Bakunin and Marx famously clashed in the first International Working Men's Association between 1868 and 1872. This conflict helped clarify the anarchist opposition to the ideas of Marxism and can be considered as the first major theoretical analysis and critique of Marxism by anarchists. Later critiques followed, of course, particularly after the degeneration of Social Democracy into reformism and the failure of the Russian Revolution (both of which allowed the theoretical critiques to be enriched by empirical evidence) but the Bakunin/Marx conflict laid the ground for what came after. As such, an overview of Bakunin's critique is essential.

First, however, we must stress that Marx and Bakunin had many similar ideas. They both stressed the need for working people to organise themselves to overthrow capitalism. They both argued for a socialist revolution from below. They argued for collective ownership of the means of production. They both constantly stressed that the emancipation of the workers must be the task of the workers themselves. They differed, of course, in exactly how these common points should be implemented in practice. Both, moreover, had a tendency to misrepresent the opinions of the other on certain issues (particularly as the struggle reached its climax). Anarchists, unsurprisingly, argue Bakunin has been proved right by history, so confirming the key aspects of his critique of Marx.

So what was Bakunin's critique of Marxism? There are five main areas. Firstly, there is the question of current activity (i.e. whether the workers' movement should participate in "politics" and the nature of revolutionary working class organisation). Secondly, there is the issue of the form of the revolution (i.e. whether it should be a political then an economic one, or whether it should be both at the same time). Thirdly, there is the issue of the "dictatorship of the proletariat." Fourthly, there is the question of whether political power can be seized by the working class as a whole or whether it can only be exercised by a small minority. Fifthly, there was the issue of whether the revolution be centralised or decentralised in nature. We shall discuss each in turn.

On the issue of current struggle, the differences between Marx and Bakunin were clear. For Marx, the proletariat had to take part in bourgeois elections as an organised political party. As the resolution of the (gerrymandered) Hague Congress of First International put it, "[i]n its struggle against the collective power of the possessing classes the proletariat can act as a class only by constituting itself a distinct political party, opposed to all the old parties formed by the possessing classes . . . the conquest of political power becomes the great duty of the proletariat." [Marx, Engels, Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 85]

This political party must stand for elections and win votes. As Marx argued in the preamble of the French Workers' Party, the workers must turn the franchise "from a means of deception . . . into an instrument of emancipation." This can be considered as part of the process outlined in the Communist Manifesto, where it was argued that the "immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties," namely the "conquest of political power by the proletariat," the "first step in the revolution by the working class" being "to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy." Engels latter stressed (in 1895) that the "Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat" and that German Social Democracy had showed workers of all countries "how to make use of universal suffrage." [Marx and Engels Reader, p. 566, p. 484, p. 490 and p. 565]

With this analysis in mind, Marxist influenced political parties have consistently argued for and taken part in election campaigns, seeking office as a means of spreading socialist ideas and as a means of pursuing the socialist revolution. The Social Democratic parties which were the first Marxist parties (and which developed under Marx and Engels watchful eyes) saw revolution in terms of winning a majority within Parliamentary elections and using this political power to abolish capitalism (once this was done, the state would "wither away" as classes would no longer exist). In effect, these parties aimed to reproduce Marx's account of the forming of the Paris Commune on the level of the national Parliament. Marx in his justly famous work The Civil War in France reported how the Commune "was formed of the municipal councillors" who had been "chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town" in the municipal elections held on March 26th, 1871. This new Commune then issued a series of decrees which reformed the existing state (for example, by suppressing the standing army and replacing it with the armed people, and so on). This Marx summarised by stating that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposed." [Marx and Engels, Selected Works, p. 287 and p. 285]

As Engels put it in a latter letter, it was "simply a question of showing that the victorious proletariat must first refashion the old bureaucratic, administratively centralised state power before it can use it for its own purposes." [quoted by David P. Perrin, The Socialist Party of Great Britain, p. 64] He repeated this elsewhere, arguing that "after the victory of the Proletariat, the only organisation the victorious working class finds ready-made for use is that of the State. It may require adaptation to the new functions. But to destroy that at such a moment would mean to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious working class can exert its newly conquered power, keep down its capitalist enemies and carry out . . . economic revolution." [our emphasis, Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 173]

