bakunin and marx from russia with love
I recently read Wolfgang Eckhardt’s The First Socialist Schism, and what I discovered disturbed me. A friend had told me that in it Karl Marx accused Mikhail Bakunin of wanting to be the dictator of the First International. The slapstick incongruity of the charge piqued my interest, and left me wondering if perhaps it were Groucho and not Karl who was its author. What I learned, however, was anything but amusing.
I knew that there had been a clash between the two, and that it grew personal, and that the conflict led to a split in the International Working Men’s Association [IWMA]. I knew that Marx had made allegations that few believed then and fewer do now. I also knew that each man had shamed himself with ethnic bigotry: the Jew for the Slav, and the Slav for the Jew. I knew that each accused the other of being an agent of the bourgeoisie. What I hadn’t yet encountered was the visceral, primitive hatred Marx held for Bakunin, and the Machiavellian depths to which he and Friedrich Engels fell in order to banish their despised rival, even at the expense of the IWMA itself.
Marx’ private correspondence is littered with abuse. He refers to Bakunin as a “savage,” an “idiot,” “ignoramus,” “charlatan,” “beast,” and worse. He continually asserts that Bakunin’s positions are “hollow fancies” devoid of theoretical or analytical value, “empty phrase-mongering.” He also bemoans Bakunin’s lack…