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BATTLE BETWEEN MARX AND BAKOUNIN 155
just begun to write their program, evolve their principles,
and define their tactics. With great force and magnetism,
Bakounin undertook his war upon the General
Council, and those who recall the period will realize that
nothing could have more nearly expressed the occasional
spirit of the masses— the very spirit — that Marx and
Engels were endeavoring to change than exactly the
methods proposed by Bakounin.
Whether it were better to move gradually and peacefully
along what seemed a never-ending road to emancipation
or to begin the revolution at once by insurrection
and civil war— this was in reality the question which,
from that moment on, agitated the International. It had
always troubled more or less the earlier organizations of
labor, and now, aided by Bakounin's eloquence and fiery
revolutionism, it became the great bone of contention
throughout Europe. The struggles in the International
between those who became known later as the anarchists
and the socialists remind one of certain Greek stories,
in which the outstanding figures seem to impersonate
mighty forces, and it is not impossible that one day they
may serve as material for a social epic. We all know
to-day the interminable study that engages the theologians
in their attempts to describe the battles and
schisms in the early Christian Church. And there can
be no doubt that, if socialism fulfills the purpose which
its advocates have in mind, these early struggles in its
history will become the object of endless research and
commentary. The calumnies, the feuds, the misunderstandings,
the clashing of doctrines, the antagonism of
the ruling spirits, the plots and conspiracies, the victories
and defeats— all these various phases of this war to the
death between socialists and anarchists— will in that case
present to history the most vital struggle of this age.