2. THE REVOLUTIONARY CATECHISM

Nechayev took great care of a booklet written in cypher and called The Revolutionary Catechism. He claimed that the possession of this book was the special privilege of any emissary or agent of the International Association. According to all the depositions and the strong evidence provided by the lawyers, this catechism had been written by Bakunin, who never dared to deny paternity. Furthermore, the form and the content of this work clearly show that it came from the same source as the secret statutes, the Words, the proclamations, and The People’s Judgment, which we have already mentioned. The revolutionary catechism was only a supplement to these. These pan-destructive anarchists, who want to reduce everything to amorphism in order to create anarchy in morality, push bourgeois immorality to the limit. We have already been able to assess, from a few examples, the worth of this Alliance morality whose dogmas, purely Christian in origin, were first drawn up

aM. BakxyHuus, Ks opuyepams pyccxou apmiu— Ed.

b See this volume, pp. 502-03.— Ed.

c¢ “Réponse a M. Lafargue”, Bulletin de la Fédération jurasienne..., No. 10/11, June 15, 1872.— Ed.

d “El Congreso de La Haya”, La Federacion, No. 164, October 5, 1872.— Fd.

The Alliance and the I1.W.M.A.—VIII 545

in meticulous detail by the Escobars of the 17th century.” The only difference being that the Alliance exaggerated the terms to the ridiculous and replaced the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church of the Jesuits with its arch-anarchist and pan-destructive “holy revolutionary cause”. The revolutionary catechism is the official code of this morality, formulated systematically and quite openly this time. We are publishing it in extenso, just as it was read before the tribunal during the sitting of July 8, 1871.

The revolutionary’s duties to himself

§ 1. The revolutionary is a dedicated man. He has neither personal interests, nor affairs, nor feelings, nor attachments, nor property, nor even a name. Every part of him is absorbed by one sole interest, one sole thought, one sole passion: the revolution.

§ 2. In the depths of his being, not only in words, but in deeds, he has severed all ties with civil order and with the entire civilised world, with laws, decencies, morality, and the conventions generally accepted in that world. He is its implacable enemy, and if he continues to live in it, it is only to destroy it more surely.

§ 3. A revolutionary despises all doctrinairism and renounces worldly science, leaving it for future generations. He only knows one science: that of destruction. For that purpose and none other, he studies mechanics, physics, chemistry, and perhaps medicine. With the same goal, he studies living science day and night—men, characters, positions, and all conditions of the existing social order in all possible spheres. The goal remains the same: the destruction, as quickly as possible and as certainly as possible, of this foul (poganyi) order.

§ 4. He despises public opinion. He despises and hates the existing social morality with all its instincts and in all its manifestations. For him, everything is moral that favours the triumph of the revolution, and everything is immoral and criminal that impedes it.

§ 5. The revolutionary is a dedicated man. He has no mercy for the State in general or for the entire civilised class of society, and he should no more expect mercy for himself. Between him and society there is a struggle, open or concealed, but always incessant, irreconcilable, and to the death. He must accustom himself to withstand torture.

§ 6. Strict with himself, he must be the same with others. All feelings of affection, all the softening feelings of kinship, friendship, love and gratitude must be stifled in him by a unique and cold passion for the revolutionary cause. For him, there is only one joy, one consolation, one reward and one satisfaction: the success of the revolution. Night and day, he must have only one thought and one goal—implacable destruction. Pursuing this goal coldly and without respite, he must himself be ready to perish and to destroy with his own hands all that which obstructs the achievement of this goal.

§ 7. The nature of the true revolutionary excludes all romanticism, all sensitivity, all enthusiasm, and all involvement; it even excludes personal hatred and vengeance. Revolutionary passion, having become with him a habit every day and every moment, must be combined with cold calculation. Everywhere and always he must obey not his personal impulses, but whatever is prescribed to him by the general interests of the revolution.

Duties of the revolutionary to his comrades in revolution

§ 8. The revolutionary can only have friendship and affection for the man who has proved by his deeds that he is, like him, a revolutionary agent. The degree of friendship, devotion, and other obligations towards such a comrade are only measured by the degree of his usefulness in the practical work of the pan-destructive (vserazrushitelnaya) revolution.

§ 9. It is superfluous to speak of solidarity among revolutionaries, for in it lies all the strength of the revolutionary cause. The revolutionary comrades who find themselves at the same level of revolutionary consciousness and passion must, as much as possible, deliberate in common on all important matters and make their decisions unanimously. In the execution of a matter thus decided, each must rely on himself as much as possible. In the execution of a series of destructive acts, each must act on his own and not have recourse to the assistance or advice of his comrades, unless it is indispensable for success.

§ 10. Each comrade should have at hand several revolutionaries from the second and third rank, that is, from those who have not been fully initiated. He must consider them as part of the general revolutionary capital placed at his disposal. He must expend his share of the capital economically and try to extract from it as much profit as possible. He regards himself as capital destined to be expended for the triumph of the revolutionary cause, but it is capital which he cannot dispose of alone and without the consent of all the fully initiated comrades.

§ 11. When a comrade finds himself in danger, then in order to decide whether or not he should be saved, the revolutionary must not consider any personal feeling, but solely the interest of the revolutionary cause. Consequently, he must calculate, on the one hand, the degree of usefulness furnished by his comrade and, on the other, the quantity of revolutionary forces necessary to rescue him; he must see which way the scales tip and he must act accordingly.

Duties of the revolutionary to society

§ 12. A new member, after having proved his worth, not by words, but by deeds, can only be accepted by the association unanimously.

§ 13. A revolutionary enters the world of the State, the world of the classes, the so-called civilised world, and lives in it solely because he has faith in its imminent and total destruction. He is not a revolutionary if he holds on to anything whatever in this world. He must not hesitate before the destruction of any position, tie or man belonging to this world. He must hate everything and everybody equally. So much the worse for him if he has in this world ties of kinship, friendship, or love; he is not a revolutionary tf these ties can stay his hand.

§ 14. With the aim of implacable destruction, a revolutionary can, and often must, live in society, while pretending to be entirely different from what he really is. A revolutionary must penetrate everywhere, into the upper and the middle classes alike, into the merchant’s shop, into the church, into the aristocratic palace, into the bureaucratic, military and literary world, into the Third Department (secret police), and even into the imperial palace.

§ 15. The whole of this foul society must be divided into several categories. The first consists of those who are condemned to death without delay. The comrades should draw up lists of these condemned men in the order of their relative harmfulness to the success of the revolutionary cause, so that the first numbers may be disposed of before the others.

§ 16. In drawing up these lists and in establishing these categories, no influence should be exerted by the personal villainy of a man, or even by the hatred which he inspires in the members of the organisation or in the people. This villainy and this hatred may even be useful to some extent in stirring up a popular revolt. The only consideration should be taken of the measure of profit for the revolutionary cause which may result from the death of a certain person. Consequently, the first to be destroyed must be those who are most dangerous to the revolutionary organisation and whose violent and sudden death can most frighten the government and break its strength by depriving it of energetic and intelligent agents.

§ 17. The second category should consist of people who are allowed to live provisionally (!) so that by a series of monstrous acts they will drive the people to the inevitable revolt.

§ 18. The third category covers a large number of highly placed brutes or individuals who are remarkable neither for their minds nor for their energy, but who, by virtue of their position, have wealth, connections, influence, and power. We must exploit them in every way possible, outwit them, confuse them, and, wherever possible, by possessing ourselves of their filthy secrets, make them our slaves. In this way, their power, connections, influence and wealth will become an inexhaustible treasure and an invaluable help in various enterprises.

§ 19. The fourth category is composed of various ambitious men in the State service, and liberals of different shades. We can conspire with these on their own programme, putting up an appearance of following them blindly. We must get them into our hands, seize their secrets, compromise them completely, so that retreat becomes impossible for them, and make use of them to cause trouble within the State.

§ 20. The fifth category consists of doctrinaires, conspirators, revolutionaries, all those who babble at meetings and on paper. They must be constantly encouraged and inveigled into practical and dangerous4 demonstrations which will have the effect of eliminating the majority, while making true revolutionaries out of some.

§ 21. The sixth category is very important—the women, who must be divided into three classes: first, useless women without spirit or heart, who must be exploited in the same way as the third and fourth categories of men; second, fervent, devoted and capable women, who are nevertheless not with us because they have not yet arrived at a practical and phraseless revolutionary awareness; they must be used like the fifth category of men; finally, women who are entirely with us, that is to say, who have been fully initiated and who have accepted our programme in its entirety. We must treat them as the most valuable of our treasures, for without their help we can do nothing.

