provisional government, that is, by the negation of liberty. His economic ideal is the State as sole owner of the land and of all kinds of capital, cultivating the land through well-paid agricultural associations under the management of State engineers, and controlling all industrial and commercial associations with State capital.

"We want the same triumph of economic and social equality through the abolition of the State, and of all that pass by the name of our law (which, in our view, is the permanent negation of human rights). We want the reconstruction of society, and the unification of mankind, to be achieved, not from above downwards, by any sort of authority, or by socialist officials, engineers, and other accredited men of learning — but from below upwards, by the free federation of all kinds of workers' associations liberated from the yoke of the State.

"You see that two theories could hardly be more sharply opposed to one another than are ours. But there is another difference between us, a purely personal one.

"Marx has two odious faults: he is vain and jealous. He detested Proudhon, simply because Proudhon's great name and well-deserved reputation were prejudicial to him. There is no term of abuse that Marx has failed to apply to Proudhon. Marx is egotistical to the pitch of insanity. He talks of 'my ideas,' and cannot understand that ideas belong to no one in particular, but that, if we look carefully, we shall always find that the best and greatest ideas are the product of the instinctive labour of all...Marx, who was already constitutionally inclined towards self-glorification, was definitely corrupted by the idolization of his disciples, who have made a sort of doctrinaire pope out of him. Nothing can be more disastrous to the mental and moral health of a man, even though he be extremely intelligent, than to be idolized and regarded as infallible. All this has made Marx even more egotistical, so that he is beginning to loathe every one who will not bow the neck before him."

Ruhle had dealt very exhaustively with the steps taken by Marx to get rid of his hated adversary. Marx organized irregular conferences at London and the Hague. Bakunin, Guillaume, and Schuizgulbed were expelled by methods since employed by the Third International to expel Trotskyists and other opponents of present-day Stalinism. The Purge was always a characteristic of Marxism. A victory was won that secured no fruit. Marx had to admit that the last Congress of the International, held at Geneva, in September, 1873, was a complete fiasco. Becker wrote a letter to Serge describing Marx's hopeless intrigues in connection with this Congress.

Marx decided to throw a last handful of mud at Bakunin. With Engels and Lafargue, he undertook to publish a report of the charges made against Bakunin, under the title "Die Allianz Der Sozialistisch en Demokratie Und Die International Arbeitassoziation" (The Alliance of the Socialist Democracy and the International Working Men's Association). Every line of this report is a distortion, every allegation an injustice, every argument a falsification and every word an untruth. As Ruble says, even Mehring

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