Bakunin and Nicholas I
Mikhail Bakunin's Confession is an 1851 autobiographical work written by the imprisoned anarchist for clemency from Russian Emperor Nicholas I.
Mikhail Bakunin's Confession is an 1851 autobiographical work written by the imprisoned anarchist for clemency from Russian Emperor Nicholas I.
Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) was the leading anarchist revolutionary of the 19th century, active from the 1840s through the 1870s. [1] In the 1840s, he moved from philosophical studies to revolutionary agitation. [2] After participating in the 1848 Prague and 1849 Dresden uprisings, he was imprisoned, tried, sentenced to death, and extradited multiple times. Placed in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress of St. Petersberg, Russia, in 1851, [3] Bakunin wrote his Confession at the direction of Russian Emperor Nicholas I. [4]
The Confession accounts for Bakunin's political activities throughout the 1840s, from his original departure from Russia to Berlin in 1840 through his arrest in 1849. The work is neither a capitulation nor an act of defiance, but a combination. Bakunin told Alexander Herzen it was a combination of fancy and truth. [4]
Nicholas I read the Confession carefully, marking the text with marginalia and sharing it with his son, the tsarevitch, Alexander II as "very interesting and instructive". The work was held but not forgotten in the political police's archives for seventy years. The government later circulated extracts from the Confession to embarrass and discredit Bakunin. [4]
Its full publication in 1921 was controversial, as some read Bakunin as genuflecting for clemency while others defended his criticism of Russian bureaucracy and silence about co-conspirators. [4] Originally written in Russian, the Confession has since been published in Czech, French, German, Italian, and Polish, and only received its first English-language publication in its 1977 translation by Robert C. Howes, published by Cornell University Press along with the emperor's annotations. [5]
Historian of anarchism Paul Avrich wrote of the importance of Bakunin's Confession as both a psychological and historial document, showing the roots of Bakunin's pan-Slavicism, antipathy for parliamentary government, plans for a revolutionary society, and mental state as a prisoner. Avrich said the Confession is among Bakunin's most interesting writings [4] highlighting both his personality and an insider's account of the revolutionary 1840s. Avrich added that the author's tone of contrition was a "necessary expedient if he was ever to regain his freedom". [5]
Max Nettlau and Vera Figner both wrote responses to the Confession. [5]
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Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, social anarchist, and collectivist anarchist traditions. Bakunin's prestige as a revolutionary also made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, gaining substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe.
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Paul Avrich was an American historian specializing in the 19th and early 20th-century anarchist movement in Russia and the United States. He taught at Queens College, City University of New York, for his entire career, from 1961 to his retirement as distinguished professor of history in 1999. He wrote ten books, mostly about anarchism, including topics such as the 1886 Haymarket Riot, the 1921 Sacco and Vanzetti case, the 1921 Kronstadt naval base rebellion, and an oral history of the movement.
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