Michael Bakunin, supposed by some to have formulated nihilism out of the Hegelian philosophy, but whose theories are more naturally traceable to an utter materialism act ing on the revolutionary ideas afloat in Europe during the first half of the 19th c., was horn in 1814, and died in 1876. He was of a family high in rank and position, a near relative being aid-de-camp general to the late czar, and another governor-general of e. Siberia; was educated in the school for cadets in St. Petersburg; and on graduating was appointed an ensign in the artillery. In 1841 he went to Berlin and studied Hegel, where the master had taught a dozen years before; removing afterwards to Dresden, where he continued his studies with Arnold Ruge, and where he began to write on philo sophical subjects. In 1843 he was in Paris, and by this time had become closely asso ciated with the Polish refugees; and from there he visited Switzerland, where he was introduced into the communist and socialist societies. In 1847, in a speech made in Paris, ha advocated a general Russian and Polish uprising against the emperor; this occasioned a request from the Russian government which procured his expulsion from France. A reward of 10,000 rubles was offered by the Russian government for his apprehension, and he fled to Brussels, but returned to Paris after the revolution in 1848. He attended the Slavic congress at Prague, and was involved in the revolutionary movement which followed; was one of the organizers and leaders of the riots in Dres den, from which city he fled after •their suppression; and on May 10 was captured at Chemnitz. He was now tried, condemned, and sentenced to death in three countries— Prussia, Austria, and Russia; his punishment being in each instance commuted to that of imprisonment for life. ile was confined for several years in the fortress of St. Peters burg, and then transported to e. Siberia, where he remained for several more years as a penal colonist, when he was permitted to settle in the Russian territory of the Amoor. Thence escaping by an American vessel, he proceeded by way of Japan and California to London. Here he was active in endeavors to incite the Russians and Poles to revo lution, with the view of forming a great Slavic federal republic. In 1863 he went to Stockholm to aid the expeditions against the Baltic provinces. This enterprise failing, he proceeded to Switzerland, where he united with the internationals; but his attempt to create a secret society within their own, with the purpose of bringing about a condi tion of general anarchy, brought him into conflict with their leaders; and in 1872 he, with some of his friends, was expelled from the organization, when he retired from pub lic action. In the meantime societies had been formed in Russia to promote the views of Bakunin and Hertzen, the " Young Russia," " Land and Freedom," etc.; and news paper organs—the Sovrenziennik and Iluskoie Slow, were established and industriously circulated in the same interest. As presenting the strangely self-contradictory theories which dominated the new revolutionary order at this time, the following is quoted from a speech made at Geneva, in 1868, by Michael Bakunin—" the father of nihilism, the arch-conspirator:" " Brethren, I come to announce to you a new gospel which must penetrate unto the very ends of the world. This gospel admits of no half-measures and hesitations. The old world must be destroyed and replaced by a new one. The lie must be stamped out and give way to truth. It is our mission to destroy the lie; and to effect this we must begin at the very commencement. Now the beginning of all those lies which have ground down this poor world in slavery is God. For many hundred years monarchs and priests have inoculated the hearts and minds of mankind with this notion of a God ruling over the world. They have also invented for the people the notion of another world, in which their God is to punish with eternal torture those who have refused to obey their degrading laws here on earth. This God is nothing but the personification of absolute tyranny, and has been invented with a view of either fright ening or alluring nine-tenths of the human race into submission to the remaining tenth. If there were really a God, surely he would use that lightning which he holds in his band to destroy those thrones to the steps of which mankind is chained. He would, assuredly, use it to overthrow those altars where the truth is hidden by clouds of lying incense. Tear out of your hearts the belief in the existence of God; for as long as an atom of that silly superstition remains in your minds, you will never know what free dom is. When you have got rid of the belief in this priest-begotten God, and when, moreover, you are convinced that your existence and that of the surrounding world are due to the conglomeration of atoms, in accordance with the laws of gravity and attrac tion, then, and then only, you will have accomplished the first step toward liberty, and you will experience less difficulty in ridding your minds of that second lie which tyranny has invented. The first lie is God. The second lie is right. flight invented the fiction of right, in order to insure and strengthen her reign—that right which she herself does not heed, and which only serves as a barrier against any attacks which may be made by the trembling and stupid masses of mankind. Might, my friends, forms the sole groundwork of society. Might makes and unmakes laws, and that might should be in the hands of the majority. It should be in the possession of those nine-tenths of the human race whose immense power has been rendered subservient to the remaining tenth by means of that lying fiction of right before which you are accustomed to bow your heads and to drop your arms. Once with a clear conviction of your own might, Ton will be able to destroy this mere notion of right. And when you have freed your mind from the fear of a God, and from that childish respect for the friction of right, then all the remaining chains which bind you, and which are called science, civilization, property, marriage, morality, andjustice, will snap asunder like threads. Let your own happiness be your only law. But in order to get this law recognized, and to bring about the proper relations which should exist between the majority and minority of mankind, you must destroy everything which exists in the shape of state or social organ ization. So educate yourselves and your children that, when the great moment for con stituting the new world arrives, your eyes may not be blinded by the falsehoods of the tyrants throne and altar. Our first work must be destruction and annihilation of
everything as it now exists. You must accustom yourselves to destroy everything, the good with the bad; for if but an atom of this old world remains, the new will never be created. According to the priests' fables, in days of old a deluge destroyed all mankind; but their God specially saved Noah in order that the seeds of tyranny and falsehood might be perpetuated in the new world. When you once begin your work of destruc tion, and when the floods of enslaved masses of the people rise and engulf temples and' palaces, then take heed that no ark be allowed to rescue any atom of this old world, which we consecrate to destruction." Here, the very " right " whose existence is denied is invoked as the basis of action.
