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{{short description|Russian revolutionary anarchist and philosopher (1814–1876)}}
{{short description|Russian revolutionary anarchist and philosopher (1814–1876)}}
{{redirects here|Bakunin|others with this surname|Bakunin (surname)|the 1937 book by E. H. Carr|Bakunin (biography)}}
{{redirect|Bakunin|others with this surname|Bakunin (surname)|the 1937 book by E. H. Carr|Bakunin (biography)|the Soviet politician|Nikolai Bukharin}}
{{family name hatnote|Alexandrovich|[[Bakunin (surname)|Bakunin]]|lang=Eastern Slavic}}
{{use dmy dates|date=April 2023}}
{{use dmy dates|date=April 2023}}
{{Infobox philosopher
{{Infobox philosopher
| name            = Mikhail Bakunin
| name            = Mikhail Bakunin
| image            = Bakunin Nadar.jpg
| image            = Mikhail Bakunin Nader (3x4 cropped).jpg
| alt              =
| alt              = Head shot of Bakunin
| caption          =
| caption          = Bakunin in 1862, photograph by [[Nadar]]
| birth_name      = Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin
| birth_name      = Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin
| birth_date      = {{birth date|1814|5|30|df=y}} ([[Old Style and New Style dates|N.S.]])
| birth_date      = {{birth date|1814|5|30|df=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Pryamukhino]], [[Tver Governorate]], [[Russian Empire]] {{small|(present-day [[Kuvshinovsky District]], [[Tver Oblast]], [[Russia]])}}
| birth_place      = [[Pryamukhino]], [[Tver Governorate]], Russian Empire
| death_date      = {{death date and age|1876|7|1|1814|5|30|df=y}}
| death_date      = {{death date and age|1876|7|1|1814|5|30|df=y}}
| death_place      = [[Bern, Switzerland]]
| death_place      = [[Bern]], Switzerland
| family          = [[Bakunin family|Bakunin]]
| era              = [[19th-century philosophy]]
| era              = [[19th century philosophy]]
| region          = {{unbulleted list|[[Russian philosophy]]|[[Western philosophy]]}}
| region          = {{unbulleted list|[[Russian philosophy]]|[[Western philosophy]]}}
| school_tradition = {{plainlist|
| school_tradition = {{plainlist|
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}}
}}
| main_interests  =
| main_interests  =
| influences      = {{flatlist|
* [[Philippe Buonarroti|Buonarroti]]
* [[Ludwig Feuerbach|Feuerbach]]
* [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]]
* [[Alexander Herzen|Herzen]]
* [[Joachim Lelewel|Lelewel]]<ref>„In Brüssel macht er (Anm.: Bakunin) die folgenreiche Bekanntschaft des polnischen Historikers und Revolutionärs Ignacy Lelewel. Dessen slawophile Vision einer demokratischen Bauernrepublik beeindruckt ihn sehr, wobei er den engen Nationalismus der ganzen Sache in typisch Bakuninscher Begeisterung einfach ausblendet. Der Gedanke an eine generelle Erhebung der slawischen Völker, denen er die Kraft zutraut, als ungezähmter Motor einer generellen Revolution gegen jede Tyrannei zu wirken, nimmt Gestalt an und wird ihn für viele Jahre nicht mehr loslassen." aus: [[Horst Stowasser]]: ''Freiheit pur. Die Idee der Anarchie, Geschichte und Zukunft.'' Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-8218-0448-3, S. 195.</ref>
* [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon|Proudhon]]
}}
| influenced      = {{flatlist|
* [[Carlo Cafiero|Cafiero]]
* [[Noam Chomsky|Chomsky]]
* [[Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis|Domela Nieuwenhuis]]
* [[Emma Goldman|Goldman]]
* [[Daniel Guérin|Guérin]]
* [[Karl Korsch|Korsch]]
* [[Peter Kropotkin|Kropotkin]]
* [[Machajski]]
* [[Errico Malatesta|Malatesta]]
* [[Herbert Marcuse|Marcuse]]
* [[Sergei Nechaev|Nechaev]]
* [[A.S. Neill|Neill]]
* [[Neil Postman|Postman]]
* [[E.P. Thompson|Thompson]]
* [[Bhagat Singh]]
}}
| signature        = БСЭ1. Автограф. Автографы. 7.svg
| signature        = БСЭ1. Автограф. Автографы. 7.svg
}}
}}
{{anarchism sidebar}}
'''Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin'''{{efn|{{IPAc-en|b|ə|ˈ|k|uː|n|ɪ|n}} {{respell|bə|KOO|nin}};<ref>[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bakunin "Bakunin"]. ''[[Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary]]''. 2010.</ref> {{lang-rus|Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Баку́нин|p=mʲɪxɐˈil ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪdʑ‿bɐˈkunʲɪn}}; sometimes anglicized to '''Michael Bakunin''' in older literature.}} ({{OldStyleDate|30 May|1814|18 May}} – 1 July 1876) was a Russian [[revolutionary anarchist]] and [[political philosopher]]. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the [[revolutionary socialist]], [[social anarchist]],<ref>{{citation|last=Masters|first=Anthony|year=1974|title=Bakunin, the Father of Anarchism|publisher=Saturday Review Press|isbn=0841502951}}</ref> and [[collectivist anarchist]] traditions. Bakunin's prestige as a revolutionary also made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, gaining substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe.
 
'''Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin'''{{efn|{{lang-rus|Михаил Александрович Бакунин|p=mʲɪxɐˈil ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪdʑ bɐˈkunʲɪn}}.}} ({{IPAc-en|b|ə|ˈ|k|uː|n|ɪ|n}} {{respell|bə|KOO|nin}};<ref>[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bakunin "Bakunin"]. ''[[Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary]]''. 2010.</ref> 30 May 1814 – 1 July 1876) was a [[Anarchism in Russia|Russian revolutionary anarchist]]. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the [[revolutionary socialist]], [[social anarchist]],<ref>{{citation|last=Masters|first=Anthony|year=1974|title=Bakunin, the Father of Anarchism|publisher=Saturday Review Press|isbn=0841502951}}</ref> and [[collectivist anarchist]] traditions. Bakunin's prestige as a revolutionary also made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, gaining substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe.


Bakunin grew up in [[Kuvshinovsky District|Pryamukhino]], a family estate in [[Tver Governorate]]. From 1840, he studied in [[Moscow]], then in [[Berlin]] hoping to enter academia. Later in [[Paris]], he met [[Karl Marx]] and [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]], who deeply influenced him. Bakunin's increasing radicalism ended hopes of a professorial career. He was expelled from France for opposing the [[Russian Empire]]'s [[Poland-Russia relations#Muscovy and Russian Empire|occupation of Poland]]. After participating in the [[Prague Uprising of 1848|1848 Prague]] and [[1849 Dresden uprising|1849 Dresden]] uprisings, Bakunin was imprisoned, tried, sentenced to death, and extradited multiple times. Finally [[exile]]d to [[History of Siberia#Russian Empire|Siberia]] in 1857, he escaped via Japan to the United States and then to [[London]], where he worked with [[Alexander Herzen]] on the journal ''Kolokol'' (''The Bell''). In 1863, Bakunin left to join the [[January Uprising|insurrection in Poland]], but he failed to reach it and instead spent time in Switzerland and Italy.
Bakunin grew up in [[Kuvshinovsky District|Pryamukhino]], a family estate in the [[Tver Governorate]]. From 1840, he studied in [[Moscow]], then in [[Berlin]], hoping to enter academia. Later in [[Paris]], he met [[Karl Marx]] and [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]], who deeply influenced him. Bakunin's increasing radicalism ended hopes of a professorial career. He was expelled from France for opposing the [[Russian Empire]]'s [[Poland-Russia relations#Muscovy and Russian Empire|occupation of Poland]]. After participating in the [[Prague Uprising of 1848|1848 Prague]] and [[1849 Dresden uprising|1849 Dresden]] uprisings, Bakunin was imprisoned, tried, sentenced to death, and extradited multiple times. Finally, [[exile]]d to [[History of Siberia#Russian Empire|Siberia]] in 1857, he escaped via Japan to the United States and then to [[London]], where he worked with [[Alexander Herzen]] on the journal ''Kolokol'' (''The Bell''). In 1863, Bakunin left to join the [[January Uprising|insurrection in Poland]], but he failed to reach it and instead spent time in Switzerland and Italy.


In 1868, Bakunin joined the [[International Workingmen's Association]], leading the anarchist faction to rapidly grow in influence. The 1872 [[Hague Congress (1872)|Hague Congress]] was dominated by a struggle between Bakunin and Marx, who was a key figure in the General Council of the International and argued for the use of the state to bring about socialism. In contrast, Bakunin and the anarchist faction argued for the replacement of the state by federations of self-governing workplaces and communes. Bakunin could not reach the Netherlands, and the anarchist faction lost the debate in his absence. Bakunin was expelled from the International for maintaining, in Marx's view, a secret organisation within the International, and founded the [[Anti-Authoritarian International]] in 1872. From 1870 until his death in 1876, Bakunin wrote his longer works such as ''[[Statism and Anarchy]]'' and ''[[God and the State]]'', but he continued to directly participate in European worker and peasant movements. In 1870, he was involved in an insurrection in [[Lyon]], France. Bakunin sought to take part in an anarchist insurrection in [[Bologna]], Italy, but his declining health forced him to return to Switzerland in disguise.
In 1868, Bakunin joined the [[International Workingmen's Association]], leading the anarchist faction to rapidly grow in influence. The 1872 [[Hague Congress (1872)|Hague Congress]] was dominated by a struggle between Bakunin and Marx, who was a key figure in the General Council of the International and argued for the use of the state to bring about socialism. In contrast, Bakunin and the anarchist faction argued for the replacement of the state by federations of self-governing workplaces and communes. Bakunin could not reach the Netherlands, and the anarchist faction lost the debate in his absence. Bakunin was expelled from the International for maintaining, in Marx's view, a secret organisation within the International, and founded the [[Anti-Authoritarian International]] in 1872. From 1870 until his death in 1876, Bakunin wrote his longer works such as ''[[Statism and Anarchy]]'' and ''[[God and the State]]'', but he continued to directly participate in European worker and peasant movements. In 1870, he was involved in an insurrection in [[Lyon]], France. Bakunin sought to take part in an anarchist insurrection in [[Bologna]], Italy, but his declining health forced him to return to Switzerland in disguise.


Bakunin is remembered as a major figure in the history of anarchism, an opponent of [[Marxism]], especially of the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]]; and for his predictions that Marxist regimes would be one-party dictatorships ruling over the proletariat, not rule by the proletariat. His book ''God and the State'' has been widely translated and remains in print. Bakunin has had a significant influence on thinkers such as [[Peter Kropotkin]], [[Errico Malatesta]], [[Herbert Marcuse]], [[E. P. Thompson]], [[Neil Postman]] and [[A. S. Neill]] as well as syndicalist organizations such as the [[Wobblies]], the anarchists in the [[Spanish Civil War]] and [[contemporary anarchists]] involved in the modern-day [[anti-globalization movement]].<ref name=Sale>[[Kirkpatrick Sale|Sale, Kirkpatrick]] (2006-11-06) [http://www.amconmag.com/article/2006/nov/06/00031/ An Enemy of the State] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604222713/http://www.amconmag.com/article/2006/nov/06/00031/ |date=4 June 2011 }}, ''[[The American Conservative]]''</ref>
Bakunin is remembered as a major figure in the history of anarchism and as an opponent of [[Marxism]], especially of the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]], arguing that Marxist states would be one-party dictatorships ruling over the proletariat, not ruled by the proletariat. His book ''God and the State'' has been widely translated and remains in print. Bakunin has had a significant influence on thinkers such as [[Peter Kropotkin]], [[Errico Malatesta]], [[Herbert Marcuse]], [[E. P. Thompson]], [[Neil Postman]] and [[A. S. Neill]] as well as syndicalist organizations such as the [[IWW]], the anarchists in the [[Spanish Civil War]] and [[contemporary anarchists]] involved in the modern-day [[anti-globalization movement]].<ref name=Sale>[[Kirkpatrick Sale|Sale, Kirkpatrick]] (2006-11-06) [http://www.amconmag.com/article/2006/nov/06/00031/ An Enemy of the State] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604222713/http://www.amconmag.com/article/2006/nov/06/00031/ |date=4 June 2011 }}, ''[[The American Conservative]]''</ref>


== Life ==
== Life ==
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=== Early life ===
=== Early life ===


On {{OldStyleDate|30 May|1814|18 May}}, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin was born into Russian nobility on his family's estate in [[Priamukhino]], [[Tver Oblast|Tver]], in the country's northwest. His father, [[Alexander Mikhailovich Bakunin]], was a Russian diplomat who had served in Italy. Upon returning to Priamukhino and marrying the much younger Varvara Aleksandrovna Murav'eva, the elder Bakunin raised his ten children in the model of [[Rousseauan]] pedagogy. Mikhail Bakunin, their oldest son, read the languages, literature, and philosophy of the period and described his youth as idyllic and sheltered from the realities of Russian life. As an early teenager, he began training for a military career at the [[St. Petersburg]] Artillery School, which he rejected. He left the school, despite his father's protests, in 1835 to study philosophy.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=35}}
On {{OldStyleDate|30 May|1814|18 May}}, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin was born into [[Russian nobility]].{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=35}} His family's [[Priamukhino]] estate, in the [[Tver Oblast|Tver]] region northwest of Moscow, had over 500 serfs.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=308}} His father, [[Alexander Mikhailovich Bakunin]], was a Russian diplomat who had served in Italy. Upon returning to Priamukhino and marrying the much younger Varvara Aleksandrovna Muravyeva, the elder Bakunin raised his ten children<!-- add note here for the eleventh who died young--> in the [[Rousseauan]] pedagogic model.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=35}} Mikhail Bakunin, their third child and oldest son,{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=309}} read the languages, literature, and philosophy of the period and described his youth as idyllic and sheltered from the realities of Russian life. As an early teenager, he began training for a military career at the [[St. Petersburg]] Artillery School, which he rejected.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=35}} Becoming an officer in 1833, he availed himself of the freedom to participate in the city's social life, but was unfulfilled. Derelict in his studies, he was sent to Belarus and Lithuania as punishment in early 1834, where he read academic theory and philosophy. He deserted the school in 1835 and only escaped arrest through his familial influence.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=309}} He was discharged at the end of the year and, despite his father's protests, left for Moscow to pursue a career as a mathematics teacher.{{sfnm|1a1=Shatz|1y=2003|1p=35|2a1=Eckhardt|2y=2022|2p=309}}


