|
Although
nihilism is often thought of as a vague concept relegated to the
arena of philosophy or perhaps as the unavoidable conclusion to
post-modernist thought, nihilism does have a strong historical
background that deserves greater recognition. The most
significant manifestation of nihilism in recent history also
coincides with its most active and organized expression, that of
the Russian nihilist revolutionaries who rose to prominence in
the 1860s.
The Russian
nihilists (the Russian word for nihilist is nigilist)
tend to be associated with violence, revolution, and
terrorist acts such as the assassination of Czar Alexander II by
the ‘Will of the People’ group.
 But although violent acts get
recorded in the history books often the lasting impact is
carried through non-violent ideas and identities. The Russian
Nihilists were intriguing in this regard for their history is
like that of an iceberg – only a small portion of their total
character is readily visible. Indeed, much of the violent acts
associated with the attempted overthrow of the monarchy occurred
under the auspices of other groups such as anarchists, Marxists
and narodnichestvo populists in the 1870s, rather than
those directly associated with the Nihilists themselves who were
much more complex than the over-simplified ‘terrorist’ label
attached to them by autocratic authorities.
“Nihilism
was not so much a corpus of formal beliefs and programs (like
populism, liberalism, Marxism) as it was a cluster of attitudes
and social values and a set of behavioral affects—manners,
dress, friendship patterns. In short, it was an ethos.”
[2]
Historical
Context
In order to
understand who the Russian Nihilists were we first have to
understand what the fought against and why. Europe in the 19th
century was a time of dramatic changes political, economic, and
social. Industrialization created fantastic wealth disparities
and entirely new classes of people as the old aristocratic power
system transformed into a plutocratic one. Cities grew rapidly
and traditional agrarian lifestyles were decimated in favor of
the cramped urban life of wage slavery. Imperial Russia
experienced many of these difficult changes but events often
took on a more extreme character than that of Western Europe and
social development for Russia has always been both painful and
slow.
All of the wiser Russian
monarchs realized that their system of serfdom, with a social
structure of the very few existing on the backs of the very
many, was not sustainable and would end in bloody rebellion
sooner or later. The problem was
implementing reforms that were both effective and politically
realistic. But by the middle of the 19th century the
forces of state repression coupled with the longevity of the
problem had already created such an intolerable situation that
fixing the system through reform was essentially impossible. The
only reasonable answer to this kind of situation is that of
nihilism, the only way to live was to destroy. Russia had become
a stifling, backwards country run by a ruling elite grown
fabulously wealthy through rampant natural resource extraction.
The Russian government had become completely disconnected from
its subjects and new information and new ideas were impossible
to prevent from seeping into the country from the heated and
bubbling social scene in Western Europe. Even a brutal and
violent police-state could not stop the Nihilists, other
dedicated revolutionaries, or the inevitable outcome of the
conflict.
 |
Jewel
encrusted Fabergé eggs were an emblematic expression of
late 19thcentury Imperial Russian wealth and a
grossly distorted society where the monarchy could
commission
dozens of these eggs while the general public worked and
starved to death.
|
The heart of
Russian Nihilism was about breaking with the failures of the
past and about crafting a new identity. This was the meaning of
the ‘Fathers and Sons’ phrase used at the time and remembered
today in Turgenev’s novel of the same name.
Whereas the "fathers" grew
up on German idealistic philosophy and romanticism in general,
with its emphasis on the metaphysical, religious, aesthetic,
and historical approaches to reality, the "sons," led by such
young radicals as Nicholas Chernyshevsky, Nicholas Dobroliubov,
and Dmitrii Pisarev, hoisted the banner of utilitarianism,
positivism, materialism, and especially "realism." "Nihilism"
— and also in large part "realism," particularly "critical
realism" — meant above all else a fundamental rebellion
against accepted values and standards: against abstract
thought and family control, against lyric poetry and school
discipline, against religion and rhetoric. The earnest young
men and women of the 1860's wanted to cut through every polite
veneer, to get rid of all conventional sham, to get to the
bottom of things. What they usually considered real and
worthwhile included the natural and physical sciences — for
that was the age when science came to be greatly admired in
the Western world — simple and sincere human relations, and a
society based on knowledge and reason rather than ignorance,
prejudice, exploitation, and oppression.
