Bakunin
MICHAEL (bä-kö'nin), a Russian anarchist, the founder of Nihilism, born in 1814 of rich and noble family, entered the army, but threw up his commission after two years' service, and studied philosophy at Moscow. Having adopted Hegel's system as the basis of a new revolution, he went in 1841 to Berlin, and thence to Dresden, Geneva, and Paris, as the propagandist of anarchism. He was handed over to Russia, in 1851, by Austria, imprisoned for five years, and finally sent to Siberia. Escaping thence through Japan, he joined Herzen in London, on the staff of the "Kolokol." His extreme views, however, ruined the paper and led to a quarrel with Marx and the International. He died suddenly and almost alone at Berne, in 1878. He demanded the entire aboli tion of the state as a state, the absolute equalization of individuals, and the extirpation of hereditary rights and of religion.