Bakunin lived a bohemian, intellectual life in Moscow, where [[German Romanticism|German Romantic]] literature and [[German idealism|idealist philosophy]] were influential in the 1830s.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=35}} The [[metaphysics]] of [[Friedrich Schelling|Schelling]], [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte|Fichte]], and [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]] influenced Bakunin in particular.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=35}} He befriended Russian intellectuals including the literary critic [[Vissarion Belinsky]], the poet [[Nikolay Ogarev]], the novelist [[Ivan Turgenev]], and the writer [[Alexander Herzen]] as youth prior to their careers.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} Bakunin was also in the intellectual circle of [[Nikolai Stankevich]]. During this time, Bakunin published Russian translations of works by Fichte and Hegel.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}}
Bakunin lived a bohemian, intellectual life in Moscow, where [[German Romantic]] literature and [[German idealism|idealist philosophy]] were influential in the 1830s.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=35}} In the intellectual circle of [[Nikolai Stankevich]], Bakunin read German philosophy, from [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]] to [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte|Fichte]] to [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]],{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=309}} and published Russian translations of their works.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} Bakunin produced the first Russian translation of Hegel and was the foremost Russian expert on Hegel by 1837.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|pp=309–310}} Bakunin befriended Russian intellectuals including the literary critic [[Vissarion Belinsky]], the poet [[Nikolay Ogarev]], the novelist [[Ivan Turgenev]], and the writer [[Alexander Herzen]] as youth prior to their careers.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} Herzen funded Bakunin to study at the [[University of Berlin]] in 1840. Bakunin's plans to return to Moscow as a professor were soon abandoned.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=310}}


He enrolled in the [[University of Berlin]] and immigrated in 1840. He was drawn towards the [[Young Hegelians]], an intellectual group with radical interpretations of Hegel's philosophy. In this tradition Bakunin pseudonymously wrote his first original publication in 1842, ''{{lang-de|Die Reaktion in Deutschland}}'' ("The Reaction in Germany"), which proposes a continuation of the [[French Revolution]] to the rest of Europe and Russia.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}}
In Berlin, Bakunin gravitated towards the [[Young Hegelians]], an intellectual group with radical interpretations of Hegel's philosophy,{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} and who drew Bakunin to political topics.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=310}} He left Berlin in early 1842 for [[Dresden]] and met the Hegelian [[Arnold Ruge]],{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=310}} who published Bakunin's first original publication. {{Lang|de|Die Reaktion in Deutschland}} ("The Reaction in Germany") proposes a continuation of the [[French Revolution]] to the rest of Europe and Russia.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} Though steeped in Hegelian jargon and published under a pseudonym, it marked Bakunin's transition from philosophy to revolutionary rhetoric.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=310}}


=== Revolutionary activity and imprisonment ===
=== Revolutionary activity and imprisonment ===
[[File:Young Bakunin.jpg|thumb|Bakunin, 1843]]


[[File:Young Bakunin.jpg|thumb|Bakunin, 1843]]
Throughout the 1840s, Bakunin grew into revolutionary agitation.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} When his cadre aroused interest from Russian secret agents, Bakunin left for [[Zürich]] in early 1843. He met the proto-communist [[Wilhelm Weitling]], whose arrest led [[Bern]]'s Russian embassy to distrust Bakunin.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=310}} Defying Russian orders to return, the [[Governing Senate|Russian Senate]] stripped him of his rights as a nobleman and sentenced him [[trial in absentia|in absentia]] to [[penal labor]] in Siberia.{{sfnm|1a1=Shatz|1y=2003|1p=36|2a1=Eckhardt|2y=2022|2p=310}} Without steady financial support, Bakunin became an itinerant, traveling Europe, meeting the people who had influenced him.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} He visited [[Brussels]] and [[Paris]], where he joined international emigrants and socialists, befriended the anarchist [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]], and met the philosopher [[Karl Marx]], with whom he would later tussle.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=310}} Bakunin only became personally active in political agitation in 1847, as Polish emigrants in Paris invited him to commemorate the [[1830 Polish uprising]] with a speech.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=310}} His call for Poles to overthrow czarism in alliance with Russian democrats made Bakunin known throughout Europe and led the Russian ambassador to successfully request Bakunin's deportation.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|pp=310–311}}


In the 1840s, he moved from philosophical studies to revolutionary agitation.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} Learning of Bakunin's radicalism, the Russian government told Bakunin to return to Russia. When he did not, Russia stripped him of his rights as a nobleman and sentenced him [[trial in absentia|in absentia]] to [[penal labor]] in Siberia. Without steady financial support, Bakunin became an itinerant, traveling Europe meeting the people who had influenced him, such as proto-communist [[Wilhelm Weitling]], philosopher [[Karl Marx]], anarchist [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]. He was deported at the Russian government's request.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}}<!--Polish speech in here too -->
When the French King [[Louis Philippe I]] abdicated during the [[February 1848 Revolution]], Bakunin returned to Paris and basked in the revolutionary milieu.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} With the French government's support, he headed to Prussian Poland to agitate for revolt against Russia, but never arrived.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|pp=36–37}} He attended the 1848 [[Prague Slavic Congress, 1848|Prague Slavic Congress]] to defend Slavic rights against German and Hungarian nationalism, and participated in [[1848 Prague uprising|its impromptu insurrection]] against the [[Habsburg empire|Austrian Habsburgs]]. Uncaptured, he wrote ''Aufruf an die Slaven'' ("Appeal to the Slavs") at the end of the year, advocating for a Slavic federation and revolt against the Austrian, Prussian, Turkish, and Russian governments. It was widely read and translated.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=37}}


When the French King [[Louis Philippe I]] abdicated during the [[February 1848 Revolution]], Bakunin returned to Paris and basked in the revolutionary milieu.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} With the French government's support, he headed to Prussian Poland to agitate for revolt against Russia but never arrived.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|pp=36–37}} He attended the 1848 [[Prague Slavic Congress, 1848|Prague Slavic Congress]] to defend Slavic rights against German and Hungarian nationalism, and participated in [[1848 Prague uprising|its impromptu insurrection]] against the [[Habsburg empire|Austrian Habsburgs]]. Uncaptured, he wrote ''Aufruf an die Slaven'' ("Appeal to the Slavs") at the end of the year, advocating for a Slavic federation and revolt against the Austrian, Prussian, Turkish, and Russia governments. It was widely read and translated.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=37}}
After participating in both the Prague uprising and the [[May Uprising in Dresden|1849 Dresden uprising]], Bakunin was imprisoned, tried, sentenced to death, extradited multiple times, and ultimately placed in [[solitary confinement]] in the [[Peter and Paul Fortress]] of [[St. Petersberg, Russia]], in 1851. Three years later, he transferred to [[Shlisselburg Fortress]] near St. Petersberg for another three years. Prison weathered but did not break Bakunin, who retained his revolutionary zeal through his release. He did, however, write an autobiographical, genuflecting ''[[Confession (Bakunin)|Confession]]'' to the Russian emperor, which proved to be a controversial document upon its public discovery some 70 years later. The letter did not improve his prison conditions. In 1857, Bakunin was permitted to transfer to permanent exile in Siberia. He married Antonia Kwiatkowska there{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=37}} before escaping in 1861, first to Japan, then to San Francisco, sailing to [[Panama]] and then to New York and Boston, and arrived in London by the end of the year.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}} Bakunin set foot in America just as the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] was breaking out. Speaking with supporters of both sides, Bakunin stated that his sympathies were with the North, although he claimed hypocrisy in their stated goal of slave liberation while also forcing the South to remain in the Union.<ref name=":0" /> Bakunin also viewed the Southern political system and agrarian character as freer in some respects for its white citizens than in the industrial North.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Avrich |first=Paul |title=Bakunin in America |url=https://files.libcom.org/files/BAKUNIN%20AND%20THE%20UNITED%20STATES.pdf}}</ref> Though a fierce critic and enemy of slavery, Bakunin held a deep admiration for the United States as a whole, referring to the country as "the finest political organization that ever existed in history."<ref name=":0" />


After participating in the 1848 Prague uprising and the [[May Uprising in Dresden|1849 Dresden uprising]], Bakunin was imprisoned, tried, sentenced to death, extradited multiple times, and ultimately placed in [[solitary confinement]] in the [[Peter and Paul Fortress]] of [[St. Petersberg, Russia]], in 1851. Three years later, he transferred to [[Shlisselburg Fortress]] near St. Petersberg for another three years. Prison weathered but did not break Bakunin, who retained his revolutionary zeal through his release. He did, however, write an autobiographical, genuflecting ''[[Confession (Bakunin)|Confession]]'' to the Russian emperor, which proved to be a controversial document upon its public discovery some 70 years later. The letter did not improve his prison conditions. In 1857, Bakunin was permitted to transfer to permanent exile in Siberia. He married Antonia Kwiatkowska there{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=37}} before escaping in 1861, first to Japan, then to San Francisco, across the country to New York, and arrived in London by the end of the year.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}}
<!--
=== Back in Europe ===
=== Back in Europe ===
-->
In London, Bakunin reunited with Herzen and Ogarev. Bakunin collaborated with them on [[Kolokol (newspaper)|their Russian-language newspaper]] but his revolutionary fervor exceeded their moderate reform agenda. Bakunin's 1862 pamphlet ''The People{{'}}s Cause: Romanov, Pugachev, or Pestel?'' criticized the Russian tsar for not using his position to facilitate a bloodless revolution and forgo another [[Pugachev's Rebellion]]. In 1863, Bakunin joined in an unsuccessful effort to supply armed men for the Polish [[January Uprising]] against Russia. Bakunin, reunited with his wife, moved to Italy the next year, where they stayed for three years.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}}


Bakunin, in his early 50s, developed his core anarchist thoughts in Italy. He continued to refine these ideas in his remaining 12 years. Among this ideology was the first of many conspiratorial revolutionary societies, though none of these participated in revolutionary actions, chiefly the revolutionary toppling of the state, to be replaced by free federation between voluntarily associated economic producers.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}}
In London, Bakunin reunited with Herzen and Ogarev. Bakunin collaborated with them on [[Kolokol (newspaper)|their Russian-language newspaper]] but his revolutionary fervor exceeded their moderate reform agenda. Bakunin's 1862 pamphlet ''The People{{'}}s Cause: Romanov, Pugachev, or Pestel?'' criticized the Russian tsar for not using his position to facilitate a bloodless revolution and forgo another [[Pugachev's Rebellion]]. In early August 1862, he briefly travelled to Paris.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kawelin |first1=Konstantin |author1-link=Konstantin Kavelin |editor1-last=Dragomanow |editor1-first=Michail |editor1-link=Mykhailo Drahomanov |title=Konstantin Kawelins und Iwan Turgenjews sozial-politischer Briefwechsel mit Alexander Iw. Herzen: Mit Beilagen und Erläuterungen |series=Bibliothek russischer Denkwürdigkeiten; 4 Bd |date=1894 |publisher=Verlag der J. G. Cotta'schen Buchhandlung Nachfolger |location=Stuttgart |pages=64–66 |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000975825 |language=German}}</ref> In Paris at this time, famous photographer [[Nadar]] took four famous photographs of him on August 7, 1862. After being photographed, he also signed Nadar's ''Livre d'Or'' ([[autograph album]]), and wrote (leaf 161): "Watch out that liberty doesn't come to you from the north."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Begley |first1=Adam |title=Nadar's Livre d'or |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/07/05/nadars-livre-dor/ |website=[[The Paris Review]] |date=5 July 2017 |access-date=23 November 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Nadar autograph album |url=https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/UPENN_RBML_PUSP.MS.COLL.21 |access-date=23 November 2023}}</ref> In 1863, Bakunin joined in an unsuccessful effort to supply armed men for the Polish [[January Uprising]] against Russia. Bakunin, reunited with his wife, moved to Italy the next year, where they stayed for three years.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}}
 
Bakunin, in his early 50s, developed his core anarchist thoughts in Italy. He continued to refine these ideas in his remaining 12 years. Among this ideology was the first of many conspiratorial revolutionary societies, though none of these participated in revolutionary actions, chiefly the revolutionary toppling of the state, to be replaced by a free federation between voluntarily associated economic producers.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}}


He moved to Switzerland in 1867, a more permissive environment for revolutionary literature. Bakunin's anarchist writings were fragmentary and prolific.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}} With France's collapse in the 1870 [[Franco-Prussian War]], Bakunin traveled to Lyon and participated in the fruitless [[Lyon Commune]] in which the citizens briefly occupied the city hall. Bakunin retreated to Switzerland.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|pp=38–39}}
He moved to Switzerland in 1867, a more permissive environment for revolutionary literature. Bakunin's anarchist writings were fragmentary and prolific.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}} With France's collapse in the 1870 [[Franco-Prussian War]], Bakunin traveled to Lyon and participated in the fruitless [[Lyon Commune]] in which the citizens briefly occupied the city hall. Bakunin retreated to Switzerland.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|pp=38–39}}


In Switzerland, the Russian revolutionary [[Sergey Nechayev]] sought out Bakunin for a collaboration. Not knowing Nechayev's past betrayals, Bakunin warmed to Nechayev's revolutionary zeal and they together produced the 1869 ''Catechism of the Revolutionary'', a tract that endorsed an ascetic life for revolutionaries without societal or moral bonds. Bakunin's connection with Nechayev hurt the former's reputation. More recent scholarship, however, challenges the catechism's authorship, crediting Nechayev as the primary or sole author. Bakunin ultimately disavowed their connection.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=39}}
In Switzerland, the Russian revolutionary [[Sergey Nechayev]] sought out Bakunin for collaboration. Not knowing Nechayev's past betrayals, Bakunin warmed to Nechayev's revolutionary zeal and they together produced the 1869 ''Catechism of the Revolutionary'', a tract that endorsed an ascetic life for revolutionaries without societal or moral bonds. Bakunin's connection with Nechayev hurt the former's reputation. More recent scholarship, however, challenges the catechism's authorship, crediting Nechayev as the primary or sole author. Bakunin ultimately disavowed their connection.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=39}}


=== First International ===
=== First International ===
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[[File:Bakunin Monument Bern EN.webm|thumb|Video of Bakunin's grave]]
[[File:Bakunin Monument Bern EN.webm|thumb|Video of Bakunin's grave]]


While Bakunin encountered [[Karl Marx]] in Paris (1844) and London (1864), he came to know him through the [[First International]] (International Working Men's Association), which Marx and [[Friedrich Engels]] formed in the 1860s. Bakunin's relationship with Marx became strained in the early 1870s for both interpersonal and ideological differences. Bakunin respected Marx's erudition and passion for socialism but found his personality to be authoritarian and arrogant. In turn, Marx was skeptical towards Russian reactionism and Bakunin's unruliness.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=39}} As Bakunin developed his anarchist ideas in this period, he came to see federative social organization, led by the peasantry and poorest workers, as the primary post-revolution goal, whereas Marx believed in a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]], led by organized workers in industrially advanced countries, in which the workers use state infrastructure until [[withering away of the state|the state withers away]]. Bakunists abhorred the political organization for which Marx advocated.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|pp=39–40}}
While Bakunin encountered [[Karl Marx]] in Paris (1844) and London (1864), he came to know him through the [[First International]] (International Working Men's Association), which Marx and [[Friedrich Engels]] formed in the 1860s. Bakunin's relationship with Marx became strained in the early 1870s for both interpersonal and ideological differences. Bakunin respected Marx's erudition and passion for socialism but found his personality to be authoritarian and arrogant. In turn, Marx was skeptical of Russian reactionism and Bakunin's unruliness.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=39}} As Bakunin developed his anarchist ideas in this period, he came to see federative social organization, led by the peasantry and poorest workers, as the primary post-revolution goal, whereas Marx believed in a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]], led by organized workers in industrially advanced countries, in which the workers use state infrastructure until [[withering away of the state|the state withers away]]. Bakunists abhorred the political organization for which Marx advocated.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|pp=39–40}}


Marx had Bakunin and Bakunist anarchists ejected from the First International's [[Hague Congress (1872)|1872 Hague Congress]]. This breaking point split the Marxist socialist movement from the anarchist movement and led to the undoing of the International. Bakunin's ideas continued to spread nevertheless to the labor movement in Spain and the watchmakers of the Swiss [[Jura Federation]].{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=40}}
Marx had Bakunin and Bakunist anarchists ejected from the First International's [[Hague Congress (1872)|1872 Hague Congress]]. This breaking point split the Marxist socialist movement from the anarchist movement and led to the undoing of the International. Bakunin's ideas continued to spread nevertheless, to the labor movement in Spain and the watchmakers of the Swiss [[Jura Federation]].{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=40}}


Bakunin wrote his last major work, ''Statism and Anarchy'' (1873), anonymously in Russian to stir underground revolution in Russia. It restates his anarchist position, establishes the German Empire as the foremost centralized state in opposition to European anarchism, likens Marx to German authoritarianism, and warns of Marx's dictatorship of the proletariat being led by autocrats for their own gain in the name of the proletariat. This premonition furthered the gulf between the Marxists and Bakunist anarchists.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=40}}
Bakunin wrote his last major work, ''Statism and Anarchy'' (1873), anonymously in Russian to stir underground revolution in Russia. It restates his anarchist position, establishes the German Empire as the foremost centralized state in opposition to European anarchism, likens Marx to German authoritarianism, and warns of Marx's dictatorship of the proletariat being led by autocrats for their own gain in the name of the proletariat. This premonition furthered the gulf between the Marxists and Bakunist anarchists.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=40}}
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== Thought ==
== Thought ==
{{Multiple issues|section=yes|
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{{quote box|"The passion for destruction is also a creative passion."{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}}}}
{{quote box|"The passion for destruction is also a creative passion."{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}}}}
{{anarchism sidebar|people}}


Much of Bakunin's writings on anarchism centers on antipathy for the state and "political organization itself as the source of oppression and exploitation". His revolutionary solutions focus on undoing the state and hierarchical religious, social, and economic institutions, to be replaced by a system of freely federated communes organized "from below upward" with voluntary associations of economic producers, starting locally but ostensibly organizing internationally. These thoughts were first published in his unfinished 1871 ''The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution'', expanded by a second part published in his 1908 ''Oeuvres'', and again elaborated a fragment found and published posthumously as ''God and the State'' (1882). The latter was his most famous work, translated widely. It appeals to cast off both the state and religion to realize man's inborn freedom.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}}
Much of Bakunin's writings on anarchism reflect antipathy for the state and "political organization itself as the source of oppression and exploitation". His revolutionary solutions focus on undoing the state and hierarchical religious, social, and economic institutions, to be replaced by a system of freely federated communes organized "from below upward" with voluntary associations of economic producers, starting locally but ostensibly organizing internationally. These thoughts were first published in his unfinished 1871 ''The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution'', expanded by a second part published in his 1908 ''Oeuvres'', and again elaborated a fragment found and published posthumously as ''God and the State'' (1882). The latter was his most famous work, translated widely,{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}} and a touchstone of anarchist literature.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=313}} It appeals to cast off both the state and religion to realize man's inborn freedom.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}}
 
As a writer, Bakunin was prolific yet fragmented. He was prone to large digressions and rarely completed what he set out to address. As a result, much of his writings on anarchism do not cohere and were only published posthumously. He mainly wrote in French.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}}
 
Bakunin's political beliefs rejected [[Statism|statist]] and [[Hierarchy|hierarchical]] systems of power in every name and shape, from the idea of God downwards, and every form of hierarchical authority, whether emanating from the will of a [[Sovereignty|sovereign]] or even from a state that allowed [[universal suffrage]]. He wrote in ''God and the State'' that "[t]he liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual".<ref name="God and the State">[http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/godandstate/godandstate_ch1.html God and the State], Michael Bakunin, 1882</ref>
 
Bakunin similarly rejected the notion of any privileged position or class, since the social and economic inequality implied by class systems were incompatible with individual freedom. Whereas [[liberalism]] insisted that [[free market]]s and [[Constitutionalism|constitutional]] governments enabled individual freedom, Bakunin insisted that both capitalism and the state in any form were incompatible with the individual freedom of the working class and peasantry, stating that "it is the peculiarity of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the intellect and heart of man. The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart". Bakunin's political beliefs were based on several interrelated concepts: (1) liberty; (2) socialism; (3) federalism; (4) [[anti-theism]]; and (5) [[materialism]]. He also developed a critique of Marxism, predicting that if the Marxists were successful in seizing power, they would create a party dictatorship "all the more dangerous because it appears as a sham expression of the people's will", adding that "[w]hen the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called '[[the People's Stick]]'".<ref>''Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings'', ed. A. Lehning (New York: Grove Press, 1974), p. 268.</ref>
 
=== Authority and freethought ===
In his 1870 essay ''What is Authority?'', Bakunin wrote: {{quote|Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or the engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. I do not content myself with consulting a single authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognise no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such individual, I have no absolute faith in any person.<ref name="marxists">{{Cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/authrty.htm|title=What is Authority?|website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>}}
 
According to Bakunin, {{quote|Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination. This same reason forbids me, then, to recognise a fixed, constant and universal authority, because there is no universal man, no man capable of grasping in all that wealth of detail, without which the application of science to life is impossible, all the sciences, all the branches of social life".<ref name="marxists"/>}}
 
=== Anti-theologism ===
According to political philosopher [[Carl Schmitt]], a prominent member of the [[Nazi Party]], "in comparison with later anarchists, Proudhon was a moralistic petit bourgeois who continued to subscribe to the authority of the father and the principle of the monogamous family. Bakunin was the first to give the struggle against theology the complete consistency of an absolute naturalism. [...] For him, therefore, there was nothing negative and evil except the theological doctrine of God and sin, which stamps man as a villain in order to provide a pretext for domination and the hunger for power."<ref>Carl Schmitt (2005). ''Political Theology''. University of Chicago Press. pg. 64</ref>
 
Bakunin believed that religion originated from the human ability for abstract thought and fantasy.<ref name="ReferenceB">[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1871/paris-commune.htm The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State], Mikhail Bakunin, 1871</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://libcom.org/files/Michael%20Bakunin%20-%20Selected%20Writings.pdf|title=Michail Bakunin: Political Theology of Mazzinni; (1871); from the book: Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings published in 1973.}}</ref> According to Bakunin, religion is sustained by [[indoctrination]] and [[conformism]]. Other factors in the survival of religion are poverty, suffering and exploitation, from which religion promises salvation in the afterlife. Oppressors take advantage of religion because many religious people reconcile themselves with injustice on earth by the promise of happiness in heaven.<ref name="God and the State"/>
 
Bakunin argued that oppressors receive authority from religion. Religious people are in many cases obedient to the [[priest]]s, because they believe that the statements of priests are based on direct [[divine revelation]] or [[scripture]]. Obedience to divine revelation or scripture is considered the ethical criterion by many religious people because God is considered as the [[omniscient]], [[omnipotent]] and [[omnibenevolent]] being. Therefore, each statement considered derived from an infallible God cannot be criticized by humans. According to this religious way of thinking, humans cannot know by themselves what is just, but that only God decides what is good or evil. People who disobey the "messengers of God" are threatened with punishment in hell.<ref name="God and the State"/> According to Bakunin, the alternative for a religious power monopoly is the acknowledgement that all humans are equally inspired by God, but that means that multiple contradictory teachings are assigned to an infallible God which is logically impossible. Therefore, Bakunin considers religion as necessarily authoritarian.<ref name="God and the State"/>


Bakunin argued in his book ''[[God and the State]]'' that "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory and practice". Consequently, Bakunin reversed [[Voltaire]]'s famous aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him".<ref name="God and the State"/> [[Political theology]] is a branch of both [[political philosophy]] and [[theology]] that investigates the ways in which theological concepts or ways of thinking underlie political, social, economic and cultural discourses. Bakunin was an early proponent of the term ''political theology'' in his 1871 text "The Political Theology of Mazzini and the International",{{sfn|Marshall|1992|pp=300–301}} to which Schmitt's [[Political Theology (Carl Schmitt)|eponymous book]] responded.<ref>{{cite book|last=Maier|first=Henrich|title=Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The hidden dialogue|year=1995|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=0226518884|pages=75–76}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Schmitt|first=Carl|title=Political theology|url=https://archive.org/details/politicaltheolog00schm|url-access=limited|year=1922|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=0226738892|pages=[https://archive.org/details/politicaltheolog00schm/page/n116 64]–66}}</ref>
Bakunin's core political thought addressed emancipatory communities in which members freely develop their abilities and faculties without overpowering each other.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|pp=315–316}} Participation within the community was a personal concern of his, and his vision of a community's role in creating free and happy humans stemmed from his close sibling relationships. Bakunin unsuccessfully sought community in religion and philosophy through influences including Arnold Ruge (Left Hegelianism), [[Ludwig Feuerbach]] (philosophical humanism), Wilhelm Weitling (proto-communism), and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (early anarchism). Bakunin turned from metaphysics and theory to the practice of creating communities of free, independent people.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=316}} His first attempts at this, with the Polish emigrants and Prague Slav Congress in the 1840s, focused on national liberation, but he turned to emancipatory community after the failed 1863 Polish naval expedition.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=316}}<!-- consider merging into bio above? --> For Bakunin, freedom required community (such that humanity could only be free if everyone was free) and equality (that all people have the same starting basis), including equality in rights and social functions for women.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=318}}


=== Class struggle strategy for social revolution ===
He envisioned an international revolution by the awakened masses that would bring about new forms of social organization (by committees of delegates and independent municipalities) in a large-scale federation, undoing all state structure and social coercion. In this emancipated community, every adult would be entitled to freedom, to be governed by their own conscience and reason according to their own will, responsible foremost to themselves and then to their community. He did not believe a reformed bourgeois or revolutionary state could emancipate like such a community he described, so his vision of revolution meant not capturing power but ensuring that no new power took the place of the old.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=317}}
Bakunin's methods of realizing his revolutionary program were consistent with his principles. The working class and peasantry were to organize from below through local structures federated with each other, "creating not only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself."<ref>{{Citation|author=Mikhail Bakunin |url=http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1871/program.htm#s2 |title=Works of Mikhail Bakunin 1871 |publisher=Marxists.org |access-date=2009-09-08}}</ref> Their movements would prefigure the future in their ideas and practices, creating the building blocks of the new society. This approach was exemplified by [[syndicalism]], an anarchist strategy championed by Bakunin, according to which trade unions would provide both the means to defend and improve workers' conditions, rights and incomes in the present, and the basis for a social revolution based upon workplace occupations. The syndicalist unions would organize the occupations as well as provide the radically democratic structures through which workplaces would be self-managed, and the larger economy coordinated. Thus, for Bakunin, the workers' unions would "take possession of all the tools of production as well as buildings and capital."<ref>{{Citation|author=Mikhail Bakunin |url=http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1870/albert-richard.htm |title=Works of Mikhail Bakunin 1870 |publisher=Marxists.org |access-date=2009-09-08}}</ref>