[1]
This was
about the destruction of idols, about burning the dead wood of
society. And the Russian Nihilists were quite revolutionary
especially given the context of the time and location they
existed in for they include sections of the population that had
little if any representation before. Women for example played a
key role and included some of the most motivated and charismatic
characters of the time period like Vera Figner and Sophia
Perovskaia. “If the
feminists wanted to change pieces of the world, the nihilists
wanted to change the world itself, though not necessarily
through political action.”
[3] The Russian word for a female nihilist is nigilistka.
It’s
important to point out that the nihilist ethos of the time was
primarily individualistic and not always politically
revolutionary; some radical nihilist attitudes precluded
ideological or political orientation. “While
nihilism emancipated the young Russian radicals from any
allegiance to the established order, it was, to repeat a point,
individual rather than social by its very nature and lacked a
positive program — both Pisarev and Turgenev's hero Bazarov died
young.”
[7] Clothing, attitude, communications style, all were portions
of the new nihilist outlook. The clothing style sought
functionality and usefulness over frivolous fashion. The ‘revolt
in the dress’ of the nigilistka went something like this:
One of the most interesting
and widely remarked features of the nigilistka was her
personal appearance. Discarding the "muslin, ribbons,
feathers, parasols, and flowers" of the Russian lady, the
archetypical girl of the nihilist persuasion in the 1860's
wore a plain dark woolen dress, which fell straight and loose
from the waist with white cuffs and collar as the only
embellishments. The hair was cut short and worn straight, and
the wearer frequently assumed dark glasses.
[4]
Nigilistka
fashion was about more than just juvenile rebellion against
bourgeoisie fashion because instead of simply contradicting
established forms it went on to create its own identity. The
reasoning behind much of this was about self-empowerment.
“The
machinery of sexual attraction through outward appearance that
led into slavery was discarded by the new woman whose nihilist
creed taught her that she must make her way with knowledge and
action rather than feminine wiles.”
[4] Even deeper than changes in superficial appearance existed a
new and quite profound realization, for the nigilistka
understood that life had to be defined internally and not solely
by external authorities or values. "To
establish her identity, she needed a cause or a "path," rather
than just a man.”
[4] An interesting departure also occurred in communications
style. “The typical
nigilistka, like her male comrade, rejected the conventional
hypocrisy of interpersonal relations and tended to be direct to
the point of rudeness…”
[4]
Severe times
call for severe measures
Seeing their
efforts at social change only being met with police brutality
and increasing repression by despotic authority, the
revolutionaries reassessed their tactics. Peter Tkachev and
Sergei Nechayev were two that felt
severe times call for severe
measures – the revolution was only getting started.
Several
years of revolutionary conspiracy, terrorism, and
assassination ensued. The first instances of violence occurred
more or less spontaneously, sometimes as countermeasures
against brutal police officials. Thus, early in 1878 Vera
Zasulich shot and wounded the military governor of St.
Petersburg, General Theodore Trepov, who had ordered a
political prisoner to be flogged; a jury failed to convict
her, with the result that political cases were withdrawn from
regular judicial procedure. But before long an organization
emerged which consciously put terrorism at the center of its
activity. The conspiratorial revolutionary society "Land and
Freedom," founded in 1876, split in 1879 into two groups: the
"Black Partition," or "Total Land Repartition," which
emphasized gradualism and propaganda, and the "Will of the
People" which mounted an all-out terroristic offensive against
the government. Members of the "Will of the People" believed
that, because of the highly centralized nature of the Russian
state, a few assassinations could do tremendous damage to the
regime, as well as provide the requisite political instruction
for the educated society and the masses. They selected the
emperor, Alexander II, as their chief target and condemned him
to death. What followed has been described as an "emperor
hunt" and in certain ways it defies imagination. The Executive
Committee of the "Will of the People" included only about
thirty men and women, led by such persons as Andrew Zheliabov
who came from the serfs and Sophia Perovskaia who came from
Russia's highest administrative class, but it fought the
Russian Empire. [6]
After the assassination for the tsar, some began to question the
strategic usefulness of the spiraling violence but few
alternates existed in the oppressive milieu of Imperial Russia.
