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BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM.
(3) Substitution, for the existing State, of a social organism based on
the most absolute autonomy of groups and of federal com
munes, with a view to the organization of the public services,
the thorough cultivation of the land, the beautifying of the
globe, and the happiness of all ;
(4) Civil, political, and economical equality of all human beings, with
out distinction of sex, colour, race, or nationality ;
(5) Guarantee of individual independence by enabling each producer
to possess the surplus value obtained by his labour on the
raw material worked up by him ;
(6) The assurance that each member of society shall receive, at the
collective cost, both a general and a professional education
on a level with the sum of the knowledge of his times.
In the programme of the “ Federation of the Marches and
of Umbria” may be found an indication of the object aimed at
by the Anarchists :—
“ Seeing that the emancipation of the labourer ought to be
the work of the labourer himself : that, inasmuch as he does
not wish to be led by any superior authority, the labourer is
essentially anti-authoritarian and anarchic; that the emanci
pation of the labourer has for aim equality of rights and duties
and the abolition of classes; that this emancipation is impos
sible with the existing organization of the State and of property ;
that the destruction of the State, in all its forms, is the grand
aim of the social revolution, which strives to transform society
on the basis of anarchy and collectivism . . . ’’—Except
for the idea of pan-destruction the rest is very vague. An
anarchist, Costa, explains the matter in a letter to the Egalité
of Paris (1878) : “As to doctrines, we may say that we have
few of them. We are anarchists, that is all. We wish that
every one should have the opportunity of making known his
wants and the means of satisfying them ; in a word, that every
one should be able to do as he likes.'’ Nothing, in truth, is more
desirable than this universal liberty; but how to realize it?
Destroy everything—that is the sole practical plan suggested.
These extracts suffice to show that the programme of
militant Socialism in Italy is, at bottom, no other than that
of Bakunin. The same is the case in Spain.
The history of the International in Spain is as tragic as it
is instructive. Although there are few working men engaged