Nevertheless, Bakunin did not reduce the revolution to syndicalist unions, stressing the need to organize working-class neighborhoods as well as the unemployed. Meanwhile, the peasants were to "take the land and throw out those landlords who live by the labor of others".<ref name="marxists.org">[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1870/letter-frenchman.htm Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis], Mikhail Bakunin, 1870</ref> Bakunin did not dismiss the skilled workers as is sometimes claimed{{bywho|date=July 2023}} and the watchmakers of the Jura region were central to the [[St. Imier International]]'s creation and operations. However, at a time when unions largely ignored the unskilled, Bakunin placed great emphasis on the need to organize as well among "the rabble" and "the great masses of the poor and exploited, the so-called "lumpenproletariat" to "inaugurate and bring to triumph the Social Revolution."<ref name="ReferenceA">[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1872/karl-marx.htm On the International Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx], Mikhail Bakunin, 1872</ref>
Bakunin was not a systematic thinker and did not design grand systems or theoretical constructs.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=318}} His writing was prolific and fragmented. He was prone to large digressions and rarely completed what he set out to address. As a result, much of his writing on anarchism does not cohere and was published only posthumously.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}} Bakunin did develop his theoretical perspective through draft programs.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=317}}<!-- what about the development of the term anarchist from social revolutionary? --> Bakunin first called himself an anarchist in 1867.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=318}}


=== Collectivist anarchism ===
=== Authority ===
{{libertarian socialism sidebar}}
Bakunin's socialism was known as "[[collectivist anarchism]]", where "socially: it seeks the confirmation of political equality by economic equality. This is not the removal of natural individual differences, but equality in the social rights of every individual from birth; in particular, equal means of subsistence, support, education, and opportunity for every child, boy or girl, until maturity, and equal resources and facilities in adulthood to create his own well-being by his own labor."<ref name="Revolutionary Catechism">[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1866/catechism.htm Revolutionary Catechism], Mikhail Bakunin, 1866</ref>


Collectivist anarchism advocates the abolition of both the [[State (polity)|state]] and [[private property|private ownership]] of the [[means of production]]. Instead, it envisions the means of production being owned collectively and controlled and managed by the producers themselves. For the [[collectivization]] of the means of production, it was originally envisaged that workers would revolt and forcibly collectivize the means of production.<ref name="Patsouras, Louis 2005. p. 54">Patsouras, Louis. 2005. Marx in Context. iUniverse. p. 54</ref> Once collectivization takes place, money would be abolished to be replaced with [[labour voucher|labour notes]] and [[worker]]s' salaries would be determined in democratic organizations based on job difficulty and the amount of time they contributed to production. These salaries would be used to buy goods in a communal market.<ref>Bakunin Mikail. Bakunin on Anarchism. Black Rose Books. 1980. p. 369</ref>
Bakunin saw the institutions of church and state as standing against the aims of the emancipatory community, namely that they impose wisdom and justice from above under the pretense that the masses could not fully self-govern. He wrote that "to exploit and to govern mean the same thing".{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=318}} Bakunin held the State as a regulated system of domination and exploitation by a privileged, ruling class.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=318}} This applied to States, both historical and contemporaneous, including modern monarchies and republics that each used military and bureaucratic centralization. He regarded representative democracies as a paradoxical abstraction from social reality. Although a popular legislature is meant to represent the will of the people, he saw it rarely functions as such in practice. Elected politicians instead represented abstractions. Bakunin believed that powerful institutions to be inherently stronger than individual will and incapable of internal reform due to the overwhelming ambitions and temptations that corrupt those with power. To Bakunin, anarchists were rightly "enemies of all power, knowing that power corrupts those invested with it just as much as those compelled to submit to it".{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=319}}


=== Critique of Marxism ===
Bakunin clashed with Marx over worker governance and revolutionary change. Bakunin argued that even the best revolutionary placed on the Russian throne would become worse than Czar Alexander. Bakunin wrote that socialist workers in power would become ex-workers who govern by their own pretensions, not representing the people.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=321}} Bakunin did not believe in transitional dictatorship serving any purpose other than to perpetuate itself, saying that "liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice, and socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality".{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=322}} Bakunin disagreed with Marx that [[Withering away of the state|the state would wither away]] under worker ownership and that worker conquest and changes in production conditions would inherently kill the state.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=322}} Bakunin promoted spontaneous worker actions over Marx's suggested organization of a working-class party.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=321}}
The dispute between Bakunin and [[Karl Marx]] highlighted the differences between [[anarchism]] and [[Marxism]]. He strongly rejected Marx's concept of the "[[dictatorship of the proletariat]]" in which the new state would be unopposed and would, theoretically, represent the workers.<ref name=GW158>Woodcock, George (1962, 1975). ''Anarchism'', 158. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books. {{ISBN|0140206221}}.</ref> He argued that the state should be immediately abolished because all forms of government eventually lead to oppression.<ref name=GW158/> He also vehemently opposed [[vanguardism]], in which a political elite of revolutionaries guide the workers. Bakunin insisted that revolutions must be led by the people directly while any "enlightened elite" must exert influence only by remaining "invisible [...] not imposed on anyone [...] [and] deprived of all official rights and significance".<ref name=":0"/> Bakunin claimed that Marxists "maintain that only a dictatorship—their dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up".<ref>{{Citation|url=http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/anarfaq.htm |title=Anarchist Theory FAQ Version 5.2 |publisher=Gmu.edu |access-date=2009-09-08}}</ref> Bakunin further stated that "we are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/reasons-of-state.htm| author=Mikhail Bakunin| title=Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism| publisher=Marxists.org| date=1867}}</ref>


While both anarchists and Marxists share the same final goal, the creation of a free, [[egalitarian]] society [[Classless society|without social classes]] and repressive/bureaucratic government, they strongly disagree on how to achieve this goal. Anarchists believe that the classless, stateless society should be established by the [[direct action]] of the masses, culminating in [[social revolution]] and refuse any intermediate stage such as the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] on the basis that such a dictatorship will become a self-perpetuating fundament. For Bakunin, the fundamental contradiction is that for the Marxists "anarchism or freedom is the aim, while the state and dictatorship is the means, and so, in order to free the masses, they have first to be enslaved."<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=Mikhail Bakunin |url=http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1873/statism-anarchy.htm |title=Works of Mikhail Bakunin 1873 |publisher=Marxists.org |access-date=2009-09-08}}</ref> However, Bakunin also wrote of meeting Marx in 1844: "As far as learning was concerned, Marx was, and still is, incomparably more advanced than I. I knew nothing at that time of political economy, I had not yet rid myself of my metaphysical observations. [...] He called me a sentimental idealist and he was right; I called him a vain man, perfidious and crafty, and I also was right".<ref>Quoted in Brian Morris, Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom, 1993, p14</ref> Bakunin found Marx's economic analysis very useful and began the job of translating ''[[Das Kapital]]'' into Russian. In turn, Marx wrote of the rebels in the Dresden insurrection of 1848 that "they found a capable and cool headed leader" in the "Russian refugee Michael Bakunin."<ref>New York Daily Tribune (2 October 1852) on 'Revolution and Counter Revolution in Germany'</ref> Marx wrote to Engels of meeting Bakunin in 1864 after his escape to Siberia, stating: "On the whole he is one of the few people whom I find not to have retrogressed after 16 years, but to have developed further."<ref>Quoted in Brian Morris, Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom, 1993, p. 29.</ref>
While Bakunin believed that science and specialists could be useful in enlightening communities, he did not believe in government by experts or letting any privileged minority rule over a majority or any presumed intelligence rule over presumed stupidity. Bakunin wrote of referring to the "[[Authority of the bootmaker|authority to the bootmaker]]" on boots and to savants for their specialties, and listening to them freely in respect for their expertise, but not allowing the bootmaker or the savant to impose this authority and not letting them be beyond criticism or censure. Bakunin believed that authority should be in continual voluntary exchange rather than a constant subordination. He believed intelligence to have intrinsic benefits so as not to require additional privileges.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=320}}
 
Bakunin has sometimes been called the first theorist of the "[[new class]]", meaning a class of intellectuals and bureaucrats running the state in the name of the people or the proletariat, but in reality in their own interests alone. Bakunin argued that "[t]he State has always been the patrimony of some privileged class: a priestly class, an aristocratic class, a bourgeois class. And finally, when all the other classes have exhausted themselves, the State then becomes the patrimony of the bureaucratic class and then falls—or, if you will, rises—to the position of a machine."<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
 
=== Federalism ===
By [[federalism]], Bakunin meant the organization of society "from the base to the summit—from the circumference to the center—according to the principles of [[Freedom of association|free association]] and [[federation]]."<ref name="Revolutionary Catechism"/> Consequently, society would be organized "on the basis of the absolute freedom of individuals, of the productive associations, and of the communes", with "every individual, every association, every commune, every region, every nation" having "the absolute right to self-determination, to associate or not to associate, to ally themselves with whomever they wish."<ref name="Revolutionary Catechism"/>
 
=== Liberty ===
By liberty, Bakunin did not mean an abstract ideal but a concrete reality based on the equal liberty of others. In a [[Positive liberty|positive]] sense, liberty consists of "the fullest development of all the faculties and powers of every human being, by education, by scientific training, and by material prosperity." Such a conception of liberty is "eminently social, because it can only be realized in society", not in isolation. In a [[Negative liberty|negative]] sense, liberty is "the revolt of the individual against all divine, collective, and individual authority."<ref name=":1">Bakunin, Mikhail. ''Selected Writings''. p. 219.</ref>
 
=== Materialism ===
Bakunin denied religious concepts of a supernatural sphere and advocated a [[Materialism|materialist]] explanation of natural phenomena, for "the manifestations of organic life, chemical properties and reactions, electricity, light, warmth and the natural attraction of physical bodies, constitute in our view so many different but no less closely interdependent variants of that totality of real beings which we call matter." For Bakunin, The "mission of science is, by observation of the general relations of passing and real facts, to establish the general laws inherent in the development of the phenomena of the physical and social world."<ref name=":1" />
 
=== Proletariat, lumpenproletariat and the peasantry ===
Bakunin differed from Marx's on the revolutionary potential of the [[lumpenproletariat]] and the [[proletariat]], for "[b]oth agreed that the proletariat would play a key role, but for Marx the proletariat was the exclusive, leading revolutionary agent while Bakunin entertained the possibility that the [[peasants]] and even the lumpenproletariat (the unemployed, common criminals, etc.) could rise to the occasion."<ref>[http://workerscompass.org/marxism-and-anarchism-the-philosophical-roots-of-the-marx-bakunin-conflict/ "Marxism and Anarchism: The Philosophical Roots of the Marx-Bakunin Conflict – Part Two" by Ann Robertson.]</ref> According to Nicholas Thoburn, "Bakunin considers workers' integration in capital as ''destructive'' of more primary revolutionary forces. For Bakunin, the revolutionary archetype is found in a peasant milieu (which is presented as having longstanding insurrectionary traditions, as well as a communist archetype in its ''current'' social form—the peasant commune) and amongst educated unemployed youth, assorted marginals from all classes, brigands, robbers, the impoverished masses, and those on the margins of society who have escaped, been excluded from, or not yet subsumed in the discipline of emerging industrial work—in short, all those whom Marx sought to include in the category of the lumpenproletariat."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://libcom.org/library/deleuze-marx-politics-nicholas-thoburn-3|title=3. The lumpenproletariat and the proletarian unnameable|website=libcom.org}}</ref>


=== Revolutionary societies ===
=== Revolutionary societies ===


Beginning in Italy with the International Brotherhood, Bakunin attempted to create secret revolutionary societies towards the end of his life, a concept at odds with his professed caution against the autocratic tendencies of the revolutionary elite. These organizations did not participate in revolutionary action.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}}
Towards the end of his life, beginning in 1864 in Italy with the International Brotherhood, Bakunin attempted to unite his international network under secret revolutionary societies, a concept at odds with his professed caution against the autocratic tendencies of the revolutionary elite.{{sfnm|1a1=Shatz|1y=2003|1p=38|2a1=Eckhardt|2y=2022|2p=323}} Composed of Bakunin's circle, these informal groups existed mainly on paper and thus did not participate in revolutionary action or bridge revolutionary theory to practice like Bakunin intended.{{sfnm|1a1=Eckhardt|1y=2022|1pp=317, 323–324|2a1=Shatz|2y=2003|2p=38}} The groups operated with significant autonomy, having diverged from Bakunin on multiple controversial issues. Despite being cast at the Hague Congress as under Bakunin's stern authority, they were organized by personal relationships rather than the vertical hierarchies and membership ranks found in Bakunin's notes.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|pp=317, 324}}<!-- also see Eckhardt's First Socialist Schism, p. 319 --> His written programs played a larger role in his politics than these draft secret societies.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=317}}


