BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 229 
the first place, war to the whole religious idea : “ God,” says 
the Proletario, “is the people’s greatest enemy; for He has 
cursed labour.” “ No more faith nor obedience to the super 
natural,” says the Almanaco Republicano ; “ it is only on this 
condition that materialistic democracy will be able to construct 
a new society.” “ One’s country,” says the Campana, “ is an 
empty abstraction, in the name of which kings instigate 
peoples to cut each other’s throats.” Speaking of the cosmo 
politan idea, the Plebe is indignant at the Italia irredenta 
movement : “ What ! ” it says, “ you want to go to war with 
Austria to take from her a part of Tyrol and Trieste? nay, 
iook at our terra redenta, our freed territory : people die on 
It of pellagra and hunger.” No more government, no more 
authority, nothing but anarchy ; such is the final aim. “ The 
^ew era,” says the Campana, “ will establish the free expansion 
of all human aspirations. All authority, human or Divine, must 
disappear, from God down to the meanest agent of police.” 
The following are extracts from socialistic manifestoes. In 
that of the Internationalists of La Puglia, dated August, 1878, 
we read : “ The end to be attained is to assure to men the 
most complete happiness possible, by the full development of 
all their faculties. The woman ought to be the companion of 
the man, not a slave or an instrument of pleasure. Love 
ought to be free and relieved from all codes and rituals. Every 
one ought to receive a complete education, so as to enable 
him to select the function for which he is suited. The free 
federation of individuals, of groups, of associations, and of 
communes, forms the confederacy of the human race. The 
revolution is not a conspiracy which seeks to change the face 
of society in a day, but a permanent struggle, material, moral, 
and intellectual, agginst the existing organization, in order to 
put in its place free association.” On the 6th of May, 1877, 
the lady Internationalists of the female sections of the Romagna 
and of Naples addressed a manifesto to all the working women 
of the peninsula : “ Our wages,” they said, “ being insufficient, 
we have to depend on men for subsistence. The emancipation 
of women is at bottom the emancipation of working men ; both 
are the victims of capital. Existing society says to us, ‘ Sell