A-Infos (en) Brazil, Capixaba, FACA: The Double Strike in Geneva* By Mikhail Bakunin (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The bourgeois provoke us. They strive to drive us to despair by all 
means, thinking, not without much reason, that it would be very good for 
their interests to force us to wage war with them today. ---They slander 
and insult us in their newspapers; they distort, misrepresent, and 
invent facts, counting on the sympathies of their public, who will 
forgive them everything, as long as the bourgeois, the bosses, are 
exonerated and the workers slandered. Secure in this impunity and this 
sympathy, the Journal de Genève, above all, the devoted liar, surpasses 
itself in lies.

They are not content with provoking and insulting us through their 
writings; impatient to make us lose our patience, they resort to 
violence. Their sad children, that golden youth whose corrupt and 
shameful idleness detests work and workers; These academics, learned in 
theology and ignorant of science, these liberals from the wealthy 
bourgeoisie, take to the streets, as they did last year, and crowd into 
cafes, armed with revolvers poorly concealed in their pockets. One would 
say that they fear an attack by the workers and believe themselves 
forced to keep them away.

Do they seriously believe this? No, absolutely not, but they pretend to 
believe it in order to have a pretext to arm themselves and a plausible 
reason to attack. Yes, to attack us, for last Tuesday they dared to beat 
some of our comrades who, provoked by all the insults, responded with 
truths that were quite unpleasant, no doubt, to ears as delicate as 
theirs, but which they didn't even lay a hand on. They allowed 
themselves to be detained and mistreated for several hours, until a 
commission sent by the International Association to the City Hall came 
to fetch them.

What do these bourgeois think? Do they really want to force us into the 
streets with weapons in hand? Yes, they do. And why do they want it? The 
reason is quite simple: they want to kill the International.

Just read the bourgeois newspapers, that is, almost all the newspapers 
of all countries, to be persuaded that if there is one thing today that, 
more than anything else, is an object of fear and horror for the 
bourgeoisie in Europe, it is the International Workingmen's Association. 
And, as we must be fair, above all, fair even in relation to our most 
bitter adversaries, we must recognize that the bourgeoisie has a 
thousand times reason to abhor and fear this formidable association.

All bourgeois prosperity, we know, as exclusive prosperity, is founded 
on the misery and forced labor of the people, forced not by law, but by 
hunger. This slavery of labor is called, it is true, in liberal 
newspapers such as the Journal de Genève, the freedom of labor. But this 
strange freedom is comparable to that of an unarmed and naked man, who 
would surrender himself to the mercy of another armed from head to toe. 
It is the freedom to be crushed, to be slaughtered. - Such is bourgeois 
freedom. It is understandable that the bourgeois adore it and that the 
workers absolutely cannot tolerate it; for this freedom is wealth for 
the bourgeois, and misery for the workers.

The workers are tired of being slaves. No less than the bourgeois, more 
than the bourgeois, they love freedom, because they understand very 
well, they know from painful experience that without freedom there can 
be no dignity or prosperity for man. But they understand freedom only in 
equality; because freedom in inequality is privilege, that is to say, 
the enjoyment of some founded on the suffering of all. - They want 
political and economic equality simultaneously because political 
equality without economic equality is a fiction, a deception, a lie, and 
they want no more lies. Workers, therefore, necessarily tend towards a 
radical transformation of society which must result in the abolition of 
classes from both an economic and political point of view, and in an 
organization in which all men will be born, develop, educate themselves, 
work, and enjoy the goods of life under conditions equal for all. Such 
is the desire for justice, such is also the ultimate goal of the 
International Workingmen's Association.

But how to go from the abyss of ignorance, misery, and slavery in which 
the proletarians of the countryside and cities are today immersed, to 
this paradise, to this realization of justice and humanity on earth? For 
this, workers have only one means: association. Through association, 
they educate themselves, inform each other, and put an end, through 
their own efforts, to this fatal ignorance which is one of the main 
causes of their enslavement. Through association, they learn to help 
each other, to get to know each other, to support one another, and will 
eventually create a force more formidable than that of all bourgeois 
capital and all political powers combined.

The Association has therefore become the watchword of workers in all 
industries and all countries, especially in these last twenty years, and 
all of Europe has found itself endowed, as if by magic, with a multitude 
of workers' societies of all kinds. This is undeniably the most 
important and at the same time most consoling fact of our time - the 
infallible sign of the imminent and complete emancipation of labor and 
workers in Europe.

But the experience of these same twenty years has proven that isolated 
associations were approximately as powerless as isolated workers, and 
that even the federation of all the workers' associations of a single 
country would not suffice to create a force capable of fighting against 
the international coalition of all the capital exploiting labor in 
Europe; economic science, on the other hand, has demonstrated that the 
question of the emancipation of labor is absolutely not a national 
question; That no country, however rich, powerful, or important, can, 
without ruining itself and condemning all its inhabitants to misery, 
undertake any radical transformation of the relations between capital 
and labor if this transformation does not occur equally and 
simultaneously, at least in a large part of the most industrious 
countries of Europe; and that, consequently, the question of the 
liberation of workers from the yoke of capital and its representatives, 
the bourgeoisie, is an eminently international question. It follows that 
the solution is only possible on the international stage.

