Bakunin as a French Secret Agent in 1848
Branded as a Tsarist agent by Marx, Mikhail Bakunin was in fact trying to foment revolution throughout Europe, argues James G. Chastain.
The revolution of 1848 came as the fulfilment of a long anticipated dream for Mikhail Bakunin. He spent that year suspended between spiritual intoxication and inexpressible depression as he reacted to the shifting fortunes of revolutionary conflict. His rude awakening came on July 6th, 1848, when Karl Marx branded the Russian aristocratic anarchist as an agent of the Tsar. But Marx was wrong. Bakunin's actual employer was the Provisional Government of revolutionary France, which he served as propagandist and as militant in their joint struggle to liberate captive peoples and thereby to overthrow the Tsar.
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