Michael Bakunin
1 April 1870
Dear friend. I still find myself here and every day I await news of the arrival of the relative that you know, so that I can go and meet them.
Complete reaction in the International of Geneva. - The fabrica [fabrique] has triumphed on all fronts in my absence, and no one was found to halt that triumph. Egalité has become a reactionary paper. Here is the programme: Cooperation and the local politics of bourgeois radicalism. From now on the Geneva International will nothing more than a stepping-stone to bring the Perrets and Grosselins to power. Old Becker, weakened by age, has gotten in tow with the reaction - he also takes the side of [participation in] local politics.
[...]
This [up-coming] Congress will be very important for the future of the International in French-speaking Switzerland. There will be a great battle. It will be mainly about the question of the abstention or participation of the workers in local politics. We all, the sections from the Mountains, are for abstention. The strictly Genevan workers, the fabrica, [are] for participation. [...]
[...]
If our party succumbs, the separation and independent organisation of the sections of the Mountains will take place - and then we will have as an organ not Egalité, but Progrès of Locle, which will probably then move to Neufchâtel, under the direction of Guillaume. It will then be Progrès that we should support with our correspondence and by securing many subscriptions for it.
Besides its local importance, the battle that will take place at La chaux de Fonds will have an immense universal significance. It will be the forerunner and precursor of the one that we will have to wage at the next General Congress of the International:
Do we want the grand politics of universal socialism or the petty politics of the bourgeois radicals revised and corrected from the point of view of the bourgeois workers?
Do we want the abolition of the bourgeois homelands and political States and the advent of the universal State, socialist and unique?
Do we want the complete emancipation of the workers or merely the improvement of their lot?
Do we want to create a new world or patch-up the old?
[...]
So let us close our ranks and prepare ourselves for battle. For the triumph of the International and of the Revolution is at stake.
[...]
Have you carefully read and have our principal friends read the entire letter that I have recently sent to you via Schwitzguébel - especially the second part, the conclusion? I am very keen to receive your very precise response to that conclusion.
You always say to me: “We are in agreement on the principal points” - Alas! My friend, I greatly fear that we are in complete disagreement on those points. From your last letters and the latest news I have received from you, I must believe that you remain more than ever a partisan of centralisation, of the revolutionary State. Whereas I am more than ever its opponent, and see salvation only in Revolutionary Anarchy, directed at all points by an invisible collective force - the only dictatorship that I admit, because it alone is compatible with the frankness and full energy of the revolutionary movement -
Your revolutionary plan can be summarised in these words: As soon as the Revolution breaks out in Paris - Paris organises provisionally the revolutionary commune - Lyon, Marseille, Rouen and other major cities rise up simultaneously and immediately send their revolutionary delegates to Paris, who together form a sort of National Convention or Committee of Public Safety for all of France. This Committee decrees the Revolution, decrees the abolition of the old State, social liquidation, collective property - organises the Revolutionary State with sufficient strength to suppress internal and external reaction -
Is that not your idea?
Our idea, our plan is entirely opposed. First, it is by no means proven that the revolutionary movement must absolutely begin in Paris. It is not at all impossible that it will begin in the provinces. But let us suppose that in accordance with tradition, it is Paris that begins. Paris, according to our view, has only an entirely negative, that is to say frankly revolutionary initiative to take: that of destruction and liquidation, not that of organisation - If Paris rises and triumphs, it will have the duty and right to proclaim the complete liquidation of the political, juridical, financial and administrative State - public and private bankruptcy, dissolution of all the powers, all the services, all the functions and all the forces of the State, the burning or bonfire of all private and public documents, deeds. Paris will naturally hasten to organise for itself, as best it can, in a revolutionary manner, after the workers united in associations have seized all the instruments of labour, capital of all kinds and buildings. Remaining armed and organised by streets and neighbourhoods [quartiers], they will form the revolutionary federation of all the neighbourhoods, the federative commune - And this commune will certainly have the right to declare that it does not claim the right to govern or organise France, but that it calls upon the people and all the towns [communes], whether of France or of what was hitherto called Foreign, to follow its example, to each make amongst themselves a revolution as radical and as destructive for the State, for legal right and for privileged property, and after having done so, to federate with it, either in Paris, or in any other place as they wish, so that all the revolutionary communes, French and foreign, send their delegates for a common organisation of services and of necessary relations of production and exchange, for the establishment of the Charter of Equality, basis of all freedom, a charter absolutely negative in its character, specifying much more what must be abolished forever, than the positive forms of local life which can only be created by the living practice of each locality - and to organise a common defence against the enemies of the revolution, as well as propaganda, weapon of the revolution, and practical revolutionary solidarity with friends of all countries against the enemies of all countries.
