Karl Marx’s marginal notes on Michael Bakunin’s book Statism and Anarchy [1] are amongst those of Marx’s writings which so far have not been published in their original language. Yet these notes are of considerable interest. In them Marx touches, though only briefly and at times cryptically, on his attitude towards the peasantry, on his views about the dictatorship of the proletariat, on the possibility of a « radical revolution » in non-industrialised countries, and on the charge, made by Bakunin, that the success of Marxism would merely mean the rise of a new ruling class.

The interpretations of Marx’s views on these points are endless. Yet very few writers have made any reference to the notes on Bakunin. One major reason for this neglect is no doubt the fact that no version of the notes in German, the language they were mainly written in, is available. The existing re-translations from the Russian are either inaccurate or incomplete or not easily available. Moreover, in the last decades French and German Marx scholars, and, more recently, English ones, have, by and large, been mainly interested in « the young Marx ». There has been comparatively very little work on the interpretation of his later writings.

It was Riazanov who first, in 1926, published Marx’s notes [2]. The long text - over 40 pages in the 1926 version - consists of three elements : First, the largest part is taken up by Marx’s summary of Bakunin’s book. That work appeared towards the end of 1873, in Russian, and Marx’s résumé of it is also in Russian. Second, scattered throughout the résumé Marx makes brief philological and etymological comments, which demonstrate his thoroughness in attempting to acquire a complete mastery of Russian. Third, there are the « marginal notes » proper, i.e. the comments of Marx on some of the points raised by Bakunin. It is only with these that we are concerned here, and all references to « notes » from now on will be to them only.

These notes were mainly written in German, with an occasional French or English expression thrown in.

Riazanov wrote a brief introduction to his 1926 publication of the manuscript. It is very general and exceedingly cautious, avoiding any discussion of the possible political significance of the notes. Riazanov in fact says no more than that Marx was greatly interested in Bakunin’s book, since his comments are longer than in many other notebooks containing summaries of other works. Riazanov states that while Engels dated the notes as probably written in 1875, he himself believes they were made in 1874.

Clearly, for a satisfactory publication of the Manuscript, it should have been printed in the languages in which it was written - the Russian parts in Russian, the German parts in German. However, Riazanov published the whole text in Russian only. When it was re-published later, this time without any comment, in the Russian edition of the Marx-Engels Works, the text was once more printed only in Russian [3]. Towards the end of 1934, the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute in Moscow apparently released its own translation of the text : Two identical Communist pamphlets directed against Anarchism, a French one, and an Italian one published in Brussels, featured this translation in 1935 [4].

The French version is very poor indeed. Bakunin’s remarks are mixed up with Marx’s comments on them, so that points made by the former are ascribed to the latter. The valuable anthology of Marx’s ethical views, edited by M. Rubel again printed extracts from the notes. M. Rubel made a valiant attempt to improve on the French version, but did not succeed entirely [5].

The only English version I have been able to discover is a partial translation of the French version, and appeared in the New York neo-Trotskyist journal The New International in 1951. The translator noted that the series of translations - from the German, into Russian, into French, into English - « makes it impossible to guarantee complete accuracy [6] ». Since this version simply copied the confusion between what was written by Bakunin and what by Marx, this is somewhat of an understatement. The Italian translation is much the best, but it is hard to get and prints the text in such a way as to make confusion between Marx and Bakunin still possible.

II

One of the most interesting points in Bakunin’s hook is the view that Marxism, if successful, would result in the rule of a new class of « social scientists [7] ». Bakunin raises the question of the social status of ex-proletarians who find themselves in governmental positions in a socialist society. Marx dismisses this point by arguing that a manufacturer who becomes a member of a municipal council does not thereby change his social class - he is still a capitalist. This reply is pretty sophistical : Bakunin’s point was, of course, that membership of a government gives a person a type of power in the making and enforcing of decisions which he did not have when he was a worker at the bench. Moreover, it also carries with it quite definite material privileges.

