Andrey Madison. Mikhail Bakunin and the problem of the absolute in politics

Mikhail Bakunin and the problem of the absolute in politics
Part 2

Andrei Madison

Publication date: November 4, 2000

Bakunin √ children

If you suddenly decide to do something like this and try to describe to a child who Uncle Bakunin was, then perhaps the following work would be best suited for this purpose:

Kaba rivers and lakes
I would pour one into the lake,
And of all the trees of the boron
Make one tree

Axes would melt everything
And cast one ax,
And from all the people make
A man higher than the mountains

If only, having taken the mighty axe,
This formidable giant
This trunk fell from a cliff
In this sea-ocean, -

That would be a loud crash,
That would be a noisy splash!

I am sure that the enlightened reader understood from the very first line where this came from and what, and therefore, without dwelling further on this circumstance, I will immediately object to those who decide that such information about Bakunin will be exhaustive for an adult. And not just because, unlike, say, the highly spiritual but simple in composition Stankevich, Bakunin was complex and ambiguous. And because the contradictions from which Bakunin was, as they say, weaved, were irreconcilable, given in their pure form and, as a result, he could not play on them. By doing this: in a sober state of mind - quite consciously, and if he was in confusion - then often without realizing it.

Bakunin √ adults

Bakunin was born a ruler of people and, at the same time, a slave of circumstances. From this we can derive the magnitude of the importance that he attached to freedom. For freedom - at least for him - is nothing more than the opportunity to command without being responsible for the consequences of not only your own actions, but also the actions of the people subordinate to you. This is the ability to launch processes and control them at any arbitrarily chosen moment, but in no case to supervise them constantly (religious people call something like this “deism”). A character without pure, polar contradictions, a character whose properties are mixed, does not need freedom. Only unalloyed abstraction - so to speak, the essence of feeling - needs freedom, which is given to the most capacious abstractions, that is, Good and Evil, within the framework, for example, of the Manichaean picture of the world.

The convenience of such a picture lies in the reversibility of its pros and cons. The inconvenience is that this reversibility is achieved only by overcoming a certain distance between them, during which the protagonist of freedom falls into the sphere of action of circumstances, that is, he becomes dependent on them. And since the feeling of freedom (essentially reduced to the moment of liberation ) is given only by constantly shuttling between poles, between pros and cons, then he has to fall under the wheels of circumstances more often than he, perhaps, would like.

The supposedly paradoxical Pushkin rhyme “beautiful - terrible” fully conveys this property of Manichaean characters, indicating, in particular, that Peter was quite quick on his feet when he ran from one pole to the other. Bakunin was also fast, but, firstly, not as fast as Peter, and secondly, his starting capabilities were noticeably inferior to Peter’s. And finally, thirdly, Peter, with all his polarity, appealed to the concrete and therefore was as much a destroyer as a creator, while Bakunin appealed exclusively to the abstract, to the idea, and therefore only destroyed, which property he elevated to the rank of dialectical valor, presenting to the world (even before any anarchism) the famous: “The passion for destruction is at the same time a creative passion . ”

Belinsky, who also had many of Bakunin’s traits, but who, unlike Bakunin, was characterized by, in Goncharov’s apt expression, “concentrated analysis,” spoke differently about him at different times of his acquaintance with the future troublemaker. Including very insightful. During the period of their close communication, the review could look more partial, for example, like this: “You flame with inexhaustible love for God, but for God as the substance of all things, as for the general, divorced from particular phenomena, and you have never yet loved individual subjects and images <...> for you an idea is higher than a person <...> your blood is hot and alive, but it (if such a comparison can be used) flows not in your veins, but in your spirit . " When their relationship was upset, Belinsky’s review of Bakunin turned out to be much more “violent”: “Vileous, vile, egoist, phrase-monger, devil in philosophical feathers . ” And perhaps a little more sympathetically: “A man with a wonderful head, but absolutely no heart and, moreover, with the blood of rotten salted cod . ”

If Belinsky is right, then it becomes clear why Nicholas I wept over Bakunin’s “Confession”: the absolute insurgent found in the absolute autocrat his most congenial reader.

March on Berlin

Bakunin was blessed for philosophical asceticism in the capital of Prussia by the fading Stankevich; circumstances, both financial and moral, pushed him there, or rather simply from Moscow. He decided to borrow money from Herzen. The moral ones proved more difficult to sort out. The fact is that shortly before leaving, Bakunin, at Belinsky’s apartment, had a big quarrel with the then smart progressive, and subsequently the reactionary Katkov, who had not wasted his mind at all. During the quarrel, Bakunin poked Katkov with his cane. He slapped Bakunin in the face. A duel was supposed to take place, but Bakunin avoided it under various plausible pretexts. Public opinion sided with Katkov, it was exhaustively expressed by Ogarev in a letter to Herzen: “I am terribly sorry that I extended a helping hand to this long bastard ,” he wrote, probably not expecting that years later he would sing well with him.

