OscailtComments on “The First International and the Development of Anarchism and Marxism” by Wayne PriceThis text is a commentary of the contribution of Wayne Price recently published on anarkismo.net, « The First International and the Development of Anarchism and Marxism » (http://www.anarkismo.net/article/30330)
Wayne made a review of my book (among others) : "Social Democracy and Anarchism in the International Workers' Association 1864-1877" (Trans. A.W. Zurbrug.) London: Anarres Editions.2017-08-25T14:02:27+08:00Anarkismoanarkismoeditors@lists.riseup.nethttp://www.anarkismo.net/atomfullposts?story_id=30452http://www.anarkismo.net/graphics/feedlogo.gifResponse on the 1st Internationalhttp://www.anarkismo.net/article/30452#comment166292017-08-25T14:02:27+08:00Wayne PriceThese are comments by Rene’ Berthier in response to my Anarkismo essay on the Fi...These are comments by Rene’ Berthier in response to my Anarkismo essay on the First International. Rene’ is the author of an important book on the International from an anarchist perspective (which I cited in my article). I am delighted that he should react to my own interpretive essay. While we disagree on some points, I think we are in general agreement. Most of his remarks are expansions of points in my essay, but I will respond to a few of his comments.<br />
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Rene’ writes: “That Bakunin created clandestine organizations is indisputable, but it was largely for security reasons.…” I think there was something in Bakunin which made him want to develop (at least in his imagination) super-centralized, hierarchical, secret conspiracies. Rene’ agrees that at least before Bakunin became an anarchist, “he had a mania : writing statutes of secret organizations….” I don’t think that this “mania” stopped when he became an anarchist. In my essay, I quote various supporters of Bakunin who agree with me.<br />
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Rene’ writes, of the Bakuninists’ Alliance for Socialist Democracy, that “some anarchists of today want to transform [it] into a kind of prefiguration of the Platformist organization, which is totally anachronical.” True, the Alliance was not the same as the later Organizational Platform. But it was an organization of revolutionary anarchists, who agreed on a program, and who worked inside and outside the International. This is essentially the central idea of neo-platformism and especifismo.<br />
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Rene’ does not deny Bakunin’s anti-semitism, but notes that it was focused in three years when Bakunin was fighting with Marx. Rene’ also agrees that “Bakunin assimilated Jews and Germans.” As Rene’ says, this is no excuse, of course. I agree that this does not invalidate all of Bakunin’s work and insights (we anarchists do not regard our “founders” as canonical authorities in the same way as Marxists treat Marx). As to Bakunin’s anti-Germanism, I quoted some passages of his in my text. It is not surprising that Bakunin was inconsistent in his opinions, which does not disprove the existence of his anti-German statements.<br />
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No doubt Marx and Engels wanted a unified and centralized Germany and German state. Similarly they wanted unified and centralized French and Italian states. This does not mean that they were German patriots similar to Bismarck. (For example, during the Franco-Prussian war, they opposed Germany’s seizure of Alsace-Lorraine.) This was a slander by Bakunin, however much else he got right.<br />
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I have not read Guillame’s book, <em>Karl Marx, Pan-Germanist</em>. I assumed that it was consistent with the views expressed by Bakunin which I had read, and I should not have done so. But I still think that calling Marx a “pan-Germanist” is a slander. Guillame’s support of the Allies in World War I was a capitulation to imperialism, capitalism, and the state, for whatever reasons. And the same is true for Kropotkin.<br />
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Rene’ and I are in agreement about the need for anarchist revolutionaries to be for workers’ power, but not for taking state power. He expresses this as being for “social power” but not “political power.”