[Anarchist 01] • The Bakunin-Marx split in the 1st International

Excerpts from Mehring's Karl Marx - The Story of His Life (1918) on the conflict between Bakunin and Marx in the 1st International (International Working Men's Association). Mehring gives a very evenhanded account of the famous split that was to initially define the historical relationship between the statist and anti-statist wings of the working class movement. Unlike most other Marxists up to the present - and whilst maintaining his political disagreements with Bakunin's anarchism and criticising his faults and weaknesses - Mehring without bias also points out the slanders, intrigues and trickeries of Marx and his supporters in this episode. The full text of Mehring's book is available at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/mehring/1918/marx