**Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin** (30th of May 1814 - 1st of July 1876)
was one of the most influential figures in the history and development
of [anarchism](anarchism "wikilink"), so much so that he is sometimes
referred to as the 'father of anarchism'. He is credited with linking
the anarchist movement to [feminism](feminism "wikilink"),
[atheism](atheism "wikilink"), [revolution](revolution "wikilink") and
the introduction of
[anarcho-collectivism](Anarcho-Collectivism "wikilink").
## Quotes
"FREEDOM, the realization of freedom: who can deny that this is what
today heads the agenda of history? We must not only act politically, but
in our politics act religiously, religiously in the sense of freedom, of
which the one true expression is justice and love."\[1\]
"The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too\!" (often
paraphrased as "The urge to destroy is a creative urge".\[2\]
"Unity is the great goal toward which humanity moves irresistibly. But
it becomes fatal, destructive of the intelligence, the dignity, the
well-being of individuals and peoples whenever it is formed without
regard to liberty, either by violent means or under the authority of any
theological, metaphysical, political, or even economic idea. That
patriotism which tends toward unity without regard to liberty is an evil
patriotism, always disastrous to the popular and real interests of the
country it claims to exalt and serve. Often, without wishing to be so,
it is a friend of reaction – an enemy of the revolution, i.e., the
emancipation of nations and men."\[3\]
"Liberty is so great a magician, endowed with so marvelous a power of
productivity, that under the inspiration of this spirit alone, North
America was able within less than a century to equal, and even surpass,
the civilization of Europe."\[4\]
"We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege and
injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and
brutality."\[5\]
"Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a
lie; and the workers want no lying."\[6\]
"I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition
under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and
grow; not the purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated
by the State, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more
than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest; not the
individualistic, egoistic, shabby, and fictitious liberty extolled by
the School of [J.-J. Rousseau](Jean-Jacques_Rosseau "wikilink") and
other schools of bourgeois liberalism, which considers the would-be
rights of all men, represented by the State which limits the rights of
each — an idea that leads inevitably to the reduction of the rights of
each to zero. No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the
name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material,
intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty
that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws
of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as
restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator
beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very
basis of our material, intellectual and moral being — they do not limit
us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom."\[7\]
"To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the
foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of
an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to
revolt."\[8\]
"Revolution requires extensive and widespread destruction, a fecund and
renovating destruction, since in this way and only this way are new
worlds born."\[9\]
"Freedom is the absolute right of every human being to seek no other
sanction for his actions but his own conscience, to determine these
actions solely by his own will, and consequently to owe his first
responsibility to himself alone."\[10\]
"If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another
and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable –
and this is why we are the enemies of the State."\[11\]
"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much
happier if it is called 'the People's Stick.'"\[12\]
"The modern State is by its very nature a military State; and every
military State must of necessity become a conquering, invasive State; to
survive it must conquer or be conquered, for the simple reason that
accumulated military power will suffocate if it does not find an outlet.
Therefore the modern State must strive to be a huge and powerful State:
this is the indispensable precondition for its survival."\[13\]
"We wish, in a word, equality — equality in fact as a corollary, or
rather, as primordial condition of liberty. From each according to their
faculties, to each according to their needs; that is what we wish
sincerely and energetically."\[14\]
"No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written
will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker."\[15\]
"I hate Communism because it is the negation of liberty and because
humanity is for me unthinkable without liberty. I am not a Communist,
because Communism concentrates and swallows up in itself for the benefit
of the State all the forces of society, because it inevitably leads to
the concentration of property in the hands of the State, whereas I want
the abolition of the State, the final eradication of the principle of
authority and the patronage proper to the State, which under the pretext
of moralizing and civilizing men has hitherto only enslaved, persecuted,
exploited and corrupted them. I want to see society and collective or
social property organized from below upwards, by way of free
association, not from above downwards, by means of any kind of authority
whatsoever."\[16\]
"All exercise of authority perverts, and submission to authority
humiliates."\[17\]
"Every state, like every theology, assumes man to be fundamentally bad
and wicked."\[18\]
"Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not
exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless
generations. Thus the individual, his freedom and reason, are the
products of society, and not vice versa: society is not the product of
individuals comprising it; and the higher, the more fully the individual
is developed, the greater his freedom — and the more he is the product
of society, the more does he receive from society and the greater his
debt to it."\[19\]
"By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is
possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed
possible have never taken a single step forward."\[20\]
"The peoples' revolution will arrange its revolutionary organisation
from the bottom up and from the periphery to the centre, in keeping with
the principle of liberty."\[21\]
"I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally
free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my
freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and
confirmation."\[22\]
"The materialistic, realistic, and collectivist conception of freedom,
as opposed to the idealistic, is this: Man becomes conscious of himself
and his humanity only in society and only by the collective action of
the whole society. He frees himself from the yoke of external nature
only by collective and social labor, which alone can transform the earth
into an abode favorable to the development of humanity. Without such
material emancipation the intellectual and moral emancipation of the
individual is impossible. He can emancipate himself from the yoke of his
own nature, i.e. subordinate his instincts and the movements of his body
to the conscious direction of his mind, the development of which is
fostered only by education and training. But education and training are
preeminently and exclusively social hence the isolated individual cannot
possibly become conscious of his freedom. To be free means to be
acknowledged and treated as such by all his fellowmen. The liberty of
every individual is only the reflection of his own humanity, or his
human right through the conscience of all free men, his brothers and his
equals. I can feel free only in the presence of and in relationship with
other men. In the presence of an inferior species of animal I am neither
free nor a man, because this animal is incapable of conceiving and
consequently recognizing my humanity. I am not myself free or human
until or unless I recognize the freedom and humanity of all my
fellowmen. Only in respecting their human character do I respect my
own."\[23\]
-
## References
1. Mikhail Bakunin (1842) The Reaction in Germany
[www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1842/reaction-germany.htm](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1842/reaction-germany.htm)
- He wrote under the fake name Jules Elysard.
2.
3. Mikhail Bakunin (1867) Federalism, Socialism and Anti-Theologism -
4.
5.
6. Mikhail Bakunin (1870) The Red Association -
7. Mikhail Bakunin (1871) The Paris Commune and the idea of the state -
8. Mikhail Bakunin (1872) On the International Workingmen's Association
and Karl Marx -
9. Mikhail Bakunin (1873) [Statism and
Anarchy](Statism_and_Anarchy "wikilink") -
10. [Daniel Guérin](Daniel_Guérin "wikilink") (1970) [Anarchism: From
Theory to Practice](Anarchism:_From_Theory_to_Practice "wikilink")
11.
12.
13.
14. J. Morris Davidson (1890) The Old Order and the New
15. E.H. Carr (1937) Michael Bakunin, page 175
16. E.H. Carr (1937) Michael Bakunin, page 356
17. E.H. Carr (1937) Michael Bakunin, page 453
18.
19. G. P. Maximoff (1953) The Philosophy of Bakunin, page 158
20. Paolo Novaresio (1996) The Explorers
21. Mikhail Bakunin (1868) *Program and Object of the Secret
Revolutionary Organisation of the International Brotherhood*
22. Mikhail Bakunin (1871) Man, Society, and Freedom
23.