to Marxism and to historical materialism. Like Herzen, he conceives individual mental energy as a primary historic force, but in his postsiberian period his thought tended to become more economic, and was at times almost Marxist. His contest with Marx in the International compelled Bakunin to gain a clearer understanding of his opponent's theories, and despite all differences of opinion between himself and Marx he began a translation of the first volume of Capital.[1]
§ 91.
BAKUNIN attempted on more than one occasion to formulate the philosophic principles of revolution. In his leading work, the motive force of individual action and of history is discerned in three principles, animality, thought, and revolt; man has an inborn need for revolt, a revolutionary instinct. This ranking of revolt beside thought and animality is manifestly a transference of the Bakuninist revolutionary nervous impulse into the domain of psychology; but it is plain that revolt as a primary psychical element is atrophied in many human beings, or at least that it is "inborn" only in certain periods.
In his program for the Alliance Internationale de la Démocratie Socialiste, which was published in 1873, Bakunin formulated an ethical theory of revolution which was no less typical of his thought than the instinct theory.
- ↑ In Dieu et l'État, we are told that religion or theism is the groundwork of social slavery, that science and culture are the proper means to secure enftranchisement from religious illusion, from church and state, and consequently from slavery and exploitation. In the speech at the Berne conference (September 1868), he tells us, on the other hand, that the populace must be economically secure before it can become cultured, and that a social revolution is therefore necessary before we can hope for the destruction of religion. "Intellectual propaganda" will not suffice. Atheism will be attained through the social revolution, not conversely. Again, we read: "Economic revolution has an immeasurable advantage over religious and political revolution in the sobriety of its foundations." Thus positivism is represented as the consequence or accompaniment of economic revolution. In an undated letter published by Dragomanov, an arithmetical computation is even given of the relationship between the economic and the ideal endeavours of mankind. Half the human race we are told looks for the satisfaction of material needs, whereas the other half desires the satisfaction of spiritual or ideal needs, and history affords proof of this duplex trend of endeavour. But Bakunin inclines to give the primacy to spiritual needs. Even during the "phase of social-economic development men will not devote themselves exclusively to promoting their material interests.
