Divide and Conquer or Divide and Subdivide?: How Not to Refight the First International

By Mark Leier

The battles between Michael Bakunin and Karl Marx in the First International (aka the International Working Men's Association, 1864–1876) began a pattern of polemics and rancor between anarchists and Marxists that still exists today. Outlining the profound similarities between Bakunin and Marx in their early lives and careers as activists, Mark Leier suggests that the differences have often been exaggerated and have prevented activists from learning useful lessons about creating vibrant movements.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PM Press
• Release date: May 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781629634043

Mark Leier

Mark Leier (writer) teaches labour and left history at Simon Fraser University. His latest book is Bakunin: The Creative Passion.

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Front Cover of Divide and Conquer or Divide and SubdivideBook Title of Divide and Conquer or Divide and Subdivide

PM PRESS PAMPHLET SERIES

PM Press Pamphlet Series No. 0015

Divide and Conquer or Divide and Subdivide? How Not to Refight the First International

Mark Leier

ISBN: 978-1-62963-383-1

Copyright © 2017

This edition copyright PM Press

All rights reserved

PM Press

PO Box 23912

Oakland, CA 94623

www.pmpress.org

Printed in Oakland, CA, on recycled paper with soy ink.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER OR DIVIDE AND SUBDIVIDE?

HOW NOT TO REFIGHT THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL

MARK LEIER

SINCE THE FIGHTS BETWEEN BAKUNIN AND MARX IN THE FIRST International in 1864, anarchists and Marxists have emphasized the differences between the two. Even their physical stature was different. Bakunin was large, standing six feet four inches tall and weighing perhaps three hundred pounds, with a fair complexion and blond hair. Marx was short and dark, reflecting his family nickname of The Moor. Other characteristics, however, emphasize how much they resembled each other. In the few, posed black-and-white photographs that have been preserved, which, appropriately enough, look rather like mug shots, it is difficult for the casual observer to distinguish one from the other. Both adopt the formal, stiff posture fashionable for photographs of the time, and each has a portly build, unkempt hair, and an unruly beard. Both are dressed in the formal, sloppy manner befitting slightly disreputable members of the Victorian intelligentsia, and they even patronized the same London tailor for a time.

For two men who fought so bitterly, their similarities go much