Duties of the Association to the people

§ 22. The Association has no goal other than the total emancipation and the happiness of the people, that is to say, manual workers (chernorabochi lyud). But, convinced that this emancipation and this happiness cannot be achieved except by means of a people’s revolution which will destroy everything, the Association will employ all its means and all its forces to magnify and increase the ills and evils which must finally exhaust the patience of the people and stir them to a mass uprising.

§ 23. By a people’s revolution, the Society does not mean a movement directed after the classic model of the West, which, always hesitating before property and

a In the Russian text: “golovolomnye” (lit. “breakneck”).— Ed.

the traditional social system of so-called civilisation and morality, has hitherto restricted itself to the overthrow of one political form in order to replace it with another and to creating a so-called revolutionary State. The only revolution which can be beneficial to the people is that which will destroy from bottom to top the whole idea of the State and will turn upside-down all the traditions, state system, and classes in Russia.

§ 24. To this end, the Society has no intention of imposing on the people any kind of organisation from above. The future organisation will undoubtedly emerge from the movement and life of the people, but that is the concern of future generations. Our concern is terrifying, total, implacable and universal destruction.

§ 25. Consequently, in drawing closer to the people, we must above all join up with the elements of the people’s life which, since the foundation of the Muscovite State, have not ceased to protest, not only with words, but with their deeds, against everything which is directly or indirectly tied up with the State, against the nobility, against the bureaucracy, against the clergy, against the business4 world, and against petty tradesmen, the exploiters of the people.b> We must join the adventurist world of the brigands, who are the true and unique revolutionaries in Russia.

§ 26. To concentrate this world into a single pan-destructive and invincible force—that is the whole meaning of our organisation, our conspiracy, and our task.

To criticise this masterpiece would be to weaken its comic impact. It would also mean taking too seriously this amorphous pan-destroyer who succeeded only in making a single personage of Rodolphe, Monte-Christo, Karl Moor and Robert Macaire. We shall limit ourselves to stating, with the aid of a few comparisons, that the spirit and even the terms of the catechism, without counting the laborious exaggerations, are identical to those of the secret statutes and other Russian works of the Alliance.

The three grades of initiation defined in the Alliance’s secret statutes are reproduced in § 10 of the catechism, where mention is made of “revolutionaries from the second and third rank... who have not been fully initiated”.—The duties of the international brethren as defined in Article 6 of the rules are the same as those enjoined by §§ 1 and 13 of the catechism.—The conditions under which the brethren can accept governmental posts as defined in Article 8 of the rules “are even more explicitly defined” * in § 14 of the catechism, where they are given to understand that they may join the police if so ordered.—The advice given to the brethren (Rules, Article 9) to consult one another, is reproduced in § 9 of the catechism.— Articles 2, 3 and 6 of the programme of the international brethren attribute to the revolution precisely the same character as §§ 22 and 23 of the catechism.—The Jacobins

a In the Russian text: “gildeiskogo” (“pertaining to a merchant guild or order”’),— Ed.

b In the Russian text: “kulaka-miroyeda” (“the bloodsucker kulak”)— Ed.

of Article 4 of the programme become, in § 20 of the catechism, a subdivision of “the fifth category of men”, condemned to death in both documents.— The ideas expressed in Articles 5 and 8 of the programme on the progress of a truly anarchist revolution are the same as those in § 24 of the catechism.

The condemnation of science in § 3 of the catechism recurs in all the Russian publications. The idealisation of the brigand as the type of the revolutionary, which does not exist in the Words except in embryo, is openly affirmed and preached in all the other writings: The “fifth category” of § 20 of the catechism is applied, in The Setting of the Revolutionary Question, to “Revolutionaries of the State and the Cabinet’. Here, as in §§ 25 and 26, it is stated that the first duty of the revolutionary is to throw himself into brigandage. It is only The Principles of Revolution and The People’s Judgment that begin to preach the pan-destruction ordained by §§ 6, 8 and 26 of the catechism, and systematic assassination in §§ 13, 15, 16 and 17.