This now-famous missive from Engels during the debates with the Bakuninists was lost for decades until found by David Riazanov and published in Neue Zeit.

‘The Principle of Authority’ (1873) by Frederick Engels from New Review. Vol. 2 No. 4. April, 1914.

Translated by Richard Perin. This article was published in an Italian labor publication in 1873, in the midst of the Bakunin controversy. It was recently unearthed by Comrade N. Riasanoff and published in the Neue Zeit, from which this translation was made.

Some time ago a number of Socialists commenced a veritable crusade against that which they call the principle of authority. To condemn any action, they believe it to be sufficient to represent it as being authoritative. This summary method leads to so many absurdities that it is necessary to make a closer study of the matter. Authority in the sense in which it is used here means the subjection of the will of another to our will. Hence, authority pre-supposes subordination on the part of the other. Now, from the fact that these two words have an evil sound and that the relationship expressed thereby is displeasing to the subordinated factor, the question arises whether there is any means to abolish this relationship, whether–under the given social conditions–we can create another social order in which there will be no occasion for this authority, in which it will consequently vanish. If we study the economic, industrial and agrarian conditions that form the basis of the present bourgeois society, we find that they have a tendency to replace the isolated action of an individual by the combined action of several individuals. For the small enterprises of isolated producers modern industry substitutes the great factories and workshops where hundreds of workers attend complicated machines driven by steam, in place of the wagon and cart we have railroad trains, and steamers in place of rowboats and sailing vessels. Even agriculture is gradually coming under the dominion of the machine and of steam, which slowly but relentlessly is displacing the small farmer by the great capitalist, who cultivates immense estates by the aid of wage-workers.

Wherever we may look, the independent action of separate individuals is being displaced by a combined action, by a complication of processes each of which is dependent upon the other. But when we say combined action we also say organization. Now, is it possible to have an organization without authority?

Let us suppose that a social revolution has dethroned the capitalists, whose authority now conducts the entire production and distribution of wealth. In order to place ourselves squarely upon the standpoint of the anti-authoritarians, let us suppose that the earth and the means of production have become the collective property of the workers who use them. In this case will authority vanish or will it merely alter its form? Let us see.

As an example we shall take a cotton spinning plant. In order that the cotton may be transformed into yarn, it must pass through at least six successive operations, which usually take place in different rooms. In order to drive the machines we need an engineer to care for the engine, some mechanics for daily repairs, and many other unskilled workers to pass the product from one room to another, etc. All these workers, men, women and children, must begin and end their work at an hour that is determined by the authority of the steam, which is little concerned over individual autonomy. Hence from the very beginning it is necessary for the workers to agree upon the hours of labor, and as soon as these hours are fixed they must all keep to them without exception.

Then in every room and at every moment there arise questions of detail relative to the method of production, the distribution of the material, etc., which, if it is not desired to risk a sudden cessation of production, must be settled immediately. Now, whether they are settled by the decision of a delegate conducting one branch of the industry or by the decision of the majority, the will of the individual must comply, that is, these questions are authoritatively settled. The automatic mechanism of a great factory is tyrannical to a higher degree than are the small capitalists who exploit the workers. In regard to the working hours, at least, we might well inscribe over the doors of these factories: Lasciate ogni autonomia, vei che entrate (All autonomy abandon, ye who enter here). When man, by the aid of science and the inventive faculty, subdues the forces of nature, they avenge themselves by subjecting him who exploits them to a real despotism, which is independent of the social conditions. To do away with authority in the great industries would mean to abolish industry itself, to destroy the steam spinning plant in order to return to the spindle.

Let us take another example, a railroad. Here the cooperation of an immense number of men is absolutely necessary, a cooperation that must take place at exactly specified hours if a terrible accident is to be avoided. Here the first necessity of the entire system is a dominating will that decides all subordinate questions, and it is immaterial whether this will is represented by a delegated person or by a committee that is elected to execute the decisions of the majority of the interested parties. We have to deal with an authority in both cases. And more than that. What would happen to the very first train sent out if we were to abolish the authority of the railway officials over the persons travelling on it?

