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THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
those distant countries where it had been kept up ? Is not 
this another application of the Darwinian law ? It may per 
haps be objected that monasteries, where reigns not merely 
Collectivism, but absolute Communism, have grown prodigiously 
in numbers and in wealth. This is true; but there we find 
celibacy in this world and a vision of heaven in the next, facts 
which make all the difference. Moreover, is it to monasticism 
that the Congress of Bâle wished to lead humanity ? 
It was at this same congress that Bakunin, who was going 
to launch the International on a decidedly revolutionary course, 
first appeared on the scene. The Russian agitator represented 
at once the silk-winders of Lyons and the machinists of Naples. 
This was Internationalism in practice. He did not trouble 
himself in seeking after new forms for the society of the future. 
The sole end to pursue was, he said, the destruction, root 
and branch, of the existing social order. Out of the ruins 
there would arise, by virtue of spontaneous generation, a better 
organization. “ I desire,” he added, “ the application of the 
collective principle, not merely to land, but to all kinds of 
property, by means of a universal social liquidation ; and by 
social liquidation I mean the abolition of the political and 
juridical State. The individual depends upon the collectivity, 
and individual property is nothing else than the iniquitous 
appropriation of the fruits of collective labour. I call for the 
destruction of all national and territorial States, and, upon 
their ruins, the foundation of an international State composed 
of the millions of workers. It will be the role of the Inter 
national to constitute this State by the “ solidarization ” of the 
Communes throughout the world, and this presupposes a re 
organization of society from top to bottom.” Thus there are 
to be no more nations, no more States, no more political or 
judicial institutions, no more private property, no God, no 
religious worship, not even any free and independent indi 
viduals. Total destruction of all that exists, and, in the new 
world, as the organic cell and primordial element of recon 
struction, not, as before, the human personality, but the 
“ amorphous ” (shapeless) Commune, and thus humanity is to 
be rendered like a confused mass of confei-vœ, or a nebula in