A UhollUh 'lot acknowledged a8 wch by the Bo18heviT.'a. BIII:unin (=nt on thtJ ".,.,") ia one ojtheir ancutoT8. u prominent leader;n the revolutionary proce8a which culminated ill Bo18hevulII.
BAKUNIN, FATHER OF ANARCHISM
By WALTER GORLITZ
ORN on April 18, 1814, at Pryamuk. family, Michael attended the Artillery School hino, an estate in the Province of in St. Petersburg to become an officer, if B Tver, Bakunin was the scion of an possible of the Guards, and graduated after old, distinguished family of the no having done fairly well in his final examina· bility. His father, Alexander Bakunin, was tions. He was disappointed when, instead master over several thousand serfs and mar· of being ordered to the Guards, he was shal of the nobility of his native district. posted with an artillery detachment stationed One of his ancestors had distinguished him in the provinces. His duties did not offer self in the diplomatic service under Catherine him any satisfaction whatever. Soon he II, and one of his relatives was a general in neglected them entirely, spending days on the Tsarist Army. The revolutionary herit end lying on his bed in a dressing gown, age which was later to unfold to such an idling away his time with daydreams. extent in the son was already apparent in Finally, after less than a year, filled with the father: he was a member of one of the loathing at so much emptiness and boredom, two secret conspiracies formed by officers he resigned his commission. After that he and mem bers of the aristocracy which led lived either on his father's estate or in to the Decembrist rising, and after the Moscow, a young aristocrat who, like 80 failure of this rising he had to go to Siberia many of his peers, did not have to work for for a certain length of time. In his mother's a living. family, that of the Counts Muravyov, we Outwardly, Bakunin was of a striking also find a revolutionary tradition, as several appearance. With his tall, athletic figure, of her reh\tives were among the leaders of his wide shoulders, and his big, impressive the Decembrists, one of them, Colonel Sergius head with its shock of waving brown hair, Muravyov-Apostol, having been hanged at he seemed like a bogatyr, one of those the Tsar's orders in St. Petersburg in 182'3. mythical heroes of old Russian legends. In view of the reactionary character of His features pointed to frankness and good Russian absolutism and the scanty hopes nature. A likeable fellow, one might have for liberal reforms, many progressive minds thought, with such unllsual intellectual gifts in Russia were convinced that there could that he would seem to be born for more be no ot,her way but revolution. On the than whiling away his life with the vanities other hand, since an urban middle class and of aristocratic salons. His talents were ob· industrial proletariat did not evolve until viollsly far above the average. He possessed late in the nineteenth century and the a lively imagination, a brilliant intel peasant masses continued in their traditional lectual grasp, wrote in an exquisite style, pn,ssi,ity, these ideas of revolution were and was a fluent, even inspiring speaker. mn,intained for a long tiDle almost exclusively But his stock of actual knowledge was by the nobility, as this was the only class to fragmentary. have all the means of education at its (lis Thus equipped, or rather unequipped, he posal. Almost aU the standard-bearers of entered the circle of Moscow's intellectual revolt, from the Decembrists (named after je'Unes.3e doree, which wail at that time the Decem ber uprising of 1825) to Lenin greedily absorbing the philosophy of the (who::;o rcal namc was Ulyanov) were de Occident. It was, so to speak, a period of .scendants of the nobility. intellectual spring awakening. Russia was The youth of Mikhail Bakunin provides opening her eyes after a long hibernation no inkling of the thorny path which fate and, full of thirst for knowledge, seeking to had destined him to tread one day. He grew catch up with the culture and sciences of up in a comfortable, wealthy, and seoure Europe. An enthusiastic feeling of being ·environment. Following the tradition of his ca.llcd upon to create new and better forms DAKUNIN, FATHER OF ANARCHISM 337 of life permeated all these easily inflamma.ble him the money for the journey, :1"01' Baku minds. The tirst ideas of Plln-Slavism, the nin this was the decisive step of his life. mission of t.he Slavic nations under Russia's His stay abroad uprooted him from bis leadership, mingled chaotically with this accustomed environment and, as he lacked youthful storm and streSl·. Men who wer true moral backbone, be 1'0011 lost all led by tho traditions of tbe ancient Moscow stability. period in their desire to 1'100 the Plln-SIl\\'ic In the winter of 1840/41, wht'll Bnkunin idea materialize>, united in this national urge began his studit'll, the "Hegelian