first item on the programme, the Belgian Proudhonist, De Paepe,
proposed to the Congress to declare (1) that society had the right to
abolish individual ownership in the land, and give it back to the
community; (2) that it was necessary to make the land common property.
Albert Richard vehemently opposed individual ownership as the source
of all social inequalities and all poverty. "It arose from force and
from unlawful seizure, and it must disappear: and property in land
must be regulated by the federally organised communes." Bakunin
himself supported De Paepe's proposal; but it is not hard to understand
that opposition made itself felt in the Anarchist ranks. Several
pronounced Anarchists, especially Murat and Tolain, supported
individual property with great decision and warmth. Nevertheless De
Paepe's Collectivist proposal was accepted by fifty-four (or
fifty-three) votes to four.

But the Bakuninists did not gain the same success in the next
question, concerning the right of inheritance. This was a question
quite characteristic of Bakunin. The proposal ran:

"In consideration of the fact that inheritance as an inseparable
element in individual ownership contributes to the alienation of
property in land and of social riches for the benefit of the few and
the hurt of the majority; that consequently inheritance hinders land
and social wealth from becoming common property: that, on the other
hand, inheritance, however limited its operation may be, forms a
privilege, the greater or lesser importance of which does not remove
injustice, and continually threatens social rights; that, further,
inheritance, whether it appears either in politics or economics, forms
an essential element in all inequalities, because it hinders the
individual having the same means of moral and material development;
considering, finally, that the Congress has pronounced in favour of
collective property in land, and that this declaration would be
illogical if it were not strengthened by this following declaration:
the Congress recognises that inheritance must be completely and
absolutely abolished, and its abolition is one of the most necessary
conditions of the emancipation of labour."

One might have believed that a congress which had calmly agreed to the
abolition of individual property in land could have no objection to
make to the abolition of such an "unequal" and "feudal" institution as
inheritance. But it appears that it was desired to l