Al-Warraq Library

Home / Politics & Economics / God and the State

Politics & EconomicsGod and the StateMikhail Aleksandrovich BakuninGod and the State

God and the State

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin

Politics & EconomicsEnglish
Read the bookGutenberg book pageInternet Archive

Al-Warraq Library does not host book files; it takes you to the copy at the original source. Public-domain status differs from country to country, so check the law where you live before downloading or republishing the book. Do you hold rights in this work? Request its removal

In this unfinished essay, the Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin argues that belief in God and obedience to the state are two forms of the same slavery…

Catalogue details

Author
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin
Category
Politics & Economics
Language
English
Source
Project Gutenberg

About this book

In this unfinished essay, the Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin argues that belief in God and obedience to the state are two forms of the same slavery. Religion, he says, teaches people to accept authority and to look for justice in heaven instead of on earth, and he turns Voltaire's famous saying upside down: 'if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him'. He defends science and reason, but warns against government even by scientists.

Context and significance

Bakunin (1814–1876), the great rival of Karl Marx in the First International and a founder of anarchism, wrote the text in 1871, and it was published by his friends in 1882, after his death. Compare Kropotkin's The Conquest of Bread and Proudhon's What Is Property?.

Similar books