Mikhail Bakunin

54
Mikhail Bakunin bigraphy, stories - Russian revolutionary

Mikhail Bakunin : biography

May 30, 1814 – June 13, 1876

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin () (18 May (30 May) 1814 – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism. Many scholars argue he is the founder of anarchist theory in general.

Bakunin grew up in Premukhino, a family estate near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French encyclopédistes, leading to enthusiasm for the philosophy of Fichte. From Fichte, Bakunin went on to immerse himself in the works of Hegel, the most influential thinker among German intellectuals at the time. That led to his whole-hearted embrace of Hegelianism, bedazzled by Hegel’s famous maxim; "Everything that exists is rational". In 1840 Bakunin traveled to St. Petersburg and Berlin, aiming at preparing himself for a professorship in philosophy or history at the University of Moscow.

Bakunin moved from Berlin, in 1842, to Dresden. Eventually he arrived in Paris, where he met George Sand, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and Karl Marx. Bakunin’s increasing radicalism – including staunch opposition to imperialism in east and central Europe by Russia and other powers – changed his life, putting paid to hopes of a professorial career. He was eventually deported from France for speaking against Russia’s oppression of Poland.

In 1849, Bakunin was apprehended in Dresden for his participation in the Czech rebellion of 1848, and turned over to Russia where he was imprisoned in the infamous Peter-Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg. He remained there until 1857, when he was exiled to a work camp in Siberia. Escaping to Japan, the USA and finally ending up in London for a short time, he worked with Herzen on the 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.

Bakunin’s enormous prestige, as a legendary activist, made him one of the most famous men in Europe; in his lifetime he was arguably better known than Marx. He gained great influence with radical youth in Russia, and had substantial influence amongst radicals across Europe.

In 1868, Bakunin joined the International Working Men’s Association, a federation of trade unions and workers’ organizations: this had sections in many European countries, as well as in Latin America and (after 1872) in North Africa and the Middle East. The ‘Bakuninist’ or anarchist trend rapidly expanded in influence, and included the largest section of the International: Spain. A showdown loomed with Marx, who was a key figure in the General Council of the International.

The 1872 Hague Congress was dominated by a struggle between Marx and his followers, who argued for the use of the state to bring about socialism, and the Bakunin/anarchist faction, which argued instead for the replacement of the state by federations of self-governing workplaces and communities. Bakunin could not attend the congress, as he could not reach the Netherlands. Bakunin’s faction present lost at the conference, and Bakunin was (in Marx’s view) expelled for supposedly maintaining a secret organisation within the international.

However, the anarchists insisted the congress was unrepresentative and exceeded its powers, and held a rival conference of the International at Saint-Imier in Switzerland in 1872. This repudiated the Hague meeting, including Bakunin’s supposed explusion. The great majority of sections of the International affiliated to the St. Imier body, making Marx’s victory rather more illusory than pro-Marxist accounts suggest. The far larger Bakuninist international outlasted its small Marxist rival, which was isolated in New York; it also greatly facilitated the global spread of anarchism.

In the International, as well as in his writings, Bakunin articulated the basic ideas of syndicalism and of anarchism, and developed the basic anarchist analysis and strategy. He had by this stage abandoned the anti-imperialist nationalism of his youth. From 1870 to 1876, Bakunin wrote some of his longer works, such as Statism and Anarchy and God and the State.