Bakunin, Mikhail Alexandrovich

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin
Born	May 30, 1814(1814-05-30) Pryamukhino (near Torzhok), Russian Empire
Died	July 1, 1876(1876-07-01) (aged 62) Bern, Switzerland
Organization	League of Peace and Freedom, International Working Men's Association
Influenced by	Hegel, Proudhon, Herzen, Ogarev, Marx, Tschaadaev, Akstantin
Influenced	Belinsky, Nechayev, Kropotkin, Goldman, Makhno, Most, Malatesta, Chomsky
Political movement	Anarchist movement

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (30 May [O.S. 18 May] 1814 - 1 July 1876) (Russian: Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Баку́нин; IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil ˌbaˈkunʲin]) was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism.^[1]

[edit] Biography

In Moscow, Bakunin studied philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists. His enthusiasm for the philosophy of Fichte, shared with his friends Stankevich and Belinsky, led Bakunin to translate, in 1836, Fichtes 'Vorlesungen uber die Bestimmung des Gelehrten ( Lectures on the Vocation of the Scholar ). From Fichte, Bakunin went on to immerse himself in the philosophy of Hegel, then most influential thinker among German intellectuals.The young man wholeheartedly embraced Hegelianism, bedazzled by the famous maxim that "Everything that exists is rational" - even though it also served to justify the Prussian state. In 1839 he met Alexander Herzen and the latter's friend Nicholas Ogarev, who had returned from exile to Moscow; but their ideas and his were too divergent at the time for a meeting of minds. In 1840, aged twenty six, Bakunin went to St. Petersburgh and thence to Germany, to study and prepare himself for a professorship in philosophy or history at the University of Moscow. From Berlin, Bakunin moved in 1842 to Dresden, and eventually arrived in Paris, where he met George Sand, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Karl Marx.§ He was eventually deported from France for speaking against Russia's oppression of Poland. In 1849 he was apprehended in Dresden for his participation in the Czech rebellion of 1848. He was turned over to Russia where he was imprisoned in Peter-Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg. He remained there until 1857, when he was exiled to a work camp in Siberia.

He was able to escape via Japan and the USA, and ended up in London for a short time, where he worked with Herzen on the radical journal Kolokol ("The Bell"). In 1863, he left to join the insurrection in Poland, but he failed to reach his destination and spent some time in Switzerland and Italy. Despite his criminal status, Bakunin gained great influence with radical youth in Russia, and all of Europe. In 1870, he was involved in the insurrection in Lyon, which foreshadowed the Paris Commune.

In 1868, Bakunin joined the International Working Men's Association, a federation of radical and trade union organizations with sections in most European countries. The 1872 Congress was dominated by a fight between a faction around Marx who argued for participation in parliamentary elections and a faction around Bakunin who opposed it. Bakunin's faction lost the vote on this issue, and at the end of the congress, Bakunin and several of his faction were expelled for supposedly maintaining a secret organisation within the international. The anarchists insisted the congress was rigged, and so held their own conference of the International at Saint-Imier in Switzerland in 1872. Bakunin remained very active in this and the European socialist movement. From 1870 to 1876, he wrote much of his seminal work such as Statism and Anarchy and God and the State. Despite his declining health, he tried to take part in an insurrection in Bologna, but was forced to return to Switzerland in disguise, and settled in Lugano. He remained active in the radical movement of Europe until further health problems caused him to be moved to a hospital in Bern, where he died in 1876.

Bakunin is remembered as a major figure in the history of anarchism and an opponent of Marxism, especially of Marx's idea of dictatorship of the proletariat. He continues to be an influence on modern-day anarchists, such as Noam Chomsky.^[2]

[edit] Early years

In the spring of 1814, Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was born to an aristocratic family in the village of Pryamukhino (Прямухино) between Torzhok (Торжок) and Kuvshinovo (Кувшиново), in Tver guberniya, northwest of Moscow. His father was a career diplomat who, as a young attache, had lived for years in Florence and Naples. Upon his return to Russia, he settled down on his paternal estate where at the age of forty, he married an eighteen-year-old girl from the prominent Muraviev family. Given to liberal ideas, he was for a while platonically involved with one of the Decembrist clubs. After Nicolas I became Tsar , however, Bakunin senior gave up politics and devoted himself to the care of his estate and the education of his children, five girls and five boys, the oldest of whom was Michael.

At the age of 14 Michael left for Saint Petersburg, receiving military training at the Artillery University. He completed his studies in 1832, and in 1834 was commissioned a junior officer in the Russian Imperial Guard and sent to Minsk and Gardinas in Lithuania (now Belarus). That summer, Bakunin became embroiled in a family row, taking his sister’s side in rebellion to an unhappy marriage. Though his father wished him to continue in either the military or the civil service, Bakunin abandoned both in 1835, and made his way to Moscow, hoping to study philosophy.