Moscow and Nikolaev Russia, in general, became a minus for Bakunin at that time, Berlin, and behind it Europe, a plus, and he rushed to where he could again allow himself to share the feeling of the fullness of life with those far and near. On the eve of his departure, the same people turned out to be both distant and close - his brothers and sisters. To whom, having lost all his Russian friends and having lost the deceased Stankevich, Bakunin wrote before sailing: “Don’t forget, love me, friends, I have no one but you, except your little world, in which I experienced so many human and deeply blissful moments. <...> I am yours, friends, I am all yours and belong to no one else except you and the Truth, which is the common goal of our life... Give me your hands, squeeze them tighter, and neither space nor time will unclench them. The unity that reigns in our existences is a faithful, sacred guarantee of our mutual love. Each of us can be sure that nothing can happen in him that would not find a living echo and participation in others. With this certainty it is fun to live in the world " .

It would be foolish to deny: Bakunin loved his family in his own way. After he stopped in Premukhino for a day on his way to Berlin to say goodbye to them, he visited there only once more - and again on the way: from the Shlisselburg prison to Siberian exile. For his purposes, this, apparently, was enough: he loved his brothers and sisters not as such, but as a reflection in them of himself, his, so to speak, Idea with a capital I. Even from exile, having seemingly mortally wounded himself by groveling (though not verbally, but in writing) before two emperors, Nicholas and Alexander, he wrote moralizing letters to his brothers. The multipolar nature allows this: different poles are humiliated and taught in it - and precisely those, the communication between which is least established.

This same multipolarity destroyed Bakunin the student. He went to Berlin for insight; he believed, having been granted it, that he would immediately be able to take the position of a mentor, as he had previously managed with Belinsky, when he taught him Hegel. Alas, the trick failed. The study of some categories was followed by the study of others, but insight, even in the incredible case of mastering all of them, did not promise to smell. And then Bakunin declared that all German metaphysics was carrion, that it contained only “death and boredom” and, in general, “absolute idleness,” while he, Bakunin, thirsted for “action.”

By “business,” Bakunin meant, of course, something completely different from what today’s “Delawares” and their confidantes mean by the word “business.” There was more than enough “business” in Prussia at that time. Bakunin himself, in a letter to Herzen, gives an example of it using the example of the festive decoration of a tailor’s house, where a Prussian single-headed eagle is depicted, under it is a tailor with an iron, under the tailor is the inscription:

Under your wings
Can I just iron , -

that is, “under your wings I can calmly stroke.” Like any proudly howling romantic, Bakunin could not help but be offended by such shameless philistinism. blazed brighter, brighter and brighter The further, the more behind the word “deed” in his execution the formidable word “revolution” .

Revolution not Evolution

The poet Charles Baudelaire, whom Bakunin hardly noticed behind the revolutionary bustle, wrote about women as only a real opium smoker can do:

A tame tigress stares her pupils at me,
She dreamily changed positions,
And there were purity and voluptuous plums,
Even more captivating is her metamorphosis.

With swan-like flexibility, snaking on the sheets,
All her members were shiny like olive juice,
Reflected in my all-seeing eyes;
And the clusters of ripe breasts were leaning toward me...

(Delightful translation by Yu.B. Korneev).

Further in the poem there follows a not entirely predictable comparison of the aforementioned grapes with the spirits of evil, which, however, should not confuse - firstly, in no case, and secondly, if we especially remember that Baudelaire’s favorite artist was Delacroix and that his most famous work is the canvas “Freedom on the Barricades”, where in the role of freedom it is a woman who is depicted, and precisely with her breasts bare. Thus, the spirits of evil are the breasts of freedom, from whose nipples the suckling revolutionaries draw milk.

Such an interpretation of the masterpieces of the two masters, one hopes, will please the quietists, from whom, meanwhile, during his Berlin student period Bakunin moved further and further away. And if, say, in the era of the European Middle Ages, all mental bashi-bazouks had one path - into religious radicalism, then after the storming of the Bastille and the erection of the cults of Reason and the Guillotine, they also had no choice - into politics, into conspiracy, into revolution. About which, even a quarter of a century later, Bakunin spoke with purely youthful ardor: ” “We understand revolution in the sense of the unbridling of what is now called bad passions, and the destruction of what in the same language is called “social order .