Subsequent monarchs Alexander III and Nicholas II only became
more reactionary and narrow-minded while simultaneously voiding
even minimal public freedoms. "Murder and the gibbet captivated the
imagination of our young people; and the weaker their nerves and
the more oppressive their surroundings, the greater was their
sense of exaltation at the thought of revolutionary terror.”
– Vera Figner [5]
[B] |
Vera
Zasulich , Vera Figner, and Sophia Perovskaia
"Perovskaya
and her comrades represent a unique phenomenon in
nineteenth-century European social history." [8] |
The Russian
Nihilists were smart, dedicated, and possessed a tenacity that
was unparalleled. These were revolutionaries that were well
aware of the nature of the political system they were in
conflict with but nonetheless they still failed to acquire two
critical elements. Since they had no cohesive, constructive
social program the nihilists lacked strategic sustainability of
their revolutionary movement. Although they achieved their
tactical goal of assassinating the top-level authority figures
their wider objective of gaining greater freedom of movement and
ideas still remained elusive. It seems that the necessary
time-scale of their struggle was longer then anticipated and the
entrenched nature of the system and the culture of fear and
subservience to autocratic rulers that it rested upon was much
deeper than realized; 1000 years of tradition simply can’t be
thrown out in a decade.
But since the social program is secondary to immediate plans
in a larger sense I think the primary problem affecting
the 19th century Russian revolutionaries had more to
do with communications limitations than anything else because
they had most everything going for them except numbers. Lacking
the ability to reach the Russian public except on the smallest
scale made widespread, coordinated revolt practically
impossible. Publishing technology was easy for despotic regimes
to control while radio and cheap printing didn't arrive in
widespread use until the early 20th century.
Although the
political violence may have had questionable strategic value the
cultural shift in views, attitudes, and ideas made significant
contributions that lasted long after the Russian Nihilists
themselves had left the scene. 06.12.03
Such were the true nihilists, the
destroyers, who did not trouble themselves about what was to
be built after them. They did not exactly deny everything, for
they believed firmly, fanatically, in science and in the power
of the individual mind. But they thought nothing else worth
the slightest respect, and they attacked and sneered at
family, religion, art, and social institutions, with all the
more vehemence the higher they were held in the opinion of
their countrymen.
- Sergius Stepniak,
from: Sergius Stepniak on Nihilism and Narodnichestvo
[Extracted from Sergius Stepniak, "Nihilism" in The Great
Events by Famous Historians, vol. 19 (n.p.: The National
Alumni, 1914), pp. 71-85]
References
A) A History of
Russia, sixth edition, by Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, Oxford
University Press 2000.
B) The
Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia – Feminism, Nihilism,
and Bolshevism 1860-1930, by Richard Stites, Princeton
University Press, 1978.
- Reference
A pg.
381
- Reference
B pg.
99-100
- Reference
B pg. 101
- Reference
B pg. 104
- Reference
B pg. 146
- Reference
A pg. 384
- Reference
A pg. 448
- Reference
B pg. 153
Nechayev's Catechism
There are notable
differences between the cultural and political
situation of late 19th century Europe and our 21st
century world. The weight of oppressive authority
is no where near as crushing today as then, especially in comparison to Tsarist Russia. The
situation for the masses was so bleak as to make
death through violence more attractive than life
in slavery; America is no Palestine and
California is no West Bank, if you know what I
mean.
The severity of
revolutionary action has to be matched to the
lack of freedom to express dissenting ideas
within the region of operations. Otherwise you'll
just be blown out of the water by public
rejection and police reaction. Fortunately, today
we have many (peaceful) tools they did not.
Sergei Nechayev's
tenacity was admirable and his methodology scores
points for attempting to address more than merely
the physical infrastructure so typical of Marxism
and other one dimensional "revolutions".
And if nothing else, 'The Catechism' certainly
stirred up debate and generated enthusiasm for
the revolutionary effort. - Freydis 17.05.02
From 'Catechism of a
Revolutionist' (1869)
By Sergei Nechayev
* * *
PRINCIPLES
BY WHICH THE REVOLUTIONARY MUST BE GUIDED IN THE
ATTITUDE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TOWARDS HIMSELF
1. The revolutionary
is a dedicated man. He has no interests of his
own, no affairs, no feelings, no attachments, no
belongings, not even a name. Everything in him is
absorbed by a single exclusive interest, a single
thought, a single passion - the revolution.
