BAKUNIN  THE  APOSTLE  OF  NIHILISM.  199
ingly  pronounced  its  dissolution,  and  its  sections  were  separately
admitted  into  the  great  association.  Settled  at  Geneva,  Bakunin
started  there  the  journal  Egalité.  By  his  articles  in  the  Progrès
of  Lode,  he  induced  the  Socialists  of  the  Jura  to  separate  themselves ­
  from  the  radicals  of  French-speaking  Switzerland.  He
thus  created  there  the  group  of  “  Autonomists,”  in  opposition
to  the  Authoritarians,  or  followers  of  Marx.  His  ideas,  brought
by  members  of  the  International  to  Spain,  spread  there  with
extraordinary  rapidity.  The  “Anarchists  ”  gained  ground  also
among  the  French  Socialists.
On  the  28th  of  September,  1870,  Bakunin  organized  an  insurrection ­
  at  Lyons,  which  failed  through  an  accumulation  of  folly.
He  had  prepared  the  decree  which  was  to  pronounce  the
abolition  of  the  State,  but,  as  his  opponent  Marx  said,  two
companies  of  bourgeois  National  Guards  were  sufficient  to  send
him  flying  to  Geneva.  In  a  pamphlet  entitled  “  Letters  to  a
Frenchman”  (September,  1870)  he  set  forth  the  line  of  action
that  he  wished  to  see  adopted  by  the  Revolutionists  in  France,
and  which  the  revolution  of  the  i8th  of  March  was  in  fact  about
to  follow  to  the  letter.  The  principal  points  of  this  programme
are  the  following  “  The  insurgent  Capital  forms  itself  into  a
Commune.  The  federation  of  the  barricades  is  maintained  in
permanence.  The  communal  council  is  formed  of  delegates,
one  for  each  barricade  or  ward  :  deputies  who  are  responsible
and  always  revocable.  The  council  chooses  from  its  members
separate  executive  committees  for  each  department  of  the
revolutionary  administrative  of  the  Commune.”  “  The  Capital
declares  that,  all  central  government  being  abolished  it
renounces  the  government  of  the  provinces.  It  will  invite  the
other  communes,  both  urban  and  rural,  to  organize  themselves
‘  revolutionarily,’  and  to  send,  to  a  place  to  be  named,  delegates
with  imperative  and  revocable  mandate,  in  order  to  establish
the  federation  of  the  autonomous  communes  and  to  organize
the  revolutionary  force  necessary  to  triumph  over  the  reaction.
This  organization  is  not  limited  to  the  insurgent  country.
Other  provinces  or  countries  may  join  in  it.  The  communes
which  pronounce  for  the  reaction  shall  be  excluded  from  it.”
Except  that  he  ignored  the  principle  of  nationalities,  that