Leftisttl" f~r power with the "Westerner:," who held sway over the lecture hulls in the Berlin deemed a n w liberal and democratic Russia University. Bakunin learned to hitl deligbt to be an essontial condition for the realizll that there was a truth which went even tion of this great aim. Their chief rep beyond the mlulter'g truth, a truth able to resent.ati,·os were the poet Alexander Herzen, wive those contradictions over wbich he had the illegitimate son of II- rich Moseow aristo almost despaired, Lacking any inherent cra.t and a. c: mum woman, a brilliant, creative power, he could only appropriate sensitivo, and roma.ntically inclined Ulan, the ideas of others-which, moreover, he and his h'iend Ogare,', tJl6 tlcion of a rich misinterpreted-and ea.rry them to boundless family of the nobility. extremes. The ideological sylltem which he These young people were now joined b~' built up in this way, altbough full of bold Bakunin, whoso active mind was thirsting conclusions was devoid of any reality. for occupntioll and fulfilll1l('nt. All of them Outwardly, too, his studies showed little in were uml('r the influence of a new spiritual the way of results. He reported to Herzen revelation, thc philosophy of Hegel. The on bill attendance at lecture.s, and took part life of the world a.s the l!tcrnal rational in new, night-long debates over tea and process of pure intellect, to be apprehended cigarettes on the riddles of the world, at by perception: that was the new gospel which Turgcnycv. wbo was later to gain filling all these brains with ecstasy. iele by lIuch faille as un author, was also present; side with tho old, torpid world of the state but with that restlessness wbich formed Church wit hits unedueated prie.'lts, the cult. Bakunin's most outstanding characteristic of reason affected the minds of the young he suddenly broke all t.his off. people like fcrme'nting wino. All that en-r He gave up his studies and in I 42, with was, is, or' will be is, according to Hegel, l\ publication on Schellin(J and the H eclat'ion, only divine rc'uson in its unfolding. "What Critiq!le of th Ij(lte,~t Att£mpt at Hioction ,in e,er is, is rational: and only that. which i>l Ph·ilos01J!I!I. he appeared on the seene liS a. rational il'!," thnt is the quintc ~cnce of his rdormer of Gcrllllln philosophy. His work philosophy. It :seemcd to ~iH' the reply to f'apti,-ate.s the readl'r by its brillinnt st~'le; nil the quest ionA of life. and flO these you ng thanks to his quick f.,'Tasp he had 111l\~t.t-red Russian!'! hungr'ily sei7.ed upon it. Their the German Inngullgl' in a surpri;;ingly !'hort night.long lu\stlionat.e debat{'s ()\'er tea and time. But through the tnngl<, of Illore or cigarettt.~ 011 every single pamgfl\J.Ih of the Icss misundcrlltood Ht·gelillll thetll~S, the master'/! dfK:tl'ine were the forerullilers of com plete all!lI'chillt is already wsccrnible the later nihilillt,ic discussions with their palt', between the line!!. Hc placeR t.he irlea in feverishly excited, unkempt participant.s j uxtaposit.ioT\ to reality and d(,IlII\l1d,; t.hat who, forgett ing c,-erything aroUlll1 them, in the idea be burned at the stake 80 that, endless loquacity tore e\'l'r~·thillg to pieces like the phoenix of legend. it may arise and mi:;intl'rpr('tcd it all. purified frum thc~ allhes. Tbis meRIlS no less tlml1 the annihilation of tbe exi,_ tin~ world H I:: Ht,ntl' in which Bakullin and llis ill favor of n phtllitom. For thc idea, he friend,.; wc!'!' li,-ing was the H,ussia of proclaiill8. everything must be sacrificed, T even one'· life. The tirst strailll_ of the Tsar ~ icltolas 1 who, after the De cemurist reyolt. I'IIthl('&;ly Ruppres'ied uny marching song of that all-embracing rev f,lution, who~ upo ·tle he was soon to be libcnd thought. Hence it was not long ('Ollie, are alrendy audible in thi work: before doubt made its appt·arance in thesl' "The day of the great decision of the battle nightly discussions as t,o how this reality, which could not bt' rational, waR to be rcc of nations is npIlI·ou.ehing, and victory must onciled to Hegt'l's doctrine. Bakunin went be ours.' to Berlin to study the muster':,\ wisdom on The Tsar ordered him to return to Russia. the spot.. HerLe;) aud bis friends loaned He disregarded the order, and 8S a Tl'sult he 338 THE XXt.h CENTURY
