Micheal Bakunin
Bulletin de la Fédération Jurassienne, 12 October 1873
Dear comrades,
I cannot and must not leave public life without giving you a final word of gratitude and appreciation.
For the past four and a half years or so that we known each other, despite all the machinations of our common enemies and the vile calumnies they have heaped upon me, you have maintained your esteem, your friendship and your trust. You were not even intimidated by the label of “Bakuninists” that they threw in your face, preferring to maintain the appearance of having been lackeys [hommes dépendants] rather than the certainty of having been unjust.
And besides, you have always had, to such a high degree, an awareness of the independence and perfect spontaneity of your opinions, of your tendencies, of your actions, and, on the other hand, the perfidious intention of our adversaries was so transparent that you could only treat their slanderous and hurtful insinuations with the deepest contempt.
You did it, and it is precisely because you had the courage and the perseverance to do it that you have just achieved today, against the ambitious scheming of the Marxists, and for the benefit of the freedom of the proletariat and the entire future of the International, such a complete victory.
Powerfully aided by your brothers from Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, England and America, you have put the great International Workers’ Association back on the path from which M. Marx’s dictatorial attempts had failed to divert it.
The two Congresses that have just taken place in Geneva were a triumphant, decisive demonstration of justice and at the same time also of the power of your cause.
Your Congress, that of freedom, brought together delegates from all the main federations of Europe, except Germany; and it loudly proclaimed and widely established, or rather confirmed, the autonomy and fraternal solidarity of the workers of all countries. The authoritarian or Marxist Congress, composed solely of Germans and Swiss workers, who seem to have developed a distaste for freedom, has tried in vain to patch up the broken and now ridiculed dictatorship of M. Marx.
After hurling insults left and right, as if to emphasise their Genevan and German majority, they ended up with a hybrid product that is no longer the absolute authority dreamt of by M. Marx, but even less freedom, and they parted ways deeply discouraged and dissatisfied with themselves and others. This Congress was a funeral.
So your victory, the victory of freedom and the International against authoritarian intrigue, is complete. Yesterday, when it might still have seemed uncertain - though, for my part, I never doubted it - yesterday, I say, no one was permitted to abandon your ranks. But today, now that this victory has become an accomplished fact, the freedom to act according to your personal preferences is restored to everyone.
And I take this opportunity, dear comrades, to ask you to kindly accept my resignation as a member of the Jura Federation and as a member of the International.
I have many reasons for acting this way. Do not believe that it is mainly because of the personal attacks that I have been subjected to over the past few years. I am not saying I am completely immune to it; yet I would still feel strong enough to resist it if I believed that my continued participation in your work, in your struggles, could be of any use to the triumph of the proletariat’s cause. But I do not think so.
By my birth and by my personal position, without doubt not by my sympathies or inclinations, I am merely a bourgeois, and as such, I can do nothing amongst you but engage in propaganda. Well, I am convinced that the time for grand theoretical speeches, whether printed or spoken, is over. In the last nine years, more ideas have been developed within the International than would be needed to save the world, if ideas alone could save it, and I defy anyone to invent a new one.
The time for ideas is over; now is the time for facts and actions. What matters most today is the organisation of the forces of the proletariat. But this organisation must be the work of the proletariat itself. If I were young, I would immerse myself in a working-class milieu, and, sharing in the arduous life of my brothers, I would also have participated with them in the great work of this necessary organisation.
But neither my age or my health allows me to do so. On the contrary, they demand solitude and rest. Every effort, every trip more of less, becomes a very serious matter for me. Mentally, I still feel quite strong, but physically I tire immediately; I no longer feel I have the strength for the struggle. I can therefore only be a burden, not an asset, to the camp of the proletariat.
You can clearly see, dear comrades, that everything compels me to resign. Living far from you and far from everyone else, what use could I possibly be to the International in general and to the Jura Federation in particular? Your great and fine Association, now entirely activist and entirely practical, must not tolerate sinecures or honorary positions within its ranks.
I therefore withdraw, dear comrades, filled with gratitude for you and sympathy for your great and holy cause - the cause of humanity. I will continue to follow your every step with brotherly concern, and I will happily salute each of your new triumphs.
Until death, I will be yours.
But before we part, allow me to offer you one last piece of fraternal advice. My friends, the international reaction, whose centre today is not in this poor France, so absurdly devoted to the Sacré-Cœur, but in Germany, in Berlin, and which is represented just as much by the socialism of M. Marx as by the diplomacy of M. Bismarck; this reaction, which sets as its ultimate goal the pan-Germanisation of Europe, threatens at this moment to engulf and pervert everything. It has declared a war to the death on the International, represented today only by the autonomous and free Federations. Like the proletarians of all other countries, even though you belong to a still free republic, you are forced to fight it, because it has come between you and your ultimate goal, the emancipation of the whole world.
The struggle you will face will be terrible. But do not be discouraged and know that, despite the immense material strength of your adversaries, final victory is assured, provided you faithfully observe these two conditions:
1. Hold fast to this principle of great and broad popular freedom, without which equality and solidarity themselves would be nothing but lies;
2. Organise even more the practical, militant, international solidarity amongst workers of all trades and of all countries, and remember that, infinitely weak as isolated individuals, localities, or countries, you will find immense and irresistible strength in this universal collectivity.
Farewell. Your brother,
Micheal Bakunin