But nowhere is the necessity of authority, and an absolute authority at that, so obvious as on a ship at sea. There the life and death of all on board depend at every moment upon the absolute and instantaneous subjection of all to the will of a single individual.

If I were to use this argument against the most rabid of the anti-authoritarians, they could give me the following reply: “Oh, that is true, but here it is not a question of authority that we confer upon a delegate, but of a commission.” These people believe that they can change a thing by altering its name. And thus these deep thinkers make fun of the whole world.

Hence we see that on the one hand a certain authority, by whomsover delegated, and on the other hand a certain subordination are things that, independently of the social organization, are forced upon us simultaneously with the material conditions under which we produce and distribute goods.

We also see that the material conditions of production and distribution are inevitably and to an increasing degree subjected to the influence of large industry and agriculture on a large scale, that hence the extent of this authority is becoming greater and greater. Therefore it is ridiculous to represent the principle of authority as absolutely bad and the principle of autonomy as absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative conceptions, and their range of validity alters with the various phases of social evolution.

Had the autonomists contented themselves with saying that the social organization of the future will admit of authority only within the unavoidable limits drawn by the conditions of production, then we would have been obliged to agree with them. But they are blind to all facts that make authority necessary, and fight passionately against the word itself.

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to declaiming against political authority, against the State? All Socialists are agreed that the State and with it political authority will vanish as the result of the future social revolution; that is to say, that public functions will lose their political character and will be resolved into simple administrative functions super- vising the social interests. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political State shall be abolished at one blow, even before the abolition of the social conditions that created it. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority.

Have you ever witnessed a revolution, gentlemen? A revolution is certainly the most authoritative thing that there is, an act by which a portion of the population forces its will upon the other portion by rifles, bayonets and cannon, all very authoritative means. And the victorious party must maintain its rule by the terror that its weapons inspire in the reactionaries. And if the Paris Commune had not made use of the authority of an armed people against the bourgeoisie, would it have lasted longer than a day? Conversely, can we not reproach it for having used too little of this authority? Hence we face an inevitable alternative: either the anti-authoritarians do not themselves know what they are talking about, and in that case they are only creating confusion, or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the cause of the proletariat. In either case they are only serving the reaction.

The New Review: A Critical Survey of International Socialism was a New York-based, explicitly Marxist, sometimes weekly/sometimes monthly theoretical journal begun in 1913 and was an important vehicle for left discussion in the period before World War One. Bases in New York it declared in its aim the first issue: “The intellectual achievements of Marx and his successors have become the guiding star of the awakened, self-conscious proletariat on the toilsome road that leads to its emancipation. And it will be one of the principal tasks of The NEW REVIEW to make known these achievements,to the Socialists of America, so that we may attain to that fundamental unity of thought without which unity of action is impossible.” In the world of the East Coast Socialist Party, it included Max Eastman, Floyd Dell, Herman Simpson, Louis Boudin, William English Walling, Moses Oppenheimer, Robert Rives La Monte, Walter Lippmann, William Bohn, Frank Bohn, John Spargo, Austin Lewis, WEB DuBois, Arturo Giovannitti, Harry W. Laidler, Austin Lewis, and Isaac Hourwich as editors. Louis Fraina played an increasing role from 1914 and lead the journal in a leftward direction as New Review addressed many of the leading international questions facing Marxists. International writers in New Review included Rosa Luxemburg, James Connolly, Karl Kautsky, Anton Pannekoek, Lajpat Rai, Alexandra Kollontai, Tom Quelch, S.J. Rutgers, Edward Bernstein, and H.M. Hyndman, The journal folded in June, 1916 for financial reasons. Its issues are a formidable and invaluable archive of Marxist and Socialist discussion of the time.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/newreview/1914/v2n04-apr-1914.pdf