2. In the very
depths of his being, not only in words but also
in deeds, he has broken every tie with the civil
order and the entire cultivated world, with all
its laws, proprieties, social conventions and its
ethical rules. He is an implacable enemy of this
world, and if he continues to live in it, that is
only to destroy it more effectively.
3. The revolutionary
despises all doctrinarism and has rejected the
mundane sciences, leaving them to future
generations. He knows of only one science, the
science of destruction. To this end, and this end
alone, he will study mechanics, physics,
chemistry, and perhaps medicine. To this end he
will study day and night the living science:
people, their characters and circumstances and
all the features of the present social order at
all possible levels. His sole and constant object
is the immediate destruction of this vile order.
4. He despises
public opinion. He despises and abhors the
existing social ethic in all its manifestations
and expressions. For him, everything is moral
which assists the triumph of revolution. Immoral
and criminal is everything which stands in its
way.
5. The revolutionary
is a dedicated man, merciless towards the state
and towards the whole of educated and privileged
society in general; and he must expect no mercy
from them either. Between him and them there
exists, declared or undeclared, an unceasing and
irreconcilable war for life and death. He must
discipline himself to endure torture.
6. Hard towards
himself, he must be hard towards others also. All
the tender and effeminate emotions of kinship,
friendship, love, gratitude and even honor must
be stifled in him by a cold and single-minded
passion for the revolutionary cause. There exists
for him only one delight, one consolation, one
reward and one gratification - the success of the
revolution. Night and day he must have but one
thought, one aim - merciless destruction. In cold-blooded
and tireless pursuit of this aim, he must be
prepared both to die himself and to destroy with
his own hands everything that stands in the way
of its achievement.
7. The nature of the
true revolutionary has no place for any
romanticism, any sentimentality, rapture or
enthusiasm. It has no place either for personal
hatred or vengeance. The revolutionary passion,
which in him becomes a habitual state of mind,
must at every moment be combined with cold
calculation. Always and everywhere he must be not
what the promptings of his personal inclinations
would have him be, but what the general interest
of the revolution prescribes.
THE
ATTITUDE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TOWARDS HIS
COMRADES IN REVOLUTION
8. The revolutionary
considers his friend and holds dear only a person
who has shown himself in practice to be as much a
revolutionary as he himself. The extent of his
friendship, devotion and other obligations
towards his comrade is determined only by their
degree of usefulness in the practical work of
total revolutionary destruction.
9. The need for
solidarity among revolutionaries is self-evident.
In it lies the whole strength of revolutionary
work. Revolutionary comrades who possess the same
degree of revolutionary understanding and passion
should, as far as possible, discuss all important
matters together and come to unanimous decisions.
But in implementing a plan decided upon in this
manner, each man should as far as possible rely
on himself. In performing a series of destructive
actions each man must act for himself and have
recourse to the advice and help of his comrades
only if this is necessary for the success of the
plan.
10. Each comrade
should have under him several revolutionaries of
the second or third category, that is, comrades
who are not completely initiated. He should
regard them as portions of a common fund of
revolutionary capital, placed at his disposal. He
should expend his portion of the capital
economically, always attempting to derive the
utmost possible benefit from it.
Himself he should
regard as capital consecrated to the triumph of
the revolutionary cause; but as capital which he
may not dispose of independently without the
consent of the entire company of the fully
initiated comrades.
11. When a comrade
gets into trouble, the revolutionary, in deciding
whether he should be rescued or not, must think
not in terms of his personal feelings but only of
the good of the revolutionary cause.
Therefore he must
balance, on the one hand, the usefulness of the
comrade, and on the other, the amount of
revolutionary energy that would necessarily be
expended on his deliverance, and must settle for
whichever is the weightier consideration.
THE
ATTITUDE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TOWARDS SOCIETY
12. The admission of
a new member, who has proved himself not by words
but by deeds, may be decided upon only by
unanimous agreement.
13. The
revolutionary enters into the world of the state,
of class and of so-called culture, and lives in
it only because he has faith in its speedy and
total destruction.
He is not a
revolutionary if he feels pity for anything in
this world. If he is able to, he must face the
annihilation of a situation, of a relationship or
of any person who is part of this world -
everything and everyone must be equally odious to
him. All the worse for him if he has family,
friends and loved ones in this world; he is no
revolutionary if he can stay his hand.
