# Michael Bakunin — Essays character guide

> Michael Bakunin in Essays by Errico Malatesta.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0000-anarchy

## Snapshot

The revolutionary conscience Malatesta measures himself against — invoked to reject the comrade who would sacrifice three-fourths of humanity for an abstraction called Freedom.

## Who they are

Bakunin hovers over these essays as both ancestor and caution: the fiery nineteenth-century revolutionary whose spirit Malatesta honors while insisting on a harder, more humane calculus. Against the logic that would let all Italians starve for a glorious Italy, Malatesta affirms that every human being must be free to develop and live happily — and that this happiness cannot be handed down by any party. Bakunin's shadow sharpens the book's central tension: how to fight in the world as it is without becoming the thing you oppose.

## In the story

### [Should Anarchists Be Admitted to the Coming International Congress?](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/essays_se/chapters/should-anarchists-be-admitted-to-the-coming-international-congress)

Mentioned in the context of the Bakunists in the old International, representing the anarchist faction in the conflict with Marxists.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/essays_se/characters/michael_bakunin
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/essays_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/essays_se/characters