Biography Collected Works Bibliography Commentary Graphics Fellow Workers, I know this discussion died a couple of weeks ago, but when I saw the first post claiming that Bakunin and Nechayev shared similar politics I saw red and went searching in my files. I am deeply convinced that any other revolution is dishonest, harmful, and spells death to liberty and the people. It can only be conquered by a spontaneous people's revolution. It is impossible to arouse the people artificially. I maintain that a popular social revolution is inevitable everywhere within Europe.
Nobody can foretell.
Perhaps it will blaze up in a year's time, or even earlier, or perhaps in ten or twenty years. This does not matter, and the people who intend to serve it honestly do not serve for their own pleasure. Bakunin goes on to discuss the Russian situation and the revolutionary potential there. He notes the possibilities of the peasant's collectivist instincts, but also the localism which hampers revolutionary success and, indeed, solidarity. It follows that there is ittle original virtue in them.