The idea of the "invisible dictatorship" was central to Bakunin's politics. In combination with Bakunin's opposition to parliamentary politics, historian [[Peter Marshall (author)|Peter Marshall]] wrote that such a secret party, its existence unknown and its policies beholden to none, had the potential for greater tyranny than a Blanquist or Marxist party and was hard to envision as presaging an open, democratic society.{{sfn|Marshall|1992|p=287}}
The idea of the "invisible dictatorship" was central to Bakunin's politics. In combination with Bakunin's opposition to parliamentary politics, historian [[Peter Marshall (author, born 1946)|Peter Marshall]] wrote that such a secret party—its existence unknown and its policies beholden to none—had the potential for greater tyranny than a Blanquist or Marxist party and was hard to envision as presaging an open, democratic society.{{sfn|Marshall|1992|p=287}}


== Personal life ==
== Personal life ==
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[[File:Mikhail Bakunin and Antonia.jpg|thumb|Antonia and Mikhail Bakunin, c. 1861]]
[[File:Mikhail Bakunin and Antonia.jpg|thumb|Antonia and Mikhail Bakunin, c. 1861]]


Bakunin married Antonia Kwiatkowska, originally from Poland, during his exile in Siberia. Kwiatkowska was much younger than Bakunin (18 years old and 26 years younger) and had little interest in politics. Their differences and Bakunin's meager attention to romance has left biographers to speculate psychosexual rationales for Bakunin's personal life and the extent of his dedication to revolutionary action. Though she remained married to Bakunin through his death in 1876, during his life, Kwiatkowska had three children with an Italian disciple of his. She married this man after Bakunin's death.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|pp=37–38}}
Bakunin married Antonia Kwiatkowska, originally from Poland, during his exile in Siberia. Kwiatkowska was much younger than Bakunin (a difference of 26 years; she was 18) and had little interest in politics. Their differences and Bakunin's meagre attention to romance have left biographers speculating about possible psychosexual rationales for Bakunin's personal life and the extent of his dedication to revolutionary action. Though she remained married to Bakunin until his death in 1876, Kwiatkowska had three children with another man while Bakunin was still alive – an Italian disciple of his, who married her after Bakunin's death.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|pp=37–38}}


== Legacy ==
== Legacy ==
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Bakunin was the leading anarchist revolutionary of the 19th century, active from the 1840s through the 1870s.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=35}} His foundational anarchist writings helped the movement stand in contrast to capitalism and Marxism and became more popular after his death, with some of his highest regarded works published posthumously and in new editions. His ''Statism and Anarchy'' influenced the growing Russian [[Narodnik]] movement of peasant socialism, and his anarchism influenced ideology in both the [[Russian Revolution]] and the [[Spanish Civil War]]. The 1960s [[New Left]] revived interest in his works and ideas of voluntary association and opposition to authoritarian socialism, with new editions and translations published.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=41}}
Bakunin was the leading anarchist revolutionary of the 19th century, active from the 1840s through the 1870s.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=35}} His foundational anarchist writings helped the movement stand in contrast to capitalism and Marxism and became more popular after his death, with some of his highest regarded works published posthumously and in new editions. His ''Statism and Anarchy'' influenced the growing Russian [[Narodnik]] movement of peasant socialism, and his anarchism influenced ideology in both the [[Russian Revolution]] and the [[Spanish Civil War]]. The 1960s [[New Left]] revived interest in his works and ideas of voluntary association and opposition to authoritarian socialism, with new editions and translations published.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=41}}


Bakunin's legacy reflects the paradox and ambivalence by which he lived. As historian [[Paul Avrich]] put it, Bakunin was "a nobleman who yearned for a peasant revolt, a libertarian with an urge to dominate others, an intellectual with a powerful anti-intellectual streak", who professed unfettered liberty while demanding unconditional obedience from his followers. Many of his beliefs put him closer to future authoritarian movements.{{sfn|Avrich|1988|p=14}}<!-- more to paraphrase in source -->
Bakunin's legacy reflects the paradox and ambivalence by which he lived. As historian [[Paul Avrich]] put it, Bakunin was "a nobleman who yearned for a peasant revolt, a libertarian with an urge to dominate others, an intellectual with a powerful anti-intellectual streak", who professed support for unfettered liberty while demanding [[unconditional obedience]] from his followers. Many of his actions put him closer to later authoritarian movements, even if his words were anti-authoritarian.{{sfn|Avrich|1988|p=14}}


In particular, Bakunin's antisemitic passages have been the subject of extended interest, such that Bakunin biographer [[Mark Leier]] has said the question is raised every time he speaks on Bakunin. Both Leier and scholar of antisemitism Eirik Eiglad have commented that antisemitism was not essential to Bakunin's thought, nor was his thought valued for his antisemitism.{{sfn|Eiglad|2015|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ibfkCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA235 235–236]}} Sociologist Marcel Stoetzler argued the opposite, saying that the [[Antisemitic trope#World domination|antisemitic trope of Jewish world domination]] was at the center of Bakunin's political thought.{{sfn|Stoetzler|2014|pp=139–140}} Bakunin's anti-Jewish and anti-German resentment was most prominently in context of attacking Marx, but his anti-Semitism predated these passages.{{sfn|Shatz|1990|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ffXU01KzRNQC&pg=PR30 xxx]}}<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ju7U83nRDt8C&pg=PA151 | title=Antisemitism: A Reference Handbook | isbn=9781576072097 | last1=Chanes | first1=Jerome A. | year=2004 |page=151| publisher=Bloomsbury Academic }}</ref> Scholar [[Marshall Shatz]] noted the gap between Bakunin's egalitarian principles and his ethnic prejudices, even if this anti-Semitism and stereotyping was common among French radicals of the era{{sfn|Shatz|1990|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ffXU01KzRNQC&pg=PR30 xxx]}} and shared by Marx himself.{{sfn|Leier|2009|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vSp6NmJvTswC&pg=PA276 276]}}
In particular, the [[antisemitic]] passages in Bakunin's writing have been the subject of extended interest, such that Bakunin biographer [[Mark Leier]] has said the question is raised every time he speaks on Bakunin. Both Leier and scholar of antisemitism Eirik Eiglad have commented that antisemitism was not essential to Bakunin's thought, nor was his thought valued for his antisemitism.{{sfn|Eiglad|2015|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ibfkCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA235 235–236]}} Sociologist Marcel Stoetzler argued the opposite, saying that the [[Antisemitic trope#World domination|antisemitic trope of Jewish world domination]] was at the centre of Bakunin's political thought.{{sfn|Stoetzler|2014|pp=139–140}} Bakunin's anti-Jewish and anti-German resentment are most visible in the context of his attacks on Marx, but his antisemitism predated these passages.{{sfn|Shatz|1990|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ffXU01KzRNQC&pg=PR30 xxx]}}<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ju7U83nRDt8C&pg=PA151 | title=Antisemitism: A Reference Handbook | isbn=978-1576072097 | last1=Chanes | first1=Jerome A. | year=2004 |page=151| publisher=Bloomsbury Academic }}</ref> Scholar [[Marshall Shatz]] noted that there is a gap between Bakunin's egalitarian principles and his ethnic prejudices, even if this antisemitism and stereotyping was common among French radicals of the era{{sfn|Shatz|1990|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ffXU01KzRNQC&pg=PR30 xxx]}} and shared by Marx himself.{{sfn|Leier|2009|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vSp6NmJvTswC&pg=PA276 276]}}


[[Noam Chomsky]] called Bakunin's prediction that Marxist regimes would become dictatorships "one of the few predictions in the social sciences that actually came true".<ref>{{Citation |title=Noam Chomsky - Lenin, the USSR, and the Predictions of Bakunin |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfdnbMd9BiE |access-date=2023-07-08 |language=en}}</ref>
[[Noam Chomsky]] called Bakunin's prediction in ''Statism and Anarchy'' that [[Marxist–Leninist regime|Marxist regimes]] would become dictatorships "one of the few predictions in the [[social sciences]] that actually came true".<ref>{{Citation |title=Noam Chomsky Lenin, the USSR, and the Predictions of Bakunin | date=31 March 2016 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfdnbMd9BiE |access-date=2023-07-08 |language=en}}</ref><!--Bakunin influenced Chomsky{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=308}}-->


Bakunin's archives are held in the [[Pushkin House]], [[State Archive of the Russian Federation]], [[Russian State Library]], [[Russian State Archive of Literature and Art]], [[National Library of Russia]], and [[International Institute of Social History]].{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=41}}
Bakunin archives are held in several places: the [[Pushkin House]], the [[State Archive of the Russian Federation]], the [[Russian State Library]], the [[Russian State Archive of Literature and Art]], the [[National Library of Russia]], and the [[International Institute of Social History]].{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=41}}


== Works ==
== Works ==
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=== Pamphlets ===
=== Pamphlets ===
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/stateless-socialism-anarchism/view.php Stateless ''Socialism: Anarchism''] (1953)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/stateless-socialism-anarchism/view.php ''Stateless Socialism: Anarchism''] (1953)
* ''[[Marxism, Freedom and the State]],<ref name=":02">Hodges, Donald Clark. "The Rise and Fall of Militant Trade Unionism." ''[[The American Journal of Economics and Sociology]]'', vol. 20, no. 5, 1961, pp. 483–96. ''JSTOR'', {{JSTOR|3484301}}. Accessed 9 Mar. 2023.</ref>'' (translated by [[Kenneth Kenafick]] in 1950)
* ''[[Marxism, Freedom and the State]],<ref name=":02">Hodges, Donald Clark. "The Rise and Fall of Militant Trade Unionism." ''[[The American Journal of Economics and Sociology]]'', vol. 20, no. 5, 1961, pp. 483–96. {{JSTOR|3484301}}. Accessed 9 Mar. 2023.</ref>'' (translated by [[Kenneth Kenafick]] in 1950)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-paris-commune-and-the-idea-of-the-state/view.php ''The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State''] (1871)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-paris-commune-and-the-idea-of-the-state/view.php ''The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State''] (1871)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-immorality-of-the-state/view.php ''The Immorality of the State''] (1953)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-immorality-of-the-state/view.php ''The Immorality of the State''] (1953)
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=== Articles ===
=== Articles ===
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/power-corrupts-the-best/view.php "Power Corrupts the Best"] (1867)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1867/power-corrupts.htm "Power Corrupts the Best"] (1867)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-class-war/view.php "The Class War"] (1870)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch06.htm "The Class War"] (1870)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/what-is-authority/view.php "What is Authority?"] (1870)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/authrty.htm "What is Authority?"] (1870)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/recollections-on-marx-and-engels/view.php "Recollections on Marx and Engels"] (1869)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/mebio.htm "Recollections on Marx and Engels"] (1869)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-red-association/view.php "The Red Association"] (1870)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch05.htm "The Red Association"] (1870)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/solidarity-in-liberty/view.php "Solidarity in Liberty"] (1867)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch04.htm "Solidarity in Liberty"] (1867)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-german-crisis/view.php "The German Crisis"] (1870)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch07.htm "The German Crisis"] (1870)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/god-or-labor/view.php "God or Labor"] (1947)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch09.htm "God or Labor"] (1873)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/where-i-stand/view.php "Where I Stand"] (1947)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch12.htm "Where I Stand"] (1862)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/appeal-to-my-russian-brothers/view.php "Appeal to my Russian Brothers"] (1896)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1867/appeal-to-my-russian-brothers.html "Appeal to my Russian Brothers"] (1896)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-social-upheaval/view.php "The Social Upheaval"] (1947)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch08.htm "The Social Upheaval"] (1870)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/integral-education-i/view.php "Integral Education, Part I"] (1869)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1869/education.htm "On Education"] (1869)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/integral-education-ii/view.php "Integral Education, Part II"] (1869)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1869/education2.html "On Education, Part II"] (1869)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-organization-of-the-international/view.php "The Organization of the International"] (1869)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch02.htm "The Organization of the International"] (1869)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/polish-declaration/view.php "Polish Declaration"] (1896)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1861/poland.htm "Polish Declaration"] (1861)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/politics-and-the-state/view.php "Politics and the State"] (1871)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch10.htm "Politics and the State"] (1871)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/workers-and-the-sphinx/view.php "Workers and the Sphinx"] (1867)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch03.htm "Workers and the Sphinx"] (1867)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-policy-of-the-council/view.php "The Policy of the Council"] (1869)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch01.htm "The Policy of the Council"] (1869)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-two-camps/view.php "The Two Camps"] (1869)
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/writings/ch09.htm "The Two Camps"] (1869)


=== Collections ===
=== Collections ===
* ''Bakunin on Anarchism'' (1971). Edited, translated and with an introduction by [[Sam Dolgoff]]. Preface by [[Paul Avrich]]. New York: Knopf Originally published as ''Bakunin on Anarchy'', it includes [[James Guillaume]]'s ''Bakunin: A Biographical Sketch''. {{ISBN|0043210120}}.
* ''[https://archive.org/details/bakuninswritings00bakuuoft/page/n1/mode/2up Bakunin's Writings]''. Edited by Guy A. Aldred. Indore Modern Publishers, 1947.
* ''Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings'' (1974). A. Lehning (ed.). New York: Grove Press. {{ISBN|0802100201}}.
* ''[https://archive.org/details/bakuninonanarchy0000baku_m2a9 Bakunin on Anarchy]'' (1972). Edited, translated and with an introduction by [[Sam Dolgoff]]. It includes a preface by [[Paul Avrich]] and [[James Guillaume]]'s ''Bakunin: A Biographical Sketch''. New York: Vintage. {{ISBN|9780394717838}} It was reprinted in the following year by Allen & Unwin, London. {{ISBN|0043210120}}.
* ''[https://archive.org/details/MichaelBakuninSelectedWritings_201905/page/n3/mode/2up Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings]'' (1974). Edited and introduced by Arthur Lehning with translations from the French by Steven Cox and translations from the Russian by Olive Stevens. London: Jonathan Cape. {{ISBN|0 224 00893 5}}.
* ''[[Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas]], Volume 1: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE – 1939)'' (2005). [[Robert Graham (historian)|Robert Graham]] (ed.). Montreal and New York: Black Rose Books. {{ISBN|1551642514}}.
* ''[[Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas]], Volume 1: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE – 1939)'' (2005). [[Robert Graham (historian)|Robert Graham]] (ed.). Montreal and New York: Black Rose Books. {{ISBN|1551642514}}.
* ''The Political Philosophy of Bakunin'' (1953). G. P. Maximoff (ed.). It includes ''Mikhail Bakunin: A Biographical Sketc''h by Max Nettlau.
* ''The Political Philosophy of Bakunin'' (1953). G. P. Maximoff (ed.). It includes ''Mikhail Bakunin: A Biographical Sketc''h by Max Nettlau.
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== See also ==
== See also ==
 
* ''[[Archives Bakounine]]''
* [[Bakunin family]]
* [[List of Russian anarchists]]
* [[List of Russian anarchists]]


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== References ==
== References ==
=== Footnotes ===
=== Footnotes ===
{{reflist}}
{{reflist|25em}}


=== Bibliography ===
=== Bibliography ===
<!-- Please order books alphabetically by the author's last name. -->
<!-- Please order books alphabetically by the author's last name. -->
 
{{refbegin|25em}}
{{refbegin|2}}
 
* {{cite book |last1=Avrich |first1=Paul |author-link=Paul Avrich |chapter= |title=Anarchist Portraits |pages=[https://archive.org/details/anarchistportrai00avri/page/5 5–52] |date=1988 |language=en |isbn=978-0691047539 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |location=Princeton |oclc=17727270 |df=mdy-all |title-link=Anarchist Portraits |doi=10.2307/j.ctv173f13b|jstor=j.ctv173f13b|s2cid=241705620}}
* {{cite book |last1=Avrich |first1=Paul |author-link=Paul Avrich |chapter= |title=Anarchist Portraits |pages=[https://archive.org/details/anarchistportrai00avri/page/5 5–52] |date=1988 |language=en |isbn=978-0691047539 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |location=Princeton |oclc=17727270 |df=mdy-all |title-link=Anarchist Portraits |doi=10.2307/j.ctv173f13b|jstor=j.ctv173f13b|s2cid=241705620}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Drake |first1=Richard |chapter=Carlo Cafiero |title=Apostles and Agitators: Italy's Marxist Revolutionary Tradition |date=2009 |language=en |isbn=978-0-674-03432-7 |publisher=Harvard University Press |df=mdy-all }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Drake |first1=Richard |chapter=Carlo Cafiero |title=Apostles and Agitators: Italy's Marxist Revolutionary Tradition |date=2009 |language=en |isbn=978-0674034327 |publisher=Harvard University Press |df=mdy-all }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Eiglad |first1=Eirik |editor-last1=Rosenfeld |editor-first1=Alvin H. |chapter=Anti-Zionism and the Anarchist Tradition |title=Deciphering the New Antisemitism |pages=206–241 |date=2015 |isbn=978-0-253-01869-4 |publisher=Indiana University Press |series=Studies in Antisemitism |df=mdy-all }}
* {{Cite book |editor-last1=van der Linden |editor-first1=Marcel |last1=Eckhardt |first1=Wolfgang |chapter=Mikhail Bakunin and Social Anarchism |title=The Cambridge History of Socialism |volume=1 |pages=308–330 |date=2022 |isbn=978-1108481342 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-socialism/mikhail-bakunin-and-social-anarchism/2F5E1612BC5092CD1514657BA86DFB55 |df=mdy-all }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Eiglad |first1=Eirik |editor-last1=Rosenfeld |editor-first1=Alvin H. |chapter=Anti-Zionism and the Anarchist Tradition |title=Deciphering the New Antisemitism |pages=206–241 |date=2015 |isbn=978-0253018694 |publisher=Indiana University Press |series=Studies in Antisemitism |df=mdy-all }}
* {{cite book|title=Bakunin: The Creative Passion|first=Mark|last=Leier|author-link=Mark Leier|year=2009|orig-year=2006|location=[[New York City|New York]]|publisher=[[Seven Stories Press]]|isbn=978-1583228944|oclc=1090891844|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vSp6NmJvTswC}}
* {{cite book|title=Bakunin: The Creative Passion|first=Mark|last=Leier|author-link=Mark Leier|year=2009|orig-year=2006|location=[[New York City|New York]]|publisher=[[Seven Stories Press]]|isbn=978-1583228944|oclc=1090891844|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vSp6NmJvTswC}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Marshall |first1=Peter |author-link=Peter Marshall (author) |title=[[Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism]] |chapter=Michael Bakunin: The Fanatic of Freedom |pages=263–308 |date=1992 |isbn=978-0-00-217855-6 |publisher=HarperCollins |location=London |df=mdy-all }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Marshall |first1=Peter |author-link=Peter Marshall (author, born 1946) |title=[[Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism]] |chapter=Michael Bakunin: The Fanatic of Freedom |pages=263–308 |date=1992 |isbn=978-0002178556 |publisher=HarperCollins |location=London |df=mdy-all }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Shatz |first1=Marshall |chapter=Introduction |title=Bakunin: Statism and Anarchy |date=1990 |language=en |isbn=978-0-521-36973-2 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |df=mdy-all }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Shatz |first1=Marshall |chapter=Introduction |title=Bakunin: Statism and Anarchy |date=1990 |language=en |isbn=978-0521369732 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |df=mdy-all }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Shatz |first1=Marshall S. |author-link=Marshall S. Shatz |editor-last1=Gillespie |editor-first1=Alyssa Dinega |chapter=Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin |title=Russian Literature in the Age of Realism |volume=277 |pages=34–41 |date=2003 |language=English |id={{Gale|OOJNKW999627593}} |series=[[Dictionary of Literary Biography]] |publisher=Gale |location=Detroit, MI |isbn=9780787660215 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/russianliteratur0277unse/page/34/mode/2up |df=mdy-all }}<!-- ✓ -->
* {{Cite book |last1=Shatz |first1=Marshall S. |author-link=Marshall S. Shatz |editor-last1=Gillespie |editor-first1=Alyssa Dinega |chapter=Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin |title=Russian Literature in the Age of Realism |volume=277 |pages=34–41 |date=2003 |language=English |id={{Gale|OOJNKW999627593}} |series=[[Dictionary of Literary Biography]] |publisher=Gale |location=Detroit, MI |isbn=978-0787660215 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/russianliteratur0277unse/page/34/mode/2up |df=mdy-all }}<!-- ✓ -->
* {{Cite book |last1=Stoetzler |first1=Marcel |title=Antisemitism and the Constitution of Sociology |date=2014 |isbn=978-0-8032-4864-9 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |df=mdy-all }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Stoetzler |first1=Marcel |title=Antisemitism and the Constitution of Sociology |date=2014 |isbn=978-0803248649 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |df=mdy-all }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Woodcock |first1=George |author-link=George Woodcock |title=[[Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements]] |chapter=The Destructive Urge |pages=121–152 |date=1986 |language=English |isbn=978-0-14-022697-3 |edition=2nd |publisher=Penguin Books |location=Harmondsworth |oclc=489971695 |df=mdy-all }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Woodcock |first1=George |author-link=George Woodcock |title=[[Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements]] |chapter=The Destructive Urge |pages=121–152 |date=1986 |language=English |isbn=978-0140226973 |edition=2nd |publisher=Penguin Books |location=Harmondsworth |oclc=489971695 |df=mdy-all }}
 
{{refend}}
{{refend}}


== Further reading ==
== Further reading ==
 
{{Refbegin|25em}}
{{Refbegin|2}}
 
* {{cite book|title=Bakunin|first=Guy|last=Aldred|author-link=Guy Aldred|year=1940|location=[[Glasgow]]|publisher=[[The Strickland Press]]|oclc=915244740|url=https://libcom.org/library/bakunin-guy-aldred}}
* {{cite book|title=Bakunin|first=Guy|last=Aldred|author-link=Guy Aldred|year=1940|location=[[Glasgow]]|publisher=[[The Strickland Press]]|oclc=915244740|url=https://libcom.org/library/bakunin-guy-aldred}}
* Angaut, Jean-Christophe."Revolution and the Slav question : 1848 and Mikhail Bakunin" in Douglas Moggach and Gareth Stedman Jones (eds.) The 1848 revolutions and European political thought. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
* Angaut, Jean-Christophe."Revolution and the Slav question : 1848 and Mikhail Bakunin" in Douglas Moggach and Gareth Stedman Jones (eds.) The 1848 revolutions and European political thought. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Line 274: Line 206:
* {{cite book|chapter=Michael Bakunin: A Biographical Sketch|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/guillaume/works/bakunin.htm|first=James|last=Guillaume|author-link=James Guillaume|orig-year=1907|title=Bakunin on Anarchy|editor-first=Sam|editor-last=Dolgoff|editor-link=Sam Dolgoff|year=1972|isbn=039471783X|oclc=5928655|pages=22–52|publisher=Vintage Books }}
* {{cite book|chapter=Michael Bakunin: A Biographical Sketch|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/guillaume/works/bakunin.htm|first=James|last=Guillaume|author-link=James Guillaume|orig-year=1907|title=Bakunin on Anarchy|editor-first=Sam|editor-last=Dolgoff|editor-link=Sam Dolgoff|year=1972|isbn=039471783X|oclc=5928655|pages=22–52|publisher=Vintage Books }}
* {{citation|title=Historia judaica, Volumes 12–14|last=[[Judaica]]|year=1950|publisher=Verlag von Julius Kittls Nachfolger}}
* {{citation|title=Historia judaica, Volumes 12–14|last=[[Judaica]]|year=1950|publisher=Verlag von Julius Kittls Nachfolger}}
* {{cite book|last=Kelly|first=Aileen|year=1982|title=Mikhail Bakunin: A Study in the Psychology and Politics of Utopianism|url=https://archive.org/details/mikhailbakuninst0000kell|location=[[Oxford]]|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=0-19-827244-8|lccn=82-6287}}
* {{cite book|last=Kelly|first=Aileen|year=1982|title=Mikhail Bakunin: A Study in the Psychology and Politics of Utopianism|url=https://archive.org/details/mikhailbakuninst0000kell|location=[[Oxford]]|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=0198272448|lccn=82-6287}}
* {{cite book|title=Bakunin: the Father of Anarchism|first=Anthony|last=Masters|location=[[London]]|publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson|year=1974|isbn=0283979569|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_rjaAAAAMAAJ|oclc=907511050}}
* {{cite book|title=Bakunin: the Father of Anarchism|first=Anthony|last=Masters|location=[[London]]|publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson|year=1974|isbn=0283979569|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_rjaAAAAMAAJ|oclc=907511050}}
* {{cite book|title=Mikhail Bakunin: The Philosophical Basis of his Anarchism|first=Paul|last=McLaughlin|year=2002|location=[[New York City|New York]]|publisher=Algora Publishing|isbn=1892941848|oclc=612054885|url=https://libcom.org/library/mikhail-bakunin-philosophical-basis-his-anarchism-paul-mclaughlin|lccn=2002-001934}}
* {{cite book|title=Mikhail Bakunin: The Philosophical Basis of his Anarchism|first=Paul|last=McLaughlin|year=2002|location=[[New York City|New York]]|publisher=Algora Publishing|isbn=1892941848|oclc=612054885|url=https://libcom.org/library/mikhail-bakunin-philosophical-basis-his-anarchism-paul-mclaughlin|lccn=2002-001934}}
* {{cite book|last=Mendel|first=Arthur|year=1981|title=Michael Bakunin: Roots of Apocalypse|url=https://archive.org/details/michaelbakuninro00mend|location=[[New York City|New York]]|publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group|Praeger]]|isbn=0-03-059218-6|lccn=81-5168}}
* {{cite book|last=Mendel|first=Arthur|year=1981|title=Michael Bakunin: Roots of Apocalypse|url=https://archive.org/details/michaelbakuninro00mend|location=[[New York City|New York]]|publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group|Praeger]]|isbn=0030592186|lccn=81-5168}}
* {{cite book|title=Mikhail Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom|year=1993|first=Brian|last=Morris|author-link=Brian Morris (anthropologist)|location=[[New York City|New York]]|publisher=[[Black Rose Books]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GJXy5eCpPawC|isbn=1895431662|oclc=678812569}}
* {{cite book|title=Mikhail Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom|year=1993|first=Brian|last=Morris|author-link=Brian Morris (anthropologist)|location=[[New York City|New York]]|publisher=[[Black Rose Books]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GJXy5eCpPawC|isbn=1895431662|oclc=678812569}}
* {{cite book|chapter=Mikhail Bakunin – a Biographical Sketch|first=Max|last=Nettlau|author-link=Max Nettlau|title=The Political Philosophy of Bakunin|editor-first=Gregori|editor-last=Maximoff|editor-link=Gregori Maximoff|year=1964|orig-year=1953|location=[[New York City|New York]]|publisher=[[Free Press (publisher)|Free Press]]|oclc=463186694|url=https://libcom.org/library/political-philosophy-bakunin-scientific-anarchism-gp-maximoff|pages=29–48}}
* {{cite book|chapter=Mikhail Bakunin – a Biographical Sketch|first=Max|last=Nettlau|author-link=Max Nettlau|title=The Political Philosophy of Bakunin|editor-first=Gregori|editor-last=Maximoff|editor-link=Gregori Maximoff|year=1964|orig-year=1953|location=[[New York City|New York]]|publisher=[[Free Press (publisher)|Free Press]]|oclc=463186694|url=https://libcom.org/library/political-philosophy-bakunin-scientific-anarchism-gp-maximoff|pages=29–48}}
Line 287: Line 219:
* {{cite book|last=Yarmolinsky|first=Avrahm|author-link=Avrahm Yarmolinsky|title=[[Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism]]|year=2014|orig-year=1957|location=[[Princeton, New Jersey]]|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|isbn=978-0691610412|oclc=890439998}}
* {{cite book|last=Yarmolinsky|first=Avrahm|author-link=Avrahm Yarmolinsky|title=[[Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism]]|year=2014|orig-year=1957|location=[[Princeton, New Jersey]]|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|isbn=978-0691610412|oclc=890439998}}
* {{cite book|title=Reflections on Prophecy: A Critical Appreciation of Michael Bakunin's Thought|first=Marc|last=Young|year=2017|publisher=Calesius C.B.|series=Calesius Papers in Political Philosophy|url=https://libcom.org/library/reflections-prophecy-critical-appreciation-michael-bakunins-thought}}
* {{cite book|title=Reflections on Prophecy: A Critical Appreciation of Michael Bakunin's Thought|first=Marc|last=Young|year=2017|publisher=Calesius C.B.|series=Calesius Papers in Political Philosophy|url=https://libcom.org/library/reflections-prophecy-critical-appreciation-michael-bakunins-thought}}
{{Refend}}
{{Refend}}


== External links ==
== External links ==
{{Commons}}
{{Sister project links|s=Author:Mikhail Bakunin|wikt=no|v=no|n=no}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=yes|about=yes|wikititle=Mikhail Bakunin}}
{{Wikisource author}}
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=14 Bakunin Archive] at RevoltLib
* [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/Bakuninarchive.html Bakunin archive] at [[Anarchy Archives]]
* [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/Bakuninarchive.html Bakunin archive] at [[Anarchy Archives]]
* Archive of [https://search.socialhistory.org/Record/ARCH00018 Michail Aleksandrovič Bakunin Papers] at the [[International Institute of Social History]]
* Archive of [https://search.socialhistory.org/Record/ARCH00018 Michail Aleksandrovič Bakunin Papers] at the [[International Institute of Social History]]
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* {{Librivox author|id=730}}
* {{Librivox author|id=730}}


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Latest revision as of 06:34, 16 March 2026


Mikhail Bakunin
Head shot of Bakunin
Bakunin in 1862, photograph by Nadar
Born
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin

(1814-05-30)30 May 1814
Pryamukhino, Tver Governorate, Russian Empire
Died1 July 1876(1876-07-01) (aged 62)
Bern, Switzerland
Era19th-century philosophy
Region
School
Signature

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin[lower-alpha 1] (30 May [O.S. 18 May] 1814 – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist and political philosopher. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, social anarchist,[5] and collectivist anarchist traditions. Bakunin's prestige as a revolutionary also made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, gaining substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe.

Bakunin grew up in Pryamukhino, a family estate in the Tver Governorate. From 1840, he studied in Moscow, then in Berlin, hoping to enter academia. Later in Paris, he met Karl Marx and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who deeply influenced him. Bakunin's increasing radicalism ended hopes of a professorial career. He was expelled from France for opposing the Russian Empire's occupation of Poland. After participating in the 1848 Prague and 1849 Dresden uprisings, Bakunin was imprisoned, tried, sentenced to death, and extradited multiple times. Finally, exiled to Siberia in 1857, he escaped via Japan to the United States and then to London, where he worked with Alexander Herzen on the journal Kolokol (The Bell). In 1863, Bakunin left to join the insurrection in Poland, but he failed to reach it and instead spent time in Switzerland and Italy.

In 1868, Bakunin joined the International Workingmen's Association, leading the anarchist faction to rapidly grow in influence. The 1872 Hague Congress was dominated by a struggle between Bakunin and Marx, who was a key figure in the General Council of the International and argued for the use of the state to bring about socialism. In contrast, Bakunin and the anarchist faction argued for the replacement of the state by federations of self-governing workplaces and communes. Bakunin could not reach the Netherlands, and the anarchist faction lost the debate in his absence. Bakunin was expelled from the International for maintaining, in Marx's view, a secret organisation within the International, and founded the Anti-Authoritarian International in 1872. From 1870 until his death in 1876, Bakunin wrote his longer works such as Statism and Anarchy and God and the State, but he continued to directly participate in European worker and peasant movements. In 1870, he was involved in an insurrection in Lyon, France. Bakunin sought to take part in an anarchist insurrection in Bologna, Italy, but his declining health forced him to return to Switzerland in disguise.

Bakunin is remembered as a major figure in the history of anarchism and as an opponent of Marxism, especially of the dictatorship of the proletariat, arguing that Marxist states would be one-party dictatorships ruling over the proletariat, not ruled by the proletariat. His book God and the State has been widely translated and remains in print. Bakunin has had a significant influence on thinkers such as Peter Kropotkin, Errico Malatesta, Herbert Marcuse, E. P. Thompson, Neil Postman and A. S. Neill as well as syndicalist organizations such as the IWW, the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War and contemporary anarchists involved in the modern-day anti-globalization movement.[6]

Life[edit | edit source]

Early life[edit | edit source]

On 30 May [O.S. 18 May] 1814, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin was born into Russian nobility.[7] His family's Priamukhino estate, in the Tver region northwest of Moscow, had over 500 serfs.[8] His father, Alexander Mikhailovich Bakunin, was a Russian diplomat who had served in Italy. Upon returning to Priamukhino and marrying the much younger Varvara Aleksandrovna Muravyeva, the elder Bakunin raised his ten children in the Rousseauan pedagogic model.[7] Mikhail Bakunin, their third child and oldest son,[9] read the languages, literature, and philosophy of the period and described his youth as idyllic and sheltered from the realities of Russian life. As an early teenager, he began training for a military career at the St. Petersburg Artillery School, which he rejected.[7] Becoming an officer in 1833, he availed himself of the freedom to participate in the city's social life, but was unfulfilled. Derelict in his studies, he was sent to Belarus and Lithuania as punishment in early 1834, where he read academic theory and philosophy. He deserted the school in 1835 and only escaped arrest through his familial influence.[9] He was discharged at the end of the year and, despite his father's protests, left for Moscow to pursue a career as a mathematics teacher.[10]

Bakunin lived a bohemian, intellectual life in Moscow, where German Romantic literature and idealist philosophy were influential in the 1830s.[7] In the intellectual circle of Nikolai Stankevich, Bakunin read German philosophy, from Kant to Fichte to Hegel,[9] and published Russian translations of their works.[11] Bakunin produced the first Russian translation of Hegel and was the foremost Russian expert on Hegel by 1837.[12] Bakunin befriended Russian intellectuals including the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, the poet Nikolay Ogarev, the novelist Ivan Turgenev, and the writer Alexander Herzen as youth prior to their careers.[11] Herzen funded Bakunin to study at the University of Berlin in 1840. Bakunin's plans to return to Moscow as a professor were soon abandoned.[13]

In Berlin, Bakunin gravitated towards the Young Hegelians, an intellectual group with radical interpretations of Hegel's philosophy,[11] and who drew Bakunin to political topics.[13] He left Berlin in early 1842 for Dresden and met the Hegelian Arnold Ruge,[13] who published Bakunin's first original publication. Die Reaktion in Deutschland ("The Reaction in Germany") proposes a continuation of the French Revolution to the rest of Europe and Russia.[11] Though steeped in Hegelian jargon and published under a pseudonym, it marked Bakunin's transition from philosophy to revolutionary rhetoric.[13]

Revolutionary activity and imprisonment[edit | edit source]

Bakunin, 1843

Throughout the 1840s, Bakunin grew into revolutionary agitation.[11] When his cadre aroused interest from Russian secret agents, Bakunin left for Zürich in early 1843. He met the proto-communist Wilhelm Weitling, whose arrest led Bern's Russian embassy to distrust Bakunin.[13] Defying Russian orders to return, the Russian Senate stripped him of his rights as a nobleman and sentenced him in absentia to penal labor in Siberia.[14] Without steady financial support, Bakunin became an itinerant, traveling Europe, meeting the people who had influenced him.[11] He visited Brussels and Paris, where he joined international emigrants and socialists, befriended the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and met the philosopher Karl Marx, with whom he would later tussle.[13] Bakunin only became personally active in political agitation in 1847, as Polish emigrants in Paris invited him to commemorate the 1830 Polish uprising with a speech.[13] His call for Poles to overthrow czarism in alliance with Russian democrats made Bakunin known throughout Europe and led the Russian ambassador to successfully request Bakunin's deportation.[15]

When the French King Louis Philippe I abdicated during the February 1848 Revolution, Bakunin returned to Paris and basked in the revolutionary milieu.[11] With the French government's support, he headed to Prussian Poland to agitate for revolt against Russia, but never arrived.[16] He attended the 1848 Prague Slavic Congress to defend Slavic rights against German and Hungarian nationalism, and participated in its impromptu insurrection against the Austrian Habsburgs. Uncaptured, he wrote Aufruf an die Slaven ("Appeal to the Slavs") at the end of the year, advocating for a Slavic federation and revolt against the Austrian, Prussian, Turkish, and Russian governments. It was widely read and translated.[17]

After participating in both the Prague uprising and the 1849 Dresden uprising, Bakunin was imprisoned, tried, sentenced to death, extradited multiple times, and ultimately placed in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress of St. Petersberg, Russia, in 1851. Three years later, he transferred to Shlisselburg Fortress near St. Petersberg for another three years. Prison weathered but did not break Bakunin, who retained his revolutionary zeal through his release. He did, however, write an autobiographical, genuflecting Confession to the Russian emperor, which proved to be a controversial document upon its public discovery some 70 years later. The letter did not improve his prison conditions. In 1857, Bakunin was permitted to transfer to permanent exile in Siberia. He married Antonia Kwiatkowska there[17] before escaping in 1861, first to Japan, then to San Francisco, sailing to Panama and then to New York and Boston, and arrived in London by the end of the year.[18] Bakunin set foot in America just as the Civil War was breaking out. Speaking with supporters of both sides, Bakunin stated that his sympathies were with the North, although he claimed hypocrisy in their stated goal of slave liberation while also forcing the South to remain in the Union.[19] Bakunin also viewed the Southern political system and agrarian character as freer in some respects for its white citizens than in the industrial North.[19] Though a fierce critic and enemy of slavery, Bakunin held a deep admiration for the United States as a whole, referring to the country as "the finest political organization that ever existed in history."[19]

Back in Europe[edit | edit source]

In London, Bakunin reunited with Herzen and Ogarev. Bakunin collaborated with them on their Russian-language newspaper but his revolutionary fervor exceeded their moderate reform agenda. Bakunin's 1862 pamphlet The People's Cause: Romanov, Pugachev, or Pestel? criticized the Russian tsar for not using his position to facilitate a bloodless revolution and forgo another Pugachev's Rebellion. In early August 1862, he briefly travelled to Paris.[20] In Paris at this time, famous photographer Nadar took four famous photographs of him on August 7, 1862. After being photographed, he also signed Nadar's Livre d'Or (autograph album), and wrote (leaf 161): "Watch out that liberty doesn't come to you from the north."[21][22] In 1863, Bakunin joined in an unsuccessful effort to supply armed men for the Polish January Uprising against Russia. Bakunin, reunited with his wife, moved to Italy the next year, where they stayed for three years.[18]

Bakunin, in his early 50s, developed his core anarchist thoughts in Italy. He continued to refine these ideas in his remaining 12 years. Among this ideology was the first of many conspiratorial revolutionary societies, though none of these participated in revolutionary actions, chiefly the revolutionary toppling of the state, to be replaced by a free federation between voluntarily associated economic producers.[18]

He moved to Switzerland in 1867, a more permissive environment for revolutionary literature. Bakunin's anarchist writings were fragmentary and prolific.[18] With France's collapse in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, Bakunin traveled to Lyon and participated in the fruitless Lyon Commune in which the citizens briefly occupied the city hall. Bakunin retreated to Switzerland.[23]

In Switzerland, the Russian revolutionary Sergey Nechayev sought out Bakunin for collaboration. Not knowing Nechayev's past betrayals, Bakunin warmed to Nechayev's revolutionary zeal and they together produced the 1869 Catechism of the Revolutionary, a tract that endorsed an ascetic life for revolutionaries without societal or moral bonds. Bakunin's connection with Nechayev hurt the former's reputation. More recent scholarship, however, challenges the catechism's authorship, crediting Nechayev as the primary or sole author. Bakunin ultimately disavowed their connection.[24]

First International[edit | edit source]

Video of Bakunin's grave

While Bakunin encountered Karl Marx in Paris (1844) and London (1864), he came to know him through the First International (International Working Men's Association), which Marx and Friedrich Engels formed in the 1860s. Bakunin's relationship with Marx became strained in the early 1870s for both interpersonal and ideological differences. Bakunin respected Marx's erudition and passion for socialism but found his personality to be authoritarian and arrogant. In turn, Marx was skeptical of Russian reactionism and Bakunin's unruliness.[24] As Bakunin developed his anarchist ideas in this period, he came to see federative social organization, led by the peasantry and poorest workers, as the primary post-revolution goal, whereas Marx believed in a dictatorship of the proletariat, led by organized workers in industrially advanced countries, in which the workers use state infrastructure until the state withers away. Bakunists abhorred the political organization for which Marx advocated.[25]

Marx had Bakunin and Bakunist anarchists ejected from the First International's 1872 Hague Congress. This breaking point split the Marxist socialist movement from the anarchist movement and led to the undoing of the International. Bakunin's ideas continued to spread nevertheless, to the labor movement in Spain and the watchmakers of the Swiss Jura Federation.[26]

