Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/483

Rh I read nothing. I think of but one thing: twist the neck, twist it yet further, screw off the head, let not a trace of it remain!"

T the close of his life Bakunin recanted from Bakuninian anarchism and Jesuitism. At any rate, on October 21, 1874, he wrote as follows to Ogarev: "Realise at length that nothing living and firm can be upbuilded upon jesuitical trickery, that revolutionary activity aiming to succeed must not seek its supports in base and petty passions, and that no revolution can achieve victory without lofty and conspicuously clear ideals." Dragomanov considers that these words embody a complete renunciamento on Bakunin's part, but I can see in them no more than a momentary doubt, such as often affected him in his loneliness, especially after the death of Herzen. He was always accessible to the words of a friend.

In 1870 he had broken with his adept Nečaev, and had branded him a traitor. In 1872 Bakunin accused Nečaev of Machiavellianism and Jesuitism.

In confirmation of his own interpretation Dragomanov refers to an incident recorded by Malon, who tells us that in February 1876 Bakunin rejoiced over the republican victory in the elections, saying: "La liberté mondiale est sauvée! est sauvée encore une fois par la grande France!" Other writers refer to this utterance as a proof that Bakunin's anarchistic and antipolitical views had undergone modification. To me, however, it seems that we have here no more than one of the numerous improvisations characteristic of Bakunin's impulsive temperament. Moreover, these retractations do not concern the revolution itself but the method of revolution. We must not forget that from time to time Bakunin considered the possibility of revolution without bloodshed, and would then give it the preference over a bloody revolution. Read, for example, what he wrote in the year 1862, in the essay The People's Cause. Having declared that he would rather follow Alexander II as the people's tsar than he would follow Pugačev and Pestel, he continued: "Owing to human stupidity, bloody revolutions are frequently necessary, but they are invariably an evil, a terrible evil and a great misfortune." Even in his secret instructions he refers similarly to revolutions as the outcome of human stupidity, but the