Bakunin, in contrast, argued that while the communists "imagine they can attain their goal by the development and organisation of the political power of the working classes . . . aided by bourgeois radicalism" anarchists "believe they can succeed only through the development and organisation of the non-political or anti-political power of the working classes." The Communists "believe it necessary to organise the workers' forces in order to seize the political power of the State," while anarchists "organise for the purpose of destroying it." Bakunin saw this in terms of creating new organs of working class power in opposition to the state, organised "from the bottom up, by the free association or federation of workers, starting with the associations, then going on to the communes, the region, the nations, and, finally, culminating in a great international and universal federation." [Bakunin on Anarchism, pp. 262-3 and p. 270] In other words, a system of workers' councils. As such, he constantly argued for workers, peasants and artisans to organise into unions and join the International Workingmen's Association, so becoming "a real force . . . which knows what to do and is therefore capable of guiding the revolution in the direction marked out by the aspirations of the people: a serious international organisation of workers' associations of all lands capable of replacing this departing world of states." [Op. Cit., p. 174]

To Marx's argument that workers should organise politically, and send their representations to Parliament, Bakunin argued that when "the workers . . . send common workers . . . to Legislative Assemblies . . . The worker-deputies, transplanted into a bourgeois environment, into an atmosphere of purely bourgeois ideas, will in fact cease to be workers and, becoming Statesmen, they will become bourgeois . . . For men do not make their situations; on the contrary, men are made by them." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 108]

As far as history goes, the experience of Social Democracy confirmed Bakunin's analysis. A few years after Engels death in 1895, German Social Democracy was racked by the "revisionism" debate. This debate did not spring from the minds of a few leaders, isolated from the movement, but rather expressed developments within the movement itself. In effect, the revisionists wanted to adjust the party rhetoric to what the party was actually doing and so the battle against the revisionists basically represented a battle between what the party said it was doing and its actual practice. As one of the most distinguished historians of this period put it, the "distinction between the contenders remained largely a subjective one, a difference of ideas in the evaluation of reality rather than a difference in the realm of action." [C. Schorske, German Social Democracy, p. 38] Even Rosa Luxemburg (one of the fiercest critics of revisionism) acknowledged in Reform or Revolution that it was "the final goal of socialism [that] constitutes the only decisive factor distinguishing the social democratic movement from bourgeois democracy and bourgeois radicalism." [Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, p. 36] As such, the Marxist critics of "revisionism" failed to place the growth in revisionist ideas in the tactics being used, instead seeing it in terms of a problem in ideas. By the start of the First World War, the Social Democrats had become so corrupted by its activities in bourgeois institutions it supported its state (and ruling class) and voted for war credits rather than denounce the war as Imperialist slaughter for profits (see also section J.2.6 for more discussion on the effect of electioneering on radical parties). Clearly, Bakunin was proved right.

However, we must stress that because Bakunin rejected participating in bourgeois politics, it did not mean that he rejected "politics" or "political struggle" in general (also see section J.2.10). As he put it, "it is absolutely impossible to ignore political and philosophical questions" and "the proletariat itself will pose them" in the International. He argued that political struggle will come from the class struggle, as "[w]ho can deny that out of this ever-growing organisation of the militant solidarity of the proletariat against bourgeois exploitation there will issue forth the political struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie?" Anarchists simply thought that the "policy of the proletariat" should be "the destruction of the State" rather than working within it. [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 301, p. 302 and p. 276] As such, the people "must organise their powers apart from and against the State." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 376]

As should be obvious by now, the difference between Marx and Bakunin on the nature of working class organisation in the struggle reflected these differences on political struggle. Bakunin clearly advocated what would later by termed a syndicalist strategy based on direct action (in particular strikes) and workers' unions which would "bear in themselves the living seeds of the new society which is to replace the old world. They are creating not only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 255] This union movement would be complemented by a specific anarchist organisation which would work within it to influence it towards anarchist aims by the "natural influence" of its members (see section J.3.7 for a fuller discussion of this). Marx argued for political parties, utilising elections, which, as the history of Social Democracy indicates, did not have quite the outcome Marx would have liked. Section J.2 discusses direct action, electioneering and whether anarchist abstentionism implies disinterest in politics in more detail.

Which brings us to the second issue, namely the nature of the revolution itself. For Bakunin, a revolution meant a social revolution from below. This involved both the abolition of the state and the expropriation of capital. In his words, "the revolution must set out from the first [to] radically and totally to destroy the State." The "natural and necessary consequences" of which will be the "confiscation of all productive capital and means of production on behalf of workers' associations, who are to put them to collective use . . . the federative Alliance of all working men's associations . . . will constitute the Commune." There "can no longer be any successful political . . . revolution unless the political revolution is transformed into social revolution." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170 and p. 171]

Which, incidentally, disproves Engels' claims that Bakunin considered "the state as the main evil to be abolished." [Marx and Engels Reader, p. 728] Clearly, Engels assertions misrepresent Bakunin's position, as Bakunin always stressed that economic and political transformation should occur at the same time during the revolutionary process. Given that Bakunin thought the state was the protector of capitalism, no economic change could be achieved until such time as it was abolished. This also meant that Bakunin considered a political revolution before an economic one to mean the continued slavery of the workers. As he argued, "[t]o win political freedom first can signify no other thing but to win this freedom only, leaving for the first days at least economic and social relations in the same old state, — that is, leaving the proprietors and capitalists with their insolent wealth, and the workers with their poverty." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 294] With capitalists' economic power intact, could the workers' political power remain strong? As such, "every political revolution taking place prior to and consequently without a social revolution must necessarily be a bourgeois revolution, and a bourgeois revolution can only be instrumental in bringing about bourgeois Socialism — that is, it is bound to end in a new, more hypocritical and more skilful, but no less oppressive, exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeois." [Op. Cit., p. 289]

Did Marx and Engels hold this position? Apparently so. Discussing the Paris Commune, Marx noted that it was "the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of labour," and as the "political rule of the producer cannot coexist with the perpetuation of his social slavery" the Commune was to "serve as a lever for uprooting the economic foundations upon which rests the existence of classes." [Marx and Engels, Selected Writings, p. 290] Engels argued that the "proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the . . . means of production . . . into public property." [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 717] In the Communist Manifesto they argued that "the first step in the revolution by the working class" is the "rais[ing] the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy." The proletariat "will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeois, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e. of the proletariat organised as the ruling class." [Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 52]

Similarly, when Marx discussed what the "dictatorship of the proletariat" meant, he argued (in reply to Bakunin's question of "over whom will the proletariat rule") that it simply meant "that so long as other classes continue to exist, the capitalist class in particular, the proletariat fights it (for with the coming of the proletariat to power, its enemies will not yet have disappeared), it must use measures of force, hence governmental measures; if it itself still remains a class and the economic conditions on which the class struggle and the existence of classes have not yet disappeared, they must be forcibly removed or transformed, and the process of their transformation must be forcibly accelerated." [The Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 542-3] Note, "capitalists," not "former capitalists," so implying that the members of the proletariat are, in fact, still proletariats after the "socialist" revolution and so still subject to wage slavery by capitalists.

Clearly, then, Marx and Engels considered the seizing of state power as the key event and, later, the expropriation of the expropriators would occur. Thus the economic power of the capitalists would remain, with the proletariat utilising political power to combat and reduce it. Anarchists argue that if the proletariat did not hold economic power, its political power would at best be insecure and would in fact degenerate. Would the capitalists just sit and wait while their economic power was gradually eliminated by political action? And what of the proletariat during this period? Will they patiently obey their bosses, continue to be oppressed and exploited by them until such time as the end of their "social slavery" has been worked out (and by whom)? As the experience of the Russian Revolution showed, Marx and Engels position proved to be untenable.

As we discuss in more detail in the appendix on "What happened during the Russian Revolution?", the Russian workers initially followed Bakunin's path. After the February revolution, they organised factory committees and raised the idea and practice of workers self-management of production. The Russian anarchists supported this movement whole-heartedly, arguing that it should be pushed as far as it would go. In contrast, Lenin argued for "workers' control over the capitalists." [Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?, p. 52] This was, unsurprisingly, the policy applied immediately after the Bolshevik seizure of power. However, as one Leninist writer admits, "[t]wo overwhelmingly powerful forces obliged the Bolsheviks to abandon this 'reformist' course." One was the start of the civil war, the other "was the fact that the capitalists used their remaining power to make the system unworkable. At the end of 1917 the All Russian Congress of employers declared that those 'factories in which the control is exercised by means of active interference in the administration will be closed.' The workers' natural response to the wave of lockouts which followed was to demand that their [sic!] state nationalise the factories." [John Rees, "In Defence of October", pp. 3-82, International Socialism, no. 52, p. 42] By July 1918, only one-fifth of nationalised firms had been nationalised by the central government (which, incidentally, shows the unresponsiveness of centralised power). Clearly, the idea that a social revolution can come after a political was shown to be a failure — the capitalist class used its powers to disrupt the economic life of Russia.

Faced with the predictable opposition by capitalists to their system of "control" the Bolsheviks nationalised the means of production. Sadly, within the nationalised workplace the situation of the worker remained essentially unchanged. Lenin had been arguing for one-man management (appointed from above and armed with "dictatorial" powers) since late April 1918. This aimed at replacing the capitalist managers with state managers, not workers self-management:

"On three occasions in the first months of Soviet power, the [factory] committees leaders sought to bring their model [of workers' self-management of the economy] into being. At each point the party leadership overruled them. The Bolshevik alternative was to vest both managerial and control powers in organs of the state which were subordinate to the central authorities, and formed by them." [Thomas F. Remington, Building Socialism in Bolshevik Russia, p. 38]

Bakunin's fear of what would happen if a political revolution preceded a social one came true. The working class continued to be exploited and oppressed as before, first by the bourgeoisie and then by the new bourgeoisie of state appointed managers armed with all the powers of the old ones (plus a few more). Russia confirmed Bakunin's analysis that a revolution must immediately combine political and economic goals in order for it to be successful.

Which brings us to the "dictatorship of the proletariat." While many Marxists basically use this term to describe the defence of the revolution and so argue that anarchists do not see the need to defend a revolution, this is incorrect. Anarchists from Bakunin onwards have argued that a revolution would have to defend itself from counter revolution and yet we reject the term totally (see sections H.2.1, I.5.14 and J.7.6 for a refutation of claims that anarchists think a revolution does not need defending). So why did Bakunin reject the concept? To understand why, we must provide some historical context — namely the fact that at the time he was writing the proletariat was a minority of the working masses.

Simply put, anarchists in the nineteenth century rejected the idea of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" simply because the proletariat was a minority of working people at the time. As such, to argue for a dictatorship of the proletariat meant to argue for the dictatorship of a minority class, a class which excluded the majority of toiling people. When Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, for example, over 80% of the population of France and Germany were peasants or artisans — what Marx termed the "petit-bourgeois" and his followers termed the "petty-bourgeois." This fact meant that the comment in the Communist Manifesto that the "proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority" was simply not true. Rather, for Marx's life-time (and for many decades afterwards) the proletarian movement was like "[a]ll previous movements," namely "movements of minorities, or in the interests of minorities." [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 482]

Not that Marx and Engels were unaware of this. In the Manifesto they note that "[i]n countries like France" the peasants "constitute far more than half of the population." In his famous 1875 work "Critique of the Gotha Program," Marx noted that "the majority of the 'toiling people' in Germany consists of peasants, and not of proletarians." He stressed elsewhere around the same time that "the peasant . . . forms a more of less considerable majority . . . in the countries of the West European continent." [Op. Cit., p. 493, p. 536 and p. 543]

Clearly, then, Marx and Engels vision of proletarian revolution was one which involved a minority dictating to the majority. As such, Bakunin rejected the concept. He was simply pointing out the fact that a "dictatorship of the proletariat," at the time, actually meant a dictatorship by a minority of working people and so a "revolution" which excluded the majority of working people (i.e. artisans and peasants). As he argued in 1873:

"If the proletariat is to be the ruling class . . . then whom will it rule? There must be yet another proletariat which will be subject to this new rule, this new state. It may be the peasant rabble . . . which, finding itself on a lower cultural level, will probably be governed by the urban and factory proletariat." [Statism and Anarchy, pp. 177-8]

Bakunin continually stressed that the peasants "will join cause with the city workers as soon as they become convinced that the latter do not pretend to impose their will or some political or social order invented by the cities for the greater happiness of the villages; they will join cause as soon as they are assured that the industrial workers will not take their lands away." As such, as noted above, while the Marxists aimed for the "development and organisation of the political power of the working classes, and chiefly of the city proletariat," anarchists aimed for "the social (and therefore anti-political) organisation and power of the working masses of the cities and villages." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 401 and p. 300]

For Bakunin, to advocate the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in an environment where the vast majority of working people were peasants would be a disaster. It is only when we understand this social context that we can understand Bakunin's opposition to Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" — it would be a dictatorship of a minority class over the rest of the working population (he took it as a truism that the capitalist and landlord classes should be expropriated and stopped from destroying the revolution!). For Bakunin, when the industrial working class was a minority, it was essential to "[o]rganise the city proletariat in the name of revolutionary Socialism, and in doing this, unite it into one preparatory organisation together with the peasantry. An uprising by the proletariat alone would not be enough; with that we would have only a political revolution which would necessarily produce a natural and legitimate reaction on the part of the peasants, and that reaction, or merely the indifference of the peasants, would strangle the revolution of the cities." [Op. Cit., p. 378]

This explains why the anarchists at the St. Imier Congress argued that "every political state can be nothing but organised domination for the benefit of one class, to the detriment of the masses, and that should the proletariat itself seize power, it would in turn become a new dominating and exploiting class." As the proletariat was a minority class at the time, their concerns can be understood. For anarchists then, and now, a social revolution has to be truly popular and involve the majority of the population in order to succeed. Unsurprisingly, the congress stressed the role of the proletariat in the struggle for socialism, arguing that "the proletariat of all lands . . . must create the solidarity of revolutionary action . . . independently of and in opposition to all forms of bourgeois politics." Moreover, the aim of the workers' movement was "free organisations and federations . . . created by the spontaneous action of the proletariat itself, [that is, by] the trade bodies and the autonomous communes." [as cited in Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 438, p. 439 and p. 438]

Hence Bakunin's comment that "the designation of the proletariat, the world of the workers, as class rather than as mass" was "deeply antipathetic to us revolutionary anarchists who unconditionally advocate full popular emancipation." To do so, he argued, meant "[n]othing more or less than a new aristocracy, that of the urban and industrial workers, to the exclusion of the millions who make up the rural proletariat and who . . . will in effect become subjects of this great so-called popular State." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, pp. 253-4]

Again, the experiences of the Russian Revolution tend to confirm Bakunin's worries. The Bolsheviks implemented the dictatorship of the city over the countryside, with disastrous results (see the appendix on "What happened during the Russian Revolution?" for more details).

One last point on this subject. While anarchists reject the "dictatorship of the proletariat" we clearly do not reject the key role the proletariat must play in any social revolution (see section H.2.2 on why the Marxist assertion anarchists reject class struggle is false). We only reject the idea that the proletariat must dictate over other working people like peasants and artisans. We do not reject the need for working class people to defend a revolution, nor the need for them to expropriate the capitalist class nor for them to manage their own activities and so society.

Then there is the issue of whether, even if the proletariat does seize political power, whether the whole proletariat can actually exercise it. Bakunin raising the obvious questions:

"For, even from the standpoint of that urban proletariat who are supposed to reap the sole reward of the seizure of political power, surely it is obvious that this power will never be anything but a sham? It is bound to be impossible for a few thousand, let alone tens or hundreds of thousands of men to wield that power effectively. It will have to be exercised by proxy, which means entrusting it to a group of men elected to represent and govern them, which in turn will unfailingly return them to all the deceit and subservience of representative or bourgeois rule. After a brief flash of liberty or orgiastic revolution, the citizens of the new State will wake up slaves, puppets and victims of a new group of ambitious men." [Op. Cit., pp. 254-5]

