Invisible dictatorship
An invisible dictatorship was a term coined by Mikhail Bakunin to describe his concept of clandestine revolutionary leadership. Bakunin also used the term invisible legion and invisible network to describe is invisible dictatorship.
Original use of the term
It appears in a letter sent Albert Richard, a fellow member of the Alliance of Social Democracy during the turmoil surrounding the Paris Commune:
- "[t]here is only one power and one dictatorship whose organisation is salutary and feasible: it is that collective, invisible dictatorship of those who are allied in the name of our principle (...) this dictatorship will be all the more salutary and effective for not being dressed up in any official power or extrinsic character."
In nineteenth century Europe the discussion of how a transitional revolutionary government might act since the days of Gracchus Babeuf. In 1828 Philippe Buonarroti published Conspiration pour l'Egalité dite de Babeuf, suivie du procès auquel elle donna lieu which proved to be very influential on Auguste Blanqui and the revolutionaries of 1848, from Louis Blanc to Bakunin. From this arose the concept of a small band of revolutionaries instituting an Educational Dictatorship which would raise the consciousness of the masses to the point that democracy could be introduced.
In the February Revolution, Paris, 1848 the provisional government assumed power extralegally, through an announcement before a mass demonstration. Louis Blanc advocated that the provisional government should “regard themselves as dictators appointed by a revolution which had become inevitable and which was under no obligation to seek the sanction of universal suffrage until after having accomplished all the good which the moment required.”[1]. He also reitereated the idea of the “dictatorship of Paris” over the country. Bakunin, having received funds from Blanc's provisional government, threw himself into the revolutionary movement in Bohemia. He subsequently described his aim as the establishment of a “government with unlimited dictatorial power,” in which “all will be subjugated to a single dictatorial authority,” through three secret societies based on “strict hierarchy and unconditional discipline.”[citation needed] Hal Draper claims this was the first appearance of his concept of a “secret dictatorship” exercised by “Invisible Dictators.” Bakunin also saw Prague playing the role of Paris: “The revolutionary government with unlimited dictatorial power must sit in Prague … All clubs and journals, all manifestations of garrulous anarchy, will also be destroyed, and all will be subjugated to a single dictatorial authority”.[citation needed] Eddie Ford has described this as a '‘dual organisation’' principle, with a secret cadre of controllers manipulating a public front.[2]
- "We are the most pronounced enemies of every sort of official power -- even if it is an ultra-revolutionary power. We are the enemies of any sort of publicly declared dictatorship, we are social revolutionary anarchists. But, you will ask, if we are anarchists, by what right do we want to influence the people, and what methods will we use? Denouncing all power, with what sort of power, or rather by what sort of force, shall we direct a people's revolution? By a force that is invisible, that no one admits and that is not imposed on anyone, by the collective dictatorship of our organization which will be all the greater the more it remains unseen and undeclared, the more it is deprived of all official rights and significance." Letter to Sergei Nechaev[3]
Modern uses of the term
The term has also been used more recently, for instance by the Independent Voters Alliance United States of America to describe the two party system currently existing in the USA which they claim makes voting useless as the "choices in every election are limited to candidates financed by the same money sources."[4]. Such viewpoints have become more widespread in the USA particularly since the the heightened security since 9/11.
The term has also been applied to administrators of wikipedia, depicting them as having a "plan for the ulterior evolution of knowledge - a kind of mental police of concepts and facts".[5]
See also
References
- ^ The ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ in Marx and Engels
- ^ Democracy or anarchism by Eddie Ford, Weekly Worker, September 6, 2001
- ^ Bakuninism -- backward politics under the guise of no politics by Pete Brown (from Communist Voice #6, Jan. 15, 1996)
- ^ Your Active Citizenship accessed August 26, 2006
- ^ Wikipedia: A Techno-Cult of Ignorance