About the author
Russian revolutionary and anarchist theorist (1814–1876), the principal founder of collectivist anarchism and Marx's great adversary in the First International. Born into the Russian nobility, Bakunin became the century's most indefatigable revolutionary, spending years in prison and exile — including eight years in Siberia, from which he escaped via Japan and the United States. His conflict with Marx over whether the International should work toward the seizure of state power or its immediate abolition ended in the expulsion of the anarchist faction in 1872, splitting the socialist movement along a fault line that persisted into the 20th century.
Synopsis
An unfinished manuscript arguing that both divine authority and state power rest on the same foundation: the suppression of human reason and freedom in favour of submission to external authority. Bakunin argues that the Church legitimises the State and vice versa, and that genuine human emancipation requires rejecting both. His critique of Marxist 'scientific authoritarianism' anticipates twentieth-century debates about Leninism.
Quote to notice
Direct quote · Public domain“If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.”
Bakunin's target is not primarily theological but structural. Any authority that demands submission — God, the state, the vanguard party — provides a template for domination. The critique of divine authority is inseparable from the critique of political authority because both rest on the same demand: obey because we say so.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with Aquinas's Treatise on Law or Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration for accounts of legitimate religious and political authority, and with Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right for the Marxist counter-response.
Reading note
Around 60 pages — readable in one sitting. The extended critique of Marx and 'red bureaucracy' is historically important: Bakunin predicted that Marxist state socialism would produce a new bureaucratic ruling class rather than emancipation. This makes the text essential for understanding the Marxist–anarchist split and for any route on anti-statist socialism.
Best paired with
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan.