the working classes of
Western Europe, Bakounin was also busy with Russian affairs. "I am
excessively absorbed in what is going on in Russia," he writes to a
friend, April 13, 1869. "Our youth, the most revolutionary in the world
perhaps, in theory and in practice, are so stirred up that the
Government has been forced to close the universities, academies, and
several schools at St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kazan. I have here now a
specimen of these young fanatics, who hesitate at nothing and who fear
nothing.... They are admirable, ... believers without God and heroes
without phrase!"[21] He who called forth this eulogy was the young
Russian revolutionist, Sergei Nechayeff. Whether admirable or not we
shall leave the reader to judge. But, if Bakounin bewilders one,
Nechayeff staggers one. And, if Bakounin was the father of terrorism,
Nechayeff was its living embodiment. He was not complex, mystical, or
sentimental. He was truly a revolutionist without phrase, and he can be
described in the simplest words. He was a liar, a thief, and a
murderer--the incarnation of Hatred, Malice, and Revenge, who stopped at
no crime against friend or foe that promised to advance what he was
pleased to call the revolution. Bakounin had for a long time sought his
cooeperation, and now in Switzerland they began that collaboration which
resulted in the most extraordinary series of sanguinary revolutionary
writings known to history.

In the summer of 1869 there was printed at Geneva "Words Addressed to
Students," signed by them both; the "Formula of the Revolutionary
Question"; "The Principles of the Revolution"; and the "Publications of
the People's Tribunal"--the three last appearing anonymously. All of
them counsel the most infamous doctrines of criminal activity. In "Words
Addressed to Students," the Russian youth are exhorted to leave the
universities and go among the people. They are asked to follow the
example of Stenka Razin, a robber chieftain who, in the time of Alexis,
placed himself at the head of a popular insurrection.[F] "Robbery,"
declare Bakounin and Nechayeff, "is one of the most honorable forms of
Russian national life. The brigand is the hero, the defender, the
popular avenger, the irreconcilable enemy of the State, and of all
social and civil order established by the State. He is the wrestler in
life and in death against all this civilization of officials, of nobles,
of priests, and of the crown.... He who does not underst