ABSTRACT
Mikhail Bakunin's writings laid the foundations for anarchism in a time of rising unrest in Europe. His parents were members of the privileged nobility and, in Bakunin's words, raised their children “in a world filled with feeling and imagination.” In this atmosphere Bakunin developed an early interest in idealistic philosophy. Refusing to return to Russia to answer for his article, Bakunin traveled to Paris, where in February he witnessed the outbreak of the 1848 revolution. Convinced that a political cataclysm was at hand, he raced to central Europe to help accelerate it. In 1868 Bakunin joined the First International, a socialist organization influenced by Marx. Objecting to Marx's authoritarian tendencies, Bakunin soon fell into disagreement and was expelled in 1872. Mikhail Bakunins contributions to the revolutionary movement inspired the rise of anarchism and hastened the downfall of Europe's political order. Bakunin had grown up in what was probably the most repressive political order in Europe during the nineteenth century.
