Letter to Paul Lafargue, April 19, 1870

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To Paul Lafargue in Paris

London, April 19, 1870

Dear Paul-Laurent,

I shall have you proposed by Dupont on Tuesday next. Meanwhile I call your attention to the presence in your committee of Robin, Bakunine’s agent who, at Geneva, did all in his power to discredit the General Council (he attacked it publicly in the Égalité) and to prepare la dictature de Bakounine sur l’Association Internationale. He has been expressly sent to Paris there to act in the same sense. Hence this fellow must be closely watched without becoming aware of having a surveillant at his side.

In order de vous mettre au courant, I must give you a succinct review of Bakunine’s intrigue.

Bakunine does not belong to the International but for about 1½ years. C’est un nouveau venu. At the Berne Congress (September 1868) of the Ligue de la Paix et de la Liberté (he was one of the executive committee of this International middle-class Association founded in opposition to the proletarian International) he played one of the mountebank parts he delights in. He proposed a series of propositions, stupid in themselves, but affecting an aim of swaggering radicalism calculated to frighten les crétins bourgeois. In that way, being outvoted by the majority, he made his noisy exit from the League and had this great event triumphantly announced in the European press. He understands la réclame almost as well as Victor Hugo qui, comme Heine dit, n’est pas simplement égoïste, mais Hugoïste.

Then he entered our Association—its Geneva branche Romande. His first step was a conspiracy. He founded l’Alliance de la Démocratie Socialiste. The Programme of that society was nothing else but the series of resolutions proposed by Bakunine on the Berne Peace League Congress. The organisation was that of a sect with its head-center at Geneva, constituting itself as an International Association which was to have General Congresses of its own, which was to form an independent international body, and, at the same time, to be an integral member of our Internationale. In one word, our Association was by this interloping secret society by and by to be converted into an instrument du Russe Bakounine. The pretext was, that this new society was founded for the special purpose ‘à faire la propagande théoretique’. Very funny indeed, considering that Bakunine and his acolytes know nothing of theory. But Bakunine’s programme was ‘the theory’. It consisted, in fact, of 3 points.

1) That the first requirement of the social Revolution was—the abolition of inheritance, vieillerie St Simoniste, dont le charlatan et l’ignoramus Bakunine se faisait l’éditeur responsable. It is evident: If you have had the power to make the social Revolution in one day, par décret plébiscitaire you would abolish at once landed property and capital, and would therefore have no occasion at all to occupy yourselves with le droit d’héritage On the other hand, if you have not that power (and it is of course foolish to suppose such a power), the proclamation of the abolition of inheritance would be not a serious act, but a foolish menace, rallying the whole peasantry and the whole small middle-class round the reaction. Suppose f.i. that the Yankees had not had the power to abolish slavery by the sword. What an imbecility it would have been to proclaim the abolition of inheritance in slaves! The whole thing rests on a superannuated idealism, which considers the actual jurisprudence as the basis of our economical state, instead of seeing that our economical state is the basis and source of our jurisprudence! As to Bakounine, all he wanted was to improvise a programme of his own making. Voilà tout. C’était un programme d’occasion.

2) L’égalité des différentes classes. To suppose on the one hand the continued existence of classes, and on the other hand the égalité of the members belonging to them, this blunder shows you at once the shameless ignorance and superficiality of that fellow who made it his ‘special mission’ to enlighten us on ‘theory’.

3) The working class must not occupy itself with politics. They must only organise themselves by trades-unions. One fine day, by means of the Internationale they will supplant the place of all existing states. You see what a caricature he has made of my doctrines! As the transformation of the existing States into Associations is our last end, we must allow the governments, these great trade-unions of the ruling classes, to do as they like, because to occupy ourselves with them is to acknowledge them. Why! In the same way the old socialists said: You must not occupy yourselves with the wages question, because you want to abolish wages labour, and to struggle with the capitalist about the rate of wages is to acknowledge the wages system! The ass has not even seen that every class movement as a class movement, is necessarily and was always a political movement.

This then is the whole theoretical baggage of Mahomet-Bakunine, a Mahomet without a Koran.

His conspiracy he went secretly on with. He had some affiliates in Spain and Italy, a few dupes at Paris and Geneva. Good old Becker was foolish enough to allow himself to be put forward somewhat in a leading character by Bakunine. He regrets his blunder at present.

The General Council was only informed and called upon to sanction the statutes of the ‘Alliance’ after Bakounine considered that concern as fait accompli. However he was mistaken. In an elaborate document the General Council declared the ‘Alliance’ to be an instrument of disorganisation, and rejected every connexion with it. (I shall send you the document.)

