Bakunin here settles his account with extreme subjectivism, and in particular with Fichtean solipsism. Building on a Hegelian foundation, he arrives at a position opposed to that of Kant, his former leader in philosophy, and opposed above all to that of Fichte, speaking of extreme subjectivism as egoistic self-contemplation and "the annihilation of any possible love." He condemns Schiller, the Kantian revolté; he condemns Voltaire and the French philosophers of the
America, visiting Herzen in London in 1861. He now renewed his ties with the Polish refugees, and in 1863 endeavoured to come to the help of the Polish rebels by naval operations initiated in Sweden. We have already recounted how Bakunin's sarmatiophil influence proved injurious to Herzen's "Kolokol." The failure of the Polish rising and the triumph of reaction in Russia led Bakunin for the future to devote his attention to the west. From 1864 to 1868 he lived in Italy, where he founded the secret society International Brotherhood (known also as Alliance of Revolutionary Socialists), which lasted until 1869. Bakunin had relations with the Russians of the younger generation and with the Russian revolutionary secret societies then in process of formation. The International Working-Men's Association having been founded in 1864, Bakunin joined it in 1868, and there ensued a fierce struggle between him and Marx. In 1868 Bakunin also founded the Alliance internationale de la démocratie socialiste, with a secret brotherhood of whose central committee he was dictator. The same year, in conjunction with N. Žukovskii, he edited at Zurich the Russian journal "Narodnoe Dělo," but from the issue of the second number it was already in the hands of his opponent N. Utin. In 1860 he became intimate with Nečaev. In 1871 he took part in the disturbances at Lyons, where it was hoped to establish the commune. The struggle with Marx ended at the Hague congress in 1872, when Bakunin was excluded from the International; at Marx's suggestion the grounds for the exclusion were recorded by Utin in a report describing Bakunin's share in Nečaev's machinations. As early as 1871 Bakunin had withdrawn to the Fédération jurassienne; in 1872 he founded a Slav section in this body, which had but a short life, breaking up in 1873 owing to internal dissensions and the conflict with Lavrov; in 1873 Bakunin quitted the Fédération. After participating in 1874 in the abortive rising at Bologna, much disheartened, he desisted from his activities. Attempts were frequently made to bring about a reunion between Bakunin's followers and the Marxists, and this was effected at Ghent in 1877, the year after Bakunin's death, which took place on July 6, 1876, in a hospital at Berne. The following are the principal works dealing with Bakunin. Mihail Bakunin's Correspondence with Aleksandr Herzen and Ogarev, with a biographical introduction, appendixes and elucidations by Mihail Dragomanov. A German translation (by Boris Minzes) of this Russian work is to be found in Theodor Schiemann's Bibliotek rüssischer Denkwürdigkeiten, 1895, vol. vi. No more than twenty-five lithographed copies were circulated of Nettlau's biography of Bakunin in three vols. (1896–1900). There is a précis by the author, M. Bakunin, eine biographische Skizze von Dr. M. Nettlau mit Auszügen aus seinen Schriften, und Nachwort von G. Landauer, 1901. Bakunin's friend James Guillaume has written a biographical sketch in the second volume of his collected edition of Bakunin's French writings, M. Bakounine, Oeuvres, Paris, 1907 et seq., seven vols. The edition is incomplete, but can be supplemented by Dragomanov, and by Guillaume's L'lnternationale, documents et souvenirs, 1864 to 1878, 2 vols., Paris 1905–7.
