Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakuninwas a Russian revolutionary anarchist, and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism, and one of the principal founders of the social anarchist tradition. Bakunin's enormous prestige as an activist made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, and he gained substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionRevolutionary
Date of Birth30 May 1814
CountryRussian Federation
Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.
That in order to achieve the triumph of liberty, justice and peace in the international relations of Europe, and to render civil war impossible among the various peoples which make up the European family, only a single course lies open: to constitute the United States of Europe
Whoever says State necessarily says domination, and, consequently, slavery; a State without slavery, open or concealed, is inconceivable: that is why we are enemies of the State.
This contradiction lies here: they wish God, and they wish humanity. They persist in connecting two terms which, once separated, can come together again only to destroy each other.
The urge to destroy is a creative urge.
Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow-man? Then make sure that no one shall possess power.
A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions.
If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him.
Man is only truly free only among equally free men.
Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.
Look at Christ, my dear friend: His life was divine through and through, full of self-denial, and He did everything for mankind, finding His satisfaction and His delight in the dissolution of His material being.
Priests, kings, statesmen, soldiers, bankers and public functionaries of all sorts; policemen, jailers and hangmen; capitalists, usurers, businessmen and property-owners; lawyers, economists and politicians - all of them, down to the meanest grocer, repeat in chorus the words of Voltaire, that if there were no God it would be necessary to invent Him.
No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker.
The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind both in theory and practice.