WIl8 expelled from the nobility and bani. hed terest in him. Leaving considerable debte for life from his country. The 5,000 rubles behind, he lied to Gem'va, and from there Horzen and Ogarev had given him were to Paris, the rendezvous of all politioal soon spent, and Bakunin got into fiIlllollCial emigra.nts. Hero he met Alexander Renen difficulties. ·His family could not support again, who had meanwhile also left Russia him, since he was banil!hed; 80 he recklessly and was furthering t.he cause of the liberal made debts everywher', ullable to make an iZl.l.tion of the Russian form of government hone t living by working. with his periodical The Bell in London. From Berli.n he moved to Dresden, where "1 met him at a street comer," Henan he became acquaint.ed with a number of ntlrrates. "He WIl8 walking with three German democratic rovollltionarie.. Here, friends and, just 118 in 1\10 'cow, he wu under the pseudonym of Jules Elyzlud, he preaching something to them, con tantJy published an article on the reactionary t;topping and waving his cigarette around." movement in Germany which openly revealed As always, ho wa-8 living off his debta. bis revolutionary bont. In it, as a violent He hardly did any work at all, the literllJ'l' opponent of any idea t;upporting the state, production of the ycars from 1840 to 1 '1 he espoused the litern.J interpretation of the consisting of five newspaper article. What. motto of the f'rendl Revolution: liberty, occupied rum wit.h an almo t religious x equality, fraternity. What he demanded clusiveness was now the "Revolution" aIJ. was the ruthless destruction of existing such. To a friend he wrote: "1 am waiting society and its political forms of exprC88ion. for my, or-if you prefer-for our common "The air is sultry. it is pregnant with wife, the Revolution. Only then shaU we storms" we read. He ended with the words: be happy, that is to say ourseh'eR, when the
Opcn your spirituol ey H, let the doad bury t.heir entire surface of the eart·h is in Hawes." dead, Ilnd let yoursclveK be convinced finally that He believed in some immediat~ catastrophe th spirit, tho eternally young. now·born spirit, is which would entail a. general upheaval, not tu be !!Ought in ruin ~ l...lIs .... Lct us put (lur fuit h in the eternlll spirit. which only dest roys either by an explo ion from below or by a and IUlnihi.late8 bceaUJol(l it is tho boUoml . crOll· coup d'etaJ., a revolutionary dicta.tor hip ti\' source of all life. The lust for destruction ill from above. But his sanguine nature al· 61 0 a creative lust. ways caused him grot,csquely to overestimate That was the first fanfare of niJlilism. aU realistic p088ibilitics. :Herzen once said But 118 to what WIU'l to corne after the de· of him that he always took the second struction of all existing things, Bakunin was month of pregnlLncy for the ninth. completely in the dll.rk. He was led solely by the vague hope that sometlUng would REN the vear 1848 came with ita arise from chaos which would be better than W revolutions ~ in Paris, '"ienna, and the present. In rus Prindples of Ret,'ol!t!ion Berlin, Bakunin was filled with the he later proclaimed : most fantastic hopes. Over the democratic Dy revolution we mean a radical chango. a intoxication of the middle classes during r placement of oJl fonJ1.ll of contemporary Europeall life. without. exception, by new, ont.irely opposed these months of spring, his figure Uutteroo forms. .If 011 existing forllls aro bud. now onos cun like that of a dcmon filled with a mad lust only IlriJlC whell no singlo old one hM been 8pnred for destruction. ]n Paris he fought on the dostruction, i.e.. entirely new forms of lifo can on.ly barricades with such wild passion that evon oriso from completo amorphisJU. his close friends shrank from him. "What Here we see revealed a monstrous paralo. a man!" the revolutionary Cossidiere ex gism; for, side by Bid with the demand for claimed in const-ernation. :'On the first day destruction, there is no program pointing of re\'olution he is a real treasure, on the into the future. It wa.~ the lowest type of second he should simply be shot." The slum proletariat that became the shock Provisional Government soon began to fool troops of Bakunin's revolution. Himself a. uneasy about Bakunin's lack of restraint man of no profession, he instinctively took and his i.11{\uence on the labor class. So up the cause of the profcssionless elements. they got rid of him by persuading him that The state of financial embarra.ssmellt he should be closer to the Russian border to never released the apostle of aJHJ.rchisw for call up his Slavic brothers to join tho fight the rest of his life. To e cape the clutches against reaction in Europe. of hi' creditors in Dresden, he went to Bakunin enthu ia tieally seized upon this ZUrich. But he could not stay there for idea. He hurried vin Cologne, Leipzig, /lnd long either, as the police soon took an in- Breslau to Prague, where a congress of all 8AKU~JS, FATHER OF AN.-\RCHISPrl 339
