Essential Bakunin

by Mikhail Bakunin

A compilation of Mikhail Bakunin's works and writings. Bakunin is arguably the father of modern Anarchist thought and has influenced every anarchist thinker since. This collection will familiarize the reader with Bakunin and his revolutionary thought.

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 14, 2012

About the author

Russian anarchist and political theorist Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin, imprisoned and later exiled to Siberia for his considered revolutionary activities, escaped to London in 1861, opposed Communism of Karl Marx.

People often called Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (Russian: Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Баку́нин), a philosopher, the father of collectivism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail...

Reviews

[Alexander Curran · Rating 3 out of 5]

"“My personal freedom, confirmed by the liberty of all, extends to infinity.”
― Mikhail Bakunin, Man, Society, and Freedom

Essential Bakunin is a collection of his (most of them) works and was interested from a humanitarian and liberty perspective concerning Anarchism. The international appeal of anarchism stems, it seems, from a place that wants every human being to live a free and decent life. Bakunin is very clear when he challenges anything authoritarian, anything that disrupts the everyday person. Sometimes it is clear Bakunin had specific problems, which we see in some of his writings, when it comes to anti-Semitism or pan-Slavic nationalism that stained his reputation as an anarchist and critical thinker on the world stage.

Kropotkin, and others in America, like Emma Goldman, began to transform anarchism into a functioning living philosophy, as opposed to this rivalry and battle between Marx, Engels, and Bakunin.
Essential Bakunin contains his main works and incomplete fragments along with letters.

The states of the World being overturned seems a distant aspiration (regarding anarchists) from the 20th century, everywhere has been completely transformed without Anarchism taking hold, via the internet, technology and education (or the fourth industrial revolution we are seeing now). This international aspect, is shared with Communism or Socialism which many in the World do not want or need. Although because it hasn't been tested in real life doesn't mean it wouldn't work but what would these results show? A positive one or a disastrous misrepresentative dictatorial system like what happened with communism or disintegration into chaos and further suffering for the poor?

“We revolutionary anarchists are the enemies of all forms of State and State organisations ... we
think that all State rule, all governments being by their very nature placed outside the mass of the
people, must necessarily seek to subject it to customs and purposes entirely foreign to it. We
therefore declare ourselves to be foes ... of all State organisations as such, and believe that the
people can only be happy and free, when, organised from below by means of its own autonomous
and completely free associations, without the supervision of any guardians, it will create its own
life.”

[Eric Clifford · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think that there's two levels to assessing a work of theory like this: the ideas themselves, and the way the ideas are presented. The former are a mixed bag - I think in general his criticisms of Marxism and capitalism are much stronger than his thoughts about how his alternative would work. The spontaneous formation of federated free associations devoid of any political authorities might maybe have seemed doable (on paper) back in the day but now? With an increasingly globalised, interconnected world all bound together in a thousand convoluted ways? I'm not sure personally.

The latter though is a goddamn mess. Typos everywhere, punctuation applied with a shotgun, the wrong words in the wrong places...the grammar is just diabolical, and that's before you even get to Bakunin's writing style which features these lengthy, meandering, allergic-to-brevity sentences wrapped into repetious essays that retread the same ground over and over.

Read his criticisms of marx and maybe one of the chapters that outlines his ideas on how his ideal anarchist state would work. You legit do not need more than that, but you should at least read that much to get an idea about what an important foundational anarchist thinker had in mind.

[Patrick Reeves · Rating 4 out of 5]

The message is great, but ignore the antisemitism (it's unrelated to the message). Don't put authors on pedestals. They all make stupid mistakes.