Mikhail Bakunin - ProfilesArchive

About Me

CreativeTape.org

In the spring of 1814 I, Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin, was born to an aristocratic family in the village of Pryamukhino between Torzhok and Kuvshinovo, in Tver guberniya, northwest of Moscow. At the age of 14 I left for St. Petersburg, receiving military training at the Artillery University. I completed my studies in 1832, and in 1834 I was commissioned a junior officer in the Russian Imperial Guard and sent to Minsk and Gardinas in Lithuania (now Belarus). That summer, I became embroiled in a family row, taking my sisterâ€™s side in rebellion to an unhappy marriage. Though my father wished me to continue in either the military or the civil service, I abandoned both in 1835, and made my way to Moscow, hoping to study philosophy.

My Interests

I'd like to meet:

CreativeTape.org Man completely realizes his individual freedom as well as his personality only through the individuals who surround him, and thanks only to the labor and the collective power of society. Without society he would surely remain the most stupid and the most miserable among all the other ferocious beasts.... Society, far from decreasing his freedom, on the contrary creates the individual freedom of all human beings. Society is the root, the tree, and liberty is its fruit. Hence, in every epoch, man must seek his freedom not at the beginning but at the end of history. It can be said that the real and complete emancipation of every individual is the true, the great, the supreme aim of history.... Only in respecting their human character do I respect my own. A cannibal who devours his prisoner ... is not a man but a beast. A slave owner is not a man but a master. By denying the humanity of his slaves he also abrogates his own humanity, as the history of all ancient societies proves. The Greeks and the Romans did not feel like free men. They did not consider themselves as such by human right. They believed in privileges for Greeks and Romans and only for their own countries, while they remained unconquered and conquered other countries. Because they believed themselves under the special protection of their national gods, they did not feel that they had the right to revolt ... and themselves fell into slavery....

Television:

Anarchism explained:

Books:

Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism, 1867. ; Revolutionary Catechism, 1866 ; Man, Society, and Freedom, 1871 ; On the International Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx, 1872 .

My Blog

The German Social Democratic Program (take note Frenchmen)

Let us examine the situation in countries outside France where the socialist movement has become a real power... The German Social-Democratic Workers party (S.D.W.P.) and the General Association of Ge...
Posted by Mikhail Bakunin on Tue, 12 Dec 2006 06:00:00 PST

The Revolutionary Temper and Matrix (to Frenchmen)

France can no longer be resuscitated, galvanized into action by vain dreams of national greatness and glory. All this is already a thing of the past. The government of Napoleon Ill, undermined ...
Posted by Mikhail Bakunin on Tue, 12 Dec 2006 05:58:00 PST

Open Letter to Frenchmen, 1870

General Problems of the Social Revolution I have already shown that France cannot be saved ... by the State. But outside the parasitic, artificial institution of State, a nation consists only of its p...
Posted by Mikhail Bakunin on Tue, 12 Dec 2006 05:57:00 PST

Federalism, Socialism, Anti-theologism

We are happy to be able to report that the principle of federalism has been unanimously acclaimed by the Congress of Geneva.... Unfortunately, this principle has been poorly formulated in the resoluti...
Posted by Mikhail Bakunin on Thu, 14 Dec 2006 07:06:00 PST