14. Aiming at
merciless destruction the revolutionary can and
sometimes even must live within society while
pretending to be quite other than what he is. The
revolutionary must penetrate everywhere, among
all the lowest and the middle classes, into the
houses of commerce, the church, the mansions of
the rich, the world of the bureaucracy, the
military and of literature, the Third Section [Secret
Police] and even the Winter Palace.
15. All of this
putrid society must be split up into several
categories: the first category comprises those to
be condemned immediately to death. The society
should compose a list of these condemned persons
in order of the relative harm they may do to the
successful progress of the revolutionary cause,
and thus in order of their removal.
16. In compiling
these lists and deciding the order referred to
above, the guiding principal must not be the
individual acts of villainy committed by the
person, nor even by the hatred he provokes among
the society or the people. This villainy and
hatred, however, may to a certain extent be
useful, since they help to incite popular
rebellion. The guiding principle must be the
measure of service the person’s death will
necessarily render to the revolutionary cause.
Therefore, in the
first instance all those must be annihilated who
are especially harmful to the revolutionary
organization, and whose sudden and violent deaths
will also inspire the greatest fear in the
government and, by depriving it of its cleverest
and most energetic figures, will shatter its
strength.
17. The second
category must consist of those who are granted
temporary respite to live, solely in order that
their goofy behavior shall drive the people to
inevitable revolt.
18. To the third
category belong a multitude of high-ranking
cattle, or personages distinguished neither for
any particular intelligence no for energy, but
who, because of their position, enjoy wealth,
connections, influence and power. They must be
exploited in every possible fashion and way; they
must be enmeshed and confused, and, when we have
found out as much as we can about their dirty
secrets, we must make them our beasts of burden,
as if they were but mere oxen of the field. Their
power, connections, influence, gold and energy
thus become an inexhaustible treasure-house and
an effective aid to our various enterprises.
19. The fourth
category consists of politically ambitious
persons and liberals of various hues. With them
we can conspire according to their own programs,
pretending that we are blindly following them,
while in fact we are taking control of them,
rooting out all their secrets and compromising
them to the utmost, so that they are irreversibly
implicated and can be employed to create disorder
in the state.
20. The fifth
category is comprised of doctrinaires,
conspirators, revolutionaries, all those who are
given to drunken bullshitting, whether before
audiences or on paper. They must be continually
incited and forced into making violent
declarations of practical intent, as a result of
which the majority will vanish without trace and
real revolutionary gain will accrue from a few.
21. The sixth, and
an important category is that of women. They
should be divided into three main types: first,
those frivolous, thoughtless, and fluff-headed
women who we may use as we use the third and
fourth categories of men; second, women who are
ardent, gifted, and devoted, but do not belong to
us because they have not yet achieved a real,
passionless, and practical revolutionary
understanding: these must be used like the men of
the fifth category; and, finally there are the
women who are with us completely, that is, who
have been fully initiated and have accepted our
program in its entirety. We should regard these
women as the most valuable of our treasures,
whose assistance we cannot do without.
THE
ATTITUDE OF OUR SOCIETY TOWARDS THE PEOPLE
22. Our society has
only one aim - the total emancipation and
happiness of the people, that is, the common
laborers. But, convinced that their emancipation
and the achievement of this happiness can be
realized only by means of an all-destroying
popular revolution, our society will employ all
its power and all its resources in order to
promote an intensification and an increase I
those calamities and horrors which must finally
exhaust the patience of the people and drive it
to a popular uprising.
23. By “popular
revolution” our society does not mean a
regulated movement on the classical French model
- a movement which has always been restrained by
the notion of property and the traditional social
order of our so-called civilization and morality,
which has until now always confined itself to the
overthrow of one political structure merely to
substitute another, and has striven thus to
create the so-called revolutionary state. The
only revolution that can save the people is one
that eradicates the entire state system and
exterminates all state traditions of the regime
and classes on Earth.
24. Therefore our
society does not intend to impose on the people
any organization from above. Any future
organization will undoubtedly take shape through
the movement and life of our people, but that is
a task for future generations. Our task is
terrible, total, universal, merciless destruction.
