(1844 - 1912) ~ French Socialist, IWMA Radical, and Leader of the Possibilist Movement : Paul Brousse was then a young doctor, full of mental activity, uproarious, sharp, lively, ready to develop any idea with a geometrical logic to its utmost consequences; powerful in his criticisms of the state and state organization... (From : Memoirs of a Revolutionist.)
• "The Commune is the vehicle of the Revolution." (From : "Anarchist Portraits," by Paul Avrich, chapter 18.)
• "I'm demanding the complete, definitive, absolute emancipation of all workers." (From : "Anarchist Portraits," by Paul Avrich, chapter 18.)
• "Make the Revolution or die." (From : "Anarchist Portraits," by Paul Avrich, chapter 18.)
(1844 - 1916) ~ Leader of the Anarchist Section of the First International : He later became one of the leading members of the Jura Federation, the Anarchist wing, of the First International. He met Bakunin in 1869, and adopted much of his anarcho-collectivist ideas. Both Guillaume and Bakunin were expelled from the International at the Hague Congress in 1872. (From : Anarchy Archives.)
• "...the priests and the bourgeoisie try to frighten the peasants by telling them that the Revolution will take their land away from them. This is an outrageous lie concocted by the enemies of the people. The Revolution would take an exactly opposite course: it would take the land from the bourgeoisie, the nobles, and the priests and give it to the landless peasants." (From : "Ideas on Social Organization," by James Guillaume....)
• "The character of the revolution must at first be negative, destructive. Instead of modifying certain institutions of the past, or adapting them to a new order, it will do away with them altogether. Therefore, the government will be uprooted, along with the Church, the army, the courts, the schools, the banks, and all their subservient institutions. At the same time the Revolution has a positive goal, that the workers take possession of all capital and the tools of production." (From : "Ideas on Social Organization," by James Guillaume....)
• "...schools, arbitrarily governed by a pedagogue, where the children wait impatiently for the moment of their deliverance when they can enjoy a little freedom outside." (From : "Ideas on Social Organization," by James Guillaume....)
From: Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff, 1971. Letter to the Comrades of the Jura Federation Mikhail Bakunin 1873 October 12, 1873 October 12, 1873 I cannot retire from public life without addressing to you .these few parting words of appreciation and sympathy. ... in spite of all the tricks of our enemies and the infamous slanders they have spread about me, your esteem, your friendship, and your confidence in me have never wavered. Nor have you allowed yourselves to be intimidated when they brazenly accused you of being "Bakuninists," hero-worshipers, mindless followers... You have to the highest degree always conscientiously maintained the independence of your opinions and the spontaneity of your acts; the perfidiou... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
A high, spacious bedroom, the corner room of our house, with a white bed upon which our mother is lying, our baby chairs and tables standing close by, and the neatly served tables covered with sweets and jellies in pretty glass jars, --- a room into which we children are ushered at a strange hour, --- this is the first half-distinct reminiscence of my life. Our mother was dying of consumption; she was only thirty-five years old. Before parting with us forever, she had wished to have us by her side, to caress us, to feel happy for a moment in our joys, and she had arranged this little treat by the side of her bed, which she could leave no more. I remember her pale thin face, her large, dark brown eyes. She looked at us with love, and invited us to eat, to climb upon her bed; then all of a sudden she burst into tears and began to cough, and we were told to go. Some time after, we children --- that is, my brother Alexander and myself --- were removed from the...
Written: August 1907; Source: Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff, 1971. James Guillaume, Bakunin’s friend and comrade-in-arms, edited the last five volumes of the six-volume French edition of his collected works. Guillaume’s biographical sketch of Bakunin, originally appeared in his introduction to Volume II of that edition. This sketch is a primary source not only on the life of Bakunin, but also on the most significant events in the socialist movement of that period. It incidentally contributes valuable background information for many of the other selections in the present volume. Guillaume, who did not limit himself to recording events but also took part in shaping them, had been inclined toward anarchis... (From : Marxists.org.)