The last section of the "Catechism" treats of the duty of the
association toward the people. "The Society has no other end than the
complete emancipation and happiness of the people, namely, of the
laborers. But, convinced that this emancipation and this happiness can
only be reached by means of an all-destroying popular revolution, _the
Society will use every means and every effort to increase and intensify
the evils and sorrows_, which must at last exhaust the patience of the
people and excite them to insurrection _en masse_. By a popular
revolution the Society does not mean a movement regulated according to
the classic patterns of the West, which, always restrained in the face
of property and of the traditional social order of so-called
civilization and morality, has hitherto been limited merely to
exchanging one form of political organization for another, and to the
creating of a so-called revolutionary State. The only revolution that
can do any good to the people is that which utterly annihilates every
idea of the State and overthrows all traditions, orders, and classes in
Russia. With this end in view, the Society has no intention of imposing
on the people any organization whatever coming from above. The future
organization will, without doubt, proceed from the movement and life of
the people; but that is the business of future generations. Our task is
terrible, total, inexorable, and universal destruction."[28] These are
in brief the tactics and principles of terrorism, as understood by
Bakounin and Nechayeff. As only the criminal world shared these views in
any degree, the "Catechism" ends: "We have got to unite ourselves with
the adventurer's world of the brigands, who are the veritable and unique
revolutionists of Russia."[29]
It is customary now to credit most of these writings to Nechayeff,
although Bakounin himself, I believe, never denied that they were his,
and no one can read them without noting the ear-marks of both Bakounin's
thought and style. In any case, Nechayeff was constantly with Bakounin
in the spring and summer of 1869, and the most important of these
brochures were published in Geneva in the summer of that year. And,
while it may be said for Bakounin that he nowhere else advocates all the
varied criminal methods advised in these publications, there is hardly
an argument for their use that is not based upon his well-known views.
Furthermore, Nechayeff was primarily a man of action, and in a letter,
which is printed hereafter, it appears that he urgently requested
Bakounin to develop some of his theories in a Russian journal.
Evidently, then, Nechayeff had little confidence in his own power of
expression. We must, however, leave the question of paternity undecided
and follow the latter to Russia, where he went late in the summer,
loaded down with his arsenal of revolutionary literature and burning to
put into practice the principles of the "Catechism."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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