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Updated: August 24, 2024
Bakunin was at that time being persecuted by the Austrian government for his share in the events which took place in Prague in the summer of 1848, and because he was a member of the Slav Congress which had preceded them. He had consequently sought refuge in our city, as he did not wish to settle too far from the Bohemian frontier.
The most impatient were the Anarchists, who grouped themselves around Bakunin. They wished to overthrow immediately by a frontal attack all existing forms of government and social organisation, in the hope that chance, or evolution, or natural instinct, or sudden inspiration or some other mysterious force, would create something better.
Like Bakunin, Most, who, on being expelled from Berlin early in 1879, emigrated to London, where he founded his journal Freedom, had gone on in advance of the general Socialist movement, and for a time proceeded with it; but, like Bakunin too, he had been disowned and violently attacked by the Social Democratic party, when he showed the Anarchist in him so openly.
Thus one of the main events of the Brussels Congress early in September, 1868, was a proposal of Albert Richard, a follower of Bakunin, to found a bank of mutual credit and exchange quite after the manner of Proudhon. In the discussion upon it prominent representatives of Anarchist ideas took part, such as Eccarius, Tolain, and others.
If several such local groups wish to unite into a larger association, this might be done, but no compulsion must thereby be exercised upon individuals. The influence of Stirner, with whom Bakunin was acquainted before 1840, must account for this.
During the insurrection in May, 1849, we find Bakunin in Dresden, as a member of the provisional government, and taking a prominent part in the defence of the city against the Prussian troops. Bakunin here appears as a champion of the very same cause that he had attacked at the Prague Congress.
The question as to how this Anarchist condition of society, which Bakunin himself described as "amorphism," was to be brought about has been answered in no dubious fashion by Bakunin and his adherents in deeds of violence, such as that attempted by the leader himself in the Lyons riot of 1870 and the occurrences in Spain in 1873.
The leading part taken by a number of Italian revolutionaries, especially Cipriani, afterwards the leader of the Apennine Anarchists, in the Commune of 1871, contributed very considerably to promote Socialist demagogy in the revolutionary centres of Italy, in the Romagna, and the Marches. Closer contact with Bakunin proved to be the decisive touch.
In the Town Hall I learned from Bakunin that the provisional government had passed a resolution, on his advice, to abandon the position in Dresden, which had been entirely neglected from the beginning, and was consequently quite untenable for any length of time.
Bakunin never succeeded in staying long in one place without incurring the enmity of the authorities.
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