Michael Bakunin

by Ruth Kinna, Clifford Harper (Illustrator)

28 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given the brevity of these little volumes, Kinna does well once again to pack in a decent amount of history, theory and analysis. Despite his reputation as an outspoken outlier in the first international, Bakunin was as much of a materialist as Marx, whom he very much admired, despite their well known rift. Though, unlike Marx - who wrongly predicted that workers would seize power in the wealthiest, most industrialized capitalist states - Bakunin was much more shrewd in his critique of the tension between class consciousness, statism and authoritarian counterrevolution. He also immediately recognised the Marxian folly of assuming that socialism could be achieved via bourgeois / parliamentary means, as is well documented. Indeed, as history would show (and still shows), the reformist project was doomed to fail. All in all if you're new to not just Bakunin but anarchist history and theory in general, this extremely short primer is highly recommended.