Michael Bakunin
March 1866
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67 - The national catechisms of different countries may therefore vary on all secondary points. - But there are essential and fundamental points which must also be mandatory for the national organisations of all countries and which must consequently form the common basis of all national catechisms. These points are:
a) The impossibility of the success of an isolated national revolution and consequently the necessity of an alliance and a revolutionary federation amongst all peoples who desire freedom.
b) The impossibility of such a federation or alliance without a common programme that equally satisfies the legitimate rights and needs of all nations, and that, without regard for so-called historical rights, nor for what are called the necessities or salvation of states, nor for any other vain or ambitious claim to predominance and power - all things which a people must know how to reject if it wishes to be truly free - will have as its sole principle and basis equal freedom for all and only justice.
c) Incompatibility of such a programme, incompatibility of freedom, equality, justice, cheap government, well-being, and the real emancipation of the working classes with the existence of centralised, militaristic and bureaucratic States. Absolute necessity of destroying all currently existing states in Europe, except Switzerland[1], and of radically dismantling all the political, military, administrative, judicial and financial institutions that today constitute the life and power of states.
d) Abolition of all religion, and of all state churches or state-subsidised churches, confiscation of all movable and immovable property of the Churches for the benefit of the provinces and communes - with this provision that all religions becoming henceforth absolutely free and concerning only the individual conscience of each person, each cult, whatever it may be, will be maintained solely by its believers.
e) Absolute necessity for each country wishing to be part of the free federation of peoples to replace its centralist, bureaucratic and military organisation with a federal organisation, founded solely on the absolute freedom and the autonomy of regions, provinces, communes, associations and individuals - with officials elected and responsible to the people, and with the arming of the nation [armement national]; an organisation which will no longer proceed as it does today, from top to bottom, and from the centre to the circumference, by the principle of unity, but from bottom to top and the circumference to the centre, by principle of free federation, starting from free individuals, who will form autonomous associations, communes; communes that will form autonomous provinces, provinces that will form regions; and regions, which by freely federating amongst themselves will form countries, which in turn will sooner or later form the universal and world federation.
f) The necessity of recognising the absolute right of secession for all countries, all regions, all provinces, all communes, all associations, as well as for all individuals - with the conviction that once the right of secession is recognised - secessions in practice will become impossible, because national unities ceasing to be the produce of violence and historical falsehood, will be freely formed by the necessities and affinities inherent in each of their parts.
g) Political freedom is impossible without political equality.
Impossibility of the latter without economic and social equality.
h) Necessity of a social revolution.
The extent and scope of this revolution will differ to varying degrees in each country, depending upon the political and social situation and the degree of revolutionary development in each. - However, in all countries, it will be necessary to proclaim certain principles which alone today will be capable of engaging and rousing the popular masses regardless of the state of their civilisation. These are the following principles:
(a) The land belongs to everyone. But its use will belong only to those who cultivate it with their own hands. Abolition of the rent of land.
(b) All social wealth being produced only by labour, whoever enjoys it without working is a thief.
(c) Political rights should belong only to honest people, they will belong only to workers.
(d) Without any spoliation, but solely by the economic effects and power of workers associations, capital and the instruments of labour will fall into the possession of those who apply them to the production of wealth by their own work.
(e) Every man must be the son of his deeds, and justice will only be satisfied when the organisation of society is such that everyone finds at birth the same means of support, education, instruction, and later the same external opportunities to create their own well-being by their own work.
(f) As far as possible in each country, emancipation of marriage from the tutelage of society - and equalisation of the rights of women with those of men.[2]
(i) No revolution can succeed in any country today unless it is simultaneously a political and social revolution. Any exclusively political revolution, whether national and directed solely against foreign domination, or domestic constitutional, even if its aim is the republic - consequently not having as its principal objective the immediate and real political and economic emancipation of the people - will be an illusory, deceitful, hopeless, disastrous, retrograde, and counter-revolutionary revolution.
(j) The revolution must not only be made for the people, it must be made by the people, and it can never succeed unless it involves all the masses of the countryside as well as those of the cities.
(k) Thus centralised by the idea and by the oneness of a programme common to all countries; centralised by a secret organisation which will rally not only all parts of a country, but also many if not all countries in a single plan of action; centralised again by the simultaneity of revolutionary movements in many rural and urban areas, the revolution must henceforth have to take and retain a local character, in the sense that it must not begin with a large concentration of all the revolutionary brothers of a country in a single place, nor ever again take on the romantic and bourgeois character of a quasi-revolutionary expedition, but, igniting at once in all parts of a country, it will take on that of a true popular revolution, in which women, the elderly, children will also take part, and which will thereby become invincible.
(l) This revolutionary may well be bloody and vindictive in its first days, during which popular justice will take place. But it will not retain this character for long, and will never assume that of systematic and cold-blooded terrorism. - It will wage war on positions and things far more than on men, certain that things and the privileged and anti-social positions they create, much more powerful than individuals, constitute both the character and strength of its enemies.
(m) It will therefore begin by destroying everywhere all institutions and all establishments: churches, parliament, courts, administrations, army, banks, universities, etc., which constitute the very existence of the state. - The state must be completely demolished and declared bankrupt, not only in financial terms, but also in political, bureaucratic, military, judicial and police terms. But having gone bankrupt, having even ceased to exist, unable to pay its debts, the state will no longer be able to force anyone to pay their own - this responsibility will naturally fall upon each person’s own conscience - At the same time everything that had belonged to the state will be confiscated for the benefit of the revolution in the communes and in the cities; the property of all reactionaries will also be confiscated, and all legal documents, whether related to lawsuits, property, or debts, will be burned, declaring null and void all civil, criminal, judicial or official paperwork that could not be destroyed, leaving everyone in the status quo of their possession.
In this way the social revolution will be accomplished, and once the enemies of the revolution are deprived of the means to harm it, there will be little need to resort to bloody measures against them, measures which are all the more undesirable as they invariably lead to a regrettable reaction sooner or later.
(n) At the same time as it localises itself everywhere, the revolution will necessarily take on a federalist character. Immediately after overthrowing the established government, the communes will have to reorganise themselves in a revolutionary manner, choosing leaders, an administration and revolutionary courts, all based on universal suffrage and the real accountability of all officials before the people. To defend the revolution, their volunteers will at the same time form a communal militia. - But no commune will be able to defend itself remaining isolated. It will therefore be a necessity for each one to spread the revolution outwards by rousing all the neighbouring communes and, as they rise - to federate with them for common defence. - They will necessarily form a federal pact amongst themselves, based simultaneously on the solidarity of all and the autonomy of each. This pact will constitute the provincial charter. For the governance of common affairs, a provincial government and an assembly or parliament will necessarily be formed. The same revolutionary necessities will drive the autonomous provinces to federalise into regions, the regions into national federations, and the nations into international federations. And the order and unity destroyed as products of violence and despotism will be reborn from the very heart of freedom.
(o) Necessity of conspiracy and a strong secret organisation, converging at an international centre, to prepare this revolution.
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[1] Needless to say, Bakunin’s perspectives on the Swiss State changed after he spent time there, seeing first hand that it was fundamentally no different than other States in spite of its federalist character. (Translator)
[2] There is no entry “h” in the original text. (Translator)