In one nihilist speech it is asserted that the deeds of political assassins and incendiaries are not the offspring of any sentiment of personal hatred or vengeance. They know full well that one emperor killed will merely be succeeded by another, who in his turn will again nominate the chiefs of police and of the third section Such deeds are justified by the necessity of rooting out from men's minds the habitual respect for the powers that be. The more the attacks on the czar and his officials increased, the more would the people come to understand the absurdity of the veneration with which they have been regarded for centuries. In March, 1876, several nihilist proclamations on their way to Russia were seized by the Prussian authorities at Konigsberg. Paragraph xvi. of one of the documents ran thus : "You should allow yourselves to be influenced (in the selec tion of your victims) only by the relative use which the revolution would derive from the death of any particular person. In the foremost rank of such cases stand those peo ple who are most dangerous and injurious to our organization, and whose sudden and violent death would have the effect of terrifying the government, and shaking its power by robbing it of energetic and intelligent servants. § xxiii.—The only revolution which can remedy the ills of the people is that which will tear up every notion of government by its very roots, and which will upset all ranks of the Russian empire, with all their traditions. § xxiv.—Having this object in view, the revolutionary committee does not propose to subject the people to any directing organization. The future order of things will doubtless originate with the people themselves; but we must leave that to future generations. Our mission is only one of universal, relentless, and terror-striking destruc tion. ,§ xxvi.—The object of our organization and of our conspiracy is to concentrate all the forces of this world into an invisible and all-destroying power." Among the papers found on the nihilist lieut. Dubrowin, who was hanged for complicity with the regi cide Solowjew, was a letter containing the following passage: " Our battalions are numerically so weak, and our enemies, on the other hand, are so mighty, that we are in makingtise of all attainable methods of proceeding which may ena ble us to carry on successfully active hostilities wheresoever it may become expedient." Again, the inevitable attempt at justification on the basis of the "right" whose exist ence is denied.
When one reads such propositions and declarations, and finds it difficult to conceive a sufficient reason for the existence of the sentiments and determination expressed, even in the most untutored and illy balanced, it is to he remembered that in Russia any ten dency toward revolutionary expression has ever been met with instant and severe pun ishment. The knout and perpetual banishment at hard labor have been the modes in which autocracy has visited its displeasure on any movement against itself. While the czar of his own suggestion gave freedom and large actual possessions to 23,000,000 of his poorest and most unhappy subjects, he followed the traditions of the throne of Russia by sternly refusing to the higher classes anything resembling a constitution, or a national legis lature. Attempts to gain these, and there were many such, served to people the penal colony of Siberia, precisely as did the more savage and mutinous attempts ofthe lower order in a similar direction. During many years the average number dispatched to Siberia, for all offenses, has been from 8,000 to 10,000 persons per annum; and of these, probably a large majority were for political crimes; very many of them educated, wealthy, and of high birth; among them not a few refined, cultivated, and gentle ladies. Siberia has the reputation among Russians of being a much worse place than it really is, and the officials in charge of the convicts are accused of a general line of cruelties which is foreign to their customary behavior. Recent visits to the Siberian penal settlements by intelligent travelers of different nationalities, have shown that the ill-treatment of convicts and the dismal character of existence in Siberia have been greatly exaggerated, and that both corn pare favorably with those in such settlements elsewhere. MAW the prevailing Russian belief as to suckmatters may be laidsoinewhat of the revengeful and desperate frame of mind which results in nihilism. Again, the slight alluSion which has been here made to the course pursued by government officials in Russia, has in no wise fully presented the enormities committed by these wretches in the name and by the authority of the emperor, who could not possibly control or even direct in such instances. The outrages and bru talities committed by agents of the government in distant parts of the empire, were done in perfect security, and went unpunished. It was hardly to be wondered at that the rude and illiterate Russian peasant, robbed of all that he held most dear, by the highest gov ernment official in his neighborhood, should accept from the learned the proposition that there was no God. Neither should it appear so astonishing that the educated and culti vated Russian whose sister or sweetheart was subjected to the knout, for the expression of liberal opinions, or sent by imperial order into that Siberia of whose horrors he had heard, should view not unwillingly the possibility of a regeneration of society which began with the assassination of emperors.