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A SERIES OF INSURRECTIONS 45
Bakounin and his followers. The Commune of Paris
was the one uprising that had made any serious impression
upon the people, and it was the one wherein the
Bakouninists had played no important part. The others
had failed miserably, with no other result than that of
increasing the power of reaction, while discouraging and
disorganizing the workers. Even Bakounin had now
reached the point where he was thoroughly disillusioned,
and he wrote to his friends that he was exhausted, disheartened,
and without hope. He desired, he said, to withdraw
from the movement which made him the object of
the persecutions of the police and the calumnies of the
jealous. The whole world was in the evening of a black
reaction, he thought, and he wrote to the truest and most
devoted of all that loyal circle of Swiss workmen, James
Guillaume, that the time for revolutionary struggles was
past and that Europe had entered into a period of profound
reaction, of which the present generation would
probably not see the end. "He urged me," relates Guillaume,
"to imitate himself and 'to make my peace with
the bourgeoisie.'
"
(26) "It is useless," are Bakounin's
words, "to wish obstinately to obtain the impossible. It
is necessary to recognize reality and to realize that, for
the moment, the popular masses do not wish socialism.
And, if some tipplers of the mountains desire on this account
to accuse you of treason, you will have for yourself
the witness of your conscience and the esteem of your
friends." (27)
In July, 1873, Bakounin retired to an estate that had
been bought for him through the generosity of Cafiero,
on the route from Locarno to Bellinzona, and for the
next few months lavish expenditures were made in the
construction and reconstruction of an establishment
where the "intimates" could be entertained. That fall