This particular controversy has received some attention in the English literature, which otherwise has completely ignored the Marx notes. The polish writer Max Podolsky, writing under the pseudonym of « Max Nomad », refers to the Marx notes in his books [8]. Nomad’s work, which is very interesting though rather crude, is based to a considerable extent on the ideas of the Polish writer Waclaw Machajski. While in banishment in Siberia in 1898-1900, Machajski worked out his theory, which, by the way, was known to Leon Trotsky [9]. Its basic outlines are simple : Knowledge and education are treated as a form of « capital ». The possessors of this capital are the intelligentsia, treated as a separate social class. They use Socialist ideology to get a mass basis in the proletariat for the overthrow of private capitalism. Having thus, with the help of the proletariat, eliminated the private capitalists, the intelligentsia, refusing to socialize the means of intellectual production, will become the new ruling class. Machajski believed that in the end a classless society would come - if the proletariat abolished all inheritance of property, imposed equal access to education, and levelled all incomes [10].

Machajski’s followers, known, after one of his pen-names, as Makhayevists, conducted some agitation, especially among the unskilled workers, in Russia at the turn of the century. In the 1905 revolution they had two small groups - the « Invincible » group in Odessa, and the « Struggle » group in Byelostok.

Nomad follows Machajski - whose analysis has influenced others [11]

in maintaining that there is a conflict of interests between the intelligentsia and unskilled workers, that Socialism means new masters for old, but he rejects his utopian ideal of the classless society. For him, there is nothing but « permanent protest » of the underdogs against the top-dogs.

What is of course even more interesting, but can here only be mentioned in passing, is that here we have Bakunin charging Marx with being an ideologue whose views hide the rise of a new class. Yet it is well known that Marx generally analysed the leadership of the Anarchist movement as one of ex-workers and declassed people. And it was certainly Bakunin who saw a revolutionary element in the déclassé bourgeois youth « without the prospect of a career », it was they which were to « bring » to the people « the ability to generalize facts [12] » and precisely this is, of course, as Lenin recognized, an essential criterion of the intelligentsia. In other words, Bakunin’s charge against Marxism can with ease be applied to Anarchism. For anyone who accepts Max Weber’s saying that « The materialist interpretation of history is no cab to be taken at will ; it does not stop short of the promoters of revolutions » this seems obvious.

The relevance of the Bakunin-Machajski-Nomad view to the problems later raised by Michels ; to the ideas of the exponents of « the managerial revolution » ; and to the recent work of Wittfogel [13] who claims, in my opinion unconvincingly, that Marx was aware of, but deliberately neglected, the problem of a « ruling bureaucracy », should be clear. It is not possible to discuss these issues here, nor to investigate possible connections between the notion of Socialism as the class-ideal of the intelligentsia and the ideology of the technocratic movement in its various forms. It must suffice to say that, even before the widespread publicity given to Djilas’ The New Class which raises similar problems [14] the interpretation of the social structure of the U.S.S.R., of changes in western capitalism ; and of the rise of Nationalism and Communism in Asia in terms of some « new » class or stratum had become fairly common. Just what his new group is - intellectuals ? managers ? Technocrats ? - and what the means of its gaining and retaining power are, is the problem which divides various writers - but there is widespread agreement about its novelty. And it would be a fascinating problem in the history of ideas to try and investigate just how far ideas of this type have their roots in anarchist criticism of Marxism.

Even within a much narrower framework of discussion, Marx’s marginal comments must be taken into account in any serious consideration of his views on the nature of the « classless » society. Yet the two most recent and so far fullest discussions of the classless society, by Dahrendorf [15] and Ramm [16] do not mention them.

III

Whatever the reasons why the German text of the marginal notes has not so far been published, it is clear that they are of sufficient interest to justify an attempt to piece together such fragments as are available, re-translating the rest of the notes from the Russian. This procedure is only a pis-aller, and no claim is made that it is satisfactory.

Extracts from the Marx notes have appeared since 1928. It is necessary, for our little piece of « detective work » to establish that the German extracts do indeed come from the German text kept in Moscow, and are not merely re-translations from the Russian.

The story begins with an article by Popow in 1928 [17]. This was a German version of a similar article written in Russian. Popow cites some of the Marx notes, his references being to the 1926 Russian text. However, fortunately the article appeared in the German version of a Russian journal then directed by Riazanov. And, from a footnote, it is clear that Riazanov gave them access to the original text for these citations [18].

