Anarchism and SocialismPlekhanov, Georgii Valentinovich
Philosophy
Anarchism and Socialism
Plekhanov, Georgii Valentinovich
Anarchism; Socialism
"Because I demand the economic and social equalisation of classes and
individuals, because, with the Workers' Congress of Brussels, I have
declared myself in favour of collective property, I have been reproached
with being a Communist. What difference, I have been asked, is there
between Communism and Collectivism. I am really astounded that M.
Chaudey does not understand this difference, he who is the testamentary
executor of Proudhon! I detest Communism, because it is the negation of
liberty, and I cannot conceive anything human without liberty. I am not
a Communist, because Communism concentrates and causes all the forces of
society to be absorbed by the State, because it necessarily ends in the
centralisation of property in the hands of the State, while I desire the
abolition of the State--the radical extirpation of this principle of the
authority and the tutelage of the State, which, under the pretext of
moralising and civilising men, has until now enslaved, oppressed,
exploited, and depraved them. I desire the organisation of society and
of collective or social property from below upwards, by means of free
association, and not from above downwards by means of some authority of
some sort. Desiring the abolition of the State, I desire the abolition
of property individually hereditary, which is nothing but an institution
of the State, nothing but a result of the principle of the State. This
is the sense, gentlemen, in which I am a Collectivist, and not at all a
Communist."
In another speech at the same Congress Bakounine reiterates what he had
already said of "Statist" Communism. "It is not we, gentlemen," he said,
"who systematically deny all authority and all tutelary powers, and who
in the name of Liberty demand the very abolition of the "authoritarian"
principle of the State; it is not we who will recognise any sort of
political and social organisation whatever, that is not founded upon
the most complete liberty of every one.... But I am in favour of
collective property, because I am convinced that so long as property,
individually hereditary, exists, the equality of the first start, the
realisation of equality, economical and social, will be impossible."[34]
This is not particularly lucid as a statement of principles. But it is
sufficiently significant from the "biographical" point of view.
We do not insist upon the ineptitude of the expression "the economic and
social equalisation of classes;" the General Council of the
International dealt with that long ago.[35] We would only remark that
the above quotations show that Bakounine--
1. Combats the State and "Communism" in the name of "the most complete
liberty of everybody;"
2. Combats property, "individually hereditary," in the name of economic
equality;
3. Regards this property as "an institution of the State," as a
"consequence of the very principles of the State;"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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