Page:Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov - Anarchism and Socialism - tr. Eleanor Marx Aveling (1906).pdf/65

 principle of solidarity. This is coming it a little too strong. How about the "class war," and the cursed State, and property, "individually hereditary"—are these only manifestations of "solidarity," inherent in humanity, determining its special nature, etc., etc.? If this is so, in everything is all right, and Bakounine was wasting his time in dreaming of a "social" revolution. If this is not so, this proves that humanity may have existed "by virtue" of other principles than that of solidarity, and that this latter principle is by no means "inherent" in it. Indeed, Bakounine only enunciated his "absolute" principle in order to arrive at the conclusion that "no people could be completely free, free with solidarity, in the human sense of the word, if the whole of humanity is not free also."

This is an allusion to the tactics of the modern proletariat, and it is true in the sense that—as the rules of the International Workingmen's Association put it—the emancipation of the workers is not a merely local or national problem, but, on the contrary, a problem concerning every civilised nation, its solution being necessarily dependent upon their theoretical and practical cooperation. It is easy enough to prove this truth by reference to the actual economic situation of civilised humanity. But nothing is less conclusive, here as else where, than a "demonstration" founded upon a Utopian conception of "human nature." The "solidarity" of Bakounine only proves that he remained an incorrigible Utopian,although he became acquainted with the historical theory of Marx.