He repeated this argument in Statism and Anarchy, where he asked "[w]hat does it mean, 'the proletariat raised to a governing class?' Will the entire proletariat head the government? The Germans number about 40 million. Will all 40 millions be members of the government? The entire nation will rule, but no one will be ruled. Then there will be no government, no state; but if there is a state, there will also be those who are ruled, there will be slaves." Bakunin argued that Marxism resolves this dilemma "in a simple fashion. By popular government they mean government of the people by a small number of representatives elected by the people. So-called popular representatives and rulers of the state elected by the entire nation on the basis of universal suffrage — the last word of the Marxists, as well as the democratic school — is a lie behind which lies the despotism of a ruling minority is concealed, a lie all the more dangerous in that it represents itself as the expression of a sham popular will." [Statism and Anarchy, p. 178]

So where does Marx stand on this question. Clearly, the self-proclaimed followers of Marx support the idea of "socialist" governments (indeed, many, including Lenin and Trotsky, went so far as to argue that party dictatorship was essential for the success of a revolution — see next section). Marx, however, is less clear. He argued, in reply to Bakunin's question if all Germans would be members of the government, that "[c]ertainly, because the thing starts with the self-government of the township." However, he also commented that "[c]an it really be that in a trade union, for example, the entire union forms its executive committee," suggesting that there will be a division of labour between those who govern and those who obey in the Marxist system of socialism. [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 545 and p. 544] Elsewhere he talks about "a socialist government . . . com[ing] into power in a country." ["Letter to F. Domela-Nieuwenhuis," Eugene Schulkind (ed.), The Paris Commune of 1871: The View from the Left, p. 244]

As such, Bakunin's critique holds, as Marx and Engels clearly saw the "dictatorship of the proletariat" involving a socialist government having power. For Bakunin, like all anarchists, if a political party is the government, then clearly they are in power, not the mass of working people they claim to represent. Anarchists have, from the beginning, argued that Marx made a grave mistake confusing workers' power with the state. This is because the state is the means by which the management of people's affairs is taken from them and placed into the hands of a few. It signifies delegated power. As such, the so-called "workers' state" or "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a contradiction in terms. Instead of signifying the power of the working class to manage society it, in fact, signifies the opposite, namely the handing over of that power to a few party leaders at the top of a centralised structure. This is because "all State rule, all governments being by their very nature placed outside 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 be happy and free, when, organised from below upwards by means of its own autonomous and completely free associations, without the supervision of any guardians, it will create its own life." [Marxism, Freedom and the State, p. 63] Hence Bakunin's constant arguments for decentralised, federal system of workers councils organised from the bottom-up. Again, the transformation of the Bolshevik government into a dictatorship over the proletariat during the early stages of the Russian Revolution supports Bakunin's critique of Marxism.

Which brings us to the last issue, namely whether the revolution will be decentralised or centralised. For Marx, the issue is somewhat confused by his support for the Paris Commune and its federalist programme (written, we must note, by a follower of Proudhon). However, in 1850, Marx stood for extreme centralisation of power. As he put it, the workers "must not only strive for a single and indivisible German republic, but also within this republic for the most determined centralisation of power in the hands of the state authority." He argued that in a nation like Germany "where there is so many relics of the Middle Ages to be abolished" it "must under no circumstances be permitted that every village, every town and every province should put a new obstacle in the path of revolutionary activity, which can proceed with full force from the centre." He stressed that "[a]s in France in 1793 so today in Germany it is the task of the really revolutionary party to carry through the strictest centralisation." [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 509-10] Lenin followed this aspect of Marx's ideas, arguing that "Marx was a centralist" and applying this perspective both in the party and once in power [The Essential Works of Lenin, p. 310]

Ironically, it is Engels note to the 1885 edition of Marx's work which shows the fallacy of this position. As he put it, "this passage is based on a misunderstanding" and it "is now . . . [a] well known fact that throughout the whole revolution . . . the whole administration of the departments, arrondissements and communes consisted of authorities elected by the respective constituents themselves, and that these authorities acted with complete freedom . . . that precisely this provincial and local self-government . . . became the most powerful lever of the revolution." [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 510f] Marx's original comments imply the imposition of freedom by the centre on a population not desiring it (and in such a case, how could the centre be representative of the majority in such a case?). Moreover, how could a revolution be truly social if it was not occurring in the grassroots across a country? Unsurprisingly, local autonomy has played a key role in every real revolution.

