Bakunin's Victory

The Modern Left and by this I mean since 1848, has been characterised by schism. The most fundamental of these is surely that between Marx and Bakunin. Following on the defeat of the Paris Commune in 1872 Marx engineered Bakunin’s expulsion from the 1st International. The Core of the dispute between them[1] concerned the role of the state. Put starkly Marx saw a key role for the state in establishing the new socialist order, in the shape of ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat.’ Bakunin on the other hand saw the state, in whatever form as fundamentally antithetic to the establishment of socialism. He saw in Marx’s prescriptions the seeds of authoritarianism and tyranny. Marx won the argument. The history of the twentieth century records the consequences. So I think it is long overdue to pay Bakunin his dues, so sadly over the lives of so many corpses, Bakunin got it right.
[1] Though on Marx’s part the dispute was also partly personal, moreover he had a particular distrust of Russians.

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