words, used to mask the State authority. Full independence of the Communes, their free federation, and the Social Revolution within the Communes—this was, he proved, the ideal now rising before our civilisation from the mists of the past. The individual understands that he will be really free in proportion only as all the others round him become free.
As to his economic conceptions, Bakunin was at heart a Communist; but, in common with his Federalist comrades of the International, and as a concession to the antagonism to Communism that the authoritarian Communists had inspired in France, he described himself as a "Collectivist Anarchist." But, of course, he was not a "Collectivist" in the sense of Vidal or Pecqueur, or of their modern followers, who simply aim at "State Capitalism"; he understood it in the above-mentioned sense of not determining in advance what form of distribution the producers should adopt in their different groups—whether the Communist solution, or the labour cheques, or equal salaries, or any other method. And with these views, he was an ardent preacher of the Social Revolution, the near approach of which was foreseen then by all Socialists, and which he foretold in fiery words.[1]
- ↑ A number of Bakunin's co-workers and friends—namely, Varlin, Guillaume, and the Italians—had already in 1869 described themselves as Communist Anarchists; but, forced to fight bitterly later on for the independence of their respective Federations, they gave only a secondary attention to this question, leaving it to be decided in the future by the Communes and Labour organisations themselves.