25. Therefore, in
drawing closer to the people, we must ally
ourselves above all with those elements of the
popular life which, ever since the very
foundation of the state power of Moscow, have
never ceased to protest, not only in words but in
deeds, against everything directly or indirectly
connected with the state: against the nobility,
against the bureaucracy, against the priests,
against the world of the merchant guilds, and
against the tight-fisted hillbilly land pirate.
But we shall ally ourselves with the intrepid
world of brigands, who are the only true
revolutionaries in Russia.
26. To knit this
world into a single invincible and all-destroying
force - that is the purpose of our entire
organization, our conspiracy, and our task.
Notes:
Original source unknown.
Electronic editing of the 'Catechism' provided by kampahana;
formatting and condensation done by Freydis, 2002.
Atheist
Manifesto
It is hard to
say when human thought first conceived of the existence of God.
But once having conceived of him, it proceeded to reject him.
Possibly the rejection of God occurred immediately after the
first conception of him, the first recognition of his existence.
In any event, the rejection of God is very old, and the seeds of
unbelief appeared very early in the history of mankind. In the
course of several centuries, however, these modest seeds of
atheism were strangled by the poisonous nettles of theism. But
the striving of human thought and feeling for freedom is too
great not to prevail. And it has indeed prevailed. Beneath its
pressures all religions have broadened their horizons, yielding
one point after another and casting off much that only a
generation ago was deemed indispensable. Religion, striving to
preserve its existence, has made various compromises, piling one
absurdity upon another, combining the uncombinable.
The naive legends concerning
the origins of the earth, legends created by pastoral folk at
the dawn of life, were cast off and relegated to the mythology
of 'holy books'. Beneath the pressure of science, religion
repudiated the Devil and repudiated the personification of the
deity. Instead, God now reveals himself to us as Reason,
Justice, Love, Mercy, etc., etc. Since it was impossible to
salvage the contents of religion, men preserved its forms,
knowing full well that the forms would give shape to whatever
contents were placed in them.
The whole
so-called progress of religion is nothing but a series of
concessions to emancipated will, thought and feeling. Without
their persistent attacks, religion would to this day preserve
its original crude and naive character. Thought, moreover,
achieved other triumphs as well. Not only did it compel religion
to become more progressive, or, more accurately, to give birth
to new forms, but it also took an independent creative step,
moving ever more boldly towards open, militant atheism.
And our
atheism is militant atheism. We believe it is time to begin an
open, ruthless struggle with all religious dogmas, whatever they
may be called, whatever philosophical or moral systems may
conceal their religious essence. We shall fight against all
attempts to reform religion or to smuggle the outmoded concepts
of past ages into the spiritual baggage of contemporary
humanity. We find all gods equally repulsive, whether blood
thirsty or humane, envious or kind, vengeful or forgiving. What
is important is not what sort of gods they are but simply that
they are gods — that is, our lords, our sovereigns — and that we
love our spiritual freedom too dearly to bow before them.
Therefore we
are atheists. We shall boldly carry our propaganda of atheism to
the toiling masses, for whom atheism is more necessary than
anyone else. We fear not the reproach that by destroying the
people's faith we are pulling the moral foundation from under
their feet, a reproach uttered by 'lovers of the people' who
maintain that religion and morality are inseparable. We assert,
rather, that morality can and must be free from any ties with
religion, basing our conviction on the teachings of contemporary
science about morality and society. Only by destroying the old
religious dogmas can we accomplish the great positive task of
liberating thought and feeling from their old and rusty fetters.
And what can better break such bonds?
We hold that
there are no objective ideas either in the existing universe or
in the past history of peoples. An objective world is nonsense.
Desires and aspirations belong only to the individual
personality, and we place the free individual in the main
corner. We shall destroy the old, repulsive morality of religion
which declares: 'Do good or God will punish you.' We oppose this
bargaining and say: 'Do what you think is good without making
deals with anyone but only because it is good.' Is this really
only destructive work?
So much do we
love the human personality that we must therefore hate gods. And
therefore we are atheists. The age—old and difficult struggle of
the workers for the liberation of labour may continue even
longer. The workers may have to toil even more than they already
have, and to sacrifice their blood in order to consolidate what
has already been won. Along the way, the workers will doubtless
experience further defeats and, even worse, disillusionment. For
this very reason they must have an iron heart and a mighty
spirit which can withstand the blows of fate. But can a slave
really have an iron heart? Under God all men are slaves and
nonentities. And can men possess a mighty spirit when they fall
on their knees and prostrate themselves, as do the faithful?
