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164
VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
mands. "The right of inheritance," declared Bakounin,
"after having been the natural consequence of the violent
appropriation of natural and social wealth, became
later the basis of the political state and of the legal family.
. . . It is necessary, therefore, to vote the abolition
of the right of inheritance." (13) It was left to
George Eccarius, delegate of the Association of Tailors
of London, to present to that congress the views of Marx
and the General Council. The report of the General
Council was, of course, prepared in advance, but Bakounin's
views were well known, and it was intended as a
crushing rejoinder. "Inheritance," it declared, "does not
create that power of transferring the produce of one
man's labor into another man's pocket
— it
only relates
to the change in the individuals who yield (sic) that
power. Like all other civil legislation, the laws of inheritance
are not the cause, but the effect, the juridical consequence
of the existing economical organisation of society,
based upon private property in the means of production,
that is to say, in land, raw material, machinery, etc. In
the same way the right of inheritance in the slave is not
the cause of slavery, but, on the contrary, slavery is
the cause of inheritance in slaves.
... To proclaim
the abolition of the right of inheritance as the starting
point of the social revolution would only tend to lead
of attack
the working class away from the true point
against present society. It would be as absurd a thing
as to abolish the laws of contract between buyer and
while continuing the present state of exchange of
seller,
commodities. It would be a thing false in theory and
reactionary in practice." ( 14) Despite the opposition of
the Marxians at the congress, the proposition of Bakounin
received thirty-two votes as against twenty-three
given to the proposition of the General Council. As thir-