Anarchist Thinkers: Mikhail Bakunin and Emma Goldman
Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) and Emma Goldman (1869-1940) are two of anarchism's most influential figures, both associated with collectivist and revolutionary strands of the tradition, though each emphasises different things.
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Method
- For Bakunin, centre the answer on his dispute with Marx: he agreed with Marx's critique of capitalism but rejected the idea of a transitional workers' state, arguing in Statism and Anarchy that such a state would inevitably become a new ruling class rather than genuinely representing the working class.
- For Bakunin, be precise about his positive vision: collective ownership of the means of production, organised through federations of self-governing communes and revolutionary workers' associations, achieved through spontaneous mass revolution rather than a period of state control.
- For Goldman, centre the answer on the breadth of her critique: she extended anarchism beyond opposition to the state and capitalism to include opposition to constraints on personal and sexual freedom, marriage, and militarism, arguing that liberation had to be personal as well as political and economic.
- For Goldman, be able to state her specific critique of the suffrage movement: she argued that winning the vote alone (a formal, liberal feminist demand) would not free women from deeper economic and social domination, since the vote does not by itself change who controls property, labour or personal relationships.
- Use both thinkers to illustrate a wider anarchist theme: state power tends to reproduce hierarchy regardless of the ideology used to justify it (Bakunin on Marxism) and freedom must be pursued in personal as well as political and economic life (Goldman), which broadens anarchism beyond a narrow focus on abolishing formal government alone.
- For an evaluate question, weigh Bakunin's structural, economically focused critique of state power against Goldman's broader critique that also targets personal and sexual freedom, and consider whether one account of 'freedom' is more complete than the other.
Worked example
Plan an answer to: 'Explain Bakunin's critique of Marx's idea of a transitional workers' state.' Focus on his prediction of a 'red bureaucracy'.
- State Marx's position first, briefly, for contrast: Marx argued a temporary 'dictatorship of the proletariat', a workers' state, was needed to suppress capitalist resistance before the state would eventually wither away.
- State Bakunin's objection: he argued in Statism and Anarchy that any state, even one claiming to act for the working class, concentrates coercive power in the hands of a small group of officials.
- Explain the predicted mechanism: this group would develop its own interests separate from the workers it claimed to represent, becoming a new ruling class, which Bakunin described as a 'red bureaucracy'.
- Draw the conclusion Bakunin reached: because power corrupts regardless of the ideology used to justify it, the state cannot simply be captured and used for revolutionary ends; it must be abolished immediately, not passed through as a 'transitional' stage.
- Close by linking this to Bakunin's wider anarchism: this is why he insisted on immediate collective ownership organised through communes and associations, with no intervening state stage at all, marking his clearest disagreement with Marx.
Practice questions
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Q1In what organisation did Bakunin clash with Karl Marx, and in what year was he expelled from it?Show answer
Answer: The First International (the International Workingmen's Association); he was expelled in 1872.
Q2What term did Bakunin use to describe the new ruling class he predicted a workers' state would create?Show answer
Answer: A 'red bureaucracy'.
Q3In what text did Bakunin set out his critique of Marx's transitional state?Show answer
Answer: Statism and Anarchy (1873).
Q4What did Goldman argue was insufficient about winning women the vote alone?Show answer
Answer: That formal political rights like the vote would not by themselves free women from deeper economic and social domination, since they leave control over property, labour and personal relationships unchanged.
Q5Give one cause, other than opposition to the state and capitalism, that Goldman campaigned for.Show answer
Answer: Free speech, birth control, or opposition to militarism and conscription.
Q6What happened to Goldman in 1919?Show answer
Answer: She was deported from the United States because of her anarchist activities.
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a A Level Politics exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
Explain and analyse two ways Goldman's anarchism extends beyond opposition to the state and capitalism alone.
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'Bakunin's critique of the state is more convincing than Goldman's.' Analyse and evaluate this statement.
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