Basic Bakunin, The: Writings 1869-1871 (Great Books in Philosophy)

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin, the anarchist, was a political thinker; his reputation, based partly on his appetite for action and partly on unsympathetic historiography, obscures this. Bakunin's social milieu influenced the manner in which he expressed his ideas, because he tried always to tailor them to whom he spoke, promoting so far as possible the revolutionary consciousness and socialist instincts of his audience.

The works included in this volume nevertheless have a certain unity, because they all were intended for the same audience. The texts presented here date from the period of Bakunin's propaganda on behalf of the International Working-Men's Association. They thus belong to a phase of his activity central to his anarchism, which is generally agreed to be one of his most significant projects, and which marks the height of his influence during his life. Most of the items first appeared in the Swiss newspapers L'Egalite and Le Progres in 1869. Isaiah Berlin, no great partisan of Bakunin's, has called him a "gifted journalist," and Amedee Dunois considers these articles the best of Bakunin's written works. By making available in English an important and coherent set of Bakunin's writings, it is hoped to contribute to a more careful reevaluation of his thought.