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BATTLE BETWEEN MARX AND BAKOUNIN 163
the interests of this class. It is only by taking their interests
into their own hands, by direct legislation, that
the people can establish the reign of social jus-
. . .
of this
tice. I insist, then, that you put on the program
congress the question of direct legislation by the people."
(11)
The forces led by Bakounin and Professor Hins, of
Belgium, opposed any consideration of this question.
The
latter, in elaborating the remarks of Bakounin, declared :
"They wish, they say, to accomplish, by representation
or direct legislation, the transformation of the present
governments, the work of our enemies, the bourgeois.
They wish, in order to do this, to enter into these governments,
and, by persuasion, by numbers, and by new
laws, to establish a new State. Comrades, do not follow
this line of march, for we would perish in following it in
Belgium or in France as elsewhere. Rather let us leave
these governments to rot away and not prop them up
with our morality. This is the reason : the International
is and must be a State within States. Let these States
march on as they like, even to the point where our State
is the strongest. Then, on their ruins, we will place ours,
all prepared, all made ready, such as it exists in each section."
(12) The result of this debate was that the father
of direct legislation was not allowed time to present
his views, and it is significant that this first clash of
the congress resulted in a victory for the anarchists, despite
all that could be done by Liebknecht and the other
socialists.
The chief question on the program was the consideration
of the right of inheritance. This was the main economic
change desired by the Alliance. For years
Bakounin had advocated the abolition of the right of inheritance
as the most revolutionary of his economic de-