Intelligent workers-German, English, Belgian, French, and Swiss-founders 
of our fine institution, understood this. They also understood that, to 
accomplish this magnificent work of the international emancipation of 
labor, the workers of Europe, exploited by the bourgeoisie and crushed 
by the States, had only themselves to rely on. Thus was created the 
great International Workingmen's Association.

Yes, great and formidable, truly! It is only four and a half years old 
and already encompasses several hundred thousand adherents, scattered 
and closely allied in almost every country in Europe and also in 
America. A thought and an enterprise that produce such fruits in such a 
short time can only be a healthy thought, a legitimate enterprise.

Is it a secret thought, a conspiracy? Undoubtedly. If the International 
conspires, it does so openly and tells whoever wants to listen. And what 
does it say, what does it demand? Justice, nothing but the strictest 
justice and the right of humanity, and the obligation of work for all. 
If this thought seems subversive and abject to present-day bourgeois 
society, so much the worse for that society.

Is it a revolutionary enterprise? Yes and no. It is revolutionary in the 
sense that it wants to replace a society founded on iniquity, on the 
exploitation of the vast majority of men by an oppressive minority, on 
privilege, on idleness, and on an authority that protects all these fine 
things, with a society founded on equal justice for all and the freedom 
of all. In short, she wants an economic, political, and social 
organization in which every human being, without prejudice to their 
natural and individual particularities, finds an equal opportunity to 
develop, educate themselves, think, work, act, and enjoy life as a human 
being. Yes, she wants this, and, once again, if what she wants is 
incompatible with the current organization of society, so much the worse 
for that society.

Is the International Association revolutionary in the sense of 
barricades and a violent overthrow of the political order currently 
existing in Europe? No: it is very little concerned with this kind of 
politics, and indeed, it is not concerned with it at all. Thus, 
bourgeois revolutionaries hold it very dear for the indifference it 
shows towards their aspirations and all their projects. If the 
International had not long understood that all bourgeois politics, 
however red and revolutionary it may seem, tends not to the emancipation 
of the workers, but to the consolidation of their enslavement, the 
lamentable role currently played by the Republicans and even by the 
bourgeois socialists in Spain would suffice to open its eyes.

The International Workingmen's Association, completely disregarding all 
current political intrigues, knows only one policy at this moment: that 
of its propaganda, its extension, and its organization. The day the 
great majority of the workers of America and Europe have joined and are 
well organized within its ranks, there will be no more need for 
revolution; justice will be done without violence. And then, if there 
are broken heads, it is because the bourgeois willed it so.

A few more years of peaceful development and the International 
Association will become a force against which it will be ridiculous to 
want to fight. This is what the bourgeoisie understands all too well, 
and this is why they are provoking us to fight today. Today, they still 
hope to be able to drive us away, but they know that tomorrow will be 
too late. They want to force us to fight with them now.

Shall we fall into this crude trap, workers? No. We would greatly please 
the bourgeoisie and ruin our cause for a long time. We have justice and 
right on our side, but our strength is not yet sufficient to fight. Let 
us therefore suppress our indignation in our hearts, let us remain firm, 
unwavering, but calm, whatever the provocations of the arrogant and 
impertinent youths of the bourgeoisie. Let us endure a little longer; 
are we not accustomed to suffering? Let us suffer, but let us not forget 
anything.

And, while we wait, let us continue, redouble, and expand ever more the 
work of our propaganda. It is necessary that the workers of all 
countries, the peasants as well as the factory and city workers, know 
what the International Association wants, and understand that, outside 
of its triumph, there is no other serious means of emancipation for 
them; that the International Association is the homeland of all 
oppressed workers, the only refuge against the exploitation of the 
bourgeoisie, the only force capable of overthrowing the insolent power 
of the bourgeoisie.

Let us organize ourselves, let us expand our Association, but, at the 
same time, let us not forget to consolidate it so that our solidarity, 
which is all our strength, becomes more real every day. Let us be ever 
more united in study, in work, in public action, in life. Let us join 
together in common enterprises to make our existence a little more 
bearable and less difficult; Let us form everywhere, and as far as 
possible, those societies of consumption, mutual credit, and production 
which, although incapable of emancipating us in a sufficient and serious 
way under current economic conditions, accustom workers to the practice 
of business and prepare precious seeds for the organization of the future.

That future is near. May the unity of slavery and misery that today 
embraces the workers of the whole world be transformed, for all of us, 
into unity of thought and will, of purpose and action - and the hour of 
liberation and justice for all, the hour of vindication and full 
satisfaction will sound.

* This text concludes the series of writings by Bakunin published by 
FACA between February and March 2026.

https://federacaocapixaba.noblogs.org/post/2026/03/26/a-dupla-greve-de-genebra/
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