Volume 22, Number 21 & 22 · January 22, 1976
The Fatal Charm of the Millennium
By Aileen Kelly
Michael Bakunin
by E.H. Carr
Octagon Books, 501 pp., $27.50
Bakunin: The Father of Anarchism
by Anthony Masters
Saturday Review Press/Dutton, 279 pp., $9.95
Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings
edited by Arthur Lehning, translated by Stephen Cox, by Olive Stevens
Grove, 288 pp., $4.95 (paper)
'One of the completest embodiments in history of the spirit of liberty,' as his biographer E. H. Carr maintains, Michael Bakunin has come more than any other political thinker to symbolize the rebellion of the individual against all repressive authorities and idols, of the left as well as the right. But there is another vision of Bakunin—that of a scheming megalomaniac, collaborator with the sinister Jacobin Nechaev on projects for revolutionary dictatorship. There is evidence to support both images, and all studies of Bakunin are faced with the necessity of explaining or resolving the contradictions between them; and according to whether, in doing so, they emphasize primarily his personality or his writings, they fall roughly into two categories.
Review, 4615 words
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