https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Nechayev.png
The work called for total devotion to a revolutionary lifestyle. ... The revolutionary is portrayed in the Catechism as an amoral avenging angel, an expendable resource in the service of the revolution, committed to any crime or treachery necessary to effect the downfall of the prevailing order.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catechism_of_a_Revolutionary
1. The revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no personal interests, no business affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property, and no name. Everything in him is wholly absorbed in the single thought and the single passion for revolution.
2. The revolutionary knows that in the very depths of his being, not only in words but also in deeds, he has broken all the bonds which tie him to the social order and the civilized world with all its laws, moralities, and customs, and with all its generally accepted conventions. He is their implacable enemy, and if he continues to live with them it is only in order to destroy them more speedily.
3. The revolutionary despises all doctrines and refuses to accept the mundane sciences, leaving them for future generations. He knows only one science: the science of destruction. For this reason, but only for this reason, he will study mechanics, physics, chemistry, and perhaps medicine. But all day and all night he studies the vital science of human beings, their characteristics and circumstances, and all the phenomena of the present social order. The object is perpetually the same: the surest and quickest way of destroying the whole filthy order.
4. The revolutionary despises public opinion. He despises and hates the existing social morality in all its manifestations. For him, morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way.
5. The revolutionary is a dedicated man, merciless toward the State and toward the educated classes; and he can expect no mercy from them. Between him and them there exists, declared or concealed, a relentless and irreconcilable war to the death. He must accustom himself to torture.
6. Tyrannical toward himself, he must be tyrannical toward others. All the gentle and enervating sentiments of kinship, love, friendship, gratitude, and even honor, must be suppressed in him and give place to the cold and single-minded passion for revolution. For him, there exists only one pleasure, one consolation, one reward, one satisfaction – the success of the revolution. Night and day he must have but one thought, one aim – merciless destruction. Striving cold-bloodedly and indefatigably toward this end, he must be prepared to destroy himself and to destroy with his own hands everything that stands in the path of the revolution.
7. The nature of the true revolutionary excludes all sentimentality, romanticism, infatuation, and exaltation. All private hatred and revenge must also be excluded. Revolutionary passion, practiced at every moment of the day until it becomes a habit, is to be employed with cold calculation. At all times, and in all places, the revolutionary must obey not his personal impulses, but only those which serve the cause of the revolution.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/anarchism/nechayev/catechism.htm
More at the above link.
Something I wrote on Nechayev years ago:
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/v1/2004b/41304mccarthynechayev.htm
Article on political nihilism which touches on Nechayev:
http://www.internetarchaeology.org/www.geocities.com/liudegast/nihilismbios.html
Dumitru ago
This guy’s passion and intensity is admirable, unfortunately he directed his energies to bad and ultimately meaningless ends.
ErrorHasNoRights ago
As I read that description of a revolutionary I can't help but think of him as a perfect example of one that St. Thomas Aquinas would argue should be executed by the State. Of course, that was Dostoevsky's fate -- had it not been for a last-minute clemency.
As I read about revolutions and the revolutionaries and the revolutionary spirit... I can't help but notice a pattern of some kind of moral defect inherent in its people and the spirit. And that defect finally boils over into a vomit of evils.
Nechayev and Dostoevsky were contemporaries initially of the same mind, and both writers. Dostoevsky's views diverged after his pardon. Perhaps a comparison is possible. One could say that Nechayev's path is the one that won out, initially, for Russia. His revolution came and Communism was established. But to what miserable end? In came seven devils to replace the one that was driven out. It then took decades to get out from underneath it and the Russian people still have not recovered. Though there are some signs that they now are moving closer to the vision that Dostoevsky imagined. They could have saved themselves a century of heartache, if only the Russian people had ears to hear.
I guess one could argue that revolution is just a means to an end, and whether it is good or bad depends on whether the end is good or bad. But I am inclined to think that revolution itself is an evil means and as such guarantees the release of many unanticipated evils. Dostoevsky didn't preach revolution to reach the end he had in mind.
Joe_McCarthy ago
Yes, one of Dostoevsky's most famous books was inspired by Nechayev's group:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6d/Demons_%28Fyodor_Dostoyevsky%29.jpg
Title says it all really. Not much need for explanation.
There is also a more substantive criticism that political nihilism first seeks to destroy, and then worries later about what to build up. This was voiced as far back as Hobbes.
A lot of those old conservative paradigms informing a person like Aquinas though presumed something akin to a traditional order. We're now the radicals so I think you'll find the roles have reversed to a large degree. A radical conservative though had been defined as someone that favors radical means to restore traditional institutions that have been destroyed.
I think what happened in Russia is less informative to our situation than the idea that revolution often makes things worse. I think the only reason revolution is even a real option at all is because things are so desperate. But there is Nechayev's revolutionary praxis in terms of clarifying a need to focus that provides order rather than disorder. One doesn't actually need a shooting war to find some of his ideas useful. Or at least interesting.
Joe_McCarthy ago
Familiarity with this is certainly necessary for anyone interested in anti-establishment politics and real change. Though many will balk at Nechayev's conspicuous lack of moral boundaries.