On Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:25:37 +0100 "Lenin's Tomb" <leninstombblog at googlemail.com> writes:
> Why don't you read Bakunin's letter to Albert Richard? Despite his
> wholesome 'anti-authoritarian' abuse of communists as elitist and
> authoritarian, he plotted an "invisible dictatorship", which his
> elite
> and secret organisation would run after the revolution. Say what you
> like about the Bolsheviks, but they never tried to make themselves
> invisible except to the Tsarist monarchy. Bakunin was deeply
> authoritarian: it doesn't get any conspiratorial and elitist than
> what
> he had in mind. In fact, there is a huge tradition of
> authoritarianism
> and elitism within anarchism, and it usually expresses itself in
> terms
> of a mania for secrecy, conspiracy, aversion to the masses, etc (cf
> Goldman's views about the ignorant masses and the need for
> intelligent
> minorities).
A view which fitted well with her admiration of Nietzsche who she regarded as a spokeman for an aristocratic ethic which she believed to be suitable for anarchists. In fact she was one of the earliest exponents of Nietzsche's ideas in the US and would often give lectures on his philosophy.
>
>
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1870/albert-richa
rd.htm
> ___________________________________
>