The Bakuninists at Work

A work by Engels analyzing the adverse effects of Bakuninism on the Spanish workers’ movement. Written between September and October 1873. The original text, in German, appeared in Der Volksstaat, Nos. 105, 106 and 107, October 31, November 2 and 5, 1873, and was published in Leipzig in a single edition, Die Bakunisten an der Arbeit –Denkschrift über den Aufstand in Spanien im Sommer 1873 (The Bakuninists at Work—An Account of the Spanish Revolt in the Summer of 1873), which was included in Engels’ Internationales aus dem ‘Volksstaat’ (1871–1875). For this publication Engels wrote an Introductory Remark and made several amendments.

In the summer of 1873, the fifth bourgeois-democratic revolution in Spain reached its climax, while the workers’ movement organized by the Bakuninists of the Spanish section of the International suffered a crushing defeat. In order to expose the essence of Bakuninism and eliminate its negative impact on the workers’ movement, Engels wrote this article on the basis of the information from the periodical press and various documents of the Spanish sections of the International. In the article, Engels first criticized the erroneous standpoint of abstention from politics advocated by Bakuninism. He held that abstention was a palpable absurdity and the active intervention of the working class was an inevitable necessity. Engels then enumerated the claims of the Bakuninists in the revolution and showed the dangers of these claims. He pointed out that Bakuninists advocated that they should not take part in any revolution that did not aim at the immediate emancipation of the working class, regarded a general strike as the lever employed by which the social revolution is started, and also pursued a policy of federation of sovereign cantons. As a result, these claims led to the defeat of the workers’ movement in most Spanish cities and dragged down the prestige and organisation of the First International in Spain. Next, Engels pointed out the bankruptcy of Bakuninism in practice and its substance. In this regard, he summarized: When faced with a serious revolutionary situation, the Bakuninists threw their doctrine of the of absolute abstention from political activities, their doctrine of anarchy, of the abolition of the State, and their principle that “the workers must not take part in any revolution that did not have as its aim the immediate and complete emancipation of the proletariat”, and went against their principle that “the establishment of a revolutionary government is but another fraud another betrayal of the working class”. Thus, when it came to doing things, the ultra-revolutionary rantings of the Bakuninists either became meaningless, or, led to their joining a bourgeois party. Finally, Engels emphasized the importance of the question of tactics in the revolutionary action of the proletariat. He believed that in industrially backward countries, in order to realize the complete emancipation of the working class, it was necessary to pass through various preliminary stages of development and remove quite a number of obstacles from its path and go through these stages in the shortest possible time and quickly surmount the obstacles.

The Bakuninist at Work made a concrete analysis of the harm done by Bakuninism in the revolutionary movement in Spain and exposed the essence of Bakuninism, which was of great significance for the healthy development of the international communist movement.