The new issue of Black Flag: Anarchist Review is now available:
This year’s second issue is a special to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of Michael Bakunin. This follows our Peter Kropotkin (Autumn 2025) and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (Spring 2025) specials and has the same format – articles on Bakunin, by Bakunin and reviews of works by or on him. Many of the articles by Bakunin have been newly translated, some of them for the first time (as far as we are aware).
While best known for his struggle against Marx in the (First) International and his correct prediction that the so-called workers' State would generate a new ruling class, there is much more to Bakunin than that. He wrote on a wide range of subjects which activists today will find of interest – the nature of a social revolution, union organising, nationalism and national liberation, atheism, the need for a specific anarchist organisation, amongst others. This issue of Black Flag includes writings on all these subjects.
It is important to stress that the conflict within the International was not a personal one. Bakunin was a champion of a tendency which had existed within it since the start, one which could be termed (to use a later word) syndicalist – one which argued for struggle on the economic terrain and favoured federalist socio-economic organisation which prefigured the socialist world desired. This inevitably brought the federalist-wing of the International into conflict with Marx who favoured political action (electioneering) and centralised political organisation (parties). Bakunin championed this tendency (which proved to be the majority of the International) and became its best-known advocate.
As becomes clear from the writings included in this issue, Bakunin advocated syndicalist tactics and specific anarchist organisation. However, this is often ignored by commentators upon him and anarchism. Instead, Bakunin's constructive ideas are replaced with suggestions that he was an advocate of pan-destruction and terrorism. Suffice to say, comparing hostile accounts of Bakunin to anarchist ones and the reader would not be condemned if they concluded that there were about two different people with the same name.
Often criticism is based on works for which any actual evidence of Bakunin’s authorship is lacking or, at best, limited, superficial or dubious. These date from his short association – and infatuation – with the Russian Nihilist Sergi Nechaev and many of the commentators seem blissfully unaware of any research conducted since Marx and Engels first made the assertion, research which shows that Bakunin had no role in the infamous works written during that short period and that Nechaev was their author. This explains why their content is so at odds with Bakunin's other writings, whether public or private.
Distortion matters, however. The attacks by Marx and Engels seem to have lead John Most to conclude that terrorism was the anarchist strategy while the International Working People's Association (IWPA) English-language journal The Alarm in Chicago publishing Nechaev’s Catechism of a Revolutionary under Bakunin’s name. This leads to the bizarre situation of some proclaiming the IWPA as non-anarchist because they were proto-syndicalists when, in reality, they were following Bakunin’s actual (syndicalist) strategy within the International as we have discussed in previous issues of Black Flag Anarchist Review.
None of this means that Bakunin cannot be criticised. Like Proudhon, all too often he is better read in an edited form. Like Proudhon, he was anti-Semitic and his writings on Marx are sometimes marred by it. However, his bigotries are not fundamental to his critique – and he also rejects Proudhon’s sexism, being a strong advocate of equality between the sexes and women’s rights. He was also far too optimistic about the possibility of a social revolution – as one commentor rightly observed, Bakunin all too often acted like someone who mistook the second for the nineth month of pregnancy. Finally, his fascination for conspiracy and secrecy – while understandable given his personal history and the social context – was often taken too far while his term “invisible dictatorship” was unfortunate because it is misleading when taken out of context (as it almost always is). However, this aspect of his ideas is all too often exaggerated and distorted while its useful aspects ignored.
Still, we are anarchists and not “Bakuninists” and do not blindly follow anyone, no matter how important their contributions are to the cause. We can recognise someone as being an important thinker and activist as well as a flawed individual (like everyone else). The writings included should show why Bakunin is still of interest to anarchists and other activists today.
Original translations which appear in Black Flag: Anarchist Review eventually appear on-line here:
https://anarchistfaq.org/translations/index.html
This year we aim to continue to cover a range of people and subjects. These will hopefully include Guy Aldred, the Haymarket events, the Spanish Revolution, the founding of Freedom, amongst others.
However, this work needs help otherwise at some stage it will end. Contributions from libertarian socialists are welcome on these and other subjects! We are a small collective and always need help in writing, translating and gathering material, so please get in touch if you want to see Black Flag Anarchist Review continue.
This issue’s editorial and contents can be found here: https://anarchistfaq.org/anarcho/black-flag-anarchist-review-summer-2026-issue-now-out/