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BATTLE BETWEEN MARX AND BAKOUNIN 165
teen of the delegates abstained from voting, Bakounin's
resolution did not obtain an absolute majority, and the
question was thus left undecided.
Another important discussion at the congress was on
landed property. Some of the delegates were opposed to
the collective ownership of land, believing that it should
be divided into small sections and left to the peasants
to cultivate. Others advocated a kind of communism, in
which associations of agriculturists were to work the
soil.
Still others believed that the State should own the
land and lease it to individuals. Indeed, almost every
phase of the question was touched, including the means
of obtaining the land from the present owners and of
distributing it among the peasants or of owning
it collectively
while allowing them the right to cultivate it for
their profit. On this subject, again, Eccarius presented
the views of Marx. To Bakounin, who expressed his
terror of the State, no matter of what character, Eccarius
said "that his relations with the French have
doubtless communicated to him this conception (for it
appears that the French workingmen can never think of
the State without seeing a Napoleon appear, accompanied
by a flock of cannon), and he replied that the State can
be reformed by the coming of the working class into
power. All great transformations have been inaugurated
by a change in the form of landed property. The allodial
system was replaced by the feudal system, the
feudal system by modern private ownership, and the social
transformation to which the new state of things
tends will be inaugurated by the abolition of individual
property in land. As to compensations, that will depend
on the circumstances. If the transformation is made
peacefully, the present owners will be indemnified.
. . . If the owners of slaves had yielded when Lin-