We shall
therefore go to the workers and try to destroy the vestiges of
their faith in God. We shall teach them to stand proud and
upright as befits free men. We shall teach them to seek help
only from themselves, in their own spirit and in the strength of
free organizations. We are slandered with the charge that all
our best feelings, thoughts, desires and acts are not our own,
are not experienced by us, but are God's, are determined by God,
and that we are not ourselves but a mere vehicle carrying out
the will of God or the Devil. We want to take responsibility for
everything upon ourselves. We want to be free. We do not want to
be marionettes or puppets. Therefore we are atheists.
Religions
recognize their inability to sustain man's belief in the Devil,
and are rejecting that already discredited figure. But this is
inconsistent, for the Devil has as much claim to existence as
God — that is, none at all. Belief in the Devil was once very
strong. There was a time when demonism held exclusive sway over
men's minds, yet now this menacing figure and tempter of
humanity has been transformed into a petty demon, more comical
than frightening. The same fate must likewise befall his blood-brother — God.
God, the
Devil, faith — mankind has paid for these awful words with a sea
of blood, a river of tears, and endless suffering. Enough of
this nightmare! Man must finally throw off the yoke, must become
free. Sooner or later labour will win. But man must enter the
society of equality, brother hood and freedom ready and
spiritually free, or at least free of the divine rubbish which
has clung to him for a thousand years. We have shaken this
poisonous dust from our feet, and we are therefore atheists.
Come with us
all who love man and freedom and hate gods and slavery. Yes, the
gods are dying! Long live man! -
Union of Atheists
Original
source: Soiuz Ateistov, 'Ateisticheskii manifest', Nabat
(Kharkov),12 May 1919, p. 3.
Via:
The
Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, edited by Paul Avrich,
Cornell University Press 1973.
Michael Bakunin: "Founder of Nihilism
and apostle of anarchy." - Herzen
Michael
Bakunin was born in 1814 and came from a large wealthy
family in Russia. Even from an early age Bakunin’s rebellious
personal nature and outlook set him at odds against the ruling
class he emerged from although at the same time he never truly
identified with the proletarian masses either.
 Bakunin wanted
action, he placed movement over passive thought but this was his
charm because he meshed so well with the revolutionary milieu of
his era. In another time or place Bakunin would have been simply
written off as a fringe element but because of the
rapidly changing social and political landscape of the 19th
century he became an icon and a legend. Rumor and myth about his
escapes from the secret police and his own talk of direct action
created an aura of the superhuman revolutionary, fulfilling the
eras need for a leader and hero even if his actual deeds failed
to fulfill the myths around him.
Bakunin’s
Philosophy
Even at the
time Bakunin was often difficult to describe and even more
difficult to categorize ideologically within the context of his
contemporaries, revolutionaries and other great-thinkers of the
19th century. Bakunin gained from process rather than
accomplishment in life, whether the process had aim or not
wasn’t so much the issue as the act itself,
“finished
things were a source of weariness to him”
[Lampert (1957), pg 123]
Bakunin never really connected with any of the ideologies of his
time, he just saw opportunities either for his own advancement
or the pure, ground-up revolution he desired to see happen.
Destruction, action and revolution as a way of life were primary
themes that emerged. Bakunin went so far as to define
destruction as the moving force of
history. Simple but powerful statements were typical of Bakunin
and indeed this was the appeal.
Keeping with
the destruction paradigm, Bakunin’s analysis of Hegel was
remarkable. “Bakunin
argues that the dialectic refutes both those whose ideal is in
the past (primitive wholeness, as the dialectical source of the
divisions of the present, can never be regained), and those who
seek a middle way between extremes. No compromise is possible:
'the whole essence, content, and vitality of the negative
consists in destruction of the positive': only thereby can
divisions be resolved in a 'new, affirmative, organic reality’.”