The provinces, at least the main centres, such as Lyon, Marseille, St.Etienne, Rouen and others, must not await the decrees of Paris to rise and organise themselves in a revolutionary manner - they must rise simultaneously with Paris, and do what Paris must do, the negative revolution and the initial organisation by a spontaneous movement - so that the federal revolutionary assembly of the delegates of the Provinces and communes would not have to organise France, but would be the expression of an organisation spontaneously created by each place - I mean the revolutionary places, not those that still find themselves in a state of reaction - In short, the revolution must be and must remain everywhere independent of the central point, which must be the expression, the product and not the source, the direction and the cause -
It is necessary that anarchy, the uprising of all the local passions, the awakening of spontaneous life everywhere, be very great in order for the Revolution to be and remain alive, real, powerful - Political revolutionaries, partisans of overt dictatorship, once the revolution has obtained an initial triumph, recommend the calming of passions, order, confidence and submission to the established revolutionary powers - in this way, they re-establish the State.
- We, on the contrary, we must foment, awaken, unleash all passions - we must produce anarchy - and, invisible pilots in the midst of the popular storm, we must direct it, not by any overt power, but by the collective dictatorship of all the Allies - dictatorship without insignia [écharpe], without title, without official right, and all the more powerful for having none of the appearances of power - This is the only dictatorship that I accept. But in order for it to act, it must exist, and for that it must be prepared and organised in advance; for it will not happen on its own - neither by discussions, nor by expositions and debates of principles, nor by popular assemblies.
Few but good allies, but good, but energetic, but discreet, but faithful, but above all free of vanity and personal ambition, strong men, serious enough, having mind and heart high enough to prefer the reality of strength to these vain appearances. If you form this collective and invisible dictatorship, you will triumph, the well directed revolution will triumph. Otherwise, no. If you amuse yourself playing at Committees of Public Safety and official, overt, dictatorship, you will be devoured by the reaction that you yourselves have created.
Dear friend, I admire the generous instincts and the keen intelligence of the French workers. But I greatly fear their tendency toward appearances, toward a grand dramatic, heroic and noisy scene - Many of our friends - amongst whom I place you - prepare themselves to play a great role in the coming revolution - that of Statesman of the Revolution. They vow to become the Dantons, Robespierres and St. Justs of revolutionary socialism - and they are already preparing the fine speeches and grand gestures meant to astonish the world. They will naturally turn the popular masses into a stepping stone - a pedestal for their democratic ambitions, for their glory! For the salvation of all they will create dictatorship, government, the State - a ridiculous and deplorable illusion. They will create only hollowness and will only serve the reaction. They themselves will be the reaction.
Remember this well, my friend and brother, the present socialist movement, entirely opposed in this to the political movement that tends only to the domination and exultation of individuals, the movement for popular emancipation does not entail the triumph and dictatorship of individuals - If individuals triumph, that will no longer be socialism, but politics, the business of the bourgeois, and the socialist movement will perish. If it does not perish, it will be the vain, ambitious and glory-seeking individuals, the budding dictators, who will cause a terrible fiasco.
There is now only one power, one dictatorship whose organisation is beneficial and possible: It is this collective and invisible dictatorship of the allies, in the name of our principle - and this dictatorship will be all the more beneficial and powerful, as it will not be vested with any official power, nor any overt character.
But to form it takes truly strong men, elevated by their intelligence and by their heart above vulgar ambitions and who are seriously ambitious enough to only want the triumph of their idea and not of their person and to prefer real power to the appearances of strength - to understand finally that our century is that of collective forces, not individual forces, and that the collectivity will crush all individuals who wish to impose themselves upon it -
Your intelligence is too great not to understand all this - But will your heart and your character be as elevated as your intelligence. That is the question. What will prevail within you: the love of justice and equality or the delirium of admiring yourself in a historic pose? Will you have the strength to overcome within yourself this Italian charlatanism, which you consider an excellent way to magnetise the masses, this mania for posing and this thirst for glory that still torments you today?
You see, I speak to you with the ease of a friend and brother who believes he has the right to say everything, because he feels an immense love for you in his heart, and who, while recognising a great deal of individualism in you, counts on your intelligence and your heart, which are even greater than your faults, and who, in short, has faith in your friendship. If you keep it for me after having read this letter, I will congratulate myself for having written it.
One more word. In one of your letters, you told me that I could become the Garibaldi of the social movement. You truly have too high an opinion of me, dear friend. Be certain that I know myself well and that I find in myself neither the qualities nor the faults necessary to make a hero; and besides, I do not care in the least about making a historical name for myself.
Do you know what all my ambition comes down to? It is great, but it aims neither for glory nor fanfare:
It is to help you to form this invisible collective force that alone can save and direct the revolution.
Respond to me right away, please, at Perron’s address.
Your devoted M.B.
Soon, I hope, we will see each other and I will not come with my mouth full and my hands empty.