[edit] Interest in philosophy

Part of the Politics series on
Anarchism
Schools of thought Buddhist Christian · Collectivist Communist · Egoist · Feminist Green · Individualist · Infoanarchism Insurrectionary · Leftist · Mutualist Nihilist · Pacifist · Philosophical Platformist · Post-anarchist · Post-colonial · Post-left · Primitivist · Queer · Social · Syndicalist · Synthesist · Vegan Voluntaryist · Without adjectives · Zen
Theory · practice Anarchy · Black bloc Class struggle  · Communes Consensus democracy Decentralization · Deep ecology Direct action · Direct democracy Dual power · Especifismo Expropriative anarchism · Horizontalidad · Illegalism · Individualism · Individual reclamation Isocracy · Law · Participatory politics Permanent Autonomous Zone Prefigurative politics · Propaganda of the deed Refusal of work · Rewilding Social ecology Social insertion · Somatherapy · Spontaneous order
People William Godwin · Josiah Warren Max Stirner · Johann Most Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Mikhail Bakunin Henry David Thoreau · Leo Tolstoy · Peter Kropotkin · Benjamin Tucker Errico Malatesta · Emma Goldman Nestor Makhno · Alexander Berkman Buenaventura Durruti Émile Armand · Murray Bookchin Colin Ward · John Zerzan
Issues Anarcho-capitalism · Animal rights Capitalism · Criticisms · Islam LGBT rights Lifestylism · Marxism · Nationalism Orthodox Judaism · Religion Sex/love · Violence
History 1999 WTO Conference protest 1919 United States anarchist bombings Amakasu Incident Anarchist Catalonia Anarchist Exclusion Act Australian Anarchist Centenary Barcelona May Days Biennio rosso Carnival Against Capitalism Escuela Moderna · Hague Congress Haymarket affair High Treason Incident Congress of Amsterdam Kate Sharpley Library Kronstadt rebellion Labadie Collection · LIP Manifesto of the Sixteen May 1968  · May Day Paris Commune Provo · Red inverted triangle Free Territory of Ukraine Spanish Revolution Third Russian Revolution Tragic Week · Trial of the thirty
Culture Anarchist Bookfair · Anarcho-punk · Arts Black anarchism · Culture jamming DIY culture · Freeganism Independent Media Center Infoshop · The Internationale Jewish anarchism · Land and liberty Lifestylism · Popular education Property is theft! Radical cheerleading Radical environmentalism Squatting · Symbolism Terminology · A las barricadas
Economics Collectivism Communism · Co-operatives Counter-economics Free school · Free store Gift economy Infoanarchism Market abolitionism · Mutual aid Mutualism · Participatory economics Planned Economy Really Really Free Market  · Syndicalism Wage slavery Workers' self-management
By region Africa · Australia · Austria-Hungary · Brazil Canada · China · Cuba · Ecuador · England France · Greece · India · Iceland · Ireland Israel · Italy · Japan · Korea Mexico · Poland · Russia · Spain Sweden · Turkey · Ukraine United States · Vietnam
Lists Anarcho-punk bands · Books Communities · Fictional characters Jewish anarchists · Musicians Organizations · Periodicals · Poets Russian anarchists
Related topics Anti-capitalism · Anti-consumerism · Anti-corporatism Anti-fascism · Anti-globalization · Antimilitarism Anti-statism · Anti-war · Autarchism Autonomism · Labour movement Left communism · Libertarianism Libertarian perspectives on revolution Libertarian socialism Situationist International
Anarchism Portal Politics portal
v • d • e

In Moscow, Bakunin soon became friends with a group of former university students, and engaged in the systematic study of Idealist philosophy, grouped around the poet Nikolay Stankevich, “the bold pioneer who opened to Russian thought the vast and fertile continent of German metaphysics” (E. H. Carr). The philosophy of Kant initially was central to their study, but then progressed to Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel. By autumn of 1835, Bakunin had conceived of forming a philosophical circle in his home town of Pryamukhino; a passionate environment for the young people involved. For example, Vissarion Belinsky fell in love with one of Bakunin’s sisters. Moreover, by early 1836, Bakunin was back in Moscow, where he published translations of Fichte’s Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar's Vocation and The Way to a Blessed Life, which became his favorite book. With Stankevich he also read Goethe, Schiller, and E.T.A. Hoffmann.

He became increasingly influenced by Hegel and provided the first Russian translation of his work. During this period he met slavophile Konstantin Aksakov, Piotr Tschaadaev and the socialists Alexander Herzen and Nikolay Ogarev. In this period he began to develop his panslavic views. After long wrangles with his father, Bakunin went to Berlin in 1840. His stated plan at the time was still to become a university professor (a “priest of truth,” as he and his friends imagined it), but he soon encountered and joined radical students of the so-called “Hegelian Left,” and joined the socialist movement in Berlin. In his 1842 essay The Reaction in Germany, he argued in favor of the revolutionary role of negation, summed up in the phrase

After three semesters in Berlin, Bakunin went to Dresden where he became friends with Arnold Ruge. Here he also read Lorenz von Stein's Der Sozialismus und Kommunismus des heutigen Frankreich and developed a passion for socialism. He abandoned his interest in an academic career, devoting more and more of his time to promoting revolution.The Russian government, becoming aware of his radicalism, ordered him to return to Russia. On his refusal his property was confiscated. Instead he went with Georg Herwegh to Zürich, Switzerland.

