lectualism. He refused to recognise science as the sole guide in life. Science cannot alone control society, for control by science would mean that mankind would be stupefied, that men would become dumb driven cattle. Bakunin frequently used strong expressions directed against the intelligentsia, which he regarded as just as bad as the aristocracy, and as no less callous than the bourgeoisie. Yet notwithstanding this verdict he demanded of the members of the intelligentsia, not that they should instruct the populace, but that they should revolutionise it. At any rate Bakunin had far less admiration for preaching than had Herzen.
In conformity with this philosophy of the deed, Bakunin approved, not mass revolution alone, but individual assassination and individual expropriation as means for the production of general panic, and he looked upon terrorism as an educative instrument on behalf of the revolution.[1]
He unhesitatingly accepts Jesuitism and Machiavellianism. The secret societies of the Poles and the Italians would naturally encourage this tendency.[2]
We cannot ascertain how far Bakunin was guided by Nečaev in issuing his secret instructions. Bakunin had cut adrift from Nečaev, but his relations with the conspirator had been of a somewhat questionable character. (Consult Dragomanov's Biography in Minzes' German translation of Bakunin's letters, p. xcii).
Notwithstanding the most thorough devotion to anarchy, the revolution of pandestruction must in the end be regulated and led, and Bakunin provided for this with the aid of the
- ↑ Debagorii-Mokrievič, the revolutionist, declares that Bakunin worked ever in favour of an organised rising, and did not desire individual acts of political assassination, carried out at individual discretion. Not merely does this assertion conflict with what has been referred to above, but from Bakunin's standpoint the philosophically grounded rejection of such individual outrages is hardly possible.
- ↑ The details of Bakunin's and Nečaev's secret instructions to revolutionists may be read in the secret rules of the Carbonari League; they coincide in part with the rules of the Mazzinist secret society Young Italy. Bakunin opposed Mazzini's religious views, but borrowed from Mazzini the plan for a secret universalised league of Young Europe and the idea of the absolute obedience of the members. At that time, moreover, the design had spread throughout the continent. Even before 1848 Bakunin had been a member of secret societies, and I believe that in Siberia his intercourse with the Polish political exiles served to confirm him in his predilection for this type of activity. As early as the twenties the Polish secret societies had similar programs and rules, as we see in the Union of National Carbonari (1821), etc.