A few months later, the Comité Directeur of the ‘Alliance’ addressed a letter to the General Council to the effect: The great men were willing to dissolve their organisation and merge it into the Internationale, but on the other hand, we were to declare categorically, Oui ou Non!, whether we sanctioned their principles? If not, there would be a public secession on their part, and we would be responsible for such a misfortune!

We answered that the General Council was not the Pope, that we allowed every section to have its own theoretical views of the real movement, always supposed that nothing directly opposite to our Rules was put forward. We hinted in a delicate way that we considered their ‘theory’ to be a sham. We insisted that ‘l’égalité des classes’d be changed for ‘l’abolition des classes’,’’ what they did.301 We requested them to give us the dénombrement of their members, what they have never complied with. (You will also get this second document.)

Thus the Alliance was nominally dissolved. In fact, it continued to form an Imperium in imperia Its branches had no connexion at all with the General Council, but that of conspiring against it. It acted under Bakunine’s dictatorship. He prepared everything to frapper son grand coup au Congrès de Bâle. On the one side, he made the Geneva Committee propose la question d’héritage. We accepted the challenge.625 On the other side, he conspired everywhere to discredit us and to have the seat of the General Council transferred from London to Geneva. At that congress, ce saltimbanque figurait comme ‘délégué de Naples et de Lyon’ (at that latter place, Albert Richard, otherwise a very active and wellmeaning youngster, is his acolyte). Where the fellow got the money for all his secret machinations, travels, missions of agents etc. remains to this moment a secret. Poor like a church mouse, he has never in his life earned a farthing by his own work.

At the Congress he was baffled. After the Congress he commenced to attack us publicly by his private moniteur, Le Progrès (de Locle), edited by his valet James Guillaume, a Swiss schoolmaster, and by the Égalité (de Genève). We allowed this to go on for some time, and then sent a missive to the Federal Council of Geneva. (This document—copy of it—is in the hands of Varlin.) But before our circular arrived, the Federal Council of Geneva, never friendly to Bakunine and the Alliance, had broken loose from him. Robin et Co. were expulsed from the Editorship of the Egalité. The Federal Council of the Swiss Romand Section made his pronunciamento against the intrigues of the Alliance and its Muscovite dictator.

Meanwhile Bakounine had left Geneva to reside at Tessin. His circumstances were changed. Herzen died suddenly. Bakounine, who had attacked him fiercely during the latter times (probably because he found Herzen’s purse shut against him), all at once became the fiery apologist of Herzen in the French etc. press. Why? Because Herzen (although a millionaire) received annually for his Cloche and ‘propagande Russe’ a rather large sum from the Panslavistes démocrates in Russia. Although a fierce enemy de l’héritage Bakounine wanted to inherit Herzen’s position and salary. He succeeded by his panegyrics of the dead man. He had the Cloche, the subvention etc. transferred to himself.

On the other hand there had grown up at Geneva a colony of Russian émigrés, enemies of Bakunine, because they knew the mere personal ambition of this very mediocre man (although an accomplished intriguer) and because they knew that in his ‘Russian’ writings he propagates doctrines quite contrary to the principles of the Internationale.

The late Swiss Romand Congress at La Chaux de Fonds (5 April this year) was seized upon by Bakunine and his moutons to bring about an open split. The Congress was split into two Congresses, on the one hand a Congress of Bakunites, proclaiming abstention from all politics, representing about 600 men; on the other hand the Congress of the Federal Comité of Geneva, representing 2,000 men. Outine (c’est un des jeunes Russes) dénonça publiquement les intrigues de Bakounine. His men have constituted themselves as a ‘Federal Central Council’ pour la Suisse Romande, and have founded their own organ La Solidarité, edited by Bakounine’s valet de chambre, James Guillaume. The ‘principle’ of that paper is ‘Bakounine’. Both parties have appealed to the General Council. Thus this damned Muscovite has succeeded to call forth a great public scandal within our ranks, to make his personality a watchword, to infect our Working Men’s Association with the poison of sectarianism, and to paralyse our action by secret intrigue.

He hopes to be strongly represented at our next Congress. To direct to himself the attention of Paris, he has opened a correspondence with the Marseillaise. But we have spoken with Flourens, who will put a stop to this.

You are now sufficiently informed to counteract Bakounine’s movements within our Paris branches.

My thanks to Laura for her letter. Another time try to find an envelope for your missives which is not so easily opened. Apropos. Look whether you possess still the article of the Queen’s Messenger on Lord Clanricarde. We want it here and can get it from nowhere else.

Yours

Old Nick