In 1842, in Bakunin’s first revolutionary manifesto - the article “Reaction in Germany”, which shocked not only Herzen, the same idea was formulated in its original form: “The passion for destruction is at the same time a creative passion . ”

Anyone to whom this idea seems blasphemous, if he has ever admired the military genius of some commander or justified any violent action, must admit, subject to honesty with himself, that he has fallen into a logical contradiction (masters of casuistry, of course, will get out of it ). However, Bakunin did not mean wars as such at all and did not address those for whom logical holes in their own constructions are nothing compared to the desire to refute the obvious. Literally just before leaving Russia, he had been chanting the spirits of his home, but he now ascended higher, seeing a stronger spirit, whom he called to worship. Or - in his own performance: “Trust the eternal spirit, which destroys and destroys only because it is the inexhaustible and ever-creating source of all life . ”

So, Bakunin appealed to the demiurge. The Demiurge remained deaf to Bakunin's propaganda on his behalf. But the German gendarmes did not fail to react. Bakunin faced the prospect of a forced return to Russia. This turn of events was the last thing he needed. And Bakunin, through the mediation of the famous revolutionary poet Georg Herwegh, dematerializes in Germany in order to show up in Switzerland, where he immediately meets Wilhelm Weitling - a bastard by birth, a tailor by profession, a poor man by social status, a wanderer in dreams and in reality, and a communist by birth. beliefs. Weitling denied the government, love of country, private property and freedom of the press: the first, second, third, and fourth are used by the rich for their own purposes - so he believed. “Let someone try to write in defense of the poor classes, then he will see what freedom of the press means under a monetary system ,” wrote Weitling, who, for the triumph of the poor over the rich, was ready to recruit any declassed elements - even criminals. This idea was adopted by Bakunin - but not immediately. Another, anti-parliamentary philippic by Weitling immediately entered into it, declaring: “What good is it that we have the right to throw the name of this or that candidate into the ballot box; the election results will always be the same: it always turns out that the right is on the side of the rich, and lawlessness is the lot of the poor . ”

From here, Weitling drew a conclusion about the necessity and inevitability of a cruel and merciless social revolution, which was again adopted by Bakunin - however, without him being very concerned about the problems of the poor and the poor. To definitely take the side of any class required one to enter into its circumstances and bear responsibility for its fate - but this was not observed in Bakunin’s intentions. “The main thing is participation,” - this is how he could formulate his slogan, and it must be said that in this area - collaboration in various kinds of revolutions and uprisings - there were no equals to him in the 19th century.

Absolute in the assessment of the III department

It is not surprising that soon after Bakunin’s departure from Berlin and his acquaintance with Herwegh and especially with such a notorious radical as Weitling, the Third Department became closely involved with Michel. And even Count Benckendorf himself personally. Which demanded that inquiries be made about the Bakunin family: in particular, the country’s chief gendarme was interested in the question of whether Mikhail Bakunin was being supplied with money from Premukhin.

A denunciation from a Tver agent on this matter was received in the spirit of Famusov’s “learning is the plague, learning is the reason” and further in the text. Having reported some information about Mikhail, Ilya and Nikolai Bakunin, the author of the denunciation wrote: “Everyone says about the other sons and even daughters that they are smart, but strange in their way of thinking, in their appeal and in their dreaminess. Loving everything abstract, they are exclusively engaged in the study of the latest systems philosophers, thereby removing themselves from the circle of ordinary people. More than others, the eldest son of this family, Mikhail, who was abroad, was distinguished by his enthusiasm; the current position of his brothers and sisters is attributed to his suggestions, who, being with their parents, with their reasoning, completely contrary to their rules and way of thinking, often disturb family peace.

The general opinion, although condemns the children of the Bakunins, especially in relation to their parents, but even less, no one explains anything that could give reason to fear that they are trying to adapt their philosophical systems to our government or our laws. On the contrary, everything proves that they are dreamers, annoying with their philosophizing . "

So, the element of pure thought was not valued either by the Bakunins’ neighbors or by the agents of the Third Section. However, the gendarmes attached more importance to those practical conclusions that could inherit from solitary dreams and furious debates. And therefore, Benckendorf imposed a resolution on the attitude: “To father. Don’t send money, demand it. And when he arrives, supervision . ” And a little over two weeks later, on December 10, 1843, with government paper #1647, the chief of gendarmes “had the honor to humbly ask Count Nesselrode to convey an announcement to Mikhail Bakunin through foreign Russian embassies and missions so that he would “immediately and without citing any pretexts” to Russia and that in case of failure to do so, he will be subject to liability to the fullest extent of the law . "

At this time, the culprit of such touching worries and worries about his person rushed around Switzerland from canton to canton, and when fate brought him to Bern, he received an invitation to the Russian embassy, ​​where Benckendorff’s demand was conveyed to him to immediately return to Russia.