As such, Bakunin has been proved right. Centralism has always killed a revolution and, as he always argued, real socialism can only be worked from below, by the people of every village, town, and city. The problems facing the world or a revolution cannot be solved by a few people at the top issuing decrees. They can only be solved by the active participation of the mass of working class people, the kind of participation centralism and government by their nature exclude. As such, this dove-tails into the question of whether the whole class exercises power under the "dictatorship of the proletariat." In a centralised system, obviously, power has to be exercised by a few (as Marx's argument in 1850 showed). Centralism, by its very nature excludes the possibility of extensive participation in the decision making process. Moreover, the decisions reached by such a body could not reflect the real needs of society. In the words of Bakunin:

"What man, what group of individuals, no matter how great their genius, would dare to think themselves able to embrace and understand the plethora of interests, attitudes and activities so various in every country, every province, locality and profession." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 240]

He stressed that "the revolution should be and should everywhere remain independent of the central point, which must be its expression and product — not its source, guide and cause . . . the awakening of all local passions and the awakening of spontaneous life at all points, must be well developed in order for the revolution to remain alive, real and powerful." [Op. Cit., pp. 179-80] This, we must stress, does not imply isolation. Bakunin always stressed the importance of federal organisation to co-ordinate struggle and defence of the revolution. As he put it, all revolutionary communes would need to federate in order "to organise the necessary common services and arrangements for production and exchange, to establish the charter of equality, the basis of all liberty — a charter utterly negative in character, defining what has to be abolished for ever rather than the positive forms of local life which can be created only by the living practice of each locality — and to organise common defence against the enemies of the Revolution." [Op. Cit., p. 179]

In short, anarchists should "not accept, even in the process of revolutionary transition, either constituent assemblies, provisional governments or so-called revolutionary dictatorships; because we are convinced that revolution is only sincere, honest and real in the hands of the masses, and that when it is concentrated in those of a few ruling individuals it inevitably and immediately becomes reaction." Rather, the revolution "everywhere must be created by the people, and supreme control must always belong to the people organised into a free federation of agricultural and industrial associations . . . organised from the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary delegation". [Op. Cit., p. 237 and p. 172]

Given Marx's support for the federal ideas of the Paris Commune, it can be argued that Marxism is not committed to a policy of strict centralisation (although Lenin, of course, argued that Marx was a firm supporter of centralisation). What is true is, to quote Daniel Guerin, that Marx's comments on the Commune differ "noticeably from Marx's writings of before and after 1871" while Bakunin's were "in fact quite consistent with the lines he adopted in his earlier writings." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 167] Indeed, as Bakunin himself noted, while the Marxists "saw all their ideas upset by the uprising" of the Commune, they "found themselves compelled to take their hats off to it." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 261] This modification of ideas by Marx was not limited just to federalism. Marx also praised the commune's system of mandating recallable delegates, a position which Bakunin had been arguing for a number of years previously. In 1868, for example, he was talked about a "Revolutionary Communal Council" composed of "delegates . . . vested with plenary but accountable and removable mandates." [Op. Cit., pp. 170-1] As such, the Paris Commune was a striking confirmation of Bakunin's ideas on many levels, not Marx's (who adjusted his ideas to bring them in line with Bakunin's!).

In summary, Bakunin argued that decentralisation of power was essential for a real revolution that achieves more than changing who the boss it. A free society could only be created and run from below, by the active participation of the bulk of the population. Centralisation would kill this participation and so kill the revolution. Marx and Engels, on the other hand, while sometimes supporting federalism and local self-government, had a centralist streak in their politics which Bakunin thought undermined the success of any revolution.

Since Bakunin, anarchists have deepen this critique of Marxism and, with the experience of Bolshevism, argue that he predicted key failures in Marx's ideas. Given that his followers, particularly Lenin and Trotsky, have emphasised (although, in many ways, changed them) the centralisation and "socialist government" aspects of Marx's thoughts, anarchists argue that Bakunin's critique is as relevant as ever. Real socialism can only come from below.