Mikhail Bakunin leads a failed uprising in…

Mikhail Bakunin leads a failed uprising in Lyon in 1870 on the principles later exemplified by the Paris Commune, calling for a general uprising in response to the collapse of the French government during the Franco-Prussian War, seeking to transform an imperialist conflict into social revolution.

In his Letters to A Frenchman on the Present Crisis, he argues for a revolutionary alliance between the working class and the peasantry and argues the time is ripe for revolutionary action rather than propaganda.

Bakunin had become involved with the Russian revolutionary Sergey Nechayev in a number of clandestine projects since the previous year.

However, Bakunin breaks with Nechaev over what he describes as the latter’s “Jesuit” methods, by which all means are justified to achieve revolutionary ends. (Bakunin to Nechayev on the role of secret revolutionary societies, Mikhail Bakunin, June 2, 1870 letter to Sergey Nechayev)