Bakunin, MICHEL, a leading propagator of Anarchism (q.v.), was born near Moscow in 1814 of an aristocratic family, and entered the Russian army, but during service in Poland conceived such a hatred of despotism that he resigned his post. After 1846 he visited Germany, and also Paris, where he met Prondhon and George Sand. He took part in the German revolutionary movement of 1848-49, especially at Dresden, and was condemned to death. He was, however, given up to Russia, where he spent several years in prison, and was next sent to Siberia in 1855, but managed to escape in an American ship to Japan, leaving behind him wife and child, and arrived in England in 1861. In 1865 Bakunin was in Italy diffusing his socialistic views. In 1869 he founded the
Alliance of the Social-democracy, which dissolved the same year in order to enter the International; in September 1870 he attempted an abortive rising at Lyons, with an aim somewhat similar to that of the Paris commune in 1871. As the leader of anarchism, Bakunin was in the International the opponent of Karl Marx; but at the Hague Congress in 1872, he was outvoted and expelled from it. He died at Berne in 1876. Bakunin was most active as an agitator. In connection with his propaganda he wrote several works, in which atheism, materialism, and anarchism are advocated in the frankest and most uncompromising manner. The principal are L'Empire Knouto-Germanique et la Révolution Sociale; La Théologie politique de Mazzini et l'Internationale; Dieu et l'État.