Slavio peoples met. Here, too, his feverish laws"; for the TCtlt, however, ho represented revolutionary impetuosity immediately at· himself as a sincere Pan·Slavist and national tracted attention. When the Hapsburg Russian and hinted at his abhorrence of powertl brought up cannons against, the dis Western Europe with its skepticism and contented Czechs, he was one of tbe first to moral decay. This was spoken to suit the mount the barricades. However, the rebels Russian Slavophiles, whose ideology was were no match for the troops; thc uprising closely related to his own Pan·Sla\'ism. collapscd in streams of blood; and Bakunin There is no doubt that at that time this tied under cover of darkness to Germany. idea was actually predominating for the He found little to his taste in the German moment in his inconstant mind. Since the revolution; he did not care for the German revolt from below had failed, he now placed love of order. Although the revolutionary his hopes in a powerful revolutionary dic· waves were gradually calming down every tatorship, in the coup d'll.at from above. where, he wa,~ canied along by new fantastio At timcs he was soriously ('onsidering a hopes in which national and revolutionary people's Tsar who might bring about the dreams were merged. He addressed a bom Revolution. bastio appeal to the Slavs, calling upon However, if he was counting on such them to join in brotherhood with aU rev· ideas making an impression on Nicholas I, olutionary peoples and to destroy the the man who looked like a field marshal and Hapsburg Empire as the stronghold of reo had the brains of a drill sergeant, he was action. The Slavs, so he proclaimed, being grossly mistaken. Some of his Pan-Slavistic yOllngpeoples, are destined to pour their ideas did, it is true, appea.l to t.he Tsar, inner wealth like the fresh sap of spring but the latter still spoke of Bakunin as an into the veins of the dried-up life of the extremely dangerous person who should be European peoples. For Bohemia he dr4:W kept in custody under aU cireumst,anccs. up a plan for a rebellion which included the So he spent altogether seven years in prison, dictatorship of the proletariat and the first in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. general distribution of aLI possessions. Paul, and after 1854 in ncar·by Schliisselburg. In 1849 we find him again in Dresden It was only after the dea.th of Tsar where, as a sort of Red dictator, he took Nicholas I that his mother and his relatives over the leadership in the May revolt against succeeded in persuading 'l'sar Alexandor II the King and the Government of Saxon)'. to banish Bakunin to Siberia. }'or Bakunin, The wildest plans raced through his brain; banishment meant salvation. For the polit he trembled with lust for dCtltruction, ical convict in Siberia did not by any ordered fuel and pitch rings to be piled up meaU8 lose his personal honor; and, more in the town hall, and wanted the opera over, the famous and almighty Governor house and the beautiful buildings of the Genera.l of Eastern Siberia, General Count Zwinger to be set on fire. He would have Muravyo\'-Amursky, was his uncle. A new liked nothing better than to have all Dresden life began, or rather, the old life began go up in flames. a.gain. .For the years of imprisonment did But the end was only defeat again. not chast.en him. Although ~e was out Bakunin was taken prisoner. The Govern· wardly given a job in the gold mines which ment of Saxony condemned him to death paid him an annual salary of 2,000 rubles, but then, upon the request of the Vienna in reality he did nothing, spending his days Cabinet, extradited him to Austria, where in empty brooding, with shallow books and he was again condemned to death. Only a endless prattle about the destruction of the request by the Tsar for his extradition saved world and iU8ipid philosofantasias. him from being executed, On the other band, however, Bakunin discovered someone in Irkutsk who let his s a prisoner of the state he was held revolutionary and Pan-Slavistic hopes rise A captive in the ill-famed }'ortress of boundlessly: no less a personage than his St. Peter and St. Paul in St. Peters uncle, Count Muravyov-Amursky, the rep burg. Here he composed a confession to resentative of His Imperial Majesty in the Tsar by the "repentant sinner Mikhail East.ern Siberia. Here in Irkutsk, "Red Bakunin," in the hope of thereby achieving Pan-Sla.\Tism" found its first abode. Baku his pardon. 111 it he confessed to having nin's ideas, in which revolutionary lust for harbored criminal plans against the Tsar, destruction mingled with mad national aga.inst Russia, and "all divine and human dreams of power, expressed in concrete form 3-tO THE XXth CENTURY
