Bakunin the Slav and the Rebel

Abstract

MICHAEL Bakunin is known to the world as a great rebel. Even his admirers are, however, less familiar with the fact that before he embarked upon his gospel of anarchism, he had been one of the most impetuous and erratic champions of Slavdom, but with a difference. For in contrast to the quietist and religious-minded early Slavophiles Bakunin's exploits on behalf of the Slav idea were dictated by his innate revolutionary instinct and his demonic passion for destruction. himself acknowledged that in his character there was a love of fantastic, unusual, unheard of adventures, and that he was simply unable to put up with any normal surroundings. Such a disposition on his part was further complicated by his well-nigh elemental and undisciplined vitality in which there was yet a secret flaw: he was sexually impotent. As though offended in his manly pride because of this, he was impelled to look for adequate compensations first of all in asserting his personal power over his associates. wanted to be not so much their companion as their leader. He is anxious to dominate, not to love, Belinsky wrote (in a letter) about him, and he was right. Bakunin's second and as it were complementary urge was his will to protest against and destroy what he disagreed with. Unable to stand anybody's tyranny except his own, he fomented trouble wherever he saw oppression of any kind. As a result he took part in ever so many revolts, spent several years in prisons, and then in Siberia whence he escaped in order to continue his stormy existence and to become an international legend while still alive. 135