The Popow citations may thus serve as our basis. By means of comparing the texts cited, we can trace further fragments of the German text in two other articles. A very close collaborator of Riazanov’s, Franz Schiller, gives some additional German passages in his review of the 1926 Russian text, as published in the Letopisi Marksisma [19]. Riazanov’s first successor, V. Adoratsky, supplies some additional fragments [20]. Both writers quote passages already used by Popow, and these agree with his version of the text of the notes. Since they also give new passages, these can now be assumed to have been taken from the original German text.

Additional support for the view that these fragments come indeed from the original text is furnished by the fact that all three authors were intimately connected with the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute in Moscow. It would seem that Moscow has still the only full German version, and that there is no copy in the Marx-Engels Institute in East Berlin : A recent German translation of a Russian work which cites passages from the notes merely gives a re-translation from the Russian version [21]. The comparative register of the Marx-Engels Works, which indicates where the German printing corresponding to the Russian edition of the Works can be found, again only lists the Russian version [22].

The two versions at the end of this paper are : An English translation, based on the German text where available, otherwise re-translated from the Russian, and a compilation of the extant German parts of the text based on Popow, Schiller and Adoratsky.

It should perhaps be stressed once more that such a procedure would not normally be justifiable. If and when the Moscow Institute publishes the full manuscript - the summaries in Russian, the notes in German - this provisional reconstruction will no longer he of use. But western scholars have been waiting for this since 1926.

IV

It would be unsound to base a lengthy comment on such a fragile basis. What follows are merely some provisional points on those parts of the notes which have been « reconstructed ».

Here, Marx envisages clearly a fairly long transition period of proletarian dictatorship, after the proletariat has conquered political power. There is no clue as to how long « fairly long » should be taken to imply. During this period, the proletarian government must take measures of a political, hence of a coercive, character. These will radically alter the economic basis of society, and hence, for Marx, the basis for the existence of social classes. Marx stresses that these economic conditions are subject to the operation of force, they are to be « removed by force or transformed, their process of transformation must be speeded up by force ». (Marx uses the term « Gewalt » which can also be translated as « coercion » or « violence ». I have chosen « force » as being the least coloured).

Even when one takes into account that this passage refers to events after the revolution, the conception of a « removal » of economic conditions through political actions seems to give a much greater weight to political action than is attributed to it in other writings of Marx and Engels on the State, and runs counter, for instance, to Engels’ attacks on Dühring’s « force theory ». As against this interpretation, it could be argued that Marx in general gives a greater weight to political action during the transition period which links two stages of society, as, for instance, in his well-known description of primitive accumulation, and that it is precisely to such periods that his notion of force as the « midwife » of a new society is intended to apply. Without coming to a decision on this point here, it remains true that Marx’s notes suggest or perhaps even entail a view which comes close to « the primacy of revolutionary politics ».

One must qualify this point at once by adding that Marx also makes a distinction, clear-cut to him, though of course not necessarily to others, between the use of force, on behalf of and by the proletarian government, against the former ruling and exploiting classes, e.g. the capitalists, and the use of force against a formerly ruled but non-revolutionary class or stratum, the peasantry. The proletarian government is to use force against the former exploiters, but not against the peasantry. Here, its measures must simultaneously aim at three objectives : They must, at least in nucleus, facilitate the transition to collective property ; they must immediately improve the position of the small-owning peasant ; and they must not consist of a frontal attack on the pre-revolutionary private property or the right of inheritance of the small owning peasants.

Marx here clearly severely limits the use of « force » in so far as the peasant is concerned. He is thinking in terms of gradual conversion, his main reliance is placed on the practical advantages the proletarian government can offer the peasant. The peasantry is envisaged as gradually supporting collective property through its own experience of it as something which, in fact, will improve its standard of living. One of the reasons why Marx rejects the idea of simply dividing up the large estates of the landlords is his belief in the superiority, from an economic point of view, of large-scale, collective agriculture. And this superiority for him in turn includes the idea of an improved standard of living for the peasant.

Here we have a striking example of the mixture of realism and rationalism in Marx’s thought. It is not so much that one would wish to argue that his policies here are mutually exclusive or self-contradictory. His guiding principles are very general. On this level of abstraction there is no way of deciding whether or not they can be reconciled. This question would have meaning only in the context of a specific historical situation.

