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BATTLE BETWEEN MARX AND BAKOUNIN 167
arate State, and will prevent forever the return to the
ancient form of centralized State, which will not, however,
prevent another form of government for local purposes.
As is evident, if we are reproached for being indifferent
to every form of government,
it is . . . because
we detest them all in the same way, and because we
believe that it is
only on their ruins that a society conforming
to the principles of justice can be established."*
(17)
The congress at Basel was the turning point in the
brief history of the International. Although the Marxists
were reluctant to admit it, the Bakouninists had won
a complete victory on every important issue.
Some of
the decisions future congresses might remedy, but in refusing
even to discuss the question of direct legislation
* In the English report of the discussion Professor Hins's
remarks are summarized as follows : "Hins said he could not
agree with those who looked upon trade societies as mere strike
and wages' societies, nor was he in favor of having central committees
made up of all trades. The present trades unions would
some day overthrow the present state of political organization
altogether; they represented the social and political organization
of the future. The whole laboring population would range itself,
according to occupation, into different groups, and this
would lead to a new political organization of society. He
wanted no intermeddling of the State; they had enough of that
in Belgium already. As to the central committees, every trad"
ought to have its central committee at the principal seat of
manufacture. The central committee of the cotton trades ought
to be at Manchester; that of the silk trades at Lyons, etc. He
did not consider it a disadvantage that trade unions kept aloof
more or less from politics, at least in his country. By trying to
reform the State, or to take part in its councils, they would virtually
acknowledge its right of existence. Whatever the English,
the Swiss, the Germans, and the Americans might hope to
accomplish by means of the present political State the Belgians
repudiated theirs."— pp. 31-2.