“Bakunin ,” as stated in the report of the charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy, ​​Amanda von Struve, “ accepted the order announced to him with due respect ,” issued the corresponding receipt, which was demanded of him, and promised to return the passport he had in his hands, which, as luck would have it, , was not with him, and dutifully returned to Russia. But having left the hospitable walls of the embassy, ​​that same evening, without wasting precious time, he left Switzerland. A few days later, von Struve received a letter from the fugitive, sent from Basel. Bakunin reported that he was deprived of the opportunity to return his passport. This important document, he assured, was necessary for him to travel to London on urgent business.

This is how Bakunin first tested the model of behavior that he later, while in prison and then in Siberia, used to escape from exile. The only difference is that he did not send a farewell letter of apology either to the Siberian authorities, or to the then chiefs of the secret police, or to Emperor Alexander II, that is, to all those whom he swore with his word of honor not to give any reason to repent of the trust they had placed in him.

The absolute sees no reason to be beholden to the relative.

Absolute and PR

The life of every person contains a lesson, the life of a bright person is a special lesson. This is a commonplace, and it seems worth challenging it only out of extreme love for commonplaces - and so it will do quite well.

One of the activists of the French Revolution of 1848, later the prefect of the Parisian police, Caussidiere, said about Bakunin what has now become commonplace: “ What a man! What a man! On the first day of the revolution he is just a treasure, and the next day he must be shot . ” From these words, albeit in an implicit way, it is nevertheless clear where Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution came from. However, Bakunin was more consistent than Trotsky: he took part - it either happened or was intended - only in those revolutions and uprisings that were not victorious. For the victory of the revolution is at the same time its death (even if it is a transition to another existence). Sensing the possibility of such a victory in the doctrine of Marx, he fiercely fought against him and his slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of which he spoke: “No dictatorship can have any other goal other than to perpetuate itself, and it is capable of generating and instilling in the people who endure it only slavery "Freedom can only be created by freedom, that is, by a nationwide revolt and the free organization of the working masses from the bottom up" .

In practice, this looked like the creation of a secret “Alliance” within the framework of the International organized by Marx - to fight this very International. Why can Bakunin the activist be qualified both as a revolutionary and as a conspirator?

To summarize. About 30 years ago, one of the most insightful Frenchmen of the twentieth century, Jacques Ellul, published the book “Autopsy of the Revolution” (that is, the autopsy of its corpse), in which he stated the end of the era of revolutions. If this is really so (for now it is so), then the figure of the revolutionary has now become an anachronism. The same cannot be said about a conspirator, a professional terrorist. Ultimately, both Bakunin’s task and the task of today’s guerrillas is to disturb public peace, to destroy blatant concreteness with extreme abstraction, which, by the way, without a threat to one’s well-being, is always ready to turn into vulgarity. And therefore it is not at all surprising that the words addressed by Günther Grass, a German writer, and now a Nobel laureate, to his no less famous countrywoman and leftist Ulrike Meinhof, could equally well be redirected to Bakunin: “She was a believing idealist with an innate hatred of compromises, believing in the Absolute, in the perfect solution" .

It is here, in this small mass seething with unsatisfied desires and endless claims, that the revelation of characters with what is called a religious temperament now takes place. In the field of official religion, property and diplomatic disputes have long replaced ideological disputes. The clergy, their associates and flocks are much more concerned about the war for bridgeheads in a common competitive environment with other faiths and sects, the construction of new profitable churches or litigation for old ones, than the establishment of the City of God on Earth. The struggle for the triumph of the absolute, no matter what the cost, has become the privilege of the new marginalized (as the early Christians once were) - conspirators and terrorists.

The same Bakunin, characterizing his incentive to action, constantly resorted to the word “faith.” And if at first it was faith in God - in the form as Belinsky described it, then later it became faith that God is not needed. At the end of his life, Bakunin called the church the “heavenly tavern,” and the tavern the “earthly church.” He said: “The work of the merciful God and all divine ideals on earth always and everywhere ended with the predominance of the flourishing materialism of the few over the fantastic idealism of the starving masses . ” This is also where his final judgment comes in: “God exists, which means man is a slave... Man is free, which means there is no God . ” No squirrel will escape from this logical circle. (A person will break out, setting God as the goal, guarantor and condition of liberation, and himself - in principle, excluding cases of bureaucratic verification - liberation for those unworthy.)

However, the lesson of Bakunin, Ulrike Meinhof, and, if you like, Che Guevara is precisely that the slogan of the struggle for the absolute is doomed to return - and it does not matter to him under what flags this will be done. Their faith and activities are only indirectly related to social reformation - therefore, from the point of view of pragmatism, they are all considered failures (like the biblical prophets). The meaning of their eternal return is completely different: to set the bar at such a height that would remind us that the real countdown in the value system begins from above, and not from below. For without such a statement, any activity becomes objective in relation to public relations - and rightly so.