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BAKUNIN  THE  APOSTLE  OF  NIHILISM.
organization.  The  third  section  embraced  all  the  simple
adherents  who  enrolled  themselves  in  local  Socialist  associations, ­
  figured  in  the  congresses,  and  constituted  the  grand  army
of  the  insurrection.
The  Alliance  starts  from  the  idea  “that  revolutions  are
made  neither  by  individuals  nor  by  secret  societies.  They
come,  as  it  were,  of  themselves,  produced  by  the  movement  of
ideas  and  events.  All  that  a  secret  society  can  do  is  to  spread
among  the  masses  ideas  which  may  instigate  them  to  revolution,
and  a,fterwards  to  constitute  a  revolutionary  directorate,  capable
of  guiding  the  insurrection  when  it  breaks  out.  For  the  international ­
  organization  of  the  Revolution,  a  hundred  devoted  and
closely  united  men  are  sufficient.”  By  a  flagrant  inconsistency,
Bakunin,  who  preached  anarchy  and  who  rebelled  against  Marx
and  his  General  Council,  because  they  arrogated  to  themselves
too  much  authority,  here  returns  to  the  ideas  of  Mazzini,  and
creates  a  highly  centralized  organization,  on  the  model  of  the
Society  of  the  Jesuits,  having,  like  it,  the  hilt  of  the  sword  in
the  hands  of  one  man  and  the  point  everywhere.  All  appointments ­
  and  all  initiatives  were  to  come  from  the  head  centre.
The  International  aimed  at  the  raising  of  wages  and  social
reform  by  means  of  discussion,  propaganda,  the  press,  in  a  word,
by  means  of  publicity.  Bakunin,  on  the  contrary,  returned  to
the  old  methods  of  conspiracy.  This  system  may  succeed  in  a
country  despotically  governed,  where  the  object  is  to  substitute
a  better  political  régime  ;  but  in  free  countries,  which,  like
Switzerland  and  France,  govern  themselves  and  where  it  only
remains  to  introduce  economic  reforms,  who  is  to  be  overthrown? ­
  Is  it  those  chosen  by  universal  suffrage?  In  place
of  anarchism,  then,  it  is  a  dictatorship  that  you  are  going  to
establish.  You  may  have  discovered  the  most  perfect  social
system,  for  example,  absolute  amorphism  and  unlimited  collectivism, ­
  yet  you  would  not  be  able  to  establish  it  or  make  it
work,  if  the  masses  who  are  to  practise  it  have  not  even  an
Idea  of  It.  A  dictator,  were  he  all-powerful,  would  lose  his
labour.
of  the  Alliance  is  no  other  than  that  of
Nihilism.  “  The  Association  of  the  International  brothers,”  it