Schechter, Benli M. “Review of The Young Karl Marx, by David Leopold.” Interpretation, Vol. 37 (2009), pp. 105-114.

Excerpt:

”

Remarkably, the greatest critiques of Marxism surfaced not
from among those in the right wing of the ideological spectrum, but from
among those in its left wing—that is, from those even further out than today’s
mainstream of Marxism. This means that, in certain respects, the collapse
of the Soviet Union (assuming ideas do truly matter, and that the best—or
at least second best—weapon of the revolutionary is the inked pen) owes
more to the likes of anarchists, including Proudhon and Bakunin, than to
the likes of liberal anti-communists, including Arendt and Aron. After all,
Bakunin (1814-1876), the Russian anarchist and Marx’s chief rival for control
of the First International, was the first to articulate what he saw as the Marxist swindle (ironically, as something all too similar to what Marx saw as the
democratic swindle).
Bakunin asked himself,
What does it mean: “the proletariat raised into the ruling class?” Will
the proletariat as a whole be at the head of the government? There are
about forty million Germans. Will all the forty million be members
of the government? The whole people will govern and there will be
no one to be governed. It means that there will be no government, no
State, but if there is a State in existence there will be people who are
governed, and there will be slaves. (Bakunin 1953, 287).”

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