What is more important, is that Marx implicitly assumes that the small owning peasant can be induced to embrace collective property if certain rational advantages of it are shown to him. He does not ask what the proletarian government is to do if this does not happen. And only then would the issue of whether « force », and if so, what type of force and how much of it, is to be used against the peasantry become really important. In passing, it should be noted that Marx also does not consider whether the granting of inducements to the peasants, given the problem of scarce resources, would not lead to discontent in the proletariat.

Now Marx’s treatment of the peasantry under capitalism raises precisely this issue - how far the peasant is to be treated as « rational » in the economic sense. One of the central conceptions in Marx’s views on the peasantry, as I have tried to show elsewhere [23], is the notion of « phantom property » : The small peasant is no longer the « real » owner of his plot, he no longer derives any « real » advantages from it - yet he thinks he is an owner, behaves like an owner, and clings desperately to his plot. The peasant thus behaves irrationally, by clinging to a burden.

In the Bakunin notes, the same problem appears in a much wider form and a different context. It is posed by Marx’s casual remark on whether the peasant is a member of the proletariat. Marx admits that even where the small owning peasant « is » a proletarian by his economic position, he does not believe that he is one. This statement summarizes very neatly a central difficulty in Marx’s view of social classes, in so far as that view can be said to maintain - as it does here - that class position and class membership are determined by « objective » factors [24]. What is the position of a group which « objectively » is said to have class position N° 1, but « subjectively » clings to modes of behaviour « appropriate » to class consciousness of type N° 2 ? Is there not some reason to assume that the small peasant will continue to cling to his « phantom plot » even with a proletarian government in power ? Is it not likely that the small peasant will also attempt to get hold of the big estates and divide them up - one of the things a proletarian government must not allow ? And what of the declaration against the use of force by the proletarian government against the peasantry if this should happen ?

In his comment on the relation of the peasantry to the proletarian revolution, Marx touches on another important point. He distinguishes between a class which is able to initiate a general policy - such as the proletariat - and one which, while not an initiator, is yet powerful enough, given certain circumstances, to sabotage the policy of the more active class. Marx here treats the peasantry as a « veto group ». The alternative which Marx poses for all those Western European states in which the small peasant was in a majority in 1874-5 is this : Active hostility of the peasantry to the proletarian revolution with its consequent failure, or peasant support for the proletarian revolution after the proletarian government has been established.

The view that the proletarian revolution would fail « in all peasant nations » unless supported by the peasants, had already been put publicly by Marx in 1852 in a passage towards the end of the first edition of his « The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte » :

« With his despair in the Napoleonic Restoration, the French peasant parts with his belief in his small holding, the entire state edifice erected on this small holding collapses, and the proletarian revolution obtains that chorus without which its solo song becomes a swan song in all peasant nations [25] ».

But the first, 1852 edition of the « 18th Brumaire » was only printed in a thousand copies of Weydemeyer’s short-lived periodical Die Revolution in New York. Very few copies reached Europe [26]. Not till the second Hamburg edition of 1869 did the work reach a wider public. While not indicating that he had made any important cuts [27], Marx did in fact cut a good deal of interesting material - on the peasantry, on the state, and on universal franchise - from this edition. The passage just cited is among these cuts to which attention, as far as I know, was draw only in 1926 [28].

In 1856, Marx again refers to the possibility of backing the (German) Proletarian Revolution with a « second edition of the Peasant War ». But this reference occurs in a private letter to Engels, not published till 1913 [29]. And, as stated, the marginal notes on Bakunin were not published till 1926.

Thus, of three specific declarations on this point, two occur in private letters or notes, and one in the first edition of the « Brumaire », practically unknown till the 20th Century. One may conclude that Marx was, to say the least, very cautious on this point in his public declarations [30].

There seems an important difference between Marx’s views of 1852 and those of 1874-5. In 1852 he was pretty optimistic about the possibility of the French peasants backing a proletarian revolution. Moreover, his reference to their forming a « chorus » seems to imply that he thought of peasant backing as following fairly closely and rapidly after the proletarian revolution. By 1874 he seems rather more cautious - and his cuts in the 1869 edition of the « Brumaire » support this point. By 1874-5 the support of the peasant is still hoped for, but it is conceived as the result of a fairly long evolutionary process after the revolution.

