The Socialism of to-day

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

% BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 20] sent to forecast the organization of the future. “ All reasonings about the future are criminal, because they hinder destruction pure and simple, and fetter the progress of the revolution.” In his Paroles addressees aux Étudiants, Bakunin, like Rousseau, attacks science and education, and cries up “ holy and wholesome ignorance.” The Russian people, he says, are now in the same condition as in the days of the Tsar Alexis, father of Peter the Great, when Stenka Razine, the Cossack Chief of the Brigands, placed himself at the head of a formid able insurrection. The great mass of our young men without any defined position (déclassés), who already lead the life of the people, will form a sort of collective and, consequently, invincible Stenka Razine, and will bring about the final emancipation. But they must leave the schools and universi ties and live with the people, in order to promote their deliverance. “ Give no thought to this useless knowledge in the name of which men try to tie your hands.” “ The brigand is the true hero, the avenger of the people, the irreconcilable enemy of the State, the true revolutionist in action, without phrases or rhetoric borrowed from books.” It is evident that Bakunin had read Schiller and had some recollection of Karl von Moor. Marx, who used to laugh at his opponent’s bombastic rhetoric, remarked that as regards brigands, there were none in Russia—outside the Government at least—except some poor devils who carried on the trade of horse-stealing, to the profit of certain commercial enterprises which paid, moreover, very good dividends. Nevertheless, it is true that, when the social mechanism drives the masses'to despair, brigands multiply and become popular, as has been the case for some time in Sicily and Calabria. But in Russia it is the middle class, and not the people, who feel themselves oppressed ; and it is revolutionists, and not brigands, that the bourgeoisie supply. In another fly-sheet, printed at Geneva, in Russian and for Russia, entitled “The Principles of the Revolution,” Bakunin indicates the means to be employed for overthrowing every thing and establishing amorphism. “ Admitting,” he says, “ no other activity than that of destruction, we declare that the

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The Socialism of to-day

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation