FREE BAKUNIN AND NECHAEV PDF

Paul Avrich | 32 pages | 01 Jun 1987 | Freedom Press | 9780900384097 | English | , United Kingdom Bakunin & Nechaev – Freedom Press

Yet, apart from being a fascinating psychological drama, it forms an important chapter in the history of the Russian movement, posing fundamental questions of revolutionary tactics and revolutionary morality with which radicals have continued Bakunin and Nechaev grapple to this day. We are therefore greatly indebted to Arthur Lehning and Michael Confino see Biographical Note for making available the necessary materials for a reappraisal of the Nechaev affair, which is the object of the present essay. Having gone mostly online inFreedom Press continues to publish an irregular paper today. Those and many other issues stretching back to our founding in are online above, at libcom. The book publishing Bakunin and Nechaev of Freedom Press has a history stretching back to Bakunin and Nechaev 19th century and continues to Bakunin and Nechaev today. Keep up with the news, features and interviews Freedom Press produces over the year with our irregular newsletters. All other content providers reproduced retain copyright unless stated otherwise. Skip to content. Add to basket. Get our NeWsLetter Keep up with the news, features and interviews Freedom Press produces over the year with our irregular newsletters. Sergey Nechayev - Wikipedia

PetersburgRussian revolutionary known for his organizational scheme for a professional revolutionary party and for his ruthless murder of one of the members of his organization. During —69 Nechayev participated in the student revolutionary movement in St. A close collaboration between the two developed. When I. When the crime was discovered, Nechayev escaped to Switzerlandbut 67 members of his organization were brought to trial. At the request of the Russian government, Nechayev was arrested by the Swiss police in and extradited to . Print Cite. Facebook Twitter. Give Feedback External Websites. Let us know if Bakunin and Nechaev have suggestions to improve this article requires login. External Websites. Spartacus Educational - Biography of Sergei Nechayev. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree Alternative Title: Sergey Gennadiyevich Nechaev. Britannica Quiz. Criminality and Famous Outlaws. Learn More in these related Britannica articles:. The were formed also by their sense of…. Fyodor DostoyevskyRussian novelist and short-story writer whose psychological penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart, together with Bakunin and Nechaev unsurpassed…. History at your fingertips. Sign up here to see what happened On This Dayevery day in your inbox! Bakunin and Nechaev address. By signing Bakunin and Nechaev, you agree Bakunin and Nechaev our Privacy Notice. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Nechayev and Bakunin's politics

About Us. Contact Us. Other Links. Critics Corner. I know this discussion died a couple of weeks ago, but when I saw the first post claiming that Bakunin and Nechayev shared similar politics I saw Bakunin and Nechaev and went searching in my files. Unfortunately, my files are somewhat disorganized and I've been fairly busy Bakunin and Nechaev for a new master my current boss has given me noticeso I just found Bakunin's June 2, letter to Nechayev published in pamphlet form under the title Bakunin on Violence by the Anarchist Switchboard, NYC--the original is in the Herzen archives which makes quite clear Bakunin's strong disagreement with Nechayev's political and tactical approach. Some excerpts:. I Bakunin and Nechaev deeply convinced that any other revolution is dishonest, harmful, and spells death to liberty and the people. It doomes them to new penury and new slavery It can only be conquered by a spontaneous people's revolution. It is impossible to arouse the people artificially. People's revolutions are born from the course of events There are historical periods when revolutions are simply impossible; there are other periods when they are inevitable I maintain that a popular is inevitable everywhere within Europe. Will it catch fire soon and where first? Nobody can foretell. Perhaps it will blaze up in a year's time, or even earlier, or perhaps in ten or twenty years. This does not matter, and the people who intend to serve it honestly do not serve for their own pleasure. All secret societies who wish to be really useful to it must, first of all, renounce all nervousness, all impatience Bakunin goes on to discuss the Russian situation and Bakunin and Nechaev revolutionary potential there. He notes the possibilities of the peasant's collectivist instincts, but also the localism which hampers revolutionary success and, indeed, solidarity. Bakunin and Nechaev "secret organization" seeks to Bakunin and Nechaev consciousness of Bakunin and Nechaev necessity for federation and solidarity. Bakunin points to the large numbers of alienated educated youth who make up the bulk of the explicitly revolutionary milieu, and its potential for helping the revolution take shape:. Choose a hundred people by lot out of this Bakunin and Nechaev and put them in a situation which Bakunin and Nechaev enable them to exploit and oppress the people--one can be sure that they will exploit and oppress it. It follows that there is ittle original virtue in them. One must use their poverty-stricken condition which makes them virtuous in spite of themselves and, by constant and the power of organization, arouse this virtue, educate it, confirm it in them and make it passionately conscious. Whereas you [Nechayev] do the opposite: following the Jesuit system you systematically kill all personal human feeling in them As I have mentioned several times above, according to my system it would not constitute a revolutionary army--we should have only one revolutionary army: the people--the organization should only be the staff of this army, an organizer of the people's power, not its own A revolutionary idea is revolutionary, vital, real and true only because it expresses and only as far as it represents popular instincts which are the result of history. To strive to foist on the people your own thoughts--foreign to its instinct--implies a wish to make it subservient to a new state The organization must accept in all sincerity Bakunin and Nechaev idea thaty it is a servant and a helper, but never a Bakunin and Nechaev of the people, never under any pretest its manager, not even under the pretext of the Bakunin and Nechaev welfare. Therefore our organization must be strong and vital to survive the first victory of the people and--this is not at all a Bakunin and Nechaev matter-- the organization must be so deeply imbued with its principles that one could hope that even in the midst of the revolution it will not change its thoughts, or character or direction. What would be the main purpose and task of the organization? To help the people achieve self-determination on a basis of complete and comprehensive human liberty, without the slightest interference from even temporary or transitional power We are enemies of all publicly acknowledged dictatorship; we are social-revolutionary anarchists. But you will ask, if we are anarchists, by what right do we wish to and by what method can we influence the people? Rejecting any power, by what power or rather by what force shall we direct the people's Bakunin and Nechaev An invisible force--recognized by on one, imposed by no one--through which the collective dictatorship of our organization will be all the mightier, the more it remains invisible and unacknowledged, the more it remains without any Bakunin and Nechaev legality and significance. Bakunin goes on to describe this "invisible dictatorship": "Imagine These small groups, unknown by anybody as such, have no officially recognized power but they are strong in their ideal, which expresses the very essence of the people's instincts, desires and demands Finally they are strong in their solidarity which ties all the Bakunin and Nechaev groups into one organic whole This is what I cann the collective dictatorship of the secret organization. It does not threaten the liberty of the people because it is free from all official character Bakunin notes that not many people are needed for this secret organization or 60 would be "more than enough. Bakunin goes on to demand that Nechayev establish full equality in his organization, detailing an organizational plan that is certainly secret of necessity, given conditions and centralized in that a central committee, with representation from each region, sets policy, subject to removal at any time should it abuse its power. It seems clear that while we might have preferred clearer language, this "collective dictatorship" exercises power only to the extent that its ideas, its propaganda, find support and are implemented by the general population. There is simply no basis--no infrastructure of police, of power--by which such an Bakunin and Nechaev could compel anyone to do anything. It can lead only by the force of its ideas and its example, and even then only in a handful of places which might hopefully inspire others to rebel. I do not intend to hold Bakunin up as Bakunin and Nechaev model of theorizing how to organize a revolutionary movement. I personally would not care to be a member of an organization structured along the lines Bakunin recommends though I reiterate that the emphasis on secrecy is explained largely by the circumstances in which Bakunin operated. But I cannot fathom how some people claim to find support for Lenin's dictatorship [over] the proletariat here. And the claim that Bakunin shared Nechayev's politics and organizational methods is simply a slander: "You wished, and still wish, to make your own selfless cruelty, your own truly extreme fanaticism, into a rule of common life Renounce your system and you will become a valuable man; if, however, you do not wish to renounce it you will certainly become a harmful militant, highly destructive not to the state but to the cause of liberty Bibliography Bakunin and Nechaev Collected Works Commentary. Fellow Workers, I know this discussion died a couple of weeks ago, but when I saw the first post claiming that Bakunin and Nechayev shared similar politics I saw red and went searching in my files. Some excerpts: Bakunin Rebukes Nechayev And His Chatechism For Vanguardism: "To begin with, my views are different in that they do not acknowledge the usefulness, or even the possibility, of any revolution except a spontaneous or a people's social revolution. Bakunin points to the large numbers of alienated educated youth who make up the bulk of the explicitly revolutionary milieu, and its potential for helping the revolution take shape: "If one considers the people as a revolutionary army, here is our General Staff, here is the precious material for a secret organization. The Cynosure. Michael Bakunin. William Godwin. Emma Goldman. . Errico Malatesta. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Max Stirner. Murray Bookchin. . Bright but Lesser Lights. Cold Off The Presses. Anarchist History. Worldwide Movements. First International. Commune. Haymarket Massacre. Spanish Civil War. Art and Anarchy. Education and Anarchy. Anarchist Poets. Music and Anarchy. Collected Works.