One should add that in each case, 1852, 1856, 1874-5, Marx sees peasant support as a « chorus » of, or « backing up » of the proletarian revolution. In the 1874-5 notes he makes it perfectly clear that he is not thinking, even for the most favourable of cases, of a proletarian-peasant alliance till after the proletarian conquest of power. All the measures which Marx mentions in relation to the peasantry are to be taken by a proletarian government.

Finally, what of the fact that Marx, while clearly here envisaging the possibility of a proletarian revolution in countries in which the majority of the population are still small-owning peasants, simultaneously, and against Bakunin, emphasizes the need for industrial development and the consequent existence of at least a « significant » proletariat, as the prerequisite of any « radical » revolution ? At first sight, this seems a flat contradiction. The matter is very complex, and would require a separate paper. It is enough to point out here that Marx in general treats the small peasant as dominated by the capitalist system, as in the grip of the usurer, the lawyer, and the State. How far such an analysis, even granting for the sake of argument its general assumptions, could reasonably be applied to those countries into which capitalism had not yet much penetrated in 1874-5, is another question. It cannot be raised without a lengthy discussion of how far Marx tended to think in terms of a national, how far in terms of an international socialist revolution. And this in turn raises another standard point : Whether, and to what extent, Marx thought in terms of rigid, « necessary » stages through which each country would have to pass before being ripe for the socialist revolution. In his scholarly work [31] which treats this question, Bloom argues that, while no entirely consistent pattern emerges, Marx was much less given to rigid « necessary stage » views towards the end of his life than he was in his early writings. While I would want to maintain - no demonstration is possible here that one can find rigid stage concepts and the idea of « jumping » a stage in all, including the early writings of Marx, the Bakunin notes, as far as they go, certainly support Bloom’s contention as to Marx’s later writing.

As has been stated, the rest of the notes, re-translated from the Russian, raise issues connected with the « new ruling class argument » which could be discussed when the German text becomes available in full.

In the meantime, this partial textual reconstruction will have achieved its purpose if it draws attention to an important but neglected text. As is the case with some other of the lesser-known writings of Marx, this one contains cryptic and tantalizing remarks. The prize must go to Marx’s comment on Bakunin’s claim that the Marxists think the dictatorship of the proletariat will only be brief and transitory.

Marx replies :

« Non, mon cher ! »

Henry MAYER.

(The University of Sydney)

Résumé

Vers 1873 ou 1874, Marx lit L’État et l’Anarchie, de Bakounine, publié en russe à Genève en 1873. À son habitude, il en fait des extraits (dans la langue de l’original) tout en annotant certains passages (en allemand). La version russe de l’ensemble a été publiée pour la première fois en 1926 par D. Riazanov, d’après l’original conservé à l’Institut du marxisme-léninisme de Moscou. C’est cette version qui a servi communément aux traductions des remarques critiques de Marx dans d’autres langues : le résultat n’est pas toujours satisfaisant. Ces remarques, du reste, n’ont pas été appréciées à leur juste valeur par les commentateurs de Marx, bien qu’elles aient trait a des problèmes d’importance : paysannerie, dictature du prolétariat, révolution dans les pays arriérés.

Le présent travail a pour résultat de reconstituer partiellement le texte des notes de Marx, a partir des fragments cités d’après l’allemand dans divers travaux, publiés principalement en U.R.S.S. - D’autres fragments, dont l’original est encore inédit ; sont traduits d’après la version russe. Cette version d’ensemble est suivie de la reproduction des passages allemands connus.

Dans son introduction, l’auteur analyse sommairement le contenu de ces annotations : usage de la violence, durée de la période dictatoriale de transition, portée de l’action politique (particulièrement a l’égard de la paysannerie), coopération agricole, caractères subjectif et objectif de la classe paysanne. II mentionne également les changements des conceptions de Marx (depuis la première édition du 18 Brumaire) sur le rôle des paysans dans la révolution prolétarienne.