Sergey Nechayev

Bakunin Library

The Bears of Berne and the Bear of Saint-Petersburg (1870)

March 31, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE BEARS OF BERNE AND THE BEAR OF SAINT-PETERSBURG ___________ Patriotic lament for a humiliated and hopeless Switzerland March, 1870 The Russian government has judged our Federal Council well, when it dared to demand the extradition of the Russian patriot Nechayev. Everyone knows that the order has been given to all the cantonal police to seek and arrest that revolutionary, as intrepid as tireless, who, after having escaped twice from the claws of the czar, that is from death preceded by the most dreadful tortures, would probably have believed, that once having taken refuge in the Swiss republic, he would […]
Bakunin Library

The Swiss Police (1870)

January 18, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
[I found this article in the midst of revising a translation of “The Bears of Berne and the Bear of Saint Petersburg,” which covers much the same topic at considerably more length.] The Swiss Police It appears that all the police of Europe have now put themselves in the service of the Russian government. Some very active searches continue, it is said, in Germany, in Switzerland, in France and even in England. Who are they seeking? Is it some political conspirators? No, doubtless, that would be too awkward, for excepting the governments of England, which have never ceased to conspicuously […]
Bakunin Library

Mikhail Bakunin, “Nechayev: Is He a Political Criminal or Not?” (1872)

January 11, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
 NECHAYEV Is he a political criminal or not? We have published, on August 16, a document protesting against the arrest of a man who is held, rightly or wrongly, for Nechayev, the Russian political agitator. In publishing this document, we have had the strongest desire to see this beau right that the Swiss guarantee aux émigrés, this right of asylum which we enjoy, preserve intact its original purity and sanctity. The Russian government pursues Nechayev, as every despotic government does, when a man has made an attempt, even a fruitless attempt, to overthrow it. Everyone understands how, at any price, […]