Bakunin wrote his last major work, Statism and Anarchy (1873), anonymously in Russian to stir underground revolution in Russia. It restates his anarchist position, establishes the German Empire as the foremost centralized state in opposition to European anarchism, likens Marx to German authoritarianism, and warns of Marx's dictatorship of the proletariat being led by autocrats for their own gain in the name of the proletariat. This premonition furthered the gulf between the Marxists and Bakunist anarchists.[26]

In one final revolutionary act, Bakunin planned the unsuccessful 1874 Bologna insurrection with his Italian followers. Its failure was a major setback to the Italian anarchist movement. Bakunin retreated to Switzerland,[27] where he retired, dying in Bern on 1 July 1876.[28]

Thought[edit | edit source]

"The passion for destruction is also a creative passion."[11]

Template:Anarchism sidebar

Much of Bakunin's writings on anarchism reflect antipathy for the state and "political organization itself as the source of oppression and exploitation". His revolutionary solutions focus on undoing the state and hierarchical religious, social, and economic institutions, to be replaced by a system of freely federated communes organized "from below upward" with voluntary associations of economic producers, starting locally but ostensibly organizing internationally. These thoughts were first published in his unfinished 1871 The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution, expanded by a second part published in his 1908 Oeuvres, and again elaborated a fragment found and published posthumously as God and the State (1882). The latter was his most famous work, translated widely,[18] and a touchstone of anarchist literature.[29] It appeals to cast off both the state and religion to realize man's inborn freedom.[18]

Bakunin's core political thought addressed emancipatory communities in which members freely develop their abilities and faculties without overpowering each other.[30] Participation within the community was a personal concern of his, and his vision of a community's role in creating free and happy humans stemmed from his close sibling relationships. Bakunin unsuccessfully sought community in religion and philosophy through influences including Arnold Ruge (Left Hegelianism), Ludwig Feuerbach (philosophical humanism), Wilhelm Weitling (proto-communism), and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (early anarchism). Bakunin turned from metaphysics and theory to the practice of creating communities of free, independent people.[31] His first attempts at this, with the Polish emigrants and Prague Slav Congress in the 1840s, focused on national liberation, but he turned to emancipatory community after the failed 1863 Polish naval expedition.[31] For Bakunin, freedom required community (such that humanity could only be free if everyone was free) and equality (that all people have the same starting basis), including equality in rights and social functions for women.[32]

He envisioned an international revolution by the awakened masses that would bring about new forms of social organization (by committees of delegates and independent municipalities) in a large-scale federation, undoing all state structure and social coercion. In this emancipated community, every adult would be entitled to freedom, to be governed by their own conscience and reason according to their own will, responsible foremost to themselves and then to their community. He did not believe a reformed bourgeois or revolutionary state could emancipate like such a community he described, so his vision of revolution meant not capturing power but ensuring that no new power took the place of the old.[33]

Bakunin was not a systematic thinker and did not design grand systems or theoretical constructs.[32] His writing was prolific and fragmented. He was prone to large digressions and rarely completed what he set out to address. As a result, much of his writing on anarchism does not cohere and was published only posthumously.[18] Bakunin did develop his theoretical perspective through draft programs.[33] Bakunin first called himself an anarchist in 1867.[32]

Authority[edit | edit source]

Bakunin saw the institutions of church and state as standing against the aims of the emancipatory community, namely that they impose wisdom and justice from above under the pretense that the masses could not fully self-govern. He wrote that "to exploit and to govern mean the same thing".[32] Bakunin held the State as a regulated system of domination and exploitation by a privileged, ruling class.[32] This applied to States, both historical and contemporaneous, including modern monarchies and republics that each used military and bureaucratic centralization. He regarded representative democracies as a paradoxical abstraction from social reality. Although a popular legislature is meant to represent the will of the people, he saw it rarely functions as such in practice. Elected politicians instead represented abstractions. Bakunin believed that powerful institutions to be inherently stronger than individual will and incapable of internal reform due to the overwhelming ambitions and temptations that corrupt those with power. To Bakunin, anarchists were rightly "enemies of all power, knowing that power corrupts those invested with it just as much as those compelled to submit to it".[34]

Bakunin clashed with Marx over worker governance and revolutionary change. Bakunin argued that even the best revolutionary placed on the Russian throne would become worse than Czar Alexander. Bakunin wrote that socialist workers in power would become ex-workers who govern by their own pretensions, not representing the people.[35] Bakunin did not believe in transitional dictatorship serving any purpose other than to perpetuate itself, saying that "liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice, and socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality".[36] Bakunin disagreed with Marx that the state would wither away under worker ownership and that worker conquest and changes in production conditions would inherently kill the state.[36] Bakunin promoted spontaneous worker actions over Marx's suggested organization of a working-class party.[35]

While Bakunin believed that science and specialists could be useful in enlightening communities, he did not believe in government by experts or letting any privileged minority rule over a majority or any presumed intelligence rule over presumed stupidity. Bakunin wrote of referring to the "authority to the bootmaker" on boots and to savants for their specialties, and listening to them freely in respect for their expertise, but not allowing the bootmaker or the savant to impose this authority and not letting them be beyond criticism or censure. Bakunin believed that authority should be in continual voluntary exchange rather than a constant subordination. He believed intelligence to have intrinsic benefits so as not to require additional privileges.[37]

Revolutionary societies[edit | edit source]

Towards the end of his life, beginning in 1864 in Italy with the International Brotherhood, Bakunin attempted to unite his international network under secret revolutionary societies, a concept at odds with his professed caution against the autocratic tendencies of the revolutionary elite.[38] Composed of Bakunin's circle, these informal groups existed mainly on paper and thus did not participate in revolutionary action or bridge revolutionary theory to practice like Bakunin intended.[39] The groups operated with significant autonomy, having diverged from Bakunin on multiple controversial issues. Despite being cast at the Hague Congress as under Bakunin's stern authority, they were organized by personal relationships rather than the vertical hierarchies and membership ranks found in Bakunin's notes.[40] His written programs played a larger role in his politics than these draft secret societies.[33]

The idea of the "invisible dictatorship" was central to Bakunin's politics. In combination with Bakunin's opposition to parliamentary politics, historian Peter Marshall wrote that such a secret party—its existence unknown and its policies beholden to none—had the potential for greater tyranny than a Blanquist or Marxist party and was hard to envision as presaging an open, democratic society.[41]

Personal life[edit | edit source]

Antonia and Mikhail Bakunin, c. 1861

Bakunin married Antonia Kwiatkowska, originally from Poland, during his exile in Siberia. Kwiatkowska was much younger than Bakunin (a difference of 26 years; she was 18) and had little interest in politics. Their differences and Bakunin's meagre attention to romance have left biographers speculating about possible psychosexual rationales for Bakunin's personal life and the extent of his dedication to revolutionary action. Though she remained married to Bakunin until his death in 1876, Kwiatkowska had three children with another man while Bakunin was still alive – an Italian disciple of his, who married her after Bakunin's death.[42]

Legacy[edit | edit source]

Bakunin was the leading anarchist revolutionary of the 19th century, active from the 1840s through the 1870s.[7] His foundational anarchist writings helped the movement stand in contrast to capitalism and Marxism and became more popular after his death, with some of his highest regarded works published posthumously and in new editions. His Statism and Anarchy influenced the growing Russian Narodnik movement of peasant socialism, and his anarchism influenced ideology in both the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War. The 1960s New Left revived interest in his works and ideas of voluntary association and opposition to authoritarian socialism, with new editions and translations published.[28]

Bakunin's legacy reflects the paradox and ambivalence by which he lived. As historian Paul Avrich put it, Bakunin was "a nobleman who yearned for a peasant revolt, a libertarian with an urge to dominate others, an intellectual with a powerful anti-intellectual streak", who professed support for unfettered liberty while demanding unconditional obedience from his followers. Many of his actions put him closer to later authoritarian movements, even if his words were anti-authoritarian.[43]

In particular, the antisemitic passages in Bakunin's writing have been the subject of extended interest, such that Bakunin biographer Mark Leier has said the question is raised every time he speaks on Bakunin. Both Leier and scholar of antisemitism Eirik Eiglad have commented that antisemitism was not essential to Bakunin's thought, nor was his thought valued for his antisemitism.[44] Sociologist Marcel Stoetzler argued the opposite, saying that the antisemitic trope of Jewish world domination was at the centre of Bakunin's political thought.[45] Bakunin's anti-Jewish and anti-German resentment are most visible in the context of his attacks on Marx, but his antisemitism predated these passages.[46][47] Scholar Marshall Shatz noted that there is a gap between Bakunin's egalitarian principles and his ethnic prejudices, even if this antisemitism and stereotyping was common among French radicals of the era[46] and shared by Marx himself.[48]

Noam Chomsky called Bakunin's prediction in Statism and Anarchy that Marxist regimes would become dictatorships "one of the few predictions in the social sciences that actually came true".[49]

Bakunin archives are held in several places: the Pushkin House, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Library, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, the National Library of Russia, and the International Institute of Social History.[28]

Works[edit | edit source]

Books[edit | edit source]

  • God and the State, ISBN 048622483X

Pamphlets[edit | edit source]

Articles[edit | edit source]

Collections[edit | edit source]

See also[edit | edit source]

Notes[edit | edit source]

  1. /bəˈknɪn/ bə-KOO-nin;[4] Template:Lang-rus; sometimes anglicized to Michael Bakunin in older literature.

References[edit | edit source]

Footnotes[edit | edit source]

  1. Petrov, Kristian (2019). "'Strike out, right and left!': a conceptual-historical analysis of 1860s Russian nihilism and its notion of negation". Stud East Eur Thought. 71 (2): 73–97. doi:10.1007/s11212-019-09319-4. S2CID 150893870.
  2. Scanlan, James P. (1998). "Russian Materialism: 'the 1860s'". Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9780415249126-E050-1. ISBN 978-0415250696.
  3. Edie, James M.; Scanlan, James; Zeldin, Mary-Barbara (1994). Russian Philosophy Volume II: the Nihilists, The Populists, Critics of Religion and Culture. University of Tennessee Press. p. 3. Bakunin himself was a Westernizer
  4. "Bakunin". Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary. 2010.
  5. Masters, Anthony (1974), Bakunin, the Father of Anarchism, Saturday Review Press, ISBN 0841502951
  6. Sale, Kirkpatrick (2006-11-06) An Enemy of the State Archived 4 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, The American Conservative
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Shatz 2003, p. 35.
  8. Eckhardt 2022, p. 308.
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 Eckhardt 2022, p. 309.
  10. Shatz 2003, p. 35; Eckhardt 2022, p. 309.
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 Shatz 2003, p. 36.
  12. Eckhardt 2022, pp. 309–310.
  13. 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 Eckhardt 2022, p. 310.
  14. Shatz 2003, p. 36; Eckhardt 2022, p. 310.
  15. Eckhardt 2022, pp. 310–311.
  16. Shatz 2003, pp. 36–37.
  17. 17.0 17.1 Shatz 2003, p. 37.
  18. 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 Shatz 2003, p. 38.
  19. 19.0 19.1 19.2 Avrich, Paul. "Bakunin in America" (PDF).
  20. Kawelin, Konstantin (1894). Dragomanow, Michail (ed.). Konstantin Kawelins und Iwan Turgenjews sozial-politischer Briefwechsel mit Alexander Iw. Herzen: Mit Beilagen und Erläuterungen. Bibliothek russischer Denkwürdigkeiten; 4 Bd (in German). Stuttgart: Verlag der J. G. Cotta'schen Buchhandlung Nachfolger. pp. 64–66.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  21. Begley, Adam (5 July 2017). "Nadar's Livre d'or". The Paris Review. Retrieved 23 November 2023.
  22. "Nadar autograph album". Retrieved 23 November 2023.
  23. Shatz 2003, pp. 38–39.
  24. 24.0 24.1 Shatz 2003, p. 39.
  25. Shatz 2003, pp. 39–40.
  26. 26.0 26.1 Shatz 2003, p. 40.
  27. Drake 2009, pp. 35–36.
  28. 28.0 28.1 28.2 Shatz 2003, p. 41.
  29. Eckhardt 2022, p. 313.
  30. Eckhardt 2022, pp. 315–316.
  31. 31.0 31.1 Eckhardt 2022, p. 316.
  32. 32.0 32.1 32.2 32.3 32.4 Eckhardt 2022, p. 318.
  33. 33.0 33.1 33.2 Eckhardt 2022, p. 317.
  34. Eckhardt 2022, p. 319.
  35. 35.0 35.1 Eckhardt 2022, p. 321.
  36. 36.0 36.1 Eckhardt 2022, p. 322.
  37. Eckhardt 2022, p. 320.
  38. Shatz 2003, p. 38; Eckhardt 2022, p. 323.
  39. Eckhardt 2022, pp. 317, 323–324; Shatz 2003, p. 38.
  40. Eckhardt 2022, pp. 317, 324.
  41. Marshall 1992, p. 287.
  42. Shatz 2003, pp. 37–38.
  43. Avrich 1988, p. 14.
  44. Eiglad 2015, pp. 235–236.
  45. Stoetzler 2014, pp. 139–140.
  46. 46.0 46.1 Shatz 1990, p. xxx.
  47. Chanes, Jerome A. (2004). Antisemitism: A Reference Handbook. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 151. ISBN 978-1576072097.
  48. Leier 2009, p. 276.
  49. Noam Chomsky – Lenin, the USSR, and the Predictions of Bakunin, 31 March 2016, retrieved 8 July 2023
  50. Hodges, Donald Clark. "The Rise and Fall of Militant Trade Unionism." The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol. 20, no. 5, 1961, pp. 483–96. JSTOR 3484301. Accessed 9 Mar. 2023.

Bibliography[edit | edit source]

Further reading[edit | edit source]

External links[edit | edit source]