The goal of annihilating individualism was at the centre of Tkachev's political agenda. His article 'Chto takoe partiia progressa?' (What Is the Party of Progress?, 1870), defined progress as 'the fullest possible equality of individuals' - that is, 'organic physiological equality stemming from the same education and from identical conditions of life'.[123] Because individual needs will vary and most societies are too impoverished to satisfy those needs, Tkachev advocated strict limitation ofindividual demands on material resources. In his socialist collective, there would be no adjustments in distribution of goods to accommodate differences in age, gender, personality or occupation. In his journal Nabat (The Tocsin, 1875) Tkachev demanded that Russian radicals band together to launch an immediate revolution. Peasants would be led by determined conspirators, who would destroy 'the immediate enemies of the revolution', seize state power, then 'lay the basis for a new rational social life'. After the revolution Tkachev imagined a generation-long dictatorship that would construct anew 'all our economic, juridical, social, private, family relations, all our viewpoints and understandings, our ideals and our morality'.[124]
The populists hoped to avoid or curtail capitalist development in Russia. In 1859 Chernyshevsky raised the prospect that Russia, by studying the experience of more advanced Western societies, might be able to skip 'intermediate phases of development' between the communal order and socialism. He pleaded with Russians: 'Let us not dare attack the common use ofthe land.'[125]Tkachev's outlook on the question derived from reading Marx's Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, from which he concluded that a socialist revolution could be made to occur in Russia either after capitalism had fully developed or before it had developed at all. In 1874, in his 'Otkrytoe pis'mo F. Engel'su' (Open Letter to F. Engels), he argued that the Russian bourgeoisie and capitalist relations were so weak that they could be easily eradicated. In 1877 Mikhailovskii rejected Marxist determinism on the grounds that it would compel Russians to accept 'the maiming of women and children' entailed by capitalism; it was morally preferable, he thought, to resist 'inevitable' capitalism in the hope that socialism could be built on the foundation of the commune.
The three principal anarchist thinkers were Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin, Petr Kropotkin (1842-1921) and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1911).
Bakunin's major anarchist writings were Federalisme, socialisme et anti- theologisme (1868), L'Empire knouto-germanique et la revolution sociale (1870-1) and Etatisme et anarchie (1873). In the first text Bakunin attacked religion as a prop ofthe existing political order, rejected centralised government as inimical to liberty and defended a 'bottom-up' federalist organisation of society. Soon after writing it, he fell into rivalry with Marx over the control of the International Working Men's Association. In September 1868 Bakunin pronounced communism 'the negation of liberty . . . because communism concentrates and swallows up in itself for the benefit of the state all the forces in society'.[126]
In his view, the Marxian principle 'from each according to his work, to each according to his need' would require an external mechanism of surveillance and distribution - a state apparatus - that would destroy liberty. In the name of liberating human beings from material want and establishing scientific socialism, Marx would set up a government that 'cannot fail to be impotent, ridiculous, inhuman, cruel, oppressive, exploiting, maleficent'.
In The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution Bakunin adopted Feuerbach's theory of God as a psychic projection of human virtues whose 'existence' impoverishes and enslaves human beings. According to Bakunin, the courage to dissent from God, to embrace materialism and therefore liberty, comes to human beings from our two highest faculties: the ability to think and the desire to rebel. He took the original rebel, Satan, as his literary inspiration. How did Bakunin expect 'Satanic' materialists to provoke a revolution in Christian Russia? Following Belinsky, he contended that the religiosity of Russian peasants was superficial, and he thought it could give way at any moment to the peasants' instinctive rebelliousness. The anarchists' task was to arouse within the peasantry the slumbering spirit of outlawry. He insisted that anarchists not impose revolution on the masses but provoke it, seeing in this policy a major difference with Marx.
Kropotkin sought a theoretical foundation for 'scientific anarchism'. In the revolutionary manifesto, Dolzhny-li my zaniatsia rassmotreniem ideala budushchego stroia? (Should We Devote Ourselves To Analysing the Ideal of the Future Order?, 1873), and in his major books La Conquete du pain (1892) and Mutual Aid (1904), he elaborated that theory. In the manifesto Kropotkin argued that social equality cannot be achieved if the means of production remain in private hands, nor can equality be reached if property falls under state control, for that would mean the tyranny of some self-appointed body over workers. The state apparatus would have to be destroyed and the power decentralised in local federations, each based on a network of communes and guilds. In The Conquest of Bread, Kropotkin argued against Marx that a just society must not be based on the principle, 'from each according to his work, to each according to his needs'. Taking the product of workers' labour would require the establishment of a supervisory body to monitor labour and confiscate the goods produced by it, to the detriment of liberty. In place of such a bureaucratic approach, Kropotkin projected a voluntary arrangement whereby workers would contribute five hours per day to satisfy collective needs, but would retain the right to do additional labour to produce luxury goods for themselves. Thus, his mature social philosophy entailed social ownership of the means of production, but not the elimination of all private property.
In Mutual Aid Kropotkin criticised those followers of Charles Darwin who saw competition as the motor of evolution. According to Kropotkin, animal species, including human beings, are less likely to survive through pitiless competition than through mutual aid. Early societies had been based on cooperation in the clan, commune, guild and free city, but unfortunately the rise of the state had destroyed those free institutions. Kropotkin now expected the peoples of Europe to overthrow centralised government, thus liberating the submerged principle of mutual aid.
The immediate cause of Tolstoy's conversion to anarchism was the decision, following his spiritual crisis from 1876 to 1878, to rethink his religious principles. In Ispoved' (Confession, 1879) he described his painful realisation that the simple Christian faith of the peasantry constituted a more viable world-view than the selfish rationalism to which he and his privileged peers had adhered. In Vchem moia vera? (What I Believe), Tolstoy set out his own interpretation of Christianity, based on reading the evangelist Matthew's account ofthe Sermon on the Mount. He reduced Jesus's message to five commands: 'Do not be angry, do not commit adultery, do not swear oaths or judge your neighbors, do not resist evil by evil, and do not have enemies.' He interpreted the injunction against oaths as a justification for refusing to pledge loyalty to the tsar and state. He saw in the command to 'resist not evil' an ethical prohibition against state violence of any kind. The order not to have enemies he understood as a directive not to divide peoples into states. His book Tsarstvo Bozhie vnutri vas (The Kingdom of God Is Within You, 1893) rejected the term 'Christian state' as a contradiction, classified universal history as a 'pagan epoch' and spoke of human progress as 'the conscious assimilation of the Christian theory [of nonviolence]'.[127] He described the modern conscript army as a barbarous institution, and he held up modern patriotism as a vicious lie. His anarchism started with the ethical individual refusing to acknowledge the right to shed blood or use force.
123
P. N. Tkachev,
124
Quoted in D. Hardy,
125
Quoted in A. Walicki,
127
L. Tolstoy,