Marx versus Bakunin¶
Core Argument¶
The struggle between Marx and Bakunin that consumed the First International from 1871 represented a fundamental opposition between Marxism as a scientific theory of the proletariat and anarchism as a petty-bourgeois, unscientific doctrine. Bakunin, whom Marx considered a theoretical non-entity but a skilled intriguer, entered the International Working Men's Association in 1868 after failing to capture the bourgeois League for Peace and Freedom. He immediately formed the secret International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, a self-appointed and unaccountable body designed to impose his anarchist ideas on the International. Though the General Council refused admission of the Alliance as a separate organisation, Bakunin falsely claimed to dissolve it while maintaining its central organisation.
The conflict exposed Bakunin's adventurism through the Nechayev affair. Bakunin recruited the fanatical Nechayev, who murdered a student who doubted the existence of a fictitious revolutionary committee. Bakunin provided fake International documents, wrote the committee's proclamations, and defended the murder as a political act, damaging the International's reputation. At the Basel Congress, Bakunin cautiously proposed abolishing the right of inheritance rather than private property, creating confusion that prevented either resolution from winning a majority. Marx's position held that private property creates inheritance rights; the proletariat must expropriate large-scale property through nationalisation—a political act anarchists reject.
The Bakuninists, a noisy but tiny minority, rejected democratic structures and refused to recognise the elected General Council. Their Sonvillier circular accused the London Conference of authoritarianism, demanding the General Council be reduced to a mere correspondence and statistical bureau. Marx argued this position logically dissolves organisation altogether, whereas workers need strong centralised leadership to fight the bosses. The London Conference of 1871 resolved that the working class must constitute itself as a special political party, uniting economic and political struggle—a decisive defeat for the Bakuninists. Bakunin responded with a campaign of slander, deploying anti-Semitic and anti-German slurs against Marx.
The Hague Congress of September 1872 expelled Bakunin and his supporter Guillaume, while Engels successfully moved the General Council's seat to New York. The Bakuninists split, holding their own congress at Rimini. Reformist English trade unionists like John Hales, seeking accommodation with liberals, made common cause with the anarchists against the General Council, creating an unholy alliance despite having nothing in common with anarchist ideas. The First International effectively ended with the Hague Congress; the 1876 Geneva congress signed its death certificate. Marx admitted the congress was a fiasco but argued events would recreate the International on a higher level—a tradition that re-emerged with the founding of the Second International in July 1889.