[edit] Switzerland, Brussels, Prague, Dresden and Paris

The young Mikhail Bakunin

During his six month stay in Zürich, he became closely associated with German communist Wilhelm Weitling. Until 1848 he remained on friendly terms with the German communists, occasionally calling himself a communist and writing articles on communism in the Schweitzerische Republikaner. He moved to Geneva in western Switzerland shortly before Weitling's arrest. His name had appeared frequently in Weitling's correspondence seized by the police. This led to reports being circulated to the imperial police. The Russian ambassador in Bern ordered Bakunin to return to Russia, but instead he went to Brussels, where he met many leading Polish nationalists, such as Joachim Lelewel, co-member with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels at Brussels. Lelewel greatly influenced him, however he clashed with the Polish nationalists over their demand for a historic Poland based on the borders of 1776 (before the Partitions of Poland) as he defended the right of autonomy for the non-Polish peoples in these territories. He also did not support their clericalism and they did not support his calls for the emancipation of the peasantry.

In 1844 Bakunin went to Paris, then a centre for European radicalism. He established contacts with Karl Marx and the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who greatly impressed him and with whom he formed a personal bond. In December 1844, Emperor Nicholas issued a decree stripping Bakunin of his privileges as a noble, denying him civil rights, confiscating his land in Russia, and condemning him to life long exile in Siberia should the Russian authorities ever get their hands on him. He responded with a long letter to La Réforme, denouncing the Emperor as a despot and calling for democracy in Russia and Poland (Carr, p. 139). In March 1846 in another letter to the Constitutionel he defended Poland, following the repression of Catholics there. Some Polish refugees from Kraków, following the defeat of the uprising there, invited him to speak^[4] at the meeting in November 1847 commemorating the Polish November Uprising of 1830.

In his speech, Bakunin called for an alliance between the Polish and Russian peoples against the Emperor, and looked forward to "the definitive collapse of despotism in Russia." As a result, he was expelled from France and went to Brussels. Bakunin's attempt to draw Alexander Herzen and Vissarion Belinsky into conspiratorial action for revolution in Russia fell on deaf ears. In Brussels, Bakunin renewed his contacts with revolutionary Poles and Karl Marx. He spoke at a meeting organised by Lelewel in February 1848 about a great future for the slavs, whose destiny was to rejuvenate the Western world. Around this time the Russian embassy circulated rumours that Bakunin was a Russian agent who had exceeded his orders.

As the revolutionary movement of 1848 broke out, Bakunin was ecstatic, despite disappointment that little was happening in Russia. Bakunin obtained funding from some socialists in the Provisional Government, Ferdinand Flocon, Louis Blanc, Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin and Albert L'Ouvrier, for a project for a Slav federation liberating those under the rule of Prussia, Austro-Hungary and Turkey. He left for Germany travelling through Baden to Frankfurt and Köln.

Bakunin supported the German Democratic Legion led by Herwegh in an abortive attempt to join Friedrich Hecker's insurrection in Baden. He broke with Marx over the latter's criticism of Herwegh. Much later in 1871 – Bakunin was to write: “I must openly admit that in this controversy Marx and Engels were in the right. With characteristic insolence, they attacked Herwegh personally when he was not there to defend himself. In a face-to-face confrontation with them, I heatedly defended Herwegh, and our mutual dislike began then.”^[5]

Bakunin went on to Berlin, but was stopped from going to Posen by the police, which was part of Polish territories gained by Prussia in the Partitions of Poland, where a nationalist insurrection was taking place. Instead Bakunin went to Leipzig and Breslau, then to Prague where he participated in the First Pan Slav Congress. The Congress was followed by an abortive insurrection that Bakunin had sought to promote and intensify but which was violently suppressed. He returned to Breslau, where Marx republished the allegation that Bakunin was an imperial agent, claiming that George Sand had proof. Marx retracted the statement after George Sand came to Bakunin's defense.

Bakunin published his Appeal to the Slavs^[6] in the fall of 1848, in which he proposed that Slav revolutionaries unite with Hungarian, Italian and German revolutionaries to overthrow the three major European autocracies, the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Prussia.

Bakunin played a leading role in the May Uprising in Dresden in 1849, helping to organize the defense of the barricades against Prussian troops with Richard Wagner and Wilhelm Heine. He was captured in Chemnitz and held for thirteen months before being condemned to death by the government of Saxony. As the governments of Russia and Austria were also after him, his sentence was commuted to life. In June 1850, he was handed over to the Austrian authorities. Eleven months later he received a further death sentence, but this too was commuted to life imprisonment. Finally, in May 1851, Bakunin was handed over to the Russian authorities.

Richard Wagner wrote in his diary about Bakunin's visit:^[7]

[edit] Imprisonment, "confession", and exile

Bakunin was taken to the notorious Peter and Paul Fortress. At the beginning of his captivity, Count Orlov, an emissary of the Emperor, visited Bakunin and told him that the Emperor requested a written confession^[8] hoping that the confession would place Bakunin spiritually as well as physically in the power of the Russian state. Since all his acts were known, he had no secrets to reveal, and so he decided to write to the Emperor: