Home > Terrorism Reference > Mikhail Bakunin Biography

May 30, 1814

Premukhino, Russia

July 1, 1876

Bern, Switzerland

Philosopher and anarchist

"It is obvious that liberty will never be given to humanity and that the real interests of society, of all groups, local associations, and individuals who make up society will never be satisfied until there are no longer any states."

The world in which Mikhail Bakunin lived was very different from that of the early twenty-first century. When he was active in politics, between about 1840 and 1876, the idea of a sudden uprising by workers seemed real and quite possible, based on actual events that had taken place in 1848 and after. Bakunin thought that his dream—in which poor factory workers and peasants would rise up to seize power and found a communist society in which all people were equal—was a practical possibility. He spent his adult life...