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

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

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 neces ...

Mikhail Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (; 1814–1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, socialist and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major founder of the revolutionary ...

. Written in the summer of

1873 Events January–March * January 1 ** Japan adopts the Gregorian calendar. ** The California Penal Code goes into effect. * January 17 – American Indian Wars: Modoc War: First Battle of the Stronghold – Modoc Indians defeat ...

, 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 politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

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 Anarchism in Russia has its roots in the early mutual aid systems of the medieval republics and later in the popular resistance to the Tsarist autocracy and serfdom. Through the history of radicalism during the early 19th-century, anarchism de ...

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 ca ...

, 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 (philosophy), will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions and ideological systems."What do I mean by individualism? I mean ...

Pierre Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Social ...

. With the

First Internationale The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), often called the First International (1864–1876), was an international organisation which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist groups and trad ...

it had effectively split into two factions, the

anarcho-syndicalist Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence in b ...

s 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 In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the ...

" 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 theory ...

sixty years later.

Published editions

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References

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

Published editions

See also

References