God and the State (Dialectics Annotated Editions)

In God and the State, Mikhail Bakunin presents a clear and compelling argument against religion and divine authority. Bakunin looks at the ways that belief in the divine props up the temporal authority of governments, and condemns both. Finally, Bakunin addresses the theory that would give the power of government to science, demonstrating that science would become corrupted and used as a tool of power like the divine power it replaced. God and the State is an important and enduring work of anarchist thought.

This Dialectics edition includes over 50 new historical and biographical footnotes and notes on the English translation from the French text. Also included are several historic illustrations of Bakunin. These notes and illustrations help to make God and the State as relevant today as when it was first published.

Introduction

Mihail Alexandrovich Bakunin (1814 - 1876) was born to a Russian noble family with liberal political leanings. After being homeschooled under the tutelage of his father, Bakunin attended the Artillery School of St. Petersburg. Unhappy as a commissioned officer, he received a discharge and moved to Moscow to study philosophy. In Moscow, he took up the philosophy of Fichte and then Hegel, and for a brief period he was the leader of the Hegelian school in Moscow.

In 1840, he moved to Berlin with the intention to become a university professor. In 1842 he relocated to Dresden where the combination of meeting Arnold Ruge and reading Lorenz von Stein changed him. Promoting the revolutionary cause, Bakunin took his first steps toward anarchism.

While living in Switzerland, his increasingly radical views and associations attracted the eye of the Russian authorities, and Bakunin received an in absentia sentence of exile to Siberia. Ignoring this, he moved to Paris where he met Marx and Proudhon—he would eventually become an enemy of Marx and a follower of Proudhon.

He took part in the European revolutions of 1848 - 1849, and he was captured during the May Uprising in Dresden. After being transferred between governments for several months and being sentenced to death several times, he was handed over to the Russian government. The initial years of his imprisonment were at the Peter and Paul Fortress, where the poor conditions had lifelong negative effects on his health, including the loss of his teeth. Then, he was exiled to Siberia in 1857, and in Siberia he met his future wife and married. In 1861 he escaped from Russia, taking a long journey through Japan and the United States to return to Europe.

Once in Europe, he returned to promoting Pan-Slavism. When his efforts to join the Polish Legion failed, he turned his attention to Italy, where he developed his anarchist thoughts. Bakunin had a penchant for the conspiratorial, and 1865 he founded the International Brotherhood. Te Brotherhood promoted the absolute rejection of every authority including that which sacrifices freedom for the convenience of the state—that is, anarchism.

In 1871 he wrote God and the State. Bakunin intended for these pages to be part of a larger work, titled Te Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution. However, the work was never completed—Bakunin favored action to theory—and the part that was published is fragmented. Despite this, it is a clear and compelling argument against religion, God, and anything that might enslave humanity. Indeed, Bakunin warns against putting the geniuses of science in positions of power.Bakunin died at Bern in 1876.

In an effort to bridge the gap between the original publication of God and the State and today, Dialectics has included footnotes that give brief biographies, histories, and commentaries on the translations.