Mikhail Bakunin Quotes

Government, in it's last analysis, is organized force.

He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.

The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it.

Would you rather lead an army of slaves?

Some people draw a comforting distinction between force and violence. I refuse to cloud the issue by such word-play. The power which establishes a state is violence; the power which maintains it is violence; the power which eventually overthrows it is violence. Call an elephant a rabbit only if it gives you comfort to feel that you are about to be trampled to death by a rabbit.

Violence can always destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power.

Power never turns power down, ever, unless institutionally demanded.

The concept of power we admire is power over someone else.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

The power which establishes a state is violence; the power which maintains it is violence; the power which eventually overthrows it is violence.

And this is the Anarchistic definition of the State: the embodiment of the principle of invasion in an individual, or a band of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the entire people within a given area.

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.

Aggression is simply another name for government.

Coercion is the basis of every law in the universe.

These cannon are my authority.

We look forward to the necessity of coercion …

Aggression is simply another name for government. Aggression, invasion, government, are interconvertible terms. The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control. He who attempts to control another is a governor, an aggressor, an invader; and the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man, after the manner of the ordinary criminal, or by one man upon all other men, after the manner of an absolute monarch, or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy.

You must labor until we have dominion over the minds and bodies of every important person in your nation.

Governmental power is the faculty to beat into submission all those who would dare to disobey the orders issued by the authorities. … Every governmental action is backed by constables, prison guards, and executioners. However beneficial a governmental action may appear, it is ultimately made possible only by the government's power to compel its subjects to do what many of them would not do if they were not threatened by the police and the penal courts.

The decisive means for politics is violence.

Only force rules. Force is the first law

It is one thing to persuade, another to command; one thing to press with arguments, another with penalties.

The unity is brought about by force .

So what is government?... Very simply, it is an agency of coercion. Of course, there are other agencies of coercion - such as the Mafia. So to be more precise, government is the agency of coercion that has flags in front of its offices.

If you can't force or are unwilling to force your people to follow you, with or without threats, you are not a leader.