Republic Revolutionary Federation of Communes, 27 September 1870
- The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State, 5-23 June 1871
The Critique of Mazzini
- Circular to my Friends in Italy, 19-28 October 1871
- To the Editors of Proletario Italiano, 16-28 November 1871
- The Political Theology of Mazzini and the International, December 1871
- To Celso Cerretti, 13-27 March 1872
Revolutionary Groups
- Principles and Organisation of the Revolutionary International Society, March 1866
- Programme and Aim of the Revolutionary Organisation of the International Brothers, Autumn 1868
- Programme of the Russian Socialist Democracy, September 1868
- Programme of the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, 17 April 1869
- To Albert Richard, 7 February 1870
- To Paulo, 21 May 1872
- Programme of the Polish Social-Revolutionary Society of Zurich, 8 June 1872
- To the Brothers of the Alliance in Spain, 12-13 June 1872
From the Anarchist Press
- “False Idealism”, Liberty, June 1896
- “Bakunin on Universal Suffrage”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, January 1910
- “The State and German Social Democracy”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, July 1914
- “Bourgeois Socialism”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, February 1915
- “God or Freedom?”, Freedom, December 1920
- “Direct Action”, Why?, August-September 1942
Reviews
- Albert Meltzer, “Michael Bakunin: Roots of Apocalypse”, Black Flag, October 1982
- Iain McKay, Critique of State Socialism
- Iain McKay, Statism and Anarchy
- José Antonio Gutiérrez D., Bakunin: Selected Texts 1868–1875
- Wayne Price, Bakunin’s Anarchism Reconsidered
Michael Bakunin, “Organisation and General Strike”, Égalité, 3 April 1869