E-text prepared by Fritz Ohrenschall, René Anderson Benitz,
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MICHAEL BAKUNINGOD AND THE STATE
BY
MICHAEL BAKUNIN
WITH A PREFACE BY
CARLO CAFIERO AND ELISÉE RECLUS
First American Edition
MOTHER EARTH PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION
20 East 125th Street
New York City
Preface to the First French Edition
One of us is soon to tell in all its details the story of the lifeof Michael Bakunin, but its general features are already sufficientlyfamiliar. Friends and enemies know that this man was great inthought, will, persistent energy; they know also with what lofty contempthe looked down upon wealth, rank, glory, all the wretchedambitions which most human beings are base enough to entertain.A Russian gentleman related by marriage to the highest nobilityof the empire, he was one of the first to enter that intrepid societyof rebels who were able to release themselves from traditions,prejudices, race and class interests, and set their own comfort atnaught. With them he fought the stern battle of life, aggravatedby imprisonment, exile, all the dangers and all the sorrows thatmen of self-sacrifice have to undergo during their tormented existence.
A simple stone and a name mark the spot in the cemetery ofBerne where was laid the body of Bakunin. Even that is perhapstoo much to honor the memory of a worker who held vanities ofthat sort in such slight esteem. His friends surely will raise to himno ostentatious tombstone or statue. They know with what a hugelaugh he would have received them, had they spoken to him of acommemorative structure erected to his glory; they knew, too, thatthe true way to honor their dead is to continue their work—with thesame ardor and perseverance that they themselves brought to it.In this case, indeed, a difficult task demanding all our efforts, foramong the revolutionists of the present generation not one haslabored more fervently in the common cause of the Revolution.
In Russia among the students, in Germany among the insurgentsof Dresden, in Siberia among his brothers in exile, in America, inEngland, in France, in Switzerland, in Italy, among all earnest men,his direct influence has been considerable. The originality of hisideas, the imagery and vehemence of his eloquence, his untiringzeal in propagandism, helped too by the natural majesty of hisperson and by a powerful vitality, gave Bakunin access to all therevolutionary groups, and his efforts left deep traces everywhere,- 6 -even upon those who, after having welcomed him, thrust him outbecause of a difference of object or method. His corre