Michael Bakunin
8 June 1872
1) The order that prevails today in Poland, alongside the foreign yoke, testifies, as everywhere else, to the political and economic despotism of a privileged minority over the working masses which it continually exploits.
2) We define tyranny as the domination of man by man; likewise we strive for no other rule and recognise no other power than that of the social organisation of the people, through a free federation of free workers associations and peasant communes. For all power, even the most outwardly republican and democratic, is always aimed at the profit of a privileged minority and the enslavement of the people.
3) The conquest of true freedom for the Polish people requires as a necessary condition the abolition of the current regime on the political and economic level as well as on the juridical and religious level.
4) We can only achieve this goal by a general uprising, by social revolution.
5) The land will belong to the peasant communes as long as they are able to work it.
6) Similarly the factories, the machines, the buildings, the tools, even artisanal, will be the property of the workers’ associations.
7) Opponents of all statist power, we recognise no kind of historical or political right. For us, Poland exists only where the people want to be Polish and recognise themselves as such: it will cease to exist where that same people, no longer wishing to belong to the Polish Federation, freely chooses to join another national group.
8) We extend a fraternal hand to all our brothers, to all Slavs who, like us, find themselves under the yoke of governments that, like us, they abhor, in particular the Muscovite, Turkish, and German governments. These peoples have every right to claim their national independence and blossoming.
9) Finally, we likewise extend our fraternal hands to other peoples who aspire to freedom. We are ready to use all means at our disposal to help them achieve our common goal.
Long live the social revolution!
Long live the free commune!
Long live democratic and social Poland!