that of which Count Muravyov and his u8ed the money to pay for his flight to circle had long had 0. dim, vague notion. London. Nowbere else had he been listened to more enthusiastically and attentively than here. ACK in London, he took it for granted Not in vain was Count Muravyov known in t~lat his old friends Herzen a.nd Ogarev St. Petersburg as the "H.ed General." All B would take care of his expenses. The these servants of the Tsar were living ill tbat fame and influence of Alexander Henen and strange confusion of the spirit 80 character his The Bell were at that time at their peak. istic of t,he old Russia, reeling from one new His magazine was even read at court in idea to the next. St. Petersburg; his ardent endeavors to re Bakullin was enthusiastic. Now he bad shape the Russian state by way of peaceful found the revolutionarv uicLator of his reforms had not failed to impress Tsar dream'. "!\luravyov is ~t1rs in his feelings, Alexander I r. But it would seem as if tboughts, all his former actions, his endeav Bakunin were the demoniacal embodiment ors, bis desi.res and fin.n intentions," he of the spirit of destruction. Wherever he wrote to Alexander Herzen. Muravyov was appeared he llOwed the seeds of destruction. to become the bead of an iron dictatorship. Hardly had he gained a footiIlg in London Origina,Uy a libeml, an admirer of Western when he began to devote bimself to revolu civilization and culture, he had followed his tionizing The /Jell, thereby dealing a deatb· Russian bent for extremes and long ago blow to Herzen's life's work. The peasant drifted into the current of the Revolution. riots following upon the abolishment of serf Bakunill saw in him the savior of Russia, a dom in Russia in 1802, the knowledge of /:jecond Peter tbe Grel\t. He already visual the existence of a man like Count Muravyov, ized the I~ussian Revolution taking place and the discontent of the Poles with the under his own and MUfi\vyov's leadership. Russian rule in \Varsaw, served to confirm Besides this, he was occupied with an the conviction he had brought with him entirely uifIerent matter: he had begun It from Siberia that the H.evolution was about courtship. Here, too, his political utopias to break out in Russia. When in 1863 the played a certain role. He had always Poles actually rose in open revolt, he lost looked upon Poland as being the predestined his last remnant of prudence. tool for deRtroying the exist.ing form of "Bakunin strode with seven-league boots government in Ru~sia and had sought con across mount.a,ins and seas, across years and tact with Polish emigrant ci.rdes. Now he generationR," is how Alexander Herzeo met the family of a Polish exile employed ~le8cribes him during t,heBe months. "He like himself at the gold mines. Soon he was already saw the red banner waving on 1,he giving French lessons to tlw two daughters Urals and on the Volga, in the Ukraine and of thil:l family, fell in love with one of them, in the Caucasus, indeed, perhaps even from Emma" and married hoI'. His young wife t he Winter Palace Itncl t,he Fort,ress of St. brollght him a. modest property as her Peter and St. Paul." But althongh he dowry. It was his last chance to follow obviously saw through the fantastic delusions the example of so many of his fellow-sufferers iII Bakunill's charact,er, Herzen was weak and hegin a settled life in ox·ile. However, enough to give way to his promptings and the R~\-olutioll, which was merelv a camou openly support the Polish revolt in 'J'he Bell. flage for his morbid restles.. ness.' would not Bakllllin's brain was in It whirl again let him go. He could not tay Pllt.. with the crazic:;t plans: an appeal to the In 1861, without any apparent reason, H.ussilln Army, t,o the nobility, to the ht' left S'iberia to flee \'ilt Japa,n and the officers' corps, the hope for a peasant rising, United States to T~ondon. Before he left, fol' 1\ large-scale mutiny in the Army. He he rcmembcrod t,lJat he had been clra\\ing hurried off to Stockholm to organize an hi:l salarv from the mines for three years expeditionary corps maue uT' of Polish and withollt -haVing done a Rtroke of work; so Rusl'ian emigrants which was to come to he deriderl generously to pay back the the aid of the Poles and, al:l t,he standard money. To do so, he ncelled 6,000 rubles bearer of the great H,cd and Slavic R,e .... which of course, he did not have. He olution, be instrumental in kindling an up finally ucceeded in bOrJ'owing this sum in hel\\7al in H.ussia. However, he failed dis Irkutsk. But IUl.I'dly had he laid bands mll,Uy at the very beginning. In Russia the on the money wben his noble intention Red Pan-Slavism glWC way to an absolutist,ic, melted away like butter in tbe sun: he orthodox one; the influence of The BeU UAKLiNIN, FATH.EH OF \NAHCH1SM 3·H waned alUong the leading RII88ians since it IL secret society of which he made himself had supported the Polish revolt; the revolt the dictatorial head. of tho Poles was crushed in rivers of blood. On his returu to London, Bakwlin himself AKUN IN envisioned a killd of renewal appoal"Cd like a shipwrecked mau Cll.8t upon B of the old Cossack constitlltion of the a desolate beach denudoo of all hope. wild, lawless days of tJJO ·frontier. On the old Slavic comm~lDistic ba 'ie cell of the Onee again he began a restless, roving life MiT, the primitive villllge community, he full of fickle plans. He went to }'Iorcnce, wanted to build up a new society compused Naples, Loearno, overflowing with new de· of free groups of free uldividuals with