Socialism from Below by George Woodcock, Chapter 5 - Michael Bakunin and the First International

Read the full text: https://zabalazabooks.files.wordpress...

George Woodcock (1912-1995) was a historian, political biographer, essayist, poet, and anarchist. He wrote biographies of such anarchist thinkers as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, William Godwin, Oscar Wilde, and Peter Kropotkin. Throughout his life, Woodcock was given numerous awards for his work, but he refused several awards from the government of Canada on the grounds that he only accepted awards granted by his peers.

In this chapter, Woodcock recounts a short political biography of Michael (Mikhail) Bakunin (1814-1876) and the First International. Bakunin was an anarchist revolutionary who fought in several uprisings and who arguably led the first bona fide anarchist efforts to create a social revolution. He also clashed with Karl Marx, forming the two primary factions of radical leftist revolutionaries in Europe at the time: the Marxist communists and the Bakuninist anarchists.

 

 

Show less