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THE NEWEST ANARCHISM 251
social organization. But even where, as in Germany, the
Marxian tradition still assumes the form of a creed to all
outward appearance, the party is very far from keeping
within the limits of pure Marxian theory. Its anti-State
attitude is not one of inclination. It is imposed by the
State itself,
. . . the adversary, through its military and
feudal vanity, of every concession to working-class democracy."
(19)
All this sounds most familiar, and I cannot resist quot-
here our old friend Bakounin in order to show how
ing
much this criticism resembles that of the anarchists. If
we turn to "Statism and Anarchy" we find that Bakounin
concluded this work with the following words: "Upon
the Pangermanic banner" (*. e., also upon the banner of
German social democracy, and, consequently, upon the
socialist banner of the whole civilized world) "is inscribed
: The conservation and strengthening of the State
at all costs; on the socialist-revolutionary banner" (read
Bakouninist banner) "is inscribed in characters of blood,
in letters of fire : the abolition of all States, the destruction
of bourgeois civilization free ; organization from the
bottom to the top, by the help of free associations the
;
organization of the working populace (sic!) freed from
all the trammels, the organization of the whole of emancipated
humanity, the creation of a new human world."
*
Thus frantically Bakounin exposed the antagonism between
his philosophy and that of the Marxists. It would
seem, therefore, that if Labriola knew his Marx, he
would hardly undertake at this late date to save socialism
from a tendency that Marx himself gave it. The State,
it appears, is the same bugaboo to the syndicalists that
it is to the anarchists. It is almost something personal,
a kind of monster that, in all ages and times, must be
The comments are by Plechanoff. (20)