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38 VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
there was absolutely necessary to insure its success. "I
have always felt and thought," he wrote in the Memoir*
justiUcatif,
"that the most desirable end for me would be
to fall in the midst of a great revolutionary storm." (18)
Consequently, in the summer of the year 1873, when the
uprising gave promise of victory to the insurgents, Bakounin
decided that he must go and, to do so, that he
must have money. Bakounin then wrote to his wealthy
young disciple, Cafiero, in a symbolic language which
they had worked out between them, declaring his intention
of going to Spain and asking him to furnish the
necessary money for his expenses. As usual, Bakounin
became melodramatic in his effort to work upon the impressionable
Cafiero, and, as he put
it afterward in the
Memoire justiUcatif,
"I added a prayer that he would become
the protector of my wife and my children, in case
I should fall in Spain." (19) Cafiero, who at this time
worshiped Bakounin, pleaded
with him not to risk his
precious life in Spain. He promised to do everything
possible for his family in case he persisted in going, but
he sent no money, whether because he did not have it or
because he did not wish Bakounin to go
is not clear.
Bakounin now wrote to Guillaume that he was greatly
disappointed not to be able to take part in the Spanish
revolution, but that it was impossible for him to do so
without money. Guillaume admits that he was not convinced
of the absolute necessity of Bakounin's presence
in Spain, but, nevertheless, since he desired to go there,
Guillaume offered to secure for him fifteen hundred
francs to make the journey. On the receipt of this news,
Bakounin answered Guillaume that the sum would be
wholly insufficient.
If, however, the Spanish revolution was forced to proceed
without Bakounin, his influence in that country was