Bakunin

April 17, 2006
The life of Bakunin (1814–1876), the Russian architect of the anarchist movement, provides a surprisingly enjoyable introduction to the tumult of 19th-century radicalism. However, Leier's account of Bakunin's evolution from a jingoistic cadet to the man who proclaimed "if there is a state there is necessarily... slavery" focuses more on the thinker than the personality; one wishes for more glimpses of the man behind the ideas. A military officer turned philosopher, Bakunin could discuss Hegel or man a barricade with equal aplomb. He rubbed shoulders with George Sand in 1844 Paris, served in working-men's militias in Paris and Dresden, spent harrowing months shackled to prison walls in Dresden, Prague and Russia, and finally made a daring escape from Siberian exile in 1861 to (eventually) Italy. A chapter on the roots of Bakunin's thought in German idealism provides a lucid eight-page précis of Hegel's ideas that's actually fun to read. The feud between Bakunin and Marx gets ample space. Occasionally, Leier falls into jarring slang, and what he sees as the optimism of anarchy may seem like naïveté to others. But he brings welcome consideration to the real merits of the movement's theory.