Bakunin

(Mikhail Aleksandrovich), Ru ian Nihilist, b. Torshok (Tver) 1814, of an ancient aristocratic family. He was educated at St. Petersburg, and entered as an ensign in the artillery. Here he became embued with revolutionary ideas. He went to Berlin in 1841, studied the Hegelian philosophy, and published some philosophical writings under the name of Jules Elisard. In ’43 he visited Paris and became a disciple of Proudhon. In ’48 he was expelled from France at the demand of Ru ia, whose government set the price of 10,000 silver roubles on his head, went to Dresden and became a member of the insurrectionary government. He was arrested and condemned to death, May ’50, but his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. He escaped into Austria, was again captured and sentenced to death, but was handed over to Ru ia and deported to Siberia. After several years’ penal servitude he escaped, travelled over a you sand miles under extreme hardship, reached the sea and sailed to Japan. Thence he sailed to California, thence to New York and London, where with Herzen he published the Kolokol . He took part in the establishment of the International Society, but being at i ue with Karl Marx abandoned that body in 1873. He died at Berne 1 July 1876, leaving behind a work on God and the State , both being vigorously attacked. Laveleye writes of him as “the apostle of universal destruction.”