''Statism and Anarchy'' (russian: Государственность и анархия, ''Gosudarstvennost' i anarkhiia'', literally "Statehood and Anarchy") was the last work by the Russian

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessar ...

Mikhail Bakunin. Written in the summer of 1873, the key themes of the work are the likely impact on Europe of the Franco-Prussian war and the rise of the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

, Bakunin's view of the weaknesses of the

Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

position and an affirmation of anarchism. ''Statism and Anarchy'' was the only one of Bakunin's major anarchist works to be written in Russian and was primarily aimed at a Russian audience, with an initial print run of 1,200 copies printed in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

and smuggled into Russia.

Marshall Shatz Marshall Sharon Shatz (born 1939) is an American historian and scholar of Russia. Works * ''The Essential Works of Anarchism'' (1972, as editor) * ''Soviet Dissent in Historical Perspective'' (1980) * ''Signposts: A Collection of Articles o ...

writes that ''Statism and Anarchy'' "helped to lay the foundations of a Russian anarchist movement as a separate current within the revolutionary stream". The quote

The People's Stick "The People's Stick" is a political metaphor by 19th-century Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin used in his 1873 work ''Statism and Anarchy''. The full quote states: When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is c ...

, condemning tyranny imposed with the rationale that the state represents "the people" as in Marxism, originates in this book: At one point, most of the socialist movement had been effectively anarchist, following the lead of

individualist anarchist Individualist anarchism is the branch of anarchism that emphasizes the individual and their will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions and ideological systems."What do I mean by individualism? I mean by individualism t ...

Pierre Joseph Proudhon. With the First Internationale it had effectively split into two factions, the anarcho-syndicalists typified by Bakunin, and the Marxists, who claimed an anarchist long-term goal of the state "withering away", but would impose an authoritarian " dictatorship of the proletariat" for the foreseeable future. In this quote, as in the book, Bakunin argued that the Marxist authoritarianism was little better than any other. His overall description of the ostensibly inevitable outcome of Marxism was very similar to

Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the the ...

sixty years later.

Published editions

* *

References

1873 books Anarchism in Russia Mikhail Bakunin Books about anarchism Collectivist anarchism Philosophy books Statism {{anarchism-book-stub

Published editions

See also

References