[Kelly (1987), pg. 93-94]
Organizing
and Direct Action
Bakunin had
little interest in the nuances and details of revolutionary and
political organizing because he thought they only contained his
energy rather than magnified it and also because he couldn’t
focus or stay on task long enough to take an organization
towards a goal. Bakunin was no Lenin. But that doesn’t mean he
didn’t try to organize a revolution and then try again because
he always wanted to see the revolution happen before his eyes
even if he had no idea how to actually carry it out! Bakunin
lacked planning and organizing skills as much as he had a
surfeit of revolutionary zeal and a limitless capacity for
making motivating speeches.
After many
false starts Bakunin finally found the action he wanted in
Dresden in May of 1849 where he ingratiated himself into the
local resistance and fought Prussian troops. But despite best
efforts the rebel forces were hopelessly outnumbered and
eventually the Saxon government arrested Bakunin. After being
transferred from one prison to another the governments finally
came to an agreement and Bakunin was shipped off to the dreaded
Peter and Paul fortress in Russia. Bakunin was imprisoned and
later exiled to Siberia for ten years. A long prison sentence
broke him physically but not mentally.
After an
amazing confluence of chance and opportunity in 1861, Bakunin
managed to escape on a ship to Japan and then to San Francisco
eventually ending up back in Europe. Bakunin went back to what
he did best – trying to stir up revolutionary action, somewhere,
anywhere even if more than before his long imprisonment he
lacked any substantive connections to the real revolutionary
planning on the streets.
Nechayev and
Bakunin
In 1869 a
mysterious Russian named Sergei Nechayev met with Michael
Bakunin. The two immediately found a use for each other amid
their collective desire to foment revolution inside Russia – a
daunting task that had so far eluded the best of Bakunin’s
efforts. But Nechayev was a very crafty man and Bakunin was
often naïve and trusting, blinded by his own enthusiasm -
trouble emerged. Nechayev for his part probably never had any
delusions as to his own aim and kept silent letting Bakunin do
the talking.
Nechayev and
Bakunin seemed to complement each other in attributes, one was a
great speaker, the other not, one a formidable plotter where the
other wasn’t, but in the end Nechayev’s selfish view on
revolution coupled with Bakunin’s gullibility led to a falling
out and the two departed on unfriendly terms without notable
revolutionary success but still attracting the concerted
attention of the secret police.
Marx versus
Bakunin
Trying
to fit Bakunin into the larger scheme of political philosophy is
challenging because he wrote very little and his own views were
often a confusing mix of other’s ideas and his own
interpretations. A comparison of Karl Marx and Michael Bakunin
is interesting in the very different path two thinkers with
differing personalities took in analyzing and attempting to
solve the problems of their day and to then direct it into
revolutionary action. Bakunin was not a theorist or a planner
like Marx, rather he was a promoter of the process of action
even regardless of the outcome or eventual effect.
“He was by nature a
solipsist, despite all his superficial gregariousness and his
later advocacy of anti-individualist anarchism, and the world
existed for him for the exercise of personal freedom and
creative action.” [Lampert (1957),
pg. 123]
Atheism
Although he may have had
private discussions that placed him more in the agnostic
category, his public message was a consistent one of staunch
atheism once asserting that "If
God really existed it would be necessary to abolish him.”
Bakunin’s individualist credo also influenced the Russian
anarchists that followed him as well as more modern forms of
individual, libertarian anarchism. Bakunin died in 1876 but the
revolution continued. His primary surviving work is the book
God and the State, a potent patchwork of ideas and musings
on history, revolution, religion and authority.
Further
Influence
Although his direct involvement in
revolutionary activities was limited, Bakunin had a much greater
impact on contemporary and even future ideas. Bakunin’s
destructive words influenced the Nihilists in the 1860s
characterized by the clean-sweep revolution.
“…the modern
rebels believe, as Bazarov and Pisarev and Bakunin believed,
that the first requirement is the clean sweep, the total
destruction of the present system; the rest is not their
business. The future must look after itself. Better anarchy than
prison; there is nothing in between.”
[Berlin, p. 301] And despite
Bakunin’s organizing faults it’s agreed that he was actually a
generous and very friendly person and for all his exhortations
to violence like his most famous maxim
“The
urge to destroy is also a creative urge”,
it was not
the people he was targeting so much as the actual institutions of
oppression.
-
October, 2004
References
-
-
-
-
-
-
Riasanovsky,
Nicholas V., A History of Russia, New York,
Oxford University Press, sixth edition, 2000.
|
