{"id":1960,"date":"2020-11-30T12:44:31","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T17:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/abolition1313\/?p=1960"},"modified":"2021-04-27T15:28:34","modified_gmt":"2021-04-27T19:28:34","slug":"etienne-balibar-an-addendum-on-the-marx-bakunin-reference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/abolition1313\/etienne-balibar-an-addendum-on-the-marx-bakunin-reference\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00c9tienne Balibar | An Addendum on the Marx\/Bakunin Reference"},"content":{"rendered":"

By \u00c9tienne Balibar<\/a><\/h2>\n

During Abolition 5\/13<\/a>, I made reference to the Marx-Bakunin matter. Let me elaborate here.<\/p>\n

The \u201cconspectus\u201d (or critical notes) of Marx after his reading of Bakunin\u2019s book Statism and Anarchy<\/em> in Russian were written in 1874-1875 in the course of the polemic following the dissolution of the First International, therefore they are exactly contemporary with the Notes on the Gotha Program<\/em> (and in fact there is a direct relationship because Bakunin identifies Marx\u2019s \u201cstatist\u201d socialism with Lassalle at the very moment when Marx is trying to distance himself from the Lassalians by reinstating his idea that the withering away of the state is the ultimate goal of communism, so it is a completely triangular confrontation).<\/p>\n

But, whereas the Notes on the Gotha Program<\/em> were left unpublished by Marx (later published by Engels in the course of later \u201cprogrammatic\u201d discussions in the German Social-democracy), the notes on Bakunin we published in a Russian journal only in the \u201820s and then in the Complete Works as \u201cliterarisches Nachlass\u201d.<\/p>\n

A good account of the context and content of the dispute (and its continuation in the present) is given in two articles by my former student Jean-Christophe Angaut, that you can find here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for the notes themselves, you can find them in German (here<\/a>) and as a partial translation in English<\/a>. The French exists in a post-68 publication, a paperback edition<\/a> which falls apart as soon as you use it\u2026 (I gave my copy to a young student a long time ago).<\/p>\n

I recall a letter from Marx where he exclaims: \u201cI am the true anarchist!\u201d, but I can\u2019t retrieve the exact reference now because it is in a volume that I don\u2019t have with me now; however, I discussed similar statements and argued for the idea of Marx being caught in a \u201cdouble bind\u201d between Lassalle and Bakunin (which remains in subsequent Marxism) in a subchapter of my book La crainte des masses<\/em>, which you can find here<\/a>\u00a0in French. A different argument (based on other episodes) which I find extremely valuable is to be found in the beautiful book by Mighel Abensour La d\u00e9mocratie contre l\u2019Etat<\/em> (there is an English version).<\/p>\n

Finally, you can also find here<\/a> the chapter from Wallerstein to which I alluded, on the contradictory attitude of all \u201cideologies\u201d with respect to the “State vs Society” dilemma, which I find really illuminating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By \u00c9tienne Balibar During Abolition 5\/13, I made reference to the Marx-Bakunin matter. Let me elaborate here. The \u201cconspectus\u201d (or critical notes) of Marx after his reading of Bakunin\u2019s book Statism and Anarchy in Russian were written in 1874-1875 in… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52428],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts-5-13"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/abolition1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/abolition1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/abolition1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/abolition1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/abolition1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/abolition1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/abolition1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/abolition1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/abolition1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}