1, 2, 3 - Collectivist revolution, Bakunin and syndicalism
Bakunin connects freedom to human sociability, common ownership and the destruction of oppressive political power. Content area 1 addresses the state and economic freedom, area 2 develops collectivism and anarcho-syndicalism, and area 3 examines Bakunin's revolutionary argument. You will distinguish a revolutionary goal, a method of bringing it about, and the organisation intended to replace rule.
Sociability and collective freedom
Bakunin argues that an individual's freedom is developed through relationships with other free people.
Sociability is the capacity and inclination to live and cooperate with others. In this account, people learn, work and develop abilities through social relationships. Freedom is therefore not secured merely by leaving each person alone while others remain dependent or oppressed. Conditions that enable others to be free can support one's own freedom too.
Collectivisation abolishes private ownership of productive resources and replaces it with common ownership. The anarchist purpose is to end the owning class's control over access to work and wealth. Bakunin's economic sections in his Revolutionary Catechism develop a social order based on cooperative production and common resources. The core prescribed link is between human sociability and replacing proprietary domination with collectivisation.
Solidarity
A relationship of sympathy, cooperation and mutual support. Collectivist anarchists expect free social relationships to sustain it, while imposed rule obstructs it.
Altruism means concern for others' welfare, whether grounded in social feeling or an understanding of shared interests. Imagine workers who jointly control a workshop. Their cooperation makes production possible, while their shared control prevents an outside owner determining its terms. The intended link is that the social relationship both supports individual development and reduces domination.
Common ownership is not the same as state ownership. A government that commands production still places people under rulers. Bakunin rejects a transitional ruling state on the grounds that those exercising its power acquire interests and privileges of their own. Calling the rulers workers' representatives would not remove the dangers of their commanding position.
This does not imply that every distinction in knowledge is oppressive. In What is Authority?, Bakunin distinguishes freely consulting expertise from submitting to imposed authority. Someone can accept a skilled carpenter's advice without giving that carpenter a permanent right to command their life. The ability to question advice and consult others preserves judgement; a privileged expert government does not.
Bakunin therefore connects freedom, society and the economy. People need social cooperation to develop; economic hierarchy and state hierarchy frustrate that development; freely organised common ownership is intended to remove those obstacles. The argument should be assessed through those links, rather than reduced to a slogan that all forms of organisation are wrong.
If you sit in 2027 — Issue 3 note: Issue 4 changes only the punctuation of the altruism definition. Concern for others can still arise from rational self-interest or human sociability in either issue.
Revolution and propaganda by deed
Bakunin seeks to abolish the state because power itself is oppressive, rather than because the present rulers happen to be unpopular.
The threat of physical force makes state obedience compulsory. Anarchists regard that coercion as immoral and also challenge the deceit of presenting the rulers' interests as everyone's common interest. When law protects a privileged owning class's control of resources, state power also defends economic inequality. These objections connect the political institution to the economic relationships Bakunin wants to transform.
If ruling power corrupts, gaining that power in order to make people free is a dangerous strategy. New rulers may claim to act for the majority while developing a separate interest in obedience and control. The anarchist objective is consequently to remove the institution of rule, rather than preserve it under a different leadership.
Revolution is a fundamental transformation of the political and social order. For Bakunin it must address both state power and economic property relations. Destroying only political institutions while leaving a class controlling production would leave domination; changing economic ownership while preserving coercive rulers would leave it in another form.
Propaganda by the deed
Action intended to demonstrate revolutionary principles and inspire others to join a wider revolt, rather than relying only on written or spoken persuasion.
The mechanism is communication through example. An action shows that resistance or a different way of organising is possible; others recognise its meaning; their participation helps turn it into broader revolutionary change. Bakunin's Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis, written in 1870, advocates spreading principles through action as well as words.
The prescribed idea is that deeds can spark revolution and that oppressive power must be abolished. It should not be reduced to a definition of terrorism or assassination. Some later uses of the phrase concerned acts of violence, but the relationship between an exemplary action and mass transformation is the conceptual point. A dramatic act is not automatically successful propaganda: people may reject its meaning, remain passive, or face stronger repression.
Direct action is action outside normal legal and constitutional channels, taken by people themselves instead of relying on representatives. It can be non-violent or violent. Propaganda by deed describes an intended communicative and inspirational function within action; direct action is the broader category. Neither expression means that an action inevitably achieves its aim.
This explains a difference from Proudhon. Both reject the state and proprietary domination, but Proudhon prioritises peaceful transformation through self-governing economic relations. Bakunin emphasises revolutionary action to break oppressive power. Their common destination does not settle their disagreement over how people can reach it.
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